Warning!

After Edgar Schlepper unpacked the new guitar-synthesizer he had ordered for his music-shop he immediately called his friend Hans Müller and they spend a drunken night toying around with this new device. Müller, who worked at a record company must have seen the potential of their experiments and the two formed Warning. They called themselves Ed Vanguard and Mike Yonder, put on black robes and Darth-Vader-esque masks and invented (and buried) death-metal-doom-disco.

The German producer duo hit it big when their bizarre and disturbing single "Why can the bodies fly" was used as the memorable soundtrack for a 1982 episode of popular TV-crime program "Tatort" (Crime-scene).


In the now classic episode "Peggy hat Angst" (Peggy is afraid), the killer listens to the song over and over while playing bongos. He terrorizes women by playing the song over the phone late at night. He finally kills one of his victims (a fashion-model) while she is on the phone talking to a model-friend. We only hear the music blaring through the speaker overlaid with the screams of the dying woman.

On the next day, people stormed the record-stores demanding the single which soon climbed to #11 in the charts.

This spooky novelty song with its totally disembodied voices and hilariously “dark” lyrics is a lost classic. Outside of doom-metal you won´t hear a voice like that and even today "Why can the bodies fly" sounds as strange as it did in 1982.
Check the cheap video and dig the backing-girls cooing "they killed it" over the simulated puking of the vocalist!

Take KISS in their disco-phase, bury with Italo disco and Munich Machine and witness the missing link between Amanda Lear and The Sisters of Mercy rising from it´s disco grave.



Warning released two albums which some goth-heads regard as very influential.

Today, Edgar Schlepper is producing audio-plays while Hans Müller died in 2004.

1000 Tears Deep

When Blumfeld released "Tausend Tränen tief" and their third album "Old Nobody" in 1999 their fans went berzerk, but not in a good way. It was a bit like when KISS went disco, or as a commenter on Youtube puts it: "when this came out it was the end! We were almost a youth-culture, we had lived with "Ich Maschine" and "L´Etat et Moi" every day. With "Old Nobody" we felt like abused children!".

Nine years prior Blumfeld, along with a handful of other German bands were the heads of a new indie-rock movement that combined guitar feedback and intellectual, German lyrics. After an almost five year hiatus the release of this new record must have felt as if Blumfeld have grown up and grown old at the same time.


"Tausend Tränen Tief" could be mistaken as a German George Michael song and it became a great success for the band, bringing in new listeners via a radio-friendly, timeless love song. One to be played at future funerals.

The video is a stroke of genius! We see Helmut Berger, the notorious, forgotten world star getting dressed up in a hotel suite. In between, Jochen Distelmeyer, Blumfeld´s voaclist is sitting in a taxi, driving through the night. Fireworks illuminate the sky and finally the two meet in the lobby. Formal handshake, champagne is ready, Berger refuses to drink. They begin to talk, Distelmeyer makes Berger laugh, the ice is broken. Is it the first meeting to discuss the idea of the video we have just seen? Early morning, Berger walks alone along a foggy lake, he fades away. The end.

Watch and listen:

The stunt casting of Berger secured heavy rotation on all music channels and today "Tausend Tränen tief" is a classic of German pop music, a genre that still has not that many contenders.

Anyway, it has to be said that Berger really owns his part. The way he flips through the selection of his suits, the moments of inner turmoil as he is riding the elevator... A legendary person who happily enjoys being a legend for pay, for this one day.


As with most great songs, the lyrics are almost banal. I tried to translate the words as close as possible, including some awkward grammatical terms, trying to saty true to the ambivalence of the original lyrics.

"Thousand Tears Deep"
within me
thousand tears deep
sounds an old song
it could mean so much
into the day
it wants to be with you
it sings to you only
of new possibilities

come to me in the night
we hold each other tight
until the day awakes
kiss me then
as if it was the first time

with you
into a different blue
we share a dream
a picture from different times
like you are a part of me
I am a part of you
I can feel it
the way we touch

a song of two people
how love feels
we flow in rhythm
to the sun
everything is earthly
the world lies dark
we float as a whole
the night belongs to us

within me
thousand tears deep
sounds an old song
it could mean so much.

Overlit Chrome

American photo- or hyperrealism was a very successful art form in Germany during the 1970s.

I think that these ultra-realistic paintings offered many non-Americans a much more comfortable grip and understanding of the "American Dream". For many left-leaning critics Pop-Art embraced consumerism and the banality of art a bit too friendly and carefree.



