Jill Tracy & Nina Hagen at the DNA Louge, with an account of a late-night encounter with the Marin police

Yay!!! I have started this blog!!! I have never had a blog before, so this is very exciting. Here is an account of the Nina Hagen show I went to Wednesday night with my awesome friend Ted.

Listen to the show Here.
Nina Hagen's Site
Jill Tracy's Site

The entire night is archived here including the great DJ mix by Miz Margo, of the fabulous long colorful dreads, before and between sets. Patience will be rewarded with awesome sounds! I recommend starting at 9:00. At about 9:22 you can hear someone's version of the awesome Pere Ubu song Final Solution, the ultimate in Teen Angst. Jill Tracy starts at 9:34. You will also notice the person our group dubbed 'the screamer' screaming away through the entire production like a crazed banshee. Enjoy!

Jill Tracy, dark cabaret chanteuse extraordinaire, was the opening act. Christopher and Brent, two guys I had met a few weeks before at the Edwardian Ball, were there just to see her. Never having sees Nina Hagen before they had no idea what a great treat was in store! Elegant in her black sequined cloche, her white skin glowed lividly under the pale spotlight. She was drinking a huge bottle of throat coat tea, pretending it was a bottle of bourbon, throughout her set, but her voice was wonderfully chilling as usual. That new song Haunted is great, and I can't wait to have it on a CD. She has begun to do more imrovisation on the piano, wonderful flights of dark fancy, at times reminding me of that great old band Traffic(if they were trapped in purgatory). She had her drummer, Randy "The Executioner" Odell and that guy who plays chapman stick have a wonderful rapport and really play well together building the brooding intensity of the songs. Jill joked about the Chronicle calling the chapman stick a 'zither stick'. Anyway, those guys sure can build a mood!

Her setlist:

• You Leave me Cold
• The Fine Art of Poisoning
• Haunted By the Thought of You
  
• A New Song About Drowning
• Room 19
• Pulling Your Insides Out
• Hour By Hour
• The Proof
  

Nina Hagen is a true living goddess!! My ears are still ringing with her imperative!!! She is gorgeous and sexy with a great huge voice & presence, her long black hair up in a cascading top-knot and deep red glittering lips, clad in clingy mis-matched spandex with a clingy black tunic that she kept hiking up around her tits in a most goofy fetching way! As she stalked out on stage she stated her mission, to bring us a message of UNIVERSAL IMPORTANCE!!!! A message of Peace & Love! A celebration of the rare concurrence of Chinese & Tibetan New Year, the beginning of the year of the Rooster!! (imagine seriously rolled Rrrrrrr s here!) Blessings to the Dalai Lama!!! She played many songs from throughout her career, beginning with Let Me Entertain You, but in fact it was so much more than entertainment! Her material ranged broadly across styles from big band to hip/hop with rapping, to her stunning rendition of Ave Maria, when many philistines went to the bathroom, to punk, to soul. Other standout songs were Return of the Mother, LSD, King of Hearts, He Shiva Shankara, Zero Zero UFO, an updated Born In Xixax, where Nina exhorted us to join in a reunion of peace & love, Berlin(I looove this song), the Al Green song Take Me To the River. In between songs, she blasted our chakras with her message of (I paraphrase) Stop Worrying and Get Busy! Also, she pantomimed looking at herself in the mirror in the morning, mugging at herself in a leery sort of way, then reminded us that when loving ourselves we had to start it. In other words waiting for the mirror image to start the loving just doesn't work. Occasionally throughout the night she would strap on a guitar, and at one point, as her keyboard player held the rumpled lyric sheet up she haltingly sang Horse With No Name. Too cute!!! We also learned that Nina is working on a pilot for an American TV show, and then she did TV Glotzer, from her very first Nina Hagen Band album released way back in the dawn of history in 1978, as her final encore! AAaaaaah!!!!

Nina Hagen Setlist

• German Song (in English)
  
• Let Me Entertain You
• The Return of the Mother
• Zero Zero UFO
• Fever
• I'm Going to Live Life I Sing About In My Song
• New York, New York
• Horse With No Name
• He Shiva Shankara
• King of Hearts
• Mary (the song by Nirvana)
• Giant Step
• {She's So Stupid}???
• Ska Thing
• Born in Xixax
• Squeeze Me (Janice Martin cover)
• LSD
• Berlin
• Bang Bang (Janice Martin cover)
• Pollution Pirates
• Ave Maria
• Young People
• United Women of the World
• Runaway
• {How Could I be so lucky?}???
  
• TV Glotzer

If anyone know's what the songs are that I don't know, please share your knowledge! Thanks!

On the way back the Marin police let me help train one of their new officers, a rather grim-faced young woman, to administer their myriad tests for drivers they suspect might be drunk. Now, at stores frequently one is alerted to the fact that someone is being trained, but with cops it's a different story. I went along with the game, albeit a bit crankily. The game began when I noticed a car that followed behind me at what I considered an unsafe distance and of course I slowed down and moved into the next lane. Then they pulled me over. I could not hear the instructions the were calling out to me with their bullhorn because I was suffering from extreme hearing impairment!! Eventually I figured out that they were asking me to pull into the Laz-e-boy parking lot. They told me that I had been driving too slow and weaving! They asked me to get out of the car. Then by the time they got through asking me a million questions and having me touch my nose with eyes open & closed etc. etc. they wanted me to do the walking in a line trick. I just told them there was no way I could possibly do it. I was exhausted and not used to the exercise I had just had dancing around for a few hours after crawling around under my house for two days drilling holes(longer story), and I was shivering with cold in my flimsy outfit, so they had me do another test or two instead, then I got to blow through a tube. I passed all their tests. Ted was just sitting in the car with all his goodies stuffed under the seat! I guess we didn't get home til about four in the morning!

The whole next day I was in an ear-ringing stupor, but still managed to drag myself to work. Whee!! Dimitry at work reminded me that we had recently been discussing getting pulled over by the police and I was bragging about hardly ever being pulled over. Ironic, isn't it!

Tonight my husband Mark & I go to visit our friends Pat, Jeff & their daughter Freya. Freya is Marks Goddess-Daughter, so I guess she is my Goddess-Daughter in-law or something. Hmmm... Anyway, she seems to like me very much! Freya's mom Pat recently had her brakes fail on a big hill and rolled her car into a vineyard, causing catastrophic injuries to her lower body. She will be recuperating for many months now, but will walk again. I am so glad we got to keep our Pat! Please send her prayers & healing energy! She is already doing much better! I'm sure it helps to get away from the hospital!

Love and Many Blessings,
~Nemea