CoS tOur DIarY 2002
30 december 2002by Alex:
thought you would like this?
from kevy b
-- forwarded message --
An open letter to Rolling Stone by Joan Jett
I tried to find some cleverly worded way to express my disgust with your "Women in Rock" issue, but what I have to say is really quite simple: You guys are completely retarded.
By Rolling Stone standards, Rock is no longer a style of music but a trendy costume to be whipped up by expensive stylists and slapped onto the latest pop tart barbie doll. Give a girl some tight pants and a spiky bracelet and POOF! She ROCKS!
Your poor choice of cover girls and featured artists brings to mind the Sports Illustrated swimsuit editions. There is nothing necessarily wrong with the breast-baring models inside...but we all understand that they have NOTHING TO DO WITH SPORTS--Which just might be offensive to women who are interested in sports or who might even be (gasp) real athletes.
Yes, Britney has a talented stylist and yes, somebody gave Shakira a Guns & Roses t-shirt to wear...but they ARE NOT NOW NOR WILL THEY EVER BE ROCK.
Maybe it's naive of me to expect any glimmer of rock'n'roll credibility OR respect for women from a magazine whose cover shot is regularly a naked underweight actress. The thing is, I AM a woman musician with a rock band, and as we all are, I am STARVED for any little crumb of recognition that real women rockers might be thrown. So like a sucker I find myself short another five bucks...and pissed enough to write my first letter to an editor. Avril Lavigne gets some studded accessories from Hot Topic so now she's "upholding the brazen tradition of teenage outrage"???!! Are you SERIOUS? And could someone please explain to me why people keep insisting on referring to PINK as rock? Wasn't she doing the white girl hip hop thing a minute ago? Yeah, she performed on the Aerosmith tribute show --big deal..she was on the Janet Jackson tribute show just before that--Whatever's trendy. WHO CARES. She's a Spice Girl reject...but I digress.
Jewel and Mandy friggin' Moore have full page features as Rock Icons...Meanwhile Joan Jett gets one line. ONE LINE. Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, who have never stopped touring, recently did 10 days in the Middle East playing for the troops stationed in Afghanistan. In AFGHANISTAN, Joan would come onstage wearing a burkha, which she ripped off and stomped on before blazing through the purest and nastiest rock show ANYWHERE. But even in the RS WOMEN IN ROCK issue, a story like that gets ONE SENTENCE on the bottom of the last page of Random Notes.
Britney's Rock credentials? Well, she butchers the song "I Love Rock'n'Roll" on her latest record, and when asked about it the genius replies "Well, I've always loved Pat Benatar." And SHE is your Rock issue cover girl?? You should be REALLY embarrassed.
Sleater Kinney was the only rock group listed on the cover...and they got only half a page. Ashanti, the r&b back up singer who can't seem to do anything without "featuring Jah Rule," has two pages.
What about the Donnas? The Yeah Yeah Yeahs? The Distillers? A mag like RS has the power to shine important light on groups like these-- instead they are afterthoughts, and that valuable spotlight is wasted on the same overexposed pop princesses WHO HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH ROCK.
In your own letter from the editor you have the hypocritical balls to say "rock radio won't touch female artists, while the pop factory keeps churning out soundalike clones, and ambitious musicians with something to say find themselves left out in the cold."
The pages that follow those words are a blatant display that Rolling Stone magazine is happily working for the factory now too.
If the issue had been called "Women in Music"...or maybe "Some Cute Girls with Top 10 Records out Right Now".. I would have no beef with it. Corny as it may sound, ROCK is something which is still meaningful and even sacred to some of us. Use the word "rock" in bold letters next to a picture of Britney Fucking Spears, and you're turning your whole publication into a joke... and an offensive joke at that.
-Joan Jett
-- end of forwarded message --
15 december 2002
by Alex:
my comments on electroclash or piers martin pop:
electroclash/cash,
it's all pop music to me.
reminds me of the days (... read about them anyway)
when the battle between real and fake punk went on between the uk and usa. maybe electro was made in europe and is being reimported under another name....? 20 years later. let's face it, the ammies are better at marketing anyway ;)!
all movements need names, people like to belong to a clan, it's
exciting to dress to a certain style and
say that your an electroclash guy or gal... it also makes the
concerts much more fun to play.we played concerts in america on the electroclash tour, where the kids had copied our clothes on the cover of fashion rules, thats electroclash fashion apparently??!! i love it! if people feel inspired by a so called movement, then why stop them from having fun?
