Wolf-Rüdiger Mühlmann

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Wolf-Rüdiger Mühlmann (born July 13, 1968 in Schlema ) is a German journalist , author and promoter .

Life and Early Work

Mühlmann was born in Saxony and grew up in the GDR . Already in his youth he was interested in rock music and heavy metal . While still in the GDR, he began studying mechanical engineering . After the fall of the Wall in 1989 , he dropped out of his studies and started working as an editor for various daily newspapers. His articles mainly dealt with environmental and political issues. In 1994 he was awarded the Theodor Wolff Prize for the report Das Millionend von Greiz-Gommla . In 1995 he started as a freelance journalist for the metal magazine Rock Hard . In 1997 Mühlmann moved to Hamburg , where he has been working as a freelance promoter ever since .

Music journalistic activity

In his music journalistic and editorial work, Mühlmann dealt with various key topics. Including industrial metal , new German hardness , post-metal and black metal . He was interviewed and quoted as an expert by journalists and non-fiction authors on some subjects. In June 2007, Mühlmann wrote the NSBM special, The Right Edge , which was published in Rock-Hard magazine and was primarily devoted to processing the NSBM sales structures via regular metal mail orders. The special was preceded by an open letter to various mail order companies. The right margin became a source of information for later critical discussions on the NSBM topic.

In 2014 there was a break within the editorial team of the rock-hard magazine. As a result, Mühlmann and Götz Kühnemund founded the publishing house In Dubio Pro Metal Verlags- und Handels-GmbH and the magazine Deaf Forever published by this publisher . In addition to new employees and other former rock-hard editors, popular musicians from the metal scene took part in the magazine . Among them the Darkthrone drummer Fenriz , the Primordial singer Alan Averill and the Atlantean Codex guitarist Manuel Trummer.

As a promoter and organizer

Mühlmann has been a freelance promoter since 1997. With his participation, the promotion company Sure Shot Worx tries to find artists from the fields of metal, hard rock and black music .

Since 2013 Mühlmann has also been the organizer of the Hamburg festival Hell over Hammaburg . The festival was born “out of a feeling of dissatisfaction” with the metal concerts and festivals taking place in Hamburg. The event was described on Powermetal.de as a "fixed date on the festival calendar of many people who believe in conviction". At Hell over Hammaburg there should be “a balance between heavy metal, black metal, death metal , doom and occult off-center.” The selection of the performing artists follows the taste of the event team.

Authorship

In December 1999, his first non-fiction book, his last exit: Germania , was published, which was devoted to different interpreters of the New German Hardship. The book was published in a phase of critical confrontation with potentially right-wing extremist ideologies in the black scene , which sometimes affected the New German Hardship. At that time, Mühlmann was accused of "unconditional defense [...] regardless of all facts" of the Weissglut group and its singer Josef Maria Klumb , who was criticized for anti-Semitic and conspiracy-theoretical statements . The literary scholar and representative of the so-called pop left, Martin Büsser, judged the book as " half - baked and [...] poorly written, but extremely meticulously worked out in terms of the range presented". In particular, the research performance was highlighted in reviews. According to the music magazine Visions , the book is characterized by “careful research, good structuring, entertaining writing, sometimes dry or smug criticism and a gripping topic from the start”.

In 2012 Mühlmann published together with the musicians of the group In Extremo their band biography We will never kneel . In a review for the online magazine Rocktimes.de, the book was rated as "easy and entertaining to read". In a meeting for the metal.de site , Mühlmann's journalistic work was generally rejected as polemic and his involvement in the book was described as a "nuisance". Nevertheless, the reviewer judged the book as "a wonderfully anecdotal and very personal insight" into the history of the band. In addition, he emphasized that Mühlmann had succeeded in providing a "fairly intimate insight into the history and development of the band".

bibliography

  • Wolf-Rüdiger Mühlmann: Last exit: Germania . A phenomenon called New German Hardship. Jeske / Mader, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-931624-12-9 .
  • In Extremo, Wolf-Rüdiger Mühlmann: We will never kneel . The story of an abnormal band. riva, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-86883-879-4 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Wolf-Rüdiger Mühlmann: Last exit: Germania . Jeske / Mader, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-931624-12-9 , pp. 287 .
  2. ↑ a b Martin Büsser: How does the new middle sound . 1st edition. Ventil Verlag, Mainz 2001, ISBN 3-930559-90-0 , p. 136 .
  3. ↑ a b Sebastian Berndt: God hates the disciples of lies . An experiment about metal and Christianity: Metal as a social phenomenon of time with ethical and religious implications. tredition, Hamburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-8472-7090-4 , p. 183 f .
  4. ^ Liane von Billerbeck, Frank Nordhausen: Satanskinder . The Sondershausen murder case and the right-wing scene. 3rd expanded edition. Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-86153-232-8 , p. 37 ff. and 207 .
  5. ↑ Tamino: DEAF FOREVER - Interview about the new metal magazine with Wolf-Rüdiger Mühlmann. Burn Your Ears, accessed December 21, 2017 .
  6. ↑ a b c Holger Andrae: HELL OVER HAMMABURG: Interview with Wolf-Rüdiger Mühlmann. powermetal.de, accessed on December 21, 2017 .
  7. ↑ Stephan Lindke: Breaking taboos today is tomorrow's mainstream . In: Andreas Speit (Ed.): Aesthetic mobilization. Dark Wave, Neofolk and Industrial in the field of tension of right-wing ideologies. Unrast Verlag, 2002, ISBN 3-89771-804-9 , p. 231-266, here p. 249 .
  8. ↑ press reviews. IP Verlag, accessed December 21, 2017 .
  9. ↑ Sabine Feickert: We will never kneel. rocktimes, accessed December 21, 2017 .
  10. ↑ Florian Schörg: In Extremo: We will never kneel - the story of an abnormal band. metal.de, accessed on December 21, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Mühlmann, Wolf-Rüdiger
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German music journalist and promoter
DATE OF BIRTH July 13, 1968
PLACE OF BIRTH Bad Schlema , GDR