Hurricane Festival 2009

Sunday 21/9> 20.05> Ladyhawke - Girl From Wairarapa, blasting it out in the Soundwave Tent











Friday 19/8> 10:28> Gumboots, raincoats, sloganed T-shirts, the latest updated program, already decided to ignore bad weather forecast, whole lot of cask wine, whole lot of junk food, tents, glittery make-up, contraceptives, and a bag of luck - Team New Zealand on its way to Hurricane Festival after getting on the train from Bremen to Scheessel 5 seconds before it departed.

Friday 19/8> 16:55> No lines at the ticketing, plenty of tent space, clean flushable toilets with virtually no que, showers, a butcher's caravan selling steak which you can grill yourself on public BBQs, Thai Cuisine, a supermarket - all signs of a civilised, organised, flash-packer kind of Festival. Awesome!

Jane and Jessie could not stop complimenting the German kids on their spotless behaviour thus far, as if I should take a kudos for this for represent the 'locals'. It is true, for a crowd averaged 19 years of age, dressed mostly in black T-shirts and tight jeans resembling a big incestuous West Auckland bogan family, these kids, while fairly raucous already shocking the ground with their ghettoblasters and consuming copious amounts of beer by the time we got there, are rather courteous, considerate, and rule abiding given the irrepressible party atmosphere. Here's a kid with some alcoholic ingenuity - caskwine shoulder bag - under the no-glass & plastic policy.

Friday 19/8> 16:00 onwards> Line-up I saw this evening
Glasvegas
Editors
Kings of Leon
Kraftwerk

I'm not much a good music reviewer, in fact, subsequent friends have labelled me a 'musical oaf' - so I will just describe the live music experience in an analogy of food and drink, a subject I am slightly more studied on.

Glasvegas (17.00 - 17.15) - is like having a fish'n'chips picnic in an empty and grey carpark drinking turps, interrupted by bad weather - grey, short-lived, and a bad aftertaste. Jane's favourite. Unfortunately, the security for the first day was a little tough and half our alcohol in inappropriate vessels had been confiscated, and then it started to rain, so by the time we got there, they'd finished playing. Apparently the setting up was rather slack and they only played 2 songs anyway. What the? (Enjoyability 1/5; Musicianship 2/5; Hotness 1/5 - cos we saw n'thin)

Editors (19.45 -20.45) A Long Island Ice Tea with triple shot vodka with lime juice replacing lemon - extra potent, strong performance, and unconventional. Best boppy punky rock since Joy Division, bit less attitude and more metrosexual, and a bit more spoilt. They worked the crowd without lifting a finger, I felt my body change temperature just standing there. The lead singer Tom Smith scrubs up quite well, and was almost like making love to the keyboard, we were all so totally drooling. (Enjoyability 3.5/5; Musicianship 3.5/5; Hotness 5/5)

Kings of Leon (23:00 - 00.30) Red Bull concentrate on crushed ice - Energetic, perky, bit on the light side, but kicked me into space nevertheless. I couldn't stop dancing and even the Irish boys we had just befriended that 'hated KoL'. Given these kids had been overplayed and overrated the whole entire time I was in the UK, and that I am not that into garage bands, they are actually exceptionally good live. Always thought their music and voices sounded too manufactured recorded, but yeah, the live performance was unfaultable, loved it, totally fun. Very gracious too. (Enjoyability 3.5/5; Musicianship 3.5/5; Hotness 2/5)

(Kings of Leon; Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds; Kraftwerk)

Kraftwerk (00.30 - 02.00) What else could they be but a classic martini with an olive stuffed with LSD - Pedigree, pure, slick, entrancing, legendary. The four of them old timers stood in front of their 'computers' as if they are really a team of 'robots' - amazing digital graphics and lighting and tranced halluscinates the entire stage, making you feel like you've just time travelled. The clean, wave like music swept the entire arena, as if we are really consumed by 'radioacitvity'. "Art is not the What, its the How" (- David Mitchell in Cloud Atlas) - and Kraftwerk's longitivity is in their ability to keep evolving at the forefront of human civilisation, even based on their original material from like 30 years ago - hats off!! (Enjoyability 4/5; Musicianship 4/5; Hotness 3/5 - my old man cut off line just got totally extended)

I could have kept dreaming that I was sipping a classic martini in a little black cocktail dress in a spaceship, except all I had was cask wine and a few potent heffeweissens, so at some point during the show I actually passed out, wearing clunky old GDR made gumboots in a horse paddock.

Saturday 20/9 02:25> I woke up on the wet grass at the back of the field, stars twinkling above. Kraftwerk had just finished and people were dispersing in all ways, torch beams shining everywhere, and I felt something funny on my chest - a teenage German boy's hand was up in my T-shirt fumbling about!!! I yelled at him and he quickly apologised in English saying that he was just checking to see if I was alive. WHAT EVERRRRRR! He went on and on about his other favourite band and all I was fuming about was that I had passed out and missed the second half of Kraftwerk. I don't know why I didn't just make a knuckle sandwich out of his little pimply face there and then, perhaps I was exercising my politeness as a foreign guest, but I suggested that we go into the Soundwave Tent instead. As soon as we got there I ran into the crowd as fast as I could and managed to finally loose him. Crazy insolent kids.

Saturday 20/9 03:15> I had lost all my friends, and fell over into a pile of mud and acquired a number of bruises and cuts on my right leg, but some how managed to get back to my tent ok, through a sea of pretty much identical tents and 'pavilions' from Aldi, only to be offered more beer by our neighbours, a small crowd gathered around a grill cooking that favourite bratwurst.

Saturday 20/9 10:30> Mmmm.

Saturday 20/9 16:00> Bands we saw today were
Ska-P
Fleet Foxes
Pixies
Faith No More
Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds

There was a small crowd around the bundgy jumping machine at the back of the field near merchandise, cheap jewllery etc stalls - an extra gimmick for making money for the festival organisers. Jane cruely offered me 50 Euros to go on the bungy and spray spew on the crowd. Trust a Glaswegian to come up with that.

