I’m finally back from my weekend in Aachen, Germany. A weekend which consisted of 6 trains, 4 flights, 7 hours of layovers and NYC traffic. It was the evening in between it all that made it worth it. Let’s jump back about 6 months. I was performing in Berlin at a very cool event and somewhere towards the end of my set I feel something in my ear. When I play live I’m actually not consciously thinking so much. I am on some sort of automatic haze with lyrics flying out of me and my arms and legs just doing what they do. When I felt something in my ear I noticed it but just kept on going. I mean it was only for a few seconds and after the violation stopped I could still hear so I kept on playing. After the show near the bar a giant punk rock type of guy comes up to me and starts up a conversation. I had a lot of trouble understanding what he was staying and he was aggressively holding me close to him. Soon I realized it wasn’t that he wasn’t speaking english he just wasn’t making too much sense. Then I picked out a few words… “acid” “sorry” “finger” “during” “show” “ear” “sorry”. I stopped him at that point and said loudly it’s ok let’s have a drink. While kind of disgusting the situation was pretty funny because I mean who the hell does something like that and then tells you he did it? Later that night or I guess morning he comes over again. He’s far more coherent now and tells me his name is Michael and he wants to book me in Aachen. I brush it aside thinking he’s not serious. Fast forward a few months and he finds me on Facebook and shows me some of the other bands he wants to book along side of me. They were all so interesting I was in. I love to play live. I really love to play live along other interesting band like acts. The other bands were all synthpunkish and weird so right up my alley. It’s all set up for October. Hurricane Sandy hits NYC all flights are cancelled and I miss the show. My day job had me very busy the end of last year so I set a new date for January 19 knowing it would be cool to spend my Birthday (the 20th) and the release of my next album in Germany.
The club was packed. It’s always important but I really didn’t want to play and half full space on my 43rd birthday right? When I walked in Sid (Knothole) was performing. His live show is amazing. Check out the video I took of him above. He’s got Eurorack modules, fluorescent light tubes, does vocals and sets up in the middle of the dance floor. To top it off the music is good. I got to spend some time with him after the show and well let’s just say he’s pretty out there. I felt in good company. So I take the stage, play new songs and absolutely enjoy myself. I did a few encore tracks and as I’m ending they take my mic the club gets quiet and Michael says some stuff in German and then I hear an acapella… “Happy Birthday to you… Happy birthday to you…” the club chimes in. So yeah the music stops and the club, mostly everyone in there sings me happy birthday. What can a guy say to that? Michael you can stick your finger in my ear anytime you want. Thanks for a night I will never forget and thanks for singing to me! To see the full set of photos: click here
“ERWISCHT! Zu Gast aus New York war nämlich Oliver Chesler, der Mann, der auch unter dem Pseudonym The Horrorist bekannt ist. Da er aus der Hardcore-Techno-Nische kommt, erinnern seine Tracks zwar immer noch stark an Produktionen dieser Art, doch sind sie Songs alltagstauglicher geworden. One Night in NYC ist eines seiner bekanntesten Stücke und führte im Jahr 1996 die deutschen Dance Charts an. Mit dabei war der Kollege David Heyer.” – klenkes.de
For more info: thehorrorist.com and facebook.com/michael.hilgers.77
photos credit: David Heyer
This entry was written by , posted on January 22, 2013 at 12:25 pm, filed under live performance and tagged Aachen, Germany, Knothole, live performance, Michael Hilgers, The Horrorist, Things to Come Records. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
I will be performing live tomorrow night (Saturday, January 19) in Aachen, Germany at Autonomes Zentrum on Vereinsstr. 25. I will be celebrating the release of Fire Funmania, my 43rd birthday and checking out some of the other bands. Those bands include Knothole, Walls & Birds, Cyklop 2019, Vomit Heat (Dj Set) and Big Dada P. I met the promoter Michael Hilgers when I performed in Berlin last summer. He’s an interesting person and most importantly has a good eclectic music taste. I will try and make some posts while I am gone!
