Travel in a time of communicable disease

I wake before the alarm. Brush my teeth. Grab my things. Adieu ma cherie. Bisou, bisou! The uber delivers me to Sheremtyovo and it‘s all fairly normal bar the temperature check and obligatory mask. I get on a large steel tube with many Russians and we cross the skies to London. Something is grandly amiss in the capital. And the wider British psyche is so clearly damaged. The metroplois is running at maybe an eighth of it‘s usual capacity. And, everywhere masks are being worn. And signs are warning. And theirs is the stench of fear. What the fuck have they done to this once thriving place? Can it ever recover? I drop my Visa application with the Russians. No return for me otherwise. It goes well. And, once done, I just want to get out. Home beckons. It‘s been over 5 months. I am thoroughly ripped off by my trip to town.

So, back out to Heathrow. It is so very very quiet. The flight is how flying is now. Everyone wearing masks. You order your meal and make it last as long as possible… because of course you can‘t wear a mask when you eat or drink. I get to Zürich late. So, whole journey from Moscow without any real checks about the bat monkey virus or quarantines. All the news stories are basically sensationalism. All the government bravado just a front. I fall asleep on the train to Basel and get woken up by cleaner a good half an hour after we arrive. they think I‘m drunk. And so begins my three weeks in Switzerland. It goes by so so fast. I don‘t see so many people. Keep myself mostly to myself and get the jobs I need to do done. And, before long I‘m getting my Covid test to make the journey home.

Armed with a negative result I fly from Zürich. I need to use my result within 72 hours. Zürich airport is like a ghost town. I get there around 6 and there are only 5 flights left for the evening. I fly into a still fearful London leering through it‘s masks. But, three weeks later it feels a little livlier. It is late when I get my airbnb room. I am trying to work out the code for the door to the fat flabby slapping sounds of fucking from my neighbours. The next morning I walk to the Russian Visa Centre. London is still strange. Many shut up businesses. Some signs of dead businesses being renovated and turned over. Pheonixes planning a glorious rise from the ashes. A city this big cannot go on being this dead. But the British are sick, in their heads. It could be a while.

I catch a train out to the airport, and finally a plane back to Russia. The only health check I receive during the whole journey is upon entering Russia. A group of kids taking the paper forms we had to fill out on the plane. Paper forms? Really? The whole thing is a farce. So much fuss and so much disaster. And, when you look at the real raw statistics, it is all for nothing. A waste. A political front with no real conviction put in place to satisfy a terrified public. What has become of us? We are not sleeping. We are on life support.

Asahi Pentax Spotmatic SP / EXA 1C / Fomapan 400 / Kodak 400 / Ilford Pan 400

Service!

I was on the bike rushing to catch my train yesterday, when annoyingly my pedal snapped off. So I decided to take my bike straight to a bike shop. I thought it’d be a case of dropping it off and picking it up next day or even later. But the guy in the shop put it on there and then. He only charged me for the pedal too. It was so quick I *almost* still caught my train.

Now that is service! And given a few experiences I’ve had lately here, very welcome indeed.

The culprits: www.citycycles.ch

On Militärstrasse just before the Langstrasse crossing. I recommend them.

Snow, rain, bike, train.

St. Jacob's Stadium - Basel FC

I commute from Basel to Zürich four days a week. It wasn’t too bad in Summer, but it’s getting tougher now. I have a bike ride in Zürich of about 5 to 7k. Not that far, but yesterday it was in the snow on the way home. I think rain is preferable, if not enjoyable. Today it was rain. Winter. We live in burrows. In the dark. Somehow it’s cozy. Pictured is one of the many sights I see from the train.

Nives Onori

Nives was at Brandy’s open Mic last Sunday. I hadn’t seen or heard her before. She’s not yet 20. I like the purity and uniqueness of her act. If it doesn’t come from her soul I’m a fish supper. Her style has a certain pacific island feel to it, so excuse my oceanic reference. I think she has a bright future, I really do. She has no website. If I hear of one I’ll add it here.

I took a little video. There’s a bit of chatter at first but people soon get drawn in. Very nice. Excuse my titles, she is called “Nives Onori”, not “Onon'”.

