Fischer-Z
| Fischer-Z | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| General information | |
| Genre (s) | New wave , rock music |
| founding | 1977, 1987 |
| resolution | 1982 |
| Founding members | |
| John Watts | |
| David Graham | |
| Steve Skolnik | |
| Steve Liddle | |
Fischer-Z is a British rock group based around singer, guitarist and poet John Watts . They are considered to be one of the most popular New Wave bands in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In 1982 Watts dissolved Fischer-Z temporarily and started a solo career under his own name. In 1987 he reactivated the name Fischer-Z. Apart from Watts, however, no other founding member belongs to these formations. John Watts publishes both solo projects and under the name Fischer-Z.
Fischer-Z celebrated success all over Europe and sold more than two million albums. Joint recordings were made with Peter Gabriel , Steve Cropper and Dexys Midnight Runners . Fischer-Z performed alongside James Brown in East Berlin and toured with The Police and Dire Straits . They also accompanied Bob Marley on his last festival tour through Europe and toured the USA and Canada. Fischer-Z has so far released 19 albums and played around 3,000 concerts.
Band history
Fischer-Z was founded in 1977 by John Watts when he was still studying clinical psychology and working in psychiatric clinics. The first appearances took place in clubs. The first Fischer-Z album, Word Salad, was released on United Artist Records in 1979, alongside The Buzzcocks and The Stranglers . The band performed several times on The Old Gray Whistle Test and this was followed by a first appearance on Top of the Pops with the European single The Worker. With the second album Going Deaf For a Living, Watts consolidated Fischer-Z's ability to convey global political issues in narrative songs against the backdrop of “quirky” pop music . The single So Long was released in 1980 on the newly founded TV station MTV . Watts broke up the original Fischer-Z line-up in the summer of 1981, believing the band had strayed too far from their original punk ideals.
He then embarked on a solo career and released his first two solo albums, One More Twist (1982) and The Iceberg Model (1983). From these albums the single One Voice and the song The Iceberg Model emerged. He briefly formed a band called The Cry and released the pop / dance album Quick Quick Slow in 1984, which was produced by Jimmy Douglass. Strongly influenced by the political events of the 1980s, especially Margaret Thatcher's dealings with the unions in Great Britain, Watts brought out the song Dark Crowds of Englishmen in 1985 , which is about the miners' strike in 1984/1985 and the disappearance of the proletariat in Great Britain.
In 1987, John Watts decided to re-establish Fischer-Z with a different line-up. With this line-up, the band celebrated successes, including the singles The Perfect Day (1988) and Say No (1989) from the albums Reveal (1988) and Fish's Head (1989). The 1991 album Destination Paradise was recorded in Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios . The song Further from Love and the title song focus on the suffering of the civilian population during wartime. The next two Fischer-Z albums, Kamikaze Shirt (1993) and Stream (1995), continued to combine a political perspective with songs based on Watts' observations and real life experiences.
In 1997 the album Thirteen Stories High followed , which Watts just like Bigbeatpoetry (1999), but released as a solo project under his own name.
An era of multimedia projects began with "Ether Music & Film" (2002), an international project that was started again under the name Fischer-Z. To this end, Watts traveled all over Europe and to New York , which was shaped by the events of September 11, 2001 . Some of the songs were created spontaneously with street musicians or in short-term sessions. Minimal equipment was used: a high quality microphone and a laptop. The entire project was filmed and released as an album and DVD.
More solo projects followed Watts, u. a. Real Life Is Good Enough (2005), a guitar and drum album recorded with Sam Walker. Like the subsequent and contextual album, It Has To Be (2006), it consisted of melodies inspired by Watt's contact with strangers in ten different countries in Europe. He wrote a song for each of them. The album included poems and short stories by Watts. Morethanmusic (2010) album included the single Head On , which was inspired by Watts' experience of watching a seven-year-old child watch the live execution of Saddam Hussein on the phone. Watts made a film for each track on Morethanmusic.
In 2015, John Watts decided to publish and perform again under the name Fischer-Z. The album This Is My Universe , released this year, contains the title Martha Thargill, in which Watts rethinks the miners' strike after 30 years.
John Watts describes 2017 as a milestone in the Fischer-Z-journey. The 40th anniversary of the first show took place and the band released their 20th studio album, Building Bridges . The title is a statement on the challenges of today. It's about building bridges instead of tearing them down.
Discography
Studio albums
| year | title |
Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes) |
Remarks | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 DE
|
 AT
|
 UK
|
 NL
|
|||
| 1979 | Word salad | - | - |
UK66 (1 week) UK |
NL21 (7 weeks) NL |
First published: May 1979
|
| 1980 | Going Deaf for a Living | - | - | - |
NL6 (18 weeks) NL |
First published: May 1980
|
| 1981 | Red Skies over Paradise |
DE6th  (39 weeks)DE |
- | - |
NL2 (17 weeks)NL |
First published: March 1981
|
| 1987 | Reveal |
DE49 (4 weeks) DE |
- | - | - |
First published: October 1987
|
| 1989 | Fish's Head |
DE56 (7 weeks) DE |
- | - | - |
First published: May 1989
|
| 1992 | Destination Paradise |
DE93 (4 weeks) DE |
- | - | - |
First published: October 1992
|
| 1995 | Stream |
DE80 (4 weeks) DE |
- | - | - |
First published: January 1995
|
More albums
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|
Singles
| year | Title album |
Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes) |
Remarks | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
DE
|
AT
|
UK
|
NL
|
|||
| 1979 | The Worker Word Salad |
- | - |
UK53 (5 weeks) UK |
NL20 (7 weeks) NL |
First published: May 1979
|
| 1980 | So Long Going Deaf for a Living |
- | - |
UK72 (2 weeks) UK |
NL12 (8 weeks) NL |
First published: March 1980
|
| 1981 | Marliese Red Skies over Paradise |
DE37 (18 weeks) DE |
- | - |
NL31 (5 weeks) NL |
First published: February 1981
|
| 1987 | The Perfect Day Reveal |
- | - |
UK91 (2 weeks) UK |
- |
First published: October 1987
|
| 1992 | Will you be there? Destination Paradise |
DE95 (2 weeks) DE |
- | - | - |
First published: October 1992
|
More singles
- 1980: Room Service / Limbo
- 1982: One Voice
literature
- Armin Pongs : From A to Fischer-Z . Dilemma-Verlag, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-9805822-1-3 .
swell
Web links
- Official website
- Fischer-Z at Allmusic (English)