tim.jagenberg.info » Music

Jazz at the Strawberry Festival

Tim — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 12:52:57 +0000

As a friend of mine was singing at the local Strawberry Festival, a whole group of us went there to check it out.
The festival was held at the farm of a farmer in Weiterstadt, close to Darmstadt. A sunday afternoon crowd of mostly elderly and kids gathered in a big marquee and enjoyed a variety of dishes based on asparagus or strawberries.The Jazzband “Focus on Jazz” performed many ever-greens and also some less well known tunes. Overall they were really good, very professional musicians. Because of this, I got the impression, that the band was quite a bit overqualified for the crowd.

After the band, an asparagus peeling competition between some local “celebrities” was set up and moderated by a very distinct entertainer from the area. While the contestants were peeling away, she was singing behind them in a very strong hessisch dialect.

The “grand finale” was reached, when a dancing group of some girls from a local school presented their very enthousiastic routine:

Overall it definately was a very interesting and diverse Sunday arvo!

Embryo

Tim — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 12:07:44 +0000

When I got back home from work this Thursday, a friend of mine was asking if someone was interested in seeing the band Embryo at the Roots (a very small and nice reggae bar in Darmstadt). We got there at about 21:00 and found a nice place on a couch in the music room (roughly the size of my bedroom :-O ).

The band itself arrived around 22:00 and sat down for a late african dinner. After moving in all those diverse instruments (e-guitar, bass, vibraphone, keyboard, trombone and some indian double-sided drum) they started playing. Their sound reminded me a lot of a more psychedelic version of the early Santana. I massively enjoyed those chilled tunes relaxing on the comfy couch. They played till 01:00, but it felt way shorter as I was so immersed into the sound.

After this concert, the musical balance of this week is regained (see prev. post).

Gogol Bordello

Tim — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 11:23:06 +0000

Earlier this week I thought about seeing Gogol Bordello at the “Alte Feuerwache” in Mannheim. During the day at work I tended towards not going (it’s a 40min ride by car) when I heard a song of them on Radio Paradise. I decided to go to Mannheim and I bought a (not so cheap) ticket online.

In the evening I drove down to Mannheim and found a parking spot in the area after a few minutes search. I got to the venue around 9ish and had a unpleasant encounter at the entry. They refused to let me take my camera (non-SLR that is) inside! I really didn’t expect this from a band who call themselves punks. On the other hand I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised to see that the fully virtual ticket process went smoothly; as I don’t have a printer hooked up to my computer, I stored the ticket PDF I got online on my mobile and presented it to them. The girl typed in the number underneath the barcode and I could enter. I still wonder though if it is possible to scan the barcode from a display?

Inside, I got me a shandy and a few minutes later the band started. Soon I realised that their studio recordings were way better then their live show. The drumset was mixed way too loud, blowing everything else to pieces, which is especially sad, as they run a very interesting mix of instruments (e-violin, acoustic guitar, washboard percussion, …). Also their appearance on stage did not feel authentic, more like a well choreographed freak show. Being rather dissappointed, I just left about 1 hour into the show.

I guess one can’t always be lucky with the concerts, though the majority of the recent concerts was really good.

Boban i Marko Markovic Orkestar at the Palmengarten

Tim — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 23:04:03 +0000

By coincidence I discovered an interesting upcoming concert in Frankfurt just that day. A “family run” balkan brass group.
“The quintessential brass Balkan band, originating from Vladicin Han, Southern Serbia, once again captures the mantle of leading band of Serbia (a title for which they have remained crowned since the late 80â€™s). Their music, performed by a twelve-piece strong band, is wholly defined by their own gypsy lineage whilst giving a knowing nod towards other musical and cultural backgrounds closely related to that of the Romaniâ€™s.” (myspace)
Father Boban is passing on the leadership of this group to his son Marko, which was nicely visible during the concert. At first Boban was in the center, directing the musicians. During the evening this slowly shifted, with Marko moving more and more into the center. My impression was that this also reflected in the music, getting more playful and incorporating modern, almost pop, elements. Definately a great concert, not at all what the prejudices reagarding brass bands in Germany are (old-folks stuff, …).

