Hi Everyone,
When I first opened Seele Brennt, I posed a series of questions that I asked our visitors to answer. I wanted to find out more about you and discover what sort of content you wanted to see here. Below is a revised set of the questions. You can read the responses in the comments section below, and hopefully, add your answers. Use the contact form if you prefer to keep your response private. However, if you want to post it publicly, please scroll all the way down to the comment box. Either way, we’d love to hear from you! Thanks in advance!
Cheers, Morgan
- Where do you live? (City and/or country)
- Do you speak German?
- How old are you? (optional)
- Are you a male or female?
- How/when did you discover Blixa & the Neubauten?
- Have you seen Einstürzende Neubauten live? Where?
- Have you attended a Blixa Bargeld and/or anbb live show?
- Are you a fan of Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds?
- What content would you like to see in this blog?
You are welcome to use the contact form for a private response. To leave a public response, scroll down to “Leave a Reply” (that’s the public comment box at page bottom).
Well, I think it’s time…
1. Berlin, Germany
2. I do, but not very well. Still learning.
3. Oh, I cannot remember that!
4. Female
5. I don’t remember exactly how and when I discovered them. Discovered is not right – heard of and decided from the start to ignore them because the people who were telling me about them were people whose tastes I didn’t share and who made it sound like the Neubauten were some pretentious band that makes music out of strange objects and that’s about it. At a certain point I decided that I should judge for myself, like I always do. So I listened to Stella Maris and Seele brennt. After Blixa’s first scream in Seele brennt I went on amazon and ordered their first three albums plus Blixa’s Headcleaner. And since then I became a Neubauten geek, bought and read everything I could and I love it!
6. Yes, finally I can say yes! Berlin, September 2011, short concert for TV. (And I don’t wanna think about all the others that I missed either because I was refusing to listen to the Neubauten or because I couldn’t go.)
7. Yes. Ravenna, July 2011. It was wonderful, but I was so far away from the stage that I couldn’t see much and that kind of ruined the experience a bit.
8. Yes. Actually I don’t know if I’m a fan, but I do love them
9. It’s perfect the way it is. It has so much great material! Thanks for everything you do here! Oh, actually there is something I would love to see – Blixa back to school part 2. Does it exist? The video you posted here says part 1 and I’m sooo waiting for the follow-up, it’s one of my absolute favourites. I love him there, I love the way he speaks to those kids about himself and what he has done and why and so on.
1. London.
2. Yes, though not fluently. Been learning since I was about 9 (forced to by linguist mother).
3. 20
4. Female
5. I first knew of their existence at the end of 2009 – my boyfriend would periodically shout ‘TANZ DEBIL’ and stomp around, so I gave them a listen. I thought I’d start right at the beginning and listened to the Kalte Sterne early recordings album, but didn’t get further than that for some time for some reason. Although I had an extreme infatuation with Tagesschau-Dub and Kalte Sterne, for some reason I didn’t listen to the later albums (I think I’d only heard Total Eclipse of the Sun of their later material and was like ‘WHAT WHERE ARE THE DRILLS’). It wasn’t until after I saw them live in London at the end of 2010 that I embarked on my mission to listen to everything they’d released ever and devote a large proportion of my life to them.
6. Twice. Once at the 30th anniversary show at The Garage in London, which was very short but really changed everything. Hearing Seele Brennt live blew my tiny mind. And I saw them again at Primavera festival in May this year, which was excellent, though again too short.
7. No.
8. When I was 11 or so, a friend of my dad’s gave me a mixtape with The Mercy Seat on it, which I absolutely loved, but as far as being a fan of The Bad Seeds went, it amounted to buying Let Love In and Murder Ballads on CD as a young teen and listening to them occasionally. Now I’m pretty up to date with their back catalog, but in all honesty I was always a bigger fan of The Birthday Party, and probably still remain so.
9. More of the same. I really cannot fault the content of this blog. Translation services on video has been especially appreciated.
I just realized I’ve been reading this blog for weeks and still haven’t filled this out for you!
1. Tennessee (U.S.A.)
2. No
3. 27
4. F
5. 9th grade if I recall correctly, so that would have been around 1998/9. A couple of the older kids at my school who at the time I thought were cool were walking around with Neubauten t-shirts. I came across the Strategies Against Architecture collections (all 2 of them) somewhere or another, and shortly thereafter Silence is Sexy appeared and I bought that one also. I got the good version with the extra CD (Pelikanol). I found a used copy of Ende Neu at probably either Schoolkids Records or Wuxtry Records in Athens, GA when I was attending the University of Georgia. That was around the same time the band was doing their supporters thing but I was dead broke and had no free time so I completely missed out on that. I’ve picked up the other albums (minus the supporters material, which I’m sure go for a small fortune on ebay) much more recently since they put the new versions out under the Potomak label.
5. Tragically, no. I am on the wrong continent.
6. Same here, pretty much. I love Tennessee but unless you are a fan of contemporary “country” music (I am not), there’s nothing much going on in these parts (and I don’t count Kings of Leon because they are boring). I kinda doubt Blixa Bargeld is going to set foot in this region of the United States, we’re probably not ~*~sophisticated~*~ enough. Alex Hacke, maybe.
7. Of course! I also had a copy of Murder Ballads in high school that amused me greatly, and Live Seeds.
8. There seems to be quite a variety already! I always appreciate the translations of various things (interviews, articles, documentaries, etc), since, as I mentioned before, I’m useless at that sort of thing and while babelfish and google translate have a way of mangling things in a comedic fashion, they are not much use for actually revealing the meaning of anything.
How the hell did I end up with 2 #5′s? Ugh. I am dopey today!
1. North of France
2. I’m trying and still learning. It’s always easier to understand than speak.
3. I’m 28
4. Female
5. I remember the first Neubauten sond I heard was Zampano, it was on a promotional record they offered with a magazine. I loved it. Then my father recorded for me the 20th anniversary show in Berlin with the Seele Brennt documentary on Arte. (I didn’t even ask, sometimes he does amazing things like that without even knowing) I loved it as well. I was 16 or something and it was not easy for me to get the records, the Internet wasn’t what it is today, so I couldn’t really get more, and it stopped there. I came back to it last year, after reading the Death of Bunny Munro, which made me rediscover the Bad Seeds. I found Nick Cave fixes, which brought me here. I started paying more attention to Blixa. The only thing I remember clearly is finding the page on Nick Cave fixes about Blixa, and watching the video called Blixa Bargeld, an interview / l’intervista, about Rede Speech. The last song he improvises on that video made me fall in love with him. I don’t really know why. I still watch it a lot. Then, once you find a place like Seele Brennt, there is everything you need to become obsessed.
6. I’ve seen them live in Paris, for the 30th anniversary. I still watch or listen to that show at least once a week. And seven month later I still have no words to express how that evening was one of the best I’ve ever had.
7. I’ve seen Blixa with Alva Noto in Brussels, april 2011. I wanted to go see Ingiuria that same month, but it was a little too far away and it’s hard to drag someone with me each time. My husband is enough of a saint to deal with my obsessions on a daily basis, so I tried to stay reasonable.
8. Of course I love the Bad Seeds, they brought me to Neubauten. But I just love them, while there are no words strong enough to describe what I feel for Blixa/Neubauten.
9. This blog is awesome just the way it is. Sometimes it’s like you’re reading my mind.
Tanz_Debil and Avani –
I received private survey responses from you via email, which is fine, I am okay with that option. However, I wonder if you might want to share your answers with the others? If so, I would love to post them publicly. Leave a message or email me, k?
Hugs, Morgan