International Paneling/May 2024
Image by Horster
Get Used to your New Best Friend—Inflation!
by Leo Kuelbs
Berlin
By now, I think everyone I know has had to deal with inflation. I say “deal with,” not “come to terms with,” for a good reason. There are many out there who may not be able to weather this ongoing storm. In the past several months, my credit card bills have increased by around 30%. Generally, we started watching expenses a little bit more and eating out less. But while in NYC, it became clear that eating out is not always cheaper. Taco night supplies for four cost about $85--$28 for a 12-pack of Model alone. And yes, we made it ourselves.
Checking more deeply into the matter, I realize now that several items have increased in price by over 50% in the past two years.
Back in Berlin, there has been another 25-30% increase just in the past few months. Checking more deeply into the matter, I realize now that several items have increased in price by over 50% in the past two years. There it is. Sure, it varies depending on the items, but everything has gone up. And unlike most things, when prices come up, they do not always come down.
During one of the temporary re-openings during COVID, a guy I know who owns a restaurant here in Berlin told me how he adapted. His place opened only four days a week and was always full. He was thrilled. He had more time at home with his two-year-old and less time in post work party-mode. He was thriving.
This has evolved into places charging more, but selling less and making the same amount of profit. But then, everyone else jumped on the ride and the greater profits equate to less buying power and off we go.
Another factor in this plays out daily in cities like St Paul, MN where a lower, but possibly double-digit, percentage of customers no longer pay for anything. They just casually walk out, having filled their own bags, without a word from anyone inside. Perhaps, the ones that pay are covering these losses as well?
And that’s where we are right now. It’s a little scarier in Berlin where many older people who lived through the fall of the wall, etc. live on small, fixed budgets. It’s true that there are still some stores that sell cheaper groceries. But, I am sure these are also slowly growing. These are also the people who, in many cases, are now open to more right wing politics. In many ways, it seems that much of the post-wall governance of the city of Berlin has been a failure. Housing and food prices exploded. There seemed to be a cash grab rolled into the war-related gas price rise of 2022-23. And, of course, travel in/out of Berlin has become its own “trips within a trip,” adding an extra 3-5 hours of travel time for many to account for train rides to/from the airport. And trains are always late and the internet system is mostly based on copped wire. When you pay a premium to live in Berlin, you don’t get premium. Vienna, Barcelona and much of the USA is a better value. But hey! The Berlin weather is great!
So far, this inflation explosion (along with mental health, drug use, gun violence, wars and refugee explosions) has not gotten a lot of coverage in the press, as far as it being an underlying cause of global instability. But if you ask anyone, almost anywhere, you will get the sense that the 2020s are kind of a digital equivalent to the 1920s. One hopes we can vote our way into a more stable world. And somehow generate more empathy and commonalities. But sadly, it seems there are many among us who are not willing to roll that way.
So, good luck out there! You may have to learn to save and scale back a bit and learn to appreciate the amazingness of good friends and loving family. Hey not everybody sucks. And don’t forget books! Spring will come, and the cycle will go on. Just breathe in and try not to sneeze too much.
Video Shorty of the Month—"Sermerssuaq," by Mai’T Segura & Harald V. Uccello
A tasty treat from Digital Fairy Tales: Obvious Surprise! Mai’T does the moves, while the Harald makes the shots. This Barcelona-based duo has been creating works individually and together for a few decades now! This video from the “Obvious Surprise” show, uses the concepts of feminine power via connectivity, demonstrated on many levels, as its basis. Prepare to sing!
The 15 most iconic quotes by Andy Warhol
by Dirk Lehr
Berlin
Andy Warhol Superstar is the name of the last chapter of a book about the artist that is on my shelf. Hardly any other artist influenced subsequent generations of artists like he did. That still applies today. What would Damien Hirst be without Warhol’;s factory idea? No one else understood the art of marketing as well as he did. So it’s probably no coincidence that he admired Salvador Dali, whose muse Gala was said to have squeezed every dollar out of him. Warhol is not only famous as a global brand, for record auction results, but also for his quotes. Based on one of his most famous, here are Warhol’s 15 most iconic quotes, some of which seem prophetic or are still highly topical:
1. In the future everybody will be world famous for fifteen minutes.
2. You’d be surprised how many people want to hang an electric chair on their living-room wall. Specially if the background color matches the drapes.
