Turbojugend im Vaterland

[Unkraut]

Got a chance to catch Turbonegro live in Germany a couple weeks ago, and must
say I was completely blown away. They played in a cool little club called the
Em Kotten in Solingen (down the road from Duesseldorf), a city which is at
the heart of an incredible German punk scene (Vageenas, Jet Bumpers,
Cheeks, Steve McQueens, Boonaraas, Lokalmatadore are all from this area).
The first band was Demolition Girl, a fairly incompetent but fun band
with two girls and a guy drummer, kind of an inverse Supercharger. They
even covered "Sooprize Package for Mr. Mineo". The second band, Cellophane
Suckers (from Cologne) were much more competent, but no less fun, playing
a staight ahead garage rock not unlike the Stallions. I freaked (in a
good way) when they tore into a cover of Sugar Shack's "Just That Way".
By this time the crowd, coming on to a fine German beer buzz, was
starting to get into it. One Oi-boy (skinhead wearing suspenders), while
doing a little warm-up moshing was pushed into the stage. As he reached
out to brace himself (as any of us would have done) his right hand landed
squarely on an empty beer glass (yes they serve beer in the finest, most
delicate of glasses!), shattering the glass and doing more than a little
bit of damage to his hand. He shrugged it off and continued moshing, but
a few minutes later I noticed him slinking off towards the WC, no doubt
to lick his wounds. Much to my surprise he was back later in the middle
of the pit with no less enthusiasm, which is certainly a testament to the
healing powers of good beer, great music and small brains. For the rest
of the Suckers' set, the broken glass and shards of glass lay
threateningly on the edge of the stage. Apparently I was the only one who
seemed to care. Next up was Turbonegro. By now the music room was
completely filled with people and cigarette smoke. Having absolutely no
AC or any kind of draft, this was perhaps the hottest club I've ever been
in. And I'm from Texas! So anyway Turbonegro takes the stage, all of them
wearing blue jean jackets and pants. The lead singer, wearing grotesque
black face paint with a black top hat, immediately reminds me of Alice
Cooper with a beard. The guitar player looks like Todd Rungren (circa
1972) and is wearing a beat up, dirty old straw cowboy hat. And the bass
player is wearing a white sailor's cap. This band has definite stage
presence. Wasting no time they immediately break into Grand Funk's "We're
An American Band", only changing it to "We're A Norwegian Band". The
crowd ate it up. From then on we were putty in their hands. They played a
very tight set, reminding me of what Electric Frankenstein must sound
like live, only faster. The guitar player (Todd, Jr.) was all over the
stage inciting the crowd to ever faster moshing. At one point he picked
up three empty beer glasses and smashed them onto the edge of the stage,
as if to tell the kids in front, "Don't fuck with me!" Needless to say I
was by this time well in the back and out of harm's way. In between songs
the singer would indulge in a little banter in English, making frequent
references to "jugglers" and "punk jugglers", and I wondered if I was
missing something. The show reached a fever pitch toward the end during
the climactic song "I Got Erection". As the crowd did their part by
singing the chorus, the singer pulled down his pants (at which point I
thought to myself, oh no, not the I gotta show the crowd my limp dick
thing again) and his blue bikini briefs to his ankles, turned his back to
the audience, pulled out a safety flair, lit it, bent over (thus mooning
us with his fat hairy ass) and stuck the lit flair through his legs so
that it looked like fire was coming out of his ass! What can I say, the
crowd, including me, went bonkers. Fortunately I had enough wits about me
to shove my way forward and get a picture with my cheap little one-way
camera. Then during their last song the singer, fully clothed again,
pulled out a feather pillow, sliced it open with a knife and threw it out
into the sweat-drenched crowd. It was like watching a perverse Mr.
Wizard's demonstration, ok, kids, watch what happens when I spray these
stupid fucking *sweaty* assholes with pillow feathers. They stick! As the
last song ended the crowd was simply too exhausted and deprived of oxygen
to demand an encore. Gotta say that this show for me ranks up there with
the Teengenerate/New Bomb Turks show of a couple of years ago. Nice to
hear that they will be in Austin in a few weeks. If they come to your
town, don't miss them. Scott