Germany - Bremen & Hamburg

 Next we are heading to the port cities and city states of Bremen and Hamburg.  Now there is an intense historical rivalry between these two cities as to which is the better, prettier, more important or has the better football team.  Now I was born in Bremen so I'm biased and we'll leave the argument aside for the moment... (of course Bremen is much prettier and as for the football teams Werder Bremen vs Hamburger SV, it's not even a competition!).

Bremen's most notorious claim to fame is the Grimm's Brothers fairy tale of the Town Musicians of Bremen, a troupe of elderly domestic animals that run away from their cruel owners to become musicians.  There is a bronze statue erected in their honour behind the main cathedral in the centre of town.

I loved this story when I was a kid and appreciate it even more now that I'm older.  To the people of Bremen themselves the true symbol of the city is its Roland though, a tall statue of a proud knight erected in 1404, which according to legend watches over the city's free and independent status.  Here he is sporting a large gingerbread heart to celebrate Bremen's Freimarkt, the funfair season in October.

Musically we start with a band that I very briefly led in Belfast.  Our stint as a band was so brief, that we didn't even get around naming ourselves and we only had one gig at the European Permaculture Convergence in County Wicklow.  Apart from myself, the flutist Julia Cross is also from Bremen and coincidentally we grew up within 1/2 a mile of each other, although 10 years apart, so our paths only crossed when we met here in Northern Ireland.  This is a first rehearsal of one of my songs called The Economic Myth with me on Bulgarian tambura, Julia on flute, Liz on violin and my Brazilian friend Victor on guitar.  As for the genre... I always like to say that one of my inspirations is Bob Dylan, as he couldn't sing or play the guitar either... :)

Julia Cross is a musician in her own right (a much better one than me I hasten to add) and now lives in Mallorca.  Must be something in the water where we grew up to become travelling town musicians.  She writes songs in a number of styles and has recorded some music, which is available on Bandcamp here and here.  Here is a Reggae inspired song by her called HumanKind:

  In 2003 3 school friends from Bremen-Nord got together to form hip-hop band De Fofftig Penns (The fifty pence) singing their lyrics in Low German, a language they had to learn as the younger generation didn't learn it any more.  I was amongst the last generation who still learned Low German in primary school.  The band disbanded in 2018 and here is a song of their last album Dat Läppert Sik (That adds up) in homage to the local football club Werder Bremen called Gröön un Witt (Green and White after the colours of the club):

In 1968 a couple of bored students in Hamburg started Irish and Scottish folk band Hawkers and Tramps.  From 1975 onwards they switched to German folk, both traditional and own compositions with a good dose of humour, and renamed themselves as Liederjan.  Here is a song from their 2015 40th anniversary album Vierzig Jahre - Sowieso (40 years - anyway) called Ein kleiner Frieden mitten im Krieg (A small peace in the middle of war), which tells the famous story of Christmas Day 1914, when the soldiers from both sides downed their weapons for a day and started a football match in no-man's land instead:

Derya Yildrim & Grup Şimşek are a Turkish psychedelia band. Derya was born in Hamburg of Turkish decent and sings in Turkish.  If you don't understand the lyrics, she is not bothered, just learn Turkish, she says.  Last year they released their second album called Dost 1, from which this song is taken called Haydar Haydar:

Caribbean steel drum sounds is not what you expect from Hamburg, but that is exactly what the Funk band Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band deliver.  Established in 2007 by bandleader Björn Wagner, who spent some time in Trinidad & Tobago where he studied the steel drum, they developed a bit of a cult following with a bunch of 7'' vinyl releases of mostly cover versions.  They have now released their 3rd album with both originals and cover versions called Expansions from which this tune is taken called Dirt of Your Shoulders:

Finally composer, sound designer and multi-instrumentalist Andi Otto from Hamburg is mostly known for his cello playing, but not as you know it.  He calls his instrument a fello, where the bow of the cello his fitted with electronic sensors that manipulate a computer to produce an electronic soundscape.  He has collaborated with musicians from all over the world to create unique fusions, and in his 2018 album Rwandance he worked with Rwandan singer and dancer Evariste Karinganire.  This a track from the album called Igisasa:

That's it from Bremen and its suburb Hamburg for the time being, next we're off to the far north of Germany.  As usual you follow my virtual ramblings on my Tripline map.