3. Sex and parties are the only places where you have to appear in person.
4. Society is so stupid that it pays a hundred thousand dollars for every piece of junk.
5. I want to be a machine because you always do the same thing.
6. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you can know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good.
7. All is pretty.
8. The aesthetics of our day is called success.
9. I am a deeply superficial person.
10. I’m not afraid to die; I just don’t want to be there when it happens.
11. As soon as you stop wanting something, you get it.
12. Don’t pay any attention to what they write about you. Just measure it in inches.
13. I just do art because I’m ugly and there’s nothing else for me to do.
14. It’s not what you are that counts, it’s what they think you are.
15. Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.
Between Waves: A Breath of Fresh Water
Dispatch from the Wake: An Excerpt from the Essay; Part Two
by Kamilah Foreman
Harlem
Image by ANANI
Anger is a flotation device, and the first few days were giddy. I had purpose! I saw other human beings! I walked more than 100 steps per day! In the same plaza where I cheered Barack Obama as he was declared the first Black president of the United States, I stood at the back of my first rally with my bike, the ultimate social distancing tool in a crowd. Roll it a meter back or to the side and people shift around you like a current. The cops had blocked off most of this sizable space, forcing those of us expressing our constitutional rights to free assembly and speech to stand too close together. A new calculation entered the mix: health versus expressing righteous anger.
A helicopter circled above. To assess the crowd size? Record our faces for further surveillance? Or simply intimidate? The NYPD is a paramilitary force exercising asymmetrical warfare, leveraging air power to counter our insurrection. Throughout U.S. history, political rhetoric has often been grounded in connections, however tenuous and ancillary, to the so-called founding fathers, white Christian men of property, gentlemen insurgents. The central myth proclaims that through their intellect these men created a wild experiment with democracy, one less savage than the imminent French Revolution and more enduring than governments born afterward. Scholars and lay people alike can argue about the quality of a democracy created by a group that included slave holders. In my view ancient Athenian democracy was far more egalitarian with its citizen-office holders chosen by lottery. Moreover, the United States has never fully acknowledged the hypocrisy of a fight against British imperial tyranny on land stolen from Indigenous nations, nor have we reckoned with the barbaric intent to not just conquer territory for a new country but to commit genocide.
With all bloody, fatal evidence circulating in our feeds, what should be less subject to debate is that legitimate criticisms of the state are treated as criminal…
With all bloody, fatal evidence circulating in our feeds, what should be less subject to debate is that legitimate criticisms of the state are treated as criminal, even as such movements are often revered in hindsight and reclassified as part of this country’s distinguished history of protest. At present, in Portland, Oregon, self-described moms march in yellow at the front of Black Lives Matters protests and sing lullabies to federal forces. Clad in bike helmets and masks and clutching video-enabled cell phones, they are but the latest cadres of ordinary people of any race attempting to shame the state into respecting the public airing of grievances and demands for meaningful change. Even these mostly white mothers, usually considered a sacrosanct political constituency, are tear gassed.
Christina Sharpe asks, “What does it mean to defend the dead?” As a gringa who’s read a few things, I know that the Wall of Moms demonstration emulates the Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo in Argentina and less famous political movements of U.S. Black mothers to protect their children such as MASK in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood. Therein lies the U.S. white supremacist trap in which whiteness and class privilege confer legitimacy on any given protest. Yes, the second example of government overreach in this essay is about mostly white mothers. It is neither about the Portland residents arrested by federal officials in unmarked vehicles (as if this were Santiago around the other 9/11, September 11, 1973), nor the many BIPOC mothers organizing for justice such as my cousin, Wanda Johnson, mother of Oscar Grant, whose murder by the police would capture the symbolic imaginary so much that his death was memorialized not just in cell phone video but in the Hollywood film Fruitvale Station.
White motherhood conveys innocence and virtue and can serve as a literal form of protection. By contrast, Black motherhood is the Middle Passage made anew. Under slavery, children inherited the condition of the mother and were born into servitude, regardless of the father’s race. The birth canal thus became the slave ship, pregnancy, the length of time in the hold. Among the “postmodern orthographies of the wake” that Sharpe elucidates is the way in which mass and social media broadcast Black “mothers bereft from the murders of their children, each mother forced to display her pain in public.” Behold two images of demands for equal protection under the law: white mothers facing down government forces in riot gear and Black mothers holding tearful press conferences. One presents militancy, the other polite respectability; yet, I suspect that the tactics matter less in terms of the likelihood of their success than the race of the agents. My point is not to judge strategies or reinforce troublesome and at times spurious distinctions between good (nonviolent) and bad (violent) protestors. What matters more is the irony that when challenging anti-Black policing and state violence, some bodies are allowed to be combative in public and others absolutely cannot.
