PFAFF – how to explain de flipstand to a friend

(free download, Narrowminded)

The flipstand is easy; I always had problems with that midriff spin on the horizontal bar. Doing a headstand I always started to move sideways in a sort of headspin motions, very much like those super cool breakdancers did. Breakdancing was big when I was a kid. So was indie pop and band projects that were no holds barred creative and soaked with an unbelievable sense of humour, from Ween to Doo Rag. Very much like Pfaff (named after the legendary brand of sewing machines?) From “try this at home” to “cunt hunter” this record is stuck full with jokes that range from inside and obscure to straight forward and obscene. Just guess what the title “f.u.” stands for or what the song “there are no mountains in the netherlands” is about. Some of these lyrics could bring him into deep trouble in some areas, for instance people sensitive to sexism and fans of Mark E. Smith.

Musically the tracks follow a basic idea, support the lyrics and usually add another dose of weirdness to the mix. The thing most unbelievable is that all of this comes from one person: Bas Jacobs. Though there is some help of friends, especially of a female singer schooled in the hardcore/punk variety of vocalism. Jacobs is the editor of That Dam! Magazine and concert promoter and obviously the owner of a little homerecording studio or access to a bigger one. Sixteen small songs that range from mere extended two liner jokes to proper ditties in the vein of Ben Folds and the aforementioned Ween, especially early on when all of them were still a little more punk and Butthole Surfers influenced, are compiled on this album. A true flipbook of weirdness, obscenity and strange happenings. The ephemeral and trancelike hommage to Chris Rea named “sleep today” shouldn’t stay unmentioned as should the hommage to The Fall “new fall in hell” and the 4/4-rhythm country-billy of “no cash for my country”. There are little and bigger things that make each track unique and remarkable in one way or another.

Life is strange. If you take walks around town, especially a somewhat bigger town such as Vienna, you can easily see two or three truly weird people within half an hour that are worth a song or carry the spark of a song or two. There is the guy slowly and carefully and painstakingly cleaning the windshield of his car from about one millimetre of snow that has fallen on it. There is the woman buying eight packets of butter in the supermarket and carrying a sack with a dozen more packets, which she assures the cashier comes from another supermarket. There is the supermarket cashier giving her the “who cares”-look. If you walk around the place you live with open eyes sooner or later you will get on some strange ideas, and turning them into song is one of the better ways to cope with them. Who knows what Bas Jacobs would be doing or planning right now, if he didn’t have the release of grabbing his guitar and singing it all off his chest.

Summing up, can anybody writing lines like "You're a dick and I'm a cunt / we fit together like a rifle and a hunt" really be a bad person? Thought so.