Ugh, the ironic Xmas sweaters are here. Yay, the first one is Einstürzende Neubauten’s
By now, my third autumn with Dangerous Minds, I think I’ve written enough posts about gag Christmas items that the well of anything to say about them—a mighty shallow well to begin with—is beginning to run dry. But I have to share this one, as it’s from those long-lived, acutely teutonic purveyors of experimental industrial clamor Einstürzende Neubauten. That band, since the dawn of the ’80s, has taken the simple principle that literally anything that makes a sound can be validly harnessed as a musical tool, and ran with it to absurd lengths and sublime effect—notoriously and representatively, they once made an instrument out of a purloined shopping cart and some power drills. The sweater (actually a long sleeved t-shirt, though other garment styles are selectable) is available from Viralstyle, and the design is pretty witty as these things go: it features the band’s familiar Toltec cave-painting human symbol amongst pine trees and snowmen, and a large version of their distinctive variation on Reichsadler heraldry.
Here’s a clip of the band in performance, from the 1986 film Halber Mensch
