ATARI TEENAGE RIOT - NINE INCH NAIL TOUR DIARY 1999
Part 4 of Alec Empire's diary...
7th DAY: Dusseldorf 26-11-1999
Ok - this is different. we played in Woolongong or so in Australia - I've forgotten how you spell it and we played in Iceland and in South-America and so on but we never played here! It was always impossible.
This radio guy asks me in that interview:" So please tell us, Alec, if this system is as bad as you say why doesn't anybody else in the world think like you. " And I'm laughing into the microphone. "Anybody else. ... I mean who is anybody else. MTV, the readers of The Sun and germanic Euro-techno fans. ...
Sorry, but these views are not very new and not very old. But that's the problem: You think everybody is the same and has this no-opinion you journalists put on every youth movement or music scene since the boring lame 80ties. I'm bored - You know - look at the fucking sixties! For example in Germany it was not like everybody was wearing flower-power shirts and was demonstrating against the Vietnam war - more than half of the country was twenty years before in Hitler's NSDAP and most of these sons and daughters were not listening to Jimi Hendrix or Otis Redding - the most "radical" kids were into Iwanttoholdyourhandsbeatlesshit.
" - no offense, my British friends - you got what you deserved but come on. Anyway still laughing about these German journalist douch-bags we hang out at the NIN soundcheck - we talk to the keyboard player and I'm like:" We should call Kraftwerk up and tell them to come down here. hahaha but they would be too cool - the self-announced "godfathers of techno"! hahaha.
They would be like: Nein,nein - Sat iz not kool! It iz too rockistish. prrrrppr. I mean did anybody hear that shit they did for this Expo-shit. I mean it is shit - yeah they got some money but who fucking cares about that.
... Does it make it clever and good. NOOOO.
Hahaha - We should announce in the press that Kraftwerk is coming down here to play with us together - and everybody would be like :wow theze guyz muzt be really kool!!!! And we ring up these friends of mine in Minneapolis who do sculptures and we would put these perfect copies of the fucking lame robots on stage.
Hahaha and everybody would be like: theze guyz are zooo really kool!!!! Zey play wiz Kraftwerk!!! Man!!! And the real Kraftwerk guys would be pissed as hell!!! And there would be nothing they could do about it or they have to fucking destroy their elitist image and call the media up to tell the truth - and the truth would make them look so stupid.
Hahaha Have you read the book of the fourth guy who was like the slave in Kraftwerk. Who built the fucking drummachine and the other two guys got the copyright on it.
... I mean everything they said was wrong: Autobahn, Radioactivity, Model, It's more fun to compute and so on. This guy ROPE on our label GEIST is going to release a new record in the first months of 2000 - it's called >>IT'S NO FUN TO COMPUTE<< It's a very cool record, man. very cool - I heard it already.
Come on , let's go and eat. " And then hours later we go on stage, everybody applauses, nobody dances, Hanin vomits all over Trent's monitors, and I'm attacking the fucking Kraftwerkgoths, I mean it's like everybody in the audience is looking like robots suddenly - we got ourselves so much into this Anti-Dusseldorf thing. It's like this high-society city you know.
I mean , not these kids at the show but who knows - goths are weekend poseurs - but I can totally like them. The way the look can really provoke people - and that's art at the end of this century! The show is a pure punkrock show.
I'm lying on the floor between the barrier and stage half of the time. And then we decide to walk off stage through the crowd. My t-shirt looks like an original Elvis shirt and I'm full of dirt and blood and Hanin has vomit all over her dress and Nic is looking fucking evil and the Crack is on another planet.
When I went to the bus later I was walking past these kids and they didn't see me and I heard the one saying: "That wasn't the loudest show I've been to. " and the other kid says:"But to be fair, it's really hard after these Atari Teenage Riots" I thought I should say to these kids that "loudness is not everything, kids" but I saw our tourmanager waving at me because everybody wanted to get the fuck out.
Ok - this is different. we played in Woolongong or so in Australia - I've forgotten how you spell it and we played in Iceland and in South-America and so on but we never played here! It was always impossible.
This radio guy asks me in that interview:" So please tell us, Alec, if this system is as bad as you say why doesn't anybody else in the world think like you. " And I'm laughing into the microphone. "Anybody else. ... I mean who is anybody else. MTV, the readers of The Sun and germanic Euro-techno fans. ...
Sorry, but these views are not very new and not very old. But that's the problem: You think everybody is the same and has this no-opinion you journalists put on every youth movement or music scene since the boring lame 80ties. I'm bored - You know - look at the fucking sixties! For example in Germany it was not like everybody was wearing flower-power shirts and was demonstrating against the Vietnam war - more than half of the country was twenty years before in Hitler's NSDAP and most of these sons and daughters were not listening to Jimi Hendrix or Otis Redding - the most "radical" kids were into Iwanttoholdyourhandsbeatlesshit.
" - no offense, my British friends - you got what you deserved but come on. Anyway still laughing about these German journalist douch-bags we hang out at the NIN soundcheck - we talk to the keyboard player and I'm like:" We should call Kraftwerk up and tell them to come down here. hahaha but they would be too cool - the self-announced "godfathers of techno"! hahaha.
They would be like: Nein,nein - Sat iz not kool! It iz too rockistish. prrrrppr. I mean did anybody hear that shit they did for this Expo-shit. I mean it is shit - yeah they got some money but who fucking cares about that.
... Does it make it clever and good. NOOOO.
Hahaha - We should announce in the press that Kraftwerk is coming down here to play with us together - and everybody would be like :wow theze guyz muzt be really kool!!!! And we ring up these friends of mine in Minneapolis who do sculptures and we would put these perfect copies of the fucking lame robots on stage.
Hahaha and everybody would be like: theze guyz are zooo really kool!!!! Zey play wiz Kraftwerk!!! Man!!! And the real Kraftwerk guys would be pissed as hell!!! And there would be nothing they could do about it or they have to fucking destroy their elitist image and call the media up to tell the truth - and the truth would make them look so stupid.
Hahaha Have you read the book of the fourth guy who was like the slave in Kraftwerk. Who built the fucking drummachine and the other two guys got the copyright on it.
... I mean everything they said was wrong: Autobahn, Radioactivity, Model, It's more fun to compute and so on. This guy ROPE on our label GEIST is going to release a new record in the first months of 2000 - it's called >>IT'S NO FUN TO COMPUTE<< It's a very cool record, man. very cool - I heard it already.
Come on , let's go and eat. " And then hours later we go on stage, everybody applauses, nobody dances, Hanin vomits all over Trent's monitors, and I'm attacking the fucking Kraftwerkgoths, I mean it's like everybody in the audience is looking like robots suddenly - we got ourselves so much into this Anti-Dusseldorf thing. It's like this high-society city you know.
I mean , not these kids at the show but who knows - goths are weekend poseurs - but I can totally like them. The way the look can really provoke people - and that's art at the end of this century! The show is a pure punkrock show.
I'm lying on the floor between the barrier and stage half of the time. And then we decide to walk off stage through the crowd. My t-shirt looks like an original Elvis shirt and I'm full of dirt and blood and Hanin has vomit all over her dress and Nic is looking fucking evil and the Crack is on another planet.
When I went to the bus later I was walking past these kids and they didn't see me and I heard the one saying: "That wasn't the loudest show I've been to. " and the other kid says:"But to be fair, it's really hard after these Atari Teenage Riots" I thought I should say to these kids that "loudness is not everything, kids" but I saw our tourmanager waving at me because everybody wanted to get the fuck out.
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