come to me, my flock of hairy jerks
(here is an email i just sent to zach, jess and nicole. as i was typing it i realized i might as well post it here but i'm too lazy to fix it up so i'm just cutting and pasting. it applies to many of you, however. where are you? what are you doing? i have email! talk to me! ask me questions!)
yo. so. what's up with you guys? just because i'm thousands of miles away doesn't mean you can't bombard me with stupid emails about stupid boston!
i assume you've been reading my website, so you know what i've been doing, but i want to hear from you guys... did zach get a job? (probably not). is espresso royale a smoldering pile of ruins yet? (most likely). how's the house/neighbors/cats/friends besides you guys who are even more useless at staying in touch?
as for me, i went to see a show on friday night. it was at this place called palac akropolis, which is sort of like a bigger/better Paradise, except with more dance music i think. anyway, we saw this czech rock band called OTK which is an acronym for something, and a german electronic duo called tarwater. the czechs were good--very rock, but in a good way--sort of like spiritualized, with a bit of slowdive, and the more metal side of mogwai (although they could have pushed things a bit more on that end--i think they wimped out a couple times). i say slowdive partially because it's true and partially because the lead singer looked and (even weirder) sang JUST like the guy from The Doom Generation and Nowhere. Same hair, same voice... only czech.
anyway, i was high when i first walked in and the band started up so i got perhaps a bit too excited because it reminded me of home. i'm sure i had a huge goofy grin on my face. i was not, however, as excited as The Rock Golem, who was this odd wiry dude in an orange hooded sweatshirt (hood up, of course) who is perhaps the most enthusiastic fan i've ever seen at a show--when the band started to rock out he'd get really wound up, to the point of taking off his sweatshirt and helicoptering it around his head while howling some sort of gibberish. amazing.
he left after OTK, but The Statue stayed. The Statue was perhaps 13 or 14 years old, looked sorta like harry potter, stood at the absolute front of the room, both hands lightly placed on the stage, palms down, and NEVER MOVED ONCE. I don't know what was going on with him, but he seemed to be in some sort of adolescent music trance, very quiet but very intense, and absolutely locked into whatever was going on up onstage.
tarwater was pretty good--they're yet another german band who used to play punk and now make electronic music. it was just two guys, one of whom played the bass and manipulated something or other, and the othe who sang and manipulated more things. like other german bands of this sort, they struck a good balance between abstract noises and melodic/dancey songs (i'm thinking Lali Puna, Notwist, etc). the singer reminded me of carl from underworld, which is a good thing, although his lyrics were a bit more banal from what i could understand (they were all in english but of course he's german, so...). They sorta wavered between underworldy type stuff and being rather boards of canada-ish. which is not exactly ground-shattering but it was still pretty damn good. i'll take some good warbly synths and chopped up samples over regular guitars anyday, although my witty comment of the night was "there's a thin line between depeche mode and good music."
so that's that. i guess i should disclose future musical plans: the 29th of this month i'm going to see psychic tv, for which i am very excited. and there are tentative plans to take a trip to berlin to see tom waits in november (my friend roya, whose presence here has totally saved my life because i actually have someone to talk about art and good music with thank fucking god, has a friend who's studying in berlin, and tom waits is playing the day that classes end and our independent studies start--should be an amazing little trip).
I've acquired a little bit of music since arriving, but that's something i'll get into later. it's hard to actually buy cd's here--i went back to the record store where I spotted those david lynch soundtracks and realized that a) they're used and b) they cost a lot of freakin' money (blue velvet is 350Kc, which is about $14). hopefully i can find out about some cheaper record stores or something, and i have yet to hit up the second hand stores for used vinyl. fortunately, the guy who teaches our music classes seems really cool, and although his english is pretty poor i'm going to take him out for a drink after our class next week and pry some info out of him. he writes for newspapers and magazines in prague about music and is friends with the guys from OTK, so he seems well-connected and can hopefully guide me in the right direction.
and now i have to leave and get on the tram back to my (family's) wonderful suburban flat and eat some freaking lunch. send me emails, damn you all!
kisses, ethan
yo. so. what's up with you guys? just because i'm thousands of miles away doesn't mean you can't bombard me with stupid emails about stupid boston!
i assume you've been reading my website, so you know what i've been doing, but i want to hear from you guys... did zach get a job? (probably not). is espresso royale a smoldering pile of ruins yet? (most likely). how's the house/neighbors/cats/friends besides you guys who are even more useless at staying in touch?
