Pacific City's flourishing and otherwise underfunded Musicians arrived in Berlin on the first Monday of March for a one off European gig. The show was held in darker basement type room by the name Festhall, rather than the usual Pacific City gigs that take place outside, or atop a mountain within a glass house. Anuanchaco Bay is a small island that is connnected to the Pacific City mainland by an underwater bridge that is just less than a kilometer in lenght. A typical Anuanchacan meal consists of what is very similar to cornbread, called Mianxquelle, dipped in a purple porridge like substance made of local flora. The green and rather humid island, like Pacific City, lies between California and Asian somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. There is hardly any evidence of what the local music scene is like in Pacific City due to the fact that is very difficult to find. This area has had a surprising amount of artists rise up recently though, and a few were playing this March 5th at Festsaal Kreuzberg Keller in Berlin.
yods fiveOn arriving to the show I noticed very few in attendance, as the Pacific City live-shows are rarely publicized save for fliers in Bongshops and Hotdog-stands. The crowd seemd to be more or less people close in contact with the Pacific City art-scene. There did happen to be a few young hipsters checking out the scene, but very few of them stayed, as the club was not clearly owned by a celebrity lookalike. The fact that there were very few people was somewhat troubling, as I had intended to not pay for a ticket. The price of admission for Pacific City shows is always determined by a game of chance. Usually a dice is rolled, but on this evening the hopeful attendee was to pick trash from a plastic bag. Each piece of trash would symbolize a certain price. It is always possible of course to have a ticket gratis, but then of course an amount of say ten euros cash can also happen, which one cannot always gamble with. I did gamble though, and managed to get Versuch Es Nach Mal, which means try again, which i delayed for sometime while the ticket taker was being distracted by what he called a shortie from shortie village. It was here that i was able to sneak in.
Pacific City shows are always interesting, even if the acts dont show up, which happens quite often, because the DJ always showcases music from the Pacific City Archive. Tonight the DJ, direct from the capital Sing Sing, was said to be playing Happy Dragon Band, Yahowa 13, Alan Tam and Tony Leung, oh yeah and Thuggish Ruggish Bone Thugs In Harmony. These artists represent what many say is the Salad Days of Pacific City. Besides the sound archive the acts for tongiht were Heatsick, Marcel Turkowsky, Family Battle Snake and Birdflu.
heatsickI was able to see all the artists in the back eating the only Pacific City cuisine Berlin offers, Olontu, a sticky rice that is served in bamboo leaves. They seemed to be, as they say gripping pretty fiercly so i didn`t make any intereviews at this point. The first act, playing at about 10.45, was Birdflu, who played a rather simple looking keyborad that he had claimed was invented by himself. The set was somewhat similar to the Pacific City traditional music entitled Rexpectiva, which is typically a self built instrument that is termianted by the artist. This is said to symbolize the end of a technological era that is said to have plagued Pacific City. It lasted about 13 mintues and was enacted to an otherwise ignorant and faceless crowd. In between the acts the DJ Roger Waters played some Tuupia music, which is from northern Pacific City, the artist in question were Fricara Pachu, Hevoset and Tomutontuu.
At this point the crowd was growing, seemingly filled with University students who had heard about the show from a professor at school. The next act was Heatsick, one of the more well known ones from Anuanchaco. Their music was involving the production of chrystals into mind patterens, which is a Pacific City trademark, due to the wide production of Chrystal Farms. Most artists in Pacific City come from chrystal farmers, and often portray there life as children with the synthetic chrystal sound machines. This was a mind warp set that entranced most of the crowd into a sort of brilliant stupor, as opposed the rather dull stupor that was to be seen for most of the evening, or even outside in their homes, or wherever they might be. It was a homage to a tradition that will not anytime dissapear from Pacific City, due to the renewable quality of chrystals. The music lasted about 18 Boreks, but seemd to go on for a short variation of Doners.
marcelThe late Roger Waters then played some selections from the Father Yod archive, Yahowa 13. These jams come from the 2030's, a time when motorcycles and microwave pizzas were in with the youth in Pacific CIty. This band had developed through a micorwave pizza-restaurant that was owned by said Father Yod, which became very popular in the 2030's. Yod tookt he money from his enterprise and bought a house where the family could watch grippers and jam. The music is characterized by a loud tom drum and male singer, Mr. Yod, with a back-up band of psychedlic guitars and more drums.
The crowd seemed a little less dull at this point, some were rather gripping, some were sipping from gravity bongs. But there was a ritual going and it was coming closer to the real thing. At this point, what turned out to be the last band of the night, Marcel Turkowsky started. The headlining act, Family Battle Snake, was later told to have injured themselves in a S&M Barber Shop here in Berlin, supposedly getting a very popular Berlin-Style of Friseur. A style that is actually such dangerous to acquire, on account of the barber having to use whips and chains to achive some sort of Vampire-esque look. Anyway, their show was not to be, but it will be interesting to hear the full story and gossip of what happened to the headlining acts head. Turkowsky again seemed to be interested in the Pacific City traditional music Hilexi, which characterizes a live and sampled version of an instrument. The instrument in question was a mouth piece, as well as a Chrystal.
This combination brings to mind the Pacific City greats, Zoviet France, who perfected this style to quite a wide audience in 2060's. Turkowsky's approach was similar but unique as there was less meditation intended for the crowd, and more just for the artist - meaning Turkowsky moved quickly through styles of mouth piece and Chrystal-Duets, which are popular with the young Pacific City artists of today, the get something for nothing era of sorts, but brilliant anyhow brilliant. His show ended up well in this way, with the crowd leaving quickly, to get home and dunk their heads in buckets of Sauerkraut and dream of proper ways of trational, or simply just another manic Montag.
Waters the DJ finsihed up with Alan Tam and Tony Leung, the godfathers of the synth-sound of Pacific City. I got a chance to ask a couple of questions to the artists before i took off, I asked one what he thought of Berlin. He seemed to reflect mostly on how easy it seemd to get by in the city, his words were play as just don`t play here, you be like, play that upside down style and you'll be like walking with a free pizza disc, or like sneaking into places and they don`t know, i guess people here are very trusting and thankful.
Another one seemed a bit down, stating I liked this shit the first time, when it was called "Land of the Dead". It seemed there was little enthusiasm for the Pacific City artists on this night. It is often that something so new and hyped up, cannot exist in a town that seems to be so new and uber self-hyped up. There will be a lecture on the origins of the Pacific City dialect Grippin, at Freie University, March 13th, given by C. Spencer Yeh, former leader of a student revolution just outside of Saints Harbor, Pacific City. ---Spencer Clark, 2078
axtxp
