|

THE BLECH | UNSCRUPULOUS ENTERTAINMENT
THE BLECH released 6 LP/CD. Their
albums and CDs have become a treasure-trove of extravagant, groovy
dance hall artistry. In addition
to their CDs, THE BLECH presented equally radical
videoclips and unscrupulous live-shows - the already mentioned "treat
for the eyes".
The forcefulness with
which THE BLECH flung their conviction from the stage
into the audience was at once hypnotic, irritating and erotic.
THE BLECH have been invited 2 times to documenta Kassel, joined art rock and other festivals with Einstürzende Neubauten, with Fred Frith, John Zorn, Arto Lindsay, Elvis Costello, Herbie Hancock, Nina Hagen or Luciano Pavarotti. Toured in North and South America, Japan, Russia, Siberia, Canada, throughout Europe and the Soviet bloc.
With the Goethe-Institut THE BLECH toured through Brazil. The band has received many international awards, in Italy they managed to place No. 2 in the radio charts.
1996 the band toured through Russia and Siberia (eg they were playing on the international festival "Interweek" in Novosibirsk, the festival "Berlin in Moscow" at theater Mossoviet and on the Dynamo Soccer Stadium in front of 40,000 spectators (the concert was broadcast live on Russian TV ). Afterwards, the band was invited by Artemy Troitsky in his television talk show.
THE BLECH played
at Festivals in Montreal, Berlin, Belgrade, Nancy, Wroclaw, Warsaw,
Rio de Janeiro, Prague, Moscow, Copenhagen, Tokyo, Novosibirsk, Marseille
and they received international awards.

CHEERFULLY
ACROSS THE ABYSS ... AND BEYOND!
THE BLECH (1985-1996). The German band THE BLECH became known when they came
on the scene in 1985, using a combination of experiments with language and
music, with a fondness for absurd plays on words. In subsequent years, the
band developed these musical experiments into one of the few timeless approaches
to pop music in Germany, which enjoyed worldwide acclaim. THE BLECH have helped
to overturn an artistic millenium which, as a basis for the relationship between
Man and nature, had clung to harmony.
THE ETERNAL ANTAGONISM
THE BLECH combines what appears to be uncombinable. Construction - destruction,
chaos - control, aggression - beauty, they have unified all of these opposing
poles into a hard, yet fantastic feeling.
The ensemble created a large-scale,
multi-level, paradoxical game employing a number of media in order to disappear
behind the shrouds of their self-created
confusion. Moving between dadaism and techno, U2 and Stockhausen, the rock
music of THE BLECH is charged with multi-faceted meaningfulness. The thoughts
they intend to provoke, however, are not guided along a fixed path, leaving
room for freedom of choice among innumerable possible interpretations.
The room in which they rage as if obsessed, swirls and sways. A friend's
shoe lies dead on stage. Someone else is struck on the head with something
hard. Enlightend by a vision, he spies the Virgin Mary as she stady lowers
herself from the chandelier;
A show for the primadonna's pants, the lama's
tail at the zoo and for you".
CULTURAL DECEPTION,
EROTICISM AND SAUERKRAUT
Hubl Greiner explains the band's definition of music as follows:
"We ask
questions without knowing the answers. We love painting pictures with a view
to challenging
and provoking the viewer to derive his or her own answers. We call on the onlooker
to participate in a creative process. We depict life as an insanely witty,
simultaneous concert of murder, cultural deceit, eroticism and sauerkraut.
We dissolve the eternal controversy of contrasts in laughter. We convinced
the Virgin Mary to wed the devil.
Our show! It's certainly not intangible but more like a "driving
home" of wedges, resulting in altercations between chair legs, bunches
of keys and boot jacks.
The music of THE BLECH is the clamour, the screeching of the brakes
which suddenly attacks those lost in the melody. The music shows an unscrupulous variety of colours, it takes life as
it is, a mad simultaneous concert of murders, cultural lies, erotic and
sauerkraut, it tears apart ethics and the lie of personal responsibility.
This life also means lowness, rape and drunkeness - it is the eternal
conflict of the contrasts. I have the opinion, that the instinct of mutual
help is a throughout egoistic action.
I merely proceed from the assumption that life is an, in itself fighting,
always moving incalculable row of phenomenons, equal to a department
store, in which the signals´rattling never stops and in which moving
stairs whiz through the floors. To fight is an obvious condition. To
wish for paradise is a misunderstanding of life itself."

