When We Were Beautiful And Young

 

Last week Mick Harvey, former co-founder of the Birthday Party and member of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds announced a new album after almost a decade. His latest sign of life was when he released a couple of months ago a cover version of Marlene Dietrich's A Suitcase in Berlin which will also appear on his new album. I liked this version but forgot to write about it. Now he released When We Were Beautiful And Young another song from this album. And it one of those songs that you listen once and repeat it several times. The track is ethereal and haunting – a powerful reflection of the past delivered with moving grace and presence. The arrangements recall something from Burt Bacharach with a touch of Tindersticks: dramatic and melodic, the lyrics evocative and reflective. Weeping, sweeping strings augment the dramatic scenery and makes me looking forward to the full album.

Blue Heaven

 

Public Service Broadcasting announced a new album for next month and released their first song a few days ago. Recorded in Berlin it is a collaboration with Andreya Casablanca from the German garage-rock band GURR. It seems to be a homage to Marlene Dietrich you can see in the video where a woman rises from garbage container and mutate during a dance performance into Marlene. Casablanca sings a mix of English and German where the corresponding parts merge completely into one another. This euphoric-hymn driving song with its shoegazing parts is not the sound I've expected by PSB but it is more than fun listening to it.

A Guy From Outer Space

Back then in the early 80's me and a couple of lads were DJ-ing at the weekend in our local pub. We all had different musical preferences but we all were maniacs in music and football. Most of us still meet every couple of month for a beer to celebrate our glory days. Wolfgang was the one who preferd the jazzy side, me and Chris were on the punk and New Wave trip and Peter, who was a huge Zappa fan surprised us with strange African sounds and music from the New York No Wave scene (he sadly died on an motorcycle accident almost ten years ago). He was the one who brought us Klaus Nomi. Listening the first time to his songs we all were uncomprehending to this sound because we were never trained in listening to operas. Nomi combined his classical opera based tenor voice with new electronic sounds. Listening more and more of his music we got more addicted to him and most of us had one song on our set-list. Sadly he was one of the first that brought AIDS and what could happen to our minds. I found a very good reminiscence to his life and work here. Knowing that it's not everybody's cup of tea I would like to introduce him to you (if you don't know him) because his combination of Sparks and opera had a great influence to band from the next generation in America.

This one is a cover by a song from Marlene Dietrich:

Here's a rare document when Nomi were a background singer on a live appearance by David Bowie at Saturday Night Live from 1979.

Pete Seeger 1919 - 2014

Yesterday Pete Seeger died at the age of 94. Not that I was a great fan of his music or folk music at all I felt a little sad about the news. I connect his songs with the times of the protest and peace movements. Not that his well known songs are very political I paid respect to his political statements. He has been a member of a Communist Party and was blacklisted during the McCarthy era so that his song could not be played over the radio stations. He had to play in clubs and churches instead. He was also in the American Civil Right movement in the 60s. One of his finest songs is for sure Where have all the flowers gone that was recorded by many artists in many languages. I don't have any record from Pete Seeger so here is a version by the great Marlene Dietrich.

RIP

Marlene Dietrich - Sag mir wo die Blumen sind