Category Archives: Alternative Music

Wave Gotik Treffen 25th-28th May – Pre-Festival picks

Posted by missashjade on

So the count down has begun in earnest! In 6 days the 21st annual Wave Gotik Treffen will begin. Four days of 209 of Gothic, Metal and Industrial bands, clubs, talks, art, theatre and events.

As ever the schedule is packed! Details of the programme can be found on the Official Wave Gotik Treffen site, iPhone or android app (Be aware: both apps are apparently clunky to use!) or my personal recommendation of NecroWebs PDF planner and Google Map (also see my guide to WGT recommended Places in Leipzig).

Here’s my picks from this years schedule:

On Thursday (24th May), as ever there is Sadgoth’s pre-WGT Meeting at the Bayerischer Bahnhof. Kicking off the festival with this yearly pub/restaurant is great to meet up with people particularly if you are a festival first timer.

Over the entire festival the Stasi Museum Runde Ecke is running an exhibition entitled: “When The Cemetery Was My Living Room” – The Gothic Scene In The DDR and access to this seems to be free for WGT wristband holders (else €3). Goths, like many other youth cultures were persecuted by the Communist regime in Eastern Germany so this exhibit should be interesting. The museum is running several scheduled guided tours through the exhibit as well. See the Official Programme for further details.

On Friday (25th May) from 3pm is the Victorian Picnic, again this year at the Clara-Zetkin-Park (by the lake near the Parkbühne venue). This is a great place to see/be seen with fabulous, often home-made Victorian, Steampunk, Medieval and Lolita fashions.

Bands on the Friday include Rhombus (at 6:30pm) and The Eden House (at 9pm) representing the British Goth scene at Fehlenskeller. Then the fabulous Haujobb are playing at 11pm at the Agra Halle.

On Saturday (26th May) the Agra is the place to be with Grendel (6pm), Aesthetic Perfection (8:30pm) and Combichrist (11:10pm) all performing there. Also on is the brilliant British electro-industrial band Global Citizen at the Moritzbastei at 8:30pm.

On Sunday (27th May) the mourning halls of the Südfriedhof (South Cemetery) is open to the public for free from 10am-4pm. The cemetery is one of the largest in Germany.

Sunday’s notable bands are Klutae  (Leather Strip’s frontman Claus Larsen’s side project) at Parkbühne at 9pm.

Sunday’s clubbing must is the Moritzbastei with DJ sets from Haujobb‘s Daniel Myer.

Final day on Monday (28th May) bands at Agra are demonic Mexicans Amduscia (7:50pm) and the band you definitely don’t want to be in the front row for (they have promised “loads of blood” on their Facebook page!) Germany’s own Agonoize at 10:30pm.

Monday at Darkflower should be awesome (if you can get in) with the finale party from Out Of Line Electrostorm. Star DJs are listed as Lola Angst and Erk from Hocico/Rabia Sorda playing tunes from 8pm – 6am.

See you there!!!

Miss Jade in Leipzig

Miss Jade in Leipzig in 2011

Resistanz Festival 7-8th April 2012

Posted by missashjade on

This post was also published on alternative clothing brand Jed Phoenix’s website.

Resistanz festival started in 2011 as the big new festival on the Industrial Music scene. Last year’s festival was well organised and drew some impressive headliners. This year was no different with Icon of Coil and Grendel at the top of the bill.

Looking around the venue, the layout was a little different this year. The mixing desk had been moved meaning a better view if you happened to be stuck by the bar when bands came on. There were also fewer food stalls but more seating. There was more room for stalls this year too, the sellers having been moved from upstairs to their own dedicated hall off the out-door area. Jed Phoenix and her team were of course on hand with an array of tempting outfits out on sale.