10 december 2002
by Alex:
alex´s fav´s:
W.I.T album /mogel electro
noriko on mego
pan sonic and alan vega, coming soon, 2003 i think?
suicide "american supreme"
tocotronic "tocotronic"
"i´m losing my edge" lcd sound system, dfa
"super model incorporated" - larry t (mogel electro)
"private dancer" by kevy b (chicks on speed records 2003)
gudrun gut and mira davies, ep recorded in banff, 2002
tracey and the plastics live at electroclash 2002 (bootleg recordings)
missy elliot
richard x
from pHinnWeb Chart December 2002
30 november 2002
by Alex:
finally finished our record "99 cents", it will be coming out
in 2003, hopefully in april. we worked with miss kittin, peaches, le tigre andkevy b on the record, it's pop you... could say?!after playing about 100 shows around the world in 2002, which was a great experience,seeing far off places and cultures... we've decided to take a 1 month break from touringin the beginning of 2003. as soon as the record comes out we'll be back on the road again,no doubt!we presently in barcelona working in barcelona with cristian vogel on our 3rd record.we're about half-way through and it should be released soon after "99 cents"other projects for 2003: "chicks on speed: SWEAT SHOP" at deitch project roomsin new york. we will make a live music video for "fashion rules" and the album titled song"99 cents". it will be a real sweat shop, focusing on underpaid wage earners in the fashion industry.the project will take place in the last 2 weeks of april. at the end of the sewing and video productionwe hope to take over a chanel store in soho, where we will sell the chicks sweat shop designs for onenight only. everyone is welcome to come and buy the clothing at what ever price they wish to pay, taking into consideration the circumstances in which the piece of clothing was produced.26 november 2002
by Alex:
some pics from venus fly trapp (tokyo, november 2002)!!!
check these out!yuki kawamura aka venus fly trapp
21 november 2002
11 november 2002
by Alex:
by the way, we did an interview with suicide for a magazine in germany; groove i think!?
a very great record [American Supreme, the new album of Suicide], suicide is the answer.
10 november 2002
by Alex:
i´m not totally living in san francisco now, i'm travelling between the 2, sf and berlin, and it's actually good that i'm here as i can deal with the usa side of things. you know we want to be worldwide and not just european based!
;)things are ok, of course it's a little hard [having cos in two continents], but we can deal with it, we're all tough!
we're heading to japan in a week, i'm very very excited, last time we had such a blast there, met so many creative people and visited strange places, including karoke bars and galleries and small pokey hair salons. we will try and document as much as we can. you know we got a video camera now, and leo, our cos recs web site master is building a site for us where we can up load small films. so this will be another dimension for us all!
we also hope to be able to give each cos recs artist the possibility to do their own updates.
do you know tracy and the plastics? we just toured with her in usa. we would all love to have her on the label! she it one the stage alone and has a projection behind. so it's like she speaks to the projection, like a virtual band. have a good look in the pics, you will see her.
ok, just about to land in sf, gosh. i've been lucky, my battery has lasted quite a while.
9 november 2002
by Melissa:
sorry, our tour was too hard core to write to you from on the road, will be glad to fill you in though.
5 november 2002
by Alex:
a shop in tokyo with cos stuff!
looks nice or?18 october 2002
by Melissa:
we are just driving to philly this rainy afternoon.
last night we launched the tour at the warsaw in brooklyn n.y. the show had been sold out for a while, so it was a crazy atmosphere.
tina weymouth & chris franz gave us a tom tom club cd after the show, so now we have really nice music to drive by. my cute sister lives in n.y., so i'm sad to leave & philly is a strange kind of place.14 october 2002
by Alex:
this is the gig we played in tokyo, "electronic accident" 2000 at spiral building...
look at our hair, friends there did all the crazy styling.will try to be in regular touch on the us tour.
8 august 2002
ladyfest review at the wire.
25 july 2002
an interview from bent magazine, australia.
19 july 2002
by Alex:
we are in the studio with cristian vogel, i think this is the first time we've made music!
18 july 2002
by Melissa:
barcelona is hot, it's really amazing to work with cristian
vogel, we have some guys playing drums, bass & guitar --
yes, it's a completely different sound happening.
i keep on calling mika and ilpo of pan sonic but no one answers.