Photorealism, on the other hand baffled with spectacular painting techniques and a completely irony-free, piercing stare into the American landscape. The shiny, glaring surface on many paintings was either over saturated with colours or so overexposed, almost bleached by the sun, that you´d reach for your sunglasses instinctively.



Suburban scenes of people standing in front of their houses and cars, sunbathing inhabitants next to the countless backyard pools, details of cars, reflecting showrooms, diners, close-ups of candy and dripping jelly-cakes, fractures of baroque neon-signs by day and crashed limousines rotting in high grass. You almost feel like a voyeur.




Like failed attempts of the perfect advertisement, glimpses into a mostly empty world that is filled with useless and decorative place holders.

I think that photorealism is still amazing because it managed to transform a seemingly banal picture into something worth looking at by subjecting it to imaginary sunlight.

Today, Photoshop allows us to create pictures that are so hyper-perfect that the unreal effect is nearly the same. It also allows us to create a picture in "photorealistic style" with the help of a filter. It makes it much more interesting to see what they saw.



I always loved photorealism because it pictured (and suggested) exactly what I liked and what I missed growing up in rebuilt but still scarred Germany: The vast spaces, the tacky colours, the bizarre chrome, the humming of air-condition, lonely palm trees and kidney-shaped pools.



The Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin is currently hosting "Picturing America - Photorealism in the 1970s", which is the first extensive exhibition in Germany for 30 years, covering the most prominent works of Robert Bechtle, Charles Bell, Tom Blackwell, Chuck Close, Robert Cottingham, Don Eddy, Richard Estes, Audrey Flack, Franz Gertsch, Ralph Goings, Ron Kleeman, Richard McLean, Malcolm Morley, Stephen Posen, John Salt, Ben Schonzeit and Paul Staiger

The Last Brick In The Wall

Twenty years ago today Chris Gueffroy and his friend Christian Gaudian decided to be free and to flee from the "German Democratic Republic" and his duty in the East German Army. They had heard that the order to shoot was lifted, so they climbed the various fences, dead zones and the wall between Berlin Treptow (East) and Berlin Neukölln (West). They had already reached the last fence when they were discovered by the GDR border patrol. Chris Gueffroy was hit by ten bullets and died on the spot. Christian Gaudian was severely injured and incarcerated.

The next day, Chris´ mother was called to an interrogation. It was only after she had been questioned that she had been told that her son had been caught during an assassination attempt against a military unit and that he had been killed.
At the funeral she was denied to talk about the fact that her twenty year old son was shot dead while he was trying to flee the country.

Had he waited only a few more months he would have not gone into history as the last of the 123 desperate people who were killed by their fellow countrymen for trying to live their life as a free person.

One of the chiefs in duty of that particular border-segment is now in a leading position in the German police!

On the 80th Floor

Funky, yet haunting music for a dark, cold Sunday afternoon:
Im 80. Stockwerk (On the 80th Floor - hit the arrow for embedded play!) by the inimitable Hildegard Knef

It´s a classic "lost girl in the city"-story with a surreal, eerie twist, and the music is just fantastic. I dig that superb bass, the spooky guitar and of course the "greatest singer without a voice" with her incredible style.



"On the 80th floor
in the house that doesn´t exist
in the city that doesn´t exist
there will be a girl.
she will be waiting for the man
she will be asking: when will he finally be here?

On the 80th floor
in the house that doesn´t exist
in the city that doesn´t exist
she will be sad.
She will be waiting for the man
She will be asking: when will he be here."

It Came from Behind the Iron Curtain

Science-Fiction was always a common vehicle to transport political and social utopia (or dystopia), despite of the political system in which it was produced.


The movies loved Sci-Fi as a great way to sell fear, paranoia or subversive concepts with the use of exciting visuals.
Sci-Fi from the Eastern Block is either hailed as great art (Tarkovsky) or it is basically forgotten like these:

"Через тернии к звездам" - (aka. Per Aspera ad Astra or Humanoid Woman / To the Stars by Hard Ways) is a 1981 sci-fi film, directed by Richard Viktorov in the Soviet Union.

Here is a short scene set to a piece of the soundtrack by Alexey Rybnikov. I love the dominant moog bass, the eerie synths in the background and the anachronistic harpsichord on top of it. Together with the strange and dreary mood of the pictures it creates a very Chernobyl-esque atmosphere. I found the last images of people standing in submerged ruins especially impressive. Since gas-masks freak me out I will probably have nightmares tonight.



