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I was in big trouble booking the events of this past weekend! A Saturday night in London town followed by another gig… in Berlin town. Two gigs in the space of 24 hours was not the problem per se it was the sparrow’s fart flight to Germany that was the issue. We live close enough to Stansted airport such that our car and windows receive regular dusting of spent aviation fuel, so it is our airport of choice, but this means Ryanair and whilst their flights are cheap, they tend to depart with the coming of the dawn! Still by my reckoning, if the bands that we follow (the musicians in which are almost always older than us) can do it, then so can we.
Saturday night’s entertainment was a celebration punk’s ‘Year Zero’, 1977, that was set up to coincide with the 50th anniversary of one of the most notable punk gigs of them all, the ‘100 Club Punk Festival’ of 1976. On this, the second night, the proceedings were kicked off with a Q&A with Marco Pirroni, best known for his work with Adam Ant in Adam and The Ants and beyond, however, for the purposes of this gig he was present as someone who had played at the Festival on 20th September 1976.
The Q&A held promise for a while, as people realised that a discussion on stage was in progress, the chatter ceased. However, the interview did not go well. Marco is the real deal, to steal a term from the Dictionary of Mod, he was a ‘Face’, one of a handful of witness from within of the most exiting few months in rock history. As such there were 1001 questions that could have been fired at Marco. Unfortunately though, the interviewer struggled to get past ‘Did you ever expect to be talking about punk 50 years on?’, ‘Did you know something significant was happening?’ and ‘Marco, you were more into the clothes than the music, correct? To which he responded several times ‘Yes, because there was no punk music then’…. As this loop of questioning went on the audience were lost and the chatter returned quickly reaching a volume that drowned out the Q&A anyway. A missed opportunity indeed. Luckily, his book was available on the night and that I’m sure can fill the gaps that the Q&A failed to address.
No time was wasted before TV Smith took to the stage to deliver a blistering set that was effectively an almost complete rendition of the ‘Crossing The Red Sea’ album. For a man of 70 he still ‘means it maan!’ He left an audience in no doubt that the songs that he wrote as a 20 year old still mean the world to him now. We were located stage left and for the early part of the set a very tall bloke looked on appreciatively. I thought that bloke looks like Richard Strange and indeed it was and Tim invited him onstage for ‘Back From The Dead’ from 1978 (as an aside Tim and Richard recorded an album together many years ago which only saw the light of day in 2021 under the title of ‘1978’). Another notable in the set was ‘Quickstep’, a song only attempted (and ‘fucked up’ in the opinion of TV) once at Rebellion this year. This, a second, attempt sounded fine to me. TV and his Bored Teenagers crashed out of the set with a thunderous ‘One Chord Wonders’.
The Punk Festival theme continued with the headliner’s ‘John McKay’s Reactor’. In keeping with anniversary, the set was made up of early Banshees material that John McKay would have played in the studio or as part of live sets…. Much better that than another 20 minute version of ‘The Lord’s Prayer’!
It was indeed great to hear that very distinctive, angular guitar sound grinding out of his amp. If I had a criticism (and it isn’t one really) it would be that Jen’s vocal is a bit higher than Siouxsie’s, something that could be remedied by a strict cigarette diet… but then again the means would not really justify the end! It was actually a great set, made all the more memorable by the involvement of one of punk’s most noted guitarists. Their set closed with ‘Love In A Void’, ‘Hong Kong Garden’ and ‘Helter Skelter’.
Back home at 12.30 I opted to lie on the bed for a while, but sleep did not come, probably due to nervous anticipation of a volley of phone alarms set to go off in quick succession at around 2.30. Hey, who needs sleep when you have rock ‘n’ roll!
The flight was on time and trouble free, although both Gunta and I decided that in general the experience of air travel is just awful these days. The real frustrations started at Passport Control as we entered Germany. 90 minutes to get through, even after registering my biometric details for a third or fourth time in recent months. Another Brexit gift to the nation!
At about five o’clock I was feeling a little hyper, either through mild sleep deprivation or due to an adrenalin rush caused by a Virtual Reality experience that took me around and over the top of the iconic television mast in Alexanderplatz. Funnily enough whilst the VR experience triggered my fear of heights the actual experience of scaling the tower and viewing Berlin from on high had no effect on me… thankfully the ‘evacuation platform’ as they call it remained unsullied!