13 july 2002
by Alex:
first day in the studio with cristian vogel.
we are making the song 'hand in my pocket'.
1 june 2002
by Kiki:
the chicks are on official holidays at the moment till 16.6... i am the only one in berlin at the moment renovating my new flat in prenzlauer berg.
7 may 2002
by Alex:
how did we get in contact with dat politics in the beginning? they wrote me an email and i totally flipped out, as i am a big dp fan. i first heard them at the mego shop in vienna. why is their material exactly suitable for cos records? suitable is not the word. it's exciting and we like the vibe of dp. they having a lot of fun in their music and on stage. it has a sort of madness that fits to us.
is it true that kevin of blectum from blechdom is going to record for cos records? we are hoping, but she has to do her record first!!!!!
anything about any other possible new artists for cos...? well, we are about to release 'fashion rules' and that's a pretty big project in itself for our label. then there's the cos album also due this year! and after that i cannot say!
we are presently working on the chixel bag, it's a copy of the chanel laptop bag. when we did that shoot for v magazine, karl lagerfeld gave the bags to us, so we just had to copy them and make them available to everyone! its half the price isn't that nice. 'cause some things are just so great, they have to be done twice. we will make them in poland in a non-sweatshop!
we hope to have the prototype finished soon and then go into production by the end of the year. we're sick of walking around with laptop bags made for men!do we think touring usa is different now, in the post-9/11 atmosphere...? i think this was very apparent during the small tour we did in october, with a lot of people very sad and quite desperate and lost at the dismay of their own country being so pig-headed and ignorant as to be starting a war with the unknown without looking at the reasons for such an attack.
i think the usa is in a bad state at the moment, it's like a fast food community gone mad and trying to stand up for its actions on a full stomach. the main problem is the "information companies" that exist and the control they have over the media through way of politics. "they" like to call it conspiracy theory, to make it all seem a little silly when the public starts to ask questions. we like to call it decoding! we just heard of a good book out on this, please read it: bin laden: the forbidden truth by guillaume dasquié, discussing the backstage mechanics on america's war on terrorism.
are we actively involved in the peace movement now? yes, but not enough, i feel quite helpless actually.
how is the new album coming along? good, but it's not finished, and until it is i would rather not speak about it!
any other remarkable chix news? if you get a chance, make sure you go and see le tigre and dat politics whilst they are on tour. the tour -- dates you have :)
5 may 2002
by Alex:
we're just on the last leg of our mini tour of europe, training it most off the way. we've realized that we're becoming a real band, just by the fact that we now have more than a minidisc player to carry in our hand bags!!!! bios festival in athens was pretty memorable, not only because of the acropolis but the number of cars in the city, there is always a trafffic jam, even at 4 in the morning! pan sonic and fm einheit played the best set i've ever seen, with a poetic like classical thunderstorm of a concert, adult. were not to be seen, but heard in the darkness of their cool edged electric electro set, managing to perform acoustically better than on the cd!! the best bit was when cristian vogel played the sheet iron roof of the huge factory building the festival was in. le pulp in paris must be the best place to dance on a friday night! lore from dragibus was spinning all these really obscure french new wave discs and mixing like an angel. this is the best club in the whole world!!!!!! ether festival was definitely the highlight of the tour, even though our collaboration with pan sonic was cut short, we were able to try out some stuff in front of the 3000 capacity royal festival hall. this was the first time that we did the "panasonic rip-off" on stage together. stay tuned as we hope the collaboration will continue. jim o'rourke, iku mori, dj olive and kim gordon presented a very crowd challenging experimental set to a less than appreciative audience who partly yelled out english yobbo abuse. i think they thought they were getting ripped off for their english pounds?! this was the first time i met kim gordon, i won't forget it.
whilst we were in london, we were invited to lecture at goldsmith's college of art, we did a 1 and a half hour lecture, with slides, music, singing, trying on clothes and showing videos of our past installations and performances. it was very funny, i had serious period pains and melissa was pretending like she was on speed and kiki was watching us and laughing. the lecture started with question time, with one bored art student telling us to get on with it, when melissa tried to explain the problems we have with journalists, when asking us why we are called cos! so it was a great start. we have now realized the importance of lecturing at art schools, we really have a big social task ahead of us.
our future lecture series will be titled "we've come to bust you out! (of art school)" if you would like us to come and lecture at an art school near you, please write to us at what@chicksonspeed.com, we will go anywhere!
i think that's it for now.