After decades of protests, I know that when the cops have barricaded the crowd, you can only go where they tell you, and what’s the point in that?
I stayed at the first demonstration for only an hour. After decades of protests, I know that when the cops have barricaded the crowd, you can only go where they tell you, and what’s the point in that? Hours later, my immigrant ex-boyfriend texted that he and others had taken over the West Side Highway, trailed by helicopters, before splitting into wildcat marches that joined other groups all over the city. Friends shared photos of folks kneeling outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art, marching in Times Square, crossing the Brooklyn Bridge. New York had erupted, and I was back home in my box, probably scratching myself and watching reality TV. Not gonna lie: I had serious FOMO for at least a week. It’s been nearly twenty years since I was in a rogue protest that took over a major highway.
Exploding fireworks, the strike of flash grenades, and flying tear gas canisters sound too similar to distinguish at a distance.
Complacent paranoia is an adaptive coping mechanism. Rumors abounded earlier this summer: the illegal fireworks exploding every night could be a police plot or criminals covering up other nefarious activity. My sister in Los Angeles couldn’t sleep at night. Exploding fireworks, the strike of flash grenades, and flying tear gas canisters sound too similar to distinguish at a distance.
I want to believe these nightly disturbances were joyful anarchy amid months of isolation and death. Like the ambulances after the worst of COVID, what sounded like cannons outside my window barely registered. Instead, I lay in bed, low-level anxiety holding sleep at bay, and when I noticed the blasts, they became oddly comforting. Life continued. My city, the unruly New York that enthralled me when I moved here, was back.
As I drifted off, the midnight blue of my bedroom merged into green streaks across the sky. Growing up in the 1990s, the first international conflict I watched on TV, the Gulf War, was a visceral introduction to jingoism and blind faith in state power. Its residue: this summer I was awakened from dreams of Scud missiles by police helicopters chasing down the firework setters. In those first few seconds of consciousness, I couldn’t separate celebration from combat.
continued next issue…
Autogramm Tour Journal 2024! The sights, the sounds, the smells!
Intro/disclaimer: The following journal documents the tour undertaken by North American band Autogramm in March 2024. Although it was not uncommon for us to partake in pfeffi, mexicaners or the local schnapps before, during and after our sets, debauchery was kept to a minimum. Psychedelics were sampled by some and/but nobody fell in the canal this time. We bought edibles that were never eaten but quickly ran out of the banana+licorice flavored gummies given to us by our friend Niels in Haarlem of which we then bought 3 more bags as soon as we got back to the Netherlands. So not to say we didn’t party and stay up late every night but we also made a conscious effort to not feel like total human garbage every day like previous tours.
by Jiffy Marx
Vancouver
March 14
Practiced last night after Lars got into Vancouver from Seattle. Went kinda late as we don’t get to practice that much. Lars and I are on the same flights today connecting thru Calgary but The Silo is on a different flight today and Cc flies tomorrow as he had to work today:( So it feels a bit like The Amazing Race at this point hoping we all make it there in time for our first show 🤞😬 which isn’t until Saturday so at least 3 of us have time to deal with the jet lag! Airport isn’t super busy so the check in and bag check went smoothly, about to grab a coffee and board in 20ish!
March 15
Arrived safely at Schipol Amsterdam. Slept a little bit on the plane but probably try to catch a few more 💤s at our hotel then maybe head into the city! Room wasn’t ready so The Silo, Lars and I had a 2 hour nap in the hotel lobby lol. At 2pm we got into our room, took some quick showers then headed into the city! Went to Albert Cuypstraat market, a record store and then to a restaurant all of which Silo and I had visited before on previous trips but/and the restaurant called Spang Makandra is our favourite- it’s Surinamese but also has Dutch Indonesian. They have moved two doors down, renovated and expanded, very busy and still very good!! Wandered around more after dinner, bought some truffles but wandered fairly aimlessly and mostly to kill jet lag which I think we’ve done a pretty good job with!? It is 10:35 we are back at the hotel Ibis Airport and going to have a few more drinks before bed!