Ska-P (16.30 - 17.30) Wendy's tropical Coconut Banana Fish Fritters dipped in Mango Salsa of lime juice, thai sweet chilly sauce, and coriander - an explosion of worldly flavours, easy going ska beats, sharp tones of anti-everything, creating a scene of fun fuck-you punky carnival. The band's onstage mad dancing is totally contagious, so I managed to bounce back from my killer hang over OK, till my head started to split from being shaken too much. The crowd was on fire, and they showed off their diversity by a great mixture of styles. Perfect Saturday afternoon music, ooooo la laaa. (Enjoyability 4/5; Musicianship 2/5; Hotness 2/5)

Of all places I actually managed to bump into Astrid in the beer tent. We went to high school together (we were B+ grade competitors in our 'brainy class', you see), and we had lost touch, and it had been 12 years since I last saw her at our graduation. Its quite bizare, that after all this time, at the opposite side of the world, we should reunite, still recognising each other given the hazy circumstance.









(Me and some randoms at Fleet Foxes; Its not a festival till you bump into someone from School)

Fleet Foxes (19.15 - 20.15) - Wholesome Pulse and Vegetable Soup: first a thick flavoursome stock fused with onions, garlic and celery, then biting into the supple skin of barley and rye, the lentils and chickpeas flaking into powder on your tongue, and a warm gentle tug from the chest to the stomach - rich, down to earth, rustic, complex, fresh, homely, painfully passionate. Their sweetly bearded faces were just so peaceful and calm amongst the dancing raging crowd. The best thing about their music is the layer upon layer of harmonies, both voices and acoustics, and just how it keeps lifting itself to the next level and the next. The style is nostalgic yet refreshingly original especially in the delivery, inevatably dark and mysterious, and leaves you to wonder why is guitar still one of the most mesmerising, haunting, soothing instruments in the world? And yet - why are we still dancing like crazy?? (Enjoyability 4/5; Musicianship 3.5/5; Hotness 4/5)

Pixies (20.00 - 21.00) Eating Belgium style Pomme Frittes smothered in thick rich homemade garlic mayonnaise on your older cousin's back verandah overlooking a nice NZ beach - fast-food pop rock made stylish, comfort-raising, chilled, guilty-pleasures, summery yet still dark, and helplessly Gen-X. Every song was well executed and the impressive hits came one after another, but I have to say it lacked a little energy for such a legendary name. (Enjoyability 3.5/5; Musicianship 3.5/5; Hotness 2/5)

Faith No More (23.00 - 00.30) Chewing beef jherky washed down with lots of lager two hours before one's wedding - hard core, 'manly', dressed up to take the piss, wee bit scary. Biggest draw card to this festival - these guys got back together this year and only performed live for the first time last week in London. Seriously most English speaking ppl I have met at this festival have come to see them specifically. The gentlemen looked damn fine in blue evening suits complete with corsages, Mike Patton's voices really is gorgeous - surprising since how much he screams, and they were just completely into it, and no other bands could reach that kind of rapport with the crowd - especially from the bottom of the moshpit! But have to say, metal ain't my thing, so its hard to feel completely convinced. (Enjoyability 3/5; Musicianship 3.5/5; Hotness 2.5/5 - Mike Patton bit too greasy for my liking)

Nick Cave and the Black Seeds (00.30 - 02.00) Rare and exotic cheese and wine at a poetry recital with a group of vampires - sophisticated, strange, dark, moody, a literary and audio odyssey. Always wondered what he would be like live, - well - very very assured sets that was diverse, unscripted and candid yet not unprepared, both highs and lows delivered with a multitude of moods and emotions, like a little boat enduring four seasons in one day. Basically like what they say about him - beyond comparison, beyond genre, beyond dispute. (Enjoyability 4/5; Musicianship 4/5; Hotness 2/5)

Sunday 21/6 11.00> The sun is finally upon us and the Aldi tent had become unbearably hot. After a reasonably early night and a good sleep-in, we managed to do normal things like going to the toilet, buying coffee, and eat breakfast.

Bands we saw today were:
Gogol Bordello
Lily Allen
Ladyhawke
Fettes Brot
Die Arzte

Gogol Bordello (15.20 - 16.15) A nice plate of very spicy gourmet gulage eaten while sitting at the front of a home made space rocket, being lit from behind. Part folk jazz, part gypsy punk, eccentric mad circus music, and very possibly a lot of drugs. If you're born in the 80s and still not sick of Pirates and dressing up like WWF boxers to parties yet, then you would love these guys. The eccentric flavours, the uncatchably fast beats and the crazy costumes all send you into a spin, and a huge range of folk musical traditions from Irish to Eastern European to Japanese all roll into one, teamed with Hawaiian backup singers/dancers, and a cameo from a WWF boxer. Crazy, maddening, mindblowing, absolutely wicked. (Enjoyability 4/5; Musicianship 3.5/5; Hotness 3/5)

Lily Allen (16.45 - 17.45) Five or six scoops of different marshmallow flavoured icecreams served with a banana split drenched in cheap chocolate coating - very sweet, but so sweet and sugar laden that its bad, and gives you a very bad sugar high and only to discover that the vendor had spat in it because you were rude to him. She really is quite an adorable little girl, she plays that naughty but sweet thing so well, and her tunes are chirpy and sultry at the same time, and make me feel like I want to be back at high school again. Can there really be 'too much personality?" Hope she puts more substantial stuff out soon. (Enjoyability 3.5/5; Musicianship 2.5/5; Hotness 4/5)

(Ladyhawke)