Back on earth we checked in and headed to the gig. Anja Huwe was playing at in the Betonhalle (concrete hall) within the Silent Green cultural complex on the site of a former crematorium serving the Berlin-Wedding area. The setting was perfect for this a ‘Sonic Morgue’ club event.
The venue was amazing. From what I can gather, this industrial space was created in the early 1990’s by building onto the former crematorium. A concrete tunnel leads down into an area containing the bar and gathering space before another set of steps leads down into the auditorium. Overall it was a great setting for a gig.
Support came from an act (one person cannot really constitute a band… and to call him a one man band would conjure up all the wrong ideas). This guy played a set of electronic music with his own vocals that drew heavily on Devo, the early Human League a bit of Numan and The Normal. It was weird, very visual and very good to watch. He was also very humorous and self-effacing in his interaction with the audience… or so Gunta told me.
And so to the main attraction of the night. I have plugged Anja Huwe’s solo album, ‘Codes’ on here a couple of times, the material from which makes up approximately a third of the set. The other two thirds of the set being made up of Xmal Deutschland material. The new and the old are easy bedfellows despite a 40 year separation. The ‘Codes’ tracks are perhaps a little more reflective than those Xmal songs but it all works together – take a listen to the mash up track ‘Polar Forest’ to see what I mean. The band opened up with an instrumental before Anja took to the stage wearing a shrug of black plumage, a nod to the raven. She was showing no effects for having just returned from dates in the US. The set is well established but that was just fine for me. I was impressed by her vocal. This stuff is not easy to sing (like I would know!!), especially the Xmal Deutschland songs. Caterwauling Owen once described it as, all I can say is that she can still caterwaul with the best of them. Throughout her career she has had a lot of cameras pointed at her so it was interesting to see her turn the tables when she armed herself with a Polaroid and took shots of keen members of the audience. Needless to say my miserable boat was not picked out for such treatment.
It was a brilliant night of expected and unexpected pleasure.
An anniversary gig here, forty two years ago Xmal Deutschland played the Heaven Club in London. Today, as the we try to cope with sweltering temperatures (generally fairly ineptly), a few of Xmal's goth-esque tunes bring with them a chill Hamburg wind.... if your imagination is up to it that is. It was also Anja's birthday a few days ago.
A nice recording of the band at what was probably their peak.
FLAC: https://we.tl/t-CjGhPhxVFV4DNg5q
Artwork: https://we.tl/t-aK4SkiwFvusOwKTV
I have posted a few Xmal Deutschland gigs on Aural Sculptors in the past but this is the first post of solo material from Anja Huwe (although I have plugged her recent album 'Codes' a couple of times). Anja has only recently started touring again and her set is a mixture of material from 'Codes' and Xmal Deutschland songs.
I was trying to fathom what is is that draws me to Anja and Xmal and I came to the conclusion that what she/they do represents a hybrid of punk/post punk and electronic music that sits quite neatly in the midst of my musical preferences, although primarily, then and now their conventional band set up is augmented by keyboards, rather than them being an electronic band as such.
I also like the fact that Xmal material and much of Codes is sung in German. Songs sound better in the language that they were written in I think, more often than not, something gets lost in translation and the songs suffer as a result. I have all of Kraftwerk's albums in English and German but by preference listen to the German language versions. And the thing is I don't even speak German (despite having a half German wife).
I must get to see Anja Huwe somewhere soon.
This one is from Chatts, so many thanks as always for the share! Please note that this is a 24 bit version so will need to be converted to 16 bit if you want to burn it.
FLAC: https://we.tl/t-Zvahtu8eq1
Artwork: https://we.tl/t-i8H3XBADTY
One more time for Germany? AMRIK RAI interviews another bunch of German hopefuls who want to invade the sensibilities of the British rock public. Got your Collins' pocket dictionaries ready?
Photos: KEVIN CUMMINS.
THE SHY smiles of Xmal Deutschland are being photographed for a German magazine in gentile Richmond. They sit close to each other - shoulders touching, thought processes in habitual.synch – and indulge in playful but insular banter in sharp German accents.
Xmal Deutschland are five voices - worriers, workers, cautious, determined and intensely private - and five faces: Anja Huwe (vocals), Fiona Sangster (synth), Manuela Rickers (guitar), Wolfgang Ellerbrock (bass) and Manuela ,Zwingman (drums).