March 16
Got picked up in our rental van and headed to Smoeff to load up our backline. Cc’s first flight was delayed, he made his connection in Paris just in time but his bag didn’t 🤬 It made it onto the next flight a couple hours later so he just waited at the airport. Fortunately Schipol is basically a mall so he was able to have a much needed and gluten free meal while he waited.
March 17
First show last night in Haarlem was a great, very cool venue in an old converted slaughterhouse(!?) also close to an old prison which is now a theater. They really know how to preserve their history here! Our friend Niels and the dudes from Add To Wantlist came to the show which was opening for The Covids from Amsterdam who were great and all really nice. A good warm up for the rest of the tour. Never been to Haarlem before but will definitely try to come back. Even the punk houses in Europe are nicer than back home! Came back after the show and had a Schlager youtube party with The Silo and a couple random dudes from the show. Tonight we play a venue I played 20 years ago called Vera. It’s a volunteer-run former squat in Groningen NL and is considered by many including myself to be the best independent music venue in the world! It’s Sunday and we’re playing in the bar not the main auditorium so I’m not sure what the turnout will be like but still stoked to be playing there again. Today we inadvertently did something touristy when stopping for lunch- the restaurant, which turned out to be located in an outlet mall lol, was right beside this Dutch East India trading ship from the 1600s!
March 19
Vera did not disappoint! Even on St. Patrick’s day Sunday we played to a full room. Less than Saturday night but in a smaller room. One thing that I find is it’s usually more fun to play to 40 people in a room that fits 30 than to play to 100 people in a room that fits 300. That may not make sense to most people but just something about the energy of a full room.. somewhat surprising we actually made more money last night. Not exactly sure how/why except as mentioned Vera is just the best? I suppose one thing I learned that might partly explain it is Vera has 10-15 paid employees and 300 volunteers! Even the bar staff last night were volunteers including the bartender who was also DJing at the same time! He had obviously done his homework and was playing great powerpop, new wave and post punk records all from his personal collection. After the show we went down the block to a fast food place with windows like a vending machine. Along with some common Dutch deep fried treats, they had a local favorite called Eierbal or Eirballen which was a hard boiled egg with a curry flavored breading.. delicious! Speaking of which, we also tried the truffles which were plenty strong enough to be split between Lars, The Silo and I; and surprisingly better tasting than the mushroom varieties we are used to. Tonight we are in Brussels, Belgium apparently the show is expected to be packed!?
March 20
Well apparently Le Chaff is the place to go on Monday nights in Brussels, there were 200 people at the show so the venue and its patio were packed so full that the crowd spilled out onto the street and parking lot across the road! Then this morning the same parking lot (or possibly you could call it a square?) had a huge flea market. I found a picture sleeve version of my favorite Belgian single Ça Plein Pour Moi by Plastic Bertrand for 1€- score! Left a bit early as we have to soundcheck at 3pm for some reason but hopefully that will give us a bit of free time in Paris afterwards.. I think the venue is near the Bastille so we will try to check that out if we have time..
Unfortunately we didn’t end up having as much free time in Paris as hoped due to parking which was hard to come by and very expensive- 12€ for 2 hours 😳😭 On the upside the show was packed again with a very responsive crowd, far and away better than our last Paris show which was during a record breaking heatwave! Met more cool Europeans of all ages- crowds here are much more diverse than at home. I met Martin from Idiotapes and when I told him I am also in Night Court he said he was a fan and showed me that he already follows us on bandcamp. We traded contacts and hope to work on something together in the future. Had to leave early this morning so I didn’t even get a fresh croissant before we left Paris. I had one from a truck stop but definitely not the same (I can’t believe it’s not butter? because I’m pretty sure it wasn’t!:( ) At least the venue was only a few blocks from the Bastille so we went and checked it out so as to do at least one touristy thing while we were there
March 21st
