November 21, 2023 • 29 mins
On episode 6 of Cities Reimagined, Gerfried Ambrosch and I talked about the importance of wildlife habitats in urban areas. Besides being very active in reimagining places for amphibians, Gerfried plays and played in a ridicelous amount of punk/hardcore bands since the 1990s and he has some stories to tell. Tune into this bonus episode to find out…
🎸 … how DIY punk rock ethics shapes Gerfried’s ambitions and motivations today
🇧🇾 … about sneaking into Belarus in 2005 to play a show just to find yourself in the midst of local right-wing vs. left-wing wars
🏫 … the role of unlearning for societal change
🐸 … why the sounds of frogs and toads are the soundtrack to change the world to
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hi, welcome back to the Cities Reimagined podcast, to this bonus episode, to the talk
(00:18):
ad with Gefford Ambush on reimagining urban wildlife habitats.
That's right, I also never thought that I would have a DB punk rock metal sludge intro
to the show, but here it is.
This was by the band Plague Mask, Gefford played guitar in this, and was released in
(00:43):
2008 on noise appeal records from Vienna, Austria.
Shout outs to Michael and Dominik from the label at this point.
And I hope you listened and liked the Cities Reimagined episode with Gefford, and I thought
(01:06):
while having him on the show and having a conversation which we record, I better ask
him on some off topic questions on his background in do it yourself punk rock and hardcore,
because this guy has some crazy stories to tell.
(01:30):
At that time, the Plague Mask was also a very active band, that was a band from Graz, and
they were very active and touring a lot.
At that time, somehow Graz was really on the map within Europe, because there were so many
interesting bands touring Europe and beyond.
(01:51):
That time was from 2000 to 2010.
And the Plague Mask also did some tours in places where at that time you would probably
not go as a punk rock band.
I would encourage you to listen in to hear about Gefford's stories about touring Belarus
and some other places.
(02:14):
Alright so here it is, the bonus episode to the talk I had with Gefford on Urban Ephibians.
No quarks here.
(02:34):
We know each other for a long time.
It goes back to our musical roots in punk and hardcore, and you feel very active in
the scene and you played in so many bands from the 2000s, early 2000s on.
Some are based in London and some in the late 90s even.
Late 90s even.
Some were based in London and I actually looked on your discogs or in discogs to see what
(02:58):
bands you were involved in and I didn't even know in how many bands you were involved in.
And most of them are having a...
And it's not a complete list.
It's not a complete list and you should edit it on discogs.
I have nothing to do with it.
I'm not on discogs really.
It's just like...
Someone else allocates a name to that.
(03:20):
Yeah but coming out of this scene of the 90s and 2000s, that was a very political scene
as well and political time in this alternative culture, alternative subculture.
How did this time of being engaged in a scene which kind of constantly challenged the status
(03:42):
quo of anything and experimented with partly radical ideas, for example, veganism, you're
a vegan yourself in 2000, it was a very radical statement.
Nowadays it's maybe not that radical anymore and people do it for other reasons, lifestyle
reasons.
How did that shape you today?
(04:03):
I think that's one of the first things I said in this discussion was that my attitude of
just going out and doing things, that's just a DIY punk spirit.
It's basically the same idea.
You live in a small town.
(04:24):
I grew up in Graz.
You want more bands to come through because you want to see them.
You start putting on shows.
You start promoting shows and then there's going to be more bands coming through your
town.
So I think that really was the genesis of my approach really.
(04:51):
Also if you're involved with that and you play in bands, you get around a lot.
You meet a lot of people.
You see things, you travel to places where you wouldn't ordinarily go for vacation.
(05:13):
Also you're immediately welcomed into a local community there, which are always really appreciated
and people will show you around and they're a small town for instance.
That's very much like the one you grew up in, but it's in Serbia.
(05:36):
So it's been quite an interesting experience over the past two and a half decades.
I can totally relate to that.
I didn't tour at all or just a little here and there, but I can totally relate to what
(05:57):
you said about how you get engaged and how you start things.
So when I was 16 or 15 or so, I started setting up shows in my hometown in Klagenfurt because
it was super boring there.
That's also why you and your band Plankmasters at the time, I guess, came around that town
a couple of times.
(06:17):
You mentioned it earlier that you also toured a lot of places where you would not go on
holidays.
No.
I remember that you told me some really interesting and fascinating, also scary stories from these
places.
(06:38):
Is there a story you would like to share?
A touring story?
