The Base – 15 for the Jukebox 1996–2008

monkey
Vienna 2008

Last night I saw The Base again, this time in a completely different environment, the „Hör- & See- Bühne“ of the Austrian Broadcaster, ORF, nicely playing a couple of tunes between readings of poetry and prose. It was interesting to watch the elderly audience, mostly folks who had been coming to listen to a well known poet, yet found themselves in a rock concert, well, almost. I thought they liked it though, as the queue at the CD stand was longer than the one at the bookseller. Most of the performed songs (like the hit „Not My Dog“) can be found on a somewhat „Best Of The Base“ album: „15 for the Jukebox 1996–2008“.

Their record company monkey says: The Base, das ist gefährlicher Stoff für labile Geister. Zerbrechliche Lyrics, zerschrammter Blues, zerschließener Rock’n’Roll, der auf jene Ganglien-Zone abzielt, die seltsam zu pochen beginnt, wenn man an das Vergangene zurückdenkt und feststellen muss, dass man eventuell einst glücklicher war. Punktum. So music has one dimension more than poetry. Listen for yourself, if you’re one of those „aufgeschlossene Musik-Connoisseurs“ (Bastian Kellhofer). Perhaps you want to hear all your favourite poems sung to you by Norbert Wally.

The Base live im ORF Landesstudio Steiermark, Graz 2013