Nitzer Ebb Classic or Dud?

"defn of optimism: playing yr father nitzer ebb"

but Vicious Delicious ~ Hocus Pocus is much better than any ebm stuff

F242 -
yes, 4-5 tracks by them & N.Ebb were almost the only tracks worth hearing scattered across the 8-hour trudge through Goth Rock, soft anarcho-punk, temper tantrum thrash and miscellaneous stuff at the Slimelight in 1988/89 - but now haha 'Headhunter' is despised by every Industrial fan I know, through years and years of overexposure......it was getting played *every* week back at the Slimelight in 1989, and is still one of the standard 'user-friendly' EBM tracks DJ's will play.......

(Ronan - there's a CD which consists entirely of remixes of HH by various other electro-industrial bands.)

(OK, I know, I'm mixing up creator's assumed intents with own aesthetic reaction.)

(WTF was I thinking two years ago???)

haha like a really *good* tribute band...

SCHNITZEL EGG

Oh and hi Ray! I finally bought that Blue Nile album you recommended (oddly, Barry up there was in attendance) though you may not remember doing so - that was well over a year ago. I still owe you a mix I know. I am the worst person ever! But I'm a perfectionist so I wanted to choose things that were just right (I am the Peter Gabriel of mix tapes). Do you even care what's on it at this point?

i noticed you had largely disparood from ilx for a while, and, if i recall the scenario correctly, i didn't want to pester/intrude - although i did think about sending you another unexpected comp in case you needed cheering up (haha like THAT would have worked out, given my music collection), i also picked up the impression that you had changed address

actually i would STILL like to hear that track you mentioned on that ILM thread er um what was it now...thread was about 'music to play in your space-age plastic home' or something...
other than that, and avoiding all that business where tracks merge-mix into one another, no special requests
(i can't remember what info we exchanged about music likes & dislikes & curiosities)

my email is still the same - contact me!

It's like they took the slogan delivery and turned it into grand opera on a windswept, stormy mountain.

http://www.nitzer-ebb.de/ebbdotcom/index.html

I saw them live, too. Total physical experience, banging those drums...those guys were fit, and they meant it.

Every song of theirs goes on for about two minutes after you're sick of it.

I sold off my Nitzer Ebb cds and vinyl a while ago. Every now and then, I wish that I had a song or two from them, but not enough to call 'em classic. Maybe I'll go ask someone to YSI Join in the Chant. (Front 242 I still have a fair amount of. Someone mentioning electroclash earlier amused me— my girlfriend will listen to this stuff if I describe it as ec, but if I call it industrial she'll balk sound-unheard.)

"YOU! I SAW YOU!"

Anyway, favorite rediscovered Nitzer Ebb track -- "Come Alive" from the As Is EP. It was the only one mixed by Alan Wilder on that release, and I've always loved it, but hearing it now brings out its line of descent more clearly as being the midpoint between Depeche's "Halo" and "Walking In My Shoes" in terms of ominous, beautifully orchestrated drama (strings and feedback!). Arguably that makes it Ebblike precisely because it slots into a different DM/Wilder aesthetic but I prefer to think of it as Ebb trying something different (most notable change would probably have to be how McCarthy aims to actually sing on it).

Mmmm.

... these guys are releasing an album in a little over a week

please join with me in saying "wait, waht"

I'll join you in saying "FUCK YEA!"

aw. i never sent Ray his tape. i suck.

yeah don't get me wrong, I'm psyched (esp. since Martin gore is doing a track with them) but... it's 2010, I kind of didn't expect to encounter new Nitzer material at this stage of my life

i heard they were good on this tour. anyone been? closest they're coming to here is nyc :\

Odd admission but I don't think any band in near-orbit to NE, stylistically, has aged better for me. A single-disc NE best-of would be mortal. Body of Work was the wrong tack entirely.

A recent Nitzer Ebb interview.

I spoke to them in March this year about this album. It came out over here in April I think. It's surprisingly good and the show they did was great. I don't know how many people are aware of Dave Simpson the Guardian journalist in the UK who wrote The Fallen, the book about all the ex-members of The Fall; anyway he was listening to 'Control' by Nitzer Ebb a few months ago and his neighbour barged into his house and punched him on the nose.

It's good to see they still split the vote.

Great interview!

this!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqY706faGsI&feature=related

I felt a burning need to play This Total Age today and 3 minutes into "Violent Playground" I'm remembering why I run so hot and cold on these guys

I feel like they were good for moments of brilliance but didn't turn into a band that could sustain an album until Showtime

I like 'em quite a bit.

I get very bored about halfway through "Violent Playground", but then "Murderous" kicks in and they become awesome again

IIRC Belief had the same seesaw whiplash effect, I remember walking away from it thinking I really only needed "Control I'm Here" and "Without Belief"

I bought That Total Age when I was 11 or 12 because Nitzer Ebb had been mentioned in the same breath as Nine Inch Nails in some article I had read. My first impression was that it sounded like some kind of German aerobics music.

IIRC jjj bought Showtime based on "Lightning Man" showing up on Rolling Stone's industrial dance chart, and then shortly after that a local DJ played "Join in the Chant" on his weekend dance mix show and I was all "okay YES"

FIRE!! FIRE!! FIRE!!! WUAGHH!

the best they ever did ?

i have this album on 2*12" white labels and love it when in the right mood.

have tried other stuff, but nothing else of theirs kicks like this ..

muscle and hate!