as for me, i went to see a show on friday night. it was at this place called palac akropolis, which is sort of like a bigger/better Paradise, except with more dance music i think. anyway, we saw this czech rock band called OTK which is an acronym for something, and a german electronic duo called tarwater. the czechs were good--very rock, but in a good way--sort of like spiritualized, with a bit of slowdive, and the more metal side of mogwai (although they could have pushed things a bit more on that end--i think they wimped out a couple times). i say slowdive partially because it's true and partially because the lead singer looked and (even weirder) sang JUST like the guy from The Doom Generation and Nowhere. Same hair, same voice... only czech.
anyway, i was high when i first walked in and the band started up so i got perhaps a bit too excited because it reminded me of home. i'm sure i had a huge goofy grin on my face. i was not, however, as excited as The Rock Golem, who was this odd wiry dude in an orange hooded sweatshirt (hood up, of course) who is perhaps the most enthusiastic fan i've ever seen at a show--when the band started to rock out he'd get really wound up, to the point of taking off his sweatshirt and helicoptering it around his head while howling some sort of gibberish. amazing.
he left after OTK, but The Statue stayed. The Statue was perhaps 13 or 14 years old, looked sorta like harry potter, stood at the absolute front of the room, both hands lightly placed on the stage, palms down, and NEVER MOVED ONCE. I don't know what was going on with him, but he seemed to be in some sort of adolescent music trance, very quiet but very intense, and absolutely locked into whatever was going on up onstage.
tarwater was pretty good--they're yet another german band who used to play punk and now make electronic music. it was just two guys, one of whom played the bass and manipulated something or other, and the othe who sang and manipulated more things. like other german bands of this sort, they struck a good balance between abstract noises and melodic/dancey songs (i'm thinking Lali Puna, Notwist, etc). the singer reminded me of carl from underworld, which is a good thing, although his lyrics were a bit more banal from what i could understand (they were all in english but of course he's german, so...). They sorta wavered between underworldy type stuff and being rather boards of canada-ish. which is not exactly ground-shattering but it was still pretty damn good. i'll take some good warbly synths and chopped up samples over regular guitars anyday, although my witty comment of the night was "there's a thin line between depeche mode and good music."
so that's that. i guess i should disclose future musical plans: the 29th of this month i'm going to see psychic tv, for which i am very excited. and there are tentative plans to take a trip to berlin to see tom waits in november (my friend roya, whose presence here has totally saved my life because i actually have someone to talk about art and good music with thank fucking god, has a friend who's studying in berlin, and tom waits is playing the day that classes end and our independent studies start--should be an amazing little trip).
I've acquired a little bit of music since arriving, but that's something i'll get into later. it's hard to actually buy cd's here--i went back to the record store where I spotted those david lynch soundtracks and realized that a) they're used and b) they cost a lot of freakin' money (blue velvet is 350Kc, which is about $14). hopefully i can find out about some cheaper record stores or something, and i have yet to hit up the second hand stores for used vinyl. fortunately, the guy who teaches our music classes seems really cool, and although his english is pretty poor i'm going to take him out for a drink after our class next week and pry some info out of him. he writes for newspapers and magazines in prague about music and is friends with the guys from OTK, so he seems well-connected and can hopefully guide me in the right direction.
and now i have to leave and get on the tram back to my (family's) wonderful suburban flat and eat some freaking lunch. send me emails, damn you all!
kisses, ethan
posted by anonymous listener at 6:27 AM
2 Comments:
oh theyre tricky, these blogger people. now i have a blog and i might have to fill it with things.
anyway, was wondering if you ever got to the svankmajer exhibit. you might have said it and i just forgot, but its gone now, so if you didnt go i will be sad. also, i hope you are drinking becherovka and tonics, and if not you should try it. also you should visit meduza at least once a week because i am trying to live vicariously through you and thats what i would be doing. hope its going well, saw nicole last night.
i didn't get to see the švankmeyer exhibit, and i'm pissed. i didn't realize it was ending so soon. however, this has strengthened my resolve to wriggle myself into the film community here (which is small, so it shouldn't be hard) and maybe actually meet švankmeyer himself (and maybe even his wife). it's very possible that i might end up doing my independent study project about czech surrealism, and even though i'd probably focus more on early stuff, he'd still be a great person to interview.
BUT i just went to meduza again yesterday and i'm going again as soon as i get off the internet. so no worries.
ALSO i just saw česky sen, which was fucking amazing, but i'll write about that in a bit.
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