Istanbul Hardcore: Radical Noise
For many many years I have hoped for my
friend Emres band Radical Noise to get back together again and play a
show in Istanbul, so that I can travel there and see it.
Well... this year they have finally put
their efforts together again, played a show in their hometown
Istanbul and recorded songs which they wanted to share with us on a
split cd/7". Crazy project and sometimes stressy, but with all
of our hands working together and our friend Ricardo from the band
For the Glory (Portugal) helping out with the 7" layout we have
put this into reality.
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| Cd Layout + 7" layout |
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| Arrival in Istanbul |
After having landed in Istanbul we took
a bus from the Sabhian Gökce Airport to Istanbul-Kadiköy. Having
waited a few minutes on the busstation in front of the ferry harbour
we got picked up by Emre and Engin (one fo the very few turkish
straight edge kids). We had breakfast (I had a lentil soup with
bread) although it was not too easy to describe veganism to the
waiters of the restaurant. After this refreshing meal and putting one
7" sample together it was about time to leave for Ankara by bus.
It was a comfy bus with Wifi and TV screens on every seat. On our way
there we did a stop at some tourist place and there we witnessed the
wide variety of turkish sweets of which many are vegan. I think I
have bought sweets for around 6 €. They usually make these sweets
out of pekmez (syrup) of figs and then add wafers, nuts, etc.
Delicious!
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| The first sample 7" we put together |
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| Much of this is vegan!!! Yeah! |
We arrived at Ankara bus station at
around 4pm and got picked up by Erce from Ankaras HC legend Pogo's
not Fight and drove to the venue. All people there were very kind to
us. We hung out outside and put our 7"es together (inlays, 7",
stamps) to be ready for sale that night.
We made a soundcheck and went out for
food. Found a nice place which served "Gözleme" and made
it without butter for us. I had a mixed salad and Gözleme with
potatoes and then Gözleme with aubergine. Tasted amazing!!!
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| Gözleme without butter! Tasty as hell! |
Getting back to the club and being
welcomed by a fan who bought loads of stuff. Nice!
Autographs and pics with us were asked
by some people so it seemed as if a foreign band was something really
special. The hospitatliy of the people in Ankara was overwhelming and
unique. Performance 2012 is the name of the club and it was their
first concert. The owners do have a band themselves. We have played
with Pogo's not fight and Since Yesterday. PNF were an old band that
quit 14 years ago and got back together recently. They played a
typical mix of HC styles from the nineties: Old school, but also
cross over influences. Nice!!! People really enjoyed their set and I
can see why! It was much fun! People were drinking alot and had a
pogoparty to the max going on.
Then Since Yesterday: I knew their
name... I just didn't know why. Later on one of them told me that I
forwarded some booker contacts to them some months ago. Very nice
people... borrowed us some equipment. Their musicstyle was modern
hardcore, sometimes with their bassplayer as 2nd vocalist. Pretty
good actually. Missed out on buying their CD but one of my bandmates
left a copy in our merchbag so that is mine now! :-)
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| GID! and Ahmet |
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| GID! on stage in Ankara |
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| Awesome roadie: Engin |
Then it was time for us. Not as many
people still as during PNF's set, but still we had our fun, some
stagedives, people seemed to enjoy, we even had to play an encore of
2 songs without Conny playing bass (she filled in for our bassplayer
and only practised with us once). Firat really grew into his role as
frontmen, since he is the only one of us to speak turkish he had to
speak the most during our set and really motivated the audience.
After the show we sold some merch that
we had to sign and took loads of pics.
Anakara, we will come back!
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| top right: poster for our show |
Right after the show we had to hurry up
a bit to catch the last bus back to Istanbul. Some sketchy dudes sold
tickets to us much cheaper than tthe tickets to get to Ankara. When
the awaited bus didn't come our roadie Emre went back to check if we
got screwed over. Luckily this wasn't the case and the bus appeared a
few minutes later.
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| Me and Firat sleeping during long busdrive |
This bus was a little less comfy, but we tried to
sleep and most of us slept well. Unluckily the same motorway we took
yesterday had been closed due to roadworks, so the bus had to take
smaller roads which made the trip an adventure of 10 hours (instead
of 4.5) and almost made me puke. We arrived a little outside of
Istanbul at a busstation from where we got a shuttle bus free of
charge directly a street near our hostel. We checked in and then
walked around in Istanbul, drank fresh juices, had a nice meal (if
you leave out buttered stuff, many meals are vegan indeed) and
chilled.
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| I had a pomegranate/orange juice |
A little later Firat and me ran down to the Galata bridge and
back up to our hostel and we got ready for the show.
Emre was a little aggrieved because the
Ankara show was a small show and he feared that the Istanbul show
will not have as many people as calculated due to several other shows
in the same night right around the corner. At the beginning there
weren't as many people as expected, while the streets seemed to be
full of "alternative" people. But in Istanbul they first
hang out at clubs where the bear is cheap. In the end 250 people
still showed up. This wasn't enough for us to cover our flights, but
it was still our first time in Turkey and we had almost 250 people
enjoying what we do.
Anyways... Something's Wrong (also an
old band that just got back together after more than 10 years) were
really good. Sounded a lot like Biohazard. They had a melodic/rapping
singer and one shouter. I really enjoyed. Then we were next.
We did a little linecheck again and
then started with our first song GetItDone! People really got into
it. We even made some throwing away their shirts to Black Flags "Rise
Above" which some of them commented with "now this german
guy makes us dance halfnaked, but he won't get my ass!" haha.
Our friend Engin who was one of 3 turkish straight edge kids at the
show did stagedives although he had a broken foot. Nice!
