All art, on some level, must be autobiographical. If it doesn’t uniquely reflect the artist or their view of the world, then why should we care about it? Mental by UK performance artist The Vacuum Cleaner is an intensely personal piece about the artist’s own history of mental illness and activism. It is a brutally honest, powerful and often funny portrayal that will feel more like confession than performance. To add to the intimacy of the evening, Mental will take place in the bedroom of an apartment in town. Due to this, there are only a limited number of seats available and reservation will be required.
Thursday 8 pm, Friday 6 pm & 9 pm, Gasometerstrasse 45, 8005

Zurich will always be my first love but that doesn’t mean I can’t have a wandering eye for the satellite towns that make the extra effort to flirt with me. Over the coming week, Baden will be having what is, possibly, the first music festival of the year in Switzerland. The One Of A Million Music Festival has a line-up of 40 bands from across 13 countries that will be playing live in 3 intimate venues around town, as well as a scattering of smaller venue sites. The bands are all under-the-radar, which suits a boutique festival like this, but all have an indie melodic quality that will make a trip outside of Zurich’s city limits a treat. I have 1 x 2 tickets to give away for this Friday or Saturday. E-mail me, letting me know which day you’d like to go.
Friday to Saturday (7th Feb), Baden

I’m not sure who’s been keeping count but Supermarket will be celebrating its 6000th day anniversary this weekend. So you don’t need to calculate, that makes it nearly sixteen and a half years old, and as far as a club’s lifespan in Zurich goes, this makes Supermarket one of the wise old men of the night. To celebrate the occasion, many of the dj’s who have defined Supermarket’s sound over the years will be returning for a party that will start at 10 pm on Saturday and continue, non-stop, until 6 am on Monday. I think Supermarket just looked you straight in the eye and dared you to call it old!
Saturday 10pm to Monday 6 am, Supermarket

Some music defies genre descriptions. With Canadian band Cold Specks you might go with gothic-gospel, or even soul-punk but either way you’ll end up sounding like you’re trying too hard. The lead singer of the band, Al Spx, has a voice that would sound at home bouncing off the rafters of a gospel church, while her band makes music that swirls and bucks behind her like a dark stormy sea. Their debut album was called I Predict a Graceful Expulsion, and that’s probably the best description of their music you’ll find. They play at Rote Fabrik on Saturday.
Saturday 9 pm, Rote Fabrik

If the Blues had a birthplace it is now commonly thought to be in Mali’s soulful and moody stringed instrument tradition. Boubacar Traore has been a master of the Mali desert Blues since the early sixties but, like all good Blues-men it seems, his path wasn’t easy. From legendary status in his youth, he then spent twenty years out of the music business trying to make a living for his family. After being rediscovered in the late Eighties, he then moved to France to work as a labourer after his wife died, only to be rediscovered again years later as interest in ‘world music’ grew. Now, as an old man, he is again in his rightful place, recognised as one of the greats, playing music that both soothes and saddens the soul. He’ll be at Moods on Sunday.
Sunday 7 pm, Moods

Last week, the pop up Penthouse Gallery moved into the former house of pleasure «Irma la Douce». Until March you’ll find exhibitions, performances and readings as well as a wine bar. You can view their first exhibition «Modification» every Thursday and Saturday until 5th February – or just go to see how a brothel looks inside. Afterwards they’ll change the setting, which will start with another opening party.
Penthouse Gallery, St. Jakobstrasse 52, 8004. Opening hours: Thursday & Saturday from 6 pm to 10 pm

Just as the name Little Brazil suggests, this restaurant serves great Brazilian food and is rather snug, in a good ‘we’re all in this together’ type of way. You can, of course, start things off with a caipirinha, just like mama used to make, if mama didn’t know when to stop pouring the cachaça. The menu has a great choice of food from the selection of small starters to mains that included Picanha and Moqueca (my favourite), and everything is looked after by the great women who both own and run the place, and make you feel welcome in their little corner of Brazil.
Little Brazil, Schmidgasse 6, 8001

New year, new laws so it’s high time to fill you in on the latest changes of our justice system. Compared to other years, there are just a few and none of them drastic. But there is one modification that might become important to you, if you ever drive a car in Switzerland and if you don’t take the alcohol limit that seriously. If you cause an accident under the influence of alcohol, or because you fall asleep or consumed drugs (zero-tolerance) it will be seen as intentional negligence. Until 2014, your insurance company had the right to pass on all costs of the accident to you. But you were able to protect yourself from that with yet another insurance. Since the beginning of 2015, insurances must pass on all costs without exception. One more reason why it’s great to live in Zurich – you don’t need a car.

A while ago, I came across an old film-roll in my attic and decided to send it to «Rescued Film». Also, I wasn’t sure if the photo shops in town still develop films or if they’d just laugh in my face. «Rescued Film» is an online image archive, specialising on pictures between the 1930s and the 1990s. Amongst them you’ll find historic photos – for example from the Second World War - and personal snapshots. If you look very closely you might even find one of me, hanging out with my buddies looking extremely cool in our 1990s outfits. And no, it wasn’t a costume party.