May was busy, dude.

Well, after recovering from SPOT Festival, it's be show-and-interview tastic...
First, I went to Night + Day Festival, curated and headlined by the xx, I did threaten to leave at least 3 times due to rain but glad I stuck it out. Mykki Blanco killed it. Jessie Ware is overrated. The Chromatics are good and get props for covering Neil Young. I can't really remember the rest. Why is there rain? Why?

THE VERY NEXT DAY, we went to Leipzig and kicked it with Goths. It's a big festival/costume show/weirdo fest. Read the article I co-wrote with a Amanda Gray and check out Julian Barrats awesome pictures. Mindblowing, and I decided I would be the punky Goth, if push came to shove.

Then, I discovered this awesome band courtesy of the Polyvinyl Records, of San Francisco. Saturday Looks Good to Me: lovely indie pop from Michigan, listen and believe.

My Danish favorites Waldo and Marsha put out their full length album Zoo, read my review and check out the video for "Savannah."

Lastly, my interview with Katie Stelmanis of Austra published, she definitely plays her cards close to her chest that one, but I was able to get her to open up a bit.

Please, if you haven't done so yet, check me out on twitter @kikajonsson, all my articles get put on there.

seeing other blogs & Kotti-Shop show

What's new readers, I am excited to announce the interview I did was published, on none other than venerable online music magazine nothingbuthopeandpassion. Hope to be writing more for them soon, but in the meantime, check out what the band members in Waldo & Marsha had to say on my recent trip to Denmark.
In other news, the following show in Berlin much recommended, tomorrow night, the Kotti Shop,  Neues Kreuzberger Zentrum - Adalbertstr. 4 - Berlin

Double-End-the-Cold-Concert with Kotti-Shop crew: The flaming llama duo: LEISEYLENTO  -- basar musical - poetic & bizarre -- & The howling four: HERR TEUFELSDRÖCKH UND DAS TASCHENMESSER

-- Schizofolknik Rock --

Mitwoch 19. Dezember 2012 Doors open 20:00 Concert starts: 21:00 3 EUROS TO GET IN....you have no excuse

Århus

all photos ©2012 Kika Francisca Jonsson

Morten, Mathias and Mads of Waldo & Marsha

Lower

Iceage

two yahs! and two blahs: Danish Invasion at Rosi's Berlin

Danish Invasion

Fresh from the Danish showcase at Rosi's, to kick off the five days of no sleep and ringing eardrums that is Berlin Music Week.  Rosi's is a sweet club a short walk from Warschauer Strasse, down a bit on Revaler Str.  The setting is sort of Berlinesque standard crap-washed-up-from-a-shipwreck mixed with what a crackhouse puts out for a yard sale, meaning an outdoor area with strand lights, couches, ping pong and sand.  The mish mash of outdoor furniture includes a thoroughly soaked swinging chair. Note: There was a guy wearing a shirt that said "No one reads your fucking blog" which maybe was a sign.
The lineup was Boho Dancer, Schultz and Forever, Waldo and Marsha and Tako Lako. I will cover the blahs in another post, but first let's drink to the amazing stuff coming out of Denmark. So be warned if you visit a Danish showcase, be prepared to stand behind some tall people and some high cheekbones.  How is such a small, homogenous country putting out so many quality bands?  Maybe there is some hidden socialist subsidies encouraging young music.  Spoke a bit with Morten, one of the (many) guitarists of Waldo and Marsha, and the consensus is that it's the English language stuff coming out of Denmark that is attracting attention (the panting over Iceage last year probably chummed the waters, leading all to assume the next and best is there.)

 Schultz and Forever

Five guys who look barely old enough to buy cigarettes, who proceeded to invite the whole club to join them for beers at their hostel.  Their EP is available for free download.  The lead vocals voice (Jonathan Schultz) is one of the more unique voices to be heard on the scene in days, sort of a mix of early T. Rex and Devendra Banhart in his amped up mode, with raspy addition all his own. Once again when he would address the crowd there is that weird discrepancy between a person's singing voice sounding completely different than his/her spoken voice.  The songwriting is solid, impressive when a musician manages well-wrought songs in his/her second language, and the rest of the band backs him up.  This just proves once and forever that yours truly will be a sucker for lush and sweeping all-male harmonies.

Waldo and Marsha

Okay so if Schultz and Forever looked young these guys looks embryonic.  An eight member band with four guitars (my notes: "4 guitars?!?")  they came on and laid down some solid pop with good rocking distorted edge (one guitarist's Beatles Help! album guitar strap belies their obvious influences). Favorite part of the set was a prolonged feedback and effects pedal rout that would do any noise fan proud.  Long live sets that exceed expectations.

two guitars good, four guitars better