Hallo ihr Hübschen!

Wie ihr seht haben wir unsere Drohung wahr gemacht. Es wird weiter gemacht. Aber in Deutsch. Das ganze hat auch einen einfachen Grund. Die Betreiber dieses Blogs, der Tim, der Daniel und ich, der Julian sind alle deutsch, zumindest teilweise. Und außerdem richtet sich dieses Angebot auch größtenteils an unsere teutonischen Freunde. Ja vielleicht wird uns ab und an mal was Englisches dazwischen rutschen. Möglicherweise schreiben wir in einer Woche auch wieder in einer komplett anderen Sprache…

Aber die ursprüngliche Idee dieses Blogs - Ja, wir haben einen super Business-Plan - war ja Internationales und Lokales miteinander zu verbinden. Das mit dem Internationalen ist uns ja schon ganz gut gelungen, jetzt müssen wir das nur noch mit dem Lokalen machen. Leider kommen wir Nulpen viel zu wenig raus und sitzen den ganzen Tag vor dem Schreibtisch oder sind an den Wochenenden zu besoffen um uns am Montag noch an irgendwas zu erinnern. Macht auch nicht so viel Sinn, wenn man ein Blog führen will. Aber ab März arbeiten wir alle bei sehr relaxten Unternehmen, die uns freie Wochenenden versprochen haben. Dann wird es zwar weniger über Münster geben, aber mindestens genauso viel Lörres über die schönen Städte Hamburg, Düsseldorf und Barszälonna.

Also in Zukunft: Mehr Leser, mehr Lokales, mehr Deutsch und vor allem weniger Gelaber. Alles wird gut!

Pope Alexander VI: “Wait a minute…”

Well. Those were Alexanders last words, not ours since we haven’t even started yet (Yes, I know the picture shows John-Paul II). Moreover we like the name so much, it would be a shame giving it up and letting this project die. Furthermore, how could we let our readers down after we have started such a marvellous project.
Nevertheless will this be the last entry in connection with “The Classroom” project fostered by our university English teacher Khanhduc Kuttig. From now on we have to learn for our exams which will take place between end of January until the second week of February. Two weeks in hell. Afterwards the writers behind this blog, Daniel Hinz, Tim Ruhoff and myself, Julian Inführ will start our placements. The others will. I still have to find one. So if anybody needs a placement student just give me a call.

I hope that this split will also add to the quality and diversity of the blog by bringing in influences from different parts of the world or at least Germany. Oh yeah. Before I forget, since the English project is over this blog will switch - just like the papacy - to German.

Vielen Dank und bis zum nächsten Mal.

Goodbye Post from our friends at Entertainment Beyond Portsmouth

Ye be warned! This post is not about music. At all. The other day I was browsing through the MP3 files on my iPod and had to notice roughly 176 hours are Domian episodes. For those folks among you, who have no idea whatsoever what Domian is about:
Jürgen Domian is a link man with a nightly talkshow which airs every night between 1:00am and 2:00am on WDR, EinsFestival and EinsLive. What makes the show different from other talkshows is that Domian only talks to viewers who are able to call in via the phone. Every conversation between the host and the guest talkes between 10 and 15 minutes and due to the time of the day you will be able to listen to a lot of topics nobody would talk about during the day time. From the average girl who cannot overcome her washed-up relationship, up to 30 year old virgin who can only find satisfaction in women who are made out of minced meat (60kg Hackfleisch) you will find every story which is worth telling.

So for those sleepless nights some of you might be spending with controlling or German tax legislation set your tuner to 107,90 for the nocturnal freakshow. And for those who spend the night sleeping, go visit the Archive on Nachtlager to download the most recent episodes for your listening pleasure during the day.

Domian on the Einslive Homepage
Nachtlager - The Domian Fansite
The Domian Archive on Nachtlager
Jürgen Domian is a good man…

It is always good to know about the does and don’t in terms of nightlife. To enable you to dance with your foreign friends in Singapore this little guide should give you some ideas where you can go at night.

First of all you should decide what you want to do. It is always a good idea to start a night with a delicious dinner in Holland Village. Have a sting ray and some sea food at the food court. Of course this goes very well with some tiger beers. Afterwards, you should head to Wala Wala. This is a great place for live performances of local bands - particularly on Sundays you will have superb entertainment by one of the best bands from Singapore. If you want to do some touristy things, you can go to the ice on the other side of the street. But don’t be disappointed 10C° is already pretty cold for Singaporeans and that is the maximum the cooling system can do.

Afterwards you should go to Clark Quay. You can find almost any type of bar and the best clubs in Singapore this area. Before we get too much into detail let me tell you that there are two more recommendations that are 5 min away from Clark Quay.

