onenil v1

We're A Garage Band

Good News. There were still people left in the room when we finished our gig. In fact, our rendition of U2's "One" surprisingly was one of the highlights of the party. Most surprisingly for me, since I'm usually not that big a fan of U2, to say the least. But it was the bride's wish and so we gladly added it to the playlist. Another favourite was "Nights In White Satin". Hey, it was a wedding, after all...
Oh, and the recording machine was broken, honest.

All Mod Cons

For the first time since roughly 15 years I did a band practice today (yesterday, actually, since it's now past 1am that I'm typing this).
Today there's gonna be another wedding, but this time one I'm actually looking forward to. Since it's one of my oldest and closest friends, I agreed to dust off the Jazz Bass for a spontaneous gig. So we used the Shamrock's pratice room for at least one go through the rather demanding playlist.
The room was boiling hot, the toilets sub standard, my fingers are bleeding, we were mostly out of tune... I didn't have so much fun since many moons. I just recommend everybody attending today to get drunk fast before we'll enter the stage.

Lif Up Yuh Leg An Trample

The junction between West Row and Southern Row.
Looks pretty boring, doesn't it? Well, in two weeks time there will be a massive road block. There will be absolute mayhem. There will be thousands and tens of thousands of people going stark raving bonkers. And all just because this man will enter the top of his Budweiser bus and do his magic. Go there!

Jazz Bass II

For Dave - the funkypancake bass man - here it is in its full glory.

Even More Shamrock

More Shamrock

Dørn Shamrock at the Zwischenfall in Bochum.
First time since the 80s that I entered this location. I am now completely deaf.

Jazz Bass

Click on image as usual results in biggerity (recommended).

iTunes Youth

Today the iTunes Music Store opened in Europe (France, UK and Germany for a start).
My first buy was rather spontaneous and happened to be "Sonic Nurse" by Sonic Youth. Needless to say that Vinyl ist still the real deal, though.

Honest Jons

Honest Jons, Ladbroke Grove. One of my all time favourites. We gave up a lot of food for funk back in the days to find that rare groove here.
Read on below for a selection of what entered my bag this time.

Konk - The Sound Of Konk (CD)
Everything that came out of New York during a period of the early 80s on certain labels was holy to us. Konk was a part of this. Good to see 11 tracks united on this excellent compilation from Soul Jazz Records.

Candi Staton (CD)
26 tracks on Honest Jons own label that are deep. Deeper than the classic uplifting "Young Hearts Run Free". Pure class although a bit tedious to sit through in one go. But some of them have an underlying groove that is just frightening.

Keith Hudson - Flesh Of My Skin Blood Of My Blood (CD)
"Flesh Of My Skin is the most hallowed of all those reggae albums which remain unavailable..." says the info text from the Berlin based Basic Replay label.
I got the first Basic Replay re-release of Keith Hudson back in February and was simply stunned. This one is equally weird and wonderful.
If you get the chance, give it a listen or three. So leftfield it does not hurt.

Dub Vendor

Ladbroke Grove. For some serious Bass.

Declan Patrick Aloysius McManus

Aka Elvis Costello. At the Ruhr Triennale, Jahrhunderthalle Bochum.

Rough Trade (Neals Yard)

Rough Trade (Talbot Road)

A true classic.

"Then they go to Rough Trade
To buy Siouxsie & the Banshees
They heard John Peel play it
Just the other night"

London Calling

I'm off to London to meet The Champions on Saturday.
Back next week with a bag full of pictures, records and a Championship shirt.
Cheers.

From The Attic

Today I climbed the attic and came across a ton of old concert tickets and flyers. What a flash of nostalgia. Man, I'm getting old. I might publish them in a gallery, hold your breath.

This one brought a tear to my eyes:

What a fantastic event this was and how we pilgrimed to Cologne on each occasion. I vividly remember its last night and how we danced away like there was no tomorrow. Or a better one. To the best music ever.

I'm planning to do a website about "The Soulful Shack" for quite some time now but didn't get very far. About time, I'd say.

Dørn Flyer

As promised in my first real post, here is the flyer from the Dørn Shamrock reunion/anniversary gig back in December last year.
As usual, click on the image to get a bigger version.

Now Playing - Jah Son Invasion

Wackie's Jah Son Invasion.

Hitsville

Hitsville Records in Duesseldorf

RockStore

RockStore in Essen-Steele. I passed it on the way to the Tigerbeat gig last Friday. Although I heard about it before I actually never visited it. And on Friday night it was closed, obviously.

More Tigerbeat

"If I lose my head and if I lose my mind, I wanna do it right"
All Tigerbeat pictures are now available at the onenil v1 gallery.

