This week we have released our first EP with our alt rock band, Girls Like Us.
The EP was recorded in the summer of this year and consists of 4 songs (I sing on the last one):
(it's not) Sex
Not Enough
Thank You
Burning Burning Burning
You are welcome to give it a listen and you can also support the costs of making it by purchasing it through our bandcamp.
Artwork is done by Boris.
This is our first and last EP, as since late October this year the band is no more. Sadly, we have broken up due to many reasons, mostly being creative differences.
I would have liked to elaborate on why the band is not continuing, but there are so many different factores that go into maintaining a band that I don't want to bore you to death as well as not include the point of view of everyone that was involved in the band. In other words, I don't want to gossip.
I initiated this brakeup though, as I wasn't satisfied with the musical direction we were going, and as I got more free on the bass I realized that I yearn to make heavier and more progressive music, something like progressive rock or metal, as this is the music I have almost always listened to and I've always known that this is the kind of music I really want to make. As a result (and additionally influencing my decision) I have declined a lot of the music Boris was composing (which are mostly acoustic ballads) with the reason that I wanted us to sound heavier. But in this constellation it wasn't going to happen. I felt bad for dismissing a lot of Boris' songs, which with the passing of time were piling up, and I knew he really wanted to play them. With that being said and other things at play, all 3 of us have decided to part ways (musically).
back cover of the CD, also done by Boris
I hope you'll give the EP a listen. I am proud of what we did and hopefully we will play another gig and try and sell a few copies. I am happy to have learned so much about being in a band and about music making through this project. I am currently in search for starting a new heavier band, so let's hope that works out.
One of the coolest experiences from Uzbekistan was going to ST Bar (бар Своя Территория) - one of the only rock bars in Tashkent! (there's also a place called Tapas bar, but we didn't have a chance to go there).
We were curious about the local alternative scene and came across the bar by mistake. So we decided to drop on an open mic night to maybe play some Girls Like Us songs (even if it meant playing without drums and bass lol).
We even managed to slip in a cover of Adore Delano's I Adore You. And let me tell you, covering a song by a drag queen at an open mic night in Tashkent was one of the best experiences of my life.
It turned out quite riot girl-sounding:
Watch my mom sing right after us!!
The alternative scene in Tashkent are just a few people fighting to be themselves in a country that permits very little. The fact that someone will go unharmed on the street with facial piercings & dressed in black is already a miracle. It was nice to see how everyone keeps close and the atmosphere was very warm.
Why haven't I checked the local scene before? Well, frequent visits to Uzbekistan meant mostly family-time only, and my cousins (21 & 18 yrs) are mostly into rap music/ rap battles. Boris and I haven't thought about it when we came 2 years ago either. I don't know why. Maybe because coming to Uzbekistan meant coming to an obscure place, completely detached from what we are used to?
Why yes, Boris does sport a David Sylvian-inspired look these days.
with ST's art director, Gotya. We had a nice talk with him about the local scene.
Hi, I came back from Uzbekistan, and there is an issue with my camera's memory card, so no single photo from the trip is accessible at this point. You can guess how upset I am as I am unable to share all the crazy adventures we've had with the many cool photos I took.
I wanted to update with a few pictures we did with our band more than a month ago. Our drummer works at Cornelsen, a German book publisher (German readers - does this say anything to you?) and as they were working on a music education book, her coworker asked us to model as a band!
And yes, we will actually appear in the book!
Most of the pictures were stock-like photos: someone holding a drum stick, fingers on a guitar neck, etc. But the photographer took the time for some single shots and gave us permission to use them, so here are a few:
I kind of wish I wore something else
lol not even half the drumset is there XD
All pictures taken by Michael Miethe.
Till next time, and hopefully I can restore the memory card by then!
This past weekend we've locked ourselves for a 3-day recording marathon at Blackstone Studios. We were recommended the studio by two acquaintances (one of them being H.U. Unrüh of Einstürzende Neubauten ftw!!!) and the date was set in advance.
We had a lot of fun recording. Everything turned out as planned and we even managed to slip in an additional song (where I sing!) which wasn't planned. I think we worked really well together as a whole and everyone was satisfied with the process and the result so far.
