once more with feeling

The first time I saw Robert Stadlober was when he played the main character of Crazy. That was 12 years ago. However, my “encounters” with Robert were few: there was Sonnenallee (yes I’m one of those who watched Crazy before Sonnenallee), Engel & Joe (my favourite, since it came out right at the time when I started sliding into my punk-phase) and Verschwende deine Jugend (a principle after which I’ve lived to the maximum).
It was only in 2010 when I learned that Robert was making music. And surprisingly for an actor-gone-musician, it’s even good music. The first time I heard “Leave Me”, I immediately fell in love with the harmony and polyphony, with the feeling of intimacy and of lightness. But it’s not only Robert himself – it’s Gary, the band he has together with Astrid Noventa, Rasmus Engler and Daniel Moheit. Gary released their first album already in 2002 and their 3rd album “Hey Turtle – Stop Running!” will be released on March 9th (including an incredibly cute album cover).

A couple of days ago, Gary released the first single of the upcoming album – and since it has the “love” theme in it, what day would be better to post it than Valentine’s? Yes, right – any other day, because love shouldn’t be limited to a single day of the year. However, I chose today, so you gotta live with it. Oh, by the way: you can also download the song for free on their Facebook page!

But today I fell for you.

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.

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.

Two days ago, we celebrated the birthday of Alice Tragedy with laughter, rainbow cake and chocolate explosion cookies. You probably saw me mentioning her in one or the other blog post; if you follow me on Twitter you might have come across our discussions about music & beer and if you know me in real life, chances are high you even met her already.
She’s a lovely person and one of my closest friends, but trust me, we had a rough start. Even though it took us quite a while to get to the point where we are now, there are now several moments we share and which I would never want to miss. One of those is our trip to the Acoustic Lakeside Festival last year, a one-day adventure with Nada Surf, dancing, Santa Clause in a stranger’s house, a boy and lots of hearts – you can read about that here.
Someone we saw playing there was Ezra Furman with his Harpoons, a band that really surprised me with their entertaining show. Now, they released a new video of cuteness for the title song of their their record “Mysterious Power”. He’s coming to Austria & Germany soon for some touring; all Vienna people have to check him out on May 24 at Flex. I’ll be there, and I hope Alice will too…

I say “No, no don’t, fall through
I need you.
Call me up right now -
I’d call you but I don’t know how.”

On Tuesday, I’m going to Berlin for four days. Actually, I shouldn’t. Neither do I have the money for it, nor the time. But I can’t really be bothered by that at the moment. I need to get away, just a couple of days, on my own. Not thinking about everything I should be doing or dealing with back home. It’s going to be just the city and me.
Since it’s going to be my first time in Berlin, I want to discover as many wonderful places as possible. So if you have any recommendations (especially for food, coffee, record and clothing stores), let me know!

Of course, I need to have some soundtrack for my journey. Something to listen to while strolling around in the streets. So, there will be two bands in my iPod-Berlin-list that totally fit my “often been disappointed but still hopelessly romantic” mood I have at the moment: mylittlepony and We See Lights.
I already told you about how much I’m in love with mylittlepony a few days ago. We See Lights is a Scottish band (which you’ll realize after the first line you hear, omg that accent!), singing about ghosts and monsters, lost lovers and The Smiths. Their harmonic, folksy, upbeat sound is underlined by fiddles, harmonicas and glockenspiel.

We See Lights released their debut album “Ghosts & Monsters” last year, to which you can listen here. Next Saturday, they’re releasing the EP “Twee Love Pop” via their own label heroesandgluepots - and the name says it all. It’s dreamy twee love pop par excellence.
The band seems to be quite excited about their upcoming release. This is what Allan Rae thinks about it: “This is the sound of our band falling apart, the final implosion of our sanity and naked embrace of a twisted simulacrum of reality before we decided to abandon it all and go live as hermits in a yurt. Such things are we driven to, as tortured, tortured, men.”

Wondering now how that implosion sounds like? Well, here’s a video of cuteness for my favorite song of the EP, “Hope You Like The Smiths”, which also reminds me of one of my most favorite movies, “500 Days of Summer”.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFLRvg542tY

Well I think that I’m in love
even though I’ve only spoken to you
about twice.
I like to know your favorite colour
and maybe even meet your mother,
is that too soon?

And as a special gift from the band, they already let you stream the whole EP before it’s released next week. Twee love!

When “Only By The Night” was released, I listened to “Use Somebody” on repeat. The song meant the world to me. Kings of Leon made it to my favorite band at that point. I remember sitting in my car, driving home from work to spend the evening with R., singing out loud
You know that I could use somebody,
Someone like you and all you know and how you speak.

This time has long passed. When I now listen to this song, it hurts. Too painful memories. Also, I never managed to make friends with “Come Around Sundown”.
And then, a couple of months ago, they suddenly were there. Cold War Kids. And that feeling was back – falling in love with every single song of the record, listening to it over and over again without getting sick of it. Walking around the streets with “Mine Is Yours” in the iPhone, humming along to it and not caring about the people around me. Sitting in my bed, going through some live videos and singing out loud when the flatmates are not at home.

