IVIED

So after a long time here’s another recommendation. This time I want to write about a band from Graz called Facelift. They are currently celebrating the 10th anniversary of the band with a tour on which they are playing nearly everywhere in Styria and of course in the rest of Austria as well. Check their tour dates on their Myspace site.

Well until my brother gave me a copy of their 2005 release Impossible Somethings a few weeks ago, I didn’t really know the band. But since then I listened to the album many times and I have to say I like it. I hope I can manage to go to one of their gigs to see them in concert. I’m really interested what their live performance is like.

Dawn at Spittelau

• Switches – Lay Down The Law
• Shout Out Louds – Tonight I Have To Leave It [Download here]
• 1990s – You’re Supposed To Be My Friend [Download here]
• I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness – When You Go Out [Download here]
• Sleater-Kinney – Oh!
• Junior Boys – Like A Child
• !!! – Must Be The Moon
• Justice – D.A.N.C.E.
• Art Brut – Direct Hit

This weekend there was the Donaukanltreiben festival on various locations by the Donaukanal here in Vienna. I went to Flex on Friday to see Stremann & Grissemann and also Lichtenberg (and the both together of course). On Saturday there were A Life, A Song, A Cigarette as well as Attwenger at the Flex and Louie Austen at the Young Generation Area which was also not far from the Flex.

It really was a nice festival, open air and with free entrance. But well the weather was not that good and Saturday night it even started to rain during the concerts but luckily there were some guys going round handing free ponchos to the people as to get some protection from the rain.

Here you can see a few photos from the Donaukanaltreiben:

Lichtenberg with Stermann & Grissemann

The Donaukanal

Louie Austen

Attwenger

The Pope’s in town (Vatican flag on the Stephansdom)

So today it’s exactly one year since September 3^rd 2006. Well that was obvious somehow. But this definitely is a special date for me because that Sunday last September was the day when I arrived in Dublin for my Erasmus semester (which was to become a great great time).

So I arrived there at Dublin airport, took the Airlink to Connolly Station and went over to the crappy Abraham House hostel where I stayed for the first week (before moving to Tramway Court – yeah Tramway rocks (better say rocked)).

Well, first thing after this Clemens and I went over to O’Neills to have a pint of Guinness (there were a lot more to follow in that half year). O’Neills was packed because it was the All-Ireland Finals of Hurling in Croke Park that day, Cork vs. Kilkenny (Well actually I looked that up on the internet just now, I just remembered that there was those Hurling finals). So everybody was sitting and standing there with a pint in hands, staring at the TV screens and cheering. As you can imagine, there was no place there to sit that afternoon, so we just drank our pints and left again.

When we went back up O’Connell Street it was just after the end of the match and a whole flood of people came down form Croke Park heading home or to the pub, all dressed in their team’s jersey or at least having some accessories in their favourite team’s colours. So it was quite hard to walk against all them, up O’Connell Street.

Well that day we also went to Supervalu in Talbot Street to get a sandwich (also quite a few to follow, at least in that first week), to the next Meteor store to get myself an Irish SIM card and to O’Sheas for another pint.

So that was that great warm and sunny Sunday in Dublin and today I’m sitting here in Vienna with a whole lot of crappy cold and rainy weather outside. I really have to go to the store tomorrow and get myself a proper jacket as not to catch a cold again.

Those were days I’ll never forget, a fucking great time… I just had to put in this word somewhere, when I’m talking bout Ireland here…

P.S. Here’s two pictures: Dublin September 3^rd 2006 and Vienna, actually not on September 3^rd 2007, but it didn’t look much different today in the afternoon.

Last Saturday night (or well, I should better say Sunday morning) MSTRKFT were “playing” at the Arena in Vienna. Well in fact there were those two moustache guys, two decks, a mixers and a MacBook. The gig itself was very drum and bass or whatever I should call it, I’m not so good with all those genres. I just know for sure that it was very loud, extremely sweaty and a bit too hard core for my taste of music. But I expected it to be like that somehow, well more hard core than on their last EP. But I liked it when they mixed in tracks like “D.A.N.C.E.” by Justice, “Music sounds better with you” or stuff from the likes of Bloc Party or Wolfmother. And of course the 12€ entrance were OK as well.

So here’s a photo of those two guys, “MSTRKFT from the States”:

Well just today I listened to some tracks by Bela Butono again. Bela Butono is/was a project of a guy form Vienna or so who also was in Uez Racing Division. I don’t know much about him/them, but the Bela Butono stuff is really great.

And yes, three releases are free for download on their website. So go download them. My favourite track is “Der Kreis” (Featuring Deph Joe) from the EP “Clubthemes J4F”.

So, as I mentioned before here on this blog, I’m in Vienna now doing my internship. Well I uploaded some pictures I took in the last two weeks to the gallery. I don’t really know what else to write: I mean so far everything is OK, the room, the work and yes I like Vienna somehow.

Ah yes, last weekend I was in Graz, Saturday night at The Office. That’s really nice place and owner Ross is a nice guy… although I think everybody got sick of hearing all the presentations again and again (I think you people know what I mean).

Greetings to everybody from Vienna.

Where they make the weather in Austria