Taubertal-Festival

Tim — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 20:38:15 +0000

“In the heart of the ‘Taubertal’ valley, with the backdrop of the beautiful medieval town of Rothenburg ob der Tauber, ‘the Eiswiese’ provides an exceptional site for an open air festival.
As well as the great location, this event is genuinely different from other open air events. As we are limited by the natural amphitheatre of the site, for us, it is a question of: ’size does not matter; it`s what you do with it.’ Yes, that`s what counts, folks!” (taubertal-festival.de)

Though the weather was predicted pretty bad (a lot of rain and strong winds) we again were rather lucky. It just rained a little bit Thursday night and it got story Friday, but that was it, the rest of the weekend was rather pleasant, not too hot or cold.
Because of the wind on Friday our pavillions mostly consistet of random sticks and fiber-reinforced tape by then. (Hail tape! What would I do without it?)
As I didn’t expect the parking area to be some sort of remote from the campsite, I removed the backseats from my car (which was surprisingly simple, cheers Toyota-engineers) in order to be able to fit my bicycle trailer in there. Arriving at the festival around midnight (the Filderstadt friends had saved some space for me), I realised that this was no necessary. As the concert area and the camping area were on different sites, there was plenty of space and one could just drive the car right to the campsite. With things beeing very well organised and easy going, I could just dive right into the festival spirit and relax. (Aside very good operated sanitary installations they also organised a small tent-supermarket with all the basics)

Hubert von Goisern, Black Sea to North Sea

Tim — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 20:16:31 +0000

Hubert von Goisern “… is considered as one of the most influential heads of the â€œNeue Volksmusikâ€ …” (last.fm) and of of his specialities is to incorporate folkmusic from various places around the world into his austrian based style. On his latest tour from the Black Sea to the North Sea he and his whole crew are travelling on a barque, which also is the base for the stage. Every now and then they stop at some town along the rivers they travel and stage a concert. At each of these shows they also include local artists with their distinct styles.
After my parents and me spent a day together in Darmstadt, we went down to Hirschhorn near Heidelberg to see one of these shows. Though the forecast predicted rain, we were lucky and enjoyed a great open air concert.

Particle Concert at the Masquerade

Tim — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 16:20:24 +0000

Yesterday we saw the band Particle at the Masquerade, a really interesting venue, housed in a former mill. Check out the pictures in the gallery.

Long due Update

Tim — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 02:10:37 +0000

Yeah, I know it’s been a long time since the last post … a tip for the impatient: I update the photo-gallery more regularly.
As quite a lot has happened in the meantime, I’ll just start in the past, working my way to the present, sipping on my icecold sweet tea.

Victor Wooten Concert
Ben and Zach had been telling me about Victor for quite a while, claiming he is one of the best bass-players ever! As always I was a bit skeptical.
Arriving at the Variety Playhouse in Little Five Points, Ben first went to the Turkish place next door for some falaffel. Sitting in front of the snack bar, we started chatting with the owner, who told us that they just opened that weekend. A little into the talk he realised where I was from and started talking German! He and a few more of his staff had spent a few year in Germany before coming over to the US. Being a really nice guy, he offered me a free falaffel, which I couldn’t refuse, and it indeed was very good!

With some food in our bellies we went back to the Variety Playhouse to see the concert. And I must say Ben and Zach were SO right with their raving! Victor Wooten really is one of the best, if not the best, bass-player I have ever seen performing! Toghether with a really amazing band they just blew my mind away! Every single musician was so good and as they seemed to be playing just for the fun of it, the whole concert felt more like a jam in some friends livingroom.
You can find the photos i took right here in the gallery.

In the meantime I switched from sweet tea to Pilsner Urquell, but lets just go on …

Graduation Day in Columbia
Three weeks later Zach and I drove over to Columbia for a weekend, as it was Mitul’s graduation day.
This being the second trip to Columbia (we went there for St. Patrick’s Day as well) I must say I really like this city with its central bar district and pretty much all of Ben’s and Zach’s friends living really close to the downtown area. One funny thing that evening, highlighting the absurdity of some of the regulations over here, was that we got refused to enter a bar because Zach and Steven were wearing “Gang Style”! Yeah! Those two guys really look dangerous!

Everybody being a bit tired from the night before (hanging out at Chubby’s) we just went to a nice spot at the river and relaxed there, playing with Jerry, Janna’s crazy dog. In the evening we went to a nice restaurant where they were brewing their own beer and got some nice southern food.

Plum Hollow Bluegrass Festival
Steven, who I just got to know on our recent visit to Columbia, told me about this Bluegrass and Moonshiners Festival in northern South Carolina and that he planned to go there. As I always liked small festivals and Bluegrass we planned to meet there and camp out for the weekend.
After a relaxed ride north to Spartanburg on the interstate 85, I arrived in the area around noon and soon realised that this is as cliche as it gets! When I had to ask for directions I could barely understand the heavy southern accent. The whole town was decorated with US flags and on the roads you could only see pickup trucks. After a few extra turns I made it to the Plum Hollow farm, where Steven was already setting up his special campsite. A nice hidden spot, with quick access to the whole festival.