Enough of doom and gloom!


You have to watch the next clip! It´s bizarre, beautiful, funny and very relaxing (thanks to the wonderful Russian language). "Moscow-Kassiopea" was a sci-fi movie for children. Directed in 1972 by the same directer as the above, it directly rips off "2001" in a hilariously fantastic way - you know: for kids! Check the colourized landscapes and the monolith, which looks like a wooden door. The aliens look like the Pet Shop Boys, ca. 1993 and towards the 7 minute mark you won´t trust your eyes when a space ship corridor turns into a trippy night-club.



Speaking of DISCO:
Here is more of "Moskwa-Kassiopeja" set to great 70s communist disco music from East Germany. I can´t say enough how utterly amazing this is! Daft Punk had nothing on this!

See kosmonaut-twinks floating weightlessly through their space-ship to the totally tripped out Moroder-esque "In den Kosmos" (into space) by Stern Combo Meißen. This was recorded in 1978, one year after "I feel love"!


Hoch im All (up there in space) is so future-positive that you´d like to travel back in time to enlist for the Russian space program.

International Heaven

What an international mix: American Michael Arias (aka Maikeru Ariasu), a SFX specialist who would become the first foreign director of a major anime-movie in Japan ("Tekkon Kinkreet") has now finished his first live-action movie: A remake of a German tragic-comedy.

Arias´"Heaven´s Door" is a take on "Knocking on Heaven´s Door" by German taxi-driver-turned-director-turned-hack Thomas Jahn. The soundtrack is once more delivered by British electronica duo Plaid. The original movie is set in Germany, the remake is relocated to Tokyo.


Plaid also did the very impressive music for Arias´ "Tekkon Kinkreet" which was released as a regular soundtrack and as a remix album.

Plaid, who were once part of The Black Dog, have specialised their music as a mix of pseudo-oriental, fractal melodies with lots of exotic, polyrhythmic percussion.
On "Tekkon..." Plaid were the perfect match to the fantastic, overwhelming vision of a clattered, futuristic metropolis. Especially the fist and last tracks ("This City" and "White´s Dream") are some of their best compositions.


It could be said that that the music for "Heaven´s Door" is a bit Plaid-by-numbers, but that would be unfair without having seen the movie. Have a listen to Hydrosphere (click the arrow for embedded stream) which has those trademark fragile, fluttering melodies that sound like ice-crystals melting away in the sun. It´s clearly one of the highlights of the album.


"Knocking on Heaven´s Door" is the story of two people who meet at a hospital, discovering that they are both terminally ill. When one of them claims that he has never seen the ocean, they decide to run away, fulfilling this last wish. The German original is a classic buddy-movie with two guys as the protagonists. The Japanese remake changes the setting to a boy/girl scenario, which surely adds some romantic possibilities to the drama.

The Milky Way Transit Authority

Looking for the shortest connection from our solar system to Omega Centauri? Don´t panic! Just check the "Milky Way Transit Authority"-plan and prepare to change lines frequently.
Thanks to the universal 1933 design of Harry Beck, we can find our way through every metropolis on the planet.
Samuel Arbesman has now created a similar map of the milky way, which easily lets you find your way to the suburbia of our neighbouring Canis Major-galaxy (change at new-outer-junction!)

I once wrote about the "City Space"-record sleeve which used the map of the public transport system of Hamburg with global destinations instead of local stations. These maps are fascinating in their reduction of huge, chaotic places into an intelligent and aesthetically pleasing piece of functional artwork.


Speaking of interplanetary travel is a good excuse to post some pictures of the real rocket-man Wernher von Braun, who came to America after he cleverly managed to leave his old sugar-daddy (Hitler) for another one (Disney).



"Vurnurr van Brown" always knew how to strike a pose and he brilliantly established and exploited the image of the technocratic German nerd by cultivating an aura of icy elegance and dry genius (with a strong German accent).


For a long time I was never aware that von Braun teamed up with Walt Disney to steer the public and political interest towards his billion dollar dream of the space-age. Together with Disney he worked on some feature lengths films, "Disney´s Man in Space" which some see as the kickstart for the space-race. Disney is using all his skills at entertaining propaganda, which culminates in von Braun presenting his detailed (and funky) plans of rocket-design and space travel.