Ostensibly, they're out to enjoy a short rest period after a shockingly brilliant performance at Brixton's Ace, but of course, it's rapidly becoming an endless stream of press, radio and photo sessions: John Peel last night, Melody Maker and Sounds tomorrow. For the Xmals, this is all something of a shock.
The last and first time they were in England was as an obscure Hamburg cult band with two singles -'Schwarze Welt' and ‘Incubus Succubus' –out on the German independent Zick Zack label.
Having been discovered by 4AD maestro Ivo, they were Invited over to play a few selective dates with Danse Society and Cocteau Twins.
This time, however, their arrival heralds a considerably different status. Their debut album, 'Fetisch' , has been jostling for place at the top of the Indie charts - coming a close third to the pap and calculation of New Order and Aztec Camera for two solid months. And in the context of such consistently dismal charts, the Xmal effect has been all the more stunning.
The word is out, and Xmal Deutschland know they have to be seen to be involved and in control. Pop stars! They fail, they're too nervous, tense and obviously reluctant participants in let's play public figures. I try to ingratiate myself into the Xmal unit by pointing a microphone at the bassist.
Say something arty Into this, Wolfgang.
"Ja. One gin and tonic please."
A WELL spoken shock of red and black hair, Fiona Sangster comes from Glasgow, to where her mother returned after graduating from Hamburg University. At 19, she's the youngest of the Xmals and her garrulity shows an obvious delight in being able to talk lengthily in English. After a childhood spent in Jamaica, and an adolescence in the heat and heart of Glasgow punk, she eventually settled in Hamburg with her mother.
"Whereas the punk thing seemed a bit jaded back home, it was just starting out in Hamburg. It was really crazy, 'cos the whole scene involved about 30 people all clinging to each other for moral support, it was pretty scary too; my mother lives out on the outskirts so I always had a long dangerous trek back anyway… but everytime we went to a club, there'd be about 300 teds outside, just waiting to kick the shit out of us.
"That was how Xmal Deutschland began… safety in numbers and just sheer love of music.
No, don't print that, It sounds too corny for words."
"First time out we were realty hard punks," laughs Anja as she sweeps aside an impressive platinum blond quiff. "And,we were five girls then, and although It was totally accidental, everyone used to call us a big joke, saying we were pretty and It didn't matter if we couldn't play."
But I had no intention of being this informative… and subtly sexist - by telling you in BLOCK CAPITALS that Xmal Deutschland are a NEARLY ALL-FEMALE band with a TOKEN MALE bassist. But the Xmals stress an Inclusion of sorts.
Fiona: "The Hamburg scene developed into a really ugly pathetic thing, really sexist and incestuous. It still is, they're all prats. But they're the ones we've got to thank for being here today. We just decided not to have anything to do with their sexism and their scene. We just thought, right we'll show the bastards."
And have you shown the bastards?
Wolfgang: "In some ways yes, but there are people who don't ever want to understand. We don't think in terms of boys and girls. Even when I joined, they thought it was a bloody big joke. And now everybody's amazed that we've got such a powerful drummer, just because she is a girl. Everybody can do it y'know ... this is the 20th fucking century."
The baldly physical drummer in question is ManuelaZlwingman. While Xmal were manicuring their initial punky derivative, she was studying political science in alternate spells at Hamburg and Washington DC.
"I wanted to do something sensible with my life, but after several years of studying very hard, I found I was getting more satisfaction from moving and rhythms. Xmal needed a drummer and I liked their music even though I knew a lot of people didn't."
ALTHOUGH XMAL Deutschland's presentation often has, the impact of falling masonry, their origins owe less to the dentist drill etiquette and avant garden parties of Berlin and Einsurzende Neubauten than they do to Wire's embryonic slumming at London's Roxy club.
In Brixton they drew me in and drained me out with a music that, if it wasn't a Thursday, I'd probably have dismissed as little more than a puerile pillage. Just like Wire. But there's a desperate, disarming naivety and a singularly unpretentious intimacy about Xmal Deutschland that somehow waives any rash criticism of thoughtless eclecticism and accentuates their very obvious appeal.
Despite a seemingly endless flow of publicity and promotion, none of the other bands German bands - including DAF....... has infiltrated the British music scene much further than the all-embracing arms of our precious capital. And even then, none has been given such an unequivocal thumbs up as Xmal Deutschland. Only two months ago, Palais Schaumburg played to an audience of 20 at Manchester's Hacienda.