Ladyhawke (17.45 - 20.30) Guava Daiquiri at a prancy night club somewhere in early 80s London. Well first of all the fact that someone from Wairarapa could be whipping out chops within this fantastic line up at a major foreign music festival is something of a world wonder - hats off to Pip. Though admittedly I'm just not that into her. Despite the craziest kiwi accent ever to be heard north of the equator, her voice is actually very average, though most of the songs were well written and mixed enough, but have to say I didn't feel like it was original enough, too fleeting, and it was not the best live act I've seen. (Enjoyability 4/5; Musicianship 4/5; Hotness 2/5)

Fettes Brot (17.45 - 21.00) Pizza. Hot, cheeky, satisfying, and FAT! Goodam good pizza. I just love hip hop and rap in other languages. The sound bites sound like their own completely different instruments, rather than 'words' as such, the rhythm of other people's tongues just has an intriguing effect on me. Probably not like ground breaking in terms of originality I guess, but they are just natural born performers that really just arouse every fun hair in your body. These guys are so cute and sweet, very light hearted, colourful and up beat, so happy and just down to earth, and so goddam adorably German. Love them - my new favourite Deutch band defo! (Enjoyability 4/5; Musicianship 4/5; Hotness 3.5/5)

Die Arzte (21.30 - 23.30) Eating currywurst after currywurst sitting on the curb outside Friedrickstr Station in Berlin. Rough, edgy, homegrown, devoted fan base, even though it tastes like crap to the foreigners. I must say these guys were not as impressive as I thought they were going to be, but they have certainly brought the atmosphere of the party to the utmost boiling point. Here in the deep North of Germany, nothing like hard rock will please these black jeans and doc boots clad kids more - and they all go home happy! And so shall we! (Enjoyability 2/5; Musicianship 4/5; Hotness 2/5)








(Fettes Brot; Die Arzte)

Monday 22/6 08.30> Our adrenalin pumped weekend faded into pink dawn. Trust the weather to get better for the entire week just as we've finished suffering a wet patchy weekend. The camp ground looked like a deserted battlefield as a whole bunch of kids had already left by 10pm to get the last train, and abandoned cheap tents, undrunken alcohol, and mountains of litter. Against the chants of 'Arbeiten scheisser, Arbeiten scheisser,' we pack and roll and check our bruises before we joined the lines to get our rubbish deposit and bottle pfands (part of the green policy here - works really well). It really was the funnest weekend I have had for a long time, and thinking about the work ahead waiting for me in Berlin, I couldn't stop wishing that this Disney 'Its a Small World After All' ride had just been a little bit longer. But thinking of the pig knuckles waiting for us at the beer garden in Bremen, there was nothing stopping us from breaking into song on the double decker train.

To our friends in Iran

and everyone that opened their hearts to us during our visit, and those that were determined to show us your vibrant, elaborate and passionatel country behind the shrowds of censorship, propaganda and stereotyping - thinking of you all, bless your courage and hope peace and liberty bestows soon.

FB

Bremen Town Musicians

Bremen is a sleepy little city tucked up in North Germany amongst rolling farmlands, now planted with windfarms, and surrounded by fishing ports that still brings in the freshest salted herrings and wild salmon to the bustling little market square. The town is quaint and cute, divided by small canals and carpted by green parks, everything is very walkable despite the unpredictable midsummer weather. The Rathaus area is lined with Flemish architecture, and has a delightful if not kitch little art deco street (Böttcherstraße) that's really worth a good wander - make sure you check out the modernist glockenspiel on the hour - it will really surprise you, an old town (Schnoor) crossed with little village lanes and bakeries and curiosity shops, and a relaxed stretch of river front lined with beer gardens that will serve you a good old traditional German meat and 2 vege washed down with a favourite heffeweisse for very little money. On my first night, I even enjoyed a 5 Euro top-class concert of Bach's psalms in the main Cathedral, so don't miss a show if you're stopping by!!













Bremen's forte is in its tradition - the architecture, the churches, the manicured lawns, the smiling, friendly locals, the food, the beer, the chocolate in the shops. In a way its a lovely change get away from the in-your-face, wacky and maze-like Berlin, but in another way, I just know that it can only last a weekend, because it is just a little too nice, too small, too wholesome and monotomous here, and I know by instinct that I have already finished exploring it in one afternoon...

But now to the main drawcard - "Bremen Town Musicians" - I first came across these charming characters in one of the first picture books I read when we first moved to New Zealand, without saying it was another very formative time of my life where I've had to 'relearnt' an entire culture and language as well, I remember being fascinated and amused at this wonderful underdog adventure story, so its with a sweet longing that I approached the town of Bremen to visit the statue which immortalised the story of the donkey, dog, cat and rooster. Here's a picture book version of the story and here's one without pics.

Thinking through the story from an adult's angle, this folklore/ animal fabel in fact has a heavy commentary about animal rights, labour/production, fear of impoverishment, lonliness and abandonment in old age, social justice, and the ageless persuite of hedonism. And you know what? As an outsider, I can actually see all of these values being more or less reflected in contemporary German society, the way which they highly regard animal welfare, senior rights, the music and arts, and the encouragement of their youngsters to venture outdoors, to travel, and to find that utopian life.

And this is essentially what folklore is about - its an oral history tradition in passing on information, institutionalising moral education, and sculpting norms of cultural identity via the format of a fairytale from one generation to the next - and finally picked up and recorded and interpreted by the Grimm Brothers through their linguistic research. Not only do these stories relate to children and adult audiences alike by reflecting the physical and social elements of pre-industrialised agrarian German society, it arouses and perhaps manipulate their emotions by bringing in universal fears and celebrations, and that sense of adventure for a bigger and wider unknown world.

.... and now enough ranting -and to music of another other kind - Hurricane Festival!!