Well, obviously there's so many, but because it's been on the news lately, like Belarus,
that would be an example of a country that 20 years ago, it was 20, pretty much, yeah,
(07:02):
20 years ago, 2004, 19 years ago, that we went there.
We went to Minsk and I forgot the name of the other town.
We had like three shows lined up, but we had to, the government made us cancel one of them.
Because we were only allowed like a transit visa.
That was with Plankmasters, right?
(07:24):
With Plankmasters in 2004.
It was very difficult.
They were trying to get into the country.
It was very difficult because we pulled up at the embassy in Vilnius, Lithuania to get
like our visas, right?
They only spoke Russian, of course, but we had a person with us that spoke Russian, so
(07:47):
that was okay, but they were like, the only, you cannot get a visa for, you cannot just
drive into Belarus, right?
The only visa you can get at a reasonable price, it was still like 100 euros per person,
(08:07):
which was a lot of money for a punk band, but also like for, I mean, there was nothing
official about it.
It was just like a lot of bribery and things like that.
And it was just really just sketchy.
What happened was that they said they can give us like a transit visa for that, so we
(08:29):
can spend like two days in the country, but we have to then get out of the country again.
And then we're like, and the only way you can prove this to us if you get train tickets,
right?
So we went to the train station, got train tickets to Minsk and back to Vilnius.
(08:53):
So we showed up with those train tickets the next day.
They said those are not good because it's only transit if you go to a third country,
right?
They're like, okay, well, right, let's go back, trade those, get train tickets from
Vilnius to Minsk and then to the Ukraine, to Ukraine, right?
(09:17):
Which we did, but obviously we had no intention of going to Ukraine because we didn't have
any shows lined up there.
We had to go back.
Our van was back in Vilnius, right?
We had to go back there.
So what happened was that we then got those train tickets, showed them, they gave us the
(09:40):
transit visas.
Then we went back to the train station, returned the train tickets and got like coach tickets,
bus tickets instead for a bus that would go, that went from like Vilnius to Minsk and back,
right?
Or no, no, just from Vilnius to Minsk actually.
And then after the shows, it would get a bus, another bus that would get us to Poland.
(10:08):
And then we'd have someone in Vilnius drive our van from Lithuania to Poland, pick us
up like literally on the side of the road.
And all of that worked out, which is great.
It was just, again, sketchy as fuck, but you know, which was just the borders and everything
was just like bribery and you know, things like that.
But and of course the shows were interesting because at the time all the shows that they
(10:33):
put on, like the local punk scene in Minsk had to be secret shows because they had such
huge like neo-Nazi problem there.
They couldn't, they couldn't announce shows, they couldn't promote shows because if like
Nazis found out like where the shows were, they would show up and beat everyone up and
just basically destroy the show, right?
(10:56):
So it had to be, it was secret and the venue was only announced or disclosed like on the
same day, like just mere hours before the concert.
And that show was sort of like a little outside of town, like in a small village at what I
(11:16):
guess was sort of like an old communist campsite kind of thing.
Like they had like little huts, like in the main reception building, which was completely
abandoned, right?
And the concert was like in the reception building, right?
Ahead of the show, people would patrol the area like in their cars to see if any Nazis
(11:40):
were showing up, right?
So a local train station and then suddenly everybody seemed alarmed and somebody had
like, it seemed like apparently like two like Nazi looking guys at the local train station,
right?
And then what happened was that everybody started collecting rocks, cutting off branches
of trees and, you know, making them like pointy with their knives.
(12:06):
Everybody had a knife, of course.
And they were just in complete like medieval defend the castle mode, right?
All of a sudden.
And we were there and we're like, what is, what is happening here?
This is insane.
This is just crazy.
And I was like, okay.
So they were all sort of really, really alarmed.
(12:28):
Nothing in the end, like nothing happened.
Nobody showed up.
Even though like the previous night, like, or like a couple of weeks before, like they
had a show there or tried to have a show there, but somebody called in a bomb threat and so
the police shut it down.
So, but that didn't happen.
The show went ahead.
Because we were traveling by bus, we couldn't bring any of our own equipment.
So we had, we played with what was there that weren't even like microphone stands or anything,
(12:53):
which we needed.
So I remember distinctly this, I think it was, it was Chris or Schnee.
Remember Schnee?
We had to like fashion like a microphone stand out of like a chair and the baseball bat.
Just with a scotch tape, not even like gaffer tape, just scotch tape and like put the microphone
(13:17):
on top.
