Tag: Steve Albini

Gigs from Abroad – Part 15

In the years from 2016 to 2018 we decided with some friends to undertake an annual jaunt to visit the Christmas markets in Germany.  In the first year we headed to Stuttgart for my debut appearance there, and it was appropriately exceptionally cold. The city is the largest in the state of Baden-Wurttemberg and is in close proximity to the Black Forest and is also Germany’s ‘car capital’. Famous previous residents include the footballer Andreas Muller and the current Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp.

The Stuttgarter Weihnachtsmarkt is one of the largest and oldest Christmas markets in Europe comprising of over 280 stalls in the city centre. It contained an absolutely superb model railway, an artefact I am always eternally fascinated by. Our accommodation was next to the Sudheimer Platz and in the corner of the square was Germany’s first ever funicular built in 1929. It is virtually still in its original format including the old cable car which is in itself a listed building! It takes you on an interesting 550 metre journey on a 28% gradient up to the hilltop area of Waldfriedhof.  

Stuttgart Christmas Market. Image Credit europenbestdestinations.com

In 2018 we returned and this time desired to head out on a train trip to another market and Esslingen was referenced to us as a good place to visit. The market town is located on the River Neckar and lies about 9 miles southeast of Stuttgart and one of its twin cities is Neath in Port Talbot.  When there we traversed up and down the considerable number of lung busting wooden steps to reach Esslinger Burg, the old fortress which once protected the city and the accompanying panoramic views.    

The main rationale for our visit to the town was to attend their famous Medieval Christmas market and the olde world ‘Game of Thrones’ vibe of the event was very enjoyable. It felt novel as alongside the obligatory food and drink and traders selling other wares they had jugglers, minstrels, acrobats and fire magicians. There was also musical entertainment in two separate areas thus we saw a band called Oro on Esslingen Market Stage 1 and a chap called Gudbrugger Goldstein on Esslingen Market Stage 2.   

In the middle year we headed to Heidelberg, and this was the second time I had visited the city.  Heidelberg has considerable history in that around 400,000 years ago ‘Heidelburg Man’ died in a nearby town and his jawbone was discovered in 1907. It was subsequently confirmed that his remains were the earliest evidence of human life in Europe.

The city is in the same large state as Stuttgart and is in the warmest region of the country and also contains Germany’s oldest University, founded in 1386. The city hosted the 1972 Summer Paralympics and famous residents include Friedrich Ebert, the first ever president of Germany, racing driver Nelson Piquet Jr, German football manager Hansi Flick, musician Jackson Browne and actor Michael Fassbender of 12 Mens A Slave and X-Men fame. They were also referenced in Harry Potter as having a high quality Quidditch team called Heidelberg Harriers!

We encountered another funicular which is used by 1m passengers annually. It heads up to Konigstuhl where on our visit we encountered some snow showers, the halfway point is the Castle where we took a break for a beer in the huge bar room.  

Heidelberg Funicular. Image Credit klook.com

Our train trip that weekend was over to Mannheim, which is an anachronism for a German city as the streets are built on a grid pattern (like Glasgow) and are numbered accordingly, this quirk results in its nickname of the Square City. One more famous Mannheim resident to cite here is one of the finest ever tennis players Steffi Graf.

I recall having a sally around a huge department store where there was a comfortable seated area showing Saturday afternoon football on several TV screens which unsurprisingly was populated by primarily the male population! Whilst in attendance at the Mannheim Market we saw the Mannheim Brass Orchestra.

On our last night in Heidelberg, we made the catastrophic error of imbibing too much vino tinto creating a perilous journey the following day. Two further challenges abounded, the first that it is a 50-mile commute back to the airport involving a couple of changes on the rails.

The second was the below freezing weather resulting in us waiting on the runway for an interminable time at the vast Frankfurt Airport before fortunately being given the all clear to depart. Prior to setting of we then had the strange and unfamiliar experience of the plane going through the equivalent of a car wash to clear off the snow. We had a very early night when we arrived home that evening!

Before I depart this week, I want to pay my own homage to Steve Albini who died this week at the tender young age of 61. He was an excellent music producer and undertook the task by concentrating solely on enhancing the band which resulted in hardening Wedding Present’s sound and creating my favourite Pixies album ‘Surfer Rosa’, amongst many other achievements.

