Jul
The past week my head has been kind of in Berlin so there’s some incongruence with this post. I must be mixing up everything right now. To keep making things more confusing, this post is about Hamburg and Japan, and I swear this is not a mix up.
Around 13 months ago I arrived to Hamburg after driving for an hour and a half from Bremen. Entering the city was fantastic, the huge port received us, quite overwhelming. Never seen so many cranes and containers before. Then around town, riding fast through the narrow streets, over the cobblestone pavement, and us on the map trying to find our way. Finally, we reached Henning Honeyhead’s place, a beautiful building, steps away from a small square. The perfumed smell of a boulangerie welcomed us to this little corner of Hamburg. 2 blocks down was the Elbe and I could make out some fake palm trees and sand. Was it a fake beach? I should have checked out.
Mixing things up again, this post is about covers, and so The Voltarenes had done a fantastic version of Another Sunny Day’s “Anorak City”. It was called “Altona City”, and this is were we were: Altona-Alstadt. I found out that in this area it was about disliking HSV Hamburg and supporting St. Pauli football team. And me, that I always supported Paolo Guerrero, had to shut up! Not very good things were told to me about HSV! Also, not so far away from Henning’s, a street we crossed everyday, the Reeperbahn, a centre of Hamburg’s nightlife and also the city’s red-light district. In German it is also called die sündige Meile (the sinful mile). And believe me, you could see some strange and weird things around there. Especially at early morning, after coming back from a gig!
I remember there was a cool vintage store, crossing the Reeperbahn, that Henning’s buddies run. I don’t know if they ever worked. They were outside all the time, on a bench, chatting and drinking beer. A block further was the Eldorado bar. What happened there deserves another page. But let’s keep walking. We finally get to the Astra Stube. I’m going to see the Honeyheads play live!
All of us, popkids, were outside under the elevated train rails, chatting and avoiding the first act: a band called Puts Marie that wasn’t anyones cup of tea. But the wait was worthwhile. The Honeyheads appeared, immaculately uniformed with yellow-white tracksuits, and I was getting another Astra. Martina, Nico, Leif and Henning were putting a great show! And then they say, “this is our last song”. And even though I feel like they should go on forever, I’m happy to know they are closing a great gig. And then they play this totally unknown song for me which is way too catchy and Martina vocals are just perfect for it!
“What was that last song you played?” I asked them immediately they finished, just when they were unplugging their guitars. “It’s called Linda, Linda, we heard it in a movie, a Japanese movie”. A movie I only saw early this year, when Netflix started carrying it. I did find the song on Youtube (both original and movie version) when I came back to the US, but I wish there was a recording of it by the Honeyheads, so you could see why I think this is the ultimate version of it.
Let’s backtrack now. The original Linda, Linda was released by The Blue Hearts in 1987, a popular Japanese punk rock band that performed from the latter half of the 1980s to the early half of the 1990s. This song reached #38 on the Japanese charts during its release year. It was released as a 7″ and the B side was “Boku wa Koko ni Tatteiru Yo”. Let’s fast forward now. 2005. The movie Linda, Linda, Linda is released in Japan. The plot goes like this:
Linda Linda Linda tells the story of a group of four high school girls who decide to put together a band for Hiiragi-sai, their school cultural festival. Three days before they are to play the festival, the guitarist and singer quit the band. The remaining members, Kei Tachibana, Kyoko Yamada, and Nozomi Shirakawa must figure out what to do or risk cancelling. They decide to perform covers of The Blue Hearts songs, but all agree that they need to find a new member to be the singer. They ask the first girl that walks by – Son, a Korean foreign exchange student. Son is not fluent in Japanese, and this leads to some difficulties and misunderstandings, but through sharing in the ins and outs of high school life, they are able to understand one another.
I really enjoyed the movie and if you have a chance, try to see it. Maybe you feel inspired to start a band! And if you do watch it, check the walls of the rehearsal room the girls use. You’ll see a Beat Happening poster. Iisn’t that cool? And mixing it up again… today I woke up listening to Beat Happening’s “Sleepyhead” and went yesterday to bed listening to the Cat’s Miaow’s “Sleepy Head”. But these, are not original and cover. Go figure.
So, if I ask politely, from this column. Henning, Martina, Nico, Lief, would you please record this song for all of us? please? Now, let’s enjoy a track from their first release.
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