Bloc Party everyone!
Bloc Party at my place!I first stumbled across
Bloc Party in the dead of this past winter - a couple renegade songs floating around the internet. It perked up my ears, but I didn't fall in love. A while later, in April, I managed to get my hands on their debut album
"Silent Alarm" - I've not been able to take it off rotation ever since.
"Silent Alarm" has an almost epic depth to the music - the layered guitars, drums, synth and the lead's accented vocals build effortlessly upon one another, creating a sound infinitely interesting. The lyrics range from
- political ("Stop being so American/There's a time and there's a place/So James Dean/So blue jeans/Gonna save the world", "Why can't you be more European/Bastard child of guilt and shame/bury your head in the sand"),
- to social ("A sense of purpose and a sense of skill, a sense of function but a disregard/We will not be the first, we won't/you said you were going to conquer new frontiers/Go stick your bloody head in the jaws of the beast/We promised the world we'd tame it, what were we hoping for?")
- and, of course, to relationships ("What are you always holding out for?/What's always in the way?/Why so damn absent-minded?/Why so scared of romance?").
I've not even touched on the catchy riffs, dynamic dynamics, and how you can tell they love their stuff.
You are just going to have to hear for yourself.
"I've been driving a mid-sized car/I never hurt anyone/Is that a fact?/The price of gasoline keeps on rising/nothing comes for free/Make like a stone, make like a plant/I can tell you how this ends".
Heeding the call of the Reeperbahn
It beckons.I gave in and went back to Hamburg. I just couldn't say no. Such an amazing city - perhaps not as overwhelmingly impressive as Rome, Berlin or Paris at first sight, but it possesses depth. It grows on you. It rewards extended exploration. Tourist attractions are few (Harbor, Reeperbahn, and one WW2 bombed out Cathedral), but locals will find it difficult to exhaust their entertainment possibilities. Countless unique nite life districts, a plethora of modern concert halls and theaters, water sports, and some of the largest and most beautiful parks I've ever seen. Public transport is solid, the economy is stronger than many parts of Germany, and Berlin, Brussels, Paris, Amsterdam and London are just a couple hours away if you need a change of pace. Not that you would...
I also want to reiterate that Hochdeutsch (High German) - the standard dialect of Hamburg - is still much easier to understand and interact with than the Bavarian dialect I've been living around all year. Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like up north with the so-called "Fish Heads" (insulting nickname for North Germans - a favorite of the Bavarians). Passt scho'.
This time around I brought a couple of Americans along for the ride. We made sure to take advantage of Germany's legal sophistication, and shared a couple of bottles of wine we brought with us on the high-speed ICE train. Oh, and by the way - if you are ever in Europe, don't forget that people not only speak a little English, but some speak (and understand) perfect English... On the train a 30 year old German kicked a nice young girl out of her seat as he had some sort of priority card and the train was packed. My friend leaned over to me to comment in English about the ungentlemanly nature of his act, when the German turned around and said perfectly "I feel like an asshole too, but I've got the card and I need to eat this food". He was holding some McDonalds. I think that was the point we broke out the wine.
Saturday night saw the de-verginization of my friends to the shocking reality of Hamburg's Red Light district (
see first Hamburg post). Later on, while in the clubs, we were lucky enough to meet a few different groups of German girls not on the job, which always make for a more exciting evening. The Fish Market was much more lively than in December, given Hamburg get light at 5 (and dark at 11!). Turns out there are live bands rocking out at 6 in the morning.
Die Party hort nie auf (the party never stops).
During a couple of the most beautiful days I've seen since coming to Europe, I was able to explore some of Hamburg's secret gems: its parks. The public parks in Hamburg are vast, creatively planned, and excellently maintained; Hamburg's mild and wet climate probably helps too. You're just going to have to look at pictures of me in the rose garden, ducks in the Japanese garden, and Jason sitting on a bench in the middle of a shallow waterway (cleverly placed there to cool the feet) - more than this I cannot explain.
Hamburg Photo Journal
Explore a couple days of perfect Spring in Hamburg
here.
Store Wars
I just rolled back into R-burg after a wild weekend in Hamburg - pictures and stories on the way soon. In the mean time, check out a 2 min Star Wars spoof:
"Store Wars" - although the voicing is way cheesy, the idea gets my mad props for being creative. More puns than you can poke a carrot at...
