Thursday, April 12, 2007

musical interlude



A few weeks ago C. invited me to übel & gefährlich [wicked & dangerous], a club in St. Pauli. The club is located in the Hochbunker, a late Nazi construction that nevertheless reminds me of the Goetheanum in Dornach, just outside Basel and seat of Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophical Society.

We went to see two of her friends open for Thomas Belhom. Unfortunately, I cannot remember their names. Nor can I recall the name of the bassist for Calexico, who played with Belhom, which is a shame, as it was once one my favorite bands.

I did not know a thing about Belhom before going to the show. He is French and is a one-man-band in the finest sense: the only thing he plays besides a drum set and a bevy of percussion do-hickeys is a small keyboard. And he sings too. In English, but as if he learned the words phonetically and doesn't know what they mean. He looks like a cross between Mr. Bean and Dick van Dyke from Mary Poppins (minus the straw hat).



They were selling a CD of his that I was very tempted to purchase - and still might - featuring performances by the said Calexico bassist as well as the frontman for Lambchop. The last time I saw Lambchop was in Hoboken almost 6 years ago when he opened for Yo La Tengo's Hannukah concert series a few months after September 11, 2001 (seven nights, proceeds to seven charities).

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