As I expected sitting around a campfire at night, i had prepared some stick-bread, which is mostly unknown in what the Americans call the world and the rest of the world calls the Unites States (sorry i couldn’t resist ). So the first evening Steven and I were wandering around the campsite, joining different groups around their fires, spreading stick-bread and trying moonshine people brought along. Soon I was known as “The German with the stick-bread” all over the festival (around 200-300 people I would guess).
The stage was set up nicely right in front of the forest with a well needed tin roof providing some shade for the listeners. So bluegrass bands were playing pretty much all the time till around midnight, when people would move to their campfires and start playing their own music, jamming with others.
I managed to record two songs with my camera and converted them to mp3-format:

Puttin’ On The Ritz (download)
Wagon Wheel (download)

the first two pictures below show that scene at about 2am around a pavillion.

Overall I must say this was all I hoped it would be! I really enjoyed spending the weekend with these friendly and down-to-earth people sharing food (thanks for the fresh-hunted deer burgers) and a great time!Well … that’s about it … hail to those who made it all through this long post, I know how short the average attention span these days is.
Hope I manage to get my lazy bum up and write more often, so I don’t end up with these almost “half-year-reviews”.

To cite Tony Blair: “That is that, the end.”

finally relaxing

Tim — Mon, 08 May 2006 17:45:21 +0000

After those months of exams I finally can lay back and relax!

We went bbqing at the Max Eyth See

and had a nice afternoon flying our model planes in Scharnhausen.

I even managed to get up and give my flat a spring-cleaning!

Just yesterday I went to an interesting concert in the “Laboratorium“, some modern blend of balkan/gypsy music. The band is called KAL and consists of mostly young musicians from the area around Belgrad.
After a few songs more and more people got up from their seats and started dancing around the tables … really great athmosphere in that small venue.

So far for this update, have a nice time!
Cheers, Tim.

Rock am Ring

Tim — Mon, 06 Jun 2005 18:09:40 +0000

After behaving like a caveman and having heaps of fun for the last five days, I’m back to the civilised world.
I got to see quite a few concerts (REM, Thievery Corporation, The Hives, Die Toten Hosen and some others) and even though it was rainy from time to time, we had quite a bit of fun at the campingplace as well.

Getting ready for the RaR festival

Tim — Wed, 01 Jun 2005 06:18:12 +0000

The next few days, I’ll spend at the “Rock am Ring” Festival at the racetrack Nuerburgring. Yesterday my friends and I went shopping to get all the food and drinks for 4 days and 6 people, stuffing it all in the back of my parents SUV.
I just hope the meteorologists are wrong this time! The forecast for the weekend is rather rainy .

Washington – New Orleans

Tim — Thu, 30 Sep 2004 15:00:00 +0000

Sorry for not updating for such a long time, but the recent weeks were quite busy travelling! Just a rough idea for now, once I find more time and a place where I can hook up my own PC I’ll write more and upload actual pictures.

Washington – did all the touristy stuff, Capitol, War Memorial, Space & Aviation Museum

Boston – met up with my parent who are touring New England in a Caravan. Went to Providence and the Cape Cod.

Chicago – Stayed in Linking Park, a really nice area with lots of bars and restaurants. Got 2 free nights in the hostel for fixing one of the Internet Computers.

St. Louis – Once more the touristy stuff, took the ride over The Arch, went to Forest Park and the Science Museum there and visited the Union Station on the way back to the Amtrak station.

Austin – Got friends with some locals, had a marvellous time with them! First night we went to a Frat Party, the next day Sherry showed me around town, the green belt, a street festival and a very nice mexican restaurant. In the evening we all went to the concert of The Polyphonic Spree, a damn good experence!

New Orleans – after a verrrry long ride on the train for 34hrs (got a delay of about 10hrs!) I just arrived in NO yesterday, met some other germans and just had a relaxed evening in the hostel, still worn out from the trainride. I guess I’ll get some live music today and the next days, thats what NO is famous for.

That’s it so far,
cheers, Tim.

