30 March 2014

Stockholm - Concert and party!

Continuing where I left off last Stockholm post, this is a post about The Wings Of Desire´s concert at Bat Night.

Now, before I go with my opinions, I would like to thank Patrik the organizer dearly for conducting such a splendid event. It was actually the first time when the day of the concert didn´t feel stressful and chaotic, when everything went according to plan (and schedule!!!) and went smoothly well.

As to Stockholm´s alternative realms, there was a bit of surprise on our side. Either it was our routine of extreme partying in Berlin or high expectations from the rich Scandinavian town, but the night life in Stockholm sort of...well, different.

Firstly, the alternative scene in Stockholm was much smaller than we expected, however the goth scene in particular is very minor no matter where you live. The bitter part of this is that the number of clubs and venues offering themselves for goth events is so small, that the organizers have to deal with places that are not so warm welcoming, even if it means that the organizer pays for the rent of the venue.
That is why the bar in which Bat Night was held had a weird feeling to it, and they´ve made a good job kicking us out at exactly 01:00 at night.

Oh, I forgot to mention 01:00 o´clock, when ALL Stockholms bars close with almost no exception. In comparison to Berlin this is... incomparable, really.

Either that or perhaps my personal expectations were too high. Stockholm is a wonderful and interesting city, and the goth people at the party were very nice and friendly (yet shy at first, which was very new to me). It is just not a party city, and this in my opinion the most important lesson I´ve made from our journey: that not all cities are thriving with night life (lol so ironic since I grew up in a city exactly like that).
Actually, I kind of wished to have more time to explore the museums in the city to drown in the history of it. Goth parties is something that the city is unfamiliar with, speaking for the organizer of a goth party, it might be a pain in the neck to arrange something entirely on your own.
So I would definitely thank Patrik for doing what he does and trying to give all he can! Taking things into your own hands in a not so welcoming place is a very brave thing to do, and we were so happy with Boris to visit such a place and witness another group of people who DIY all the way :)

The concerts were great nonetheless. The Litsos, who opened the night played some fun post punk that I really enjoyed listening to live! I´ve missed live guitar music so much, since Berlin is a pot of synth music. Here are some photos:




and a video I took from one of the songs!

Boris had a good performance as well. I was excited to perform my first ever dance in front of the public! A few people came and told me later on that they´ve really liked it, which I couldn´t even believe hearing because I´ve never danced in my life, and always criticize myself on everything I do (to get better results, not to make myself feel bad).




More pictures on my Facebook page.

A nice person took a video of my dance performance, here it is! I hope to hear your opinion about it!

The Wings Of Desire / Kingdom

Eventually, we had a great time dancing and chatting with some very nice people. I was so happy to meet other alternative people personally, to learn about the culture in Sweden and just see a crowd of a bunch of goths having fun :)
I am very happy we went to Stockholm, it was quite the trip accomplished in 3 days and a great gig, and thank you again for the lovely Patrik for organizing it, including his sweet girlfriend Emilia and Velvet and Crow for taking some glam shots :D


N. Finsternis

29 March 2014

Our trip to Stockholm

Talk about delays... so LAST weekend Boris and I went to Stockholm, to see the city and mainly have a concert there with The Wings Of Desire.


On the plane, Boris and I excited as always. We love planes and flying. And yeah, I´ve dyed my hair blonde before the flight!
Visiting Scandinavia for the first time we didn´t know what to expect (except for the usual death by freezing and insanely beautiful people on the streets. And things being painfully expensive).
The weather was on our side and luckily it was sunny the entire time. It even wasn´t as cold as Berlin (Berlin has a very particular cold that gets under your skin).

Down the main train station, we exited the elevator and found ourselves in a cold cave. That was the platform of our train from the airport to Stockholm. It was quite overwhelming.

We stayed at a hostel in the very center. While browsing the streets, we were surprised to find out how wavy everything is. Stockholm is not only located on 14 islands, but on what seemed to be hills over hills... You walk down (or up) the street and suddenly you see a bridge, which is another streets "above" you, or weird stone wall staircases! That was really surreal. And although our city Haifa in Israel is also located on a hill, it is always going either up or down. Stockholm however, was both, all the time.



