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  • … hard to beat – Melbourne’s best: Civic!

    … hard to beat – Melbourne’s best: Civic!

    Me and some mates totally fell in love with Civic’s modern approach to Australian Punk Rock when they  played a show at Hamburg’s Hafenklang 4 years ago. Just missing the famous and sold out Get Lost Fest by a couple of days they had to face a well below capacity club upstairs, nevertheless delivered in full style and their energetic set made it to the top of many “show of the year” lists in 2019.

    With their 1st, brilliant album “Future Forecast” only being released after this tour they were not able to promote it due to the pandemic. So it took another 2 years and the release of their 2nd album “Taken By Force” to see them hit the road again and making their way to Europe in May 23. With no gig planned for Hamburg and the only German show in Berlin, I decided to grab the opportunity and travel to the UK to see their shows in Manchester and Leeds as well.

    The below is a summary of the tour report that I wrote for OX magazine (issued OX # 169 August/September 23). I try to keep it as brief as possible, hoping that the videos speak for themselves, still helping to convince the one or the other to go and see their guaranteed great show at the Hafenklang on Sunday 26th of November at 20:00, which is already selling very fast anyhow.

    21.05., Berlin, Cassiopeia:

    Spring time in Berlin, nice and sunny, my wife Natali and our friend Anja joined for this show. Probably 250 people attending, very respectable for a Sunday night. CIVIC kick off with “Born In The Heat”, the band and their charismatic singer Jim McCullough taking the stage by storm.

    Compared to their gig in 2019 as a five piece, including lead and rhythm guitar, it is now down to lead guitarist Lewis Hodgson only to create the wall of sound that is the driving force behind CIVIC’s sound, influenced by classic Australian bands such as Saints, Radio Birdman or Celibate Rifles.

    As “Born In The Heat” from their new (Rob Younger (Radio Birdman) produced) record “Taken By Force” tends to be one of the more melodic songs in CIVIC’s 14 song setlist here’s a good example of a song showing the much faster and louder side of CIVIC, “Selling. Sucking. Blackmail. Bribes” from their  Anti Fade/Total Punk “7” released in 2019.

    Sorry for the pretty blurred image that’s caused by the stage fog the Cassiopeia crew loves to use far too much, making it hard at times to see the band on stage. Quite annoying and completely unnecessary, especially if a band has a lot to offer on stage and can do without any special effects, just as CIVIC does. Apart from that nuisance Berlin’s treated with an encore tonight, unusual for a CIVIC show. 90 seconds of “Nuclear Son” from their 1st “New Vietnam” mini album, what a blast!

    25.05., Manchester, Castle Hotel:

    What I love about travelling to shows is discovering new places. The Castle Hotel in the city center of Manchester is an extremely cool pub estimated in 1776 (!) and CIVIC’s going to play in the backroom with a capacity of only 80 people. Needless to say that it’s sold out.

    Support for tonight is BRUISE CONTROL, and I really enjoy their wild garage punk set. Beast of a singer, and the band would be a great addition to Hamburg’s Get Lost Fest. As soon as CIVIC’s kicking off their set the crowd is going crazy. Setlist doesn’t change much, it’s the same mix of 50% songs from their earlier releases and 50% songs from their new album, i.e. the majority of “Taken By Force”.

    A fantastic album and instant classic, with songs switching between more melodic ones such as “End Of The Line” (dealing with Jim’s memories of his time spent in Germany as a youngster (Leipzig, Berlin)) or even radio compatible hits like “Blood Rushes” and fast new smash hits like “Fly Song” or “Time Girl”.  Here’s a nice rendition of the latter:

     Once again it proves: the smaller the place the better and more intense the crowd response and atmosphere. Here are 2 more of the great early songs, “New Vietnam”, the title track of CIVIC’s first “12”, and “Just A Fix” from their 1st proper LP “Future Forecast”:

    The other great thing about travelling is meeting people, and tonight I get to know Jim & Polly, a nice couple from Glasgow respectively Dublin. They’ve come to Manchester especially to see the CIVIC show and just like me, they plan to move on to Leeds tomorrow to see their next show at Hyde Park Book Club.

    I also get to talk to guitarist Lewis and hand him a copy of OX magazine #166, where CIVIC made it to #1 record of the edition with their new album “Taken By Force”. We also talk about Hamburg and the incident that inspired the song “Hollywood Nights In Hamburg”. It was Lewis who got attacked with pepper spray while standing in front of a pub in Hamburg’s red light district having his phone robbed. Asking if this is the reason CIVIC’s not playing Hamburg on this tour he ensured me that it’s not and he doesn’t have a problem visiting Hamburg again.

