Mekanik Destrüktiw Komandöh

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Mekanik Destrüktiw Komandöh
General information
origin Berlin (Germany)
Genre (s) punk
founding 1978, 2015
resolution 1984
Founding members
singing
 Volker Hauptvogel
bass
 Edgar Domin († 2012)
Current occupation
singing
 Volker Hauptvogel
guitar
 Gerhard Rudschuck (1984, since 2015)
bass
 Rumme Beck (since 2016)
Drums
 Friedel Kriete (since 2016)
Keyboard
 Kurt Rudschuck (since 2016)
saxophone
 Bertram Krumm (since 2016)
former members
guitar
 Alexander Hacke (1979, 1981)
guitar
 Karsten Brucker (1980)
guitar
 Georg Keller (1982)
Drums
 Iane Rickes (1980)
Drums
 Uli Radike (1981)
Drums
 Borries von der Busche (1984)
saxophone
 Stephan Schwietzke (1981–1984)
synthesizer
 Angelo Plate

Mekanik Destruktiw Komandöh (also called MDK or MDK for short ) is a punk band from Berlin, which existed from 1978 to 1984 and has been active again since 2015 with a largely new line-up.

history

Volker Hauptvogel and Edgar Domin moved independently to West Berlin in 1976 and met as members of a street theater in Kreuzberg . Both belonged to the occupiers of the fire station Reichenbacher Strasse in 1978, in whose environment Hauptvogel and Domin became members of the punk band full throttle as singer and bassist. After three concerts, the two separated from full throttle and founded Mekanik Destrüktiw Komandöh. The band is named after the 1973 album Mekanïk Destruktïw Kommandöh by the French progressive rock band Magma . Guitarist and drummer changed frequently at the beginning; the first live concert was played with two students aged 13 and 14. In 1979 the then 13-year-old guitarist Alexander Hacke briefly belonged to the band. In 1981 MDK accompanied Hackes new band Einstürzende Neubauten on a tour of Germany. In 1982 tours through Europe and the USA followed, with the USA tour being sponsored by the Berlin Senate . An MDK fan club was established in Switzerland, whose president was Dieter Meier . In 1983 a biography of the band, written by Hauptvogel and Dietmar Kirves , was published by Karin Kramer Verlag . In the same year Nina Hagen appeared as a guest singer in the band. In 1984 Hauptvogel and Domin fell out; Different political views were the trigger.

In the late 1990s, Domin developed paranoid schizophrenia . A reconciliation between him and Hauptvogel only came about in 2009. Domin died in 2012 at the age of 57 after a long dependence on alcohol and psychotropic drugs.

Saxophonist Stephan Schwietzke played at the same time with Zatopek during his time at MDK . Edgar Domin founded the techno project Gagarin Kongress in the 1990s . After the end of the band, Volker Hauptvogel worked as a night club operator, novelist and actor (including necromancer ).

In 2015 Hauptvogel reformed the band with a new line-up; only guitarist Gerhard Rudschuck was part of the band in 1984. In 2017 the concept album manifestation was recorded in Hamburg .

Style and reception

MDK were considered the house band of the Berlin club SO36 and the successor to Ton Steine ​​Scherben . Hauptvogel and Domin, although rooted in the punk movement, sometimes acted as skinheads , which regularly led to tensions between members of different subcultures present at concerts.

The Ox-Fanzine described the music of Mekanik Destrüktiw Komandöh as proto-punk and the band itself as “punk band of the first hour”, which “helped the movement with its own song material and exclusively German-language texts (...) to an important initial spark”. The Berlin taz counts MDK among the "most underrated bands of (their) time" and described them as "perhaps one of the most radical bands of the time, anarchistic, political (and) agitational", but also as "just a side note of German post-punk ". Musically, the taz saw the band's roots in Krautrock and highlighted their high level of playful and compositional skills compared to other contemporary bands in their genre, as well as playing with a military and totalitarian aesthetic. Jello Biafra compared the band's music, performed at a live concert in 1980, with that of the avant-garde US punk / hardcore band Flipper . In retrospect, the band is also assigned to the Neue Deutsche Welle , which was current at the time of its original existence , so in 2015 it was represented with a piece on an NDW sampler from Bear Family Records .

The FAZ defined the band's music in 2016 as “almost punk jazz”. The album manifestation , released in 2017, referred to Ox reviewer Holger v. Nazareth as a mixture of punk, wave , avant-garde , rock and the improvisational element of jazz . The taz classified manifestation as “idiosyncratic post-punk”.

The band itself states that their lyrics and performance tie in with elements of street and workers' theater, that the music is characterized by improvisational freedom and that the musical presentation at concerts can turn into performance .

Discography

  • 1980: The Road to Peace (Thorn Apple Production)
  • 1981: Live! The declaration of war (live album, Zickzack Records )
  • 1982: The Day Strikes ( EP , Censor )
  • 1983: Berlin (EP, Sixth International)
  • 1984: MDK Berlin 84 ( cassette , thorn apple production)
  • 1984: On the trail of love (EP, no label)
  • 2017: Manifestation (Destiny Records)

literature

  • Volker Hauptvogel and Dietmar Kirves: The Refusers : Politics becomes music. The Mekanik Destruktiw Komandöh in the political frenzy of Berlin. The story of a band . Karin Kramer Verlag, Berlin 1983, ISBN 978-3-87956-148-3 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Holger v. Nazareth: Mekanik Destrüktiw Komandöh: Berlin proto-punk . In: Ox-Fanzine . No. 134, October 2017.
  2. ↑ a b c Erik Steffen: Edgar Domin (born 1955) . In: Der Tagesspiegel . March 30, 2012.
  3. ↑ a b Jens Uthoff: You were the vanguard even then . In: The daily newspaper . August 24, 2017.
  4. ↑ Andreas Hartmann: When Kreuzberg was on the planet Kobaïa . In: The daily newspaper . August 3, 2009.
  5. ↑ IchWillSpass.de: MDK. Retrieved December 8, 2018 .