Twist Your Arm

Ten Fé are a London duo who I'd never heard of until recently. They sound a bit like 80s Cure mixed with 80s Bruce Springsteen. Their new album was recorded in Berlin- often a promising sentence- and is preceded by a remix e.p. This is the one for me, Roman Flugel's remix, a vibrant, hopeful version with juddering bass and synths like daybreak.

Over The Wall

It's a funny feeling- to know you lived through and watched something genuinely historic happen (on TV admittedly) and for it then to be celebrated a quarter of a century later. I suppose there were/are millions of people born at any time between 1885 and one hundred years later who could say they lived through and watched genuinely historic events. The fall of the Berlin Wall was twenty five years ago today. Kind of. November 9th was the day that the East German authorities realised they couldn't hold the tide back and that the Soviets weren't going to send support. And the Wall came down.

There have been loads of interesting articles recently, about the events and processes that led up to it, about the myths of the fall of the Wall (Reagan, Bowie, Hasselhoff), some of those ace photomontages showing the same place then and now. 1989 is a key year for me- living away from home, 19 years old, new music and new influences, new clothes. I visited Berlin in July and just seeing those places was startling, seeing the few remaining sections of Wall.

If the end of the Berlin Wall shows anything I think it is that nothing is permanent, that change is always possible and often just around the corner, even with situations that look utterly deadlocked and set in stone. This too shall pass.

Over The Wall

Guten Tag

I unfolded myself off the bus, after thirty six hours from Krakow to north west England yesterday. Sleeping sitting up is a skill I've not quite got the hang of and my back has suffered. But our school trip to Krakow and Berlin was fantastic, all the moreso because we were in Berlin last Sunday night when Germany won the world cup. The streets of Berlin were flooded with thousands of Germans, most draped in the colours. We'd passed the Brandenberg Gate early on Saturday and had a look at the fan park but decided that keeping sixty-four teenagers safe while watching the final might be tricky. Eventually we all watched it on a big screen in the square outside our hotel and Hauptbahnhof, the main railway station. This ensured a constant flow of fans before and after the match. It was crackers and probably a once in a lifetime experience- watching a country win the world cup in that country's capital city. It certainly won't happen as a England fan.

Berlin is an amazing city, one which I want to return to. There's so much to see and do- in two days we squeezed in sections of wall, Checkpoint Charlie, a trip up the TV tower, Alexanderplatz with its 60s concrete architecture, Sachsenhausen and the Olympic Stadium. Seeing some of the wall was a highlight for me- something that was such a key part of world history and from my lifetime. After Berlin we went to Krakow, which has a beautiful square and buildings, and drank tea (black tea with cold milk, the English way) in Noworolski Cafe, frequented by Lenin in the mid 1910s. And had a couple of Polish beers.

I've downloaded a few of the pics off my phone here...

Holger Czukay of Can, was born in Gdansk, Poland and raised in Germany. He has recently remixed some solo tracks from his 1977 album Der Osten Is Rot and issued them on 10" vinyl through a Berlin based record label, Gronland Records. Click on the link for loads of grooviness. The remixed Sudetenland, with Jah Wobble, Jaki Leibezeit and Conny Plank, is out right now and you can listen to it here.

Deutschland

I'm off on a school trip today so you'll find nothing new here for the next week. We leave north-west England at ten and head for Dover, crossing to Calais and then (hopefully) arrive in Berlin tomorrow morning. I've never been to Berlin so I'm pretty excited about it- plus, by stroke of good fortune and German efficiency, we'll be in Berlin when Germany play in the World Cup Final and are hoping to find somewhere outdoors to watch it, safely, with sixty-four teenagers. Whatever the result, it should be an experience. We've got a load of sights to see- the Olympic stadium, Sachsenhausen, the Berlin Wall, the TV tower, some museums, the Reichstag, Tiergarten Park. We've got two days in Berlin and then we make for Krakow, visiting Auschwitz and Krakow's Medieval market, before returning home next Thursday by an extremely long bus ride from Krakow to Calais.

There are so many Berlin/Germany musical references I could put here- any number of West German krautrock bands, Kraftwerk, Cabaret (the only musical I can really live with), German techno, Johnny Rotten's screaming line in Holidays In the Sun 'I was looking over the wall and they were looking at meeeee!!!', Nena and her ninety nine red balloons, Iggy and Bowie recording several of their best albums and lovers meeting by the wall, Trio's novelty hit from the 80s, various things Dirk and Walter have posted...
How about Michael Rother, ex-Neu!, and something from his 1977 beaut of an album Flammende Herzen (with Jaki Leibzeit on drums)?

Feuerland