29 april 2002
by Yvonne [the Shopmama for CoS]:
hope you're fine and have a nice time.
the chix will be playing tomorrow at mayday! maybe you know already.
the 12" will be out may, 1st. the shop will open again may, 1st, but
it could be that we have a delay of 7 days.19 april 2002
by Kiki:
here the lyrics to 'fashion rules'.
18 april 2002
by Alex:
read this!
bios 02 festival (athens, greece, 12 April 2002) reviews here.
by Melissa:
i am trying not to procrastinate
& am working on some recording for
next week.
i am not well
so i have a little time to write
you some more texts.9 april 2002
5 april 2002
by Melissa:
i have a really long story that i wanted to write you
this is just a fraction.
to be cont.all that dancing
it actually wasn't my idea to dance
& was motormouthing with the girls
& some random freak asked me to dance,
had me by the hand, had me by the wrist
me - stammering twisting myself free
which doesn't seem to work gracefully
he's got a determined grip on my thumb
so i go along with it & dance a bit.no one was on the floor, but mario is spinning
some great material, no wonder the freaks are freakin',
two girlies who have been dying to swing those hips
join us.my strategy is to put this fool to shame with my moves
darious gives me a kiss goodbye, he's always got to get
before he turns into a pumpkin - after 2 drinks he talks too loud
then sleeps on the spot (snoring) wakes up & fights with
claudia who then breaks up with him for a week & thinks deeply
about cultual differences.- freak grabs darious's sweater/coller like he's going to punch out his
lights, somehow the pacifist darious was stronger then those male
animalistic reactions & he gets out the door, more people on the floor
rebecca & maria & we have a strange moves competition, i demonstrate
the escalator that i picked up from fred schneider last month in n.y.
freak has passed out on the low stage & maria is so rock in her emeraldgreen hawaiian-fitted shirt, i tell rebecca i love her & i kiss her cute lips.
mario puts on a didn't work, dancefloor dies and it's back the the bar.axel gives me an unasked-for sexual analysis, says with a insightful expression
that i'm probably lesbian even if i don't know it, i mumble something about
maria being just so rock, she is always on stage, putting elvis to shame,
i get a round of drinks because these stingy men wouldn't even come close
to the idea - these guys are the reason for the mega-nasty feminism that
bitterly polluted it for a whole generation of revolted girls.a styled-up guy gives me a flyer & says he's been watching me & thinks
i'm really great. i told him i have a boyfriend & he says that has nothing to do
with it, he's throwing a party saturday & i should come (kreutzberg, adelbertstr. 92 mango). his name is kinch blade & he looks like it.angi & i make plans for the bukaresti rap, she's a stage hoog so i will
only get a few romanian words in, rap war, i then i get kicked off stage,
ever since seeing anti-pop consortium i really want to do a little rap number,
well also before, but now even more.
beans & high priest (don't know the other guy).3 april 2002
by Melissa:
i am finally getting some furniture for my place
so that it hopefully stops echoing.
spring is here, wow,
i went second hand shopping with some friends,
i haven't done something like that for ages,
it's so nice to have a bit of time after all that
touring.1 april 2002
by Melissa [on her solo contributions]:
here are some things from last year.
i also was in these plays directed by my friend angela richter:versaut, jan. 2001, kampnagel, hamburg.
alles wird im flammen stehen, nov. 2001
frank ghery tower, hannover (a project by schauspielhaus hannover)---
die goldenen zitronen: schafott zum fahrstuhl (buback)
i contributed a track called 'a stream of consciousness',
written with teresa logan (yes, a sister) & we recorded
it with cornelia logan (yes, another sister) in the bathroom of the
knitting factory (nyc) before a chicks show, i was pretty jet-lagged
& it was also really hard to find a quiet space,
schorsch kamerun [a.k.a. sylvesterboy] jammed the punched out base of a chair on the ceiling
against the fan with a mikestand.
we listened to the prepared material on minidisc & recorded on to another.
ted gaier & thoma wenzel said they had a hell of a time chopping the material, it was just all over the place.
do you know this piece?
i really like the way it turned out & it was so great working with teresa that we put together a video in jan. 2002 for the starship magazine party, 'as dust covered lips kissed the emptiness' (20 min)---
plundersonics: mutants here i am
with thies mynther
output 64 on enduro the remixes
input 64 (enduro) the originalsthis was a fun, fast project for the 'delete all data' compilation.
thies & I were given a cd called 'input 64'
with all these original c64 computer game sound tracks
& were asked to make a track out of them.
we chose some & then thies locked himself upto program & locked myself up to write.