Cold War Kids are my new Kings of Leon. And “Bulldozer” is my new “Use Somebody”.
And today I’m a lucky girl, because their whole performance of Coachella is up on the interwebz. And so is Kings of Leon’s. So would you please excuse me now, I have two concerts to watch.

Bulldozer
Clear a space for us
Let’s rebuild this love on what we were.

Cold War Kids Part 1

Cold War Kids Part 2

Kings of Leon Part 1

Kings of Leon Part 2

A long day with university, studying and two concerts finds its end. I’m gonna say good night with a new video… an incredibly good one. One that makes you hold you breath for 5 minutes and 29 seconds. Not literally. But you know what I mean.

Manchester Orchestra – Simple Math

What if I was wrong and you had never questioned it?
What if it was true, that all we thought was right, was wrong?
Simple math, the truth cannot be fractioned.

I have something like a midterm-exam in two days. I know, that’s something quite normal. But in my life, there is no place for exams during the term. Because crazy life in Vienna doesn’t stop just because an exam. So, due to massive plans this week (Rival Schools with lovely Walter Schreifels on Sunday, Naked Lunch doing their own interpretation of Kafka’s “Amerika” yesterday, Trouble Over Tokyo in a bookstore today and The Thermals tomorrow), this means me getting up every day before the rooster caws.
However, this morning I’ve been sitting a couple of hours in front of my books, listening to the stream of the new Guillemots record, which will be released on April 19th, on repeat. And after the third time, I found myself humming and even singing along to the songs.
For all of you not knowing Guillemots: they’re an indie-rock band from the UK, and already released 2 records before this one (you can stream them on their SoundCloud). I always thought that their name would be pronounced with that French accent, but Wikipedia just told me that Guillemots comes from some seabirds and is pronounced “gillimott”.

With “Walk The River”, the band found the perfect entry song for this record. It’s a catchy tune with snappy drums that makes you tap your pencil on your study book. Besides the title track, also “I Must Be A Lover” comes with this upbeat chorus you immediately sing along to.
Another song I’d like to point out is “Dancing In The Devil’s Shoes”, a slower track with subtle lyrics and ethereal background voices.
All in all, it’s a fantastic and very atmospheric album with some Brandon Flowers and Band Of Horses in it. The lyrics might get a bit depressing from time to time (“I Don’t Feel Amazing Now”), but you always feel that there is light at the end of the tunnel (“Tigers”).

After around 5 times listening to it, I can say that this album really is a grower. You should listen to the lyrics, and you’ll need a couple of times to fully understand the 9 minutes long “Sometimes I Remember Wrong” and its story of denial and refusal that develops throughout the song.
But now: enough said. Listen.

And there’s a story in every bottle of wine
there’s a ghost that finds me every single time.
(Dancing In The Devil’s Shoes)

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yef2PF2AteU

It’s one of those Saturdays. One of those when you know, that last drink yesterday was really not necessary. Or – the last five drinks. One of those when you wake up, the sun is shining, you make a step on the balcony and feel the nice warmth but know at the same time, that putting clothes on and actually going outside would be way too much work.  Also, your to-do list is endless and is waiting for you beneath the laptop.
It’s one of those Saturdays, when you wake up with a song stuck in your head. And it’s this song. And yes, it’s from the band I’ve been telling you about on regular basis. Because they are wonderful. And now you can stream their whole EP. Have a good Saturday!

(Thanks to everybody from yesterday for contributing to my headache. I still love you!)

I have absolutely no clue why so many people end up on my blog through the search-term “deckchair orange stay lyrics”. Google has a strange way of working…
However, I thought of doing all of those a favor and posting the lyrics… also, you can read something on their latest record “The Age of the Peacock” here.

Deckchair Orange – Stay

Is this what you try or what you want to say
You cannot run away, turn back and run
So don’t pack don’t pack
Oh you should stay

Don’t leave, don’t leave
Just stay
It falls back on you
I won’t regret a word

Stay stay stay
You’re slowly drifting away (When we are breathing in)
You and I is what only can go wrong
Stay stay stay
You’re slowly drifting away (The air is getting thin)
You and I is what only can go wrong

You think your heart won’t be the same
I’m way over this I’m way over it
I had found myself in a place like this

I know that night caused you to sway
You cannot run away, turn back and run
In a place like this it wouldn’t be the same

Stay stay stay
You’re slowly drifting away (When we are breathing in)
You and I is what only can go wrong (The air is getting thin)
Don’t give up before dawn
Stay stay stay
You’re slowly drifting away (The air is getting thin)
You and I is what only can go wrong

Stay stay stay
You’re slowly drifting away (When we are breathing in)
You and I is what only can go wrong (The air is getting thin)
Don’t give up before dawn
Stay stay stay
We are out of sync in this play (When we are breathing in)
You and I is what only can go wrong (The air is getting thin)
Don’t give up before dawn
Stay stay stay
You’re slowly drifting away (Don’t give up before dawn)
You and I is what only can go wrong

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNcxDM9alcQ