once more with feeling

Do you still buy CDs?
In the modern world full of Spotify, Torrents and Bandcamp, this question has become quite pressing to the music industry. I still remember buying my first CDs as a teenager – Emilia, Tic Tac Toe, Bravo Hits 13, Spice Girls, Mariah Carey. But as soon as I discovered Napster, I quickly went from buying to downloading, limiting the act of purchase to special occasions such as concerts. Many years later, this hasn’t really changed – Soundcloud, Bandcamp and Spotify have become my best friends and looking through my CD rack, the newest ones in there are all by smaller (and mainly Austrian) bands which I still want to support through paying for their music because they really do need this support.
Being aware of the problem all those apps and websites have posed to the sales statistics (and let’s be honest, it is a problem when you regard the money an average musician can actually get from streams on Spotify), arists and labels have come up with very creative ways to sell their music. They combine it with USB sticks, with clothes, they make super-special and ultra-limited editions and packages, they try to get the Vinyl-hipsters on their side and turn the boring round silver CD into a very exciting and fun thing. And well – it works. Because it’s that feeling of being special that will always attract us to buying things.
You might remember my enthusiasm about diver’s EP, which was actually sewed together by a friend of the band. And today, I found out about another great idea from an Austrian band: the PapiersackerlEP large. The band is called VIECH (which is a colloquial expression for critter). VIECH are Paul and Andreas from Graz, making Austrian-folk-electro-pop-rock with raspy voices, accordion and in Lederhosen. Their lyrics seem sometimes on the verge of sarcasm and irony, while at other times random every-day situations are put in weird contexts and expressed with even weirder linguistic comparisons. In their songs you can find cavity in the incisor, heart thrombosis and big ring-tailed pigs.

Their latest release, the Papiersackerl EP large (the paper bag EP, following the small and medium edition) is a collection of 7 songs, 5 acoustic versions, 4 remixes, a B-side and a 16 pages booklet, all covered by handmade packagings from different artists – aka the paper bags. You can find an overview about all designs and layouts here. It’s a pretty amazing idea and all I can say is kudos to all the artists who contributed turning something simple as a CD into a real work of art.
VIECH will be playing in Graz on February 2nd, and hopefully soon in Vienna too. You can find the whole stream of the EP below – but this time I really, really want to encourage you to order the CD.

Interviews. I love and hate them. I didn’t do that many yet, mainly because I’m often too scared to mess them up, too scared to ask questions that seem stupid to the artist, too scared to find out that my favourite artists are actually assholes when talking to them. And yet until now, I was extremely lucky – probably because I only picked artists where I was quite sure before that it should all go well and because I always spent a whole day preparing (yes, seriously!).
My most favourite interview is the one I did with Cherilyn MacNeil, the woman behind Dear Reader, last September when she visited Vienna for a day. Cherilyn was incredibly honest and yet totally funny and relaxed, she seemd interested in telling her story and open about every kind of question. If you haven’t read it yet – you should.
On Monday, Cherilyn is coming back to Vienna – and she’ll perform at B72 to present her latest record “Idealistic Animals” for the second time here after having been at Blue Bird Festival in November. A day later she’ll perform in Graz at Forum Stadtpark. I can only highly recommend you to go watch her and get blown away by this amazing woman and her incredible music.

Why would you want to be great anyway?