We found 1 of 2 Free Masons headquarters on our first day near our hostel. Boris, who is familiar with the Free Masons´ history pointed out that the Swedish Masons were always very strict. I love Masons, got to love the Illuminati and mysterious vibe.


 We kind of made a typical tourist mistake by walking our legs and bodies to smithereens the very first day. Wearing the same combat boots the entire time I already felt my feet bones digging through my flesh at the end of the day. It wasn´t pleasant at all, but I was afraid to die from cold and didn´t bring my sneakers, and of course didn´t expect the weather to be so nice. I will bring multiple shoes the next time I go to a major walking trip!


 The lovely Patrik (or DJ NightOwl ;) ) was ever so kind to walk us through the old town! He showed us the tiny streets and told exciting stories about Sweden´s bloody past with Denmark. The old city was very historical and reminded me of the middle ages, which is something I´ve never felt in any city I´ve been to before. The narrow alleys were very beautiful, especially Stockholm´s narrowest alley, Marten Trotzigs Gränd, which is only 90 centimeters wide!


On the second day I´ve decided to go on a quest for my dear father, and find the house where Carlson On The Roof lived. I don´t know how much people outside of Europe (eastern Europe especially) are familiar with this story of Astrid Lindgren, but it´s cartoon is especially popular with Russian and east European people.
Well turns out, that when I told my father I was going to go to Stockholm, he got so excited like I´ve never seen him before, and revealed that it was his dream to go to that city and see where Carlson lived. I´ve never thought my father was such a die hard fan of Carlson, but since I grew up on the cartoon as well I´ve made a  research until I found the exact address in Stockholm. And finding it by foot was a piece of cake, Vulcanusgatan 12.

The red house with the black roof, where Carlson flew, raising havoc on the kid he became friends with, brainwashing him that obeying the awful nanny was the meaning of life.


On the third day we called it off, tired after the concert and lacking feet. We chilled with Boris watching funny youtube videos, waiting until we could fill our stomachs with a cold salad+fish+macaroni mix we made ourselves using those stands at the supermarket. We´ve tried some foods with salmon and they were absolutely amazing!

And found this horrific Kiss beany at a baby bat store.
 All in all Stockholm was magical, unusual and distanced. More info on the alternative part of the city and the concert pics of course, will follow on the next post!
Have a warm and wonderful weekend everyone!

N. Finsternis

26 March 2014

Return To The Batcave Festival - Please help us with your vote!!

Hello dear people, I am successfully back from Stockholm and want to share pics with you already, yet not before I share something else!

There is a festival in Wroclaw called "Return To The Batcave", which we as The Wings Of Desire would like to attend!
However, for this we need YOUR HELP by voting for the band!

I do not ask from you anything on this blog, yet this time it is of great importance! :D

If you could please go down by this link, and find The Wings Of Desire on the list I would be forever grateful!!
We really want to attend this festival aside such legendary bands as The Cemetery Girlz, Lebanon Hanover and many more!


Thank you very much in advance!
N. Finsternis

17 March 2014

News, Concerts and Stockholm!

Dear watchers!
I haven´t been around at all, because my semester vacation turned out to be very busy and creative, for which I am very happy. From making The Wings Of Desire pins to a background video for a new band!

our DIY pins! Design is mine and Boris did all the pressing
I am so excited to share everything here and post some pics, but for now I can only share some events that I am taking part of in the upcoming weeks:

Boris is going to perform with The Wings Of Desire in Stockholm this weekend! I am so happy and excited to go to Sweden, I´ve been wanting to for a very long time, and I hacen´t planned an entire weekend vacation abroad all by myself before (Berlin not included, as it is not a vacation but a life changing procedure).
He is going to perform at this event at Bat Night with The Litsos!