Oh shoot, what day are we on now 6 or 7? 7 I hope as I'm getting a bit homesick and only have enough clean clothes for another 7.. did laundry today with The Silo while Lars and Cc hit the local H&M for clean underwear so I think (🤞😂) that puts us at about the halfway mark!? Another good show this time in Karlsruhe DE where none of us had been before. Very nice venue, weirdly again in a former slaughterhouse- I guess they have a good acoustics? Probably more like no other businesses want to use those spaces other than for a punk rock bar! Crowd was smaller and more tame than the other shows but they bought the most merch! We are actually running out and have been having issues trying to get Beluga to send us more. Hung out after the show with my friend Michael from Time For Action Records and the promoter Plüschi who was super cool/nice. Also The Silo has definitely come down with a cold and I'm a bit worried I am getting it too:( picked up some powdered zinc and vitamins packs that you add to water hopefully that'll help boost the immunity (🤞again!) The hotel we stayed at last night was really cool too. As a fan of "outsider architecture" I was pleasantly surprised. The rooms were nice, less eccentric other than a built-in tape cassette player on the wall above one of the beds it didn't work tho:( Also, full hotel breakfast was quite the spread, wish I'd known and planned ahead as I'm also a fan of all-you-can-eat if the food is good..! Oh and I was able to check out a skatepark yesterday after dinner/before the show and heard there might another one close to or (maybe at?) the venue tonight (🤞 triples are the best;)
March 22nd
Show was good, similar to the night before except we have run out of LPs and we definitely would have sold more if we'd had them.. there was a screw up and we've been trying to figure out how to get more. Currently there's a box on its way to Dresden but we don't get there til Tuesday or we may drive an hour or so out of the way to get them a day or two sooner but waiting until they arrive just in case 🤞😬 Hit another record store today where Lars bought quite a pile of 45s. Of course as soon as we left I thought of stuff to look for but/so my wife will be happy to know I walked away with only a couple singles. Oh and not sure where that skatepark at the venue info came from, sadly there wasn't which is too bad since we did stay on site and tbh I'm not even sure what the place was? It had a bar as well as some meeting rooms that doubled as accommodations on the main floor, venue, full wood shop and something like a classroom downstairs and apparently they have some refugees living upstairs temporarily so I guess sorta like a community center I guess? Interesting place nonetheless and they seemed pleased to have us so I’m still knocking on wood as I would say all the shows so far have been “successful”!
March 23
Feeling better not worse so hopefully I can maintain that.. very enthusiastic crowd last night in Bochum which is in the Ruhrpott. I think where the Rhein meets another big river apparently? Great DJ after we played I probably would have danced but Silo is the dance enthusiast in the band and he’s still not feeling well so we sent him home in a cab:( Made me realize touring/playing shows isn’t as much fun without one of your best buds with you. Having played in many bands with Dave from Night Court and one with my wife I guess I knew that but maybe took it for granted or just never thought about it? I mean, CC and Lars are good homies of course, just hate to see The Silo suffering (and not dancing!) Short drive today so hopefully will have some time to take in some culture!
March 25th
Sorry it seems I missed a day as I have been writing these figuratively and literally “on the road” and I drove the whole way yesterday. Exploring and meeting locals were some of yesterday's highlights (day 10 according to my math!) The show in Frankfurt was my least favorite (of course the athletes who finish last in the olympics can still say they qualified;)) The room was packed and we played ok but the sound was pretty terrible I think.. it's always hard to know how it sounded out front but on stage there was a lot of feedback:( I suppose it’s to bring down costs but unfortunately the sound person at the venue was also the bartender which logistically doesn’t work and probably due to the stress of having to do both he was very grouchy and kinda scary!😳😂. People seemed to enjoy it tho and it was made up for by the promoter Dennis whom I think we all really hit it off with. Maybe it’s just because we stayed at his house so we got to spend more time with him but also he’s into similar music and doing his masters in art history so it’s no big coincidence that we had lots to talk about. Maybe the coolest thing was that he took us behind the scenes at one of his jobs in the morning- to the lookout tower on top of the bell tower at the Cathedral of Saint Bartholomew! One of his jobs is giving tours of the bell tower but/and because our tour was “unofficial” he took us into the apartment where lookouts would have lived from 1300s-1800s mostly to watch for fires since everything was built of wood and lit by candlelight! It was even a bit sad to say goodbye EXCEPT it turns out The Silo wasn’t totally wrong about playing at a skatepark he just had the day wrong! (I think since I missed a day we’re now day 11?) Schokofabrik in Bayreuth is not just any skatepark, this “youth club” was massive and indoors with two venues and because they close it during shows I had the whole skatepark to myself!! Basically the “backstage room” was a giant indoor skatepark so needless to say it was awesome. Then today we had some extra time due to a short drive so we stopped at a German thermal bath called Toskana World in Bad Sulza which is sorta like a big pool complex with several pools warm and not hot as well as a series of steam baths. I was hoping for at least one “hot tub” but settled for a pool that was in a dark domed room with soothing lights and music playing under water!
