I'm sure many of you are familiar with the notion of C86, a cassette tape that was released by and published with British music magazine NME (New Musical Express) in 1986. C86 gave name to a genre within independent music, also called (or at least related to) twee.
A bit lesser known is the first tape ever to be published with NME, the similarly named C81. Not surprisingly, this tape was released in 1981, in January, in collaboration with the Rough Trade record label off-shoot Rough Tapes.
C81 is a diverse compilation of timeless classics, seldom heard quality music, and a few songs that just feel rather old at this point. It's playlist contains jazz, poetry, pop, punk and Robert Wyatt. Cabaret Voltaire are on it, the Buzzcocks are on it, and so are Pere Ubu, Scritti Politti, Subway Sect and Orange Juice.
But we'll focus on one specific track right now.
(Play it, or click the logo to go to the download page)
This is Deutsch-Amerikanische Freundschaft's 'Kebabträume', (or 'Kebab traume', 'Kebab-träume', elsewhere) and it is a brilliant version, with all the raw energy we associate with DAF before the 'pure electronic' era.
The song was recorded live in concert at the Electric Ballroom in London in February 1980. As this tape was released in January '81, it actually precedes the release of the first Kebabträume single with a month or two, and the 'Für Immer' album, that contains another version of the song, with more than two years.
A bit of fingerspitzgefühl there, it seems, on the part of NME and Rough Tapes.
This is a picture of the band Die Hitlers (The Hitlers). It was taken in Düsseldorf, at the Ratinger Hof, in 1980. It appears that the members of Die Hitlers were Markus Oehlen (drums?, also from Deutschland Terzett, Flying Klassenfeind, Mittagspause), Thomas Schwebel (guitar? also in S.Y.P.H, Fehlfarben and Mittagspause), Franz Bielmeier (guitar?, Mittagspause), Peter Hein (Fehlfarben), Jürgen Engler (Male, Die Krupps) and Xao Seffcheque.
But that is about everything I have managed to figure out so far. Good name, though. And I like the Beagle Boy look.
Released in 1982 by the No Time gallery, the Guter Abzug box documents the underground scene around the turn of the decade (70->80, that is). It's a good looking, yellow box containing one large poster, two postcards, one flexidisc recorded by Xao Seffcheque and Die Krupps front man Jürgen Engler, and, most interesting, 102 photographs, capturing the Ratinger Hof scene of the time; the people, the mood, and the artists.
These are just a few pictures from the box, that I have borrowed from Punk Sei Dank, here. Click for larger versions.
Xao Seffcheque:
Der Plan + Moritz Rrr, Robert Görl, Pyrolator, Boyd Rice:
It appears Rheingold have woken up. And in the process they have covered themselves, as well as a number of other interesting acts from the Düsseldorf past. Listen to this.
Rheingold, a German NDW band active during the early 80's, probably most renowned for their electronic hit "Fan Fan Fanatisch" from 1984, has been quiet for a long time. Their last complete album was released somewhere around 23 years ago.
But last week they popped up from nowhere again, on several music download sites (such as Juno, Emusic) with a brand new concept album, "Electric City - Düsseldorfer Schule".
The album contains one new Rheingold track, "Alte Shule" (old school), but apart from that, it's a cover album from start to end. Every song is a cover of a song by a band from the Düsseldorf area, including La Düsseldorf, Kraftwerk, Fehlfarben, Michael Rother and Propaganda, as well as their own "Dr. Mabuse" from 1985. This is the complete track list:
La Düsseldorf – “Geld Regiert Die Welt" (1978)
Fehlfarben - "Es Geht Voran" (1980)
Rheingold - "3Klangsdimensionen" (1980)
Electric Music - "Crosstalk" (1992)
Propaganda - "Dr. Mabuse" (1985)
Michael Rother - "Karussell" (1976)
Karl Bartos - "Life" 2003)
Kraftwerk - "Autobahn" (1974)
Rheingold - "Alte Schule" (2007)
The label behind the release is a bit of a mystery to me. It's called 3Klang Records. There was a 3-Klang Records (note the hyphen) in the early 90's, that re-released some other German classics in a similar genre (DAF, Grauzone and a few others). I don't know if this is the same label or not. If it is - what the hell have they been doing for the last 15 years?
