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The Formative Years – Glitterhouse Records

It must have been in the early 1990 that through acquisition of a large fanzine collection, I came across old back issues of The Glitterhouse fanzine from the 1980. Content-wise, it intrigued me as it offered insight into genres I had not been exposed to, e.g. the outliers of punk and underground scenes like sixties garage, fuzz rock and psychedelia and similar genres.

I did some more research only to find that the fanzine had not only spurned a distribution, but also a record label, which had started a collaboration with Sub Pop Records as early as 1987. Needless to say, they were at the forefront and on the pulse of the emerging Seattle scene and it was through Glitterhouse Records that I was first exposed to Mudhoney, Tad, Supersuckers and Afghan Whigs.

Glitterhouse Records’ collaboration with Amphetamine Reptile Records opened doors in Europe for heavyweights of the calibre of bands like Helmet, Cows and God Bullies, before they ventured even further by signing bands like Monster Magnet, Sister Double Happiness and Bitch Magnet.

It must have been in 1992 that I got introduced through Glitterhouse Records to one of my favourite albums of all time, i.e. Rollins Band’s opus magnus The End of Silence. Introduced as the new effort of the “zuckende Muskel”, the melange of primal rage, despair, guilt, sorrow and guilt fanned the flames of the burning kerosene tank that was my teenage angst and frustration, with Blues Jam becoming a hymn for the remainder of the year.

Having had such experiences through Glitterhouse Records, it cemented my affiliation with them and while it was never the centre of my record buying endeavours, I have to this day kept an eye on how they evolved as there was always something new and exciting to be discovered and one could trust their curation.

Case in point: In the mid-nineties, instead of riding the grunge wave that had infiltrated mainstream, Glitterhouse took a deliberate detour and focussed on releasing a broader variety of musical styles, specifically with bands from Scandinavia and the UK: This new incarnation of Glitterhouse Records not only exposed me to bands like Midnight Choir, Pere Ubu and the fantastic Wovenhand and 16 Horsepower, but also helped to expand my horizons with a sensitivity for world music through their sub-branch Glitterbeat.

To this day, Glitterhouse has released well over seven hundred titled, which is further substantiated by their distribution and their own open-air festival.

If you are remotely into underground music and are not familiar, there is a lot of delectable and rewarding homework to be done.

Art Gear – Faber Castell

Welcome to the first instalment of a  new series dedicated to the arts and gear that has tried, tested and proven to be useful for artistic pursuits over the years.

If you have grown up in the old world in the 1980s, Faber Castell and its Holzmalstifte would have been a constant companion throughout our early school career. While I was using Faber’s coloured pencils on a regular basis, it was only until many moons later that I really got to appreciate the craftmanship and attention to detail that went into their creation.

With the advent and rising popularity of Photoshop and other digital means to create art, I early on counterintuitively started to refocus on the manual expression and creation of artworks.

For the uninitiated, Faber Castel’s history harks back to the nineteenth century and has been catering to all age groups for all fine art related matters. The beauty is that with the quality and the tactile experience each Faber Castell product is infused with, you can feel the expertise that went into its creation.

Case in point: The ever popular Polychromos collection. Chances are that if your favourite artwork was created with coloured pencils, the utensils used were part of this range or one of Faber Castell’s others, each of which complement each other.

What I specifically like about the Polychromos range is its versatility and robust shape, due to the use of American Cedar wood holding the close to four millimetre in diameter pigment core, which is to unleash its vibrance on the surface of your choosing. The Polychromos pencils are oil-based, which result in a harder core and make them predestined for work that needs precision and it would not be Faber Castell if not only the delivery of pigment was on point as well but fortified against the side effects of sharpening through the injection of resin.

When it comes to daily usage, the fact that all pencils have detailed information printed on the outside relating to a numerical code related to the colour nuance and a rating pertaining sensitivity to light, is immensely helpful. Performance-wise, I like that the pencils cater to both blending and layering.

