There are a few candidates for this question, but one of my absolutely favorite records is Remain In Light by the Talking Heads. It is an album I didn’t understand when I listened to it for the first time in the beginning of the 80s. Back then, I was living in a rural small-town that …
Director: Ingmar Bergman Ingmar Bergman, born in 1918 and raised in the town of Uppsala in Sweden, was the son of a nurse and a strict Lutheran minister and chaplain. The brilliant director grew up in a highly religious universe, but later stated that his faith vanished at the age of eight. Bergman wrote in …
Sometimes you discover music that is a pure injection of electric energy into your day. Ghost Funk Orchestra’s Walk like a Motherfucker (2018) is exactly the kind of joyous, self-assured, even arrogant single that makes you want to strut your bad ass down the street. Don’t think of Travolta here- this is all Shaft. Roll …
There is a rule of thumb for music that I like: the simpler it is, the better I like it. John Lee Hooker is the measure of all things in this regard. I admire him for everything he has achieved within blues- a pioneer and visionary of the kind who is born maybe once every …
The whistling… this fucking whistling. Only a few seconds into the song, and you’re already in some twisted Land of Oz- finished, fucked up and destroyed. Throwback to my first introduction into torture: early 90s in gray Germany- the Berlin Wall has fallen and the Scorpions’ “Wind of Change” is all over the place, and …
Ruyter Sighs and Blaine Cartwright talk Nashville Pussy, the hilarious new audio book on “High As Hell”, gossip from their Grammy nomination parties, and how streaming services like Spotify destroy music. Also revealed: the ‘Dee Snider Rule’ + the Cartwright method on how to persuade a bomb lady like Ruyter to leave Canada and come …
Part album review, part hit-piece, and part shaman ritual. I beg your indulgence… [First the Shaman…] “Is everybody in? Is everybody in? Is everybody in? The ceremony is about to begin”. Brother and Sisters, gather around and hear the words. We gather today with purpose and truth, although it may pain some of you. It’s …
In 1967, I was still in school and played guitar in a band called Spirits of Sound in Düsseldorf. George Harrison, Jeff Beck, and Eric Clapton were my idols. Then Jimi Hendrix came- and everything changed. In March 1967, he and his band- with Mitch Mitchell on drums and Noel Redding on bass, performed for …
“It would be wrong to refuse to face the fact that everything is fundamentally sick and sad.” Thomas Bernhard, Gargoyles September 2020: Corona and the endless rule & policy insanities connected it are still going strong in Germany and many other countries across the globe. In what seems to be a sharp paradigm change towards …
I’ve always had an aversion to the musical category called ‘Fusion’, often referred to as Jazz Fusion or, even worse, Jazz/Rock Fusion. Those slick, smooth artists like Pat Metheny, Jean Luc-Ponty or… Allah help me, Jeff Beck. Maybe I should explain. Just the thought of that smooth, useless sound immediately transcends me back to my …