    26.05., Leeds, Hyde Park Book Club:

    As I hadn’t been to Leeds before I take a rather early train. Train ride from Manchester is only a little more than an hour. A surprisingly nice city, I really enjoy walking around, and as usual I also have to visit a record store. Noise Is For Heroes is a really great store, offering a very good collection of fair priced punk & hardcore records. If you’re into vinyl make sure you visit the store run by Chris from Geoffrey  Oi!Cott, extremely nice guy too, highly recommended!

    Noise Is For Heroes, Leeds ( (c) Frosch 2023)

    Hyde Park Book Club is situated in a rebuild,  old petrol station in a quiet, nice part of Leeds. Before the show I take the opportunity to talk to bassist Roland who’s sitting at an outside table. Soon after we are joined by singer Jim and drummer Eli.

    All around great guys, and they share quite a bit of information with me. Jim & Roland are driving trucks for the same company back in Melbourne if they’re not on tour. But as they really mean it as a band and want to make it big eventually they’re constantly touring:  Australia as soon as they’re back from Europe and the US in October.

    They’re also planning to return to Europe in November (includes Hamburg on November 26th) and probably even moving to Europe with the band as it’s much easier and cost saving to tour from here. I’m 100% sure that CIVIC will make a name for themselves as one of the best live bands around in no time if they’re playing Europe regularly.

    Jim also tells me that they have a number of songs written for a new album plus they’re going to release a compilation of their earlier material, the “12” and “7”’s (that’s out by now and should be sold at their shows, named just like that: “New Vietnam And Singles”)

    Civic (Hyde Park Book Club, Leeds, 26.05.2023 (c) Frosch 2023)

    Tonight’s show is going to be the best of the 3 shows, a good mix of people, young & old, going crazy. Especially the young ones can deal with Jim’s playful aggressiveness pretty well and pogo like there’s no tomorrow.

    Civic (Hyde Park Book Club, Leeds, 26.05.2023 (c) Frosch 2023)

    Jim surprises me by dedicating “Radiant Eye” to me, their “7” hit song and already one of my top 100 songs of all time. Good thing I shot a video and got this moment recorded for replay:

    A little further on into their 45 minute high speed set one of Lewis guitar strings breaks, right at the start of “Time Girl”. That doesn’t stop my favorite band of the 20’s to continue their set and tear the place down, just watch Jim tearing at the broken string while they finish the set with “Fly Song”, devastating…

    I have some more time before I need to shoot off to main central station to catch the last train back to Manchester, so Jim and Lewis join Polly, Jim and me outside of Hyde Park Book Club for some pints of beer. Meeting new friends and get to know the band you like so much personally, there’s nothing better to wish for and well worth the trip to the UK.

    PS: Jim gave me a CD copy of the “Taken By Force” album to pass on to a fellow Australian living in Hamburg. Mission accomplished just recently, also asking him to visit the show at the Hafenklang coming up soon… Let’s see if he can manage to come round, Dirk is going to reveal more details in his show review of the Hafenklang gig soon…

  • … show of the year material? No Problem for Home Front!

    … show of the year material? No Problem for Home Front!

    The mu-sick-al year 2023 somehow pushes the envelope (as the marketenders like to brag) and seems to culminate towards year end. Within those many shows to come was this one, mainly of utmost interest because it would expose a band with a selectively different sound to an often single minded audience.

    Advance tickets for the show went to so well (~150 sold ahead of the show) that the Hafenklang decided to move it downstairs, into the big room. At the end around 200 folks took the opportunity to see Home Front, door tickets on the rainy and cold Thursday turned out less than hoped for.

    Support was local Post Punk band Fun Total. A band i never picked up prior and by the looks on stage all members rather unfamiliar to me. And to be frank, i feared the worst. But once they started it sounded much more acceptable. Actually making sense, somewhat.

    Fun Total (Hafenklang, Hamburg, 09.11.2023 (c) gehkacken.de 2023)

    A rather bare bone sound with a hammering bass (and a cool Bass in Gold, that already won him the “Strings Of The Day” award), a guitar that flip/flops between distorted/not distorted and almost invisible (as in perfect fitting) drumming. On top a singer that talks in German rather than sings, much in Jens Rachut vein (and he may forgive me to get such a notion).

    Songs where more on the complex side and thus tended to be longer but taking all in they worked quite well. I guess i will check them out again, they soon have a record out and a release party in January 2024 at the Komet – if this is 100% up your ears then by all means join them.