(Caught up with my colleague Adilah; Jessie & Jane outside this eccentric little cafe/deli in Schnoor - the Old Quarter)

Taking Scheeßel by Hurricane

Heh heyyyy! Off to Bremen to meet up with the UK girls then off to a weekend of fantastisch festival goodness & plenty of camped out radioactivity - Florence and the Machine!!!!!!!!!! The Editors!!! Howling Bells!!!! Gogol Bordello!! Fleet Foxes!!!! Fettes Brot!! Pixies!!!! Faith No More (they're still alive?)! Nick Cave!!! Die Ärzte!! little Lily Allen!!!! Oh wait... Kraftwerk!!!!!!

ARRRRRRRHHHHHHHHHH@!$#$%$#%#$%@$!!!

so fingers crossed none of that German style transport melodramas - bitte!

Oh Make Me Over

Anyway, don't be too shocked, but a few weeks ago in unemployed desperation I became a hair model for the dodgy as Turkish hairdressers just downstairs from me. It is quite a dubious look really, and have no idea what they will do with my photos, but when its entirely free, and give me extra leaverage when caught up in nasty cat fights, why the hell not.

The Story of Berlin: Part I & II

PART I

If Amsterdam is the hippy little sister that teaches pilates by day and sells make-up in department stores by night, and Copenhagen is the preppy big brother that goes to Harvard and rides his Vespa to canoe polo on Saturdays, then Berlin must be the schzisophrephic fucked up half brother born to dad´s first girlfriend whom you´ll always find on the corner of the street high on acid and writing poetry with gastly spray paint. Therefore he is likely the most interesting family member you´ll meet at the dinner party but the least you´d want to end up in bed with at the end of the night. But then again...

--- www.flyingbaroness.blogspot.com (June 2007)

I wrote this two years ago when I first visited Berlin. So how would the story end?

.......................................

But then again, I changed my mind. I was drunk. I was chuffed. We were happy. Bored too, perhaps. I thought it could be an exhilarating ride. Completely random, unreliable, unpredictable, interesting and complicated, fucked up, foreign, unknown, and much younger. Completely the wrong type for me, and certainly what I don’t need. So I took a chance in a whim. I like the idea that I can see an end to a story before it even begun. It entertained the recklessness in me, and in my still broken heart. Great love affairs never last. Condensed, intensified, self-destructive. Their greatness lies in the fact that they are made to be broken.

.......................................

“What the hell are you doing in Berlin?” How do I answer that question?

Two years ago I was roaming around Europe on a train pass, hopping from one city to the next, like a giant speed dating evening. Even though I loved Amsterdam and Paris, London was the most natural and safest first stop for me as an English speaker working in the NGO sector. And I would never exchanged that crazy hazy and educational year for a thing in the world. But I still vaguely navigated my way to Berlin, because its strange allure had never left the back of my mind. I was, and still am, quite taken back by the quirky, dark, irreverent, rebellious and eccentric colours and sounds it exuded. I liked the way that they daunted me, but pleased me at the same time – for the fact that it had daunted me, and for the fact that I am surviving it. A raw, upbeat, and almost vengeful energy about the city that seemed to be fresh and renewed every day, but all in the most unhurried, assured and carefree manner. That was what brought me to Berlin. So its probably not so odd that now, when I am surrounded by these fast moving and foreign sights and sounds that I have fallen into a mild, peaceful and restful frame of mind.

Have you met anyone that’s always planning for tomorrow and forgot that today was yesterday’s tomorrow? Yes that’s me and I’ve had to remind myself again and again to slow down. I love the pace that I lived in London and in Wellington, and the personal growth and confidence that comes with traveling and experiencing culture shocks across the continents. But when I reached Prague in early April after a botched carpool attempt and facing a crowd of crystal shoppers, I realised that I had hit overdrive. I realised that in my entire life I’ve been over stimulated and distracted with too many things and too many plans, the things I possessed, the job I had, and the places I’d been had defined me, rather than the other way around. But you can’t hurry life if you don’t breath. Its time to be like Berlin, time to be unhurried.

.......................................

At 5 in the morning we could just see the pavement in front of our feet, and gentle rain sprinkled on our faces and formed tiny little jewels on our jackets. He lived in a little fifth floor apartment near Treptow Park. The room glowed like fading amber in a fire, nothing but a mattress, records and books, spread across the floor. He ran his fingers down my back. Silhouette of Alexander Platz formed through his blinds, in a smoky blue dawn. I closed my eyes and heard the wind chime tingle in the breeze.

.......................................

I own nothing and will take nothing with me.

I arrived in Germany with a backpack weighing 10 kilos, and apart from books I have added virtually nothing to my possessions. I have no job between the school holiday camp counseling work – I go to German classes and I write and read a lot by the canal, that’s about it. I don’t share much about where I come from or what I’ve done, because they don’t ask me that kind of questions here.

So I was going to come to Berlin to add another brilliant chapter to my book. But instead I’ve come to Berlin as a blank sheet of paper that’s been ripped out of the book. I left much of my past, and my plans and inklings for the future somewhere else for the moment, as if time ought to momentarily stop in Berlin, and shall begin again after it. I’m going to make a little paper aeroplane out of it and watch it fly away. ‘Weggeflogen’. Yeah, that’s it.

I’ve come here to just be.

PART II

Words were lost between us. I didn’t speak his language and he didn’t speak mine. It had meant that we could only communicate in the most primitive way – physically, sensually. Expressions on our faces, and the merging of our flesh, on a touch, and listening to one another’s strange tongue as the other person rambled on in their own language. Reading the raptures on his face, the distress in his voice, the contours of his drawings on a scrabble pad. Reading his eyes, reading each sigh, each laugh, each silence. Comfortable silences, uncomfortable silences, mysterious silences, intended silences. Yet communicating with the body is not free of cross cultural divides, as we have found out, the meanings assigned to physical expressions are not always the same in every culture, and having to translate that without a dictionary is actually quite a mission. And finding a way through another strange layer of prejudgment - what we assume of each other that our own social culture and its stereotypes taught us about who the other person may be/ may represent, and guessing what the other person’s prejudgment of ourselves may be, and the misunderstandings from the interlocking of all of these. A complex, risky, but exhilarating game. We explored each other like that, without words, and for the first little while it was confusing, then it turned intense as we got to know too much, but now we have become in sync, almost inventing a new language based on what we have become used to with each other’s habits, expressions, emotions, appetite.