1. Zouk - Famous and big techno club
   
   
2. New Asia Bar - 71 floor of Swiss Hotel
   

You should stroll around and have look at all bars where the music appeals to you, have a look inside. You should not miss the Indo Chine, which has an absolutely fantastic ambiance. Furthermore, you can find the famous M.O.S [Ministry of Sound] which was originally founded in London and has come to Singapore in October 2005. Personally, I would recommend a club called Attica. The entrance fee should be around 10s$ and you get a drink for free. If you know the bouncer ‘Steve’ or if you pretend to know him and send him best wishes from the other Germans, he might let you in for free. Music varies from Hip Hop to techno and sometimes rock.

If you are still not satisfied with the possibilities posted, have a look at www.visitsingapore.comgapore.com for more local events and news. Enjoy your stay in Singapore and don’t miss the chance to explore this great city for a couple of days, if you are on the way to Australia!

There has been a reason for our absence: Live music. All three of us have been engaged in our own little project of building a band within less 2 months, with about 7 guys and 1 girl in order to play at least 10 songs at the infamous EBP X-Mas lounge.After accepting this challenging task we formed the EBPääänd mid October. Since that date we met at least once a week in order to prepare and even more important discuss our performance. We were actually quite surprised about how quickly we made progress, however this might be due to the long experience in music making of some of our members. Well, who is the EBPääääänd?
 

    Vocals - Melanie Ratzlaff
    Vocals and Guitar - Kai Bulling
    Guitar and Vocals - Eduardo Le Comte
    Bass - Daniel Hinz
    Keyboard - Diogo Weihermann
    Drums - Tim Ruhoff
    Tenor Sax - Jan Dürr
    Alto Sax - Julian Inführ
 
After what seemed to be a long time of preparation we met on the big day, the 16th of December, at around 11:00 am. Some earlier, some 2 or 3 hours later. This was the last chance for us to practice our set; afterwards everybody was needed to haul our equipment and the stage to our venue at the Schlossgarten. Unfortunately the senior citizen who were having their tea and biscuits were not under the same time pressure as we were, so we had to wait for about thirty minutes until all the guests were gone and we could start sorting out the stage and assembling the cross brace for the lights. Five hours later we were pretty well done … for.
 
But the stress did not bother us because nothing could stop us. We raced home, dressed up in the sexiest clothes we could find, stopped at the kebab store and returned spick and span to play our gig. To be perfectly honest it is not difficult to play in front of 300 boozed students who cannot run away. Nevertheless did we not expect this kind of response. Everybody was jumping, screaming and shouting (not singing) along for the next 90 minutes. Even our profs in the corner were shaking their booties as we were told.
 
After three encores we were soaked in sweat and could finally enjoy a chilled beer at the bar.However the fun did not stop here, at 5:00 am what was left of us had to dismantle the stage, the sound system and the lights. Some of us too drunk to walk, we all managed to find our beds by 6:30. If somebody has missed us in the English class, it was for a good cause. Our sleep.

Happy New Year everybody!

Since I couldn’t stand staying at home with my family between Christmas and new years I decided to visit an old friend in Amsterdam. Fighting my way through the hordes of stoned and drunk American backpackers in the red light district I got completely lost. A map would have been a good idea, however after hours of walking about without any clue about where I was, I stumbled upon a pearl of a music store.
If heaven were a CD store, then it would be Concerto in the Utrechtsestraat near the Prinsengracht. It’s not a chain, it is wonderland. The store is about 4 Dutch buildings wide und two stories high, offering loads of space for your musical needs. I felt like a little child in a toy store browsing through the millions of CDs. From African Blues music from the likes of Mulatu Astatke up to the latest electronic music by remix icons Death From Above, this store everything but pop music. Moreover a huge selection of DVDs, second hand CDs and vinyl can be found in the basement. Concerto is none of your sleek, shiny and polished Virgin megastores; by the looks of it the wooden furniture is from the 30year war and the walls full of posters from the 60s. The whole thing feels like your grandpa’s living room.
After spending 3 hours and too many Euros in the store, I decided to marry the saleswoman and move into the store. Unfortunately the appearance of saleswoman was not very applaudable, so I decided to go just for the music.However if you are in Amsterdam. Skip the red light district. Skip the drunk American tourists. Skip the coffee shops. Go to Concerto. Spend your money!

