A Brief History Of Hamburg School Part 2

 

The second wave of Hamburg school presented new bands developing the original guitar based indie sound. Sometimes they changed their crudeness for a more melodic style. But still using cryptic lyrics that are hard to understand what they want to explain. First of those bands named should be Die Sterne. I remember when some of their funk and soul influenced songs were part of the sound of a summer in the early 90's.

Die Sterne - Widerschein

Tocotronic were those band that brought post-grunge like Dinosaur Jr. into this genre. Over the years they established as pioneers of Hamburg school. I liked them and I also was impressed by their live appearances. 

Tocotronic - Kapitulation

Tom Liwa and Flowerpornoes brought melancholia into this guitar based sound. Formed in Duisburg in 1985 they sung on their first albums in English and started years later after they moved to Hamburg singing in their native language. Their musical cosmos spreads from psychedelia, alternative rock to folk. 

Flowerpornoes - Planetenkind

Flowerpornoes

A few days ago I posted some German songs. One of them I knew for a lot of years. The track I posted was found on you-tube. I didn't made many minds on it until The Swede asked me for more details on it. So I tried to get more information by the Internet for this artist. After all I've to say that my investigation was fruitless. I really don't know where this version is from, neither when it was released. The only thing I found about this beauties were uploaded by 'Von Nord nach Südwest' - if it is a record label or not; I don't know. Anyway, these are some great tracks with a deep psychedelic touch and Spartan instrumentation. Most of the songs have a slow steady flow with some superb and minimal played guitars.

So if anybody out there knows more about these records - please let me know.

Flowerpornoes - Eins, zwo, drei, vier
Flowerpornoes - Nine Miles High
Modustrio - Schlafende Steine
Modustrio - Syd Barret Blues

And this is for The Swede: This a song by Flowerpornoes that I used to listen decades ago and that is typical for their sound in this time. An of course I got this record by the cover.

Some more decent German songs

Back from my company-celebration and still alive! Dirk and all the others had pity on me and most of Dirk described came true. The later it got the more people get drunk and went to move their old bodies to that music. The celebration took place in two locations in the center of Stuttgart, the town I use to work weekly. Those who organized the party tried to give us a favor showing us a Brazilian dance ensemble dancing to some carnival music. It was horrible - I have never seen any Brazilian female dancers who wasn't able to dance to the music. I tried to watch their eyes if I could see if they took the wrong drugs. Anyway - I moved from this place to get me another cold beer in one of those locations. After their appearance two bands started to play. The first one played some cover versions of songs that I heard too often before. I have to admit that the musicians had craftsmanship in playing their instruments but I means nothing when they hadn't got soul. So I moved over to the next location to listen to a three man band trying to revive the spirit of the Rat Pack. And it wasn't bad at all because they didn't sing the songs of Frank Sinatra one to one but rather they arranged some German songs in the way Frank Sinatra would did it. And after both finished their shows the DJ started his work. The motto was a trip back into the 80s and all my apprehensions were fulfilled. The crowd started singing along when fucking Nena's '99 Luftballons' was played and fist were rising to Europe's 'Final Countdown'. And this was too much to stand for longer than 30 minutes. So I went outside to some co-workers having another drink, sitting in a quiet place and having some good conversation. When I came home late at night I wasn't willing to check out some comments - only listen to some music that was different to those I had to listen to. I grabbed out an very old album from 1987. It is a sampler from new German artist released on Big Store Records. Sorry, but I can't give you any links today, because I have this record only on vinyl.

So enjoy this few songs and have a great Sunday.