So it's like a microphone stand.
And so the show went ahead.
It was just, it was Mayhem.
It was just, you know, it was like hundreds of people there and it was just a crazy, I
don't know.
It was just, it probably sounded like shit.
It was just chaos.
It was really crazy.
And around like the next day we then went to the local train station.
(13:40):
So it was like, like it's like a two mile walk or something like that.
And got on a train back to Minsk because that's where we were going to catch a taxi to the
next gig.
And the train ride was just incredible because like for some reason it was the most depressing
thing ever.
It was just train was pretty packed, but nobody on the train spoke.
(14:01):
Like there was no, there were no conversations going on or whatever.
And everybody and like that was before people had, and especially there, like before people
had like, you know, smartphones or whatever, but still like their heads, like everybody
was just looking down.
It's really weird.
We got on there.
It was like looking down and then this violinist comes in, right?
(14:26):
Doors open.
This violinist plays the saddest tune you've ever heard, like on a violin.
Goes around with a hat, you know, nobody even looks up.
Nobody's frozen a coin or whatever.
He leaves.
And it was just, okay, this is, this is now like just the most bizarre, surreal situation
(14:47):
I've ever been in.
Like forget the Nazis, forget all that.
What was that?
You know, where are we?
And, and, and that was like for the, for the, the whole country, it seemed, I mean, of course
like people were, you know, like at the gig and everyone was like excited and things like
that, but the whole country just seemed like under, under like, like, like a fog, you know,
of, of, of, of oppression really.
(15:10):
Like everybody was like, there were like a lot of drunk people, like just lying on the
side of the road, but in their Soviet uniforms from, from back in the day, there were still
like statues up of like, you know, Hammer and Sickle and Lenin and stuff like that.
Like someone's probably still there.
But that's like you, when you were there, that's like, I don't know.
When did you say 2015, that's not too long after the change.
(15:33):
That was 2004.
2004.
That was 2004.
It was almost 20 years ago.
And yeah, it was, it was already like that, that the same like that, that Lukashenko guy,
you know, who's still the dictator there.
That is such a crazy experience.
(15:54):
One follow-up question to that.
Did you tell your parents about this story?
I don't think I have, even though like my mom would be very interested in hearing about
it.
I don't think I ever mentioned it to them.
Yeah.
I think they would be scared and not send you out again.
Well, at the time, like had they known, like what were we getting into?
(16:15):
I can't imagine.
Because it was very much like, okay, this is like, okay, this is supposed to be a dangerous
place.
Yeah.
But they, they offered us a show.
Yeah, sure.
So we did a lot of that and there were situations like that, you know, like Nazi attacks or
sometimes the venue you pull up and you discover is like, that was the epicenter of like the
(16:35):
local drug scene, you know, stuff like that just, just very often happened.
Crazy stuff.
Crazy stuff.
So when I was preparing for the interview, I also said, saw that you played in a band
called Carnist and what I found interesting is how you, how Carnist described themselves.
Carnist, and I read out now, Carnist are a DIY punk band from London, England.
(17:00):
Unlearn is our first album.
It deals with the concept of unlearning societal norms and cultural traits, which are contrary
to our nature.
Be it that our attitude towards non-human animals and indeed humans who fall, who do
not fall in line with ideas of what it is to be human.
And I found these lines so interesting for many reasons.
(17:22):
The main one, because it describes a transitionary process, which we often see also in city making
how important it is to unlearn and to challenge the status quo and conventional paradigms
to, and the importance to experiment with alternative futures or with alternatives.
And I find it quite encouraging seeing that idea such as unlearning have become part of
(17:47):
the debate on how to, or at least in academic circles, how to improve in that case urban
areas.
But you do not have a background in urbanism or any related discipline, but are you, you're
neck deep into cultural studies, right?
I would be very interested in hearing more on your thoughts on the word of, or on the
(18:12):
concept of unlearning.
Right.
I think we were, I mean, this again, this is, this is now probably like 10 years ago
that, that we wrote that, that album, I think probably came out in 2014, 15, something like
that.
Eight years ago, nine years ago.
(18:33):
The concept for us there related mostly to diet, of course.
So that was because the main, we're like an outspoken vegan band and that was sort of
like the main focus there.
But of course it can be applied to many other contexts as well because, you know, some of
(18:57):
the things, I mean, it goes without saying, we're cultural beings.
Some of the things that we just take for granted and just accept as normal.