After our set was over people wanted to
shake hands, told us that we were great, etc... It felt reall
special!!! This was also the first show Radical Noise played with new
songs being ready on our split Cd. Osman who does Lunas recordings
was their, too. Very friendly guy. If interested get your copy
through my band or from Lunas Records!
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| GetItDone! on stage in Istanbul |
Then Radical Noise was on. They started
with new songs ("zaman gecer" from our split Cd for
instance)and many people already new that material. But when they
played their old songs people went nuts. I have really loved to
finally see them playing their songs "Angry son", "Bazen",
Salla Merkezi", etc. Their songs are in turkish or in english.
Kerems voice is great, also live!
Right before they ended their set I
went under the shower and at the same time Emre wanted GID! to join
them on stage for a picture. On my way to the shower I saw Felix and
Conny sleeping in the backstage already. The weekend has already been
very tough. haha Only Firat was on stage.
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| Radical Noise live! |
I got back from te shower and RN played
an encore. What a great evening!!! All these smiling faces, so many
nice people, no attitudes, no fights, just positivity. I love the
Istanbul HC scene.
After the show we shortly got back to
our hostel (Hostel Liberta: was ok and pretty cheap!) and then Firat,
Engin and me went out to look for Engins special places. Many many
people were on the streets still. Peyote was a nice club, but we left
after Engin didn't find his expected friends.
At 4 am the clubs shut down, so we had
french fries on the most famous street of Instabul: "Istiklal Street"
and walked back to our hostel. We slept around 5.30 hours, since we
had to leave our room. Luckily they let us store our luggage in their
so we took the chance to finally visit the city, drink cay and just
enjoyed life. Emre showed us around, we had another cay at Kybele
Garden near the Hagia Sofia. Then we split since Firat and me wanted
to see the cystern of the roman basilica. It was an antigue water
basin in the underground. Amazing! Totally worth the 5€ entry fee.
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| Down in the Basilica Cistern |
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| A big potatoe called Kumpir is vegan when served without butter, ask for it! |
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| Vegan choices in a usual restaurant |
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| My friend Emre from Radical Noise and me |
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| GID! in front of the Hagia Sofia |
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| Some roman columns near the archeological museum |
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| Park near Topkapi Saray. We ran down... fun! |
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| Down from Topkapi Saray towards the water. Atatürk is everywhere! |
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| Chilling at Hotel Kybele |
Firat and me went up to Topkapi Saray
afterwards. Not enough time to visit the garden or the museum, but we
enjoyed the sun while lying on the gras in the area of the antigue
greek akropolis and jogging through the park towards the water and
the Galata bridge and then back towards the hostel to meet the
others. They didn't want to store the luggage any longer, so we had
to find a cafe/restaurant near. Found a nice bar just a few meters
from the hostel. Even on sunday evenings the streets were busy. Not
busy as we might kow. Really busy comprabble only to London or
Barcelona just without a proper public transportation system.
Anyways... it was time to say goodbye.
Emre, Sinan, Esma and Engin brought us to the busstation.
We drove back to the Sabhian Gökcen
Airport and felt depresed already thinking about the temperature
shock from 23 degrees at night in Istanbul to 7 degrees in Cologne.
I will miss these nice people I don't
see often enough. I will miss the kindness of the turkish people as
well as eating at least 10 fresh figs every day.
Turkey, I will come back soon!!!
At the airport I found these bars
stored in my trolley. Hm!
I can really recommend these for sporty
people. Alles-vegetarisch.de has these.
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| top: used during my Ironman: super!, 2nd: ok! 3rd: Used during longer runs, cool! bottom: chocolate and nuts: nice snack |
Training fell shorter these days in Istanbul. Just one run with Firat, with a tough uphill section and that was it, almost.... apart from the shows we played.
This morning I did a nice green smoothie:
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| 1 avocado, 1 kiwi, 1 banana, 1 mango, ground almonds, chia seeds, flax oil, mulberry syrup (dut pekmezi), mixed grain sprouts, alfalfa sprouts, peppermint, ginger |
Training sept 24th-16th october
24th: Restday
25th: Restday
26th: 40 min running on treadmill incl. 3*4 min fast, 3 min easy, 3min fast, 3 min easy, 1 min fast, then a few pullups
27th: 1h cycling on fitnessbike easy mode
28th: 50 min swimming incl. endurance strength (swimming with paddles 50m, then 6 pushups, swimming 50 m without paddles/ 900m like that)
29th: Climbing at Neoliet, later 26km cycling
30th: Climbing at Neoliet
1st: 32 min easy running incl. 3 sprints
2nd: 10 min Yoga in the morning, 6,5km running incl. 7*1min fast, later 18 min Yoga
3rd: 10km race in Herne through the woods in 39.22 min, warmed up with my kids who ran the race earlier on
4th: 2 h indoor cycling, 10 min pumping iron
5th: swimming with my triaclub incl. 10* 50min with paddles followed by 5 pushups, 50 m without paddles
6th: mixed exercises (ropeskipping, kettlebell, swissball)
7th: 3km cycling, 15km running with my clubmates, 3km cycling
8th: boxing training with my bro Firat
9th: 1h swimming in the morning (from 7-8)
10th: running to the Gasometer, running up the 116 m, then chilling for a few seconds and running back home
11th: 10 min of exercises in the morning, then 35 min running, later 2*17 min cycling
12th: Restday: show in Ankara
13th: ran a few minutes in Istanbul and played a show later on
14th: only jogged and walked a bit from Topkapi Saray towards our hostel in Istanbul
15th: 1.10h easy cycling on fitnessbike
16th: 1h swimming in the morning (7-8), later 30 min power and stability exercises, then 55min indoor cycling
