Kurz nachdem dieses Buch erschien enthüllte James Ellroy das er seine früheren Pläne, ein zweites “L.A. Quartett“ zu schreiben, aufgegeben hatte und es stattdessen umdrehen würde zu einem Quintett, wobei „Die Bezauberer“ damit das dritte von fünf Büchern der Reihe wäre.
Inhaltlich kommt es quasi gleich nach Allgemeine Panik (2022), wieder ist Fred Otash der Kern der Geschichte.
Wir sind in den 1960ern angekommen und im August 1962 ist Freddy gerade damit beschäftigt einen Verdächtigen einer Entführung zu killen – als der Eheman von Patricia Kennedy sich bei ihm meldet: Marilyn Monroe ist tot.
Genau die Marilyn Monroe, die Freddy im Auftrag von Jimmy Hoffa (Mafia), Chief Bill Parker (LAPD) und Bobby Kennedy (United States Attorney General und Head des United States Department Of Justice) abgehört hatte. Und über die er Dreck rausfinden sollten – aus ganz verschiedenen Gründen.
Und damit sind wir beim typischen Ellroy Setting: Reale Welt (Hollywood & seine Stars sowie seine dunklen Seiten) vermischt mit Fiktion und einer Story, laut Ellroy, für “Peepers, Prowlers, Pederasts, Panty-Sniffers, Punks and Pimps“.
Im Gegensatz zu Allgemeine Panik ist das Name-Dropping hier aber nicht so nervig, sondern fügt sich gut in die Story ein (wenn sich der Leser auch die Zeit nimmt alle Namen mal bei Wikipedia abzuchecken – denn alles hat hier das richtige Körnchen Wahrheit).
Und die Story bringt Ellroy auf seine so typische Art voran: Keine Aufwendige Szenerie, Charaktere die einen ehr verwirren (weil sie so Komplex sind) und wenige Kommas. Kurze Sätze, die zustechen wie ein Messer. Das ganze in einem hektischen Rhythmus. Ordentlich Tempo.
Am Ende gibt es jede Menge Überraschungen über Hollywood, Monroe und die Kennedys und nichts neues über das korruptes, brutale und eigennützige LAPD.
Und Fred Otash, den gab es wirklich. Und er hat es bis 1992 geschafft!
Besser als das letzte Buch, aber irgendwie weiterhin nichts Neues. Wer aber alles andere von Ellroy gelesen hat, der nimmt das zurecht mit.
It had been a shitty last week (being off with a severe cold, luckily not Covid) and it had been an even more shitty start of the week with two loved ones being admitted to hospital. In order to get my mind focused elsewhere i decided for a full-on blast by Hellshock, despite their sound not being a 100% up my mu-sick-al alley.
Support was to be A.F.K. but they had too pull out due to an even more tragic event, Atom Atom jumped in to provide support. I was somewhat happy, as ever since i saw them supporting Nightfeeder in June i took a liking in them.
Atom Atom (Hafenklang, Hamburg, 15.10.2024 (c) gehkacken.de 2024)
They kicked off to about 60odd folks upstairs at the Hafenklang and initially it sounded … shite. Bass too loud, Guitar too silent, vocals somewhat working … it took a while until both the band and the sound guy had a better sound worked out.
But from there they took it exactly into the territory that made me dig them: Speed, umpf and some neat variations away from hammering H/C and/or D-Beat. And their biggest assets remains to be the vocals: Growls from the Guitar, anything from Screams to Opera from the Bass. Cool, ctd.
Atom Atom (Hafenklang, Hamburg, 15.10.2024 (c) gehkacken.de 2024)
By all means, check them out yourself – they are definitely worth it. On record they sound like this:
Go, see them live and buy one of these beauties!
Next Hellshock and something completely different. Hailing from Portland (OR) in the US of A aka Stumptown they have been around a while, i guess 25 odd years or so.
