Punk as Fuck

The American Analog set not only came to my town this week, they came to my neighbourhood! On Tuesday September 6th (which coincidentally was the release date for their new album in Europe) they played the Magnet Bar, in Prenzlauerberg, Berlin. It was hard to track down tickets to the show beforehand, and I was afraid I was going to miss out when I saw a big gang of people outside the venue when I arrived, but it was all OK and I got in.

It was really hot and sweaty, the place was packed to capacity probably. It was only the second night of the tour for the band, and they seemed very happy and energetic. Their set was like a hitlist of really dreamy psychedelic 70's sounding songs that you get totally lost in. It seemed like their songs had very abrupt endings - the getting lost in the dreamy pop bit is such a nice feeling and it seems like it should never end. Indeed, one member of the audience shouted "TOO SOON!" this one time when they finished a song. It's like you're dozing away a hot sunny afternoon in a hammock, and then someone just comes along and twists it so that all of a sudden you fall on your ass. Or something. They played an extra two songs for us in the encore.

The band played some older songs like "Kindness of Strangers" and also new stuff from their new release, "Set Free", which sounds quite lovely. The band's frontman, Andrew Kenny delivers each song in his soft and sad voice, and they have a dedicated Xylophone player/Maracas shaker which I have the utmost respect for. On their website some live downloads are available, "Punk as Fuck", "I Must Quit This Scene" etc etc.

I love the radio here in Berlin. I wake up and turn it on and it's Phoenix and the Knife, then I come home at night and there's a live set from Nada Surf. They played Munich last week, and as there was no stage in the venue, they clambered up on tables to give their performance. At the end of the show I heard on the radio, they recieved three encores! I hope I`m still here in November when they come back.

Art Brut are the cover boys+girl for the German Rolling Stone at the moment. It will be fun to see them again when they play here next week. The band are taking part in the Popkomm festival, which is an industry showdown, sort of like SXSW.

Upcoming Goodness: Wilco, tomorrow night!