Valeska Steiner

Valeska Steiner is something of a rising star on the local singer songwriter scene in Zürich. She just won the m4m demo clinic, (with something that really didn’t sound much like a demo at all, *cough*….) . I caught her at Ms Brandy’s Open Mic. It was a good set she played. She has a nice voice and decent songs which very much follow the current trend of quirky female singer songwriter. I thought her bass player was really good. She played cello too, and really kept the whole music side solidly together. You can check Valeska’s myspace out: http://www.myspace.com/valeskasteiner. Plus here’s a wee video I took.

Busking and Fascist States

OK, maybe a bit extreme with the “fascist state” thing. But, anyway yesterday I was busking at the Zürich lake in my usual spot. Nice day with enough people wandering past, some stopping to linger a while listen. Steady trickle of funds into my little chinese bowl. Even threats of CD sale or two.

Then up walk three Zürich “Stapo”. That stands for “Stadt Polizei” which is a common abbreviation. I wouldn’t want to be creating any kind of allusion in your minds to the “Gestapo”, no, no not at all. Ha ha. Anyway I had to pack up my stuff and was told in no uncertain terms busking is not allowed by the lake.

You can play music so long as it’s unamplified and so long as there’s no money involved. Actually the police were OK and polite enough about it. They were also kind of enough to waver the fine which can be sizeable. I think they’re clamping down because of the 2 Peruvian bands that had set up camp there over the last few weeks complete with mega PA system. I can assure you my set up is very minimal. Just my keyboard speakers and a very small battery vocal amp. Anyway, no more busking at the lake.

Come on people of Zürich: you need to change that law. OK i admit the use of a full PA system is out of order… but no busking at the lake… what the hell is that about? Anyway, somehow I managed to squeeze several years out of it without ever being hassled.

In June I move to Basel. Hopefully they have someway for me to busk. I shall see!

GESCHWISTER PFISTER

Tonight we went to see Geschwister Pfister… which translated from German means the “Pfister Siblings”. Obviously not quite the same ring to it in English. Their tour is currently in Theater am Hechtplatz here in Zürich.

It was a rather gay-flavoured cabaret show. I suspected it would be when I saw the audience gathering in the square outside. Picture lots of middle-aged men in couplets with partner look syndrome. 

These are three funny and very talented musical individuals. The costumes are great and their back up band is excellent. It’s only a little bit on the fruity side. This particular tour is set in a clinic. I didn’t quite understand it all. And that wasn’t entirely because it’s in German, it seemed to be some rather inconsequential humour based around one of them being extremely camp weaved into some show tunes. But the style more than made up for the missing content. High point for me was definitely a nice take on Shirley Bassey and Yello’s, The Rythm Divine, even though it is a bit on the cliche side to camp up a Shirley Bassey number.

I can recommend it.