If you take a step back and sort of like try to like unlearn your cultural programming,
you'll see that, you know, that's kind of, you know, it's kind of weird that we do that.
(19:17):
It's kind of weird that we, for instance, destroy our own basis of existence, you know,
which is nature and things like that.
So I think that that's an important concept and, you know, you kind of like have to unlearn,
you know, ideology especially because that's something you don't realize you are immersed
(19:42):
in.
Like, you know, like a fish doesn't realize it's in water, right?
So it's kind of like a similar idea.
But a lot of things are just very ideological.
I think, for instance, one of the recent unlearning processes, and we can have a separate discussion
(20:03):
about that, but it was just, for instance, that I was very much opposed to nuclear power,
right?
Almost for my life because I kind of like, you know, like in the 90s, we all had the
stickers, you know, Tom Kuff, my thank you stickers, you know, those kind of things.
And only when you start when you sort of start looking at the facts and start seeing sort
(20:29):
of like, especially in light of like current, the current climate crisis and things like
that, and you start to sort of, you know, let's stop the fear mongering.
Let's just look at the facts, like how safe is it actually, how efficient is it actually,
and things like that.
I think that that would be like an unlearning process where, you know, the things I took
(20:51):
for granted without ever like questioning them.
When you kind of like start questioning them, you kind of, you know, I mean, you can still
be wrong or right about things, of course, but you kind of, you know, you're wrong or
right for like better reasons.
That's what I'm trying to say.
That's part of the unlearning of the, you know, whatever ideology you're kind of like,
(21:14):
you find yourself in.
And that can be, you know, that can be like, you know, a Christian upbringing that can
be like a very, a very sort of, you know, like personal political ideology that you
carry around with you, but don't realize that it's just one of many ideas out there.
(21:36):
Right.
Yeah.
And that's part of the process.
Yeah, I agree to that.
Not so much to nuclear energy, but we can have a separate discussion on that, but to
unlearning your, how you describe unlearning the programming, your own programming between
ideologies and belief systems, maybe, and so on.
Exactly.
(21:57):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Coming to an end, one question I'm asking everybody with the background in alternative
music on the podcast, what are three songs to change the world to you?
Which three songs would you name and I would be disappointed if there is no Morrissey song
in there because I know that you're a huge fan.
(22:22):
What if they're all Morrissey songs?
Is that acceptable?
That is acceptable.
Is that acceptable?
Yeah.
No, actually I thought about this and it's quite interesting.
So, okay.
I'm actually, I'm not going to name three songs because I thought about it, you know,
(22:44):
because I knew you were going to bring something like that up.
I don't know how I knew that, but I did.
And I was like, no, there's really, I mean, it's just different stages in your life that's
going to be different songs.
So like my sort of, you know, way out kind of like answer of that would be, of course,
it's the sounds of frogs croaking, you know?
(23:05):
Very good one.
Like that would be, okay, if I hear that, that's like motivation.
That's why I go out and do things that I do.
It's why I, it's what I want to hear.
It's what I bring back.
And when I hear it, it's kind of like, it's really motivating.
It's like, okay, this is not happening.
But of course, you know, there's always been songs and bands like that.
(23:29):
And actually, and I think this ties it up nicely.
The other day for the first time in probably 15 years at the gym, I discovered that the
old Plague Mass albums are on Apple's music, which I didn't know.
I didn't know they were on there.
(23:51):
And I listened to our first album.
And of course, that takes you right back to like when it was created, how it was created,
the things you thought, you thought at the time, right?
Because you know, there were like, largely my lyrics.
It's funny because I, when I prepared for the interview, I went through your band and
also listened to the Plague Mass albums again on Apple music.
(24:14):
It took me right back to when I was like, I don't know how old I was 18, 19 when it
came out.
Right.
And, and I was only slightly older, like, I think we're like three years apart, something
like that.
Yeah, something like that.
And
at this point, unfortunately, Gavreets battery of his phone ran out, so he couldn't give
(24:41):
us the third song.
But I asked him afterwards.
And not so surprisingly, of course, it was a Morrissey song.
I think it was any Morrissey song, because this guy is one of the biggest Morrissey fans
you ever met.
To play you out of this episode, I actually follow one of the song suggestions by Gavreet.
(25:02):
And that is the sound of frogs and toads.
So here in the background, you hear frogs and toads in the field in Gran Sabana in Venezuela.
I hope you liked that.
And I hope you liked this show.