Why?
Fiona: "Most of them have come here with very high-minded attitudes and thought that just because they've been on the cover of NME, they have an automatic right to big crowds. Obviously, people don't take so much notice of the press in the provinces, they don't have to be too cool. The only time we've played here has been as support, and the people that are coming to see us are coming, not because they've read 'about us in NME, but because they've either bought 'Fetisch' or gone out of their way to listen to It. I don't think we're getting any casual observers.
Wolfgang: "Most of those other bands are either too German or too bloody English copies. Now, loads of people have gone really jealous of us in Germany. They wouldn't believe It when we got a contract with 4AD, they were asking us what we had to do to get it" We just went over with a fucking rehearsal tape; anyone can do It."
Fiona: "Once we'd decided to leave Zick Zack, there was a choice of signing with a bigger German label where you have to sell more than just your soul or coming over here. Luckily them - the packaging, the music and the style and we got together to make 'Fetisch'."
FETISCH LIVES In a noisy precinct of subtopian architecture and feverish activity, a couple of streets away from The Screaming metallic collage of the Banshees and within disdainful spitting distance of The Whip-ping mystical platitudes of The Sex Gangs.
Without actually immersing themselves wholly within the punk period, Xmal tap and trigger the essential heart, filter the brilliance and surface with an icy, urgent music… a collection of wide-eyed, trembling impressions and echoes that encapsulate a stern spirit of confrontation, without even trying. It's the only way.
Wolfgang doesn't agree.
"We're echoing the Banshees? I hate 'The Scream'. If you think we're echoing that, there's something wrong."
Fiona sees the point.
"We'll never get away from those comparisons, and they're useful to an extent, it's just when someone stops at Banshee soundalikes that it gets annoying. Nothing we do is that premeditated, we don't have a concept as such, so the music that comes out is genuinely spontaneous. There's no telling what our next single's going to sound like."
Anja with relish: "It's going to be really wild."
Wolfgang with grit: "I hate all those stupid comparisons. It encourages people to expect something from us. So that if we change our music suddenly, we will lose much of our audience. That is sad, but we don't intend to stand still, we're , very selfish and we make our music first to please us. We can't go into a rehearsal room and play the same song for a year, again and again, we'd go nuts. We have new Ideas all the time and we like to work on them rather than do the same stuff."
XMAL DEUTSCHLAND are a kaleidoscopic clash of ideas, stretched In to shape by violent delight: going from A to B in a single terse but illustrative gesture and bypassing completely any facile ostentation and epic construction.
Remember Wire (again)? Xmal parade a similar intuitive amateurism that exhumes primitive passions and interns ascetic technical ,control: flesh and blood from pure pandemonium.
Wolfgang is pleased, the capricious boy.
"That's it, good. The idea is the essence. Whatever the music comes out like, whether it's like the Banshees or Black Sabbath, if you can still see the idea, that's good. For me, sometimes I'm playing very simple things on bass and I feel a bit stupid, but know it's the best way, the only way."
Wouldn't the ideas be more self-explanatory if you sung in English? Wolfgang becomes indignant
"No. It's good because you have to work a bit, it's more two-sided, you have to imagine the voice as another instrument and let the music talk to you. We're not going to start singing in English just to make it easy, y'know. If anyone wants more, all they have to do is buy a dictionary and translate."
Isn't that asking a bit much?
"Why? We have had to do it since ages in Germany with English music ... and even with a lot of German music."
Can you seriously see people bringing along their Collins' pocket Eng-Germs?
"For me, it is Important that they understand. They can do it through the music but, if not, they have to translate."
Without a dictionary I'd guess that most of your songs deal with fairly morose subjects. Are you a bunch of morbid sods?
Anja: I write about lots of sadness, but that isn't everything.
Manuela R: "When people leave one of our concerts, we want them to feel totally drained and shocked, like they have been In a whirlpool. Whatever they have come to see, whether it's positive punk or another Banshees, we want them to be disappointed ... but happy and optimistic in a different way."
If I was describing your music, those last two adjectives would be the last things in my mind.
Fiona: "You're not looking hard enough. We're not nihilists, y'know." _
Manuela Z: "The problem Is in trying to communicate the optimism. It's much easier to sing about doom and gloom, and we're not developed enough to communicate as well as we want to. People are put off by the heavy sound barrier and don't look any further.