    Else check them out for yerself:

    Quick changeover and on went Home Front – and kicked off like this:

    Despite the more melow and maybe even spherical music Graeme jumps around like he is fronting No Problem (and he even sported his standard Gorilla Angreb shirt). Which is a great sign, as it means he is 100% into it. During No Problems initial hey-days he gave a side comment in an interview:

    I think the only way you stay around is if you make natural changes, you don’t force anything. I’m not going to try and tell some kid what I think is cool. I hope he’s telling me. I hope he’s doing something that’s just going to blow my mind.

    And with Home Front he indeed does – he blows my mind! I believe the whole idea came around during Covid and then quickly was made real. The first 12″ EP in 2021 and now in 2023 followed by a near perfect album:

    That beauty is such a genius strike, such a great non-conformity step in a scene that is rather conform to the max. I did read striking reviews that set the scene very well:

    This time around they have manifested a collection of Post Punk anthems that act as a sonic looking-glass reflecting all of the textures of this genre. Case in point, not too many bands nowadays remember when Post Punk 12 inches were the go-to dance music for the 80s club kids in the UK. Straight up, their title track “Games of Power” shows us all that Dance Music comes in many forms, and that’s why this is one of my favorite songs of the year.
(CVLT Nation)

Home Front have managed to fix truth to the beautiful and borderline mythical thread-needle moment in which punk, new wave, pop, indie and rock and roll all descend upon a single source. We may have only dreamed that Tears for Fears might have been going to see GBH at the weekend or that Annie Lennox spent her evening sewing Crass patches to her Wrangler Blue Bell jacket, but Home Front have rang the dinner triangle for us all to feast.
(J. Falco)

    I got the record earlier the year and liked it but never managed to listen to it in entirety, only by pieces. Because there was something absent, but i could not pin-point exactly what. 

    Home Front (Hafenklang, Hamburg, 09.11.2023 (c) gehkacken.de 2023)

    During the show it made “click”: As a live band the whole delivery was much more lively, much more outgoing. So much more connecting to the listener. And that was not only through Graemes outgoing and active fronting, no – it was the rest of the band too.

    I was not the only one with that itch and the click, me mate Frosch had the same feeling:

    I have to confess that I’m a great fan of No Problem, Home Front singer Graeme MacKinnon’s hardcore punk band. They released 3 albums and several 7’s between 2010 and 2018 and I’ve seen them 4 times in Hamburg, including a legendary boat trip, where things got so wild and crazy that the captain threatened to stop the boat ride if things won’t calm down… 

Even though I wasn’t fully convinced of Home Front’s recorded output, I was really looking forward to their show at Hafenklang, expecting Graeme to put on an energetic stage act. 

And that’s just what he did, he really rocked the place along with his pretty young band mates. Home Front’s songs, sounding a little too sterile on record for my taste, really came to life when performed on stage and I would really look forward to a live record if they were going to release one. 

Watching a video of their Paris show a couple of days earlier you could see the whole crowd moving and stage diving, something that didn’t happen in Hamburg to Graeme’s regret, but then Paris might be the biggest Joy Division worshipping city in the world. 

Still one of the best shows in Hamburg this year, and asking Graeme No Problem is still going as a band, more great news on a memorable night!

    His account is spot on, that energy flow you can see here too:

    Whilst Graeme was roaming the front and using his vocal abilities across the full spectrum there was the stunning bass (#haveyoueverfalleninlovewiththebassplayer) on the right driving it forward, a pair straight out of Manchester mid-80’s (and fed on Factory Records records) on Guitar and Synth on the left plus a hammering drummer.

    And all the ingredients where almost perfectly mixed down by the Hafenklang sound man, it is not very often that all feels perfectly fitting together. The longer it went, the more people in the audience smiled. In the stereotypical cool and held back attitude of the North there was only little dancing, i bet you on their return and on a bigger stage with more space in front they will command a full dancing dance floor rather.

    Home Front (Hafenklang, Hamburg, 09.11.2023 (c) gehkacken.de 2023)

    They played for about 45 minutes and from where i sit they took the lot by storm. Every single person i spoke to after the show was full of appreciation, full of praise. And frank, i’d love to see them grow big, i’d love to see them being given the money to produce ever better quality output and take that on tour that gives them 500 a night rather than 200.

    Why?

    Because they come from the wide empty of the Canadian plains and their dance music fucking deserves it. And it is a much better time travel than the one that happened in parallel at the Knust, where 999 played (and lured some familiar faces that i would have expected over at the Hafenklang).

    As ever i scored vinyl when the band was able to persuade me live, not knowing how much they had on hand i simply grabbed all that was missing in my collection already prior to the show starting.

    When i put the beauties into my Nasser Hund tote bag Graeme noted the Chain Whip LP i had in there (for swapping against the new Clowns LP later in the night) and inquired extensively how the show went on Monday. Canadians, always looking out for friends from home.

