German local 80ies Obscurities (No. 1: The Small Town)

Two years ago an old friend of mine, maybe the most beloved of my old friends, passed away after long being very sick - which gave me the chance to say "goodbye" and express my deepest feelings for that guy before he died after a long period we didn't met.

In the world of arts, volker 7 (german page with a great collection) created a fine corpus of images, mostly inspired by the artwork of Captain Beefheart. But he also were a great singer and a wild man at the keyboards.

Volker Jenal - when we were young, wild, beautifiul & damned ;)

So I take the opportunity to remember him here with some of the bands from the local scene we both were part of - the so called "Hinterwald", and hope you're fine with that. The portrait will take 3 parts, this one specialized on him and the bands he played, a 2nd one with more "Hinterwald" stuff - and a third on the scene in the eldest german town, where I moved in the mid 80ies and which is completely different to the "Hinterwald".

When I first met Volker he just became member of "Sinalco Fluor S", a band I tried to popularize the last 3 decades - and now finding their music in foreign countries in South America ie. Sinalco, which is a german non alcohol drink like "Fanta" combined with "Fluor S", were a punk outfit inspired by Ian Hunter, T Rex and Talking Heads. Rough & fiery.

Yep, that screaming and yelling announcer must be a version of myself some 40 years ago. And the guy singing our favourite Ian Hunter song and treating the piano as a dog, that's Volker. Followed by a version of the T Rex classic "20th century boy" with solo guitar works and also the voice of Stefan Warten (in the video the guy with the mask)

But playing covers alone wasn't what made Sinalco Fluor S great. There circulated a tape ("Sinalco Fluor S - Greatest Hits from Yesterday"). A year before Volker died, I sent him a fine FLAC version of that tape, he released it as LP in a very small amount of copies and gave it a new cover in his style.

A copy of that FLAC is part of this post - I know, that's german punk stuff - hope you like it as well as a slowly grewing community of fans even in Brazil or Russia seems to do.

When he left Sinalco he became member of bands like "The Five Babies Pisseuses", more kinda inspired by B52's (in the files there is their set on the 3rd Hinterwald Free & Outside Festival and also the great Demo-Tape) and of "Safari Grünspan" (also in the files, also with a well known announcer) together with Stefan Warten, playing punk inspired by the Stray Cats ie.

Sinalco then became more Postpunk and Reggae influenced, a soundboard and almost dub-version of "Haschisch (Do you like it as I do?)" can be heard in the files collection of this post shows our "Sly & Robbie" rhythm section, Dirk on bass & Wilmar on drums, members of all Sinalco Fluor S variations. Mike Schwisteg, the guitar player and founder of Sinalco will also appear in the 2nd post with "Les Hommes Volants"

In the end, they finally realized a longplayer, "Klon", the band had a saxophone player who (afaik) financed the project ... it offers a song "Ohne Titel" (Without a title) which is remarkable even I prefer listen to the demo-version of that song without the sax and to be found on a "Wartungsfrei" sampler, a local tape-release label being portrayed a bit in the next post with Andi Arroganti ie. The 2nd guitar player, the solo, that's Jose, who also played for "Triebwagen" and other Hinterwald bands.

So for now, I leave you with this little "memorial" to an old friend who deserved to be remembered two years later. See you up there, Volker, when we meet again, we will listen to a lot of "The Can", "Captain Beefheart" and "Kevin Coyne" stuff.

Sinalco Fluor S: A Quick View

01 Ansage von Hardy
02 Bastard
03 Haschisch (Liebst du es so wie
04 Ohne Titel
05 20th Century Boy (SB Jung & Wild 1983)

Sinalco Fluor S: The Greatest Hits Of Yesterday LP

01 T.V. Time
02 Ready For The Next War
03 Privat Privat
04 R und R
05 Wasser
06 Flugzeugentfuehrung
07 Depressionen
08 Gluehende Faeden

Safari Grünspan: A Short Mix

01 Hardy Announcing
02 Ratten
03 Stray Cat Strut
04 RAF
05 Safari Grünspan!

The Five Babies Pisseuses

1989-08-26 Koellertaler Rockfest

01 (You Never Say) What I Wanna Hear
02 Air
03 Only I Know
04 Air
05 For You
06 Air
07 Ride My Dog
08 Air
09 I Go Shopping
10 Walking
11 Air
12 Where's My Family
13
14 Air
15
16 Garlic Addict
17 Miss Jones
18 Please Don't Shoot
19 Air
20
21

The Five Babies Pisseuses
 The Demos

01 Jungle Cide

01 Only I Know
02 Do The Monkey
03 Ms Jones
04 November


02 City Cide

01 I Go Shopping
02 I Ride My Dog
03 Garlic Addict
04 Please Don't Shot


@!!@

pw: fbsvw