Every Thursday live at Rote Sonne
My evening at the Import Export has been booked for months now. Finally seeing Le Millipede live, and then being over-enthusiast about the 1115 add-on to the show, and then getting to know a little about Jam Money from hearing it at Favorit Bar and instantly digging it… Last night’s line-up was perfect on paper, but it was completely surreal live.
I’ll have to start this post about the Friday LeRoy instore gig at the Praxis with some words of love to this tiny, fantastic record store that I’m working in. Five days a week for a month now, I spent my afternoon (and some very neat evenings) in Schamoni’s record store, putting some quality records on and talking with people about the fantastic sounds produced by the Munich Underground Scene. In the last weeks, the Praxis was a place where beauty happened.
Is SMS (Schamoni Musik Service) fluid or solid? Is SMS’ core stable or is it an evolving entity? Was SMS a fixed point in time (oooh and a pretty cool, historical one that was) or is there more to expect?
So questions I had this summer after the 7 hours of magic have been answered! On Monday, at Favorit Bar, a small but very attentive audience was treated with a new SMS set, this time with Schamoni Misters BELP, Mycrotom and Punkratz Wandler.
From Thursday to Sunday night, only one enormous day happened. No time to write, no time to rest. Each musical moment, each discussion, each surprise encounter leading to even more fondness… It’s Tuesday evening, right now, and I am still recovering from this hangover of love.
Ok let’s spread some love like Nutella on a hot, buttery croissant. Let’s spread some love for some younger bands, because we all know that my usual network is more in the established underground and that I have found a niche in which I feel very, very comfortable.
Cord Club. A bouncer at the entrance. A crowd of twenty-somethings, cute girls dancing on the front row. BR cameras everywhere. Led lights, pop culture paintings on the walls, we are so far away from my usual venues. The Cassettes, The Escalateurs, Dezolat. Three bands who put fire to their audience tonight.
Sunday, waking up exhausted from a week of shows and closing bars too often and so many interesting encounters. Catching the 12h40 train to Augsburg in extremis. Being welcomed at a friend’s table for a late lunch, tea and cake. A walk outside, taking in this city, its sights and its smells. Watching the Christmas lights replace the sunlight. Taking the time to take pictures for loved ones.
There is no possible introduction to a Munich Night where you get to see Das Weiße Pferd and Majmoon live and then go close the Unter Deck under DJ Marcelle’s skilled touch. Everything is perfect about a night like this, it all flows so well (because yeah choosing to skip PULS festival, even if it hurts, was the most reasonable decision ever). You then go home at 4AM and cannot sleep for an eternity, because you’ve seen and heard too much but that’s okay, it’s just the time needed to come back to Earth.
I feel like I need to make a little point. Every Munich Night post is something important to me. Every night that I go out and go see a show, or two, and DJ sets and all that jazz, I make a choice amongst all the events happening that night, and decide to take the time to write about it. Because each Munich Night post is a reminder to myself of the emotions felt that night, the important new discoveries or the feelings of finally seeing a band live. So here we go, again. From Kullukcu Galerie to the Milla Club on a cold Friday night, a looped rhythm gets built on.
‘The next big thing’, ‘My favourite Munich band’, ‘One of the greatest bands here’… These are only a few of the things that have been said to me about Friends of Gas. Apart from a few videos with decent views, a few words written on them in German, there is not much out there online *yet* when you google the band. What they do have, though, is a loyal initial fan base, an album worth of hit songs and all the right qualities a band need to make it out there.
The night of the First Snow and the Dancing Ban. No car exempt of fingerprints as classical Saturday antics lived on, intoxicated pedestrians grabbing the wet snow between their fingers as if to feel if it is real. Smiley faces drawn on windshields, crude words written on car hoods. People wandering aimlessly at 2:30 in the morning, looking for a place for a last drink and warmth away from the humid chill of the night.
The dance lived strong in the Registratur UG, before the ban operated.