Take me to M'era Luna

When the moon in in the sky

like a big pizza pie,

It's a moray [eel]

Yes, that was corny...

August 09, 2006

M’era Luna, the premier music festival showcasing Goth and Industrial music is this weekend in Hildelsheim, Germany. If any one out there has a pair of tickets that they do not want as well as maybe airline or hotel reservations, please let me know. I will make sure they get put to good use.

The States will never have a show like this here and Apoptygma Berzerk is just ignoring North America lately. Why, Stephan, why? And there is also the Birthday Massacre, whose album I just cannot seem to stop listening to. Plus, Bauhaus who can never seem to stop from reuniting over and over again and Nitzer Ebb who finally did reunite. But what I am most interested in is all the bands who I have heard plenty of hype but I have actually not heard any of their tunes yet like Girls under Glass, Soman and Spetnatz. And I would really like to see Rotersand, if only to hear really loud their Dalek sampled song of EXTERMINATE, ANNIHILATE, DESTROY!

If by any chance you or anyone you know actually goes, let me know how it was. (Of course, with my luck, when I actually go, the bands I want to really see will be playing at the same times)

The Complete Line up:
APOPTYGMA BERZERK ASP BAUHAUS BLUTENGEL CLAN OF XYMOX DE/VISION DEATHSTARS DIE KRUPPS DOPE STARS INC. ELANE EPICA FRONTLINE ASSEMBLY FUNKER VOGT GIRLS UNDER GLASS GOTHMINISTER IN EXTREMO IN STRICT CONFIDENCE LETZTE INSTANZ LIV KRISTINE LLUTHER MESH MIDNATTSOL MINISTRY MONA MUR feat. ST.CLAIRE NITZER EBB NORTHERN LITE REGICIDE ROTERSAND SAMSAS TRAUM SOLITARY EXPERIMENTS SOMAN SONO SPETSNAZ TERMINAL CHOICE THE BIRTHDAY MASSACRE THE GATHERING TRISTANIA UNHEILIG WITHIN TEMPTATION XPQ21

Speaking of music festivals, the full KROQ Inland Invasion line up should be announced soon. Guns N Roses are headlining which is mostly enough to keep me away from that show. I want to two Inland Invasions in the past when the Cure and Siouxsie & the Banshees headlining. Both were totally awesome shows (The Cure gig is still my favourite Cure show). But last year’s line up seemed to dwell on nineties nostalgia instead of eighties nostalgia. And GNR for this year seemed to just be too mainstream. But then again, when was the last time that KROQ and radio stations of its ilk actually were alternative? Alternative became a marketing ploy. It seemed to turn around with the advent of bands like Interpol, the Killers and Dashboard Confessional, but since then contemporary rock has slipped back to the same boring sameness.

Which begs the question: Who will save Rock N Roll? The true answer of course is that it does not need saving. There are plenty of kick ass bands out there- popular or not. You just need to seek them out and not have to depend on KROQ to bring it to you. I have never heard VNV Nation or Combichrist on the radio and neither will you. I first heard their tunes on compilations and online. If you listen to KROQ (or heaven forbid MTV) for new tunes, you will just get what the marketing department had seen in trends in the past as to what was popular giving you watered down detritus of what used to be good music. Look at Korn and Limp Biscuit for example. I hate those bands. It is like someone said Hey, hard rock is popular and so is Hip Hop- if we merge them into Rap Rock, we will make tons of money. And tons of money they did make. But their tunes were totally forgettable and crappy. Sure, there are kids out there who love them to death. But they are as prepackaged as the next boy band. Yeah, maybe I am starting to become an old fogey who cannot stand what the kids are listening to nowadays but hey- the music on Radio Free America sucks. Go find good music elsewhere.

But thank god for Metropolis Records and their Hot Topic samplers. I have discovered more new bands that I like on them than I have listening to the radio.

On to a different topic:

I now know why drivers in this state drive the way they do. It all comes down to insurance. Your rates go up only if you are caught driving under the influence, without a license or if you are found at fault in an accident. You still get ticketed and fined for speeding, other moving violations, driving recklessly and all other bad driving stuff, it is just that your insurance will not go up because of it.


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