Considering the language difficulties and your wilful wall of sound production, can you see Xmal Deutschland ever having more than a largish cult following? How about TOTP and daytime radio?
Anja: "I like to play in an underground band. I don't want to be in a too big and successful band because we've got something very special and I wantto keep that. That's just the way we are ... When we play live we want to show people how we are.
But not really how. We have to keep something to ourselves. I can't really handle being on a big stage. I like singing, but when people start singing along with me I start thinking, God! What do these people think I am? Whatever they think, it's wrong. I'm not made to be a star."
You're the only kind of star; Anja. Goodnight Wolfgang.
CORRECTION: The audio presented here is from an earlier gig of 7th April 1983 when the band played at the Clarendon with Danse Society and Ipso Facto. Artwork has been corrected.
The review below is of the 7th July gig.
This gig was reviewed in the 23rd July issue of New Musical Express.
Very envious this afternoon as I sit in my bombsite of an office looking out on a sodden road in front of the house. Meanwhile, a friend is at present entrained on the Eurostar, replete with chilled white wine, Paris bound to see the extraordinary Anja Huwe play a rare gig at La Marbrerie tonight. The only counter I have to this is to post an Xmal Deutchland gig... and that is poor competition.
Here is Anja, caterwauling as Owen Carne had it (!), in the company of her fellow Xmal Deutschlanders at the famed 9:30 Club in Washington DC. Nice sounding recording this is too.
FLAC: https://we.tl/t-2JGGkkvivUWKb225
Artwork: https://we.tl/t-3DbaZugEJ5kMaZyP
Another here from those Teutonic titans of goth, Xmal Deutschland (or caterwauling Germans as Owen Carne would have it!). Here they are in London getting in some headlining rehearsal time some three weeks prior to the start of the Dreamtour when they provided support to The Stranglers.
FLAC: https://we.tl/t-YJtKN7YUPv
Artwork: https://we.tl/t-5tliEYUd07
It's funny how I never played any real attention to this band, even when they played in front of me at the Brighton Centre in 1986 and yet 38 years down the line I an seeing them as a near constant band appearing on my Spotify.
This recording captures the band at the University of Essex in Colchester in March 1987, around the time that the album 'Viva' was released. I did not realise that the track 'Matador' from the album was released as a single in 1986 and that the single was produced by Hugh, which would probably explain the pairing of the two band's on the Dreamtour.
The recording is OK soundwise. The band did experience some technical issue part way through the set. It the downtime when the problem was being fixed, Anja had to tell the audience to stop spitting at her. Who the hell was still spitting in 1987, I mean come on! The crowd to seem to be a bit lairy/pissed up, but that may just be another Saturday night in Colchester!
FLAC: https://we.tl/t-EeFsDp5C7a
Artwork: https://we.tl/t-LJbZlB7LHU
Talk about missing the boat. Here's a band that I have been getting into recently, albeit 40 odd years after the boat has sailed. I did see them once, supporting The Stranglers, but to my regret I didn't pay them a great deal of attention. It was singer Anja Huwe's recent solo album, 'Codes' that gave me reason to go band and start listening to Xmal Deutschland.
Here is one of those rare occasions where a taper goes the extra mile and records a support band for posterity. As you know, The Stranglers had this thing going for sometime in the 1980's where their support acts seemed to be selected solely on their potential to confound and more often than not rile the audience, but that stopped in 1986 (if you side step Keith Allen's Wembley slot when he appeared as Jerry Arkwright, the Northern Industrial Gay!) when serious support came in the form of Hamburg's Xmal Deutschland. Here's their set from Cardiff on the Dreamtour.
The following is definitely from back in the day, courtesy of Chatts's 'Box of Tapes', cassette bootlegs acquired at great cost on Camden High Street, record fairs and the like. Cheers.
FLAC: https://we.tl/t-zmigiwH64n
Artwork: https://we.tl/t-E7hsD33rjP
I was prompted to put this up when someone sent me a link concerning a planned album of new material from lead singer, Anja Huwe. I listened to a snippet and it sounded great!
'Invited by her long-time friend Mona Mur, Huwe reconsidered her decades-long hiatus from music and decided to join Mur in her studio in Berlin. Together, they worked for a year and a half, composing, performing and producing the tracks from scratch, which would eventually become the album 'Codes'.
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