If you did, leave a comment, rate the show, get in touch.
And I really hope you like cities reimagined and you like this bonus episode, which is
(25:29):
also a bit of an experiment on how how people react to it and how people perceive it.
So let me know in the comments or send me an email at Johannes at Anthropocene dot city.
But here it is the frogs and toads in Venezuela.
I hope to catch you soon.
Bye.
Hi, welcome back to the Cities Reimagined podcast, to this bonus episode, to the talk
(00:18):
ad with Gefford Ambush on reimagining urban wildlife habitats.
That's right, I also never thought that I would have a DB punk rock metal sludge intro
to the show, but here it is.
This was by the band Plague Mask, Gefford played guitar in this, and was released in
(00:43):
2008 on noise appeal records from Vienna, Austria.
Shout outs to Michael and Dominik from the label at this point.
And I hope you listened and liked the Cities Reimagined episode with Gefford, and I thought
(01:06):
while having him on the show and having a conversation which we record, I better ask
him on some off topic questions on his background in do it yourself punk rock and hardcore,
because this guy has some crazy stories to tell.
(01:30):
At that time, the Plague Mask was also a very active band, that was a band from Graz, and
they were very active and touring a lot.
At that time, somehow Graz was really on the map within Europe, because there were so many
interesting bands touring Europe and beyond.
(01:51):
That time was from 2000 to 2010.
And the Plague Mask also did some tours in places where at that time you would probably
not go as a punk rock band.
I would encourage you to listen in to hear about Gefford's stories about touring Belarus
and some other places.
(02:14):
Alright so here it is, the bonus episode to the talk I had with Gefford on Urban Ephibians.
No quarks here.
(02:34):
We know each other for a long time.
It goes back to our musical roots in punk and hardcore, and you feel very active in
the scene and you played in so many bands from the 2000s, early 2000s on.
Some are based in London and some in the late 90s even.
Late 90s even.
Some were based in London and I actually looked on your discogs or in discogs to see what
(02:58):
bands you were involved in and I didn't even know in how many bands you were involved in.
And most of them are having a...
And it's not a complete list.
It's not a complete list and you should edit it on discogs.
I have nothing to do with it.
I'm not on discogs really.
It's just like...
Someone else allocates a name to that.
(03:20):
Yeah but coming out of this scene of the 90s and 2000s, that was a very political scene
as well and political time in this alternative culture, alternative subculture.
How did this time of being engaged in a scene which kind of constantly challenged the status
(03:42):
quo of anything and experimented with partly radical ideas, for example, veganism, you're
a vegan yourself in 2000, it was a very radical statement.
Nowadays it's maybe not that radical anymore and people do it for other reasons, lifestyle
reasons.
How did that shape you today?
(04:03):
I think that's one of the first things I said in this discussion was that my attitude of
just going out and doing things, that's just a DIY punk spirit.
It's basically the same idea.
You live in a small town.
(04:24):
I grew up in Graz.
You want more bands to come through because you want to see them.
You start putting on shows.
You start promoting shows and then there's going to be more bands coming through your
town.
So I think that really was the genesis of my approach really.
(04:51):
Also if you're involved with that and you play in bands, you get around a lot.
You meet a lot of people.
You see things, you travel to places where you wouldn't ordinarily go for vacation.
(05:13):
Also you're immediately welcomed into a local community there, which are always really appreciated
and people will show you around and they're a small town for instance.
That's very much like the one you grew up in, but it's in Serbia.
(05:36):
So it's been quite an interesting experience over the past two and a half decades.
I can totally relate to that.
I didn't tour at all or just a little here and there, but I can totally relate to what
(05:57):
you said about how you get engaged and how you start things.
So when I was 16 or 15 or so, I started setting up shows in my hometown in Klagenfurt because
it was super boring there.
That's also why you and your band Plankmasters at the time, I guess, came around that town
a couple of times.
(06:17):
You mentioned it earlier that you also toured a lot of places where you would not go on
holidays.
No.
I remember that you told me some really interesting and fascinating, also scary stories from these
places.
(06:38):
Is there a story you would like to share?
A touring story?
Well, obviously there's so many, but because it's been on the news lately, like Belarus,
that would be an example of a country that 20 years ago, it was 20, pretty much, yeah,
(07:02):
20 years ago, 2004, 19 years ago, that we went there.
We went to Minsk and I forgot the name of the other town.
We had like three shows lined up, but we had to, the government made us cancel one of them.