The best part was working with the studio-sound engineer-guy, Gerrit. We weren't wrong to assume that he really liked our music and we felt that he enjoyed working with us as well. It's such a great feeling of having your creative process in good hands. It also works as a sort of feedback, when a person outside the band takes the song apart and composes it together again. it makes you look at your music differently, also from the eyes of a professional.
Gerrit also suggested some creative ideas here and there that were very helpful, and overall we had very good chemistry which I consider to be huge luck.
I have recorded in a studio before a few times before and it has usually been incredibly stressful for me and I felt like placing myself under a lot of pressure, with the intention of making everything perfect.
Luckily this time was different, somehow things were running smooth, maybe thanks to me being more self confident about the instrument I play and the people I play with. And again, having someone sitting at the controls that you can trust helped a lot.
Here is a snippet of when Maike (the drummer) was recording some tambourine realness:
So aside from everything else. some cool psychedelic patterns were found...
and some deep connections were made...
Can't wait to go on from here!
Happy week everyone, saturday in Pride Parade in Berlin, so I hope to blog after that as well :)
Thought I'd update you on how our band Girls Like Us are doing, since all of my friends are tired of hearing about it via FB.
I am ambitiously trying to warp my head around the whole "band vs. social media" thing, mainly because my goal is to reach out to potential "fans" who would be outside of our friend circle (someone should give a damn about our music out there, right?).
I mean, we don't have anything released yet (but soooooonn...) and we don't have a cool video that people can occasionally stumble across on youtube, and digging out people from Facebook to like our page (who are not our friends!) is a pretty difficult task on its own...
So, I made this low-fi video for our song Not Enough:
And I made us a band Instagram! You can follow us at @girlslikeus.band. Now we are to conquer the internet for sure...
This whole self-promotion thing is pretty new to me, so I can only hope I am doing it right. Some people like to discover music through youtube (I am among them), so this was the thought behind making the video above. Funny though, with the VHS looking visuals the original recording doesn't sound half bad! I would have loved to upload a different song with our current drummer, but we do not have that yet.
Speaking of which, this weekend we are locking ourselves in the studio for a recording marathon, the result of which is supposed to go to labels who would hopefully release it/book us gigs/support us for life.
Whether or not that plan will work is a good question, but we can at least try. The main priority is to gig like crazy atm, which is not an easy task as it is - Berlin is a small place (can you believe it?!) and gigging anywhere out of your own city is always a good thing. Boris has been working on that, and I am focusing on social media, which has been fun so far.
I like the idea how Instagram can give you a more personal picture (pun intended) of the band, like going behind the scenes and not being as official as on Facebook. Showing something with a picture attached is always a good tactic nowadays.
But now I certainly understand the amount of promotion going in to, say, a small business, which for me is what our band really is. We don't want to stay underground, we want to be out there. And surprisingly enough not all bands want that, especially not in the gothic subculture, which we stay away from like fire. No use locking yourself in tight categories, we need to be out there, urgh!
I just had to quickly update about our first ever band gig with Girls Like Us! It happened last week and I am still left in it, if I do say so myself - it was a hell of a first gig and I am so proud of us three for rehearsing our asses off to feel so comfortable on stage together! Friends were surprised it was our first time as (from what they told us) we looked and sounded very confident on stage.
And look at the super cool Trabant we drove in to the venue! All thanks to our drummer Maike (in the middle):
coming to the gig like 1969
My first experience with an electrical instrument on stage wasn't as "shocking" as I would expect. I mean- Boris always told me these horror stories about bad soundcheck, asshole soundmen who couldn't care less about you and not hearing some of the instruments as a result.
But the venue was really good, the sound guy was super sweet and really cared for everything. You could tell it was a somewhat high class bar and not a squat we were playing at.
Speaking of which, we actually warmed up Marakesh, an alternative rock band originally from Ukrane, they were pretty big there from what it seemed and even warmed up Placebo in their home land at the time. So we were stoked to play with them, and needless to say they were awesome live, very tight and of course- Mark is one charming frontman!