.......................................

German was just a whole lot of sound bites that came out of people’s mouths, like every other language spoken in the places I’ve been to through my travels - nothing meant anything to me, and unless the other person could speak English, I just used signing and drawing.

It’s been almost two months now, living in Germany, and the situation of being a virtual illiterate is becoming easier – firstly because I am now getting used to being illiterate, and secondly, well, I am becoming less illiterate as my German improved. Words are like pieces of puzzle that I collect a bit of everyday, all falling into their own place, and creating a clearer picture in my head every time I hear sentences or read printed words. Tenses and the different conjugated verb forms are becoming more and more clear to me, and I keep recognizing key words or parts of words in every day conversations. Even if its parts of a sentence, I can then use those key words to form an assumption of the meaning of the entire sentence or phrase. I especially love listening to the radio, because of the clear and slow annunciations they say, and the repetition that I never used to notice that public speakers use a lot as a technique for honing in messages they want to stick in the audience’s heads.

My German flatmate was surprised to hear that my classes are very grammar heavy. I guess it’s a little bit like how in New Zealand no one ever taught you grammar at school – you just assume these things come to you naturally as a native speaker. (and probably why my grammar is still so poor – as you can notice on this blog!!) Admittedly I was first quite resentful too, thinking that it was all this crap about the German obsession with preciseness and discipline. But now I couldn’t really imagine learning a second language as an adult without knowing grammar, especially for a language laden heavily with conjugated verbs and gendered nouns etc. It’s the basic structure by which words fall into their places. Without these quietly achieving patterns and rules, words would just be alphabets disjoint. Learning a second language as an adult is not like for children learning their own mother tongue, where you progressively learn the meaning/significance of things/words. Because you already know the meaning/significance of things/words in your first language, a second language is basically like learning a different system of codes to express those same meanings and words you already know in your head. It’s a bit like learning to use a new software to perform the same task on the computer. Except learning a language in a total emersion environment is like regaining the sight and hearing that one had lost as soon as they touch down on the plane.

.......................................

Like everyone else in this city, he was a musician. His first band, of which’s Hungarian name I can’t pronounce, was a three piece gypsie ska band, which he leads/sings for, and plays the base or the banjo, while the other two guys are on either another banjo or guitar, and a violin. His part time band, called ‘Angela im Wunderland’ was a part children’s theatre, part political satire, part experimental group that shows up for street festivals or get booked by schools or birthday parties every so often. He also DJ’ed at private parties for free. Sometimes he got up in the middle of the night to strum his guitar, because a tune was stuck in his head and he just had to get it out. His fingers running up and down the strings so agilely, like a spider on its web, as I fell sleep under the lamp light.

.......................................

The music scene in Berlin is an eclectic smorgasboard of styles, groups, artists all with their own respective fame ratings and income generation from music. Berlin has had a very long history and presence in any type of alternative music, but perhaps made the biggest boom between the Cold War years, where West Germany's selectively rebellious and anti-estblishment youths 'escaped' to West Berlin to avoid being conscripted into the army. And the music and art scene is now one of the biggest in Europe, and the cheap rent/abundance of venues, state sponsorship loose squat policing attracts all kinds and styles of musicians and performers here.

In fact, pretty much 9 out of 10 of my friends here are some sort of a musician, from singers, fiddlers, soundscape artists, guitarists, drummers, to music video artists. Some good, some bad, some really really good, and a minor few excruciatingly bad, and are all still trying to get me to buy their home-made CDs. Subsequently, I’ve been going to gigs pretty much 4 or 5 nights a week. Most of the events like jam sessions and open mics are free, and they often let you bring your own beer – so its been a big eye(ear) opener for me. And there is always at least two or three bands invited to the numerous free gallery openings/shows across town, and the fleamarkets, fresh food markets, squat parties, and the numerous festivals going on at the moment would never be complete without eccentric looking performers adding some beats to the festivities…

My favourite gigs at moment are the soundscape artists (bit like in this video by CocoRosie) using all kinds of mixture of instruments to create unusual but pleasing and often witty audio experience. Many of them also perform with a huge loop pedal emphasis (bit like Mihirangi or Camille), while others will go one step forward and add a screen for accompanying visual art. One artists was playing a bendy saw (yes, a bendy saw) with a violin bow, and another sang entirely to the accompaniment of her music box. There was another experimental group that performed at Maria am Ostbahnhof – that called themselves ‘Ballet Opera’ – there were 3 ballerinas and two hip hop artists that performed together, to the music of a small Pink Floyd-esque rock band, which swapped occasionally with a soundscape artist and a techno DJ, and cutting edge videos and lighting. The result was an unbelievably surreal experience for the senses. And just last night one of my mates Rob performed inside a recently closed swimming pool complex (with story reading from a local writer in between the sessions) – the acoustics from the bottom of a 5meter deep pool was haunting and dramatic, and the audience sat on the slopes of the descending pool floor as if in a cinema. Upstairs amongst the former offices a little gallery is set up, and turned into a makeshift dance club in the evenings, and an even bigger club is downstairs amongst the pipes and boilers… Again, this takeover was completely tolerated with half a closed eye by the city council…









A particular musician of note is a new acquaintance, a young Kiwi girl – the one and only Kiwi I have met in Berlin (but apparently there are 300 of us, with half of them being diplomats…); a fellow political scientist from Vic, except an entire generation younger, and a self-made singer/song writer, and arrived just a few weeks before I did. We talked about our Professors, student politics, Bodega, and writing for the Salient as if I was just walking down the stairs of the student union with a loudspeaker and a placard just yesterday. This world really is such the smallest of all places.

