AG. violin

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AG violin
General information
Genre (s) Electropop
founding 1986
resolution 1993
Founding members
Frank Bretschneider
electronics
 Torsten Eckhardt (until 1989)
Vocals, guitar
 Ina Kummer
Vocals, electronics
 Jan grief
Last occupation
Vocals, guitar, keyboard
 Frank Bretschneider
electronics
 Olaf Bender (since 1989)
Vocals, guitar
 Ina Kummer
Vocals, electronics
 Jan grief

AG Geige was a band that was founded in 1986 in Karl-Marx-Stadt (now Chemnitz ) in the German Democratic Republic and existed until 1993.

Band history

In the DDR

Frank Bretschneider , Torsten Eckhardt (until 1989), Jan Kummer and Ina Kummer founded the band AG Geige in 1986 during theater rehearsals for a play by a mutual friend that was never performed. Olaf Bender joined in 1989. “AG” means “working group” and, in the context of this band name, represents an ironic exaggeration of the cultural and artistic mass activity generally required in the GDR. The band received no official permission to play - the classification - but received after repeated insistence by a gallery owner in the city's art trade “Folk art collective of excellent quality”, which allowed them to appear in public.

The band played electronic music with synthesizers, samplers, tape recorders (for sound loops), guitar, (speech) singing and later computers. The visuals from subsequently edited Super 8 films or later 16 mm films and the elaborate Dadaist costumes of the band members not only complemented the music, but were also a determining component of their multimedia stage performance. Music and film were closely interlinked, and the film's soundtrack sometimes triggered signal chains to synthesizers and computers. Obtaining the technology was problematic for them under the limited possibilities in the GDR. The western synthesizer they used, the Korg MS 20 , the "heart of the band", cost 10,000 marks at the time. Another problem with live performances was the lack of reliability of the equipment and the equipment of the event technology available on site, which usually only consisted of a mono vocal system.

AG Geige was stylistically influenced by the residents . AG Geige are friendly and artistically linked to bands such as Zwitschermaschine and Die Gehirne .

The texts refer to Dadaism of the 1910s and 1920s. Frank Apunkt Schneider describes it as "floating wackiness that was far above things and yet at the same time in the middle of everyday life", as "happy wealth" that is "a sign of a special abundance".

In the second half of the 1980s, AG Geige quickly gained a relatively large audience in the GDR underground through Lutz Schramm's Parocktikum broadcast on the DT64 channel . The band released their first album Yachtclub & Buchteln in 1987 as a cassette on Frank Bretschneider's label KlangFarBe . Bretschneider produced them in his Sonnenklang studio as well as the productions by Heinz & Franz , Möbius and others, which also appeared on KlangFarBe . The second album Trickbeat was also released on cassette in 1989. In the same year, AG Geige contributed the track Das Möbiusband / Zeychen Und Wunder to the Parocktikum sampler. In 1988 AG Geige received the offer to play at a festival in West Berlin with the Einstürzende Neubauten . However, their trip to non-socialist foreign countries was not approved because they were not rated as “figureheads for socialist youth culture”.

In the turning point

The second album Trickbeat was released in 1989 - after the fall of the Wall - as an LP on the state-owned record label Amiga . With 200 other underground artists from the GDR, they performed at the invitation of the French President's wife Danielle Mitterrand in the Parisian Grand Halle de la Villette in the show “L'autre”, which took place from January 19 to 21, 1990 and was organized by Christoph Tannert and Maurice Najmann Allemagne hors les murs ”. The band continued to perform in West Germany (including at Popkomm ), Switzerland and France and played long and far-reaching tours.

A big concert took place in 1991 as part of the third international art rock festival in Frankfurt am Main. The band was represented on various samplers in the following years . From the beginning of the 1990s, AG Geige found attention in various scene magazines such as the Zillo . The local Chemnitz daily Freie Presse described them as the most famous band in town at the time. West German media, however, were completely disinterested in the East German underground, most East German media such as DT64 had collapsed or were shut down.

AG Geige released their album Raabe? on the Berlin label Traumton . In 1992 the book From Frogs and Dreams appeared in Michael Rudolfs Verlag Weisser Stein . It contains a selection of the band's lyrics and graphics by their members.

At the time of reunification, the band members were faced with the existential question: “How do you live as an artist in the capitalist system?” Earning money was secondary in the GDR, and (underground) artists in the repressive state had to concentrate more on creating room for maneuver. The change in the system brought with it a great deal of financial uncertainty and with it uncertainty about the role of the artist. Furthermore, the system change brought the need to develop a new, credible and relevant position in society as an artist, which was not so easily and seamlessly possible.

Dissolution and further artistic activity of the band members

In 1993 the band split up for artistic reasons. In the same year the release of a fourth album ( including Yachtclub & Buchteln ) was announced by the end of the year. This album with the working title AG Geige 3 was finished, but never appeared. The recordings did not appear on the Internet until years later. The music is more energetic and bulky, lyrically and technically it follows on from the previous albums. The first album Yachtclub & Buchteln was re-released on CD in 1996.

