Another Planet - The Notwist - Shirk - 1998

Because I didn't travel much until I was in my mid to late twenties, I certainly had a lot of preconceived notions about what other countries would be like. I remember having a mindset (which many of my midwestern friends that still have never left the country seem to have adopted) that being abroad is a lot like being on another planet, but the truth of the matter is that it isn't that different. Sure, weather, topography, language, and culture might be somewhat different...but fundamental human nature does not change...niether about yourself, nor those you encounter.

This is why I find xenophobia so frustrating. The world is sometimes (or often) an indifferent place...but it's rarely as malicious as some would have you believe. But most people that I've met just want the same things I want. They want comfort and respect. They want entertainment and purpose. They want to be surrounded by those that love them and usually they don't wish strangers any ill. Perhaps, I am a bit deluded, living in a place where I'm constantly surrounded by tourists from all over the world...and perhaps I'm just spouting hippy nonesense of the "can't we all just get along" variety...but still, I don't find that...even in places I haven't had the best of times...that people are anything but decent.

But then I've never been to Afghanistan either.

I usually joke that The Notwist are just German Radiohead...but full credit to the Tuetonic gentlemen here...this album came out a full two years before Kid A and certainly shows all of the electronica meets melodic rock tendancies that the boys from Oxford would later make safe for the Luddite indie rock world.

Alphabet - The Notwist - The Devil, You, and Me - 2008

You ever been to a show, wherein the opening band was bad that they almost entirely eclipse your memory of the band you were actually there to see....as a fairly seasoned concert goer I've had this happen to me several times...enough so that I actually have a list of the WORST opening band experiences...at #3 on that list is a band that called themselves Themselves...they opened for The Notwist at Bowery Ballroom back on the Neon Golden tour and they were unbelievably bad.

Imagine a German version of Fishbone...and I really think that is all the description that you need.

Okay one more thing, their lead singer had blue dreads...blue dreads for christ sake!

Anyway, the only redeeming factor was that The Notwist was actually a much better live experience than I would have credited them for. Energetic and engagely experimental, and just German enough to be charming, but not enough to be off putting. Anyway, their new album is pretty good...if perhaps lacking the high points of Neon Golden.