When Casios cry - Der Peter ist tot

Da Da Da fand ich immer scheisse.

I never really liked Da Da Da, Trio's official hit. I never liked anything that was verging on 'Schlager', the cosy German shit musik niche that Stefan Remmler loved to flirt with and, after 85, built his whole career on: Turaluraluralu, Herz ist Trumpf, Alles hat ein Ende nur die Wurst hat zwei.. bullshit. Neue Deutsche Welle Light. Neue Deutsche Fröhlichkeit.

What I loved was the first album and a couple of live gigs that I only discovered 5 years ago via Youtube. Only the third edition of the first record, now with Da Da Da as single included, was successful. Like Helge Schneider, the Kaiser of German Dada Jazz, needed a vehicle to break into the mainstream [Katzeklo], Trio became famous over night and nothing was the same again.

With success came pressure and with pressure came dependency. The story of Trio post 1983 is a sad story, with Peter Behrens [Drums] and Kralle Krawinkel [Guitar/dead] trying to keep up with co-songwriter and singer Stephan Remmler's commercial pop sensibilities.

 

But in 1981/82 Trio was shit-hot. Remmler's cocky buzz-cutted & suited new wave persona paired with Behrens' and Krawinkel's raw and cool simplicity made them the only real and futuristic German post-punk band. Songs like Los Paul and Ja Ja Ja were pure first generation punk rock with clever German lyrics, urgent and dynamic, dirty and quick sketches of modern urban life, always questioning authority and the general musical forms of the time. 

Like Falco, Trio mixed German and English lyrics, cleverly playing with stereotypes and expectations, transcending the classic form of punk/pop and creating something fresh and unique. This was serious not-to-be-taken-seriously stuff.

Broken Hearts For You And Me

Es ist Zeit für etwas Flottes

Stimmung gute Laune

Die Damen in den Innenkreis

die Herren in den Außenkreis

in Gegenrichtung

Marsch Fox

And the monkey wrapped his tail around the flag pole

to show his arse hole

to the one two three

Broken hearts for you and me

I guess we agree

the party ‘s over now it’s plain to see

Broken hearts for you and me

Why should we stay

you know it’s better if we go our own ways

Broken hearts for you and me

We tried our best

too little future though and too much past

Broken hearts for you and me

Don’t you cry

kiss me good bye

Broken hearts for you and me

We made so many mistakes

we know it better now but it’s too late

Broken hearts for you and me

Why should we stay

you know it’s better if we go our own ways

Broken hearts for you and me

Don’t you cry ie ie ie

just kiss me good bye ie ie ie

you know why ie ie ie there are

Broken hearts for you and me

Don’t you cry ie ie ie

just kiss me good bye ie ie ie

you know why ie ie ie there are

Broken hearts

Later, the aftermath: The inevitable band split because of royalties disputes, Remmler's shallow commercial success with ironic couplets, the slow descent into sad alcoholism, running out of money.. never mind the bollocks, here's the Trio. Unlike John Lydon, Remmler's message wasn't sustainable, probably because he never really had one. What Remmler had was vision, and that somehow saved him.

RIP Peter, Dada Clown und Stehschlagzeuger. Traurig ist das. 

Read more.

When Doves Cry - The Kid Is Dead

1984. An epic year for pop music. Welcome To The Pleasuredome by Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Some Great Reward by Depeche Mode, The Gun Club's The Las Vegas Story, the first The Smiths record and of course Purple Rain by Prince. I can remember watching the Purple Rain film on VHS with some ex girlfriend, feeling all deep & funky. I remember studying the album artwork and taping the record so I could listen to it in my first car. Driving around the German countryside blasting When Doves Cry.. I never felt more "now" that back then.

And it wasn't just Prince, it was Prince and the fucking REVOLUTION! And that's what it was. I never liked "funk" much, and I never really warmed to Prince's very funky side.. whenever a slap bass appears I'm normally out, but Purple Rain opened up a world of black spunk. I stayed with Prince till the late 80s, Lovesexy the last interesting album.. after that I lost track and somehow interest. I remember a couple of nice tracks on Diamonds And Pearls but that's about it.

