Hafenklang, 17.01.2103: Trixie Trainwreck, Horst with no Name, Columbian Neckties, Les Yeux d’la Tête

I’ll lay my cards on the table right away. I’m no fan of one man bands. Sometimes billed as “Solo singer-songwriters”, as far as I’m concerned anyone with an acoustic guitar and a self operated percussion section belongs on a busy street corner or in a metro underpass. Not on the stage in a bar, demanding a covercharge. There, I’ve made a clean breast of it. Disagree if you like. Read on if you dare.

The evening’s entertainment began upstairs in Hafenklang’s non-smoking-in-name-only room, with Trixie Trainwreck’s solo show, “No-Man-Band”. Ms Trainwreck, an American like so many others living in Berlin, has some musical history, with a past in both the Runaway Brides and Kamikaze Queens. In her solo guise, her vaguely rockabilly / country influenced folk-songs seem to take cues from such artists as Tammy Wynette, Patsy Cline and maybe even Arlo Guthrie. Somehow she managed to distil the most boring aspects of all these and more into one giant yawn. To my ears the songs lacked energy and variety, and despite her garish tattoos, Ms Trainwreck lacked colour. The room gradually filled up, but it soon became clear that most people had come to see the Hamburg boy Horst with No Name.

Horst Schneider, guitarist and singer with Hamburg rockabilly/surf/rocknroll outfit Helldriver brought out his solo stuff for his fanclub. Schneider isn’t too bad a songwriter, sometimes verging on the quite good area of the songwriting spectrum, and he crosses through rockabilly, country, rhythm and blues and even Motown influences with alacrity. Unfortunately, as I have already stated, I’m no fan of the one-man-band set-up. I think Schneider works well with the other guys from Helldriver, but his solo show lacked depth and, well, soul. That said, there were a large number of Hamburg hipsters there to see him play and clearly they enjoyed his performance though they were far too cool to move even their necks in time with the music. They packed the room and stood on their hindlegs and barked and wagged their little tails to see such fun!

Meanwhile, downstairs, Paris gypsy swing / chanson / punky outfit Les Yeux d’la Tête were warming up the Hamburg crowd. The six-piece from the Seine, from the musical milieu which produced Les Hurlements d’Léo or Les Ogres de Barback, had the room packed and jumping. Combining accordion, double bass, sax, percussion and guitars, they moved from ballad to balls-out and back again without missing a beat, and took the crowd along for the ride. This sextet of Parisian pretty-boys rode into Hamburg to sell a heady concoction of Balkan beats, solid riffs, seductive rhythms and the language of love – and had Hamburg’s young Francophiles frotting up against each other, drooling for a lick of the elixir. Too heady a cocktail, perhaps. They wanted a Daiquiri but instead got a Mai-Tai. Like Eskimos can’t hold their liquor, Germans just don’t know when too much love is enough. A swiftly placed headbutt was necessary at one stage, just as a polite reminder that ff you don’t know me, rubbing your sweaty body up and down against me is probably a bad idea!

To finish the evening, we headed back upstairs to see the Danish garage punk outfit Columbian Neckties. The group was apparently added to the bill at the last minute, I suspect to make the entry price worth paying! These are four Danes out of Aalborg who really know how to rock! With a sound that could be compared to legendary Australian punkrockers The Saints, the Columbian Neckties are one of the hottest topics in the punkrock blogosphere. The room had emptied out considerably after Horst With No Name finished up, and now there was actually room to move and one or two people were actually moving. These guys have energy above image and combine hardshredded guitar with solid stickwork and chunky bass lines. Then there’s the singer – a man with real guts! Some would say there are people who shouldn’t be allowed to go shirtless in public, but this guy raises the middle finger and lets it all hang out. And he moves the mountain! I don’t know the names of any of their songs, but for me they were the highlight of the night. None of them are pretty, they were all badly dressed as only Danes or Germans know how, but in the entertainment stakes, these guys were the evening’s highlight.

For more videos of these and other bands check out the ZASPH! YouTube channel

© CCC