The company (rock band)

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The Company
General information
Genre (s) Rock , post-punk
founding 1983 as the Trötsch company
resolution 1993
Founding members
Tatjana Besson
Vocals, keyboard
Frank Trötsch Tröger († 2015)
Guitar , vocals
 Key Pankonin (until 1986, official exit at the end of 1987)
Lothar Greiss
Last occupation
Tatjana Besson
Bass, vocals
 Faren Matern
Drums
 Thomas Schreiber
Drums
 Christoph Schneider
guitar
 Richard Z. Kruspe (from 1992)
former members
guitar
 Paul Landers (1986-1991)

The company was an underground rock band founded in the GDR .

history

The company was founded in 1983 by Frank Trötsch Tröger under the name Firma Trötsch or Tanzkapelle Wandlitz in East Berlin , and after a short time it was renamed Die Firma - a GDR pseudonym for the Stasi. The group existed until 1993.

In addition to Trötsch, bassist Tatjana Besson , guitarist and co-lyricist Key Pankonin and drummer Lothar Greiss were part of the band's first line-up. In addition to Pankonin, Trötsch wrote many song texts, played keyboards and took over the vocal parts together with bassist Besson. The latter quickly became the band's figurehead due to her long red hair and deep singing voice.

The group rehearsed in empty apartments and back buildings and played on weekends all over the GDR. The company saw itself as politically agitating, Trötsch in particular emphasized many years after the dissolution that he wanted to change society in the GDR with his texts. The songs were sometimes considered critical of the system and sometimes even subversive. The punk scene that had flourished in the country since the early 1980s helped the musicians, so that within a few months they had a large fan base. Despite the existence of an official license to play, the group often performed at illegal concerts in churches, which offered the punks persecuted by the state and many illegal bands a protected space.

The fact that Trötsch had been an unofficial employee of the Ministry for State Security since 1979 was only known after the fall of the wall and the turn of the early 1990s. To this end, said Trötsch years later in a TV report about subculture & Stasi in East Germany the rbb :

“I practically played a double game, imagining at the time that everything would go well. It went well for a while. Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to start a band called Die Firma. We even got a rating as The Company . "

- Frank Trötsch Tröger

Band founder Trötsch left the band after a while because the lack of professionalism bothered him, but returned after a two-year break. He finally got out at the end of 1987. In 1986 the Feeling-B guitarist Paul Landers took over the role of Pankonin at Die Firma , who was doing his military service with the National People's Army (NVA). Pankonin, who was responsible for the lyrics of company songs such as Faschist und Kinder der Maschinen Republik, returned after his military service, but left at the same time as Trötsch, as the anti-militarist image of the band bothered him, which he helped shape before his time in the NVA would have. He founded the band Ichfunktion . Landers remained guitarist for the company until 1991 , but continued to play with Feeling B at the same time . In 1990 he brought his company band colleague Christoph Schneider to join the fun punk combo as a drummer, which compared to the company was considered little or no political.

In 1987 some musicians from Die Firma participated in the project Törnen - a mecklenburg environment. of the performance artist Holger Stark.

In 1990, the company and other GDR artists were invited to the Elysée Palace in Paris by French President François Mitterrand . A little later, Tröger's IM activity became known - and beyond that, Tatjana Besson, a second member of Die Firma, had worked as an IM for the Stasi for years. Besson, who was considered a band member who was particularly critical of the state in the GDR alternative music scene, received a lot of criticism afterwards because she had acted as a kind of agent provocateur in consultation with the Stasi at a concert in front of 6,000 spectators in the period before the fall of the city T-shirt with a print of the GDR civil rights movement Neues Forum . Some band members left the group after their colleagues' IM outings because they were disappointed with Tröger and Besson or now saw the band's credibility as shaken, including Landers. On the one hand, he said he quit for the aforementioned reasons, on the other hand his company music colleagues had asked him to give up one of his two bands, as both of them were taking up too much time. His successor on guitar was the Schwerin musician Scholle alias Richard Kruspe (previously Das Elegante Chaos , First Arsch ).

The group disbanded in 1993, and several former company musicians formed the Rammstein group with other like-minded people in 1994. For these and other bands, the former company bassist and co-singer Faren Matern is now working as a light operator and set designer.

The band founder Frank Trötsch Tröger, who had been in bad health for years, died in 2015. He had regretted his IM work years earlier in an rbb interview with the words "I would like to start all over again".

The occupations in the course of their existence and their further whereabouts (if known):

Discography

  • o. J .: Deserteur , track on Meine Heimat Der Osten Vol.1 , compilation cassette, published on Heimat cassette (HK 1)
  • undated (1980s): Fascist on VEB Sampler Part 1
  • 1986: 1st demo , self-release
  • 1990: Live Paris 1990 , cassette, self-release
  • 1990: The Last Days Of Pompeji , split LP with Freygang and I function , released by Peking Records (PRP 00490)
  • 1990: Alte Helden , on system failure - Ostsampler , CD, compilation, published on Peking Records (SPV 084-62532)
  • 1991: The company , cassette, album, self-release
  • 1991: Live at JFZ Neuruppin , cassette, live album, self-release
  • 1991: Children of the Machine Republic , CD, album, published on BuschFunk (0081-2)
  • 1991: Live Im Landei Bad Liebenwerda , cassette, live album, released on Heimat cassettes (HK 16)
  • 1992: Live (in the cellar theater in Magdeburg), cassette, live album, released on Heimat Kassetten (HK 17)
  • undated (1992): Die Firma - Live In Haldensleben , Cassette, Self-Release
  • o. J. (1990s): Machine republic , track on the cassette sampler art and concrete , published on Heimat cassettes (HK 22)

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ rbb via youtube.com: Subculture & Stasi in the GDR 2/2 | DIE FIRMA / Trötsch (Frank Tröger) Original sound from 2:54 min. Upload on April 8, 2010, accessed on May 13, 2017
  2. ↑ beat-poet.de: The company , accessed on May 13, 2017
  3. ↑ Holger Stark: Performance Törnen u. a. , upload 2016, accessed on May 13, 2017
  4. ↑ beat-poet.de: The company , accessed on May 13, 2017
  5. ↑ Mark Modsen: The Glorious Eighties. Freygang / company / I function. In: NMI-Messitsch, No. December 7, 1990
  6. ^ Die Firma - Live JFZ Neuruppin October 25, 1991, in: Youtube channel by Urethra Punk, uploaded on June 9, 2013