Relaxing in Charleston

Tim — Fri, 27 Aug 2004 15:00:00 +0000

As the trip from San Diego to New York was quite stressing (midday-evening – SD to LA Airport, the night at the Terminal, flight to NY in the morning, arriving at the hostel in the evening) and as most hostels were booked for the next weeks because of the republican convention I decided to move on and find some more relaxed place. Looking at the map, and by what others had told me I decided to take it down to the Carolinas. Looking for something at he coast I ended up with Charleston, SC wich seemed quite nice judging by it’s website and street-press.
The transfer to Charleston, a 15hrs overnight busride, wasn’t relaxing, but the Hostel and the town seem to be worth it.
With three colleges Charlestin is quite a student city and offers plenty of nightlive with a range of live-music to choose from. (reports on that will follow, so far I just recovered from all the restless moving around)

Cheers, Tim.

back to hitchhiking again

Tim — Thu, 29 Jul 2004 15:00:00 +0000

After caring for the official stuff like cancelling the rego, I spent a night at the “Lazy Cow” backpacker in Murchison. After rearranging all my stuff from car to backpack, I hit the road again. My first plan was to go down south along the westcoast, but as all the cars that stopped were going to Christchurch I decided to go there as well, meeting up with some fellow germans I met in Nelson.
Travelling comfy in two trucks (one of them with 25 tons of fish ) with a way better view, sitting so high I got to CHCH in just one afternoon, staying at the Foley Towers backpacker 5mins from Cathedral Square.
After walking around the city and the parks the second day, I decided that I like this place and will stay for the weekend with some live music and the [url=http://www.nzff.telecom.co.nz/]NZ Filmfestival[url].
On the left side I added a few more pictures from my time in the Marlborough Sounds and the time after.

Cheers, Tim.

busy Germany/amazing KL

Tim — Fri, 12 Mar 2004 15:00:00 +0000

Two weeks compressed Germany
After 26hrs from door to door, I arrived back home on my fathers 60th birthday! Feeling a little weird in my own room after 4 months, I unpacked and made myself comfy. The day we had a really nice relaxed family birthday, joining around the presents. The next weeks should be busier!
Briefly: Do:concert in Stuggi, two great local musicians (Stefan Hiss & Ralf Groher) Fr: Drehbar with Holger & GF and John, afterwards big party at the Tennishouse, meeting LOTs of friends. got home around 6. Sa: hangover, leaving for Esslingen, where the big BD-party will take place, ppl show up around 1900, taking fotos, telling my stories a thousand times, getting amazed by the great plays. A really busy evening. My dad, mum and friends danced mith live music till 2! So: brunch with the guests from further away, preparing my stuff for Hamburg in the afternoon, jumping on my plane in the evening, resting in the jouthhostel in Hamburg. Mo: Spent all the day with my granny! Talking all the time, just with short breaks for lots of good food(porree-pampe thumb-up!)! It’s so nice every time again! In the evening I met Chryschdl and Tilli at the Reeperbahn, where we had some beers and good engineering talks Tu: Walking around Hamurg inner city, working on BETPAT a couple of hours in a nice cafe. Meeting Chryschdl again in the evening. After some confusion we ended up at some liveconcert with more experimental ambient music, really weird stuff. We: leaving for Stuggi. Feeling a little ill, I stayed home the next days. Sa: Vienna, walking around the city in my typical chaotic way, enjoying nice cafes. Little tired in the evening I stayed in the Hotel and got me some Club-Sandwich by the roomservice. Su: Flight to Kuala Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur
Arriving in KL at 6 in the morning I got me a cheap cab to the hostel where I had a reservation for a room. Surviving the crazy cab-ride, I faced some confusion about my e-mail reservation. But everything went out well and I got a nice single room for about 6 EUR a night! Sleeping all day. In the evening a walked through chinatown around the corner. Coming home I just asked some guy (Owen from Melbourne) sitting in the lobby where he got his power adaptor. Beeing openminded travellers we ended up drinking way to much beer till 5 in the morning He was working on a malaysian cookbook, with lots of nice pictures and an attached CD with the sounds of the country. Nice idea!
The next day I spent the evening with another group in the backpacker, as Owen was still working on his hangover . Sitting in the comfy lobby we watched some musicviedos from the laptop. Afterwards Kristi (a photographer) asked to have some walk outside, so four of us went to the reggae bar I discovered the day before. Arriving at there three were left and after another hlf an hour only me and Kristi were left. We talked till the bar closed, talked on in the lobby till late …
The next days we sticked together, doing some touristy stuff like visiting the twintowers, having a view from the TV/Radio tower, went to the zoo and some nice temples. The evenings we spent with the crowd in the lobby, going out for some beer, a indian show-dance or a transvestite show.
In the end it was kinda hard to leave, but we had more like opposite directions. She just left Sydney (after living there for 4 years, so we lived some months aside each other without knowing!), taking the long way home to Atlanta.

arts & culture

Tim — Thu, 11 Mar 2004 15:00:00 +0000

More culture …
just before leaving for Germany, Tom, Miro and I went to some event in an old factory, wich was inhabited by artists. Arriving there, seeing how colorful and interesting the setting was, I realized that I didn’t take my camera with me … stupid me … after some confused minutes I luckily ran into Marlon, who gave me a ride home to fetch it! (Man you’re just great!!! IOU!)
The evening was just amazing! The first band (Waiting for Guinness) just rocked the crowd with a mix of eastern european music madness! Afterwards I had some time to have a look at all the small exhibitions and installations. They even had an old Jet-Cockpit standing around, glowing from the inside!
After taking LOTs of pictures, the second band staged around 100 … some more decent chilld music. Everybody just looked for some nice spot on the ground or the steps and relaxed. On the bar they sold typical aussi homebrew. So the evening went on and on, having really nice talks with some friends of Tom and Miro. We all finally got us a cab home at 5 in the morning!