Needless to say, apart from the differently sized Polychromos sets, there are carefully curated limited-edition sets, with the holy grail being the decadently designed “Karl box”, which was exclusively put together by none other than designer extraordinaire Karl Lagerfeld.

Summa summarum, if you are passionate about the usage of coloured pencils, you’d find yourself hard-pressed to go past Faber-Castel’s Polychromos range comprising a hundred and twenty colour nuances and shades.

Fine writing is another area that unfortunately does not only seem to be a less and less appreciated lost art, but also one that good and affordable tools I find hard to get by.

Faber Castell’s new Hexo range is an interesting one, as it has been specifically designed to cater to the purpose of sketching, creative writing and drafting. With the hexagonal shape being an obvious homage to the original FC graphite pencils, a black large-capacity refill and a twist mechanism to open and close, it has become a constant and reliable companion for both professional and artistic endeavours.

No matter the medium  I am working on when it comes to art related explorations, it usually starts with pinning the vision down via drawings and my go to is the permanent and waterproof, unerasable Faber Castell Pitt artist pen range, which imbues drawings with a vibrancy I do not get from a lot of other pens courtesy of the elongated and more refined brush nib. I love the versatility as with pressure and working with different angles, lines, shading and strokes can be perfectly calibrated and modified as needed.

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image from company website

Thus Let us Drink Beer – Pirate Life

I have covered quite a few Australian breweries over the last couple of years as part of this series and discovered quite a diverse range of quality brews. It is always specifically gratifying when I come across a brewery that does a brew so well that it makes me reconsider my preferences, especially when it come to variations that normally would not rank high in my go-to list.

Then there is my unwavering preference for hopped out brews of the IPA family. This constitutes an area where there is a myriad of good ones, but few are truly great.

Enter Pirate Life.

I vividly remember celebrating a joyous occasion with a dram of Ardbeg Ardbeg 19-year-old Traigh Bhan, which as connoisseurs would know, comes pretty close to the OG fantastic Ardbeg DNA that was refined in the 1970s. The occasion demanded a suitable brewed companion to complete the boilermaker and by chance, Pirate Life’s IIPA caught my eye. Hallelujah, it was a match that so far has yet to rivalled.

Then again I should have not been overly surprised about how well Pirate Life’s brew paired with the emission from Islay as Pirate Life Brewing ’s story began in Scotland, where the founders originally refined their brewing skills and the idea of starting operations on terra australis was incepted.

After further apprenticeship at Australian breweries on the West Coast, a suitable location for their own shop was identified in Adelaide, where the Pirate Life HQ and brewhouse was established in 2014. The awards for its core range kept rolling in and within a short period of time Pirate Life established itself as a veritable player on the firmament on the ever-expanding Australian craft beer firmament.

Continuing its success on all front, Pirate Life was eventually incorporated into bigger distribution networks, which allowed them to expand their operations even further, including the opening of a new location in 2019, which not only has the capacity to house large-scale events but also serves as a forum to sell their own, stylish merchandise and skateboards. Many breweries tout their own gear, but if you check out Pirate Life’s merch, you will see from a distance that it is a cut above. I own one of their garments and the attention to detail as well as the quality is quite something. No wonder street gear brands like Burton made a beeline to team up with Pirate Life for collaborations – an area that is shed light on in their blog section.

As mentioned above, my favourite of the Pirate Life Brewing range is their Imperial IPA and yes, it is a big beer in every sense of the word: What tickles the nostrils is an avalanche of fruity nuances, which seamlessly translate to what materializes on the top of the roof in the most creamy of ways.

I love how the citrussy and tropical highlights are counterpointed by pine notes derived from the quartet of Columbus, Simcoe, Centennial and Mosaic hop, and a delicate, well-calibrated bitterness derived from the hops and the malty backbone.

Pirate Life’s IIPA is not just because of its comparatively high alcohol content of 8.8% and the 500ml treatment a tour de force as flavour-wise it reigns supreme in a league of its own.

