Twenty Years of Sudden Infant!
(Amended April 24, 2009.)
Hallo Droogies,
We're back and half-recovered from the crazed "20 Years of Sudden Infant" concert in Berlin. I'm not slathering too much saccharine on the evening when I opine it was one for the archives. Just fucking ramped and vamped on all fronts...
Photos follow below. My megamix of the sounds vomited forth at Ausland may be purloined here and here. They're room recordings from the H2 Zoom, recorded at 44.1, then cross-faded and normalized for your displeasure. Not only individual performances, but audience chatter, DJ selections, awkward silences, and the occasional (providential) impasse...
Thanks again to Joke! Happy anniversary, baby...
TS
---
(Twenty Years of Sudden Infant: Ausland, Berlin, April 18, 2009... Performances by Ushi Hupe, Family Battle Snake, Christian Weber, Raionbashi, Tom Smith (solo vocal performance), Rashad Becker, Dick Tourette, Jorge Sanchez-Chiong, Runzelstirn & Gurgelstock (non-physical performance), and Sudden Infant Family (father-son performance). You shoulda been there!)
(Soundcheck, Ausland...)
(Getting the projections in order...)
(The place was packed. Fans jostle for the best spot in front of the minimal stage...)
(Stefan Roigk and Claudia Franke chat in the background as the room begins to fill...)
(Rashad Becker, one of the planet's greatest mastering engineers (and a total sweetheart of a human) blabs in the foreground before the start of his set. You can see his synth resonating in the background...)
(More freaks. The room was stuffed with folks from most quadrants of Europa. A few ex-pat Yanks too...)
(Another trio of attendees, anxiously awaiting the start of the evening. Emphasis on ANXIETY.)
(Although most of the performances hewed toward Actionist extremes, straight-up noise was also on the menu... The headbangers up front were flipping the fuck out during Dick Tourette's set.)
(Chaos was the order of the evening - the audience was rowdy and ready to howl!)
(The mysteries unfold. Family Battle Snake unleashes the Wasp!)
(Ushi Hupe squeezes the ballast sac as the night grows ever-perverse...)
(Joke surveys the mob from a narrow perch...)
(Mayhem.)
(The pushback from the mob was always more inquisitive than doltish. Everyone wanted to peer beyond the veil. Except the Brits - drunk as always!)
(From Tilburg, the great Steffan de Turck, aka Staplefahrer. The equally cool Wouter Jaspers lurks behind, growing from the top of Steffan's skull...)
(SUDDEN INFANT FAMILY AKTION!!)
(Complete chaos!)
(More Sudden Infant Family grappling and audience pummeling!)
(Joke and Celeste offer one final, piercing whistle blast before taking a well-deserved bow...)
(Runzelstirn & Gurgelstock's "non-physical" performance... Tick tick tick tick tick tick KER-THUMP!)
Inside the case, simulacra. (Of course.)
(Joke and son, many years ago...)
(Time warps and wavers within Ausland...)
Tochnit Aleph's b-day shit-out (sorry) to Joke!
(Raionbashi! Damned plastic clarinets!)
(Guitar/turntable madness from Christian Weber & Jorge Sanchez-Chiong! Joke looks on in the foreground; he was grinning ear to ravaged ear...)
(My POV, as always. I closed the show with a solo vocal piece...)
(Click pix for larger versions...)
Hallo Droogies,
We're back and half-recovered from the crazed "20 Years of Sudden Infant" concert in Berlin. I'm not slathering too much saccharine on the evening when I opine it was one for the archives. Just fucking ramped and vamped on all fronts...
Photos follow below. My megamix of the sounds vomited forth at Ausland may be purloined here and here. They're room recordings from the H2 Zoom, recorded at 44.1, then cross-faded and normalized for your displeasure. Not only individual performances, but audience chatter, DJ selections, awkward silences, and the occasional (providential) impasse...
Thanks again to Joke! Happy anniversary, baby...
TS
---
(Twenty Years of Sudden Infant: Ausland, Berlin, April 18, 2009... Performances by Ushi Hupe, Family Battle Snake, Christian Weber, Raionbashi, Tom Smith (solo vocal performance), Rashad Becker, Dick Tourette, Jorge Sanchez-Chiong, Runzelstirn & Gurgelstock (non-physical performance), and Sudden Infant Family (father-son performance). You shoulda been there!)
(Soundcheck, Ausland...)
(Getting the projections in order...)
(The place was packed. Fans jostle for the best spot in front of the minimal stage...)
(Stefan Roigk and Claudia Franke chat in the background as the room begins to fill...)
(Rashad Becker, one of the planet's greatest mastering engineers (and a total sweetheart of a human) blabs in the foreground before the start of his set. You can see his synth resonating in the background...)
(More freaks. The room was stuffed with folks from most quadrants of Europa. A few ex-pat Yanks too...)
(Another trio of attendees, anxiously awaiting the start of the evening. Emphasis on ANXIETY.)
(Although most of the performances hewed toward Actionist extremes, straight-up noise was also on the menu... The headbangers up front were flipping the fuck out during Dick Tourette's set.)
(Chaos was the order of the evening - the audience was rowdy and ready to howl!)
(The mysteries unfold. Family Battle Snake unleashes the Wasp!)
(Ushi Hupe squeezes the ballast sac as the night grows ever-perverse...)
(Joke surveys the mob from a narrow perch...)
(Mayhem.)
(The pushback from the mob was always more inquisitive than doltish. Everyone wanted to peer beyond the veil. Except the Brits - drunk as always!)
(From Tilburg, the great Steffan de Turck, aka Staplefahrer. The equally cool Wouter Jaspers lurks behind, growing from the top of Steffan's skull...)
(SUDDEN INFANT FAMILY AKTION!!)
(Complete chaos!)
(More Sudden Infant Family grappling and audience pummeling!)
(Joke and Celeste offer one final, piercing whistle blast before taking a well-deserved bow...)
(Runzelstirn & Gurgelstock's "non-physical" performance... Tick tick tick tick tick tick KER-THUMP!)
Inside the case, simulacra. (Of course.)
(Joke and son, many years ago...)
(Time warps and wavers within Ausland...)
Tochnit Aleph's b-day shit-out (sorry) to Joke!
(Raionbashi! Damned plastic clarinets!)
(Ed Benndorf, aka Eric B (w/o Rakim), was our DJ. His sets were fucking killer, veering toward laste 70s/early 80s Rough Trade-ish vinyl, with rarer oddities mixed throughout. "Silent Command" by Cab Vol knocked our heads clean off...)
(Guitar/turntable madness from Christian Weber & Jorge Sanchez-Chiong! Joke looks on in the foreground; he was grinning ear to ravaged ear...)
(My POV, as always. I closed the show with a solo vocal piece...)
(Click pix for larger versions...)
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