While going through the expo-shop at Documenta 12 I came accross a red coloured box (*) containing 2 LP’s, a CD and a DVD with material recorded during “Die Große Untergangsshow” aka “Festival der Genialen Dilletanten“, a fairly legendary festival (first in its kind) organised at Berlins Tempodrom on the 4.th of September 1981 with participation and bands like Blixa Bargeld und Gudrun Gut, Die Tödliche Doris, Einstürzende Neubauten, Frieder Butzmann, Leben und Arbeiten, Sprung aus den Wolken, Sentimentale Jugend, and many more of the Berlin early 80’s-Scene. The box also contains an LP-sized booklet with info (written by, if I’m not mistaking Wolfgang Müller [mySpace] of Tödliche Doris and one of the main organizers of the event), pictures, and a T-shirt that spoiled the fun of this find to a certain extent (**). This slick collector’s item has been released by Vinyl On Demand (VOD) in 2005 in a limited edition of 500 [website, to get to the English pages click “English” at the bottom, their mySpace is over here]. I paid a whopping 69,50 euro for it (making it the most expensive item in my collection), but seen the scarity of the material and the goodies you get in return (forget the T-shirt) the price seems quite right. Moreover, you can order it directly from VOD for 55 euro and save a few bucks [over here], seems it isn’t sold out yet (their online shop returns a nice PHP-error whatever though when I clicked the link). While you’re on the VOD-site make sure to check out the label - The guy that’s running it describes himself as a passionate collectioner that at one moment decided to digitalise his collection and share it with the world [read the philosophy behind VOD], by doing monthly vinyl releases [as described in the manifesto of VOD]. For the feeble sum of 250 euro/year you can become a member of VOD and receive all releases of one year spread over 3 shipments [more info]. Seen the quality and rarity of VOD’s releases this is well worth the money. I know at least one person that is a long-time member of VOD, and that’s Peter Zincken (Fckn Bstrds, Odal, Dr. Bibber) (***) who told me of this label a couple of times, and described the owners’ collection as huge (we’re talking about 10.000 and 10.000’s of items here, make sure to check out the gallery of record-covers - groovy!).
Now back to this particular VOD-release: the music of Berlins’ early eighties experimental scene was one of my first encounters with experimental music (in that same period - mid 90’s- I was also listening to Wormer Punk Music like early stuff from The Ex, GRRRR, Baader Pop Gruppe), first through the early records of Einstürzende Neubauten, later also through music of related bands like Abwärts (not from Berlin though), Die Tödliche Doris (described by Peter Zincken as “primitive”, I’d rather use the word “raw”, first LP is highly recommended) and Sprung aus den wolken (the one and only record I have of them is a bit too clean and too funky for my taste though, some tracks on mySpace over here). On this record you will find them all, including the moderation between the bands. The CD contains the sound as recorded on the videotape that was shot at the festival (and that can be found on the DVD), while the two LP’s contains almost the complete festival as recorded in the audience. So the recordings on the CD and the LP’s aren’t entirely the same, but they of course overlap, I think the 2 LP’s contain some 15 minutes of extra material. The footage on DVD is what you might expect of a video-tape shot in 1981: blurry and distorted by times, with heavy detoriated colours - things get quite psychadelic as soon as the lights grow dim, but this is the charming patina of time. A highly recommended release for people that have a soft spot for experimental music from the early 80’s - Make sure to check out the VOD-site!
As a side-note: I recently learned that Die Tödliche Doris had put their entire musical output online for download (more than 8 hours of material) - free of charge in full compliance with their philosophy on music. I just checked their site, but it seems they haven taken down the mp3’s. In translation the German explanation reads: “Due to the new regulation of charges of GEMA we had to take the Downloads from the net. We examine, under which conditions we can offer the Downloads again.” My guess is that Die Tödliche Doris have copyrighted their material through GEMA - a common thing to do for artists that are living from their music - but apparantly by doing so they partly lost control over their music. I wouldn’t be surprised if bands that are with an organisation like GEMA (or its Belgian counterpart SABAM) actually have to pay that organisation to put their (own!) music online for free download (****). Years ago I heard simular stories of punk-bands that had been so naive to join such an organisation when they pressed their first 7″ - In Belgium when you do things the official way you need to ask SABAM’s permission to put out a release, which doesn’t mean that you have to join them, especially for non-profit DIY-type of releases the best thing to do is to explicitely state that you don’t want to become a member and that your material isn’t copyrighted (*****), because otherwise a venue or organizer booking you might be faced with extra charges, even playing for free at a benefit might suddenly become a problem, idem so when you want to be on a compilation. Anyhow, bottomline is that I learned of Die Tödliche Doris’ download-side too late and missed a wealth of great material. Four (non-downloadable) tracks can be found on their mySpace though for your listening pleasure. Dang!
(*) also came accross a magazine for which Jelle Crama did the cover
(**) I’m firmly opposed against printed T-shirts since the age of 17, when my then girl-friend tried to give me an undersized “Boys don’t cry” T-shirt from The Cure for my birthday.
(***) and identified a second one
(****) checked things, authors that are with SABAM don’t have to pay if they want to put their music online for free, don’t know about GEMA, might be more complicated if a label is involved. Don’t know. I’m just being biased. And paranoia.
(*****) Yes, of course, if you don’t copyright your stuff Madonna is going to steal your compositions. And your virginity.
