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imomusSowieso is a venue in "deep Neukölln" (that mysterious grid out by the eastern runways of the now-defunct Tempelhof Airport, organised around the lugubrious Schillerpromenade) which is still in the grip of some sort of magic. Do I mean "just starting to be in the grip of" or do I mean "still in the grip of"? What I mean is that because money doesn't bother with such areas -- not yet, anyway -- amazing art and music is still occurring here. Or is just beginning to occur. Here, completely without being spoilt by money or crowds, unboring events take place totally uncompromised by anything approaching popularity.
Last night Hisae and I arrived at Sowieso -- an old butcher's shop largely unfucked-with, decor-wise, by its proprietor, a Dutch artist called Marc, and apparently used for children's puppet shows -- just in time to catch some sort of Western approximation of a bearded Indian anchorite (I didn't catch his name) sitting on the floor, generating a kosmische drone that could stop time -- or at least stop the twenty or so people present from talking. His loincloth was made of white insulating tape, a flower was wedged behind his ear, his body was smeared with white dye, and a small plant sat on the tiled floor by the mixer, possibly as a kind of spiritual inspiration. In most places you or I might go -- in London, in LA -- this man would have been laughed at or talked over. Not here in deepest Neukölln. Here you could have heard a pin drop.
Sowieso Sounds (mp3)
Something about the Sowieso patina matched something about my cheap Camson camera, and I wanted to share that happy happenstance with you today. But really I want to talk about the joy of unpopular art, and why Berlin is so great, and how I never get tired of it. This was a Rinus van Alebeek show, and the drone guru was followed by Nibble Nibble Kiss, Rinus' band with Angie Nina Blue Yeowell. I say "band", but nothing so vulgar as rock music was involved. Rinus mumbled narratives and activated handheld tape machines (mini-dictaphones using bizarre tape formats, things you have to scour flea markets all your life to find, although Rinus says friends just give them to him free) and Angie sang directly onto a sheet of metal -- I've been using plate reverb all my life, but I've never seen someone achieving the effect by singing, literally, onto a plate of metal. It was great, an intriguing 3D sound experience made immersive by the many pinpoint device speakers being used.
Somehow, my mind wandered to concert rooms on the other side of the world. Sowieso so wasn't LA's House of Blues, or its revamped Troubadour, which feels like a shopping mall approximation of a brewer's theme chain, with bands playing. Remembering the horror of those rock venues (they may have started out fine, but got ruined by money and drumkits and incremental horribleness) was part of my pleasure at being in this unpopular Berlin room, where barely a beat or a melody was allowed to encroach on the pure experimental textures, and it felt as if the audience would tolerate anything, and anything might happen. And something did happen: headliner Midori Hirano brought a breath of sweetness to the proceedings, juxtaposing music box melodies with motorcycle engines.
What am I trying to say? Something about the joy of things that are great yet get no applause, perhaps. Some days I get a hundred comments here on Click Opera, and I like that, but other days I get almost no comments and I like that too, especially if I know it's a good entry. There's something wonderful about an austere, difficult thing, something liable to go over most people's heads, something that isn't on anybody's hip list yet, something that leaves you a bit flummoxed and gawpy but finally gets a round of respectful applause because, well, something that free and weird and stubborn ought to exist. Something that eschews both sex and violence. Something created with deep seriousness, and yet destined to appeal to almost no-one.
It's the "almost" there that really matters -- an "almost" which, if it were a place, would be a tiled butcher's shop in a mysterious working class area of lamps and cobbles. A place like Sowieso, Berlin.
Last night Hisae and I arrived at Sowieso -- an old butcher's shop largely unfucked-with, decor-wise, by its proprietor, a Dutch artist called Marc, and apparently used for children's puppet shows -- just in time to catch some sort of Western approximation of a bearded Indian anchorite (I didn't catch his name) sitting on the floor, generating a kosmische drone that could stop time -- or at least stop the twenty or so people present from talking. His loincloth was made of white insulating tape, a flower was wedged behind his ear, his body was smeared with white dye, and a small plant sat on the tiled floor by the mixer, possibly as a kind of spiritual inspiration. In most places you or I might go -- in London, in LA -- this man would have been laughed at or talked over. Not here in deepest Neukölln. Here you could have heard a pin drop.
Sowieso Sounds (mp3)
Something about the Sowieso patina matched something about my cheap Camson camera, and I wanted to share that happy happenstance with you today. But really I want to talk about the joy of unpopular art, and why Berlin is so great, and how I never get tired of it. This was a Rinus van Alebeek show, and the drone guru was followed by Nibble Nibble Kiss, Rinus' band with Angie Nina Blue Yeowell. I say "band", but nothing so vulgar as rock music was involved. Rinus mumbled narratives and activated handheld tape machines (mini-dictaphones using bizarre tape formats, things you have to scour flea markets all your life to find, although Rinus says friends just give them to him free) and Angie sang directly onto a sheet of metal -- I've been using plate reverb all my life, but I've never seen someone achieving the effect by singing, literally, onto a plate of metal. It was great, an intriguing 3D sound experience made immersive by the many pinpoint device speakers being used.
