I wish I was in a Japanese shoegaze band

So did you ever read 'The Alchemist' by Paul Cohelo? One of my flat mates last year told me it was his favourite book so I read it, regardless of the quotes on the back from various American self helf experts singing its praises. Its about following and omens and stuff, but this is all within a nice story so...

Anyhow, I bring this up because of two decisions Ive made this week based on unignorable omens around me, and I don't normally go in for this sorta thing, honest.

Ok, so number one the decision to read Robinson Crusoe, based upon the heavy references to it in the book I (was) reading, The Moonstone (by Wilkie Collins, read, is good), my girlfriend writing an essay on said novel AND it coming up really frequently in the Literature and Empire Unit I'm doing. Written down this doesn't seem so remarkable but I don't care.

Anyway number two is this: this week Ive got records by two very very good bands with Japanese singers. Firstly, Blonde Redhead whose song 23 I got on a mix tape a while back, but Ive listened to the record this week and its hot. Secondly, Asobi Seksu, I got a track by them on another mix cd and the record is good too. Soooooooooo when I found out tonight that Japanese Post Rock Band Mono were playing Nachtleben, I figured its omens right? So Ill go.



Anyhow, Nachtleben is really weird, upstairs its Frankfurt thru and thru, American Psycho yuppie stlye but the down stairs lead to a dingy band room type thing, though the wallpaper was regal. It cost 14 euros to get in which I started to resent during the sickeningly bad first band. They had some Turkish bass player who kept doing things with his tongue and really pissed me off. The second band were 'post rock' which is a genre I still don't really get, maybe its all too subtle for me OR maybe its just a bit obvious. And no melody. Anyhow after their half hour set of solid noise, I kinda wasn't in the mood for more post rock but I stayed anyhow.



I kinda wish I was Japanese cos they look so cool thrashing their guitars around. During the climax of the second song a guitar sounded like it was screaming. They had that cool 'gentle build up to big sound' thing going on, it was a bit like one of those things nasty people send you on the internet where you watch a vid and suddenly a face screams at you at one point. Still though, I was a bit bored and my mind started wandering so I left earlish and took the tram home.



Otherwise todays been nice. After my morning seminar I walked towards Nordend and sat in this small hippy cafe/shop that sold Fuso Wool products whatever this is and read my book. It was called Gorilla Cafe, and I liked it for chiefly cos the guy behind the counter understood and didnt question my German.

Then I walked around the town for a bit. I went to the British food shop (its called 'A Taste of Britain' and the flyer has a picture of Hadrians Wall) and got tea and soup and Horlicks. I don't know why... I went a bit crazy and bought anything that caught my eye but I havent been sleeping well lately anyway so...
The British Book Shop had a flyer in the window that said 'Have You Seen The Entwithes? We've forgotten what they look like but they seem to have disappeared'. Strange...
I saw Francis at Bockenheim, we chatted, and I came back and spent ages talking to Joe online...again.

Then this evening was Mono at Nachtleben. The method by which I wrote about this first whereas chronologically it comes last was discussed in relation to Detective Fiction in my earlier seminar as a way in which the author is able to score victory over his antagonist the reader. Truth.

I don't know if Ill continue this blog, I just wanted to see how it read. Im going to make Horlicks.