Living in Sydney …

Tim — Thu, 12 Feb 2004 15:00:01 +0000

Visitor from Germany!
Last week Eric & Melli visited me, after 8 weeks of driving through Australia. I tried to show them what Sydney culture is about, so the first night we went to a jazzy, funky jam session at the Townhall in Newton.
After walking the city the whoe day, they where pretty tired the next evening, so I just went to the usual wednesday-evening-trivi-night at the pub around the corner.
Thursday night Tom (from Czech moved to Aussi in ‘91) invited us to a Czech restaurant of a friend. The meal was just awsome! Like at home, as the Czech and suthern German cuisine are pretty similar. Nice roasted Pork in lots of yummi fat with Sauerkraut and knedlÃky (dumplings) aside! Lots of good Czech beer and Vodka afterwards. A really nice international evening with people from Czech, Italy and Germany at our table.
Saturday we had a bbq with cangaroo and lots of aussi wine (out of these 4l cardboard boxes! ). Leaving on tuesday, Eric & Melli left on sunday for another short trip south of Sydney, returning monday evening after getting rid of their buy-back-car. Another nice evening hanging out in our backyard with some more friends of the house.
Leaving for Thailand, they catched their plane that tuesday afternoon. It’s been really nice to see some known faces again, after leaving Germany in october.
subculture in Sydney
Friday I went to a concert of my favorite local band Rastawookie. 9 people on stage, lots of different instruments (brass, big drums, flutes, …) playing an very interesting mix between reggae, ska, latin, and some eastern-european sounds.
The last weekend they had a nice concert in the pub “Empire of Anandale” with a nice afterparty in their hotelroom, where I took two films of slides the night.
This time things were somehow different. The location more central, bigger advertisement all around Sydney and probably as a result of this long queues in front of the pub. (The earlier gigs were smaller in a rather familiar athmosphere)
But even with lots of people not really connected to that scene (lots of overdressed girls!) the party lasted till two or three in the morning.
A view days ago, Seani, a friend of Madelaine, invited me for some weird funny movie at an really interesting venue. It looked like an old storage building, with a huge archive of movies and some chairs arranged like in a cinema. The movie was pretty weird, about some conspiracy in the american upperclass. Seemed more like a good laugh to me. But the people were really nice, and asked us if we wanted coffe or tea while watching the movie.
There are so many small nice things to discover in Sydney!

I made it to 2004!

Tim — Sat, 10 Jan 2004 15:00:00 +0000

Had some nice parties in the meantime,
new years eve I spent in Pubs in Newtown, together with Ishtar, Helen and Amina. Got home around 6 in the morning.
Just yesterday there was a really nice housewarming party at the house of some ska/reggae ppl I met on an internet ska/reggae forum. (Big thanks to Glen, Andy and Jo!!)
Today i spent reading the newspapers of the last few days.

Merry Christmas and a happy new year!

Tim — Sun, 01 Dec 2002 11:00:00 +0000

As we have christmas-holidays right now, i found some time to update my page.

The last few weeks / months of university were quite busy. There was really few time to relax or even party! So I’m doing that right now. Last week i went to a concert of ‘Open Season’ and ‘The Peacocks’ at Stuttgart, after that I had a strange evening with a nice girl at the Club ‘Le Fonque’, the ‘evening’ ended at 800, returning home with the first connection. Last week, my parents, my grandma from Hamburg and me celebrated christmas, gathering, having lots of unhealthy food and even more fun.
Before christmas, my father and me exchanged the old gas tank of my Samurai, which took us three days! After christmas we started to prepare my new room in the house, by clearing it and painting the walls.
As soon as we built the tables and other stuff, I’ll move. After 2 years of cellar, I’m quite happy to see the sunlight again! (Don’t think my parents stuffed me in the cellar! I chose to do that and they told me 2 years ago I was crazy because of that, maybe I was!)

Right now I’m returning home from a concert of ‘HISS’ at the ‘Schlesinger Int.’. Was really great! Some kind of mixture between Rock and Polka with German lyrics.