The War On Drugs
Random Bike Shed, 2011
The Loppen club in Christiania is already filling with people when we head out with The War On Drugs to do a little offstage recording. A location inside the anarchist freetown is tempting, but they’re not too happy about cameras there, and it’s also – in the absence of any street lights – completely dark. So we cross the street and walk into the backyard of Christianshavn School, where the gate is still open and a decently lit wooden bike shed allures us. The Philadelphia-based band sets up their gear and singer Adam enjoys playing with the feedback from our tiny Marshall amp („Can I use this for the show?“, he asks, and indeed we see him experimenting with the 1-watt amp later on stage). They start off the session with a great semi-acoustic rendition of „Brothers“ and continue with „Best Night“, the opener of their 2011 album „Slave Ambient“. The longer they play the more they get into it, but unfortunately we cannot extend the bike-shed show any longer because an already packed venue is waiting for them to hit the stage.
- Camera
- Michael Luger
- Sound Recording
- Sarah Brugner
- Post production
- Michael Luger
- Photography
- Sofie Bangsgaard
- Artist
- The War On Drugs
Random Bike Shed
It is for a reason that „copenhagenization“ is an increasingly common term for introducing bicycle-friendly infrastructure to a city in order to improve the general quality of life. Indeed Copenhagen is the most striking example of a bicycle-city. 40 % of daily commuters take their bikes to get to job, university or elsewhere, which is considerably more than the share of cars and public transport and requires the constant extension of bicycle lanes and paths in order to avoid congestion. Cities all around the world try to copy the measures taken in Copenhagen to deal with their car traffic problems and attempt to motivate inhabitants to go for the healthier, more environment-friendly and often also quicker bicycle ride. Copenhagen is not only full of bikes, but also full of parking facilities and bike sheds (although they are still far from enough, some argue), such as the wooden one in the backyard of Christanshavns School (just across the street from the world-famous anarchist freetown Christiania), where we end up to film a session with The War On Drugs.