Steve Albini on stage. Image Credit rollingstone.com

I caught his later band Shellac once, but my abiding memory is witnessing the intensity of Big Black when I saw them on their penultimate ever British date at Manchester Boardwalk in 1987. The gig gods smiled on us as we only heard about the date on John Peel four days before and queued at the venue at 8pm to obtain one of the last remaining tickets, an unforgettable night!  

Preston Venue 41 New Continental – Part 2

Within the New Continental Arts and Events space the owners purchased a new PA and created a small reception area with its own bar and it doubles as the ticket checking area before entry into the gig room which has a capacity of around 250. The driving force behind the booking of the music acts was a local chap called Rico, and they have held a broad spectrum of events including World and Jazz bands and cinema showings.  

My first visit was at an all-day event on a swelteringly hot day on the May Bank Holiday weekend in 2011. Between bands we gravitated outside into the sunshine before returning inside for more tunes. First up was Seamus McCloughlin, a local singer/songwriter who has subsequently become a member of an alternative rock band called The Capital. Next up was Preston band Dirty Swamp led by Mark Whiteside, who is also the driving force behind Evil Blizzard.

They were followed by Australian born Viv Albertine, who was a guitarist in the legendary Slits from 1977 to 1982. She dropped out for a live scene for a long time before reappearing and was promoting her sole studio album ‘The Vermillion Border’ released the following year prior to her penning two autobiographies of her life. She cut a very enigmatic presence.

Viv Albertine. Image Credit flickriver.com

The headliners were the prolific Wave Pictures from London. They have a quirky quintessential English sound complemented by David Tattersall’s wavering vocals and are a staple play on Marc Reilly’s 6 Music show. I recall them referencing the ongoing World Snooker final ongoing at that stage between John Higgins and Judd Trump.  I walked home through the park with a spring in my step after an entertaining afternoon and the realisation of the birth of thankfully another commendable venue in Preston. 

My next appearance was a bonus one as it was on the Sunday where we have just returned from Wickerman Festival 2011 and decided for some inexplicable reason to drag our tired bods out to a gig. We initially caught a Sheffield Steam Punk band in the Dog and Partridge before sallying down to the Conty.

The first act was Best Friends Forever, a wonky bedroom sounding lo-fi band but not without charm and they are coincidentally not unlike the recently mentioned Wave Pictures.

The headliners were Let’s Wrestle, a three-piece band from London. They were promoting their second album ‘Nursing Home’ which was produced by Steve Albini of Big Black fame. They subsequently took a hiatus and disbanded in 2015. They had a plethora of influences in their sound, however for the best descriptor I would have to defer to a BBC’s Collective quote which memorably coined them as ‘the accidental 4am lovechild of eight bottles of £2.99 merlot and a wheelbarrow full of Cutter’s Choice’. This is arguably the best quote I have read since early Idlewild were described as ‘the sound of a flight of stairs falling down a flight of stairs’!    

The band were an engaging presence, but we understandably flagged towards the end of the set as the weekend’s festivities caught up with us and a taxi was called to curtail the evening.

At the tail end of 2012 we went to see the old punk band Eddie and The Hot Rods whose constant member throughout their existence was Barrie Masters prior to his death in 2019. Their famous top ten hit ‘Do Anything You Wanna Do’ released in 1977 still stands up to this day, but their set was a tad limp. They were supported on the night by Dirty Swamp.

In November 2011 there was an unusual event which piqued my interest. They showed a screening of the ‘Anyone Can Play Guitar’, a Jon Spira documentary narrated by Stewart Lee about the Oxford music scene covering the period from 1978 to 2007. The film name was derived from a Radiohead track, and they were naturally a key reference point alongside Oxford counterparts Supergrass. 

Alongside the successes, it also concentrated on other bands who didn’t quite make it, one such band was the Candyskins, who were about at the inception of Britpop. They had limited success but must have driven over a black cat at some stage because they could not have encountered worse luck, including legal disputes over royalties and record companies going bankrupt at inopportune moments. I am just listening to some of their back catalogue as I type this and I am hearing strong shades of Boo Radleys in their sound, which is never a bad thing in my book!

The Candyskins. Image Credit alchetron.com

Another band referenced was one of the shoegaze forerunners Ride and their guitarist Mark Gardener was in residence and after a Q&A performed a short acoustic set. That was followed by a decent set by another Oxford band Rock of Travolta who sat in the instrumental post-rock genre.