“This Is Going To Be Legendary! Ohhh Yeah! It S A Birthday Party!” – Michael Hilgers
For more info: facebook.com/events/320977971348751
This entry was written by , posted on January 18, 2013 at 8:04 am, filed under live performance and tagged Aachen, Germany, Knothole, live performance, The Horrorist, Things to Come Records, Walls & Birds. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Dave Gahan and the song People are People star in Volkswagen’s new advertisement. The Golf is VW’s most important car. It shows how freakin huge DM are in Germany. Really huge. My only question is: Why didn’t they use the song Behind the Wheel?
“You have to know people to build the one car — Der Golf. Das Auto. Enjoy the new tv commercial and discover different cover versions of the famous Depeche Mode Song “People are People”. If you look closely, you might spot a celebrity.” – volkswagen.de
For more info: depechemode.com
This entry was written by , posted on November 12, 2012 at 4:40 pm, filed under music, video and tagged advertisement, Dave Gahan, Depeche Mode, Germany, Golf, People Are People, Volkswagen, VW. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
One of the most friendly people you can meet in this world is Andreas Schneider. If you go to his synth store in Berlin he will enthusiastically show you all his toys and then set you free to play with everything. When I lived in Berlin I bought a few things when the store was at Alexanderplatz. Now they have moved to Kruezberg and lucky us Musotalk has uploaded a video showing us the new place.
“Our showroom in Berlin .. is called Schneidersladen now at the Kottbusser Tor above ‘Kaisers’ with quite limited opening hours: On Mon, Tue, Thu, Fri 2pm til 6pm you are very welcome, wednesdays the showroom is closed (!).”
For more info: schneidersbuero.de
This entry was written by , posted on October 9, 2012 at 1:06 pm, filed under modular, synthesizer and tagged Andreas Schneider, Berlin, Germany, Musotalk, SchneidersBuero, Schneidersladen, store, synthesizer. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Here’s a nice video of some “Wave Punks” in Münich, Germany sometime in the 80s. So my German friends what are they saying?
“80er wave punks popper münchen”
For more info: wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_rock
This entry was written by , posted on October 4, 2012 at 9:16 am, filed under interviews and tagged 1980's, Germany, Goth. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Put this song Angels in Jar on your cassette deck and drive somewhere fun tonight. Wolfsheim’s Markus Reinhardt and Peter Heppner were from Hamburg, Germany. This cassette was recorded in 1988.
“In January 2009 Heppner and Reinhardt splitted up due to personal differences caused by the solo activities of Heppner. Currently Reinhardt is fighting in court to get the right to continue the project Wolfsheim with a different singer.” – discogs
For more info: discogs.com/Wolfsheim-Ken-Manage…
This entry was written by , posted on August 25, 2012 at 6:21 am, filed under music and tagged 1988, Germany, Hamburg, Ken Manage, synthpop, Wolfsheim. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Two awesome things! A custom built spring reverb and a Vermona DRM-1. I own a DRM-1 and I recommend it highly to everyone. Just listen to how great these sound together.
“Finally, my custom built spring reverb is ready. (thanks much to Csaba Füle, the best)
Basically it is an RFT spring tank driven by a Doepfer A-199 module. Much bigger space, much wider spectrum, much better than Accutronics imho. Audio: It’s a basic sequence with the Vermona DRM-1 put on multi channels sent to the Spring Reverb. Changing Emphasis and Feedback here and there on the Doepfer A-199 module, changing the filter on the snare at the solo, and finally, slapping the rack hard in the end. :) It’s just wonderful. Everyone should forget vst reverbs – for a while at least. This thing sounds so unpredictable, so different every time, so alive… I have done some phased and hi-lowpassed feedback and send-return business too, really shouldn’t waste words trying to describe those sounds…” – Hargitai András
For more info: wiretotheear.com/vermona-drm1-mkiii-audio-video-review
via matrixsynth
This entry was written by , posted on June 19, 2012 at 5:07 pm, filed under drum machine, effects, hardware and tagged Germany, reverb, spring reverb, Vermona DRM1. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
I finally had time to start going through the large amounts of photos and videos I took during my recent week in Berlin (and 4 shows). Here is the first set of photos from the live show in Berlin. The show was at Raum 20 in the Neukölln section of the city. The party was the 2 Year Anniversary of an event called Sabbat thrown by Petra Flurr. This event turned out to be one of my most favorite shows I ever played! I met a lot of very interesting people. A near perfect evening.