March 26th
Starting to feel like I can see the home stretch (although it seems like every time I think we have x amount of shows left we really have x+1 if you can follow the math there:). I would have liked to have gone to bed earlier since our accommodations were in the same building but I was hanging out chatting with the bartender George and his friend Julien. George plays in Egg Idiot, an awesome egg punk band where he dresses up like a giant egg lol and Julien has a project called Autobahns and had just gotten back from touring Australia with a bunch of bands I like! Last night we played in Leipzig which was our second time but at a different venue and continued the trend of good shows. A full room and people were dancing which is always a good sign and I guess going in with very low expectations based on our last show in the same city made it all the better. I do think we were told last time that touring Europe in the summer is a bad idea and I guess that is what they were talking about?
Tonight is actually our only show where we play the same venue we played in 2019 so it should prove to be the real test. It’s a bigger venue as well so hopefully the trend continues! Today we got up around 9 in hopes of having someone look at the guitar amp we rented. It wasn’t really working all of a sudden last night so we ended up borrowing one from the venue. The place that was recommended wasn’t able to look at it tho so we’ll have to cross our fingers and/or keep borrowing for the last few shows. Instead we ended up checking out a record store and then the Battle of Nations monument which commemorates the last battle against Napoleon before he was exiled to Elba. It was impressive, also free parking! Then we headed to Dresden and had time to check out the old part of town that has many beautiful historical cultural buildings still singed from the fire bombing. Show tonight turned out great again so I’m pretty sure at this point the whole tour will be great since we have friends in Berlin and our agent is from Hamburg! Last show in Zwolle Netherlands could be a wild card but it’s a Friday so should be pretty good 😊🤙
March 28th
Dresden show was good. Very friendly people (like everywhere we’ve been!) I quite liked the opening band L’Appel Du Vide who weren’t local but were from only an hour away- so happily swapped LPs with them. Oh yeah and we finally got our LPs so will have probably just enough for our last few shows 😅👍 my cold has seemingly started to move into my chest which isn’t good but at least it’s the end of the tour not the beginning. The Silo has been low key sick for most of the trip so that’s a bummer for him and we’re all pretty snotty now having spent every day and night together. Got to hang out today with our old buddy Chris Frey who was one of the first people I met when I moved to Vancouver in 1997 he played in a short lived band with my best friend Dave at the time then played in Radio Berlin with The Silo shortly after then played in Dysnea Boys with CC when he lived here in Berlin. Did a bit more browsing in record shops near Chris’ house and had lunch at my favorite Turkish deli Gel Gör. Sold out show in Berlin... Thanks Beavis! Makes the exhaustion and homesickness sting a bit less! Get to meet our booking agent tonight in Hamburg, will tell him what a great job he did.. and we're playing on a boat!? Should be pretty awesome if my voice holds up..
March 29th
Boat was apparently not sold out but it was standing room only shoulder to shoulder so I can’t imagine how/where they could have fit 10 more people!? Was kinda cold and rainy so at one point I thought nobody was gonna show up but then they all did. Lost track again what day this is but am counting backwards now- 1 more show, 2 more sleeps. Playing aboard the MS Claudia Glitscher maybe was a bit rough due mostly to weather and my voice starting to go from this chest cold but it added some growl to my voice which I was told by one or two audience members that it/we sounded really good. Maybe not my favorite but definitely the most unique and The Haermorrhoids (sp?) got the captive crowd well primed for our set!The show was also put on by our booking agent Jens with whom we also stayed so it was good to get a chance to hang out with him and his family and thank him in person for excellent work on booking the tour! Sad to have missed our friend Flo on this trip but turns out The Haermorrhoids singer played drums in Flo’s superb old band Latex Lovers. After the show we all hung out too late, drank too much and spent way too much money at Hamburg’s best punk bar the Komet.
March 30th
Last show was packed and fun so no bad shows on this tour!! Zwolle is a really cute little town in case any of you ever find yourselves looking for quaintness in the Netherlands. Unfortunately last night was the latest show- we played around 11:30 so didn’t get packed and loaded out until 1:30ish then had to hit one last Dutch snack window place! Currently on the way to drop Silo off at Amsterdam airport which is only a 1.5 hr drive. Then we will return the van and rental gear and check in to our hotel as the rest of us fly tomorrow morning. We will have a bit of time this afternoon/evening to maybe go into Amsterdam again but having only slept 4-5 hrs all I can currently think about right now is getting the work done and maybe taking a nap! So excited to get home that I’d sorta love to just close my eyes and be there but I’ll try to make the most of my last day and at least eat something yummy for dinner.