It´s fascinating and hypnotising and almost helps you to forget that only a few years before, von Braun was designing and building weapons of mass destruction with the help of enslaved victims of Nazi Germany.

Wernher von Braun in "Disney´s Man is Space"

City Ape

Peter Fox is the closest thing to a German popstar at the moment. As former member of the great dancehall/reggae/hip hop band Seeed he is one of the few musicians who gains respect from every corner of the critical spectrum.


"Schwarz zu Blau" (black to blue) the third single taken off his album "Stadtaffe" (city ape) is his second hymn to the city of Berlin, celebrating his love/hate relationship with the German metropolis.

Not quiet as catchy as the former "Dickes B" or Fox´s recent solo singles, "Schwarz zu blau" describes Peter´s way back home after yet another night of drinking and club hopping. The cliché asks for drunks, passed out between vomit and piss, pierced girls and aggressive Turks. It´s probably all true.


"Good morning Berlin, you can be so ugly, dirty and grey. You can be so wonderfully horrible, your nights are devouring me!"

The video uses animated graffiti and street art, sort of Banksy works brought to life.

...And it cuts your life like a broken knife

"Thieves like us" is probably the best song New Order ever recorded. It´s a perfect mix of a band playing with each other and the sequencer.


This clip is from the brilliant German music-show "Musik Convoy" which aired weekly from 1984 to 1985.

New Order: "Thieves Like Us"

The idea behind "Musik Convoy" was to send a broadcasting unit with a truck that would be used as a stage into provincial areas, small towns or villages where "music" and "TV" would normally not have happened.

Due to the low budget and the experimental nature of the show "Musik Convoy" would feature the creme de la creme of national and international independent and off-beat artists who all had to play live. Here, the show-host is even starting the band´s drum-computer!

Some of the artists that appeared were 10.000 Maniacs, Alphaville, Chris Rea, Billy Idol, Depeche Mode, The Chameleons, Fad Gadget, The Cure, The Go-Betweens, Style Council, Ramones, R.E.M, Nick Cave, Marc Almond, Spear of Destiny, OMD, Grandmaster Flash, Johnny Thunders, Bon Jovi, etc.

It seems that the bands really enjoyed performing on some square in the middle of nowhere to an audience that was cheering for the weirdest band they had never heard of before.


Even New Order appeared to have a good time, they are actually smiling! Sadly it was always the fate of the best act to perform at the end of the show and so we never got to see their whole performance before the show was faded out.

Blue Boys

Taking a different route to our favourite bar yesterday we passed a sinister place called "Blue Boy" which seems to have a very special clientele. Instead of reminding me of "Remember Me", the late 90s big cross-over hit by Blue Boy, I immediately gave a rendition of this old German cover version of "Lonely Blue Boy".

Originally performed by Conway Twitty, the German version sung by American-GI-stationed-in-Germany- Gus Backus transforms this basic blues ballad into a cinematic piece of schmalz-deluxe with its night-club trombone and lush strings.

Blue Boy


Gus Backus, became incredibly successful in Germany in the first half of the sixties with a string of novelty hits which he performed with a charming American accent.
During this decade the German audience welcomed singers from all over the world who sometimes were practically unknown back home but made a good living with a hefty dose of faux-folklore in Wirtschaftswunder-Germany.
This went so far that even some German singers acquired a slight fantasy-accent to appear a little bit more exotic.

His "Blue Boy" was only the flip-side of one of his biggest hits, which was one of my favourite singles from my parents collection. Together with the over-the-top arrangement and the ridiculously nihilistic lyrics "Blue Boy" is a forgotten "Schlager" masterpiece.

"I have no home
I have no friend
I live without the sun
´cause it won´t shine on me
Yeah, the whole town is calling me Blue Boy

My life is lonely
My life is empty
I live without love
and this is so hard
Yeah, the whole town is calling me Blue Boy

I walk the streets every evening
but luck wont find my way
A man who was forgotten by the stars
happiness will always pass me by."

After his success had died down he returned to the USA to work on the oilfields. The German audience believed he was dead, but he later returned to try to cash in on a Schlager revival, which did not really work out all that well for him. Today Gus is still performing on a very small level and he maintains a website.