So I finally went to the USA. And although I have been dreaming about New York and San Francisco for many years now, my first trip brought me to Maui, Los Angeles and Lake Tahoe instead.
America. Where everything is bigger, is more. But it was especially that bigger and more of the city of angels that overwhelmed me a bit too much and left me feeling lost. Being back home now for nearly two weeks, I realized that I’m really not gonna miss a few things: hot pants in combination with UGG boots, salads for 7 bucks vs two tacos for 50 cents, people smoking weed while driving, the ugly dollar, the most boring highways of all times, my phone not working there, too many people in too little space, having to add taxes to the prices displayed in the supermarket (i really suck at calculating in my head), the very strange humor, the saddest supermarket of all times aka costco, driving in California, parking in California, the cinema prices, the fact that 10 cents are smaller than 5 cents, busses where the bus driver just steps out of the bus in the middle of nowhere because she’s arguing with a customer, being asked for an ID when you just sit on the bar without even ordering alcohol, and many other tiny things that I just can’t remember right now.
However, there of course is stuff I’m missing: burritos, food that actually really is hot when it says “hot”, diet dr. pepper, the lakers, 25 degrees at the end of December, urban outfitters, cheap gas, Korean BBQ, the ocean, bigass supermarkets openend 24/7, grabbing your Glock and shooting all your anger away at the shooting range, and SiriusXM.
Some of you non-Americans might wonder now – Sirius who? SiriusXM is a satellite radio station with 140+ channels. You have to pay for it, but it definitely more worth than paying for ORF here in Austria. There are tons of music, news, sports and other entertainment channels – I mean hello, they even have a 24/7 Pearl Jam channel. So when we were driving around (and since LA is 8 hours from Lake Tahoe we were driving a fucking lot), we always listened to Alt Nation, the alternative rock channel. And through this channel, I discovered my latest favorite band: Awolnation.
Awolnation is not that new – the electronic rock band fronted by Aaron Bruno already released an EP in 2010 and their first record “Megalithic Symphony” in March 2011 at Red Bull Records. So when coming back home with this new discovery, I quickly realized that I might be a little too late for calling it a “new discovery” – they have actually been booked for a gig at Arena Wien on February 14th, also known as what-can-I-do-to-avoid-Valentine’s-Day day (and what is there better to do to avoid Valentine’s Day than going to a concert, right?).
Now, here’s the latest video from Awolnation, “Not Your Fault”, followed by some pictures of my journey. And after watching the video and going through my pictures, you’ll have to play the “Megalithic Mayhem” videogame – a game for and with Awolnation and an awesome 8-bit version of “Not Your Fault”.

Find my sun in the dark side
of my shadow.

Everybody needs his or her person. It’s that one person, that very special person, that person that stands out amongst all the other persons. It’s that person that you can trust with your life, that person you can tell all your secrets (and I mean ALL), that person you state as your contact for emergencies. It’s that person that doesn’t judge you, that is there for you no matter what, that you can have the most fun with and also cry with. It’s that person you can talk to for hours and never get bored. It’s that person where words aren’t always necessary. It’s that person that you share every feeling with – may it be happiness, anger or sadness. It’s that person that knows you better than you know yourself.
For some, this person might be their partner, a family member or their best friend. It could be that they spent their whole life together or just got to know somewhen along the way. Some have the luck to have their person very close, others learn to overcome the biggest distances.

I got to know my person when I was 13. Sadly, our ways had to diverge at one point – and we were too careless to stop ourselves from diverging too.
My person is pregnant now. And our ways have diverged so much that it was not she who told me.
I miss my person.

The bestest website in the world (apart from this blog, obviously, and even more obviously I’m totally not exaggerating here) celebrated its ninth year of existence last week: fm5. The birthday was celebrated with a huge and quite excessive party plus musicawesomeness provided by The Helmut Bergers, Pilots. and Cherry Sunkist, an absolutely delicious punsch and a birthday cake filled with 5 million calories – provided by yours truly.

This time, I made two cakes and put them together with just some straws and a plate made of cupboard. Next time, I’m gonna go for five layers!

Happy birthday again, my dear fm5 – stay as awesome and interesting as you are.

Graz. The second biggest city in Austria. The city of Schloss Eggenberg, of the Mur, of the Schloßberg, of Styria, of Magna, of the springfestival, of the Elevate and the Diagonale, the city of Opus and SK Sturm.

I never really cared about Graz – but that’s not a big deal since I never really cared about any Austrian city except for Vienna. Which is why after a failed afternoon with an exboy there and a 6am walk through the inner city after a crazy night at springten, Graz and me had our first real acquaintance just recently. And what can I say – it’s a lovely little city full of surprises in every corner. Too small for me to live in, but just about right for a weekend to escape from the dull routine of Vienna.

Graz can also offer some pretty amazing music. Many of you probably heard of The Incredible Staggers and maybe also of the second project of their guitarist, The Sado-Maso Guitar Club. But do you already know the German singing VIECH? And have you met Philipp?

Philipp Szalay started to learn the guitar just to become one of the cool kids – and he did. He published his debut EP in 2010 and is working on his first longplayer. Philipp’s music is full of melancholia, full of passion and dreams, full of the contradiction of darkness and light. On stage, Philipp is joined by a couple of very talented musicians, and together they will take your breath, make your heart beat faster and leave you with a goose flesh.
On Christmas eve, I got Philipp’s newsletter with a nice little present inside: links to some live footage, filmed at the concert in Vienna that I’ve been to. So I want to pass two of those videos on, and recommend you to try and catch Philipp live, grab his EP and maybe even one of his selfmade tote bags, which are the absolutely cutest ones I’ve ever seen.

You can steal my faith and steal my pride
but you already know all the demons in my mind.

You say that I should be sorry
but I don’t care anymore.
I’m sorry if I didn’t care enough
for you my dear.