 Concerto’s minimalistic website

What kinda name is that? Ratatat? Who would have thought that something which sounds like a Toys ‘R Us Machine Gun actually stands for good music. Moreover after waves of annyoing college rock bands this this is finally a decent act from the States. Ratatat are from New York and if you listen to NYUB you have surely heard of them already. “Classic”, their new album being available now, is sure to make a nice addition to any everyone’s CD collection.
One could locate them somewhere in between MSTRKRFT and Junior Boys with their soundtracky stiles of mashed guitar which comes from just two lads and their drum machine. Although “Classic” is - no matter what - a decent album, it isn’t a revolution in music culture; however when it hits the mark, whooot, it HITS. Therefore it received a respectable 6.0 on pitchfork and something like an 8.0 on drownedinsound.
Thus, my dear readers, go check out their MySpace or their selftitled first album (which is by the way better…)

Ratatat’s MySpace
Ratatat’s Homepage

Sputnikhalle: Nachtzeche Tour with the Trashmonkeys

Here they go again. Our favourite enemy “The Trashmonkeys” are back in town, and this time without an annoying main act. All by themselves they will rock the Sputnikhalle at the Haferkamp this Friday. Prince Cigarettes will be their only support and thankfully they don’t make music. Hopes are high that this might become a very nice evening, so dance til’ your bones break!

Prince Nachtzeche Tour
Sputnikhalle
Trashmonkeys’ MySpace

What happened to one of the greatest bands alive?

Audioslave may definitely be seen as one of the greatest alternative-bands ever. Their outstanding performance at the ‘Hurricane Festival 2005′ was reason enough to love these 4 guys. At that point of time they were able to show their historical roots by playing old ‘Rage against the Machine’ songs, as much as their ability to fascinate 60.000 people with their recent songs.

Drawing the attention to the new album ‘Revelations’, there is no doubt that expectations were high. A band that was able to set off their first album within 19 days and produce such a terrific piece of art can be expected to produce a similar peace of history within one year’s time. However, this is basically the core problem of the new album. It resembles Audioslave from the beginning to the end. It is definitely exactly what somebody would expect from Audioslave. But fans from the old days are not as much convinced as they should be.

The problem of the new album is that it does not differ too much from old songs. It is sometimes hard to tell that this is even a new record, because the songs seem to be so familiar.

It is absolutely recommendable to check out the new record, but don’t be surprised, if it does not elate you. It is a good piece of music, but it does not give you the desire of listening to these songs when Audioslave is life on stage.

Maybe they are getting a bit old, as they don’t even have time to tour with the new songs due to family commitments…

We hope that the live experience convinces us again that this band is among the greatest live acts that have been seen in Germany so far.

Thanks to this band I will always remember March 18th as a good day. Having recently moved to Bristol I did not have a lot of friends at that time and decided to change this situation. Go to a concert - yeah. So I looked up a couple of venues and decided to go to the Croft. It’s in a rather dodgy area however one of the places you should definitely check out if you ever happen to hit Brizzle.

Despite not being crowded with visitors it had a really nice atmosphere and most importantly a bunch of nice people as well and not your flock of drunk English chavs you’d expect to find everywhere else. I was missing the girls really, but what do you expect from Britain? Around ninish the first band started to play, and for crying out loud - they sucked. Don’t ask me about their name, they didn’t say it when they went on stage. I reckon they skipped that part for a good reason: The singer never even looked at the crowd, and all of those blokes up there on stage played the same song, but each of them at a different tempo. Terrible shit, I’m telling you!
A bit disappointed about this, the second band didn’t really improve the situation. Circus Of Death was their name and so was their music, quite painful. A mixture of Depeche Mode and U2 with a sick twist to it. Fortunately they did not punish us too long and left the stage about 10 minutes after the crowd left the room.

At around half ten a ridiculously young group of boys entered the stage. To be honest with you, dear readers - leave a comment if you exist - I was expecting the worst and starting to see how drunk I could get with the money left in my pocket in order to avoid cutting my ears off.
Then it happened. Within the first thirty seconds Jason and his buddies from outa’ space released such a blast of energy on stage which left everybody in the first rows completely gobsmacked. Rarely have I seen such precise breaking and timing. The singer was going completely mental, screaming and shouting, having the time of his life - and so was the crowd. Jason and the Astronauts shifted the venue from morgue to bedlam.
All chords in the world have already been played and of course Jason does not reinvent the wheel either. They fit pretty well into the current torrent of juvenile indy bands dominating the glorious NME. Nevertheless, Jason and the Astronauts bloody rock!
Well the morning after I found myself waking up with bruises all over my body from the dancing, a terrible hangover, my clothes still on and downloading their songs from MySpace.

Jason And The Astronauts’ MySpace
Jason And The Astronauts’ Homepage
Jason And The Astronauts on Unlabel