The first night I went to see her play, the music was actually a little intolerable… (I had invited a German friend along to ‘check out Kiwi talent’ as well…), the sound system was badly set up and basically her guitar overpowered her voice, and she had made a few mistakes. Moreover, she was dressed like a young Dolly Parton crossed with Farrah Fawcett, in a zebra striped boobtube dress and cowboy boots, blond boofy hair tossed out like a lion’s mane, and heavy black eyeliners. She is so different to the rest of the women musicians in Berlin, who are usually quite chilled, alternative and grunge, raucous and have to be boisterous enough to be noticed amongst the boys. So her sweet little country and western style had drawn a bit of sarcastic negative comments almost immediately – even though her style totally works for her and its just purely who she is. I kind of feel sorry for her, and almost disappointed that Berlin can’t seem to be man enough to except this ‘mainstream girl’ gate-crashing the party.

As the ‘only two kiwis’ in Berlin, and as part of a protest, its absolutely my duty to play groupie, and since that evening I’ve been attending pretty much all her gigs, sitting like a mother at her child’s music recital, tense, nervous for her, cringing at every mistake she makes, and always the first one to clap, and check up on her in the toilets before and after her appearances. I mean, how often is it in a complete foreign city that a kiwi girl gets up with her guitar in the middle of a crowded pub, and whip out her chops?

As the nights went by she got more and more comfortable in front of a foreign audience, and I am beginning to really enjoy the music. Her songs are actually really quite wonderfully pretty, and her voice range is huge and dynamic, and the texture, while still more or less immature, is complex and full of allure. The music is a mixture of ballads influenced by, say, The Sundays, Bic Runga, Alanis Morrisett, and Sarah McLauchlan, which is right up my ally (well, one of my alleys…). Her lyrics too reflect the kind of surprises and emotions confronted by any new comer in a new place, and often I relate to those words and emotions so much that my throat chokes.

So it was kind of funny and kind of surprising when I found out that she was a B-Grade celebrity back in New Zealand. One of my friends told me that she was actually a NZ Idol finalist a few years back, basically making her a household name back home, because it was such a popular program. She would have been on the front pages of women’s magazines and on teenage pop posters and made into stickers and cartoon characters, and betting agencies would have made fortunes out of punters predicting whether she would win the show. I had been living in Australia at the time, and so I had absolutely no idea that this young woman I’ve become very good friends with and supporter of in the last few months – is actually associated with bad reality TV in my home country. She was obviously too humble to mention it to me in passing. When I finally confronted her she gashed and told me that it was an embarrassing secret and that I’m not allowed to tell anyone else. Ever!

Aren’t we all trying to get away from something by coming to Berlin?

(TO BE CONTINUED)

Cowgirls on Oberbaumbrücke

In Berlin, cowgirls shoots sherrifs from bicycles, blow up bridges, kick around in jandals, nibble sushi with Japanese school boys, dive into closing U-Bahn carriages, and take advantage of the relaxed and inventive local alcohol laws - especially with home made cherry sauce. Even though they may not sunbathe in the same minimalist attire of their German counterparts, it does not mean they are prudish - its just that they have very heavy bullet proof jackets, and learnt all about Slip-Slap-Slop at school.

20 Shots

Wang Feng sat at the very back of the noodle shop, a midsummer’s evening drenched in Guizhou’s warm southwestern rain. It was a quiet night for business. The two waiters were so at ease that they smoked and joked about at the counter, flicking through the TV. Two men played cards at one corner of the eatery and a couple with a young child slurped their meals quietly at another. Wang watched them with vacant eyes, preoccupied with anticipation.

Wang lined his table with twenty pearl white shot glasses. Ten a row, two by two. They had already been impatiently filled with maotai, a playful, or rather, painful local hard liquor distilled from sorghum. He called the waiter for some peanuts. He looked at the clock then at the wall. Between two cheaply printed bamboo scrolls depicting flocks of herons in a waterfall scene, hung a calendar that displayed a large plump ‘4’ under a smaller ‘June’ across the top.

“A curse of a birthday.” He mumbled to himself as he lit a cigarette and sighed through the smoke.

Li Yi appeared from the front of the shop, in a fading white shirt almost breaking at the seams, tucked into his usual black trousers. He was younger looking than Wang, his high cheekbones and thin jaw line hung like mountains that dipped into sea on his pale face. Thin, lanky and looking ever so unnecessarily surly, he drifted past the rows of tables and tapped Wang lightly on the shoulders.

Wang almost jumped when he felt Li’s cold hands on his neck, but soon turned on a smile.

“Brother!” Wang cried as he stood up to greet his friend, shaking his hands keenly. “On time yet again! Happy birthday Brother!”

“Yes Brother, happy birthday to you too. Forty today. A big round number.” Li returned with a faint smile.

“Ah yes forty. What an age. Except you look like you haven’t aged a day and I’ve got this plump tummy to keep my fortunes!” Wang bellowed and laughed. “Sorry about the weather Brother. Suppose you’ve eaten…”

“Yes Brother, you know I only come for the birthday baijiu.”

Li settled himself opposite Wang, the shot glasses lined like soldiers on a chessboard between them. Wang handed Li a glass and held one up himself with both hands.

“Happy our birthday, and to twenty years of friendship!”

“Yes! To twenty years!” Li beamed, finally looking a little more energetic, and the glasses clinked crisply in the air.

“2009,” said Li. “And two fourty year-old men. Tell me about your year, Brother.”

“Well,” began Wang. “I managed. Better than the last. Ming Ming got into a good high school and Rong can’t stop bragging about us going to watch the Games at the Bird Nest to the neighbours...”

“So you went back to the Jing?”

“First time for, what, eighteen years, yeah. Couldn’t recognise it. Just couldn’t. Some times I wished I’d stayed there, would have been loaded by now.”

“You are loaded Brother. And the Square? Did you go?”