    Get your own copies from Sounds Of Subterrania, the trusted La Vida Es Un Mus dealer in Hamburg!

    I took a couple of drinks with me mates, had some fun chats with the bass player about her beautiful equipment bag made from red leather (a bowling ball bag as i now learned, it got her the “Best Gear of the Night” award single-handedly) and then it was time for uphill & home – happy as a fuck.

    It wasn’t straight to bed though, a moment of holding back and memorizing names was due at the stumbling blocks in my street. Julius & Betty Levy lived here and where deported in 1941, to be murdered in Riga later. Gertrud Hirsch was deported 1942 and murdered at Theresienstadt 1943.

    no forgiveness, no forgetting! It startet 09.11.1938 and it won’t happen again in my street!

    And whilst i had that little itch already after the show it now comes back even stronger: The Home Front set indeed currently is in the Top 5 for 2023 and thus Show Of The Year Material. Not only for me, i hear!

    PS: And the wide plains of Alberta? Shall be kept rats free!

  • Bücher, schnell gelesen: 1.666

    Bücher, schnell gelesen: 1.666

    Robert Reuland – Brooklyn Supreme (Polar Verlag, 2023)

    Gelesen: 20.10. – 08.11.2023 (netto 487 Seiten).

    Aus dem Amerikanischen von Andrea Stumpf.

    Ein ziemlicher Brocken und für mich nicht wirklich flüssig zu lesen, obwohl es eigentlich ein spannendes Buch ist. Mit einer ganz neuen Perspektive.

    Robert Reuland ist Jurist. Er hat in der Wirtschaft gearbeitet bevor er zur Bezirksstaatsanwaltschaft Brooklyn gewechselt ist. Nach 5 Jahren dort ließ er sich als Anwalt in NYC nieder und verteidigt Personen, die aufgrund von polizeilichem und staatsanwaltschaftlichem Fehlverhalten zu Unrecht verurteilt wurden.

    Sein Blick auf die Polizei, die Staatsanwaltschaft und die Richter ist also geprägt. Und offensichtlich hat eine ganz persönliche Konsequenz gezogen: Vertrauen muss wieder hergestellt werden. Denn ohne Vertrauen in Polizei und Justiz geht das Gemeinwesen den Bach runter.

    Reuland zeichnet mit vielen Details ein Panorama das offensichtlich von seiner Arbeit als Staatsanwalt und Strafverteidiger geprägt ist. Und dieses Panorama trieft vor Zynismus: „Wahrheit spielt im Brooklyn Supreme Court keine Rolle, nicht am Ende. Das Einzige, was zählt, ist die Lüge, mit der sie dich erwischen.“ Und um diese Lüge zu bekommen wird manipuliert. Und zwar alle gegen alle.

    Im Buch geht es um Will Way, einen Gewerkschaftsvertreter der lokalen Polizeigewerkschaft mit dem launigen Namen Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association. Er soll einer noch sehr frischen Polizistin beistehen, die einen farbigen Jugendlichen erschossen hat (nachdem dieser ein Geschäft überfallen hat). Sie war vorher Marine (also bei den Streitkräften). Der Junge war bewaffnet, zumindest wurde eine Waffe bei ihm gefunden.

    Schnell wird klar das da was nicht stimmt, ihr Partner war nicht bei ihr und das mit der Waffe …. mmmhhh, stimmt wohl auch nicht. In der Öffentlichkeit gibt es einen Riesenaufschrei, die Politik mischt sich ein und Will ist jetzt noch mehr angestachelt die Polizistin in diesem Wahnsinn von “Keine Gewalt gegen Schwarze – Weg mit der Polizei” zu beschützen.

    Reuland greift immer wieder zu kleinen Kniffen in dem er Sachen verschweigt und dann später in der Handlung klarstellt. Den Alltagsrassismus des Lesers erwischt er früh: Nach den ersten Demos und Protesten wg. “Gewalt gegen Schwarze” erfahren wir beiläufig das die Polizistin farbig ist. Eine Schwarze. Niemand hat danach gefragt.

    Will Way erkennt schnell das alle, die mit dem Fall zu tun haben, entweder versuchen ihre eigene Suppe zu kochen oder aber einen Schuldigen zu finden. Und er erkennt auch, das er als nächster hingehängt wird.

    Und das wird er auch, für seine Haltung fährt er ein:

    ( (c) Polar Verlag 2023)

    Hammer. Nix für hard-boild Krimi Fans aber für alle die nochmal kräftig über ein durch- und durch kaputtes Rechtssystem abkotzen wollen.

    Soundtrack dazu: Jon Cougar Concentration Camp – Georgina, was sonst?