Music and my creative process

Sanctuary Radio is going through a crisis because of U.S. licensing fee hikes.  DJ Rob is threatening to say f**k it if it’s too much of a headache.  I hope it doesn’t come to that, because that’s the best web stream I’ve found so far.

It’s far better than Pandora, because you have a human driving the playlist, throwing in all sorts of brand-new stuff along with the old, and making sure you don’t get Morrissey/The Cure/Siouxsie/The Smiths every single. other. frickin’. song.

Also, Pandora just plain doesn’t have all sorts of awesome bands.  I now find that, even with web streams and Pandora over the years, I still missed all sorts of music, because we don’t have anything like that on the radio or in clubs here in small-town Wisconsin.

But being in a cocoon of industrial, EBM, darkwave and the like, has been driving a furious wave of creativity the past several months, as I work on my rewrite of Unwilling Time-Traveler.  Especially the German music, since Madge is stuck in Nazi Germany for most of it.

I’m rewriting the ending, having gotten a new idea for it after watching a German industrial video the other day.  This happened once already, when I took the last part of the plot in a totally new direction after watching the castle episode of the latest season of Doctor Who.  The subconscious works on this stuff even while I do other things, obviously.  🙂

And while researching and rewriting, I came across this video by Die Krupps:

It’s my new favorite, along with a few other German industrial tunes which came out years ago, but I’m just finding them now:

Also this one:

And, of course, this one, which I had to go to the German Amazon to find, but I knew about it thanks to Sanctuary (Pandora doesn’t have Unzucht):

https://www.amazon.com/Schweigen-Bells-Into-Machines-Remix/dp/B07PY8SMZQ

Here’s the original version of “Schweigen,” and its gorgeous video:

By the way, “Unzucht” is German for “fornication.” 😀

This book and all the New German Hardness also have reminded me how I used to be obsessed with all things German back in high school.  My old NVLD/Aspie perseveration is back, and I love it!  🙂

And this was in today’s paper:

Though the German students visiting Wisconsin are in a new environment, both cultures have a surprising amount in common. Germans and Wisconsinites are said to be practical, hard working, family-oriented, not to mention harboring a love for bratwursts, sauerkraut, Oktoberfest and, for a few, polka dances.

So the German students, most of whom spoke English well, weren’t feeling completely displaced.

In the late 1800s, a huge influx of German immigrants chose to settle in Wisconsin, attracted to the wide availability of farmland and the natural landscape that was strikingly similar to their Central European state….

Today, about 45 percent of Wisconsin residents claim German heritage, while the rest of United States citizens claim about 17 percent of German heritage.

The long English vowels Wisconsinites are known for is said to be a byproduct of the German language.

In towns within Fond du Lac County, like Lomira, Calumet, New Holstein and Eldorado, 60 percent of residents claim German roots, according to the 2000 census — a percentage consistent in many counties across the state, especially in southern Wisconsin.

Thirty percent of Green Bay and Madison residents have German blood. —German Students Find Familiarity in Wisconsin

…Some reasons why I moved here 20 years ago.  🙂