GOLDEN LEMONS

Die Golden Zitronen

Director Jörg Siepmann / 2003 / Germany

An on-the-road rockumentary documenting a tour that packaged German punk/new wave act the Golden Lemons, schizophrenic/autistic cult-rocker Wesley Willis and acid rap act Grand Buffet. Fourteen days and nights with the bands drinking their way from San Francisco to the Mexican border via Las Vegas. A perverse psychological experiment.

The tour spawns some bizarre and memorable performances together with strange insights into peculiar personalities. Grand Buffet goad their audience with lyrics comprised of accounts of drug hallucinations, and bestiality. One member has been raised to believe that 30 percent of Germans are vampires and the rest "are cyborg hybrids, if not completely robotic"!

Wesley Willis opens each show with his spontaneously composed 'hit', Osama Bin Laden. He adds each night's cash takings to a massive bankroll of thousands of dollars he carries in his tracksuit pants. Wesley's accounts, in a medicated monotone, of his jail time is at once tragic and frightening.

The Golden Lemons try and hang on for the ride.They play edgy, angular thrash, trying to be professional and unfailingly polite even when faced with gigs like the less than salubrious Jerry's Pizza Hut. Pack a change of underwear for a strange trip.

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