And what do the experts say (as i never saw them nor heard them prior)?
But what made Hellshock special then? Not unlike Atrocious Madness, Hellshock took the sense of Japanese intertextuality and applied it to vintage late 80's crust while keeping that PDX punk sound.
What did i get in real?
A 5 piece, Drums/Bass centered and setting the pace, twin guitar and a singer that only ever sings with one fist in the air. To my single-minded mu-sick-al mind it sounded like mid tempo crust–doom–metal most of the time, though there where songs where they flirted with guitar overcasts (great!) and speed (nice!).
Their main asset to me was exactly in the middle, the Drummer and the Bass expertly kept it together and defined direction and pace, the Bass even throwing in a few chorus lines and – even better – some great Bass lines up and down the neck.
Most of the audience liked it, had their fist in the air and hammered down on the sound. I have to admit that they won’t convince me down their path but what they do they do very good.
And it gave my stomach the right push to overcome sorrow.
If you are into this niche, then by all means check them out:
Nice little show, perfect surrounding but all of it under the continued overshadow of the nightmare i would call “Blackmail on the Hafenklang”.
It is frustrating to see and hear people i trust, when it come to mu-sick-al choices and in running shows, spending their time on … accusations. On blackmail. On … being asked to take side in a fucking monstrosity.
Late pullouts due to … the damn internet spinning a high speed, because someone believes he/she needs to support a cause. At all cost.
At the cost of others, sure thing.
That frustration somewhat eats away parts of a good show. Damn.
Here is what the Hafenklang has to say on the matter:
Hafenklang’s comments on concert cancellations, boycotts and red lines
Our stage has been used by so many artists who condemn totalitarian regimes, nationalism and fascism, and we want it to stay that way! Because all the people who work in this club stand firmly behind these ideas. We condemn war and the militarisation of society and call for a ceasefire and an end to the senseless killing of civilians.
We stand in solidarity with the civilian population in Gaza and Lebanon. We also strongly criticise the right-wing government and Israeli settlement policy, naming human rights violations and war crimes committed in violation of international law, while at the same time not questioning the right of the state of Israel to exist! Emancipatory politics means to us that we have to practice what we preach and therefore, of course, we allow different opinions and endure things.
„IF YOU ARE NOT WITH US, YOU ARE AGAINST US…“
HOWEVER, WE SEE THIS AS ANTI-DEMOCRATIC ATTITUDE!
Until a few weeks ago, we would not have thought it possible that we would have to publicly respond to such accusations. After all, we have just received appreciation, respect and recognition for decades of independent cultural work in the form of over 200,000 euros from 3,500 donors in just a few days.
Instead of dealing with the sensible use of the money, we are currently spending immeasurable energy and measurable time dealing with hostility, ultimatums and calls for boycotts. Which are related to the war in the Middle East. Hafenklang is already on blacklists, being labelled almost simultaneously as racist, Zionist, anti-German, anti-Semitic, left-wing extremist or even fascist. BDS or its sympathisers contact booked acts and demand cancellations. A lot of pressure is being exerted in an aggressive dynamic. In the last week alone, we have received four cancellations of upcoming concerts.
The Hafenklang music club is run by an association of about 60 people. In May 2024, there was an extraordinary general meeting to discuss and vote on the publication of a statement regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Fully aware of the self-destructive explosivenees, especially in subcultural structures, and in view of the fact that there are a wide range of opinions and definitions internally, we decided by a majority not to publish a statement. The conflict and its history are really too complex for us to take a clear, striking and, above all, collective stand. This is blowing up in our faces now.
So what is going on?
First of all, the following information: a total of five bookers with their own decision-making authority worked for the club last year. So far, not a single show has been cancelled by our side. In a single case, it was decided during the planning process not to book a band that had not yet been confirmed, let alone publicly announced, due to differences in content. There is no and never has been any „instruction“ or similar from the club side that pro-Palestinian artists are not allowed to perform at Hafenklang!