Because we were only allowed like a transit visa.
That was with Plankmasters, right?
(07:24):
With Plankmasters in 2004.
It was very difficult.
They were trying to get into the country.
It was very difficult because we pulled up at the embassy in Vilnius, Lithuania to get
like our visas, right?
They only spoke Russian, of course, but we had a person with us that spoke Russian, so
(07:47):
that was okay, but they were like, the only, you cannot get a visa for, you cannot just
drive into Belarus, right?
The only visa you can get at a reasonable price, it was still like 100 euros per person,
(08:07):
which was a lot of money for a punk band, but also like for, I mean, there was nothing
official about it.
It was just like a lot of bribery and things like that.
And it was just really just sketchy.
What happened was that they said they can give us like a transit visa for that, so we
(08:29):
can spend like two days in the country, but we have to then get out of the country again.
And then we're like, and the only way you can prove this to us if you get train tickets,
right?
So we went to the train station, got train tickets to Minsk and back to Vilnius.
(08:53):
So we showed up with those train tickets the next day.
They said those are not good because it's only transit if you go to a third country,
right?
They're like, okay, well, right, let's go back, trade those, get train tickets from
Vilnius to Minsk and then to the Ukraine, to Ukraine, right?
(09:17):
Which we did, but obviously we had no intention of going to Ukraine because we didn't have
any shows lined up there.
We had to go back.
Our van was back in Vilnius, right?
We had to go back there.
So what happened was that we then got those train tickets, showed them, they gave us the
(09:40):
transit visas.
Then we went back to the train station, returned the train tickets and got like coach tickets,
bus tickets instead for a bus that would go, that went from like Vilnius to Minsk and back,
right?
Or no, no, just from Vilnius to Minsk actually.
And then after the shows, it would get a bus, another bus that would get us to Poland.
(10:08):
And then we'd have someone in Vilnius drive our van from Lithuania to Poland, pick us
up like literally on the side of the road.
And all of that worked out, which is great.
It was just, again, sketchy as fuck, but you know, which was just the borders and everything
was just like bribery and you know, things like that.
But and of course the shows were interesting because at the time all the shows that they
(10:33):
put on, like the local punk scene in Minsk had to be secret shows because they had such
huge like neo-Nazi problem there.
They couldn't, they couldn't announce shows, they couldn't promote shows because if like
Nazis found out like where the shows were, they would show up and beat everyone up and
just basically destroy the show, right?
(10:56):
So it had to be, it was secret and the venue was only announced or disclosed like on the
same day, like just mere hours before the concert.
And that show was sort of like a little outside of town, like in a small village at what I
(11:16):
guess was sort of like an old communist campsite kind of thing.
Like they had like little huts, like in the main reception building, which was completely
abandoned, right?
And the concert was like in the reception building, right?
Ahead of the show, people would patrol the area like in their cars to see if any Nazis
(11:40):
were showing up, right?
So a local train station and then suddenly everybody seemed alarmed and somebody had
like, it seemed like apparently like two like Nazi looking guys at the local train station,
right?
And then what happened was that everybody started collecting rocks, cutting off branches
of trees and, you know, making them like pointy with their knives.
(12:06):
Everybody had a knife, of course.
And they were just in complete like medieval defend the castle mode, right?
All of a sudden.
And we were there and we're like, what is, what is happening here?
This is insane.
This is just crazy.
And I was like, okay.
So they were all sort of really, really alarmed.
(12:28):
Nothing in the end, like nothing happened.
Nobody showed up.
Even though like the previous night, like, or like a couple of weeks before, like they
had a show there or tried to have a show there, but somebody called in a bomb threat and so
the police shut it down.
So, but that didn't happen.
The show went ahead.
Because we were traveling by bus, we couldn't bring any of our own equipment.
So we had, we played with what was there that weren't even like microphone stands or anything,
(12:53):
which we needed.
So I remember distinctly this, I think it was, it was Chris or Schnee.
Remember Schnee?
We had to like fashion like a microphone stand out of like a chair and the baseball bat.
Just with a scotch tape, not even like gaffer tape, just scotch tape and like put the microphone
(13:17):
on top.
So it's like a microphone stand.
And so the show went ahead.
It was just, it was Mayhem.
It was just, you know, it was like hundreds of people there and it was just a crazy, I
don't know.
It was just, it probably sounded like shit.
It was just chaos.
It was really crazy.
And around like the next day we then went to the local train station.
