Filed under: concerts, music | Tags: music, noise rock, parts and labor, prater, prenzlauer berg
for a medium-sized list of reasons, last night was a little bit like a concert in a dream. first a strange combination of circumstances led me to wait outside until an hour and a half after slated start time, something i often have unsettling nightmares about; being inexcusably late for something i’m excited about, something important, something unrepeatable. i made the most of it, though, waited outside, took my time, took stock of the scene, took in a beer or two, took notes, took pictures.
the show: Brooklyn’s Parts & Labor (u may listen to their new album, Receivers, if you wish) with LA-based duo Lucky Dragons (mp3s aplenty to be had at their webhome), at volksbühne im prater, kastanienallee 7-9. of the latter i experienced only what wafted out to me on my outdoor picnic table perch: an ambient tingle, a scintillating sonic glitter.
finally finally i was in, venue was epic and unremarkable both. it felt good inside, a soundwomb though cavernous. dreamlike, again.
something like church pews had been rowed up across the warehouse-like space, a few steps spanned the width of the room before the low stage. almost the entire audience (a small group, really) had clotted together right up against the band, listening with intent, curious respect standing on the stairs like kids eavesdropping on their parents.
we had just settled in when frontman dan friel said, this is going to be our last song. ! had not, needless to say, xpected them to finish this early. but all the more reason to really sponge it up. i walked all around the stage area, because i could, taking pictures.
the band seems to favor a contained intensity, both frantic and solemn. on this number, at least, they spent a lot of time on their knees, bent over dials near the ground in concentration or supplication, making new sounds.
parts &labor is bj warshaw (bass/voice), joe wong (drums), dan friel (keyboards/guitar/voice) &sarah lipstate (guitar/noise)
and their sound is new. they make a drummy, celebratory noise rock full of rushing and twangs and shouted vocals.
it filled me up with buzzing energy, wrapped me in a silky noise cocoon and made me think about the reasons i love music. it was a simultaneous feeling of frantic joy explosion and suspension in a soft reverent peace. like the rest of the audience my posture was sort of a back-leaning head tilt, like looking at a large painting, but almost without noticing it i started to jitter my feet. i felt held by pulsing warm soundjello. leaving was like climbing out of a hot tub into the cold. waking up.
and all i saw/heard was one song.
[[p&l has been around since 2002, they've made 5 albums and 2 EPs and this was the last stop on their tour, which started on may7 in london and incl stops mostly in germany and austria, also a festival in spain. they've toured with the likes of tv on the radio, deerhoof,&c.]]
Filed under: bar, club, getting dancey | Tags: CdV, drinks, partyy, poetry, pooristhenewrich, prater
Well so now we are in Berlin for good land of adventure home of the trashy chic sexy poor, purportedly at least. They (ehh, Newsweek) say, incidentally, it’s a luminous bastion of stoned optimism and impromptu dance parties in these times of economically induced global existential gloom because nobody here ever had money anyways and nobody cares.
And so the adventures have begun.
Last night was about my boots, really.
Red geometric marching machines. Cleveland thrift treasures.
It began on the U5, the motley girlcluster across from me obviously indicating them, chattering about them in Portuguese (?) I’m sure they said they were awesome and wouldn’t it be nice to have such a pair of lovelies?
Yes and then to Prater because we had some USA guests and Prater is where to take USA guests. I had never been, not being a beer lover obv but it was a nice night and so a nice place to be although a little chilly and honestly not much of a crowd. Perhaps more lively in the daytime hours?
After that the question was zu mir oder zu dir ODER zu that nameless websiteless BAR on Pappelallee (KdR, as it turns out) in what seems to have been a second floor storefront with the globular orange lights like a 1950s spaceship (ie Berlin). SO we said both and KdR was first because I had been wishing to go there ever since they went there in a stupid episode of Berlin Berlin and I remembered cigarette-burned benches and Slavic dooormen and the question how sweet jesus do you get IN answered: fire escape. E had been wanting to go there since last time when a crazy lady passed out on the bar. Yes and so we asked no questions when there was a 1euro cover, no questions when the crowd was sitting ominously spectatorially before the DJ and a projector (BEAMER ha) was turning the far wall into an advertisement for surfpoeten.de. Ahem. So I learn too late that this is a weekly Wednesday ritual, who knew. We sat through a poetry(?) reading–one man’s conversation with a goofball God about doing strange things to animals such as hedgehogs and frogs, God, he explained firstoff, not being able to attend that night but having given permission for the poet(?) to read in his place–before agreeing hey didn’t somebody say something about zu mir oder zu dir that was a good idea.
So off we went, the place full of Americans of course it being a soccer night meaning no European would leave their house to go anywhere not having a TV, the closest approximation of which at zu mir being a wall-sized projection of the view through a rotating kaleidoscope. And so we drank Aldi wine from IKEA glasses and participated obligingly in (retrospectively random) promotional games administered by strapping young representatives of Philip Morris, eg, without asking questions, the loot of which finally being free tickets to a party at CdV & Freischwimmer on June 5&6. hm
Some new South African and Russian friends, a gay techno dance mistake and falafel later my boots were echoing their way through the empty Alexanderplatz arcades looking for the night bus stop that never materialized, and finally having decided to get a cab I fumbled coins from my purse and dropped the change that should have been the tip but didn’t feel bad after the driver dropped me heartlessly a block from my WG at the beepy insistence of the kurzstreckometer. Thinking, well so he can just find it himself. Undressing at the birds’ first sleepy tweets, a clink on the hardwood; it had fallen out of my boot.