I still need to get proper photos, but in the meantime here's a short clip from the only song where I sing lead vocals :D
It is sadly only the ending of the song, but I am still happy we've got some kind of recording! More to come in the future I hope.
Next gig is at the end of the month, can't wait already!
Hope you're having a nice summery time! I am still busy as hell, as it's always is when summer semester comes around.
I am really happy to share a rehearsal recording of a previously unheard song by our band, Girls Like Us!
I would love it endlessly if you could check it out!!
Sound quality is shit but we are glowing with drive! ♥
Boris´ and mine lives will never be the same after this year´s placebo fever. I finally got Boris to acknowledge that this band was not crap (he HATED them before! Can you imagine?) and it turned to be a success:
Not only was he inspired musically, gender-wise and had his (and mine) long awaited homosexual awakening, but now he also has his hair short like Brian fucking Molko, over whom we are still happily fangirling. Placebo have given us so much charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent this year and it felt amazing!!
2. New Model Army
1984
I was introduced to this band by a dear friend, in fact the first friend I´ve made in Berlin, and had this album for 2.5 years before I actually got into it. It has inspired me greatly this year and has given me strength and a lot to think about, not to mention giving me insane bass goals. 1984 is one of my favorite songs, there is so much more than post punk in this band.
3. The Underground Youth
I Need You
Well, I think I have mentioned this band enough this year. I went to see them live twice and it was amazing each time. I am mostly not impressed by quiet, monotonic music, but live it had a different dynamic to it that had me very convinced and sucked into the atmosphere. This is not about guitar solos or crazy vocals, it´s something different, and that´s why I like this band a lot.
4. Jayne County and the Electric Chairs
Peels Sessions
Boris has tormented me with this band making me listen to them every damn day, but they were one hell of a discovery. Proto-post punk from the CBGB fronted by one of the first Trans* women in punk - it can´t get any better than this. They were very inspiring as well, and County´s voice made it sound melancholic at times and a lot less punky, not to mention sassy song lyrics, like "I like it when you smell my dirty sock. toilet love"; or - "I´m getting ready to meet my midnight pal".
5. A Perfect Circle
live @ Stone & Echo
Like with Placebo, I have come back to a band that I´ve been listening to in my teens, to see if they would still speak to me, and they did, more than ever! I just love Keenan´s troubled voice tone, and it´s exactly the kind of "progressive rock/metal" I enjoy. Instrumentally and bass-wise they made a lot more sense than when I was a teenager. And no, I don´t like Tool if you´re curious. But I do like these guys.
6. The Mars Volta
Speaking of progressive rock and coming back to bands, I did the same with The Mars Volta. For a long time I couldn´t listen to them properly due to this band being introduced to me by my ex, and has always reminded me of a bad period of time + breakup Boris I´ve had a few years ago. But time goes on, and the need for amazing music grows.
The only album I could digest by this band has always been Octahedron (their most popy one, ah well) but I got into their first one and was happy to hear tons of Led Zeppelin and (expected) post hardcore influences (no, I don´t like At The Drive In, if you´re curious). I fell in love with Omar´s incredible voice all over again.
7. Various Nowa Fala acts
Republika - obcy astronom
I have dug more into a few Polish post punk bands this year, inspired by Return To The Batcave festival. Republika, Maanam and Madame were the ones I listened to more than ever and liked the most, but by songs rather than albums. Republika has to be my favorite so far, since it gathers so many influences like ska, jazz and what have you and mashes it into brilliant post punk, which is exactly the kind of music I like and want to make.
And most of all, they have set a very nostalgic feeling in me for things that have never happened (that´s the only way I can explain the feeling I get when I listen to them, Thank you, Carlos Ruiz Zafon, for this brilliant description).
Madame - moze wlasnie Sybilla
I am happy to have come back to familiar bands and discover them all over again.
Aside from the mentioned above and many more, I have attended many concerts of Boris´ secondary band Totenwald and spent a lot of time perfecting his newly composed songs for our band together, Girls Like Us.
I am excited to what musical adventures, discoveries and fruits the new year will bring.
You are all welcome to write a similar post and share your favorite music from this year, and send me some band recommendations!