Next up on my schedule is a triple performance in April, of Dystopian Society, Metro Cult and a new Berlin band, Totenwald, who are actually Boris on guitar with Sergej (former Tanzkommando Untergang basist) and his lovely girlfriend Trish on vocals. Music I cannot share with you yet, but I hope it is soon to come. A part of Totenwald´s performance will be a video screening behind them, which I´ve made out of footages of post apocalyptic movies and the Tunguska forest. I had a lot of fun working on it, but a pain in the neck saving in different video editing programs which did all but disappoint. Luckily the video is saved now after a few days of struggling!
I´ve already saw Metro Cult and Dystopian Society once, and I can´t wait to see them again! They are great contemporary post punk bands and deserve your attention! :)
I am still in the making of the flyer to the gig (yay for another creative project!) and I could hopefully present it to you soon, maybe after I return from Stockholm.


So far so good, hope to update you some more before I leave. And pictures from Stockholm will surely follow!

N. Finsternis

11 March 2014

The 100 Day Song Challenge - Days 20, 21 & 22

Day 20: A good 80´s song

You´re too kind. How can I possibly pick only one?
So this one song is absolutely incredible, I can listen to it non stop. A song about Haifa, where I grew up in Israel.
The year is 1981, and I feel that the song is a beautiful combination of dub, post punk and ska.


The Specials / Ghost Town extended version


Day 21: A song with a name in it

This is a kickass song, it is insane and sexy. I just love the shittiest guitar sound that sounds so perfect!!


The Stooges / Ann

Day 22: A song that is over 7 minutes long

A few Opeth favorites I would have named, but I would like to share you one of the musicians I used to listen to while in high school. Boris introduced me to them, and we were being dragged into the pit of depression and complications all thanks to good old Peter Hammil, which we were so lucky to see live solo in 11th grade! With a group of geek and equally enthusiastic friends, we were the youngest people in the audience!
Listening to this song nowadays makes me question myself as to how come I hadn´t noticed how ridiculous and musical-like it sounds....


Peter Hammil / A Louse Is Not A Home


N. Finsternis 

6 March 2014

Blast From The Past: First Opeth Concert \m/

In December, the same year after I´ve finished high school at Summer, I went to my first ever Opeth concert (I saw them twice in total).
You can imagine how excited I was, since Opeth were and are my favorite band in the world, and back then they were absolutely everything for me, even more than the Post Punk I began to explore.
We drove to Tel Aviv by train with a couple of friends.

Get ready, this is how I looked like as an 18 year old:


I look like 12 here, right?? Natural hair, eyebrows undone, and absolutely no makeup. My face was 90% cheeks, so makeup wasn´t seen underneath my falling eyelids which made my eyes even more small. Oh, and I was tanned, well maybe not as much as I´d been in previous years...


You cannot tell, but I was chubbier back then. Luckily the baby fat disappeared a while after.

Fun Fact: I still have the shirt and pants, which by the way are my only trip pants! I bought them when I was at a summer camp of the arts at Boston the summer of that year. The shirt was a souvenir from Salem which I´ve visited with the camp. The belt serves me well to this day, one of my best finds at a very cheapy and trashy handbag shop.

I love it how I look absolutely nothing like myself today. It somehow excites me, to feel as if I have completely transformed in looks (and mind) from back then. The transformation also had a great deal with the changes in my life back then, since the happy childish face you see on the picture is soon to be gone.
I would be recruited to the army that same December, and my life would soon be a living hell, I would want to commit suicide and realize that living with my parents is the last place I would call home.
On top of that, Boris felt miserable in his army service as well, causing us both to disconnect and break up for 3 months, during which I´ve dated someone who I didn´t love at all, and suffered even more...

Luckily, dropping out from the army, throwing everything behind me and getting to live with Boris (who also dropped out) has made me who I am today, and made me feel happiness and self satisfaction again.
When I remember it, tell it to someone or write it here, it seems to me that before I began living on my own, I was a completely different person. I wasn´t really myself. It felt like waking up from a slumber. Funny but Boris feels the same way.

The Opeth concert was an unforgettable experience, I still have the photos :)



On that rather depressing note, I shall leave for another University free day, enjoying my Semester vacation as long as I don´t know the results of my finals.
I love you guys, stay strong and embrace your changes!