I don't know how many people are aware of Dave Simpson the Guardian journalist in the UK who wrote The Fallen, the book about all the ex-members of The Fall; anyway he was listening to 'Control' by Nitzer Ebb a few months ago and his neighbour barged into his house and punched him on the nose.

missed this nugget !

brilliant.

though not for dave of course.

may have to dig out the vinyl and see how my neighbours react

(actually they are moving out, and so care not, whereas this could be the perfect litmus test for the new arrivals .. )

It wasn't that guy from Bl@gg3rs ITA again was it? (NB: many people may not get that reference)

haha !

thats a deep deep reference.

my cousin arranged that party ..

After seeing some photos on FB of their recent reunion gigs, I put on 'Showtime' - man, does it hold up! A real classic I'd forgotten about.

100% agree. I saw them in Brooklyn on Saturday night snd those songs sounded so good. Best Nitzer Ebb live show I ever saw.

It cracks me up to this day that Showtime is the only album my father objected to and made me turn off during my ultra-angsty teen years.

The remastered reissues from last year sound great. Pretty much all the remixes were included (Belief and Showtime were both 2CD sets).

I tend to forget about Nitzer Ebb for years on end, but this revive spurred me to look up the lyrics to Godhead, a song I had on maxi-single, but never thought about the words. Pretty sure my dad would have made me turn it off.

Looking forward to the September show for sure -- last time I would have seen them was...24 years ago? Something like that.

Seeing this come up reminds me I was playing the Daniel Miller mix of Shame a lot 2 or 3 years ago and I need to dig it out again. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-unGpu8NWQU

I've pondered writing a short essay about "Join in the Chant" at times because I think it's such brilliant social commentary and so many friends of mine don't seem to "get it," but oh well.

books books books books burn burn burn burn FIRE FIRE FIRE oh
guns guns guns guns gold gold gold gold JUDGE JUDGE JUDGE oh
MUSCLE AND HATE . . . FORCE IS MACHINE . . .

.....speaking of that song..... this is amazing

Over on the Test Pressing instagram we've been posting a video a day to start your day the right way. This one might be the best yet. Join in the chant. pic.twitter.com/ZAZMRVHkEY

— Apiento (@Apiento) February 26, 2021

I have already geeked out over this and will continue to do so until I die

M@tt and I discovered that it is extremely likely that "Kelly" in the first couple is KELLY RIPA

Did I expect to start my day seeing a young Kelly Ripa dancing to the Ebb? The answer is no. No I did not.

just to show our work: this is the Philly area show Dance Party USA

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dance_Party_USA

from Ripa's Wiki

Aside from local TV gigs, Ripa's first national television exposure came in 1986 when she appeared as a regular dancer on Dancin' On Air, leading into Dance Party USA. Her career goal at the time was to be a newscaster and she often did the cast news reports.

I grew up in Philly, that is definitely Kelly Ripa. She was local-famous before Regis and all that, and everyone knew someone who danced on Dance Party USA.

I don't know if she was still on in 89 (I remember it moved from taping in Philly proper at some point) but NIN played on the show then super-early on in their career.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whVtrLrTWwE

awesome thanks for the confirmation!

what really blows my mind is that "Phil" in the second couple is actually Regis Philbin

“Princess” is Princess Di

geeking out over the fact that this is real and not just someone putting different audio over the video as people online tend to do

Live at Hellfest 2022:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLgkAcUtuZk

Doug McCarthy's oldest-living-male-stripper moves go over surprisingly well with Euro metalheads whose brains have been boiled by the midafternoon sun. And the other guy actually seems to know the words, too, which I wouldn't necessarily have put money on.

Ha — my mistake, that's not Doug McCarthy singing, it's Bon Harris, who's usually the keyboard guy; so I guess that's David Gooday, their percussionist, at the machines.

Yeah something about how Douglas has been under the weather lately?

*shakes head* Dammit.

https://www.brooklynvegan.com/nitzer-ebbs-douglas-mccarthy-has-died-at-58/

My (not yet) wife and I saw them in 1992, but she had also seen them opening for Depeche Mode two years earlier. They really did put on a good show.

Yeah the 1992 appearance I caught of the three times I did was probably their best -- the album run to that point was just better and better as it went, and if NIN had never happened they felt on the verge of maybe being in that space on a more mainstream level given just a little more time. Packed out theater that was on their feet the whole time, both he and Bon did the business but he especially had charisma to burn. The set-concluder of "Fun To Be Had" was monstrous, still a top live moment in my brain.

I'm sorry to hear this. I discovered Nitzer Ebb when "Lightning Man" was awarded Single of the Week by the NME. That and "Getting Closer" absolutely blew my mind, I'd never heard anything like them. RIP.

Damn, I had not been keeping up with his health but a huge fan of some of their singles and was not expecting it.

Listening to Ebbhead (the album they were supporting when I saw them) for the first time in 30 years, easily. I loved Showtime, which combined the slogans-and-huge-drums of their earlier work with some obvious lifts from J.G. Thirlwell, but Ebbhead didn't click with me the same way — it didn't help that "DJVD" was a terrible single. Now, it doesn't sound that bad. The album, I mean. "DJVD" still sucks.

Was "DJVD" a single? Weird. Must have been a promo thing. The three I recall, at least on import, were "I Give To You," "Godhead" and "Ascend."

can't say I know too much about the band but "Join in the Chant" is one of the funniest songs ever

I definitely heard "DJVD" on the radio, but it might have been a college station so not an official single.

RIP

I'd seen this band's name for decades, but never heard a song until they played Join in the Chant on satellite radio (1st Wave, for those who are curious). It sounded exactly as I'd imagine they'd sound, and it was perfect.

I read in a few of the obituaries Douglas lived in Detroit. I don’t have any memory of this. Does anyone know more? I guess it explains why they were such a stable at raves in the area.

Had some thoughts.

lies
lies
lies
thoughts
thoughts
thoughts
burn
burn
burn
FIRE
FIRE
FIRE
oh
muscle and hate

force is machine

i've got to say that it hurts!