I wrote the text from a strange dream I had after
my friend yoni in l.a. told me about the toltec teachings
of theun mares (www.toltec-foundation.org).later we (c.o.s.) reworked this with sand for a birmingham performance (fierce festival) which included really great trombone part.
---
artist unknown: errorist (disko b)i got a text message on my phone asking me to do something really avantgarde from an artist unknown.
the plan was the usual dimlights & boom doom of the main floor of the late great w.m.f. club (berlin)
would be broken up by the house lights going on
and a cellist starts to play.
this went as planned & i got on stage & freestyled
to 'i'm under control'.
of course it was much better live & of course
it is only recorded on video, so half a year later
i redid it in the artist unknown studios.wow, that's actually quite a bit,
i didn't really notice that it was so much.27 march 2002
by Alex:
the us tour is over, they lost our bag with all the equipment and now we have to go to paris and do a show with nothing, this will be a very funny show!
24 march 2002
by Melissa:
[CoS lyrics page under works...]
because i am sitting in a bumpy tour bus i have time for this.
could you pls. set up a link to the mego site on fenn o'berg
that would be cute so people could get some strange story.19 march 2002
by Melissa:
[on the road us tour]
we are now in our tour bus driving from houston to new orleans
through a swamp. it's very muggy & warm.
last night we played in some shithole called mary jane's,
the people were really nice but the place was a real mess,
thank god we have the tour bus to change in.calvin johnson joined us there & spun his favorite 7"s, louie austen
greatly impressed the very cute audience,
they all were so appreciative & fun even when I kicked there
drinks down to climb on to a speaker for a bit of posing for 'glamour girl'.
things have been fine with the live program -- but all those cables,
& it seems like we accumulate more as we think we need a few more of this & that.oh yah, that post 9/11 -- yes it is different, but will get into that next time.
March 2002
by Alex & CoS:
US Tour
in berlin it was raining cats & dogs (with chunks of hail) the morning we left, so 20 hours later the l.a. warmth was more then welcome.
the el rey is a really lush venue & especially with killer working the sound, a sold-out show, the excitement of meeting up with le tigre.
backstage johanna's friend says there are some boys who want to meet us, we say "oh yeah, boys, we never get boys backstage." They're usually too shy, she said - "how 'bout a freak in a poncho who says his name is jeromy?" "yes, let him in now". it was jeromy scott.
pomona, ca., glasshouse: alex wanted to get off the stage & ended up crowd surfing on all those riot girrrls.
erase errata had problems with their bus & just made it in time to get on stage with just a line check & rocked the sold out house.
le tigre paged dr. vag half-way through their set, she come on stage & they sucked his toes. on the way from l.a. to san francisco there is the nastiest cattle farm with these corrals which are so crowded, it's so appalling to see how humans can be so abusive to the point of a living hell.we played with tribe 8 & le tigre at the great american music hall, an all-ages show at 6pm & a later show. lynney has been writing a book for the last 5 years & now she's finished. it's called godspeed. so now they're doing more shows again. at the first show they had their friends' kids onstage (both parents females). after the kids left lynney pulled out the big knife & dildo & commenced stabbing a soft toy. jello said earlier that he better not be up front or she would pull it out & make him suck it.
march 11, chico, ca. senator theatre: we had some really nice volunteers helping us with dinner & selling merch.
razor death squad & experimental dental school also played death metal & dentasurf, people wandering around the lynch-esque auditorium between acts. this place is great. if you ever get a chance to play here, it's a community center & these pioneers are building up a cultural center for their part of the world. this is where government support should be going. we would like to make a t-shirt out of the poster, so if some one can help us find whoever made it, please get in touch.we drove through mt. shasta national park, and stopped in dunsmuir for coffee. kiki found a leather hippy purse at the second hand shop. the beautiful drive up north, we made it in perfect time for sound check in eugene, w.o.w. hall:
the co. promoter came up to us and says some one called them to inform them that chicks on speed has cancelled! during le tigre's show a guy with a black eye kept on harassing them, yelling out silly things. it's not a good idea to interrupt kathleen, "you better shut the fuck up & get out because i have something to say that means alot to me." security dragged him out.