“No Brother.” Wang said, after a short thoughtful pause. “Rong went. She got a framed photograph with the Chairman in front of the Forbidden City. Everyone that’s ever been to Beijing has got one of those, you know what I mean? It’s a total joke to me. I was a bit tired that day so I slept at the hotel.”

“I thought as much.” Li shot Wang a look.

He handed Wang another glass. “2008!”, and then another, “2007!”.

The men knocked back.

“…and 2006. That year you finally bought out the entire garment business from your uncle, Brother, what more could you want?”

“I’m not a coward you know, Li.”

“No one said you were.”

“I’m just trying to move on. Move on from my stinking past, Brother.”

“2005.” Li continued, ignoring Wang’s desperate attempt to explain. “We met in Haerbin that year remember? Not much of a summer there for a birthday party but the damn vodka there was quite something.” He slammed the shot glass on the table.

“Twenty years, you track me down every time, no matter where I went.” Sniggered Wang with a bitterness in his voice, as he licked his lips.

“Friends are important Wang, and so are birthdays. Say, how often is it that you meet someone born on exactly the same day as you, Brother? We’re connected by fate.” Li said, tapping his nose cheekily. Wang let out a little sigh.

“2003. Tiento.”

“Don’t get started on that one, please.”

“What the hell were you doing there at the first place?”

“I went to apologise to Miss Ma’s family in person, and, of course…”

“Give them a handsome dosh so they’d not speak? Good one, CEO.”

“Could have spent the same amount on some proper safety latches and pressure gauges but Zhang told me they had just been replaced, but in actual fact he just pocketed the money himself. But to be honest she was just so clumsy.”

“After working for 60 hours a week in a factory line and seeing no more than an hour of day light a day, who wouldn’t be? And now she’s blind and her entire family’s stuck out there gleaning the rice paddy, they can’t even marry her out, and you’re still drinking here with me.”

“I told you I was sorry. Drop it will you? ”

Wang examined Li’s scathing face. Li’s self-righteousness irritated Wang, but he could never find words to prove him wrong.

Li sniggered, and reached for another glass. “2001. You know, my successors at Beida have completely no idea what happened that summer at that Square. Some journo from America showed a group of them a picture of the man in front of the tanks, none of them recognised the scene, and even said that it looked like a film set or a modern art installation or something. And all this happened right on the ground they stood on.”

“They’re kids, old as we were, how are they supposed to know? Or care, for that matter?”

“Ignorance is a bliss, Wang. Isn’t that what you say to yourself all the time? That’s why you’re out there in Ninghan running your boxed up sweatshop instead of climbing that lucrative ladder in the PLA?”

“PL fucking A indeed.” Wang spat. “That army ate me inside out I tell you. Now what? Downsized, modernised, revolutionised. They have the fattest, most brainwashed preppy boys in China, get paid a fortune and do nothing except parading around like Robocops, waiting for the day to take our motherland to global domination. Gave me not a cent when they booted me out, told me I was mentally unfit and lucky to not be put on court martial. You know, two of my friends in my regiment hung themselves because they couldn’t face going back to their families, that’s what I should have fucking done to save this miserable mess!” Wang almost roared, and knocked back another maotai, and Li followed quickly.

“No Brother, that would be stupid. Escapism is more cowardly than your ‘moving-on’ business. Besides, who would I drink with? And 2000… ha, good appetite we have tonight huh?” Li was growing more boisterous with the alcohol.

Wang refilled each of the shot glasses and called for more peanuts. The waiter yawned as he brought over the plate, impatiently returning to his late night television by the counter. The rain outside had finally stopped, and the other customers left as quickly as they finished their meal.

“Year of the Dragon, the beginning of our century.” Li quipped, sarcastically.

“I can’t believe you came and met me in Vietnam that year. I didn’t know you took overseas holidays,” said Wang, popping a peanut into his mouth.

“Neither did I. What a nice trip though. That melancholic erhu played by the old man on the corner of the street in Hanoi, that slow calm eerie sound amongst the screams of the fanatical motorcycle wheels, reminded me so much of my old Grandfather… He played a wonderful erhu... He cried himself to death after he found out what happened on the Square. You know, his father, as in, my Great-grandfather, was a fighter in the Boxer Uprising.”

“Yes you mentioned,” replied Wang, starring into the distance. “Beheaded by the Japanese in 1900. Almost the same spot us two met. It makes me sick just thinking about it.”

“He didn’t know there was an unborn baby in his wife’s belly.”

Caught in their own thoughts, they took another shot.

“You know what its like to never know your own father or mother?” said Li. “Its like not knowing where you come from - no one to explain to you why you have a round nose or double layered eye lids, why your name rhymes with the rain. No one to tell you who planted the big tall tree in the yard, why you are good at maths and not so good at science, why you prefer bok-choi over gai-lan. No pride about who you are, because you can’t see your past. To not know your past is to not know who you are. Like a leaf without a branch, a kite that broke its string.” Li said, as if reciting poetry. He looked right into Wang’s eyes, the pupils now wandering more and more as the maotai wore in, but he was determined to look straight back.

“You’re right. I need to be a better father to Ming. I’m hardly there.” Wang finally said, breaking the short silence. “I may as well have been beheaded to him. What are we up to?”

“1997.” Li replied.

“Xiaobi had a little girl that year, in Canada, yeah?”

“Wang, your memory is getting better as you get drunker, I am impressed.”

“You still see her?”

“When I can, yes. As friends, of course. Every August if I try.”

“She thinks that, you’re friends?”

“I know she does.”

“You’re a freak, Li. I can never imagine you as a romantic.”

“Part of her daughter’s name is actually mine, you know? Her husband has no idea. But he’s French, so as if he’d care.”

“She’s as much of a freak as you are.”

“Double Major in Film and Arabic, she’s quite something. It was 1989 after all.” Li grew very quiet, and Wang observed a little mist in Li’s dark sank in eyes.