We do not perceive it as censorship to tell an act in advance, when asked, that we do not want anti-Semitism, undifferentiated hatred of Israel, national flags or Hamas propaganda on our stage.
We do not want our stage to be used to deepen the conflicts between people. We also know that our personal opinions would make no difference in the resolution of the conflict, which is completely
beyond our control. We believe that support and solidarity for the people who suffer from this conflict should not be expressed by discriminating against other people. There is no person whose life has a higher value than that of others. We want you to keep this in mind when you enter the Hafenklang
From: Hafenklang Website
From where i sit, they have my full support. I have spend the best part of the last 45 years now sucking up what was called Punk Rock back then and if there was one thing i learned, then it is if someone tries to force me to decide to take his standpoint ... most likely i won't.
As the saying goes:
A circle whose center is you has such a small radius that the rest of the world practically doesn't notice it.
This is also called a point of view.
The radius actually has to be exactly zero, but in practice a sufficiently small value works.
In diesem etwas anderen Detektiv-Roman aus Tel Aviv gibt es zwei feste Größen, die immer und immer wieder auftauchen:
Raketenalarm, die Suche nach einem Schutzraum und der Knall der zerstörten Rakete.
Und Sex. Denn Masi Morris, ex-Polizistin und nun Privatdetektivin, kann nur dann klar denken wenn sie Sex hatte. Also hat sie diesen mehrfach am Tag, mit wildfremden Männern, mit Dauerbekanntschaften oder – wenn es hart auf hart kommt – mit sich selbst.
Das macht diese kleine aber feine Story aus Israel schon etwas anders. Dazu eine Gesellschaft, die ziemlich anders gestrickt ist (als das was ich hier in meiner Heimat kenne).
Ein Jugendfreund bittet Masi seine verschwundene Frau zu suchen. Die jedoch ist die Tochter eines reichen (extrem) und einflussreichen (noch extremer) Unternehmers, der seine Finge auch in jede Menge Schmutz hat.
Zum Glück soll die Polizei von alle dem nichts mitbekommen, also hat Masi freie Hand ihre unorthodoxen Methoden durchzuziehen. Mithilfe ihrer Rechercheure sucht also jemand der nichts mehr hat (vor allem keinen Dienstausweis) eine junge Frau, die alles hat.
Das ganze hat ordentlich Tempo, ordentlich Härte und ganz viel Details: Über Tel Aviv, über das Wetter und über die Schnitzeljagd die Masi hinlegt bzw. am Ende hinbekommt.
Der eigentliche Spannungsbogen ist dabei gut gesetzt: Die Familie Schechter gibt nur mysteriöse, zu entschlüsselnde Tipps und Masi muss jede Einzelheit, jedes Blatt Papier und jedes Foto mühsam von anderen interpretieren lassen.
Das aber verpackt Daria Shualy ironisch und witzig, mit Figuren die alle Ecken, Kanten und einen Hau haben.
Happy End? Auf keinen Fall so wie der Leser es am Anfang glaubt.
Bin gespannt auf mehr!
What makes those you’ve mentioned, and Mazi, so different to most female protagonists?
“They kick ass and they verge on comic book superhero. “
This is why it’s not surprising that Shualy’s plans for PI Mazi Morris are so big. She wants to turn the novel into both a book series and a TV series or film: “I’m already writing the second book. And I’ve already been approached by a few TV production companies, but I’ve decided to put that on the back burner for now because my top priority at the moment is being translated to as many languages as possible.”
Aus: The Tel Aviv Review Of Books
PS: Das Original heißt “Kali Barak”, das ist Englisch für “Lightning Tool”. Keine Ahnung wie da im deutschen “Lockvogel” angekommen ist. Überraschenderweise macht “Lockvogel” dann aber doch Sinn…
PS: Das Original Buch hat ein Cover bei dem mir L.A. Confidential in den Kopf kam…
