BERLIN BESTOWED UPON US thirty-five degree heat and a disturbing hangover, but it wasn’t enough of a deterrent to keep me and my crew from sweating out every last electrolyte in the name of die musik. In my friend’s eyes, is genuine pain. It’s nearly 9pm and last nights shakes are still assaulting my nervous system. But the show must go on, because GEE TEE and SATANIC TOGAS are in town, joined by Berlin new-wave band SPLIZZ who are here to transition the scary Germans into scary Sydney mutant punk/rock. We peel ourselves off the pavement and into the line thats flung all the way down the street, surveying the freaky attendees of this rodeo and gingerly sipping from a bottle of Radler.
We slowly infiltrate the bar. I desperately avoid murderous stares from the bar staff as I fan myself with a gig flyer like a fat American Disney-adult aboard the deck of a cruise ship. The heat intensifies the further we go, and so does the fear of dying as I have premonitions of bloodshed and the Spanish armada. Destruction. The callous mouth of a flame.
Anyway <3
I shake myself off like a dog and prick up my ears coz SPLIZZ climb aboard the stage and we all set sail into the Deutsch post-punk ocean. They start rowing with “La Vie”, where I am immediately very impressed with the dynamic between the lead singer and the bass player. His shit is so quick, and the chords used are kind of unusual and a little bit groovy, layered with the male/female vocals that blend seamlessly together like eine ziggarette und bier. This band is refreshing because they’re so cohesive and concise - it’s appregio but with German efficiency, so polished that I can see myself in the kick drum (efficiently confirming I still look like shit). “Die Angst” makes my death premonitions float away, and I thank the flanger pedal and the surfy sound it makes. I thank the guitarist. I thank god. Language barriers don’t stop me from shaking my head (in a good way) at the clever repetitive lyrics in this track - its got a hollow body and a solid brain - like a graveyard ghoul that PHD'd in molecular science. For real though, I am super interested to see what is next for spooky SPLIZZ.
After that, I paddle the out of the basement and my strategic-band-shirt of the night is noticed by an appendage of GEETEE.
“is that an Optic Nerve tee???”
Is the pope catholic?
Feeling assured and special, my friends and I rehydrate and mentally prepare ourselves for the next trash rock outfit of the evening, SATANIC TOGAS. The devil emerges and so does the tsunami coz everyone is suddenly coerced into the scratchy undulations of “Digital World” - even Lucifer is lookin’ for a digital girl to give his love tonight, all right! Aw man - this drummer is stupidly good. He’s also wearing a freaky mask, and keeping that beat inhumanly fast... Ishka introduces his melodies with ad-libs designed to frighten babies, popes and my dad - “BLEGH! HAIL SATAN! ACAB!” It’s all highly nuanced. “Teenage Garbage” trashes the basement, and the devoted hi-hat possesses my feet and starts making me twist around like a happy idiot. Aw yeh. “I’m such a slob!” I’m also such a sweaty slob, because my once-dry-strategic-band-shirt is now soaked through and I am terribly self-conscious. There’s actually no time for insecurity though, because my priorities must lie in (lovingly) shoving the 8 foot tall man in front of me so I can see the dude on the upper mezzanine showcasing some genuinely seraphic hardcore dancing… As it so appears: Satanic Togas repel cops, and attract angels.
Following another brief interval, me n’ my fellow Aussie ex-pat part with our paddy pals in a way that makes it seem like we were being sent away to war, coz here’s GEETEE, geared and ready to pick up where the others left off. Before me is Kel Mason, in another perplexing but less jilting mask. What’s behind it, I’ll never know - unless I one day become a famous, rich and hot music journalist with special mask-less identification privileges. For now, I turn to my imagination and decide he probably looks like a mashup of Hulk Hogan and Vincent Price. Some scuzzy guitar locks in with the drums for “Bad Egg” and the Germans get a little bit verrückt…
New heights are reached here coz there’s a guy who vertically crowd-surfs to the upstairs level of the venue, making me and the Germans take a break from (lovingly) shoving each other and stand in awe at the last of his limbs being pulled upwards, as if being rescued from a sinking ship. Maybe it was the climax of my hangover, but it feels like I’m in the middle of an Italian Renaissance painting - something like Sante Pernada’s Naval Victory of the Venetians at Jaffa (c. 1590s). GEETEE are the Venetians and we are the Egyptians though, coz “(I Hate) Drivin In The City” fires away like a canon and I’m swept to the very back of the basement and onto the conveniently placed couch. Hey, I don’t mind it! When I get back up, the laid back “Rock Phone”, relieves my aching feet. Its uncomplicated and sorta stripped back, but recruits a sweet bitta synth towards the end that reaffirms who tf is on stage right now - a business casual bassist VS a vocalist who threatens to rob me and light my car on fire. That, is the duality of man. The duality of GEETEE.
We spill back out onto the street. I wring out my shirt like a prairie wife doing her washing on the ranch. It smells like the ranch. Triumphantly, we march to a Späti and chow down on a well deserved ice-cream. I give my christian father a trigger warning before sending Whatsapp videos on the homebound U8, because I am a pious and vigilant daughter. Goodnight Dad, and “Goodnight Neanderthal” x
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