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imomusRetro Click Opera would probably tell you that in 2004, on this day, I'm discovering Black Dice, that on this day in 2005 I'm ranting against the brutality of London and in 2006 admiring Berlin: a certain style.
But to hell with the past, there's lots in the present to talk about too. Like the brilliant Salon Tokidoki Hisae and I attended last night, hearing hypnotic field recordings by Marc Chalosse and a video (entirely composed of five second sequences) of daily life in Pyongyang by Luc Arasse, who happens to be the ex-boyfriend of Laila France, but is now the partner of Tomoko Miyata, who organised the Tokidoki event on a leafy green street near our house in Neukolln, and will also play a waterbowls concert (she mikes and samples them live) on June 29th (the same evening I'm playing in Paris with Kumisolo and Laila, unfortunately -- I'd have liked to see it).
Hisae and I have to leave the Tokidoki Salon halfway through to rush up to Mitte, where legendary Glasgow digiband Gay Against You are playing a show. This is honestly the most fun show I've been to all year. Joe Howe (aka Germlin) has made a completely brilliant cover of Bowie's "Ashes to Ashes" with me, due to appear later this year on a 7" box set released by Kamal Ackarie. Joe's thing was to make a separate, tiny arrangement for each line of the song, blowing 8-bit diamond dust across the track.
Gay Against You shouted (without mikes!) their songs about unicorns and Schipol Airport in front of a screen showing Kure Kure Takora episodes. The legendary Hanayo bopped about, beaming, alongside Berlin nightlife regulars like Mario Campos and Jason Forrest.
Gay Against You's thing is direct, Lightning Bolt-like contact with the audience, crazy KKK-style costumes, drawing on the floor and on bodies, and whipping up cultlike behaviour in the crowd (first we all had to sit on the floor, then stand on chairs, then wear hoods over our heads, then hold up triangular cardboard rabbit's heads, and so on). It's something Berlin acts have often done -- camping up the cabaret during live sets which are essentially playback. The Scots make it work better than most thanks to a zany, infectious sense of lunatic playfulness. The net result is something like Devo meets gabba. With unicorns and a giant cheese.
But to hell with the past, there's lots in the present to talk about too. Like the brilliant Salon Tokidoki Hisae and I attended last night, hearing hypnotic field recordings by Marc Chalosse and a video (entirely composed of five second sequences) of daily life in Pyongyang by Luc Arasse, who happens to be the ex-boyfriend of Laila France, but is now the partner of Tomoko Miyata, who organised the Tokidoki event on a leafy green street near our house in Neukolln, and will also play a waterbowls concert (she mikes and samples them live) on June 29th (the same evening I'm playing in Paris with Kumisolo and Laila, unfortunately -- I'd have liked to see it).
Hisae and I have to leave the Tokidoki Salon halfway through to rush up to Mitte, where legendary Glasgow digiband Gay Against You are playing a show. This is honestly the most fun show I've been to all year. Joe Howe (aka Germlin) has made a completely brilliant cover of Bowie's "Ashes to Ashes" with me, due to appear later this year on a 7" box set released by Kamal Ackarie. Joe's thing was to make a separate, tiny arrangement for each line of the song, blowing 8-bit diamond dust across the track.
Gay Against You shouted (without mikes!) their songs about unicorns and Schipol Airport in front of a screen showing Kure Kure Takora episodes. The legendary Hanayo bopped about, beaming, alongside Berlin nightlife regulars like Mario Campos and Jason Forrest.
Gay Against You's thing is direct, Lightning Bolt-like contact with the audience, crazy KKK-style costumes, drawing on the floor and on bodies, and whipping up cultlike behaviour in the crowd (first we all had to sit on the floor, then stand on chairs, then wear hoods over our heads, then hold up triangular cardboard rabbit's heads, and so on). It's something Berlin acts have often done -- camping up the cabaret during live sets which are essentially playback. The Scots make it work better than most thanks to a zany, infectious sense of lunatic playfulness. The net result is something like Devo meets gabba. With unicorns and a giant cheese.