Prince was probably one of the most underrated guitarists [and drummers] ever. He could play like Hendrix, and before [and after] he started using these weird 'Symbol' shaped custom guitars he always played a simple Telecaster. Keeping it simple.. I love simplicity. That's why I loved Purple Rain. There's a lot of air and space on that record. It was also the first time that I saw that word shortening shizzle: 4 = for, U = you, etc. that was proper "cool" back then.

So, for me Price will always be The Kid from Purple Rain: Problems at home, problems with authority, problems with the girls, motorbike.. basically a black version of me :D

De-program >> Re-program

I have lost my patience with almost all forms of religion. Oppressive, patronising, smug, violent religions.. just FUCK OFF. All of you. 

As long as you do your "praising God stuff" on your own or with some mates, do as you like, but as soon as you start preaching and "converting", that's it, you can go fuck yourself. 

My parents who were never openly religious [except from my dad who loved being in churches because of the calm atmosphere], had some friends who were really lovely people, they had kids that I used to play with, etc. Then the parents [mostly the dad] got sucked into the New Apostolic Church. They started to go to church 10 days a week and they also started, pressurised by their new church mates, converting other "non-believers". My parents even went with them to the church one weekend after lots of begging from them, just to not be rude. A long story short: Their long friendship broke down, they were just hanging around with their new church buddies and trying to get as many others into the church as possible. There were quotas and when you didn't bring in new people on a constant basis, you got looked down on. That couple's marriage went down the loo a long time ago and the whole family including their two brainwashed kids are not talking to each other any more. The creepy thing is that the kids still have partners [and kids] that are also part of the New Apostolic Church.. like they can't/won't say good bye to that lot. So, these people don't even build real bombs to blow up non-believers, but they were throwing mind-bombs, playing psycho-games. And that's already enough for me. 

So, if you are into organised religion and can't do that without preaching and inciting, you might want to get out of my social bubble, thanks. Like I said, my last bit of patience has gone.

Actually, I can expand this.. any form of fanatics that think that they have to tell or make others do stuff because they think it's the only way: Do fuck off. 

My grandparents were proper Nazis. They were also very nice and there is a long story for another day that explains very well why they became Nazis, but they were basically unable to leave all the brainwash behind after the war. They never killed anyone but they were stubborn and frustrated armchair ideologists. I spent a lot of time with them when I was a boy and a teenager, they loved me like no-one else.. one of their dearest sons got killed after the war in the late 50s in a terrible accident when he was in his early 20s, so my grandparents were very focused on me and were always very protective of me. So I grew up with conservative parents and Nazi grandparents. When I was a teenager, I was [without actually really thinking about it much] a fully fledged neo-Nazi. I was really into war-stuff, weapons and when asked, my career was either German border control or army. My parents were very naive about all of this. I recently asked my mum how much she actually knew about all of this, especially me and all of my stupid countryside/village mates all being juvenile delinquents, getting into fights and talking shit, and she said that she had no real idea. I do believe her, as my mum is VERY naive. But that's also how any extremism thrives: People's ignorance, fear or naivety.

Another long story short: I somehow managed to de-program and re-program myself. I met new friends, away from the village and over the course of some years, we opened our eyes and minds and started questioning everything and anyone. That was a very painful process for me, as I was finally able to see my grandparents and parents as who they were. It also started a long and painful process of arguing about politics and history and our story and history as a family. I had verbal fights with my grandparents and my dad about politics and the state of the world nearly all the way up until they died. I let it go at some point because sometimes you have to let it go when you finally realise that you can't change someone. As long as they don't hurt other people that are dear to you, you need to let them go, as it sucks too much energy and just creates more bad vibes. You have to walk away.

Anyway.. I've been brainwashed and I have seen and dealt with other brainwashed people, so I know how easy it is to end up like that and I also know how hard it is to actually de-program and re-program. We exist in believe systems, our reality is made up of billion fragments of distorted reality. There is not much over-riding truth and if there is a bit, it's hard to find and one man's truth is another man's lie. The world is a rainbow of grey, there is no black and white, red and blue, right or wrong. It's all perception and context. 

