My Halloween Weekend

First, this title is a little bit misleading seeing as how I really didn´t celebrate Halloween; nonetheless, I had a really fantastic weekend. My plan on Saturday was to walk around the city, my normal routine, and then in the late afternoon go see the Pink Floyd "Dark Side of the Moon" multimedia show that was playing at the planetarium. The weather was just plain icky-cloudy, foggy, overcast, and drizzly all mixed into one day. This didn´t stop me though...

First I wandered into this old bookstore that surprisingly had some LP´s, too. Of course I had to look through them all, but most of them were the German equivalent of those old classical records that most people don´t really want-you know, the same ones that every record store has sitting in a crate somewhere. Then there were the crazy American records that found their way there, too. And there was absolutely no order to it all; I saw Gwar, Eddy Grant, and everything in between in one crate. It felt good to get my fingertips all dusty again, though.

After that I went to this coffee place that had a really cool atmosphere-very warm and old. Now I normally don´t drink coffee, but like I said before, it was an icky day and it was nice to just be inside for a short spell and since I was there I thought I´d check out the coffee scene. So I order a normal (or so I thought) coffee with milk in it, but what was given to me was a bowl of coffee with milk. I have never seen a "cup" of coffee like that before! After that unusual beverage/gigantor breakfast, I hit the streets again.

I found a cool little African store. I think it was pretty new and didn´t have that much merchandise, but it was a cool discovery.

Then I started toward the other side of town to check out the planetarium and purchase a ticket for the Pink Floyd showing that night. On my way I found this combination second hand shop that carried hip hop LP´s. It was definitely a great find. The shopkeepers were really nice-one of the guys, Frank, showed me a whole bunch of German hip hop LP´s. It was so hard not to buy stuff, but I´ve told myself I can´t buy LP´s (or at least too many) because they´re so hard to handle when you´re traveling a lot. I asked the girl there (I forgot to ask her name) what the deal was with the hip hop scene here, and coincidentally there happened to be a hip hop show that very night. I really wanted to check out the planetarium thing though, so off we go...

When I went there, though, I found out that all the tickets were sold out for the multimedia show and that sell-outs are common for the weekend shows. D´oh! I even asked about the one playing next weekend, and tickets were already sold out for that one, too! I´m still going to try and see it, but I´ll probably have to go on a weekday.

Anyhoo, it was kind of a blessing in disguise. I went to the club, Kassablanca, to check out the hip hop show. When I got there, there were a couple of dj´s spinning before the main hip hop act who called themselves the Waxolutionists. The dj´s were just okay, but I think I was just really grateful to be hearing music that wasn´t the radio or some songs that I recognized that weren´t Vanilla Ice or California Dreamin´. They played a bunch of stuff and even worked some J5 and stuff in there-for some reason the only song I can remember them playing that y´all would know is "Just to get by", but I know there were a couple of other ones, too. I decided to check out the little upper deck for awhile and I went up there at just the right time, because right when I peaked over the rail the crowd had just formed a circle and some break dancers were starting to show what they were made of. They were really awesome and by this point, I was definitely regretting not bringing my camera. Then came the Waxolutionists...

I really didn´t know anything about this group before they performed except their name, but I was so glad that I went to see them. The setup was 2 dj´s on 3 tables (and they had a couple of other toys, too, but didn´t use them that often), a drum set, keyboard, bass, and 2 mc´s. For one of the songs they even broke out an acoustic guitar and did a song with just that and one mc. I can´t remember (or maybe I never knew) where they´re from, but I think maybe Wien. After the were done with their set, the entire group hung around while all the gear was being packed up and took turns on the tables just playing songs for the still wired crowd. I left when the group left at 4 a.m., but there was still a good amount of peope dancing to what the other dj´s were putting out. I had seen enough, though, and the other dj´s didn´t have quite the appeal they did when I first got there before I saw the Waxolutionists.

Anyway, it was German hip hop I was looking for and it was definitely German hip hop that I got. I´m going to try and find one of their LP´s and break my "No LP" rule and bring it back home-even though I´m not really sure how their studio sound compares to their live performance, but I digress...

On Sunday night I went and saw this movie called the "7 Zwerge" (The Seven Dwarfs). I don´t really know what to say about this film. It was a comedy, that´s for sure, and yes the title is a reference to "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", but this movie was definitely for adults. Hmmm, though the movies are completely different it has kind of the same type of humor as the Naked Gun or Police Academy movies-not a deep meaning or anything by far, but I thought it was funny.