Moon Wheel, Blue Stork, mACACO mAU & A-Zink

5. Januar 2012
in Musik
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We pretend it’s a year like every other and continue inviting your favourite new acts and our favourite forgotten geniuses to Madame Claude. This January Poplars and Rocks presents:

MOON WHEEL is swedish-born, australian ex-inhabitant, berlin-resident Olle, whose music is a spaced-out, trippy venture into moog-smoked tribal preserves of the dark side of the moon. Somewhere between Moon Dog and Creedence Clearwater Revival he lets his spaceship land. If he is not doing so, you find him making art. Listen here to Moon Wheel on Soundcloud.


BLUE STORK is old Billy, the kid, as his hoodies call him in Neukölln. We had the honour of presenting him before, when his band name was longer and his oeuvre smaller. Now as time goes by, it tends to turn these things around and BLUE STORK comes along with new, more elaborate sounds that are still rooted between heavy drone noise and soft shoe-gaze. Billy might have finished school in the meantime, as his latest Afterschool EP is suggesting, his new home he found at any rate already in a small label, Holy Page. Listen here to Blue Stork’s latest and first full length album Hss Mks M Hpp, that is also for free DOWNLOAD.

Third at the night of the three holy kings is another old aquaintance: danish escapist mACACO mAU, aka Brian, shares with the other two an undecided and both-embracing life between art and music; as passionately and wild his paintings, so are his sound worlds, brushed with shreddered noise and heavy beats. He will be joined that night by spanish fellow brother in mind A-Zink. Listen here to mACACO mAU’s latest album Alaqia, also for FREE download.


 

On decks less evocative and more accessible tunes stretched over a vortex between psychedelic punk and art disco which is Rad Spin Rotate Club.

Friday, January 6th 2012, Madame Claude, Lübbener Straße, Kreuzberg. The live show starts 9.30 sharp. Admission is as usual your free decision.

event on facebook. drawing by olle.

CRAVE and Sean Derrick Cooper Marquardt

2. Dezember 2011
in Musik und Art
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This friday, last show in 2011, and having rounded off officially eight years of underground promoting. This time at Madame Claude Poplars and Rocks presents: CRAVE and Sean Derrick Cooper Marquardt.
CRAVE is the side project of Jonny Teardrop, native french from Paris, part-time american, now for some time already residing in Berlin. As Jonny Teardrop he made a smashing performance this year at drop dead festival at maria, and played on and off the small experimental music venues such as loophole, where I by accident spotted him first and approached him to find out who he was. CRAVE is Jonny’s latest project that he plans to develop in the future, with guest musicians willing to contribute – I would! so long, on friday, solo. Jonny says he always brings the police, but let’s hope the cellar will keep us safe… After his first self-released EP young, out in june this year, his first album followed on november 9th: heal, an amazing self-produced album, that leaves one dizzy already while listening to the first song, but will totally have taken one after the whole length of the album into a different sphere of consciousness. Whereas the shows of jonny are pure raw distorted energy, the album lowers the tempo, oscillating back and forth, down pitched and trippy, never telling you where to take you next. He will go far.

Sean Derrick Cooper Marquardt takes the otherworldliness a step further: his noise is a complete thick foggy curtain of something visionary, that cannot be shaped. when I saw him first many years ago, when experimental music was not all over town yet, I was astounded by the way he treated his guitar, seamingly hardly touching it, more happening accidentally to be there to help him create the sound he wanted. The film clips he started to produce to go along his compositions stress the coincidence of the extract of a pattern. Originating from Chicago, Sean is living now for a long time in Berlin, making himself a name in the underground scene of the noise family, also starting to organise himself experimental noise nights. His latest album Gesang der Geister was out on avachorda. But keep checking, he produces mini albums regularly, sometimes daily. Some are found here.

Opened will be the night by Whale vs Elephant with a short set of new songs. Visuals by Lady Lazer Light (Wellington). On decks Rad Spin Rotate Club with latest resident Raving Mad Carlos (Buenos Aires), guest DJ Kyra LaMariana (New York) and our very own Julie (Berlin).
Madame Claude, Friday, December 2nd. Show starts 9.30pm sharp. Admission – still – free donation! We always appreciate your coming along. Thanks to all who came at least once in the past eight years. Not to mention our gratitude to those who made it even twice. On to the ninth…

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Drawings by Jonny.

Prader & knecht, Jimmy & krach

4. November 2011
in Musik
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This month at madame claude: two duos! Prader & knecht come all the way up from Zürich in Switzerland to play our world-famous monthly mayhem of unpredictable and outstanding new and the like weird acts. They consist of guitar and cello, the drummer they had to leave at home, and enchant with beautiful songs that swing between country, blues and perfect pop. Recently they have released their first album, called This Is Weird, which they are going to present at this very first gig of theirs in Berlin.