See the entire photo set here: flickr.com/thingstocomerecords/7215…
“INVASION OF ELEKTRO, TEKKNO, APOCALYPTIC, RAVE, CRIMINAL WAVE, OLDSKOOL, NOIZE ….” – Sabbat
For more info: thehorrorist.com and facebook.com/thehorrorist
This entry was written by , posted on June 18, 2012 at 8:38 am, filed under live performance and tagged Berlin, Germany, Karina Qanir, Petra Flurr, The Horrorist, Things to Come Records. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
The Merkel government has proposed a plan called “Rewarding Life’s Work” which is essentially a 350 Euro per month social security contribution that would be required by all the self employed. Add the new tax to required health insurance, rising energy and food costs and Berlin may loose some of it’s appeal for musicians. My personal opinion is my generation is now seeing it’s first real economic challenge. There are bridge tolls in the NY area that are $15. $10 is more like $1 used to be. We can complain but the world’s resources are being fought for and there are smart people on the other side of the world working all day for pennies. I would like a Utopia where artists could just concentrate on art but I don’t forsee that happening. My advice is work hard and use technology to your advantage. Use it to create pockets of time to paint and sing your masterpieces world be dammed.
“The German government’s plan to force freelancers to pay a compulsory retirement ‘contribution’ will kill off entrepreneurship and destroy millions of independent careers. That’s the opinion of Tim Wessels, an IT specialist from Hamburg who has launched a petition against the so-called “Rewarding Life’s Work” law. Freelancers will be forced to pay €350+ a month to support the broken pension system, on top of the €300-€600 they must already pay for health insurance (plus other taxes). Demanding that entrepreneurs fork out at least €650 a month in contributions before they earn a single cent will end innovation in Germany.” – deskmag.com
For more info on Rewarding Life’s Work: Skrufff, Exberliner and Deskmag
photo credit: lampenlee
This entry was written by , posted on May 15, 2012 at 6:38 am, filed under business, political and tagged Germany, Merkel, tax. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Earlier this year I did a remix for German artist Tomas Tulpe. He’s an interesting person and I am pleased my remix of Ich Tanz auf Dich appears on his brand new album Hatschi! (scroll the audio player down to get to an audio clip). You can read a very thorough review of the release at Reflections of Darkness (link). I hope to meet Thomas in person during my upcoming Berlin week.
“…The final of the album is the HORRORIST remix of ‘Ich tanz auf dich’. This version of the song is faster, alienated and put into a technoid electronic format perfectly fitting to the dance halls. This one surely will become a collector’s item, not many will love it, but if you do, then you’ll love it a lot! And so, one of the trashiest albums ever found the way into my ears was ending. My reactions reached from rhapsodic excitement to tired yawning and moaning while listening to ‘Hatschi!’ over and over again. Except of ‘Ich bin ein Grufi’ all songs could be heard through internet here and there already. ‘Ich tanz auf dich’ and ‘Disco’ will be stuck in the ears of the people who ever heard it forever. My conclusion: Buy the album if you like experimenting. It is worth it! But don’t be miffed if it does not flow from beginning to the and. And first of all, don’t take this album serious!” – reflectionsofdarkness.com
For more info: tomastulpe.de/hatschi
Buy the album: Amazon
This entry was written by , posted on April 27, 2012 at 10:59 am, filed under music and tagged Germany, The Horrorist, Things to Come Records, Tomas Tulpe. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
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