It's been a long time since I last been to a live gig. The main reasons for this are that a/ today's ticket prices are ridiculous to say the least and b/ you usually have to drive out to Cologne to see a good (new) band because venues actually booking relevant bands are very few around my neck of the woods nowadays.
So naturally I was delighted to learn that Hamburg's Tigerbeat were coming to the Grend in Essen-Steele, just an eight minutes ride on the train away. And for eight Euros. What a bargain.
And I was not to be disappointed. Tigerbeat really are a great band - although lacking a Bass player, something that usually goes horribly wrong, name just one other band without a bass player that does not suck - and the venue was nice enough. They played most of the songs from their new Album 13 Songs which I can not recommend highly enough.
And they are f*ckin' cool. Maybe a bit too cool for Essen-Steele. So the funniest - out of two - song introduction was when the singer talked about their current tour experiences "In Osnabrueck people where just standing there with their arms crossed, Cologne went ballistic, now let's see which side you are on, Essen". Needless to say what followed was more Osnabrueck than Cologne. Nevertheless, a great gig.
I was too knackered to stay and watch the second band of the evening, The Monochords. From what I read, they're also pretty decent. Go check them out.

Tigerbeat, Y'All

"How can you call that life, when it's just Doin' Time"
More about Tigerbeat, the gig and more pictures when I sobered up a bit.

Selekta

Selekta in Hamburg. Excellent shop. Read on below to see what I bought.

Keith Hudson - Playing It Cool (Vinyl Album)

Lee Perry & The Full Experience - Disco Devil (12" Vinyl)

Lloyd Bradley - Bass Culture (Book)

People's Sounds

Here's a picture of People's Sounds in All Saint's Road, London, which I took back in '99.

ELPI

Another local Record Store in Bochum. Sadly they dropped most of the Vinyl since long. Their plus is being a ticket shop for many venues so I bought tickets to see Tigerbeat on Friday, February 13 in Essen.

Now Playing - Various

Now Playing - Love Is Hell pts. 1&2

Thinner

Check out THINNER - NETLABEL FOR DUB-INSPIRED ELECTRONIC MUSIC and their Anniversary Compilation release. Free download.

Zurueck Zum Beton

No new pictures today. So here's one I took back in 2002 at the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf.

Last Chance

The next victim in my Record Store shoot spree. Again a quick attempt.
Last Chance in Dortmund. Around for even longer than Discover, it's still one of my favourites.
I hope to capture it a bit better for my upcoming Record Store Gallery.
Oh, and I bought nothing this time.

Discover

Record Store photography. What an excellent idea. That's what I'll do.
Starting off with my local favourite Discover Music here in Bochum. The shot is not as good as I wanted it to be but it had to be taken in a hurry.

Why in a hurry? Because you look like a total weirdo standing in the street and taking pictures of a record store. That's why.
That's also what the owner told me when I entered the shop after finishing my quick photo session. But hey! I'm a customer for longer than the current younger clientele have been able to walk upright. And I still buy Vinyl. That surely must give me the right to be a bit weird.
Anyway, I seriously plan to produce a photo gallery of record stores I have frequented over the quarter of a century I'm now buying music. Record Stores have to be documented as long as there are still some around.

And here is what I bought today:

Tigerbeat - 13 Songs (Vinyl Album)

Missy Elliot - This Is Not a Test (Vinyl Album)

Ryan Adams - Love Is Hell pts. 1&2 (10" Vinyl Album)

Charlotte

Not a picture taken by me. But it just had to go here.

Anger & Thirst

Okay, so what should be the topic of my first 'real' post? There's not really much going on today. I'm bored senseless at work. Well, I'm not, but I like to pretend I am.
Hence we step back in time to December 5 for the reunion gig of the famous 'Dørn Shamrock'. Read on below.
P.S. The picture was not taken with my new PowerShot A80 ;)

Dørn Shamrock at the 'Riff' in Bochum

15 years together as a band call for something special, that much is true.
So somebody produced a brilliant flyer postcard which soon enough found its way into my snail-mailbox. Ace! Definitely something to look forward to.
The guys booked the small Bar room at the Riff in our hometown which should suffice for the expected crowd and so it proved to be. Normally not my type of venue, the Riff Bar turned out to be pleasantly enough, not only for the fact that they were selling Fiege Pils.
Naturally, such an event produces a lot of "Wow, you're still alive?" type of encounters when people meet again after several years. So the time until the band started at 9 was spent talking to voices from the past and watching people. It was also spend buying an incredible bargained combination of the Shamrock's first and only album to date 'Assolti' (Vinyl, of course) in combination with the official reunion t-shirt. So now I own the album 4 times. Cool, eh?
Naturally, such an event also produces a lot of "Wow, haven't heard that tune for a long time" type of encounters. Among my definite favourites were the Shamrock's own 'Anger & Thirst' and 'The Specials' classic 'Doesn't Make It Alright'. The latter also turning into the final encore of the night on my request when the guys ran out of tunes.

A thoroughly enjoyable evening was rounded off by a delicious pizza around the corner with the Shamrock's guitar player and my old mate Thomas 'Atta' Matern.
Thanks guys, for dusting off the equipment. I sincerely hope your plans to produce a new album next year will be successful.

P.S. I will post the flyer, a picture gallery of the event and some mp3 files later, when I find the time.