(13:40):
So it was like, like it's like a two mile walk or something like that.
And got on a train back to Minsk because that's where we were going to catch a taxi to the
next gig.
And the train ride was just incredible because like for some reason it was the most depressing
thing ever.
It was just train was pretty packed, but nobody on the train spoke.
(14:01):
Like there was no, there were no conversations going on or whatever.
And everybody and like that was before people had, and especially there, like before people
had like, you know, smartphones or whatever, but still like their heads, like everybody
was just looking down.
It's really weird.
We got on there.
It was like looking down and then this violinist comes in, right?
(14:26):
Doors open.
This violinist plays the saddest tune you've ever heard, like on a violin.
Goes around with a hat, you know, nobody even looks up.
Nobody's frozen a coin or whatever.
He leaves.
And it was just, okay, this is, this is now like just the most bizarre, surreal situation
(14:47):
I've ever been in.
Like forget the Nazis, forget all that.
What was that?
You know, where are we?
And, and, and that was like for the, for the, the whole country, it seemed, I mean, of course
like people were, you know, like at the gig and everyone was like excited and things like
that, but the whole country just seemed like under, under like, like, like a fog, you know,
of, of, of, of oppression really.
(15:10):
Like everybody was like, there were like a lot of drunk people, like just lying on the
side of the road, but in their Soviet uniforms from, from back in the day, there were still
like statues up of like, you know, Hammer and Sickle and Lenin and stuff like that.
Like someone's probably still there.
But that's like you, when you were there, that's like, I don't know.
When did you say 2015, that's not too long after the change.
(15:33):
That was 2004.
2004.
That was 2004.
It was almost 20 years ago.
And yeah, it was, it was already like that, that the same like that, that Lukashenko guy,
you know, who's still the dictator there.
That is such a crazy experience.
(15:54):
One follow-up question to that.
Did you tell your parents about this story?
I don't think I have, even though like my mom would be very interested in hearing about
it.
I don't think I ever mentioned it to them.
Yeah.
I think they would be scared and not send you out again.
Well, at the time, like had they known, like what were we getting into?
(16:15):
I can't imagine.
Because it was very much like, okay, this is like, okay, this is supposed to be a dangerous
place.
Yeah.
But they, they offered us a show.
Yeah, sure.
So we did a lot of that and there were situations like that, you know, like Nazi attacks or
sometimes the venue you pull up and you discover is like, that was the epicenter of like the
(16:35):
local drug scene, you know, stuff like that just, just very often happened.
Crazy stuff.
Crazy stuff.
So when I was preparing for the interview, I also said, saw that you played in a band
called Carnist and what I found interesting is how you, how Carnist described themselves.
Carnist, and I read out now, Carnist are a DIY punk band from London, England.
(17:00):
Unlearn is our first album.
It deals with the concept of unlearning societal norms and cultural traits, which are contrary
to our nature.
Be it that our attitude towards non-human animals and indeed humans who fall, who do
not fall in line with ideas of what it is to be human.
And I found these lines so interesting for many reasons.
(17:22):
The main one, because it describes a transitionary process, which we often see also in city making
how important it is to unlearn and to challenge the status quo and conventional paradigms
to, and the importance to experiment with alternative futures or with alternatives.
And I find it quite encouraging seeing that idea such as unlearning have become part of
(17:47):
the debate on how to, or at least in academic circles, how to improve in that case urban
areas.
But you do not have a background in urbanism or any related discipline, but are you, you're
neck deep into cultural studies, right?
I would be very interested in hearing more on your thoughts on the word of, or on the
(18:12):
concept of unlearning.
Right.
I think we were, I mean, this again, this is, this is now probably like 10 years ago
that, that we wrote that, that album, I think probably came out in 2014, 15, something like
that.
Eight years ago, nine years ago.
(18:33):
The concept for us there related mostly to diet, of course.
So that was because the main, we're like an outspoken vegan band and that was sort of
like the main focus there.
But of course it can be applied to many other contexts as well because, you know, some of
(18:57):
the things, I mean, it goes without saying, we're cultural beings.
Some of the things that we just take for granted and just accept as normal.
If you take a step back and sort of like try to like unlearn your cultural programming,
you'll see that, you know, that's kind of, you know, it's kind of weird that we do that.
(19:17):
It's kind of weird that we, for instance, destroy our own basis of existence, you know,
which is nature and things like that.
So I think that that's an important concept and, you know, you kind of like have to unlearn,
you know, ideology especially because that's something you don't realize you are immersed
(19:42):
in.