So, we need to find our own way through life and it's often confusing and crazy ways and possibilities. The only things that have really helped me during my 30 years since leaving the village are:

Empathy

Love

Respect

Stubbornness

Laughter

..and a bit of ignorance in the right places ; ]

Never take yourself too serious ever. Because you might suddenly discover that you are a bit of an idiot.

I am still a work in progress, I still get irritable with stuff that I should laugh at, I still shout and get angry at stuff that I should let go and I still get upset when I see this theoretically beautiful world descending into chaos. 

I have to be calm and content and be happy that I survived a lot of crazy shit with a functioning brain and bright eyes. The answer is always Love Life. I believe in a positive evolution of the mind. That's my church.

Hate is for losers.


ps: I originally ended this post with "Death is for losers" and then Sharmila said "Shouldn't it be 'Hate is for losers'?", so I thought about it and then changed it accordingly. We all have to die, so death is just another part of life. No death, no life. A terrible paradox ; ]

But I think my original point is: We need to be good and awesome in life and not in death or "the afterlife". I don't say that there won't be any form of afterlife [what do I know?] but the thought that we get rewarded with a glorious afterlife just because we've been cruel arseholes in life is equally crazy and sad.

pps: Additional possible forms of 'religion':
Consumerism
Politics
Fashion
Food
Plastic surgery
..anything that has the power to replace that empty bit inside you that should be filled with love and happiness.

KIDS VS FOOD

As an aspiring half-broken/half-defiant father of two daughters [2 & 4] the only kids thing that can really set me off is "food". Well, that's actually a big part of raising kids.. the crazy dance to make them eat something 'healthy & nutritious' at a certain time. Because they graze all the time.. they grab and munch and snack like there's no tomorrow.. half an apple here, a plum there, little biscuits that my mum always smuggles into the house, ..anything that is not "real food", when they are supposed to eat something properly a.k.a. breakfast, lunch or dinner, the grand spiel begins..

There's a great variety of scenes and plot twists:

I don't like this spoon
I want the red bowl
I'm not hungry
I wanted honey
I wanted golden syrup
I don't like the green bits
It's too spicy
There's not enough sauce / too much sauce
It's too hot
It's too cold
It's too lumpy / not lumpy enough
I want more!! (you make more) I don't want it now!!
I want something different!!
I don't like pasta
I don't like the stuff around the fish fingers
I want water instead of milk
I want milk instead of water
I want the spoon with the flowers on it
etc.

Baked beans are the only hassle-free food in existence. Baked beans are my happy place.. they will eat them without moaning and whining.. again and again .. the only stable thing in dad-world. God, I LOVE baked beans! ..and bacon.

‪#‎BreakingDad‬

Put Your Love In Me

I only actually cried two times so far when someone died: One time was when my dad died of cancer in 2006 and the other time was this afternoon when I read that Errol Brown died. Just a couple of tears.. but still.. I have no fucking clue what happened there but it happened and if it says anything, it probably says something about the state that I'm generally in at the moment. There is a very well protected, very emotional person inside that grumpy old fuck.

I think the death of Errol made me realise that everything will come to an end. Everything. Everybody. And all that will be left will be the thoughts of the people that knew us - and this blog post will most probably still be on-line after I packed it in.

I never cared about Errol Brown. I don't know anything about him. And still, his death has touched me - because some of his music had touched me once when I was young and it stayed with me forever.

Tonight I wanna touch the stars

Tonight I wanna be in heaven

Put your love in me

This was my favourite song when I was 10. I loved that song more than anything. It's still in my top 10.

Most people know and like the more obvious Hot Chocolate songs like You Sexy Thing, I Believe In Miracles, It started With A Kiss, etc... the list goes on.. all nice, slightly boring pop songs.. but there was  a couple of songs that were better: Emma is a dark soul ballad with that dirty guitar sound that should re-appear some years later on the great dirty disco bump ride that was Everyone's A Winner. But one song always stood out for me: Put Your Love In Me is the killer track.. my ticket to ecstasy, the soundtrack to my first wet dreams, later topped up with amazing stuff like Supermax's Lovemachine..

These things stay with you. They become a part of you. There's a version by the Tindersticks which is interesting but can't touch the original.