Here is the original version "Lonely Blue Boy" by Conway Twitty:

Hully Gully

It would be wrong to say that "Halli Galli tanzt für sie" (Hully Gully dances for you) by Deutscher Kaiser is somewhat a forgotten piece of "Neue Deutsche Welle" since it wasn´t exactly a big hit upon it´s release in 1981.

The band only released two self financed singles "Halli Galli Tanzmusik" and "Tempo Tempo" on their own label and disappeared soon after. This quirky mix of minimal dub and electro-ska with its deadpan lyrics (it´s all fairground-barker lore) turned into one of the most sought after rarities of early German new-wave in later years.

Step right up and enjoy the ride! (the music starts at 17 seconds)

Louie Louie Rosy Rosy

" ´Should hear our version of "Louie Louie!", were the last words, Joy Division singer Ian Curtis uttered on stage after the band crashed through a pretty rough version of "Sister Ray" as their final encore ever.

"Louie Louie", one of the most covered rock-standards in the long history of rock-standards counts over 1500 different cover-versions according to Wikipedia.

Notorious for being the subject of a long and idiotic FBI-investigation that tried to find out if the lyrics were actually obscene (or if the obscenities could only be heard when the record was played at the wrong speed!), countless versions of the song would then actually invent rude lyrics, securing the basic rock-riff it´s legendary status.


One of the most bizarre cover versions, however was done by a German Vocal-Jazz group, The Rosy Singers.

During the late fifties and into the mid-seventies, the band was a well booked studio-session group, recording vocals for many orchestras and Schlager productions. they also implanted their voices inside the heads of young German movie-goers since they recorded the dubbed songs for most of the Disney movies (eg. Bambi).


By the late sixties the 2 girls/2 guys group would sing in many legendary tv-shows alongside many big-bands.
The Rosy Singers were always a supplement, hardly ever taking centre stage. A reason for this was their typical, laid back, almost ethereal singing style. Cushioned in lush string arrangements, their four-voiced harmonies were so tricky that they actually sounded like a full choir.

But somewhere inside all this fluff, Rosy must have felt the urge to get down and dirty. And what could be better than a German version of Louie Louie in a Rosy-Stylee, to show all those kids that the Rosies were cool?!

Well, I know a few things but they did it anyway.

For pure wonder and sensation (or sedation) enjoy The Rosy Singers: Louie Louie.

Being mostly a studio-act is one of the reasons that pictures of the Rosy-Singers are nearly impossible to find. Please accept these random selections which I think reflect the mood of the song.

This post is for the amazing Leo at Versions Galore, who just recently felt the need to post 73 cover versions of "Das Model". Galore indeed!

Computer Beat

With their first album Rheingold from Düsseldorf had a massive hit with the minimal and elegant Dreiklangsdimensionen (Triad Dimensions), the second album was a soundtrack for the bizarre puberty-cannibalism flick "Der Fan", in which Rheingold singer Bodo Staiger himself played a new-wave musician who gets killed, cooked and eaten by a fan.

The sound was a mix of rough, electro-punky pop with dark and experimental soundscapes. "Fan Fan Fanatisch" and "Das steht dir gut" are blueprint electro-clash 18 years before it was "invented".

With their third long-player it was hi-concept-time. When "Dis-tanz" was released in 1984 it turned out to be a very expensive and slightly disappointing album. Gone was the minimalism of the debut and the frenetic power of "R".
"Computerbeat", was supposed to become a big hit, but it flopped together with the album.
1984 was the year of Alphaville and Duran Duran. The extra artificial sound of Rheingold was suddenly "out".

Ironically, "Computerbeat" sounds very now and much less dated than other mid-eighties productions. The breakdown at 3:05 floored my back in the day. Enjoy a bonafide piece of forgotten, but authentic 80s.

After the flop of "Dis-tanz" the band disbanded. Bodo Staiger went on to produce techno tracks and partner Lothar Manteuffel later teamed up with ex-Kraftwerk member Karl Bartos to form Electric Music.
Last year, Rheingold reformed to release a collection of tribute songs to fellow Düsseldorf bands, like themselves, Kraftwerk, Propaganda, Fehlfarben, etc.

Pop Komplex

Paintings by Gerhard Richter
Original "Wanted"-Posters by BKA, Teaser-Posters Der Baader Meinhof Komplex

At yesterday´s premiere event they had black limousines with the title-logo cruising around. I especially love the cover for the book adaption and the "audio book" which puts the original mugshots next to their actor counterparts. A real pop complex.