Endless Grind 2009 – Old School Skating to the max

While I’m at it I can just continue writing. I just got a mail remeninding me that last weekend saw yet another dition of the (in)famous Endless Grind Skateboarding Contest take place at the Schlachthof in Bremen. Pascal has been putting those events up for over a decade now and it’s great to see that there are still people showing up and enjoying the day. I only had the chance to go there once but that time was a blast. Just check out the video for this year’s edition.

amodestproposal and Arktika – Dreams do come true eventually

I don’t really like to brag about stuff and I’m not very good at promoting the things I do with my band(s), but this time I am really proud of what I accomplished with the guys I make music with. In May both of my bands put out records on vinyl. For one it was the bettersweet farewell present to the singer who will now move along to be a father for his newborn son. The other one was the debut release.

A Day At The Record Store (XIII) – A big round-up

Somehow I didn’t have the time to write anything during the past few weeks so I thought I might start things of with a little rundown on the records I purchased over that timespan. Well, my oh my, there’s a lot to talk about and honestly I can’t even remember when I got all that stuff. I must have been really busy… Anyway, here we go

A Day At The Record Store (XII)

Chuck Ragan “Feast Or Famine” LP
Chuck Ragan “Los Feliz” LP
Chuck Ragan & Austin Lucas “Bristle Ridge” LP
Now everybody kept telling me I should go and buy these records because what Mr Ragan is doing on his own sounds so great and fantanstic. To be honest, I had never been a huge Hot Water Music fan throughout the years. Sure, their music was okay to me, I own one or two records, their live shows were good … but I never really fell for them in a way that some of my friends did. To me they were always just a decent band with one or two hit songs. Nothing more, nothing less. Still I have to admit that I really liked Rumbleseat, the acoustic country sideproject. Rough yet very gentle at times and I guess that’s what I was looking for when I got myself the records of Mr Ragan. In a way it is a bit like Rumbleseat but then on the other hand it isn’t at all. It has a huge touch of folk music feeling to it. But because of his voice he manages to make it sound rather punk-ish. So if you are fed up with Rocky Votolato’s rather clean recordings, then this might be a treat. I like both of them though.

EA 80 + Tragedy + Burial @ AJZ Bahndamm, Wermelskirchen

Sometimes my stupidity gets the best of me and I do things which normally after rational thinking I wouldn’t do at all. So when I found out that EA 80 and Tragedy were to play at the AJZ Bahndamm in Wermelskirchen and a friend told me that the gig might be sold out by the time we were supposed to get there, my first thought was, I should just stay at home instead of risking a lonely evening in the cold of the region of “Bergisches Land” northeast of Cologne. But somehow I was curious enough to tag along and when we arrived at the venue there was still enough room for me to get in.

Spring Koshien Day 10: Underdog win

Another short one because of work, although I had enough time to welcome spring to Cologne this morning with a short walk through the neighbourhood. Only a few minutes away is the Japanese Cultural Institute in front of which there are a lot of cherry blossom trees.

Spring Koshien Day 9: Best 8, Hotoku and Seiho come through

Just a short one today since my holiday is over. From today on there will only be two games each day as the tournament enters its final stages.

Spring Koshien Day 8: Surf’s up for Narashino, Rifu advance

The last day with three games on one day and we are getting closer and closer to the final rounds of the tournament. I am still completely astonished by yesterday’s stellar performance of PL Gakuen’s Nakano. And because of that I forgot to inculde the link to the wonderful inning-by-inning reports of Goro Shigeno. He’s doing a great job keeping all of us up-to-date it’s almost as if you are listening to a radio broadcast.

Spring Koshien Day 7: Close calls

Three games which all ended with a one run lead, now that’s what I call exciting. And it gets even better when in one game one pitcher delivers a wonderful performance only to lose the game in extra innings. As a character in “H2″ said it absolutely right: “Let me show you the benefits of a game without a time limit”.

The Knuckleball Princess strikes out her first victim

I believe ever since women and men started competing in the same sports there has always been talk about how women would fare against male opponents. This led to such strange suggestions that women football players such as German international Birgit Prinz should sign a contract with a male football team.  While that will be impossible because of the deficits women have when they play against male competition, a young japanese girl is competing against men in an independent league in the south of Japan.