I remember hearing about Bobby Farrell, the dancer of Boney M, dying and that was a similar feeling because it also remembered me of my childhood and early teenage years, it left me feeling a bit empty and clueless. Like hearing that a cartoon character has just died.. you don't seem to be able to compute it properly. Boney M also only had a couple of great songs, well.. probably only one. Look at Bobby, the coolest guy on the planet.. who would have thought that he'd ever die?

Some music just does something to you.. it lights up something inside you, it actually talks to you and takes you on a journey to something new and nothing will be the same after that. It preaches in a language that is completely new.. shit like this:

Shit that grabs you with one hand by the throat and with the other by your balls and drags you in. Soul music. I just read that Errol died of liver cancer - like my dad. 

RIP Errol Brown, you sexy thing.

How Pinterest killed my blog.

Well well well.. not REALLY. But hey, I definitely spend more time on Pinterest nowadays than here, writing up little nuggets for you, the counter-culture-loving armchair-revolutionist.

I am 'big' on Pinterest. That's not actually my words, that's the general reaction when people look at the number of my Pinterest followers:

Funny thing is that I've never done anything to get that many followers except from pinning pics that I like to some boards that reflect some of my interests. No networking or following or god knows what 'increase your Pinterest followers' tactics. My main reason why I actually enjoy Pinterest is because I don't have to talk to anyone. I only follow a couple of other people there and never really  talk to anyone. It's very meditative. It's like doing a massive puzzle, or like collecting stamps. It's therapeutic. It provides a safe visual haven in a digital world of action & reaction, of opinions & spin, of neediness & arse-licking galore. It's my safe place. That's why I love it and that's why I nowadays spend more time pinning than blogging.

There is a lot of trash talk out there about "Pinterest being for women", which I find both ignorant and misogynistic. It's just a platform for whatever you want to do with it. Just a canvas, nothing more. And of course, like any open platform and forum, it reflects society, so there is a lot of boring shit on Pinterest ; ] But also a lot of nuggets - if you know where to look.

I also often get asked "why don't you monetize your account??" Well, that would probably take the joy and lightness out of it, no? And therefore corrupt what I actually love about Pinterest. It's the same with this blog here: "Why is it not on wordpress with added SEOplugin??".. "why are there no adword ads??" .. "why oh why?" .. yeah.. because I don't care. I can't be bothered. I even ditched my custom supaswag.co.uk domain last year because the [German] host was a total dick because of some payment issues. No-one cares.

But hey, never say never. I rank front page in Google for a couple of great keyphrases with some of my boards. Please send your generous offers in a letter.

xxx

ps: I just challenged myself to spend one hour every week to write an interesting blog post. No fillers.. if I can't come up with something interesting after one hour I'll leave it and jump a week. I don't want to be a lazy arse blogger.

Visit Ingo's profile on Pinterest.

PERSPECTIVE / CONTEXT

View the other 1,299,000 Earths

The Saturday Before Sunday - With Friends

The day before my 40th birthday five of my best friends came all the way from Berlin to Cornwall UK to surprise me. A toast to friendship! A toast to the sea! This is The Saturday Before The Sunday.

La mer c'est mon cœur

Hot Chicks on Mopeds

I just checked what keywords people were typing in to get to Supaswag.co.uk and one was 'hot chicks on mopeds'. So, having read in an online-marketing blog post that as a proper blogger you have to listen to your audience, I can now unveil that I indeed have listened and here it is, the 'Hot Chicks on Mopeds' post!!

I will from now on scan the world wide web and will not rest before I have gathered a substantial amount of hot chick on mopeds pictures. This shall from now on be a work in hot progress. Promised.

For now you have to make do with this:

Two hot chicks on mopeds

One hot chick on a moped

Another hot chick on a moped

Chick in a long coat on a moped

Hot moped chicks on video

Hot chick next to a moped

More moped video chicks

Hot chick in clogs on a moped 

Hot chick posing on a moped 

Another hot chick posing on a moped

 Hot chick next to a moped on a blanket

 Hot slightly awkward chick posing on a moped

 Hot chick in double denim posing on a moped

 Hot German chick in double red pinning down an awkward-looking guy with a half-boner. Also: Weird arm scenario.

