I remember the day I heard the first time The Hu. I discovered them on the 21.12.2018 on the Facebook profile of the ex-Minsiter of Culture, Information and Tourism of the Kyrgyz Republic. He had posted their Wolf Totem video. I was immediately fascinated.
I started intense researches about the Mongolian Music scene, Instruments, Culture and then also booked a trip to Ulaanbaatar to check it out with my own eyes. A country I can highly recommend to visit. (Probably we’ll make a little post with some impressions about that trip as well soonish)
Of course , as soon they announced the tour in Europe – we got tickets to see them.
Is it just me, or are Zappa fans weird ? Or is it just German Zappa fans ? There was weirdness aplenty at Fabrik, for the Frank Zappa tribute band « The Grandmothers of Invention ». Perhaps tribute band sells them a little short. Two of the band members actually did play with Zappa back in the day, and the Grandmothers did so much more than just rehash the material and try to sound just like Zappa.
Sax player Napoleon Murphy Brock leads the Grandmothers, and on this occasion brought them to Hamburg for the « Roxy and Elsewhere and More » tour. Brock has built up what you could call a « concept band », each tour doing one of the Zappa albums on which he played. And there were a few of those. Between 1974 and 1986, Brock played on ten studio albums, probably the better known in Frank Zappa’s extensive discography.
The Astra Stube hadn’t grown since the last time your indomitable Zasph correspondents ventured through the doors of this sweaty broom cupboard nestled under one of Hamburg’s iron railway bridges. This bar, only a few hundred meters away from the trendy shiny-people’s scene that is the Sternschanze, is as gritty and claustrophobic and real as the Sternschanze is not, although the odd morcel of forced laughter and flash of perfect teeth do manage to make an appearance here.
Despite its size, Astra Stube really puts on some quality acts and this night was no exception.
For those who’ve never heard of Django 3000, let me paint a picture. This four piece combo from Germany’s deep south combine Klezmer, ska, psychobilly, Russian folk and punk. Then they top off this heady mixture by singing in Bayrisch, the dialect commonly spoken in Bavaria.
A large bearded man with tattoos and a perky waxed moustache plays the sweetest gypsy violin you’ve ever heard south of Stuttgart, Bavaria’s Stradivarius, if you will. A psychobilly spider monkey keeps rhythm intact with his upright bass, a homeless man in a pair of stolen dark glasses belts out the tunes on a battered acoustic guitar, and the drummer sits to one side behind a minimal kit which would be almost unnoticeable if it were not for the fact that it is lit from within by flourescent coloured neons.
The crowd was a mix of ages, but down the front were mostly students in their 20s, dancing like sardines would dance if they only could after they had been squeezed into a can. A couple of girls even sported Bavarian-style dirndl dresses, though I’m no expert on these things. They may have been the genuine article or they may have been rented for the evening. The dresses I mean, not the girls. Or, well… I’ll leave it at that. The main thing was everyone appeared to be having fun, and after a brief pause during which the door was opened to allow fresh air in and cigarette smoke out, the band thrashed out three encores, or « Zugabe » in the local parlance.
These Klezmer Klowns bring catchy rhythms, hummable choruses and unintelligible lyrics to the stage in a mix that makes for pure dance-inducing fun ; and it would be fitting to see them take Germany to the podium at the next Eurovision song contest.
ZASPH! 