While I could discuss all of the bands, I’d rather talk about my favourite performances in olympic Gold, Silver and Bronze medal style:

Bronze Medal goes to Dutch sampling extraordinaires Grendel. Grendel always feel like a bit of a guilty pleasure for me; they’re appeal lies in their catchy tunes and samples of cult movies. While they aren’t unique in this Grendel do seem to do it better than some. They’re performance at Resistanz while solid was far from charismatic, but I challenge anyone not to sing along with the Full Metal Jacket samples on their track “Soilbleed”. Add in the experience of being “Rickrolled” (initially in internet meme which seems to have recently leapt into the real world) to Rick Astleys “Never Gonna Give You Up” and you can’t help but love their performance at Resistanz.

Runners up (and only by a pinch) are the bonnie Scottish duo Surgyn. Despite having been placed first on the bill these guys blew me away. I had heard their debut album Vanity before getting to the festival and really liked it but these guys were also incredible live. Flawless melodic vocals, pounding electronic beats, incredible stage makeup, on-stage surgery and a fabulous rapport with the audience made Surgyn one of my favourite Resistanz performances.

Surgyn performing their track “Sharp as Stars” from the album “Vanity”:

A difficult decision but the gold medal has to go to Austria’s euphoric Future Pop ensemble Mind.In.A.Box. While their previous album “Retro” was a geeky homage to classic video games, their new album “Revelations” continues their story of “The Dreamweb”, already played out across their first three albums. This isn’t just a concept album, it’s a concept back catalogue!

Mind.In.A.Box blew the audience away at Bradford’s Infest Festival last year and despite some serious technical difficulties somehow still managed a fantastic set. Battling against feedback and broken vocoders is no trivial matter when you are an electro band but then again Mind.In.A.Box are not your average electro band. Frontman Stefan has a rich and melodic natural voice so was able to carry off vocals sans vocoder with some small edits to their setlist. In their encore 8 bits Stefan usually transposes his voice to sing in the voice of the vintage game heroine the song is about but with the vocoder out of action Stefan again sung the song in his natural voice but with help from bassist Adam. This turned Resistanz’s version of 8 bits into something more like a sing-along Metal anthem!

Mind.In.A.Box performing their track “Remember” from the album “Revelations”:

Coming up in 2011…

Posted by missashjade on

Long time no post – but here’s an update of what we have in store to go to and report back on for 2011

Festivals

Top of my list for festivals this year is Amphi Festival. I have never been to Cologne’s famous Goth and alternative festival but this year’s lineup is just irresistible: it looks as though it’ll be In Strict Confidence‘s only Festival and also on the lineup Covenant, Suicide Commando, Grendel, [X]-rx, Hocico, Nitzer Ebb… check the entire lineup on the Amphi Website.

Coming in at a close second is Wave Gotik Treffen. It’s the 20th Birthday of the worlds biggest Goth Festival and that can only mean it’s going to be bigger and more crazy than ever! The WGT official site has only sent out one newsletter so far stating that there will be a grand opening gig on Thursday 9th June with some of the original lineup from the first festival in 1991. Other rumoured bands have been listed on WGT’s Last.FM events page include The Murderdolls but the lineup isn’t quite capturing my imagination yet. Something tells me though that considering there were almost 200 bands in the lineup last year, I’m sure there will be something for everyone this year.

In third place is probably my favourite festival M’era Luna. M’era Luna has an atmosphere like no other and so far we have ASP and Within Temptation and a handful of other bands

We also have the British festivals: no announcements on Infest (Bradford) other than the dates which seem to indicate that it is definitely going ahead. We also have Resistanz in Sheffield which has a similar lineup to Amphi Festival (meaning I might not go to Resistanz – maybe only Amphi Festival).

And finally I have a ticket to see Danny Boyle’s (Trainspotting, Shallow Grave, 28 Days Later, Slumdog Millionaire) adaptation of Mary Shelley’s gothic classic Frankenstein at The National. Benedict Cumberbatch (The BBC’s Sherlock) and Jonny Lee Miller (Trainspotting). Should be reporting on that too!

Happy New Year!