Cheers to Flyswatter
Spring is finally back. We had a very long and very, very cold winter here in Germany and now everyone is totally happy that it’s getting warmer every day. The beginning of this year was packed with good shows and interesting events such as Flyswatter, Zeke, Million Dollar Marxists, The Art of Modern Rock and The Lawrence Arms. So have fun reading!
Jägermeister Rockliga: Flyswatter vs. 4Lyn, Formicula 39, Munich GER
 |
 |
 |
 |
It’s a shame! I am friends with the Flyswatter guys for many, many years and I have never mentioned them in an update before. Flyswatter is probably the best band in town. They are my homies so to say. They also participate in the so-called Jägermeister Rockliga. Which means various bands join something similar to a football league. Every band represents its hometown , so Flyswatter represent Munich in this case, and they play against all the other bands, which again represent their hometowns. There are home matches and out of town matches. The bands can score goals in the categories best outfit, best show, most applaus and so on. Flywatter won all the matches so far and 4Lyn from Hamburg did as well. So it was a match between the two most successful bands inside the Rockliga. The winner would get 15.000 so both bands tried to show their best.
Flyswatter were on stage first. A lot of fans from Munich were in the audience who wanted their homies to win. The atmosphere was pretty heated up and everyone was having a great time. The fans made a lot of noise so we would score high this time.
Next up were 4Lyn. They are sort of a new metal band which isn’t really my taste in music. They are also pretty popular here in Germany and their fans were mainly 15 year old girls. Unfortunately most of them have probably never been to a punk show before in their lives as they were protesting after the show that they got kicked and pushed and stuff. They said the Flyswatter fans had been unfair and rude. Well, girls, it’s a PUNK show. You know, pogo dancing and stuff. If you don‘t want to be right inside of a mosh pit, you shouldn’t go right in front of the stage… ok, well, whatever. The singer of 4Lyn also put on a uhmm.. kind of.. a different show. He picked one of the girls in the first row and took her on stage. Then he danced and sang around her and in the end he poured a bottle of apple juice over her body. I’m sorry, but I was laughing the whole time. It’s not that I think it’s a bad idea. But it’s not what I had expected to happen at a punk show… reminded me too much on the Chippendales or something. Hehe.
Anyway, Flyswatter won in the end! Yeah! I screamed my lungs out for them and after that we partied until 4 am with free Jaeger! Congrats Flo, Gudz, Lirkos, Kryshi and Phillip!
ZEKE and Million Dollar Marxists, Orangehouse, Munich GER
Oh yeah! ZEKE!! One of the best rock bands in the world. They have a new guitar player and sound even more powerful now. It was one of the best Zeke shows I have seen so far. Probably because I was all sober and the audience was kicking ass. Zeke also must have felt really comfortable on stage as they played 3 encores. They played like every Zeke song there is and even some cover songs from Lynyrd Skynyrd and stuff. It was such a great show!
The opening act was the Million Dollar Marxists from Ottawa, CAN. Another absolutely great band on Gearhead records. Have I mentioned before that I just love Gearhead?! Ok, I think this was more or less a rhethoric question… Their singer, Luke, got totally wild on stage. Screaming, dancing, dangling from the ceiling, jumping from the boxes and yelling at the crowd. In many ways this reminded me on a New Bomb Turks show. Musically and artistically. After the show I sat down with Luke for an interview. So here it is:
Interview w/ Luke of Million Dollar Marxists
Hello, can you introduce yourself a little bit?
Yes, my name is Luke and I sing and dance in a band called Million Dollar Marxists. We come from Ottawa, Canada, North America, Planet Earth.
OK, what are your musical influences?
That’s actually a really hard question. Because I think it’s kinda all over the place. I think our biggest influences are New Bomb Turks, Rocket From The Crypt, Stooges, Dead Boys, but there are lots of other ones.
Is Gearhead the ultimate record label for you to sign with?
Yeah, oh yeah, totally. There could not have been a better record label for us. In North America Gearhead is like THE rock’n’roll record label. And we are a rock’n’roll band so who else could we do a record with?!
How’s touring with Zeke?
For us it’s great. Because in Europe no one has heard of us but everybody knows Zeke.
You have a great presence on stage and you do a great show and all. Do you always get that crazy on stage?
I can’t say if it’s always one kind of craze because I’m not seeing it. We try to go as crazy as we can. I try to go as crazy as I possibly can. Because I like playing music and I like dancing and jumping around. I like being an idiot.
Why do you call yourselves Million Dollar Marxists?
Million Dollar Marxists is a play on the idea of Marxism because only rich people can really be Marxists. Because it’s an idea. It’s a philosophy. In practice it doesn’t really, it’s not practical. Everybody has to be equal. Nobody rises to the top. In socialism everybody is the same. But at the same time nobody is the same. To ignore the individual is impossible. Just look at animals. Even they are not equal. I do believe in a certain level of equality so everybody can be happy to a certain level. Where we’re from in Ottawa, Canada there are no repercussions. You can be whatever you want. You can be a socialist, you can be a conservative, you can be a democrat in Canada and no one’s going to say anything. You can call yourself that but that doesn’t mean that you be (sic!) that. There are no repercussions. In North America it’s just not good to say you’re a communist. In Cuba you can’t call yourself a capitalist. You’ll go to jail if you do that. In Germany you can’t certainly say you’re a nazi because you’ll get fucked up. But in Canada you can call yourself whatever you want. It has more to do with the fact that there are a lot of people in Canada that call themselves socialists or communists but in reality these people are just rich and they don’t really care about the rest of the world. They don’t care about the common man or whatever. If you are rich and you live in a rich country you can be or call yourself whatever you want.