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images from company website

Magic Mike Live

Moore Park

Sydney, Australia

January 9, 2021

Apparently, the concept of the stage adaption of Magic Mike Live was incepted on the set of the film of the same name from 2012, i.e. the idea of taking a strip show on the road under the benign guidance of Channing Tatum. The concept was turned into a reality with the vision to offer more than a stage show, which is when the iconic Het Spiegelpaleis was engaged and commissioned to build a custom-made venue, i.e. The Arcadia.

Given the specific nature of the venue and the production, cast and crew travelled to Belgium, where the finer details for the show were refined to perform it on the road.

Needless to say that the implications of the current malaise made the undertaking a logistical nightmare and given endless delays and the possibility of the whole endeavour being postponed indefinitely, it is a small wonder that the live show can incarnate in the Southern hemisphere – of course in a more socially distanced manner than the original production was initially planned for.

After a welcome twist at the beginning, the audience is being guided through the show by a strong feminist conferencier, which shows quite a bit of an evolution since 2012. The plot has a refreshing range of references that suggest that it was developed informed by a team of women, the classy impact of which is felt throughout the show and not merely when it comes to the strip and dance routines, but specifically the banter and dialogues, which my better half referred to as conveying a sense of empowerment.

Apart from what you’d expect from a Magic Mike Live show, the choreography is excellent and the performances varied, including aerial stunts, tap dancing and respectful crowd interaction galore, which more often than not is reminiscent of Cirque du Soleil and showcases the talents of the troupe of international performers, singers and dancers that go far beyond being easy on the eye and lap dancing skills.

In essence, Magic Mike Live is a fun and well-choreographed theatrical reimagining of the movie via a strip-meets-cabaret show that is tailored for the pleasure of women, which despite being dominated by semi-naked men never runs danger of entering sleazy or pure raunchy territory.

The Formative Years – Iconic venues, Pt. 1

How could a series on iconic venues possible start without paying homage to one of the most legendary rock venues in the history of music, i.e. CBGB’s. With a history dating back to the early 1970s, it would be impossible to ever do justice to the significance of the place and what it meant for a myriad of artists and musical styles as a forum and maternity ward and launch pad for underground bands.

Having been socialised with punk and hardcore, what I learned about 315 Bowery from afar in the new world took on almost mythical proportions, framed and enhanced by live recordings, photographic evidence and specifically Bri Hurley’s Making a Scene: New York Hardcore in Photos, Lyrics, and Commentary, which painted a picture of CBGB’s as the third place for punk and hardcore protagonists.

Needless to say, upon my first visit to the US, I had to experience it myself in all its grimy beauty.

I vividly recall venturing there by myself, prepared for an evening dedicated to taking it all in as an observant.  Upon stepping over the threshold, the first person I met was Army veteran, Hardcore/Punk rock icon, accomplished gentleman and CBGB jack-of-all-trades, Brendan Rafferty.

We only had met a few months prior during the European tour of his band SFA, where for one of the local dates he and his worthy constituents were accommodated in the woods not too far from my parent’s house, an occurrence which he immediately remembered. He introduced me to everyone, showed me around (including a tour of one of the most remarkable bathroom facilities, which have been immortalized in the Met’s PUNK: Chaos to Couture exhibition), and the next five nights of my stay in NYC I visited him and CB’s at the end of every night to watch whoever played there, meet quite a few of the characters of the NYHC scene and party with new acquaintances. On my last night after closing CBGB’s down for the day, Brendan and I shot the shit into the wee hours of the morning sitting at the front desk – I almost missed my early morning flight back and would not have made it without him giving me a lift to pick up my bags.

Many visits followed over the next years, all of which are associated with great memories, with the last one in 2004, two years before it officially closed its doors on October 15th, 2006.

CBGB’s was much more than a venue and a landmark, it was a cultural incubator, whose significance reverberates to this very day.

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image (uncredited) from www.cbgb.com