Spliff revival February 13, 2009
Posted by Andreas in Life.Tags: music
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Was hit by a case of nostalgia for the New German Wave the other night. I know most of it was pretty lamentable stuff, musically, but there were some real classics as well. Besides, the vague memories of parties in someone’s parent’s garage in Pretoria with home-made disco balls, sweet alcohol and schoolboy crushes lend themselves to self-indulgent wallowing…
One of my favourite bands at the time (not sure they’d be formally considered part of the “movement”) was Spliff. For a while they morphed into the Nina Hagen Band, of course, but before and after that they were Spliff. I quite liked “Sirius” and always though “Das Blech” was really funny, but here are clips of three of their other masterpieces:
Deja vu from a 1982 public TV show – to their credit they didn’t go in for the lip-syncing that was popular on TV in those days. The lyrics are classic “…das Wasser riecht nach Gift. Ein toter Vogel kommt vorbei und stirbt… Wir sind die letzten von hundertzehn. Wir warten bis die Zeit vergeht…” A comment on enironmental armageddon well before the idea became trendy??
Herzlichen Gluckwunsch (1983). Possibly the best opening line ever: “Irgendwo im Keller, mitten in Berlin, sitzt ein kleiner Junge und warted auf Benzin”.
One more, just for the cross-cultural fun of it. Carbonara (1982).
It was a very geile band, hat natürlich mit nina hagen als band angefangen. War auch richtig geil.
Doch mindesten genau so gut war Kristallnaach, oder Verdamp lang her von BAP.
Hi Gabi. Toll dass mein kleines Spliff Revival bei allen Gablers so gut angekommen ist. BAP ist aber noch immer meine favourite Band aus Deutschland.
Andreas