Like, you know, like a fish doesn't realize it's in water, right?
So it's kind of like a similar idea.
But a lot of things are just very ideological.
I think, for instance, one of the recent unlearning processes, and we can have a separate discussion
(20:03):
about that, but it was just, for instance, that I was very much opposed to nuclear power,
right?
Almost for my life because I kind of like, you know, like in the 90s, we all had the
stickers, you know, Tom Kuff, my thank you stickers, you know, those kind of things.
And only when you start when you sort of start looking at the facts and start seeing sort
(20:29):
of like, especially in light of like current, the current climate crisis and things like
that, and you start to sort of, you know, let's stop the fear mongering.
Let's just look at the facts, like how safe is it actually, how efficient is it actually,
and things like that.
I think that that would be like an unlearning process where, you know, the things I took
(20:51):
for granted without ever like questioning them.
When you kind of like start questioning them, you kind of, you know, I mean, you can still
be wrong or right about things, of course, but you kind of, you know, you're wrong or
right for like better reasons.
That's what I'm trying to say.
That's part of the unlearning of the, you know, whatever ideology you're kind of like,
(21:14):
you find yourself in.
And that can be, you know, that can be like, you know, a Christian upbringing that can
be like a very, a very sort of, you know, like personal political ideology that you
carry around with you, but don't realize that it's just one of many ideas out there.
(21:36):
Right.
Yeah.
And that's part of the process.
Yeah, I agree to that.
Not so much to nuclear energy, but we can have a separate discussion on that, but to
unlearning your, how you describe unlearning the programming, your own programming between
ideologies and belief systems, maybe, and so on.
Exactly.
(21:57):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Coming to an end, one question I'm asking everybody with the background in alternative
music on the podcast, what are three songs to change the world to you?
Which three songs would you name and I would be disappointed if there is no Morrissey song
in there because I know that you're a huge fan.
(22:22):
What if they're all Morrissey songs?
Is that acceptable?
That is acceptable.
Is that acceptable?
Yeah.
No, actually I thought about this and it's quite interesting.
So, okay.
I'm actually, I'm not going to name three songs because I thought about it, you know,
(22:44):
because I knew you were going to bring something like that up.
I don't know how I knew that, but I did.
And I was like, no, there's really, I mean, it's just different stages in your life that's
going to be different songs.
So like my sort of, you know, way out kind of like answer of that would be, of course,
it's the sounds of frogs croaking, you know?
(23:05):
Very good one.
Like that would be, okay, if I hear that, that's like motivation.
That's why I go out and do things that I do.
It's why I, it's what I want to hear.
It's what I bring back.
And when I hear it, it's kind of like, it's really motivating.
It's like, okay, this is not happening.
But of course, you know, there's always been songs and bands like that.
(23:29):
And actually, and I think this ties it up nicely.
The other day for the first time in probably 15 years at the gym, I discovered that the
old Plague Mass albums are on Apple's music, which I didn't know.
I didn't know they were on there.
(23:51):
And I listened to our first album.
And of course, that takes you right back to like when it was created, how it was created,
the things you thought, you thought at the time, right?
Because you know, there were like, largely my lyrics.
It's funny because I, when I prepared for the interview, I went through your band and
also listened to the Plague Mass albums again on Apple music.
(24:14):
It took me right back to when I was like, I don't know how old I was 18, 19 when it
came out.
Right.
And, and I was only slightly older, like, I think we're like three years apart, something
like that.
Yeah, something like that.
And
at this point, unfortunately, Gavreets battery of his phone ran out, so he couldn't give
(24:41):
us the third song.
But I asked him afterwards.
And not so surprisingly, of course, it was a Morrissey song.
I think it was any Morrissey song, because this guy is one of the biggest Morrissey fans
you ever met.
To play you out of this episode, I actually follow one of the song suggestions by Gavreet.
(25:02):
And that is the sound of frogs and toads.
So here in the background, you hear frogs and toads in the field in Gran Sabana in Venezuela.
I hope you liked that.
And I hope you liked this show.
If you did, leave a comment, rate the show, get in touch.
And I really hope you like cities reimagined and you like this bonus episode, which is
(25:29):
also a bit of an experiment on how how people react to it and how people perceive it.
So let me know in the comments or send me an email at Johannes at Anthropocene dot city.
But here it is the frogs and toads in Venezuela.
I hope to catch you soon.
Bye.
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