Out to Lunch

I’m spending a quiet night at home right now. Tomorrow I’m going to see Múm play at the AB in Brussels but tonight I’m buying airplane tickets for Berlin. My annual birthday trip is coming and I’m spending it this year in Berlin instead of way down south. The funny thing is, that I’m not going there in mid April but at the beginning of May. Two reasons: I wanna see Tempelhof for the last time in action before they close it at the end of this year (it’s not definite yet but very likely) and Brussels Airlines are the only ones who still fly on Tempelhof and the second reason is that I wanna fly cheap because I’m refurbishing my bathroom this (late) summer so I have to turn every penny twice. Brussels Airlines gives offers for early bookers and the beginning of May was the earliest date with a promo left. I should have booked earlier because now I’m not gonna be able to go there at my birthday. A pleasant side effect I guess of this bad planning will probably be the fact that the weather will be slightly better in May than in April. At least I hope so.
Another difference will be the accommodations. I usually stay at hotels or Bed & Breakfasts but this time I’m going to try some couchsurfing. Am I cheap or cheap :-) No, a friend of mine introduced me to this phenomenon after she tried it a couple of times and liked it. I’m going to try it out because contact with locals is always fun and provides great insights in what's going on in a city. So if I like it and it works well I might try it in Japan. I’m longing to go there for quite a while now but Japan is really expensive. If I can surf some couches over there I might be able to save some money. With the money saved I could spend a day or two at a luxury wellness resort at the foot of mount Fuyi ;-) am I cheap or am I…

I talked about New Beat the last time without posting some musical tokens of that style, only the origin. Here are a couple of New Beat classics together with some random tracks.

101 – Rock To The Beat
In-D – Virgin In-D Sky's
Taste Of Sugar – Hmm Hmm

Múm – Dancing Behind My Eyelids
Justus Köhncke – Feuerland
Lykke Li – Little Bit
The Ting Tings – Great DJ
Patrice – Soulstorm
Sharon Jones – Keep On Looking (Kenny Dope remix)
Sharon Jones – How Long Do I Have To Wait For You (Ticklah remix)
Shohreh Solati – To Ke Nisti

Did you ever wonder if people in Iran ever listened to disco before the Ayatollahs took over? Well I did, and apparently they did more than just listen, they even made it themselves. Farsi disco for the homemarket but it’s good enough for export as well. I’ve been getting into it right now and it sounds and looks a bit like Bollywood. Songs are mostly part of a soundtrack but the singers act as well wereas in India songs are usually sung by playback singers.
Solati still performs and makes music for the Iranian Diaspora.