N. Finsternis

1 March 2014

What Is The Scene?

Source
Today I want to write a philosophical post, bringing to your attention a possible question without giving an answer (because what kind of philosophical shit would that be?).
I want to address a subject that everyone who consider themselves goth or alternative have thought about, and since me moving to Berlin, I feel that I´ve had the chance to gain perspective regarding it.

The scene. What is the scene? The graveyard scene, Goths, Freaks, Gruftis.... What defines a scene?

But first I would like to share a memoir:
It was a moisty and humid Autumn, but I still wore my faux leather corset and my long natural brown hair loose, torn stockings and a bondage collar. When I entered the club for the first time, I was struck by the atmosphere and the loud music, and thanked in my heart for the air conditioning. I was also happy to not have come alone. When I danced, I felt so free in my heart, as if I was doing something totally right, I was happy and even mighty, and I was surprised that the moving of the body, something which I´ve never felt related to or had talent in doing, has gave me such pleasure and happiness. I´ve asked myself, how come I´ve never went to this club before? How come I´ve never had interest in such a thing? When I realized that I´ve turned 18 just a month ago, the legal age.
Is the scene a club? Does the scene begin when you turn legal, be that 18 or any other age which allows you to drink and go to parties? One can assume that the scene is a gathering of people; People who share the same interest as you, people who can understand you. But does it only have to begin so late, after age 18? What happens before that? Someone younger than 18 must be doing something with themselves, exploring the things they love, having fun in a way that doesn´t involve parties or alcohol (why should it really?).

Source
I hope I am not the only one, who as a teenager sat days and nights on the internet in search for explanations, terms and people for what I´ve discovered was goth. So is the scene actually online, in your room, inside your computer? Is the scene a blog you created, customized accordingly, where other people like you can talk to you and comment? Is the scene a forum online, where you can find all those people with similar interests, scattered around the world, and basically everywhere but your local area? That seemed to be the scenario in my case.

The tall abandoned house was proudly painted and vandalized, stuff scattered in front of it, and it was protected by a gate, which only the ones who knew the place could enter. People stood around with beer and cigarettes, some sat around the fire in a circle. All of them were different, yet slightly the same; Torn tights, shaved heads, colored hair, diyed clothes, combat boots... they were all chatting about something, laughing, smoking a joint, waiting for a concert to start or just came around to see their friends. A rotten place it is, yet it manages to collect those who feel united in their hearts, even in the most cliche sense of it. They come and go, but through the past almost 30 years they have been the same. And somehow, even if one of them would wander in the most lost corner of the world, he would find another abandoned house and find his mates, and won´t ever be lost in this world. 
Source
Is the scene a hangeout, a place you go every weekend to see the same people you love? Is it a party held monthly? Is it other people who are looking for other people, hoping to feel belonged? Why should they unite anyway, if the scene can be in your own mind; It can be you, sitting alone at home reading poetry or making crafts, it can be you walking the streets listening to your favorite music.
But no matter how one would look at it, it all revolves around people, who are making something on their own, attracting other people to them, and together they form something that can be called a scene.

So is the scene unite? Are those people your friends, and you feel like family? I doubt so, because in the end, the scene is in your head, and like something spiritual, every one has his own relationship and understanding of the scene.

After a year and a month in Berlin, I already know where I would go to hang out, where are the cheapest goth places, where the snobbish goth people are, where I could sneak my own beer in because it´s too expensive to buy it inside, and who are and are not my friends. That was something I had dreamed of back in Israel, to "live the scene", to see different aspects of it, to see different people.
Yet despite the numerous hangeouts, you still very easily feel empty inside. And I´ve realized, that more than anything, for the past couple of years the scene was either me and the computer, or me and Boris. Luckily, the small amount of people whom I can call my best friends, are the closest that I can categorize as a "scene", and it makes me happy and thankful for having them around me.

So I hope you have something inside or around you, that makes you feel belonged, makes you feel a part of something, even maybe feel like home. Sometimes we don´t want to admit it, but we need those other people, and we seek them constantly.

Source
N. Finsternis