Yearly Archives: "2015"

I’m a few thousand meters above the ground right now. I’m really hungover and longing for my own bed. I hate the people on this plane with me right now. I hate that I’ll be facing the cold Berlin night in about an hour. But what I hate most is that my apartment will be cold and dark when I will finally get there. I left the fridge pretty much empty and turned the heating down to a minimum when I left it a few days ago. You don’t wantRead More

Hype bands are always quite a difficult thing to deal with. I mean, what do you make of a band that just formed and instantly gets voted as the band of the week, by one of the biggest German daily newspapers? When a band is selling out venues without even having released a full album (or an EP). Kytes from Munich are the band in question in this case and On the Run is the name of their debut EP. The first time I took notice of the band, IRead More

I guess it is hard to write about music and bands when you have a really close connection to them, but then again, music is always subjective and very personal. So fuck it, right? Back in 2007 I moved to Liverpool to study. I spent three years there at John Moores University (rather a poli than a cunt, they say). And throughout those years, there were two bands that I closely connect to this time. One were the Wombats, local heroes who were just blowing up during my time there.Read More

Two years ago I stumbled across a bandcamp link that took me to the debut EP by Sleep Kit. I had never heard the name, I’d never heard a song. Sometimes you remember every detail when you hear a song for the first time. The exact date, where you were, who were with. Sometimes it’s not the first time that sticks, it’s that one special moment. And sometimes, it’s not even a singular moment but the sheer addition of moments a particular song or album was with you. If I’mRead More

Best Albums Of 2015 There you have it. I’m making an end of the year list before it is cool. In alphabetical order. Wow. Great stuff. Let’s call it a year! Built To Spill – Untethered Moon 21 years after „There’s Nothing Wrong With Love“ – the album that first had me falling in love with Built To Spill – Doug Martsch still doesn’t know how to do anything wrong. Let me put it like this: There must be something wrong  with you if you don’t love it. Coaster – SlowRead More

Where the fuck is Gütersloh? And what the fuck is German punk? And why are there people in Germany who are angry? Aren’t Germans supposed to be the happiest people on the planet? Economically safe, politically more than stable (thanks Angela), spearheading Europe and so on and so forth. Well thankfully punk never gave a flying fuck about safety and satisfaction. It’s times like these when someone has to point out what’s going bloody wrong. And there is a lot of it, if you listen to how pissed off FreiburgRead More

In 1999 there was a silent outcry from alternative rock music fans when due to consolidations within Warner Brothers Records (and the rest of the major labels) a lot of bands that had been signed in a post-Nirvana alterna-gold rush got dropped from Elektra. „Fuck you Elektra“ was a phrase that could often be read. Looking back on what followed I would like to turn this around and thank Elektra very much. Not only did signing these bands away from indies in the first place give them recording opportunities theyRead More

Having friends around you is a great thing. There’s no one better to share joy, anger, happiness, sadness or any other feeling with than with people who like you, who you can talk to, complain about things or gossip with. Music and sports are great topics, ex lovers or future ones are great too, but sometimes it can just be a person in an awful colored jacket or with an awful hairstyle. Your friends will be there with you. The problem with friends is that sometimes they live too far awayRead More

by Matthias Saying goodbye to one of your favourite bands at some strange festival sponsored by a telecommunications company and where they played as a support act (!) for Good Charlotte (!!) just didn’t feel right. But it happened in the summer of 2007. And then there was darkness. …until late 2010. Self-ironic as they are, boysetsfire returned to another telecommunications festival thingy and shortly afterwards announced to be back as a band full-time. And, as they say, the rest is history: a new (pretty great) album („While a NationRead More

How the music industry needs to learn from their youngest audience.  First of all, I’m not really old yet. But in terms of rock and pop music hall of fame, I’ve reached the pinnacle. The year I should say farewell via overdose (which I can’t do because I don’t do drugs), gun to your head (quite difficult this one as well, as German laws on guns are very strict) or alcohol (ok, I do drink, but I never take any medication with it). I don’t see it happening, whichRead More