30 Jahre Rookie Records w/ PALES + KICK JONESES + THE JACKSON POLLOCK

30 Years of Rookie Records—the world is celebrating!
And of course, so are we here in Freiburg, where this great label called home from 1999 to 2005 as a sublabel of Flight13 Records.
What began as a stopgap solution—because Jürgen Schattner couldn’t find a label for his own band—quickly became an insider’s secret and is now firmly established as a label, publisher, and promotion partner in the (post-)punk and indie scene.

We’re celebrating this with bands from the very beginning, fresh new additions, friends, and fellow artists.

Cheers to Rookie Records!
 

LINEUP:

PALES
At first glance, it seems as though post-punk has reached a saturation point, with a multitude of bands content to recycle the same gimmicks and poses as their predecessors. Fortunately, Pales doesn’t fall into this category. With this band, you can catch a glimpse of the trends emerging in guitar music that go beyond mere imitation.
The title of the EP, “The Crush,” perfectly illustrates this desire to fuse influences from noise, soul, pop, and industrial music to create edgy tracks.

The band’s approach—which alternates between improvised studio sessions and live experiments—allows them to find the best possible form for each song—and it works wonderfully.

Célia’s spoken-word vocals grab you right away. It’s as if Florence Shaw from Dry Cleaning suddenly felt like biting you on the leg. The waves of guitar drive the rhythm forward and lend the powerful chorus real dynamism.
“Crush” delivers what the title promises: the determination to conquer the world with feedback, paired with the irresistible urge to succumb to the spell of this band with a promising future. (La Vague Parallèle – Mathias Valverde)

“Expect the unexpected.” The motto of Tomi Ungerer, the enfant terrible from Strasbourg, seems tailor-made for Pales: The band shatters any genre classification with a raw and visceral style in which industrial, noise, and pop collide in a sonic battle.
The stage is a playground where trance becomes unstoppable and breathless, constantly pushing the boundaries of chaos. The sound hits hard, hypnotizes, triggers spasms, and evokes the scent of acid, cosmetics, and burnt rubber.
Pales choreographs the shadows and romances of a new sonic youth that creeps into your head and never leaves.
Their latest EP, “CRUSH,” was released in February 2025.

https://pales-band.bandcamp.com
https://www.instagram.com/pales.band
https://www.facebook.com/pales.band.pales

KICK JONESES
What’s … up these days?
A popular column when it comes to digging up once-famous personalities and—at least for a moment—bringing them back into the public eye.
This question gets a bit more complicated when it comes to Kick Joneses.
Why?
This band formed in 1991 from what can, without exaggeration, be called a punk legend:
Walter Elf, one of the defining punk bands of the 1980s, which still provokes sentimental outbursts today—not just in musicians like Thees Uhlmann.
Since people are generally skeptical of change—and the average punk is no different in this regard from other conformists—Kick Joneses never received the attention that Walter Elf enjoyed, even though the follow-up project is musically so much more inspired, so vastly more varied, sophisticated, and complex.
But let’s not get worked up over the musical ignorance of the masses; instead, let’s simply rejoice that these people stayed true to their path and didn’t succumb to the success of that era or a certain hysteria.

Here, six musicians rummage through the treasure trove of their musical past (the Beatles, ’70s bubblegum pop, new wave, post-punk) on the one hand, while drawing inspiration from more recent developments (Britpop, neo-rock ’n’ roll, the Hamburg School) on the other. Of course, their own punk rock past shines through here and there. The result: never derivative, always Kick Joneses.

Kick Joneses are …
Beppo Götte: vocals, trumpet, organ
Alex Hoffmann: vocals, trumpet, organ
Frank Rahm: guitar, organ
Jürgen Schattner: guitar
Dennis Trace: Bass
Lagges Wild: Drums

www.kick-joneses.de
www.rookierecords.de
https://www.facebook.com/Kick.Joneses

THE JACKSON POLLOCK
Emily and Davide are the explosive duo The Jackson Pollock from Bologna!
In an era of “artificial” music, they are among the most authentic bands around—no artificial embellishments, no posturing, just themselves and pure music; at their concerts, you never get a sense of déjà vu, because their style is unique, fresh, and powerful.

With the drums boldly placed in the foreground, Emily lets her pieces collide as if she were playing an entire orchestra. Every song is like a new tribal dance; her vocals are mesmerizing.
Davide fills the air with noise and riffs—an imperfect geometry that spirals like a whirl of fuzz tones and overdriven signals.
As they play, you can almost see a thin red thread connecting them.
What we hear are their untold stories.
With something akin to telepathy, they speak a secret language of sounds, in which they tell each other stories about the past, the future, love and hate, and everything in between—all while spreading infectious positive energy.

The story begins when Emily pulled a pair of drumsticks out of a trash can during a rehearsal, held them in her hands for the first time, and played as if it were her destiny. Without any plans, they quit their jobs, turned their everyday lives upside down, loaded their van with a drum set, a guitar, and an amplifier, and set off on a long journey through Europe, during which they simply played: they did what felt most natural to them as musicians.

After a series of short releases, TODAY FOREVER is the first full-length album by “the Jackson Pollock,” on Rookie Records.
Here, they have plenty of time to lay their hearts bare through the 12 tracks immortalized on the album, to let their emotions rise to the surface, and to draw the listener closer; a whirlpool that weaves together life and defiance, the will to fight against all odds, and the wait for a wish to be fulfilled—two contrasting souls, a heavy and a light side, darkness and a ray of hope, snake heads sprouting from the same body.

Without following trends or trying to appeal to a niche audience, their influences are old arcade video games and Asian dramas, which shape their personal mythology. They create their own popular folk anthems and fascinations, combining hardcore violence with Latin rhythms and riding the chaos like a dragon.
This unique blend escapes reality toward a parallel universe built on fantasy, yet you can clearly sense that this fairy tale becomes real when played with all one’s might, as if there were no tomorrow.

https://www.instagram.com/thejacksonpollockband
https://thejacksonpollock.bandcamp.com/album/today-forever
https://www.facebook.com/thejacksonpollock
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Z69d0mC99kA

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Doors open + Box Office: 9:00 p.m.
Start: approx. 10:00 PM
Discount for club members and FreiburgPass holders
The concert will be smoke-free.
Caregivers accompanying people with disabilities receive free admission.
Information on accessibility can be found here:
https://www.slowclub-freiburg.de/leitbild