They drank in silence until they reached 1994.

“The year you became father.” Li said.

“I was so lucky that it was a boy.”

“Would you have kept it if it was a girl?”

“I’m the only son, you know that.”

“So am I.” Li shot back. “But instead I chose eternal bachelorhood. It broke my parent’s heart, but what are they going to do? Besides, no more wasting time on those stupid games that women play. If there’s any women left in this country, that is!”

“What ever! its cos you’re butt-ugly Brother!” Wang added irreverently. At this, the men laughed hysterically together. The waiters observed their fits of laughter with some concern, but decided to leave them to it.

“1991!” Li took another shot. Wang paused at this. Looking deep into his shot glass, he felt his eyes finally welling up.

“The year you left the Army, Lao Wang.” Li said in a quiet voice. Wang finally took the shot, and fondled the glass in his hands, no longer smiling.

“Don’t be upset Brother, you’re not the only quitter. I would have gotten my Bachelor’s degree the same year too. But what would I have done with it? Write books that I couldn’t publish and swallow words I couldn’t say? Or follow every one else into a MacEmpire and watch my own soul rot trying to please every dog and his man in the bloody Party? Would have been a waste of time anyway. Damned first class education from Beida.” Li sighed and shook his head, taking one of Wang’s cigarettes and lighting it up.

Wang remembered getting off in an empty bus station in Jujiako, his home town, after he was finally dismissed by the army. He walked home in the dry dust along an empty street lined with old crumbling brick houses. His parents couldn’t bare the shame of their son coming home in disgrace, giving up a comfortably salaried future in the military. But really, they were glad to have him home. At least they knew he was alive, and an extra pair of hands at home, and they talked his uncle into offering him a management apprenticeship in his small garment business, which was just taking off. Not bad for a 22 year old, really. But he was more than 22. He saw more than he needed to and he couldn’t unload what he carried with him. It seemed like he no longer knew anyone at home. His friends all just seemed like such little kids to him, and his parents wanted to treat him like one too. Li caught him weeping on their birthday at the back of an old warehouse by the bank of the river. It was the first time he cried since he was a grown man. Not even in the army, where the physical pain of training and the hard abuse of the officers wore deep into his pride, not even after he washed the blood splatters off his face with a flannel at the dormitory that quiet morning after they took the human out of him, and no one in his regiment had said a single word to each other. Li knew him like no body else, his words reached him in the darkest places, and in the strangest way Wang was more and more glad to see him. Li and Wang sat together at the back of the warehouse watching sparrows flitter in the evening sun, against the green tips of the rice. Blades of the grass waved in the wind, like ripples in a storm. They skipped stones into the river, and drank gaoliang that year. Sweet, sweet gaoliang.

Li interrupted Wang’s thoughts with 1990.

“The first year we celebrated our shared birthday together. Baijiu was hard to come by on that anniversary day, but we got there. One shot each. You and I. One shot was good enough that day. Just one shot.” Li smiled, and Wang rolled back deep into his own memory.

All leave were cancelled that evening in the barracks, the Army being on full alert. It seemed like they were always on alert that year, and time after time they began to relax more and more on evenings like those, almost like in the story of The Boy that Cried Wolf. And so Wang and his mates sneaked in some baijiu for some late night birthday drinks, inside his boots. He was by himself in the dormitory trying to find a good place to hide it, when Li appeared out of no where, almost spooking him out. He asked to drink with Wang, explaining that it was his birthday too. Later on, Wang’s friends found him passed out on the floor late into the evening, but Li had already gone.

1989. They took the last filled glasses left on the table.

The day Wang turned 20 was an awful day. All week he’d been sitting at the back of the truck in the nauseating heat, rubbing his sub-machine gun, sweat and black oil running all over it, and inside the intricate crevasses of the sophisticated weapon. The crowd out in the Square had lost their optimistic party atmosphere of a few weeks ago, replaced by an anxious, tense, and slow grinding smell of fear. When things finally cracked late that evening he had no idea where he was firing or running to, his entire uniformed body was over taken by chaos and entropy. He was blinded by flashes of gun fire and leaned against a lamp post at the edge of the square to regain his posture. And there Li was. His white shirt and white banner around his head drenched in blood, dragging an incapacitated student from a collapsed tent. “Don’t die! Don’t die! I’m getting you out!” He hollered hysterically. He dragged his friend on his skinny shoulders and staggered towards the edge of the square, and when he saw Wang he was just as startled and frightened as he was. They both hesitated. Wang’s gun was slung behind him and he hadn’t had time to hold it up before Li did the most unthinkable thing. He let go of his friend and grabbed Wang’s shoulders and shook him. “Take us to the hospital, I beg you, I beg you! You are my Brother, like he is! Within four seas, all men are brothers! You hear me? Please Brother, please!” He screamed desperately, his face against Wang’s, tears, sweat, saliva, blood all running from his face. Wang tried to speak, but his tongue froze. Then Li let go of him. Wailing now, he went back to his friend. A moment later, Wang heard two shots, and Li slumped onto the concrete. A massive hole gaping at the back of his head, it broke the banner that was tied around it. Blood spilt out like a waterfall. A third bullet finished off his dying friend.

The entire bottle of maotai had gone, and Wang fell sleep on the table that was scattered with empty shot glasses and flakes of peanut shells. The waiter noticed an icy shudder of wind against his face that surged towards the door, and looked to the back of the shop, only to find Wang passed out. One waiter took Wang by the feet, and the other took him by the arms. They dragged the pot bellied drunken man to the foot path outside and settled him against the wall next to crates of empty beer bottles.

“He’s been drinking by himself and mumbling and yelling into thin air all evening. Gee - that maotai certainly did his head in.”

They returned to the television set that was playing a Sci-Fi movie.

“To not know your past is to not know who you are…” They heard Wang mumble in his troubled sleep. He was ignored.