So would you call yourselves a political band?
Uhm… no. Not exactly. Politics are an interest of the band most of us are fairly aware of what’s going on in the world but it’s not a driving force for the band. For the most part the band and the band name has more to do with irony and hypocrisy. I personally believe that you can’t just be one or the other. There’s no such thing as good or evil, right or wrong, capitalism or communism. You will always be somewhere in the middle. You just can’t be something because you’re a human being. I don’t know if that’s exactly the answer to the question you asked?
No, but it’s interesting. What are you’re plans for the near future?
I don’t know. We have lots of touring to do and stuff like that.
Ok, thank you for your time!
Millencolin, The Lawrence Arms, Street Dogs, Tonhalle, Munich GER
And another great show! The Lawrence Arms are one of my favourite bands and I was happy to see them again. They put on a great show and played all my favourite songs like Porno and Snuff films plus some new songs from the Rock Against Bush sampler and so on. The audience really liked them, too and I was screaming with the other kids in the first row. Hehe.
Next up were the headliner Millencolin from Sweden. This band has been around for quite a while. They were one of the first so-called skate-punk bands. I used to listen to their songs like Mister Clean or Bullion when I was 15 years old. This is ten years ago. Damn it, I’m getting really old. So I wasn’t really excited to see them again but it had an nostalgic touch to it. But apparently the band had evolved a lot. They played a lot of really nice rock’n’roll type songs like Man Or Mouse and I found myself having fun at the show. But the strange thing was that the audience was very young. I wonder why?! They also played some old songs and everyone was singing along and I was thinking like, these kids were like 14, where have you been in ’95?? Listening to Millencolin in elementary school?? Anyway, everyone was having fun and I had a great time!
Thanks a lot to Frieder, the Lawrence Arms tourmanager and Wiebke of FatWreck Europe for making this possible!
Before the show I sat down with Brendan, Chris and Neil for an interview:
Interview w/ The Lawrence Arms
So, hello again! We haven’t seen each other for about a year now. How have you been?
Brendan: It’s been good. We did a little bit of touring and took a little bit of time off. We went on a trip to Australia but besides that we are just getting back into doing this again.
How’s touring with Millencolin?
B.: It’s awesome! It’s going great. Lots of kids. And Millencolin are super nice guys.
Chris.: It’s going really good. I mean, we played a show last night in front of 4.000 kids, which is probably the biggest show we ever played.
Your new record is called ‘Cocktails and Dreams’. Can you tell me a little bit about it?
B.: It’s actually a b-sides compilation. It’s got one new song on it and we re-recorded two old songs. It’s coming out on Asian Man and not on FatWreck Chords.
Why is it called ‘Cocktails and Dreams’?
B.: There is a few reasons why it is called ‘Cocktails and Dreams’. The big one being that’s this bar we were getting drunk at in Australia. But it’s also the name of Tom Cruise’s dream bar in that movie called ‘Cocktail’. We’re huge Tom Cruise fans. And it’s the fuel. That’s why are out here and playing shows. It’s all for the cocktails and dreams. It’s coming out June 21st in the States.
I know that you contributed a song to the ‘Rock against Bush’ compilation. Now that Bush got reelected are there any ambitions in doing something like this again?
B.: Of course, you have to stay active somehow but now it’s kind of a fucking drag. Especially over here. It’s really embarrassing.
C.: As important as it is talking out against him, you know, it’s like a big hangover from the election. It’s really depressing to imagine that he is charge of our country for the next four years again.
B.: It sucks!
Do you think he won legally this time?
C.: I think he won this time. He didn’t win the election before. But I think this time he convinced the people, you know. I would not say that he won the election in 2000.
B.: Either way, we’re fucked.
What’s your motivation to write songs at the moment? What do you generally write about?
B.: Hmm.. how can I put this… here, people are saying things like back in the day the punk scene was great. And I have been writing a lot of songs that go like, you know, old man, fuck you. It was not better back then. It’s just fine now.
What’s your driving force as an artist?
B.: We’re doing it all for the cocktails and dreams, really. The reason actually why I thought that progressive rock music was something that I wanted to do was general frustration. That’s the emotion that drives pretty much all the songs I write. Frustration with myself, with this country, with other people, I don’t know. All that kind of stuff.
What are your plans for the future?
Neil: We are all going to go back home. Then we’ll do a US tour. Kind of as a support for the b-sides record. Then we need to work on the new record.
C.: Then we’ll stay home for a while and when the thing comes out we gotta go on tour again. That’s the general scheme. But I’m sure some other things will happen besides that.
The Art Of Modern Rock, Vernissage, Zwirnkammerkollektiv, Munich, GER
Now THAT was a cool vernissage! It took place in a really nice house and the had screenprint posters of all the great rock’n’roll artists there like Firehouse, Derek Hess, Jay Ryan and Lindsay Kuhn. All the artists were there, too and you could talk to them and get some tips, that’s what I did. The posters which I liked best were designed by a girl called Tara McPherson. She has such a great style! I wish she would design one of our CG skateboards. Hehe. Unfortunately she wasn’t around I would have really liked talking to her. Besides the exhibition there has been a big BBQ and a nice Tiki Bar outside plus live country music. It was really great night out and the beer was only 1.60 hehehe.
That was it for my spring update! Yesterday I interviewed Agent M of Tsunami Bomb so you can already look forward to my next update. Hope you are all having a good time, take care everyone!
GreeZ
Sabine
Leave a Reply