THE RESPLENDENT RETURN OF LITTLE LOSER’S LOTTERY : #1

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

‘GIGS FROM YESTERYEAR, WHEN I WAS YOUNG + PRETTY AS A PICTURE’

#1 Kim Salmon & The Surrealists, supported by The Me-Janes (1996)

Dear friends,

so there you are: a new series, as promised. If I get a handful of comments and if at least one or two folk find something new here in the future, I’ll be satisfied enough – let’s just wait and see whether my brilliant idea will meet with your approval.

Now, bear with me, please, obviously I have to explain a few things first: when my old blog, sexyloser, was still active, I had a series called ‘Little Loser’s Lottery’, which ran from 2008 to 2017. Basically I forced my son, Little Loser, to pick an item from my record collection, and then I would write a little nonsense plus, obviously add a link or two to the songs. I liked the concept a great deal, because Little Loser was only born in 2008, so watching him crawling towards the sleeves and, in later years, digging through the crates, always pleased me mightily, and him as well:

Now, Little Loser will turn 18 this year, but still he kindly promised to help out again for something which basically is a sequel of the original lottery: recently I found a handful of old concert tickets in a box with photos, which reminded me of the fact that a lifetime ago I framed a great part of other concert tickets. Long story short, I survived an adventurous trip to Mrs. Loser’s very own waste disposal site aka ‘our attic’ – and bravely returned with said frame:

So, mainly the idea is trying to find something interesting to tell about the gigs and/or the artis(s) and combine this with a song or two. Or three. I should add that I visited those gigs several decades ago, and most probably I wasn’t entirely sober when I did so anyway – which might or might not be the reason if memory will fail me at times.

Either way, I unframed the frame thingy, threw the tickets into a box, added the additional ones, asked Little Loser to leave his computer alone for a minute, so much so that he managed to do his first pick out of the ticket box, which turned out to be …. this:

 

And as if this wouldn’t have been perfectly clear in the first place: he managed to choose a gig which I don’t have no memories of whatsoever – at least I can for the life of me not remember having seen the main act! I am honest enough to admit that I even had to google Kim Salmon right now: I mean, I knew he is Australian, but, as it turned out, he played as well in The Scientists and in The Beasts Of Bourbon, both great bands of course, so let’s pretend that above gig was ace as well … we’ll never know, do we? Judging from those two tunes, it surely wasn’t a total loss, I would think:

Kim Salmon & The Surrealists – ‘You’re Such A Freak’ (’97)
and
Kim Salmon & The Surrealists – ‘The Connoisseur’ (’97)

The support band though is a completely different beast, not commonly known at all, still I always liked them a great deal and had seen them play before in other local venues. They came from a nearby village and were led by Silvia Szymanski (that’s her on the left above), she already had an album out in ’82 and, before becoming an author, played here and there with The Me-Janes – and they were always real fun to watch! They mostly performed own songs, but liked to do some good covers as well:

The Me-Janes – ‘Gravel’ (’97)
or
The Me-Janes – ‘I’m Not Angry’ (Elvis Costello) (’97)
also
The Me-Janes – ‘Gimme The Car’ (Violent Femmes) (’97)
plus
The Me-Janes – ‘Dead End’ (’93)

The venue the gig took place at, Autonomes Zentrum/’AZ’, is one in a handful of still-intact air-raid shelters in the town of Aachen, which geographically is the most western city of Germany. This is the reason why in WWII it was kind of a prestige object for Hitler, one that under no circumstances was to be overrun by the invading Allies. Well, it didn’t quite turn out according to plan for the Nazis, because the Americans came in the other way round in 1944, from the South and the North of Aachen in fact, so there only was a small battle in town, which was over fairly quickly.

So the bunkers remained and two of them still are music venues to this date, by and large the only venues left in town for good music. Mind you, back in the 80s there were a dozen venues in Aachen, easily, and most likely some of them will feature here as well in due course – if Little Loser draws the according tickets, that is.

The bunkers’ future is uncertain, costwise and, more critical, neighbors are complaining about the volume for years now. At the end of the day, it’s the current politicians’ decision whether they’ll remain as concert venues or not, I suppose.

If not, well, we can always put back a flak or two on their top and use it as a defence against US soldiers come marching in again. Something which is not that unlikely, just ask the people in Venezuela or Greenland: if Trump wakes up next week and finds a shortage of, say, cabbage within the USA, the probability of him sending troops into Germany in order to get some must not be underestimated, if you ask me!

Ah well … nevertheless: enjoy!

Dirk

 

JC adds…………..

This is going to be a fun series!!!!!!