Do sit in that sofa and hand your tape to trusty Silas, he will slip it in the ornate stereo player hidden in that medieval armour, yes, in its helmet, how ingenious, and press the ‘play’ button at once, Stuardo, Stevonius and me will light our pipes and listen intently to the distillations of your strange and eccentric genius while you wait outside browsing through the pages of the latest glossy periodical.

I must warn you beforehand, do not dare wasting our time, please do not take us for fools or cretins, if you are merely wacky, or one of these philistine socialites who believe that the assumption of a pretentiously bizarre demeanor will unlock the oaken doors of the hipsterati sancta sanctorum where kudos floats freely along the yelping ghosts of a million overdosed, leather constrained rock and roll legends, please admit so at once and abandon this hallowed hall, we do not take lightly upon such subterfuges and if you try to abuse our goodwill, we will not hesitate feeding your hypocritical fake face to a pack of hungry bloodhounds.

Thanks.

I hope this little warning has not scared you, we are strict but fair. Silas, please bring a glass of sherry for the gentleman. Ah, I see you have noticed the lovely photos of Felix and John, yes, they are two of the most extraordinary members of our club, they represent the epitome of weirdness, that strange and perfumed secretion of the outcast spirit that impregnates a life and is bequeathed to its artistic opus, through which it escapes into the oft so tedious outside (some think it real) world like some sort of colourful creature, hiding in its wilderness to seduce and charm those ramblers endowed with the adequate inclinations.

Just listen to their seductive, not necessarily pretty, always beautifully sincere chant sir, if you can feel that voluptuous strangeness nurturing your soul and injecting the shadows around you with an additional dimension of mystery, excitement and anticipation, then you can proudly proclaim you have the required sensibility to become member of our exquisite club.

Felix Kubin is one of our heroes, and also the true leader of the esoteric Deutsche weirde welle. He recorded his last album, ‘Suppe fur die Nacht’ with Rotterdam’s own Coolhaven as part of the Bronbron project, ‘under the influence of strange instruments, dusty corners and atmospheric pain‘, and it resulted in a ‘fruitful mixture of German Weirde Welle, Optagonism, Conservative HipHop, Stockhausen Schlager, No Improv Mixing and Gabberpop‘. Indeed, we could not have put it better ourselves dear readers, now buy it. It’s the the sort of thing that makes me want to move back to the continent.

Felix Kubin & Coolhaven- Notbremse

Or don’t you just love Babbage steam-powered electro-hardcore operas?

(Also check the head-banging waschzwangmama at Undomondo.)

Then there is John Dwyer, some think him strange, just because of that habit of his of falling on top of things, dressing up like an overdosed plague fly, devouring microphones and so on and so forth. God knows he is but a skinny fellow with a penchant for body-art and a mutant multi-foul-mouthed soul in direct contact with God that yearns for absolute expression through 8 perpendicular channels which of course demand as many sonic outlets, this should of course be confusing unless you have a few spare brains and distortion muzzling super-powers.

The latest adventure goes by the fancy name of Yikes, and takes place with members of Curse of the Birthmark and Big Techno Werewolves, their debut album has the godlike genius title of ‘Secrets to Superflipping’ and has been released as a lime green 10 inch by our beloved Upset the Rythm people. It sounds a bit like Alan Vega doing garage rock caterwailing power ballads while Leatherface plays chainsaw terrordrones, too ghastly to be true, to exciting to sleep tonight.

Yikes- The Cars

Off to read books now, have a nice weekend our lovely fwendz.