Tonight, Saturday September 25, from 9 to 11 pm, another Berlin diy hc punk show will be airing on Berlin free Radio Einheit. Me and Andy Thrashbastard will be spinning old and new hardcore records and talk about Andy´s recent trip to the Balkans, Greece and Albania!
Go to the Pi-Radio website and click on the little Radio Einheit player for direct streaming or download the show here.
If you live in Berlin just turn on your radio and tune in to Radio Einheit 99,1 FM.
Looking back on the past months, not much has happened on this blog and it has nothing to do with the Berlin diy hardcore scene. The scene is alive and happening, with lots of shows and a good amount of bands and releases. It´s me. First I thought it was just a punk-pause over the very long winter, but then I seem to have gotten a bit jaded with hardcore lately. I´m really not happy with the state the diy hardcore punk scene is in right now. And has been over the past years. It really pisses me off, that I can´t find too many arguments to fight Erich´s accusations that the hardcore scene of today is purely a „hardcore re-enactment scene“. Most of it really is retro. And as much as I like the people in the scene and of course 80´s style hardcore, it doesn´t really lead anywhere. A scene dies when it looses its crucial progressive element. I got out of the garage punk scene in the late 90´s when it turned into a „Oldies“-scene. When the bands were content to play the old style really well. Then again: I got out of the hardcore-scene in the late 80´s, because the scene had branched out into so many styles that it lost its equally crucial, stupid rock´n´roll appeal . That was one of the reasons I got into hardcore in the first place: silly rock´n´roll played at maximum speed by pretty smart people.
Progression seems to be missing a bit in hardcore lately. I don´t even care in what direction diy hardcore punk could develop, but it has to develop. Be it pop, noise, primitive or plain weird, as long as it still really rocks and is still being made by the same people and still happens at the same places, I will enjoy it. Everything is better than the current retro style. I don´t have anywhere else to go and I don´t want to leave either. But if anyone knows of a place where really nice and intelligent people who are fuckin´angry with the way the world is, are playing angry fuckin´music that I can TOTALLY FUCKIN`ROOOOOOOOCK OUT TO, please tell me.
On the other hand I might be completely wrong and just haven´t paid enough attention to what´s going on. For example, all the hardcore bands that played at Koma F last night were fantastic! (Four bands – Krystal Meth/Berlin, I Scream 7 Showers/Japan, Sista Sekunden/Sweden and Urban Blight/Canada – for five Euros! That´s not to beaten by any other venue in Berlin.)
Local Berliners KRYSTAL METH have played a lot of shows in the past year and their crusty hardcore sound has gotten a lot tighter. Luckily their funny remarks in between songs were so not crusty…
Next up were I SCREAM 7 SHOWERS from Japan and they completely surprised me. This is a new hardcore sound! Chaotic and wild with lots of distortion and tempo changes, they played at break-neck speed, while still maintaining a melodic vibe. I danced through their whole set and never missed a beat. Amazing band!
I SCREAM 7 SHOWERS, Social Eyes, 2007 (still a little more conventional sounding, from their Split w/Sista Sekunden on Instigate Records)
The mighty SISTA SEKUNDEN at our beloved little moldy, old basement Koma F, was almost too good to b e true. I love their new pop-ish hardcore sound and I love their old faster material but just because they dare to do something different, I think I like their new stuff better. Sista Sekunden are one of the handful of truly great European hardcore bands right now. Their new LP is a masterpiece! Name one other hard rockin´ HARDCORE PUNK band that can pull off writing a „pop“ song like this:
SISTA SEKUNDEN, Sista punkaren i Sverige, 2010 (from their new album „Aldras med Stil“ on Instigate Records)
The last band were URBAN BLIGHT from Canada. Some years ago I bought their 7″ on Deranged. They do early 80´s hardcore. When they hit the stage, they got me going immediately. I slam danced, I sweated, I smiled just like I did some 25 years ago in the real 80´s. Call it retro or whatever, as long as it gets my blood pumping and my body moving, I´m all for it. Rock´n´roll, punk and hardcore will always be foremost about dancing. If it doesn´t get the body moving, forget it. And if you´re not dancing to it, you will never feel it, never understand it.
URBAN BLIGHT, Social Order, 2010 (From their new 7″ on Static Shock Records)
After the show I bought their new 7″ out on Static Shock records and it´s even more brutal and primitive sounding than their old one, but in a good way. Kinda strange, but they didn´t sound that primitive live. Usually it´s the other way round. Get their new 7″, it´s great! Urban Blight got the punks moving one last time on this week night and then it was time to go home.
Thanks to Mario for putting on this wonderful show. Thanks to everyone that helped at the door and worked the bar and thanks to the generous people that live at Köpi, who let our noise destroy their bedtime.
No Slogan and Canadian Rifle from Chicago and MOR from Denmark at Koma F on Friday April 23.
I´m a little busy right now so here are just some mails I got recently. Thanks for the info, the new distro-store and the shows sound really cool:
Hello,
Here’s Robert / Refuse Records.
I was checking your blog about Berlin shows. It’s really cool initiative.