March 31st
Captain's log- final entry. It’s gonna be a loooong day 😬. Woke up at 5 am Amsterdam time to catch a 6am shuttle to the airport. Had to spend a bit of extra time checking our gear but got on flight and left on schedule. Currently on our way to Seattle where we will have a 5 hour stop over (sounds sucky but we will have to transfer our luggage and go through US customs so probably better to have too much time than not enough). We did make it into Amsterdam yesterday and managed quite a feat- somehow ate at Amsterdam’s worst restaurant 🤦♂️ Basically was pretty rainy and we were hungry wandering around Centraal area after having gotten a bit lost on transit due to a protest that closed or blocked some main routes into town. Wandered into what looked like a busy local bar/restaurant but it was so busy we hastily decided to go across the street.. a huge epic fail 😂😭 Everything from the service to the temperature was pretty mediocre but the pump cheese and sweet bbq sauce on the nachos I think took the prize! Anyway, I'm almost home and just looking forward to hugging my girls, sleeping in my own bed and recovering from this cold!! Hope you are all well and talk soon..
3 Questions with Christopher Winter!
In celebration of his latest solo show at Karl Oskar Gallery in Berlin, we are rebroadcasting this tasty interview with our favorite Berlin and Hastings-based visual artist, Christopher Winter. There’s new work and a new catalog—it’s all very exciting!
Basel, naked (without the art fair)
by Balazs Kulcsar
Brussels
The Art Basel is the biggest art cliché in the world. Just like Switzerland = money. The art fair, which now appears all over the world (Shanghai, Miami, Paris) has the strangest timeline. The fair opens on a Thursday, so inevitably has a preview opening party on Wednesday. That’s the basic setup everywhere. But look, this is not the end, because it has a VIP opening on Tuesday evening, and even more VIP programs on that day. And they have a VIP+ opening on Monday evening, for even more VIP people. And there is a VIP ultra on Monday afternoon, but you have to arrive with private jet for that one. So when you are wondering why the art fair has close collaboration with BMW, here’s the answer. These people will never jump on the otherwise quick and comfortable tram after their private jet.
The Mayday Art Space exists outside of the bustle of Basel Art Fair Grounds. Balacs in conversation with Eva-Maria Knüsel
…the biggest problem with the art world in Basel is indeed Art Basel….
But money is boring and art is not about money. Yes, they can send out colorful presentations with bold numbers of sales but what original art left in the city? Michael Sutter, curator, explains that the biggest problem with the art world in Basel is indeed Art Basel. The art fair is too big and dominates the art life in all aspects, which means other initiates cannot have attention. The country is relatively small so it’s not a surprise that only 2-3 % of galleries coming from the local scene, all the rest is international. The ticket prices skyrocketed so an artist have to think twice if he/she can afford it. But once the art fair is done, all the private jets returned, the city becoming quiet. Too quiet...
So let’s take the tram 8 from the center, and going north in the direction of Germany. The last stop in Basel shows a very different area. No more fancy buildings, only the harbour, the river and industrial places. This was the best choice for an independent low-cost exhibition space Mayday. According to Eva-Maria Knüsel this industrial background brings you back to the reality, where you can concentrate to art, and not the money. No 10 meter height full-window concrete design, only the purest space what you can imagine.
When you had enough about the industrial idill, take the same tram to the city. In Feldbergstrasse, still not in the center, this area is called Klein Basel, a living area where Aleksandra Cegielska installed with the Eleven Ten Studio artist-run-space. Aleksandra is a Poland-born artist and she was brave enough to rent the space for an artist community. Mostly feminist artists are displayed, only locals as the goal is to support the local art scene, make available art for people who won’t spend millions in the Messe. Another common thing is the multiple functions, as the place is used not only for gallery purposes, but also for workshops, events and meetings.
A well-known name in Basel underground is Voltage, a project space for non-commercial works. The founder, Ana Vujic is interested in collaborations, so the place is rather a space than a gallery. As Ana explains, the problem with a curator work is that it’s often unpaid, just like many woman activities. She focuses on the discussions, she often brings artists, art historians or even musicians to a table. Basel is a small city, so the art life is also not comparable to London. But still, if you look close enough, you can find many interesting things...
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