Some decent German tunes, for Walter ...

Evening friends,

of course I know that at this time of the year the bulk of you Brits are on holiday in Spain and/or France, which means that most probably you won't be reading this anyway. Brian, who, as far as I know, is the only visitor I have from the States, is a very open-minded chap anyway, so perhaps this post might meet with his approval as well, at least partly (this Fünf Freunde - tune that you posted some time ago, Brian, is still much liked by Little Loser, 6, who heard it in the car a few times and I often find him humming along the opening lines!). Tonight's songs might be a bit bizarre and you won't understand the lyrics, I assume, so bear with me ....

But basically this post is for poor old Walter from the ever fantastic 'A Few Good Times In My Life', who, whilst I'm sitting here typing this, enjoying an ice-cold bottle of Landbier, currently has to endure one of the nastiest things on earth: a German company party, which, to be sure, means he is at this very moment rather having one of the few really bad times in his life. Read about his misery here.

Now, the thing is, for you non-Germans it will be hard to believe how utterly disgusting the music at such events is, because, you know, people drink more and more, it gets later, nothing wrong with that. But it also means that the young people try to get away to a real party somewhere in town so that they can hang around with their friends and the people being left all are of a certain age (45-50) and they want to hear German music they can sing and dance along to, something they heard when they were in their twenties. Now, music in the early or mid Eighties in Germany was utter crap by and large, it all started very well with a certain punk attitude but was soon taken over by the industry. You cannot imagine how many bands made completely shite records under the label 'Neue Deutsche Welle' (New German Wave), and back then you would hear and see nothing else, and I mean nothing, neither on the radio nor on the telly! Those songs were so ludicrous, I cannot describe it. But these are the songs we grew up with and everybody at our age knows them by heart, regardless of the quality the are missing. Still, at such parties, nothing else is being requested. Requested by people, don't forget, who heard nothing else in their life but Genesis, ELO and Pink Floyd until 1981 and were shat on by all those Neue Deutsche Welle bands from 1982 onwards! Jesus Christ, they never heard anything by The Clash up until today and they thought they were hardcore punks because they could shout along to 99 fucking Luftballons ... and tonight, with fifty years of age, they feel the fucking same again ... and still they haven't heard anything by The Clash! ("naah, you're wrong, of course we know The Clash: they only had one single, and that was in this jeans commercial!") But I digress, so I better stop this my ranting ...

But, in order to show you that there was some decent German music as well, here are five killer tunes for you to enjoy, randomly picked. Walter, I hope you still read this before you go to bed tonight, otherwise enjoy the below tomorrow morning with a nice cup of coffee. I hope it helps to make tonight's music disappear out of your head!!





Multicoloured Shades - '(The Ballad Of) The Voodoo Ranger' ('84)

Toxoplasma - '1981' ('83)

Die Lassie Singers - 'Leben In Der Bar' ('92)



S-Chords - 'Voran! Voran!' ('86)



Zeltinger Band - 'Mein Vater War Ein Wandersmann' - 'Müngersdorfer Stadion' (live im Bunker, Köln '79

Take good care,

Dirk