I was wondering if you’d be into putting some informations about the shows I’m doing in Berlin. Here’s two upcoming shows:
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out now on Refuse Records:
055 V/A „Warsaw is Burning“ 7″ep
048 The Corpse „Fight against rules“ CD
061 Anchor „Relations of violence“ 7″ep
060 Right Idea s/t 7″ep
059 S.B.V. „Swallow the pill“ 7″ep
058 Seasick „Ennui“ 7″ep
057 Government Flu „Fuck poetics“ 7″ep / MCD
056 Government Flu „Demo 2008“ 7″ep
054 Zlodzieje Rowerow „…Gdy wrzala krew 1995-1999“ CD
050 Birds Of A Feather „The Past The Present“ LP+Book
upcoming show:
27.03. Berlin: El Banda (PL), Fejlfix (DK), Posing Dirt (PL)
http://www.myspace.com/refuserecords
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Last October Andreas Thrashbastard and I did two BERLIN DIY HC PUNK radio shows on Berlin´s only free form radio Herbstradio 99.1.
I finally put both shows on my Divshare account. If you missed them, now you can download them directly to your hard drive. They´re pretty big, each around 159 MB, so I put them in two zip files. It takes about 10 minutes to download, at least on my own old computer, but it´s worth the wait: four hours of great hardcore!
Plus you can hear our sweet voices messing it all up…
BERLIN DIY HC PUNK radio show Pt.1 (10/06/2009)
BERLIN DIY HC PUNK radio show Pt.2 (10/13/2009)
In the first part of the BERLIN DIY HC PUNK radio show we played recent and not so recent Hardcore Punk releases from Berlin, some new US stuff and some of Andy Thrashbastard´s Brazilian favourites.
Playlist October 6th:
In the second show we played some new Hardcore Punk from the great Barcelona scene, some of the highlights of the Umeå scene of the past years and then in the second half of the show we present our favourite Hardcore Punk 45´s of this decade.
Playlist October 13th:
Don´t forget to scroll down further for upcoming Berlin shows:
Two Hungarian Hardcore bands Think Again and New Dead Project will be playing at Koma F on Saturday March 13.
And just a few days later on Wednesday another three exellent hardcore bands at Koma F:
fastcore masters LET´S GROW and the more melodic thrashers JAIBO from Belgrade, Serbia are coming to present their brand new Split-LP out on Thrashbastard records PLUS always awesome locals APE ATTACK.
Lots more shows are due at Koma F in the very near future.
This weekend Köpi is celebrating its 20th birthday with a huge festival. I was there for the Friday event and it was massive. The site was muddy and puddles everywhere because the snow was finally melting after two month, but it didn´t keep way more than thousand people from showing up. A great testament to the vitality of the squatters movement and the anarchist punk scene.
There were many groups playing last night but the only one I saw was the Rats from Umeå. I got to meet Johan, one of their two guitarists, before the show and he told me they had taken a plane to Berlin and it felt like summer for them because in Umeå it was still minus 25° Celcius.
The Rats are not on tour and were invited to the Köpi Fest exclusively. Deservedly so because they absolutely destroy live. They have the best set-up for any rock´n´roll group: a solid backing band of smart but rather normal guys and a real animal for a front person.
They have played Koma F many times, one of their shows was my first post in June 2008. I I hope to catch them again because they rule.
Hamburg Punks ORÄNG ATTÄNG and angry female fronted Deutschpunkers FETZEN from Berlin play at KVU February 26, 2010. Show starts at 10 pm sharp!
Wenn Hamburg schon mal nach Berlin kommt muß ich wohl mal kurz aus meiner Winterschlafhöhle rauskrabbeln und meine müden, alten Knochen da hinschleifen…
Willkommen in neuen Jahr und es geht gleich weiter im Koma F .
Two bands tomorrow January 12 at Koma F:
Great angry female-fronted Punk band from Boston, Massachusetts
and the amazing NAILS from Berlin:
Zwei echt HEISSE Combos um den kalten Komakeller aufzuwärmen!!! Ich werd mir trotzdem ein extrapaar warme Socken überziehn…
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One of the last shows of this year December 28 at Koma F: the brilliantly brutal, chaotic and precise Hardcorepunks from Buffalo EVERYTHING FALLS APART and Berlin Thrashmasters A BIT OF BRAINDEAD
ATTENTION!!!: SHOW MOVED TO „LOKAL“ (Rosenthaler Str.71, Berlin-Mitte) auf 2 BÜHNEN (!!!) um „20.00UHR“ mit:
SKRÄCK (HC-Crust/ L.E.) , SICK TIMES (Hardcore/ Sachsen), GEWAPEND BETON (HC-Punk/ NL), BRAT PACK (HC-Thrash/ NL), „MxVxDx“ (Crust-Grind/ Berlin), „Krystal Meth“ (Hardcore/ Berlin) , „RoadKillZombies“ (Punkrock/ Berlin), „Sonic Booze Machine“ (HC-Metal/ Berlin) , „Peacebastard“ (Radau/ Berlin)
Das Spektakel wird auf 2 Bühnen stattfinden, dann sind die Pausen zwischen den Bands auch auf das Mininum reduziert.
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Social Circkle are one of the best bands of the new early 80´s Hardcore scene. Yes, their retro but so what, they´re fuckin´ragin´. Hope they´re still on fire when they hit Koma F on this their last day of the tour…
Family Man are the best Berlin Hardcore band right now. Intelligent, tight, melodic and they always put on a great show. Plus they are a pretty good-looking bunch… yea, I know you´re too cool to care for these things…
This will probably be the show of the month! Don´t miss…
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OUT ON A LIMB from Chemnitz write some really good songs! Their EP on Thrashbastard Records is full of catchy hardcore anthems!
DRAMAMIME share some band members with PRESSGANG and IDLE HANDS but these guys are way more rockin´…
Me like very much!!!
Sounds like a cool show December 4th at Koma F!!!
Berlin DIY HC Punk 