http://www.geschwister-pfister.de/

Biggles – El Lokal, Zürich

It’s high time I went along to a Biggles gig. He’s a rising light on the Swiss indie scene and a fellow Scot muso friend is always ranting about him. Biggles has been getting quite a bit of airplay on the more left field radio shows and picked up DRS3s Best Newcomer Award. Indeed he has a neat little video to his catchy pop song “bring your own knife baby” which you can check out on his site… http://www.biggles.ch . I guess it’s a rather astute move to pick another darling of the Swiss indie music scene to produce your CD and Sven or Biggles has surely done that by bringing Adrian Weyermann onboard. This gig was a CD launch for Collosus – which is a group of songs inspired by the story of Moby Dick. Which kind of brings me to my only real negatives about this gig… and they were at the beginning and the end. Herman Melville texts read out in over bearing preacher or bad actor style by some German bloke, or Swiss bloke speaking high German – I’m not sure…backed up by synth noises. Anyway I hated it, infact it made me leave earlier than I would have normally. Pretension, art, call it what you will, it all amounts to the same thing and that is shit. Now Biggles himself and band of course, they were good. drummer, bass/backing vocal, keyboards/sample, guitar/lead vocal. I think Biggles must have been a big 80s Brit stadium band fan. You can hear a lot of Duran Duran’s Simon le Bon crossed into Simple Minds’ Jim Kerr in his vocals. It works well against his rather Radiohead flavoured stylings. A good rounded sound. A little bit of a pity that I really have no clue what the songs are about, I asked my companion if they did cause they were Swiss and couldn’t understand him either, so it couldn’t have been a language thing. I think he sang in English. This was a good gig if you take away the Moby Dick rantings. Biggles is just the kind of artist the industry in Switzerland should be putting their weight behind. He could easily break into the smaller circuit outside of switzerland and take it from there. Usually they back the stuff that is just rather bland a copy of everything else… I cite Lovebugs (Oasis) and Dada Dada Ante Portalis. Biggles has his own sound and it feels fresh. Even though he didn’t give too much of himself away in this I enjoyed his stage presence. He looks rather like somebody’s geeky 15 year old son, fresh out of bed with his national health glasses and unstyled hair. I’m sure half the woman in the audience wanted to take him home and put him to bed in the spare room with it’s Bob the Builder patterned wall paper – ah bless him. He probably wears a parker and drives a scooter. It works, trust me, and in these days the right image is damned important. Geek chic indeed. El Lokal was as good as ever. I do like this venue, and other than a small problem with the upstairs coffee machine (Arg! – at least the downstairs one was still on) I’ll keep recommending it. I need my coffee you know, oh yes.

Wreckless Eric – El Lokal, Zürich

I didn’t know anything about Wreckless Eric before this gig, and shame on me! An early exponent from the heady days of punk rock the first time round. Interesting how the audiences at these gigs are I must say. There’s a distinct gap. It’s all under 20s and over 40s, almost nothing inbetween. Those that were there for it, and those that are digging into the roots of the punk revival. Eric has kicked about with such luminaries as Elvis Costello, and (remember to bless yourself, and bow towards the direction of Kilburn, prostrating yourself in supplication to one of pop’s greatest lyricists ever) the late Ian Dury. Yet he has not picked up nearly the same amount of recognition or respect. It’s a shame too. I think it maybe was a bitter experience for him. Looking at Eric you can tell there has been a time when he has enjoyed the bottle a little too thoroughly perhaps. Ah, but the lyrical passionate angriness in the man. Noone could say he’s lost it. Just him, a guitar, and and angry mouth. I thought he was great. He has plenty of quirky English charisma, and a lot of humour amongst the bitterness. Maybe a touch over indulgent with the guitar at times but with lyrics about Ikea, record collections being divided and people taking ‘the final taxi’ you’d be mad to miss him. Go see, go see! Oh yeah, I forgot to mention – El Lokal, top marks, good venue, done out in the style of an alternative mexican cantina but without the food and intentionally tacky in a classy way – I will go again.

Bylan – Cafe Romand, Zürich

Another Friday evening in the Cafe Romad, and very nice it is too. Why, you might ask, is he going to see a Bob Dylan cover band? Indeed you might, and indeed you might not. Anyway, I don’t even really know Bob Dylan, strange as that might seem. It’s probably on a par with saying you don’t really know the Beatles in certain quarters. Somehow he simply passed me by. Rated as being “the best songwriter” along with John Lennon. Hmmm… I’ll let you into a secret, but promise not to tell anyone – I think Lennon is vastly and improbably over rated. It helps one’s career immensley if you get shot, shoot yourself, die while shooting up or die vomiting after consuming too many shots. So… what of Bob? He’s still kicking around and strangely hasn’t lost the cred in the way Sir Paul McCartney has. I can’t answer these questions. What I can say is, Bob Dylan can’t sing. And the chap in this band sounded rather like him. I think he put it on a bit too much and should have just sang the songs normally. Other than that they had a really nice sound, helped along by an electric violin player. A bit more dynamic would have helped me find them less boring. They had a tendency to find that nice pocket in the audio ambience and just hold it, a little variation would have stopped my ears dropping off into a stupor. All in all though a pleasant evening… i fear I am overly harsh and acerbic – it was actually enjoyable. More from the Cafe Romand soon, as I should be there for another gig in two weeks.

 

Note: Since writing the Café Romand has closed 😦