After the band broke up, various band members worked as graphic designers, in textile and bag sales, in social work or opened a store for sound carriers and clothing. However, after a certain time they found their way into their role as visual or multimedia artists. Frank Bretschneider and Olaf Bender have been working as electronic musicians ever since. In 1995 they founded the label Rastermusic , which merged with Noton in 1999 to form Raster-Noton , which, alongside A-Musik and Mille Plateaux, is one of the most renowned labels for experimental electronic music with an affinity for visual and conceptual art. Raster-Noton is run today by Olaf Bender and Carsten Nicolai .

reception

The documentary film AG Geige - An Amateurfilm (2012) by director Carsten Gebhardt contains film recordings of live performances as well as interviews with the band members, radio producers, organizers and curators. The original plan was to publish a collection box containing the film, previously unpublished audio material and the now out of print book Von Fröschen und Träume . Finally, the box Zeychen & Wunder, limited to 350 copies , was released in 2016 via mailorder.majorlabel.de . This contains the vinyl editions of the LPs Yachtclub & Buchteln , Trickbeat , Raabe? and 3 . Also included is the compilation LP Rundfunk, Cover, Live , the DVD version by AG Geige - an amateur film , a cassette from the AG Geige side project Machinehead and two booklets with texts and pictures from and to the band.

Trivia

  • Ina Kummer and Jan Kummer's children are Felix Kummer and Till Kummer, who play in the band Kraftklub - under the stage name Brummer - and Nina and Lotta Kummer, with their band Blond.
  • AG Geige may have served as a model for the band Planquadrat , who call their style of music a trickbeat , in Thomas Brussig's novel How it shines .

Discography

  • 1986: Yachtclub & Buchteln , cassette album, on KlangFarBe (kFB 006)
  • 1987: AG Geige - radio production
  • 1989: Trickbeat , cassette album, on KlangFarBe (kFB 008), later that year as a vinyl album (8 56 491) and cassette album (0 56 491) on Amiga
  • 1989: Track Das Möbiusband / Zeychen und Wunder on the sampler Parocktikum , vinyl sampler, on Amiga (856409)
  • 1989: The Atominoes Live Days of Youth January 19, 1989 in the PdR , side project of the AG Geige with covers by Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and others. a. in AG violin style
  • 1990: Trickbeat , CD album and vinyl album on Zong (2170 018)
  • 1990: Track Perfect World on the sampler Parocktikum 2 , cassette sampler , on censor (ZS 109)
  • 1991: Raabe? , Vinyl album and CD, on Zensor (ZEN 2)
  • o. J .: Electronic noises , split cassette album together with the band Expander des Progress , on Heimat cassettes (HK 13), limited edition
  • 1992: Live Im JoJo Berlin 1992 , cassette album, on Heimat cassettes (HK 15), limited edition
  • 1993: 3 , unreleased album, CDr
  • 1998: Yachtclub & Buchteln , CD album, on KlangFarBe (kFB 006) and Rastermusic
  • 2014: AG Geige - An amateur film , DVD on Raster-Noton (ext007), with 19 audiovisual tracks from AG Geige and live recordings in the bonus area
  • 2016: Zeychen & Wunder , LP-Box, on mailorder.majorlabel.de, works show with 5 LPs and an MC

Movie

  • AG Geige - An amateur film . 2012, directed by Carsten Gebhardt

literature

  • Of frogs and dreams. 1992, Weisser Stein publishing house (Greiz)
  • Frank Apunkt Schneider: It's very dark in the fish, but there is still someone inside ... The improbability of the AG Geige. In: Zonic - cultural marginal views and moments of involvement. No. 22, 2013.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h Felix Scharlau, Linus Volkmann and Thomas Venker: Dada-Pop from the folk art collective, interview with Jan Kummer. In: Der Spiegel , September 30, 2014
  2. ↑ a b c d e Susanne Binas-Preisendörfer: In the musical no man's land - unheard of productions on the edge of rock culture. In: Sound Exchange, Experimental Music Cultures in Central and Eastern Europe, Anthology , 2012/1991
  3. ^ Website of the band ( Memento of March 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ a b c d e Carsten Gebhardt: AG Geige - An amateur film. 2012
  5. ↑ Nonpop magazine
  6. ↑ Frank Apunkt Schneider: It is very dark in the fish, but there is still someone in it ... The improbability of the AG Geige. In: Zonic - cultural marginal views and moments of involvement. No. 22, 2013
  7. ↑ Pearls before the swine. A bohemian in no man's land. Farewell with a state reception. In: Catalog Boheme and Dictatorship in the GDR. Groups, Conflicts, Quarters 1970–89. In: Website of the German Historical Museum
  8. ↑ Florian Harlass: Amateurs for love. The AG Geige - An amateur film. 371stadtmagazin.de
  9. ^ Albert Koch: Volkskunst, excellent . In: Musikexpress . November 2016, Reviews, p. 83 .
  10. ↑ Uwe Kreißig: I don't know that many top models either. About bad food in the East, money, boredom, the reunion of the AG Geige and the glossing over of the GDR after the fall of the Wall. In: Reconnaissance, Interview-Mag, 2011
  11. ↑ Little Sisters of Kraftklub: Blond | North Bavarian courier. Retrieved March 5, 2018 .
  12. ↑ AG VIOLIN 1986/87, in: Parocktikum blog, November 4, 2005