Karl-Ulrich Walterbach

Karl-Ulrich Walterbach (* 1953 in Rheine , North Rhine-Westphalia ) is a German music producer, entrepreneur and label founder. He is known as the founder of the punk label Aggressive Rockproduktionen and the metal label Noise Records .

Career

Walterbach grew up in Rheine, North Rhine-Westphalia. From 1971 he studied civil engineering in Münster and then architecture in Dortmund . He completed his architecture studies in 1974 as a graduate engineer . During his studies in Münster he was active in the local Socialist German Student Union (SDS). After completing his studies, he moved to Berlin-Kreuzberg. Here he lived in shared apartments and occupied floors . He was part of the so-called spontaneous scene and oriented himself towards the Situationist International . A solidarity campaign in connection with the death of Ulrike Meinhof resulted in 15 months imprisonment in May 1976. After prison he broke with the radical actionist scene in Kreuzberg and sought to get close to the punk scene. Under the influence of The Clash and the Dead Kennedys , he began to be active in the Berlin punk scene. Among other things, he organized together with others in 1979 a punk festival with Razors , The Buttocks and Hans-A-Plast in the TU canteen in Berlin as well as a "prison demo" in front of the Moabit prison . He was also involved in the opening of the KZ 36 punk club . Two live recordings were made in the vicinity of the shop, which was also run by Heske von Beton Combo . He also organized concerts in SO36 . From the proceeds of several concerts he financed the publication of the first soundtrack-zum-Untergang -Sampler in 1980: For this he founded Modern Music and the sub-label Aggressive Rockproduktionen. He quickly signed the first ranks of German-language punk rock, including Slime , Toxoplasma , Daily Terror and Canal Terror . Walterbach also released recordings of the bands Zwitschermaschine and Schleim-Keim , which were conspiratorially smuggled out of the GDR, with the LP DDR from below .

In the course of the emergence of the Neue Deutsche Welle, the punk sales flattened and the turn to US punk from 1982 onwards could not stop this trend. The label brought bands like Black Flag , Bad Brains , the Misfits and Angry Samoans to Germany. However, there were more and more complaints about the label's contractual policy, especially from Toxoplasma. From 1984 the punk label became largely inactive and Walterbach concentrated his energy on the metal label Noise Records, which started with a metal compilation in January 1984 and, after initial licensing, finally German bands such as Kreator , Tankard , Helloween , Running Wild , Grave Digger , Rage and Gamma Ray released. Other important bands included Stratovarius (Finland), Hellhammer and Celtic Frost (Switzerland), Voivod (Canada), Watchtower (USA) and Kamelot (USA). At the beginning of the 1990s there was a two-year lawsuit against the EMI around the German band Helloween, because the Iron Maiden Management Sanctuary in cooperation with EMI-UK tried to break Helloween from the noise contractual relationship. Noise Records won in the last instance and the ensuing settlement earned the company a six-figure sum. In 1994 Walterbach moved to Los Angeles to open a noise office there, which he ran until shortly before the sale in early 2001. During his stay in the US, Antje Lange (now Century Media ) was the managing director in Europe . In 1999 he returned to Berlin. From 2001 he set up a music studio under the name MUSICFLASH in Berlin.

In addition, he was involved in the property development business, which only brought losses with the consequence that the responsible company went bankrupt in 2007. After finishing this activity in 2008, he increasingly turned back to the music business. Studio, Maldoror Musikverlag (existing since 1987) and the management company Sonic Attack are the axes of its activities to this day. Currently he takes care of Alpha Tiger , Hammercult and Die Vorboten . He also signs young rock bands for Maldoror Musikverlag. The focus here is mainly on 70s retro and stoner rock in addition to the different variants of metal.

Web links

• Karl-Ulrich Walterbach at Discogs (English)
• http://blog.sonicattackrecords.com/about/

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Joachim Hiller: Interviews: Aggressive Rock Productions: The cult punk label from the eighties . In: Ox-Fanzine . No. 104 (October / November), 2012 ( ox-fanzine.de [PDF]).
2. ^ Metal Mike [Blim]: Indie Labels . In: Metal Hammer / Crash . No. 3/1990 , February 2, 1990, The Metal Decade '80 - '89. Metalscene, S. 50 ff .