Dresden flood blues

Subject: Dresden Blues
From: Tweed
Date: 22 Aug 02 - 06:24 AM

Got and email from my buddy Alexx in Dresden. I ran into him a couple years ago on this internet due to his extra fine collection of blues, folk and gospel lyrics at his site. The river's come up pretty good as you may have seen on the news and I thought some of you might be interested to read an eyewitness account. Here's what Alexx wrote today....
hi everybody

yesterday i left the flood area for some hours just to see and smell something different from mud and rubble. my friends also left the house where i spent three nights. even that house was in the water 6 feet high as i stood there. now the roads are almost dry. the "party" is over. the "after" is depressing. got a newspaper. all the pictures can't give any real impression of this desaster. now the rubble in the streets is higher than the highwater ever was - higher than some houses. i took a picture yesterday, but it looks much worse today. two priests from new york came along and said it was worse than the ground zero the days after. don't know if any comparison can describe the situation. there are "only" 16 killed, but the destruction is terrible. not just here, all along the river. some valleys were flood totaly. some villages don't exist anymore. so i have to be lucky our house is "okay". it stopped short before the second floor, where i live. many folks come helping to clean houses, backyards, roads. some folks still in underwear because they don't have other clothings. all my pents are dirty now. but i still have white shirts. it looks cracy elegant somehow. all men have those seven-day-beards. i try to relax, can't help cleaning anyway because i have different injuries, tumbled downstairs, burnt my arm, nothing big, just can't walk with my cut toe. since some roads are open again friends visited me in the evening and drove me to the doctor. but there was no real emergency point. they checked my papers instead of my foot. so i became angry and left, went back to the river. sat down where people gathered in the middle of the chaos. they shared beer. at 11 pm tv-reporters and the mayor came to that place close to my house. as i reached my house telephone and electricity was working again. i hope i can send this email. internet doesn't work without problems, not yet. now it is 8 am. a friend will pick me up and bring me to her house for a day or two. that is close to our rehearsal room. guess the band can gather there in the evening.

till later, alex
Alexx'Blues Lyrics

Subject: RE: Dresden Blues
From:
Date: 22 Aug 02 - 11:15 AM

Tweed, that is amazing. Thanks for the update.

Subject: RE: Dresden Blues
From: Tweed
Date: 22 Aug 02 - 06:39 PM

Thanks and no problem George, but you might want to go over to Alex's guestbook at the link above and leave him a cheering message. He's a good guy and a heck of a folksinger. Lots of good lyrics found there too. I expect he could use a ray or two of light to shine through the mud right about now.

Subject: RE: Dresden Blues
From: Airto
Date: 23 Aug 02 - 07:17 AM

Coverage of these floods in the UK and Irish media has been dismal.

It's very hard to imagine what people have been going through..."now the rubble in the street is higher than some houses"..."some villages don't exist any more". To make things worse, presumably the Elbe, Danube and others are not the cleanest of rivers. The floods must have spread a pretty nasty mess.

My thoughts are with you.

Subject: RE: Dresden Blues
From: GUEST,Pat Cooksey. Germany.
Date: 23 Aug 02 - 09:03 AM

For the last ten days the news media here has been dominated by the flooding catastrophe in eastern Germany, with the Elbe 20ft above normal levels. The scene of destruction is terrible to see with houses, roads, railways, and everything in its path washed away. The army and emergency services together with thousands of ordinary men, women, and children, have been battling around the clock to build new dams and re-inforce old ones. The worst of the flooding is now passed but it will take years for this region to recover, many people have lost everything.

Subject: RE: Dresden Blues
From: Tweed
Date: 24 Aug 02 - 08:40 AM

Received this from Alex this morning in the email. Also the band made a song nite before at rehearsal and I'll put a link to that at the bottom of this post...or you can get it yourself at Alex's front page link in my first post up there. Amazin' how people start rebounding after disasters. Here's the latest news from Alex.
hi tweed,
meanwhile listened many times to kitty's song online, still can't download any emails and mp3, don't know if my computer has some damage or just a problem with the internet provider, no chance to call the hotline asking what's up there.

well, things are getting "normal" somehow, not like before but one tries getting used to the situation... the rubble in front of my window still grows, but most of the higher streets are open again, traffic is back, except at the "boardwalk" by the river. electricity and phone works. my backyard is just like a camping area. our landlord and his whole "clan" is here since 3 days. they work all day long to save what is to save. fortunately the weather is fine. so one can sit outside and always join these "never ending picnics". more over, one can gather around every "picnic" in the neigbourhood. all these folks know each other now. even folks that once had a meeting in the curtyard have been sitting in one boat, and now they just can laugh about their former fights. there is a lot of jokes and black humor among them. people get new nicknames, we have a new "king" and "ministers" and a "sheriff". it is romantic somehow.
the place i live is in fact a village just belonging to the town. now it has become a real comunity of misery. folks share all things. you can lend any tools you need for free and without leaving your address. folks from other places, even from other towns, come asking if they could help somewhere. and they do. sometimes there are more than necesarry. it's good to experience that solidarity. it's just as you wrote: misery loves company. however, after more than a week under these "romantic conditions" i would like to live "normal" somehow. and there is already a step into normalization.
i had a rehearsal with my band, we "badly" recorded the highwater blues that i wrote while waiting for the band, and had fun playing different versions of another song of mine, called alexander's lullaby (blues, rock, regae, punk, unplugged versions - the last is what i wanted). one day i will send you a cd of our first session after. we have a gig tonight. still don't know how to drive to the gig. don't have a car. the van of one of my band members is damaged, the other is lend to a friend who need it in a village which is totaly destroyed... they say in fact it would not exist anymore. they just want to gather up and save things from the streets there. however, guess we will find another car. next saturday we are having a party in my backyard inviting the whole "misery comunity". of course, my band is playing. that's for now.
cheers,
alex
Alex's Highwater Blues MP3/(freelink,no ads,no crap)

Subject: RE: Dresden Blues
From: GUEST,Taliesn
Date: 24 Aug 02 - 10:13 AM

Now this is what a "living" tradition of folk/blues music is really good at ; putting into song impressions of events for the "cultural record". Unfortnately they tend to be inspired more by catastrophe's...but then that's why it called the blues I s'pose.

Thank you for sharing your impressions and , if it ain't too much of a bother , it would be interesting to give call attention to other works that will be inspired by the Great Flood of 2002.

I well remember the all of the TV reports of the Great Food of '93 when the Mississippi ran rampant over its length and breadth. The old Led Zepplin song "When the Levee Breaks" kept playin' in my head as I watched because the violence of the devastation made the violent playing-style in that song all of a sudden extremely *appropos*.

S'pose there'll be a whole new genre' of blues for the 21st century: call it "Apocalypse Watch Blues".

I might just write my own version one day as there's certainly enough material floatin' 'round. ( unintended pun )