Somehow, my mind wandered to concert rooms on the other side of the world. Sowieso so wasn't LA's House of Blues, or its revamped Troubadour, which feels like a shopping mall approximation of a brewer's theme chain, with bands playing. Remembering the horror of those rock venues (they may have started out fine, but got ruined by money and drumkits and incremental horribleness) was part of my pleasure at being in this unpopular Berlin room, where barely a beat or a melody was allowed to encroach on the pure experimental textures, and it felt as if the audience would tolerate anything, and anything might happen. And something did happen: headliner Midori Hirano brought a breath of sweetness to the proceedings, juxtaposing music box melodies with motorcycle engines.
What am I trying to say? Something about the joy of things that are great yet get no applause, perhaps. Some days I get a hundred comments here on Click Opera, and I like that, but other days I get almost no comments and I like that too, especially if I know it's a good entry. There's something wonderful about an austere, difficult thing, something liable to go over most people's heads, something that isn't on anybody's hip list yet, something that leaves you a bit flummoxed and gawpy but finally gets a round of respectful applause because, well, something that free and weird and stubborn ought to exist. Something that eschews both sex and violence. Something created with deep seriousness, and yet destined to appeal to almost no-one.
It's the "almost" there that really matters -- an "almost" which, if it were a place, would be a tiled butcher's shop in a mysterious working class area of lamps and cobbles. A place like Sowieso, Berlin.
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-14 03:31 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-14 03:46 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-14 04:22 am (UTC)I remember the first time I directed a show in the "real" world, and on opening night only one person came, and that was the dad of the box office boy.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-14 04:46 am (UTC)Neukoloooooooooom
Date: 2009-08-14 04:52 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-14 07:00 am (UTC)arrrgh matie
Date: 2009-08-14 09:04 am (UTC)twisting knobs of eshalans distant past. robes of jewels fall.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-14 11:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-14 12:26 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-14 01:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-15 03:35 am (UTC)Unprecedented mass appeal is the new 'nobody came'
Date: 2009-08-14 12:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-14 12:37 pm (UTC)CUE: Picture of a semi-naked man, smeared with flour, tugging some effect units and/or a laptop.
I feel like I need something boring, right now...
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-14 12:40 pm (UTC)And rightly so.
Not here in deepest Neukölln. Here you could have heard a pin drop.
And it would be better sounding than the music ;-)
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-14 01:21 pm (UTC)Sowieso sounds (http://imomus.com/sowieso.mp3)
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-14 01:31 pm (UTC)i have always found German people to be refreshingly straighforward in this reagrds (loathe as i am to invoke a national stereotype)
listen without prejudice ( as george michael might say)- why not? it won't hurt, probably
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-14 01:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-14 02:04 pm (UTC)Not even the slightest hint of English or American in ole me....
i have always found German people to be refreshingly straighforward in this reagrds (loathe as i am to invoke a national stereotype)
Yes, they are not big on irony --they listen to David Hasselhof seriously, for one...
listen without prejudice ( as george michael might say)- why not? it won't hurt, probably
Hey, I'll listen to almost everything --except maybe Heavy Metal. My current iPhone album list contains Harold Budd, Arthur Russel, Captain Beefheart, Mum, Deep Freeze Mice, Jon Hasell, Bill Drummond, Pascal Comelade, Luke Vibert, Bill Laswell, Ramones, Felix Kubin, Geoffrey Oryema, Yello, Frankie Laine, Momus (don't ask), Marc Ribot, Arvo Part and Natalia Oreiro (don't ask). I can listen without prejudice alright.
It's the imagery of the flour-smeared guy I can't stand.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-14 02:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-14 03:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-15 03:39 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-15 03:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-14 01:33 pm (UTC)I never to listen to music before I slag it. It interferes with my judgement ;-)
(... listening...)
Hmmm, is this the most imaginative sonics he can come up with with a Kaoss Pad at his disposal?
As I say, I thought they were fantastic.
After some tabs of acid, I would have probably thought the same...
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-14 01:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-15 03:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-14 01:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-14 02:05 pm (UTC)Yeah, and it's a nice quality to have.
That "child-like wonder" of sorts, I mean.
this man in white
Date: 2009-08-14 04:41 pm (UTC)and four video's all involving peter zincken
http://staalplaat.wordpress.com/2009/08/05/7-august/
some americans can laugh in DC
at the sonic circuits festival
when this boring man will play again with his band fckn bstrds
http://dc-soniccircuits.org/
nibble nibble kiss will perform again at mme claude on 24. august
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-14 03:15 pm (UTC)Brother Momus
Date: 2009-08-14 05:36 pm (UTC)Will you follow Wilde and declare, "I am not a Catholic. I am simply a violent Papist"? Will you officially convert and become a Trappist soon thereafter?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-14 06:21 pm (UTC)I know you're always on the look out for interesting Japanese TV. have you ever seen 'Pythagora Switch'?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-14 06:29 pm (UTC)Speaking of new things (new to me, anyway), I just had coffee with an anime expert who was telling me about Nikonikodoga, and how people are remixing popular culture there and adding notes which (unlike YouTube notes) scroll across the screen and (like Twitter) have a maximum character length, so that the video itself becomes a sort of discussion forum.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-14 06:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-14 07:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-15 12:54 pm (UTC)its a repetition thing!
and i wonder if the 2 guys will ever retire, or just continue for ever. they're already wearing a hell of a lot of foundation.
Japanese kids tv (not the anime part) [i guess the nhk stuff] is wonderfully irony free, in general. i guess a little like 70s bbc.
some of the singing and dancing is a little intense, however
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-15 02:50 am (UTC)The sound is ok, it makes me feel a bit dizzy,
for extra credits you can skip around the track and make your composition.