Here for a limited time only for you the title track of the album This Is Weird for download:

Local support comes from underground guru of garage blues Jimmy Trash. This night without his celebrity packed backing band, including normally such illustrious names as Oska Wald from Chuckamuck, Mohair Sam, or Mum and Son in the past. Planned as stated on the flyer to play with Rosie, accompanying with clarinette Jimmy on piano, the lineup was swiftly changed into Krach der Roboter joining, labelling the music now according to Jimmy drum machine blues.
Jimmy Trash moved some years ago from the outbacks of Australia into the thriving night life of Berlin, where he soon became one the leading night creatures that make Berlin the little boring place it is said to be. Evolving from around the anti-folk adorer fourtrack on stage, he slowly made his way through the moldy cellars by getting a reputation for his freak out shows where self destruction and broken glass are only a minor side occurence on the way to evoke pure lust and thus achieve a higher spiritual consciousness.
I actually cannot remember when I saw him the first time, it feels more he has always been around, but then his musical endeavours have not taken him further yet then to be the best known secret tip of this city. To gather around like-minded bands, he started a small festival called Trashfest, whose last issue ended in the club maybe having to close down. If not djing around town, he does boring summer jobs teaching kids to sing the ramones as a choir version. If you want to see him in your town, you can help him book his first european tour. DIY!

Friday, November 4th, 10pm sharp. Admission: free donation! Madame Claude, Lübbener Strasse 19, Berlin. Music all night, on decks our own rad spin rotate club with special guest Raving Mad Carlos from Argentina. Visuals by Lady Lazor Light, New Zealand.

Thought Creature, Shoxxx, Human Elephant

7. Oktober 2011
in Musik und Art
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this month at poplars and rocks at madame claude: THOUGHT CREATURE. this former three-piece from wellington, new zealand, had recently relocated to berlin, where they got casted right away from the street. or let’s say from in front of a club, where the outside yard was more attracting than the inside bands. big in their home country, they went looking for the challenge into the uncertain and new. now with the experience of a few tiny festivals in never-heard-of areas in germany enriched, and with two secret gigs to warm up the berlin audience, the now two piece will play finally their first big official gig in this town, within the cosy walls of madame claude. having said that the band now consists of two remaining members, and having shifted their initial more indie sound towards a much darker, electronic psychedelic sound, it has to be stressed that a third member is still essential to the band, producing the visual equivalent for the sound. (most friendly already lending her abilities to last month’s acts.) the band’s first full length album Teleport Palace (2008) is available for free download. the ep Total Recall (2011) can be streamed on soundcloud. a new album Ocean Dream is anticipated.
speaking of visual enjoyment, we went a step further to fuse the music with the arts: SHOXXX, artist and animator from hiroshima, japan, will present one of her delighful and charming live animations, in which all materials are being used to make a comic start developing right as you watch the screen, following the sound track. years before, I have noted I had come across shoxxx‘ comic-style art before, when I felt so touched by a little pressed flower: part of the cd cover for No Nebraska’s aloha.
the sound track on decks comes this time from very special guest THE HUMAN ELEPHANT. having been a bit quiter the past few years, john didn‘t get lost in his day jobs, or rather night jobs, but kept, beside other projects in the meantime like rats live on no evil star with bernd jestram from tarwater, working on a album, produced also by former and no one less than dirk dresselhaus aka schneider tm: White Thunder (umor rex records) is out this october! and this has to be celebrated. a wonderful video shot by jan of former the aim of design is to define space is the first visual release. you can listen to the whole album on soundcloud.
joining resident rad spin rotate club will also raving mad carlos. more surprises always to be anticipated!


Friday, October 7th, Madame Claude. Show starts at 10pm sharp. Admission is free donation.

Mary Ocher and William Foreign

31. August 2011
in Musik
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There are not few musicians of who the rumour goes they were found when spotted on the street, booked, and sometimes even signed – we speak here about busking. Not many musicians like that, some cannot leave it anymore once they started, others need a kick out of their friend’s flat where they already stayed too long to appreciate the advantages of taking it to the street: money, attention, or sheer the best rehearsal. Some years ago on a cold winter’s night I went with a visiting friend through the city centre, when we passed that singer in front of a warehouse on big busy Alexanderplatz. My friend, a musician, said: „O yeah, she is really good.“ I said: „Yeah, that’s Mary Ocher. We had her some years ago.“ „What’s her name again?“ Four years ago we presented Mary and the Baby Cheeses; it was one of Mary’s first gigs in Berlin, back then with her band she had brought from Israel. Beside the rare sound of the theremin they used, it was also the Russian born singer’s unusual shrill voice and extravagant performance that people made remember this night. The Band later dissolved, Mary stayed in Berlin, tried new band set ups, played solo on the street. I had mentioned once to her that I consider her the most busy musician in town, which I still don‘t think wrong: whilst most musicians wait to be discovered in the rehearsing room, Mary started to play solo and play everywhere and every time she could, and if not play live herself, she would spin records. Whilst trying to flirt with the music industry, gladly these largely ignored her, making Mary Ocher stay herself independent and rasping on her sound: Meanwhile a label has shown interest and was releasing a first album this year: War Songs (out on Haute Areal). An album with great songs for my taste: simple yet accentuated in arrangement, vast in emotion yet ironic, catchy in their melody. People don‘t have to ask so much for her name anymore. Lately Mary told me she had found someone on the street: William Foreign. This young man just arrived in the moloch Berlin, making all his way down from Estonia, with just a guitar in his hand. This friday will see his first live performance – apart from busking.

Listen here to a nice radio podcast with Mary Ocher when lately invited and interviewed by Hanin Elias, formerly front singer of Atari Teenage Riot (also out with new solo album this year):



Come down to our monthly night: Friday, September 2nd, Berlin, Madame Claude. Admission is donation, stage time is 10pm. On decks Rad Spin Rotate Club.