portland, oregon. first stop is powell's books, 10th & w burnside. kiki successfully tracks down a book by her late father called field guide to the little people by george moorse [2.], the cult classic. melissa filmed some of tami hart's set, and failed to capture one of those rare moments when she looks out to the audience. we now have her cd (mr. lady) with a forged signature -- from one of her two cute drummers. at the merch stand, alex is approached by a 10-year old diehard fan who says: "are you going to play that song?" -- she loves song 'for a future generation' and stood front row with an ultra serious expression, absorbing it all. spent the night at sonys & zacks, it's so nice to be at a home again.
after raiding the kitchen we head for seattle, stop in olympia, we found the coffee shop that calvin johnson took us to last time.
seattle showbox:
even though it's all ages, it's a sold out show. visited our favourite bookstore which was (coincidentally) across the street. alex got a sylvia plath biography, melissa found an amazon anthology. we had a few people coming up to us who had experienced the crocodile cafe show the year before, it was the last show of our 2001 us tour & the madness had set in.le tigre's show was more than spectactular. the visuals are like watching one music video after the next, synchronised to their rock techno beats & choreographed dancing. they were moving so fast we didn't have any luck capturing a photo of them. "keep on living", jd's solo is so beautiful. rock girl magazine was there. after the show the merch stand was raided by seattleans & fans forced us to take photos of them. good that joanna was there from k records to help us. our last night of playing with le tigre, we all hadn't spent enough time together. melissa didn't even get around to asking them if they want to join the chicks for an exhibition in a small berlin gallery. kathleen, joanna & j.d. gave us a survival package to continue our tour in good health & we said goodbye. killer, we miss you.
rainy cold hotel room, we leave at 4 am to catch our flight to austin, texas. kiki saw the grand canyon. security sucked, we think we are blacklisted from being at anti-globalization demonstrations. kiki had to take off her shoes 4 times.
austin feels like a little western cowboy town. what are those skyscrapers doing in the distance? one main street lined with bars, rip-offs, pushers, bad rock, people who look like they play bad rock. because of it being sxsw it also smacks of a mini-popkomm (the german music fair in köln) we played at emo's. melissa's friend matt, took her to a bbq, a little shack with 10 items on the menu & one kind of funny pink soda in the fridge.
we waited for louie austen at the airport & he didn't arrive. in fact, his flight had disappeared off the board. jaime, the tour manager, showed up with the wonder bus, a big white van & we immediately stuck our bumper sticker on the back. we too are bumper sticker philosophers on the road. we played the kork showcase at emo's, the hottest spot in town, they say. the backstage opens onto the sidewalk. the short sex machine from sf, gold chains, started out the evening: "let me lick your doughnut hole" louie austen graced emo's with his presence. just in the nick of time. the moony suzuki took the stage with their guitar inferno, while in the next room the flying luttenbachers were making some perfected experimentalist noise. masked guy jumped off stage, moshed around. by the time he was on stage my foot was hurting & there was blood splattered on the floor. not mine though. some of it was dripping through his mask. i stuck my finger in it just to make sure it was real & smeared it on my jeans. we drove down to houston with calvin johnson (k records).
6 march 2002
by Alex:
we aren't beautiful, we just like to work.
fuck beauty.
5 march 2002
by Melissa:
i hope you're getting over the long winter,
here one can tell it's spring by all these couples kissing in the streets. i finally will meet up with my boyfriend for 1 1/2 days before the tour.i have only spent 34 hours since mid-december.
mika vainio [of pan sonic] is in town right now, we are planning a project together & will be working in barcelona & then performing on april 26 in london (royal festival hall).we have a new system now for our live set & are using this new program on g4 --
i purchased toby's old one -- and we finally have, we are taking photos on the us tour & they will put them up on their web site.13 february 2002
by Kiki:
we have received a demo from ny that we like a lot...
urban camouflage didn't have anything in common with your
army navy camouflage except the name, i guess. it was more
a peaceful city slacker camouflage.