 Hot chick riding a moped in front of her parents.

 Hot chick pretending to ride a moped in black gloves.

 Hot moped chick shows her wares. Probably the best flee market stall ever.

 The same moped chick like above but unmasked. You can't fool me.

 Moped chick [or a dude with girl-hair] riding a moped as fast as possible [afap].

 Hot politically aware chicks resting on a moped.

 Hot moped chick in a light dress crossing a road that looks like a road in San Francisco.

 That very thin 60s model on a moped, being all excited [or very hungry]. Or both.

 Hot chick poseur next to a moped. 

Like above but with no bra. And ski goggles. Very foxi. 

Hot moped chick doing a stationary wheelie. Awesome.

To be continued..

Big shout out to Moped Army

60s Italian Teenage Angst - Dancing On Your Grave

Just came across this amazing video of a 1960s Italian cafe racer gang in a video for The Dukes:

It seems that the biker scenes are from the 1964 film 'Malamando' [music by the young ENNIO MORRICONE!], a typical Italian Mondo documentary that looks at "strange behaviors and practices in Europe, including nude skiing in Switzerland, hot-butchering in Italy, and an orgy in a graveyard."

Fuck Yeah!

 An elegant look at early-Sixties' teenage angst and 'way out youth'..

"War babies. They want to be different. They don't want to belong to any mass society. They have their own-type clubs, their own 'in' groups."

It even stars the great Adriano Celentano!

Stardust C'est Moi

You might have already read this somewere..

Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing about physics: You are all stardust. You couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded, because the elements - the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution and for life - weren’t created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way for them to get into your body is if those stars were kind enough to explode. So, forget Jesus. The stars died so that you could be here today.

Atoms, eh? They come a long way. Our idea of time and size and space is like a baby gazing into the distance, trying to make sense of something that we can't actually comprehend, as we are still not even able to use our tiny little brains to capacity. We still have a long way to go.

We are stardust, we are golden,
We are billion year old carbon,
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.
Well, then can I walk beside you?
I have come to lose the smog,
And I feel myself a cog in somethin' turning.
But then maybe it's the time of man.
And I don't know who I am,
But life is for learning.

"After we die, our materials are recycled throughout the universe, and some of it will eventually become a part of another person or another kind of animal. So even though your consciousness is gone, a part of you is "reborn" within another living being. Wouldn't this make the idea of reincarnation closer to reality than that of an undetectable part of you being sucked up into space and ending up in a place in which we have no evidence even exists?"

Recycling, baby ; )

Girls On Bikes? Girls RIDING Bikes!

I looked at a lot of bike websites recently and learned two things:

1. Women seem to feature mostly as idiotic soft porn models in tasteless lingery, draped over bikes, pretending to 'ride' them.

2. A lot of bikers seem to have a bit of a shit taste in women and a weird attitude towards them:

"Look at the pictures and cast your vote for some of the hottest Motorcycle Babes on the Internet." >> www.motorcycle.com/babes/index.html

Err.. no thank you, you morons.

This is how most 'babes' look on bikes:

Ridiculous..

So, I had a look around for images of girls / women who actually ride bikes: Fearless girls, cool girls, normal girls, sexy girls, leather girls, stunt girls, chopper girls, cafe racer girls, old girls, young girls.. all sorts of great girls.. bike girls!

 

 

 

 

 

 

"I like flowers ..and grease"

 

 

 

 

Where's your helmet Erika? 

 

 I really hope this is not just clever posing

 

 

Just imagine the excitement of speed in these times. Mental.. 

 

Frau Shaft on her way to the butchers

HELL YEAH!

 I don't think she's actually riding that bike but it's a great picture, especially with the original censoring

Now THESE are gloves!

Cuban Moped Gang. Everything is better in Cuba.

 Poser Alarm! :D

 She might not ride that bike herself ..but it's a very nice bike

 Well.. this is just a great pic. Great hair, moody look, great machinery.

 I bet her name is Angel. Or Lizzy. 

 

Call the cops!! Or the airport police. Or the post office.

 

Lillian.. flirting with ☠

RIDE ON!