HIGHLIGHTS |
festivals/concerts
* 5. RENCONTRES DE MUSIQUES ELECTRONIQUES, Wissembourg/France
* "MUSIK UND THEATERFESTIVAL" in Singen
* Festival "MUSIQUES ACTION INTERNATIONALE 87" in Nancy/France
* "FREE MUSIC PROJECT" (Live at Radio France Culture, Paris)
* "HUGO BALL AUSSTELLUNG" at Lenbachhaus/Munich and Kunsthaus/Zürich
* "LAUSCHANGRIFF-FESTIVAL" in Hannover
* Festival in AVIGNON
* Concert at DOKUMENTA KASSEL 87
* Festival at "PALAST DER REPUBLIK" in East Germany
* JAZZHAUSFESTIVAL KÖLN
* EDATANTES MUSIQUES in Dijon/France
* JAZZFESTIVAL "DOM OMLADINE BEOGRADA" in Belgrade
* GÖTTINGER JAZZFESTIVAL at "Deutsches Theater"/with Franz Dobler
* INTERGALLAKTISCHES LÄRM UND STRUKTUR FESTIVAL in Stuttgart
* FESTIVAL "RHEINKULTUR" in Bonn
* CONCERTO EXT Praca da Liberdade in Rio de Janeiro
* KLANGWOLKE at Potsdamer Platz Berlin
* FESTIVAL BARBUE in Kopenhagen/Denmark
* CLUB QUATTRO (with Sadato) in Tokyo/Osaka
* JAZZFESTIVAL BERLIN (Jazzfocus)
* MUSIK MOSAIK in Linz/Austria
* MULTIMEDIALE (Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie) in Karlsruhe
89
* WOODROCK FESTIVAL
* " FERIENKURSE FÜR NEUE MUSIK" in Darmstadt (with
Joachim Krebs)
* Festival "TRANSMISSION" in Berlin/Tempodrom
* MELKWEG Amsterdam
* OPERAHOUSE ST. PETERSBURG
* Solidarity concert for the citizen forum (Prague)
* BAND OF THE YEAR 1989 in Czech Republic
* DAS FEST in Karlsruhe
* ROCKFESTIVAL at the ice-hockey stadium Prague
* WRO 90 Sound Basis Visual Art Festival in Wroclaw/Poland
* FESTIVAL PORTA 90
* ARTROCK-FESTIVAL in St.Etienne/France
* Tour with "Deutsche Bundesbahn"
* Concert at DOKUMENTA KASSEL 92
* DISSONANTEN in Rotterdam
* ART ROCK INTERMEZZO at Volksbildungsheim Frankfurt
* Festival Kufstein
* Festival AREA SISMICA Italy
* Festival VICTORIAVILLE - Montreal
* Festival MIMI in Marseille
* Festival "Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie" Karlsruhe
* ODENWALD Festival/Mani Neumeier (Guru Guru)
* Festival LAUSCHANGRIFF in Nürnberg
* International FESTIVAL INTERWEEK, Novosibirsk
* Festival BERLIN IN MOSKAU (Concert at Theatre Mossowjet Moscow, parts of
the concert were shown in ARD Tagesthemen, ZDF Kulturspiegel and NTV)
* Talkshow with Artemy Troitsky in TV Russia
* Concert at the Dynamo football stadium Moscow (broadcasted live in TV Russia)
FURTHER CONCERTS/FESTIVALS
North- and Southamerica,
Japan, Russia, Siberia, Italy, France, Denmark, Yugoslawia, Hungary,
Spain, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, Poland, Czech Republic, Slowenia,
Croatia, Netherland, Slovak Republic

GUEST MUSICIAN ON CD
- Delal, vocals
- Ze Eduardo Nazario, Brazilian percussion
- Edgar Hofmann, saxophones, arabian clarinet, bass clarinet
- Stephan Lamby, tenor saxophone
- Alvaro Pena Rojas, vocals
- Sonia Ushiyama Souto, artworks
- Tomas Perez, percussion
- Sadato, saxophone
- Mia Zabelka, violin
- Bruno Steiner, trompete
- Paul Amrod, keyboards
- Harry Coltello, guitar
- Mike Robertson, bass
- Hendrik Weissmann, keyboard
- Sexo, saz
MANAGEMENT
Richy Richter, Uli Balss/Jaro Medien GmbH
SOUND ENGINEERING
Thomas Nickel, Manfred Ostermay, K.H.Backes, Ivan P.Lang
|
 |