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Client, DAF and record labels

Recently, I went to see the lovely, gorgeous and amazing ladies from CLIENT supporting DAF (Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft) in the O2 Academy Islington.

Bootie!

I had seen Client several times before – mostly in Germany, though, where they are more popular than in the UK (1). Sarah Blackwood (aka the lovely ‘Client B’) had started to substitute some of the lyrics with their German translations. However, last November when supporting Anne Clarke in the Underworld in Camden  I heard her sing “gib mir mehr, mehr, mehr” instead of “give me more, more, more” as the chorus for Pills for the first time in London – much to the delight of the not-so-small German crowd in the audience. (Actually, my mate and I reckoned that about a 1/3 of the audience must have been German.) The same thing happened on the 28th of  March… and when DAF had finished their set you could actually hear the audience shouting “ZUGABE!” instead of “encore!” or whatever English fans might be shouting in situations like these.

Well, all that might only be a slightly amusing anecdote and not overly surprising. London is an international city and nowadays it is not so unusual  to combine a gig with a weekend stay in London thanks to budget airlines. What became apparent, however,  is the absurdity of the record label system in our time and age.

Ego-inflationism

Self-adulation is not exactly a positive character trait, however, I have to say that I am rather chuffed by the fact that WORMWOOD (one of the best free mystery audiodrama podcasts around) have chosen to use some fan art by yours truly as the cover of episode 22 A farewell to (f)arms. Thanks, David!

Cover of Wormwood episode 22: A farewell to (f)arms

How I made this picture? Well, that’s an entirely different story for another time. Suffice it to say that there is far less digital image tweaking in there than it seems.

Internet coincidence

One of the links pointing towards my recent post about Terry Pratchett on the stage was from a Pratchett/Discworld message board, more precisely from an admin, called “Anna”. According to her profile information Anna is based in Arizona, USA, but her avatar is nothing less than an image of the Uffington White Horse a prehistoric hill figure (presumably the oldest in the UK) which is also the logo of the local government district of the Vale of the White Horse, the main town of which is Abingdon where the play was staged. Does this have a any relevance? No, but I still think it is kinda funny.

Terry Pratchett on the stage

Last night I went to see”Wyrd Sisters – The Director’s Cut” a stage version of the well known Terry Pratchett novel. As I found out in late 2007 south Oxfordshire, or Abingdon more precisely is the place to be when you are into Terry Pratchett stage adaptations.

Venn you hef ozzer car… ,or, How (not) to be a car thief

My friend M. is a weirdness magnet. When some strange shit happens, it will happen to him. Fair enough, sometimes he is actively involved in bringing the weirdness about, like when he… no, that’s a story for another time.

Anyway, some years ago I had the pleasure of being involved in one of those episodes of weirdness, and apart from having a nice story to tell it also taught me a valuble lesson: How (not) to be a car thief. (You can skip to the relevant advice right at the end of this post if you want to. You will miss a true and funny story, though.)

Losing podcast virginity…

I’ve just spent a bit more than an hour talking to the folks from SFF Audio about audio books and audio dramas, computer games, books and TV series. If you wanna listen to me not knowing of what I am talking about for at least half the time, you can listen to it online or subscribe to SFF Audio podcast. The episode should be available some time tomorrow EDIT: Is available now. Of course I forgot half the stuff that I wanted to talk about and only remembered it after we finished recording. Maybe another time then…
Anyway, it was good fun, so thanks to Jesse and Scott for having me on the show.

Unity vs. Community

Had this in my inbox the other day, via the RGParaliteraria mailinglist created by Bruce Sterling and Robert de Sousa Causo.  The project “Uttuku” itself was founded by Robert N Stephenson.

Not entirely sure what to think about it myself, at least it sounds like an interesting concept and the cause is laudable. But read for yourself.

Neil Gaiman live in London

They say you should never meet your heroes, but frankly when it comes to favourite authors of mine I never cared about that. I have seen a few authors but seeing Neil Gaiman was something special, something I had been looking forward to ever since I read the announcement and ordered my ticket almost two months ago.

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