German local 80ies Obscurities (No. 3: The eldest town)

Let me start this 3rd and last part of pure local patriotism with kind of dàoistic & philosophical advice.

The Dào is "The Path" you & I chose and we ourselves have to take responsibility for. A central point in that viewing of things is watching the river flow and not to muddy it up too much with our interactions. That's called "Wu Wei" - the art of not doing things. Having faith in the idea, that everything is everytime in full harmony, but we're to stupid in time & space to understand that harmony. Later, when things are clear, we can say "Oh! I understand now what it was good for". But, if we're muddying to much, we will never come to the point of full awareness.

My personal example on that is my time, when I had t do "community service" instead of going to the army. At a time, when you were confronted with a trial of three judges asking you questions like "You're sitting in an airplane with your mom, some russians come in and try to rape her. But you, you have a machine gun with you. What will you do now?". Funny. This must've been way before 9/11 when it seemed to be a normal thing entering a plane with a tommy gun ;)

I could then seek myself a location where to do this "community service" and I said - without knowing anything on dàoistic ideas then - to myself: "Ah don't mind. Let destiny decide that". So I was sent to Trier, which is the eldest town in our country, mucho roman stuff'n'buildings, Constantine at times ruled the whole known world from there. Love at first sight.

So destiny led me to Bernd "Bello" Bender who became speaker of the small group of guys doing their community service. We became friends - even our musical preferences where worlds apart. At home it was that mixup of Westcoast & Punk & Reggae - in Trier it was Jazzrock ruling.

While the folks at Hinterwald didn't like stuff like success or money the scene in Trier was more focused on getting professional, earning money from making music - even if you have to play in "Dance Orchestras" like Alb Hardy

My first contact with the musical scene and what Bernd was doing then was - fun fact! - that his band "Nazgul" was playing as opener to Cipollina/Gravenites in Konz.

In a foreword of a small book on "Lusthansa" I described that as a bit of "Jericho"-experience, as if they tried to shut down again & again that damned wall ... and that wasn't meant as a compliment. To me that was devastating, i did hide myself in the toiletroom to get as fast away from that stuff, coming back when Zippy the pinhead entered the stage.

I tried to convince Bernd that we're now living in a more punk/reggae world, that it may be more fun to sing german lyrics and offered him some (ahem) "poetry" I wrote for our local fanzine "URKS"

Well, you're right, that's from "Snoid Studios" ;)

I have to admit that in the understanding of the folks in Trier "The Police" was "Punk". Or Nina Hagen. So - and we're keeping in mind that "Professionalism" thing that ruled the town - it turned out to be more "Pop" than punk. Imagine "Nena" with more political or anarchist lyrics, but - as Bernd stated: "Give me your poems and I do a bit sugar on them". Okidok, he was the master of ceremony and - being responsible for my chosen path - I can't complain and have to admit that he did in many directions a good job.

First it was the way he managed the band. Every member, writíng songs/lyric or not, earned the same money. There were 5 members of the band and 5 folks doing the sound & vision or roadies. And they managed to get gigs, a lot of. I've recorded some of them to be found at the "Lusthansa" page on my "Hermetic Garage" archive at archive.org.

Next "hit" - he managed also to get a deal with Frank Farian. You know the guy with Boney M and Milli Vanilly. Two records were produced, I'm not here, to post any of them, even the idea having my face and my name printed on them is .... hm ... nice. But nothing more than that. I remember a gig with some thousand visitors, when I stood aside of the mixing desk in the dark, kids lightning sparklers and singing what once were my poems ... and asking myself "Is that what you are?"

Nope. And so I spent the next year (1984) with a Texas Instruments 99/4a, 64kb memory and a tape recorder. That's what made me happy and nourishs me even today. But then I had to earn money with other jobs and that's why I became technician for the "Alp Hardy Dance & Show Orchestra", every weekend on the road through the republic, wearing a damned suit while the band played at mayor events in big hotels with prominent guest stars.

Image on the wall of the bassist of "Cartoon" not by "Snoid" but a basque female artist loving "The Can" as I did and do

Which leads me to the musical part of this: Professionals. Most of the members of this orchestra were jazzrock-fans and they did that for the money, while sometimes having some fun playing as "Cartoon" stuff of Al Jarreau, Level 42 and so on and this post offers two mastertapes of that Band I also acted as technician - without the damned suit. When my first daughter was born, I quit the danger to maybe get lost on the road on a weekend and never ever again had to wear a suit and a cravat.

The members of "Cartoon" were professionals and I liked a lot sitting with them explaining the delicious finesse of Michael Jacksons "Thriller" to me. Or that you could combine them in a project like "Jamming" the second musical part of this post, a Bob Marley tribute Jam, one rehearsal (oh, there's my first wife ruining one track because of no rehearsal at all) and "up on stage with you guys!"

They played in a real small room ... the same I had a year earlier the chance to see (and tape with the permission of the band, mikes installed over the head of the mixer) Sonic Youth in 1983 in front of (first 24 but there were some real confusion making them leaving the room in sheer panic) 12 folks - Maybe one day they answer my email if they like to have a copy or if it's alright to post it.

If so, I promise, this will be the place to do so ;)

For now, thanks for reading, and I hope you weren't to bored listing to this kind of local patriotism and personal tales. Enjoy (maybe) the "Cartoon" and the "Jamming" stuff. I've added an english demo version of "Wild Boys" by Bello and a sampler of Bands from Trier late 90ies. Obscure stuff, but these are the master-tapes from the archives.

Ah, Lusthansa never really went famous. It was Nena who made it on the top, more pop, more sugar in the bowl. They've played their asses of until they were to exhausted to do more. They gathered a small fan-community, mostly folks that were at their shows then or had some personal memories with one of their songs. They meet from time to time and do a show and there are re-recorded versions of some of their tracks on youtube ... fun to show them to your kids saying "your dad wrote the lyrics of that!".

As if they were impressed ... Raise your hands if your kids are impressed with what you've once managed to do ;)

So in the end another dàoistic thought: If you do that just to do it, without a plan or a goal, you will one day see, what it was good for. The good things remain, the other ones will fade away.

The Hinterwald-Scene became a "cult"-thing and it is alive after 40 years, there are now more young people gathering and when i.e. Steve Gibbons played the 35th

the old folks & the younger ones sing "Like A Rolling Stone" together, no one's lifting a damned smartphone to farm karma on instagram and my old friends are just mad at me posting the festival poster with the name of the town, where it is happening.

Sometimes the 800 folks on a place in the woods make more sense than some thousands in a stadium ;)

@C@

@J@

@T@

pw: fbsvw

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from another hinterwald fanzine "drum" by snoid studios, censured by tumblr when it went "clean"