at the moment we are preparing our new summer line called
peasant-wear... it will be based on our stage outfits for
the us.we were just in ny last week, i was glad to see all those flags
hanging tattered and torn from buildings all over...we haven't been so far actively involved in the peace movement but we will encourage it on our us tour.
the new album?
almost there --
all the work should be done by mid-april.11 february 2002
by Alex:
[still about The B52's Silver Anniversary show, 4 Feb, NYC]
maybe i should also tell you more,
we arrived at the venue, everyone there was very highly strung and excited, the b52's brought their own sound system just for that night, an unbelievable amount of lights, fans and pa was all delivered in big road boxes! after they had their set up perfect it was our turn, we only had about 20 minutes before the doors opened, so we had to work very quickly with killer to get the sound right and the projection set up in time. thies was with us this time, and we prepared a lot of new live material together in the days prior to departure. we just thought we have to escape the clutches of the minidisc live act, so we worked on new ways to play 'euro trash girl', 'give me back my man', 'fashion rules' and 'mind your own business', it all worked very well. but just between you all and me, we didn't end up playing 'give me back my man' through sheer fear, our version was a shaggs take on the b52's but not bad enough you could say, so in the last moment we decided not to play it! it was the right decision, has to get worse before we can do it, if you know what i mean?!
we played and at first i think the audience were a bit puzzled, but then all of a sudden they started to smile during our application of fluro make-up and people started to yell stuff out like, "oh, you're really glowing, darling!"
it was a fun set.then came the b52s...
did i tell you that they sounded better live than on the record?
i was quite stunned and my eyes were glued to the stage, i was a little disappointed though, they didn't play 'give me back my man', and that's my absolute favourite! but they did play all the other hits, i s'pose the audience wasn't really open to their more "arty" tracks such as 'song for a future generation' and 'dirty back road', i think those fans got lost along the way. most of the people there were quite conservative or very plain, but hey that's ok, i just didn't expect that, in a way i like it though, as these people probably have very far-out minds and can relate to the call of the b52's.
and as the grande finale, yoko ono, mad, every funny animal noises on 'rock lobster', she wore a black cowboy shirt with sparkles and the fans loved every minute of it, apparently she is a big fan! tina from tom tom club was also there looking great and full of energy.i don't think i have ever felt so excited watching a concert, i thought back to the days when i was a teenager in bowral, australia and how they saved me from bush boredom. it made life seem so unreal and exciting back then and gave you the feeling that anything could be possible for me to do in life! and you know, i got a signature from the guitarist, he wrote "for alex... follow your bliss". i will, that's for sure!
whilst we were there, there were demonstrations going on around the city against the world trade talks, it was quite unbelievable that the police were stopping people from going to the demo with police barricades! what's going on there?
they were saying stuff like, "it's for your own security", so does that mean people aren't allowed to demonstrate anymore?!!! seems like it, they even cancelled 2 demos in munich last week.6 february 2002
by Melissa:
[The B52's Silver Anniversary show in NYC, 4 Feb, 2002; with CoS as guests]
the show went very well at irving plaza.
the crowd was all hardcore b52's fans &
drag queens -- made one realize how influential
they were to drag style.
they performed hit after hit, we all forgot that
they had so many.
cindy is so elegant & has such a moving voice,
fred really did the escalator & kate with her
fantastic beehive flipping of the wrists & hitting
those really high notes, the motto on the concert
t-shirts: "time goes be fast when you're having fun".
grande finale was 'rock lobster' with yoko ono
doing avantgarde-ish lobster screeches -- very
elegantly & giggling.
i had to get home because of my cold so didn't
make it to the afterparty but the others said
it was great fun.
i still have such a bad cold, alex & kiki have left --
i have booked another flight.17 january 2002
by Alex:
(on the subject if Allen Jones is a critical commentator on sexism or just a sexist pig himself)
i don't like his work!
women as slaves, well,
ha ha,
very funny, is this supposed to be a joke or just
show the position women look best in?16 january 2002
by Melissa:
because kiki will still be in mexico,
alex & i will be performing with kreidler
at the 10 year groove mag party in hamburg & köln,
this isn't really a c.o.s. performance but
rather the chicks/kreidler sessions.
2000 | 2001
CoS past gigs archive
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