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From New Jersey (USA) come the Grip Weeds. Classic powerpop, combined with elements of folk and psychedelia, that’s what these four young people are up to! Their first EP was released on their own label Ground Up Records, and then TWANG! entered the scene. She Brings The Rain is probably one of the best powerpop songs of the decade! Brilliant hooks, precise rhythms, powerful riffs, and of course irresistible melodies are the Grip Weeds’ trademarks. Their band-name was inspired by a certain Private Gripweed, a character from the Richard Lester film How I Won The War, with John Lennon playing the role of this bewildered young man. The band consists of Kurt Reill, who plays drums and sings leadvocals, his brother Rick, who plays the guitar and sings backings and occasionally lead, Kristin Pinell, who plays leadguitar and sings as well, and Mick Hargrave, who plays bass moreover contributes to the vocals. The songs are mainly written by the two brothers, though Mick and Kristin add to the songwriting duties from time to time. The LP/CD House Of Vibes came out in 1994 a co-release of TWANG! and GROUND UP. The LP is limited and in blue wax!Go backThe latest release by this wonderful band We’re Not Getting Through literally explodes with harmonic pop hooks driven by ringing guitars, ferocious drumming and melodic bass playing. The flip side is the Grip Weeds’ notorious version of the Move classic I Can Hear The Grass Grow, which will not be released anywhere else. Both songs were recorded during sessions for the next full-length Grip Weeds release, due later in the near future. This is a limited-edition pressing and will soon be collectible. Full colour cover!
Also from New Jersey comes Mr. Greg DiGesu, who is playing his slightly odd music with different bands already for years. Songs are the most important thing for him! Little stories from everyday life, strange adventures, weird daydreams, philosophical statements, anything you could imagine he’s wrapping into a song. Nice melodies, and great arrangements make up a perfect medium for his oddities. Lately he’s playing with a band called Fishermen’s Stew. They had been compared to Donovan, the Beach Boys, the Beatles, and Bob Dylan. Maybe there’s a bit of an influence from all of those. Nevertheless Greg’s music is simply great, if you ask me! Apart from his TWANG! 7" Small Life, Hollow Roads, And Fairy Tales there is a CD by Fishermen's Stew A Letter To Norway available, which had been released in the USA. It is full of great songs and stories! If you have trouble in locating a copy, get in touch with me.
Back to Germany to the former capital Bonn. There it was where three guys in their late teens met a highschool party in the bathroom, where they immediately felt an affection for each other - in terms of popmusic! (not what you thought) Writing irresistible popsongs seems to be a matter of course for them. And as they’re looking pretty good actually, they decided to perform their teenage dreams themselves. To a great deal of delight for numerous boys and girls of an equal age, who attended one of their gigs. The trio draw from a never ending well of three decades of beatmusic, presenting it with a Nineties teen spirit! Oh, by the way, these three lads call themselves The Popnauts, their TWANG! 7" single came out in 1994 and is still available!
Who doesn’t know him? He’s the un-crownded king of Eighties garage rock! Rudi Protrudi, mastermind of the Fuzztones, illustrator of numerous posters and record sleeves! Before he retired to California to play countrymusic, he quickly rushed into a small recording studio in Holland at the end of 1994 to record a few of his all-time-favourites in plain acoustic versions. Two tracks from this session he gave to TWANG! They were released as a 7"45 in the Singles Club! This platter is completely sold out now!
Two girls and two boys from Berlin play a fine brand of garage pop! Lascivious vocals, hypnotic rhythms, whining guitars, and irresistible melodies! This is the world of the Cuban Rebel Girls! One of the few German bands, who made it to the States, by the way. In 1995 they played at the CBGB’s in New York and they supported Sonic Youth in Memphis! Wow! Meanwhile there are only a few copies left of their debut 7" for TWANG! Cry Baby Killer b/w Six Feet Underground! Finally they are putting together their first album now, which is going to be released by Veracity Records in Munich at the end of June! Three of the 13 new tracks will come out as a teaser on a limited vinyl 7" already in May!
King Here After from Sweden cannot simply be categorised. Five guys from Uppsala play powerful guitar rock. In the US people would probably call it alternative rock. A great talent in songwriting and the guts to try out and link unusual and unexpected bits and pieces, these are the trademarks of King Here After. At one time they sound like Henry Rollins and the next moment you’ll hear echoes of U2. Metal power chords mix with filigree sounds and a sometimes elfish voice. No category, sorry...
The name of the Groovy Cellar was taken from a popular club in London. Actually a hip place to be in the mid-Eighties for people with an affection for simple Britpop as played by Dan Treacy, Ed Ball, and the like. The Groovy Cellar (the club as well as the band) is the link between British guitar pop of the Sixties and today. With great knowledge and the love for tiny details the band’s music is written and performed. Olaf Schumacher is probably one of the best songwriters in Germany. He’s writing one potential hit after another! His songs are very private and personal but always with a general evidence. If this band came from London, they were in the charts everywhere! But alas, they’re only from cheesy Germany.
Wonderful powerpop is being played in Berlin as well! And the living proof are the Looney Tones! They play a well-balanced mixture of powerpop influenced by American as well as British examples. The Looney Tones started out as a trio with drums, bass, guitar, and harmony vocals. But soon a fourth member joined bringing in not only a third voice but also several brass and percussion instruments not forgetting the harmonica. A 5-track CD came out in spring 1995 and sold out quite fast. The record got heavy airplay locally and the band gathered something of a following. New recordings are just being made and a longplay CD will be out in 1997.
To celebrate twelve years of TWANG! a jubilee box was released in 1995 as a limited edition of 444 copies! The individually numbered black cardboard box contains a twenty-page booklet in 7" format, two CDs with 44 songs played by 44 bands (most of it being released here for the first time!), and a 7" 45 in clear vinyl! This single was recorded specially for that purpose! A sort of Twang All Star Band recorded two of my all time favourites! The single’s A-side is Psychedelic Situation, a song originally recorded in 1967 by a certain Jimmy Curtiss for Laurie Records in New York. In Germany the single was released by Ariola back then, and I heard it on the radio in the summer of 1967 for the first time! It’s one of my personal favourites ever since! The other track extra recorded for my jubilee release is Njet Njet, the original was a huge hit in Finland in 1979 for Eppu Normaali (one of the leading Finnish punk/ new wave bands). I’m specially proud of the fact that we managed to lay down the Finnish language version. It took me hours of hard training with the singer! The Twang All Stars in this venture were Gunnar Berndorff (drums) of the Candy Dates, Sandy Hobbs (bass) ex-Black Carnations, Weirdo Stompers, Ralf Leeman (git) of the group Leeman, Claudia Fitzi and Olaf Schumacher (organ, perc., backing voc.) of the Groovy Cellar, and Frank Benecke (lead voc.) of the Flames. For people who don’t know TWANG! this is the ideal way to enter my personal universe! You’ll find a lot of information about the bands in the booklet, and a suitable black t-shirt bearing the label logo in white is included on top of all! A few copies of the limited set are still available!
Released in September 1995 was a 6-track mini album by a bunch of five Sixties enthusiasts from the little town of Hildesheim. Mind Kiosk were on tour with the wonderful Lemonbabies here in Germany. And they were well received by audiences everywhere. Four guys and a girl are in the band. They play a brand of harmony loaden, hook filled, Sixties oriented, Britpop style rock music. You might think they emerged out of this latest hype. No, they do this for several years already, their idols being the Small Faces, Kinks, Beatles, et al. Mind Kiosk’s music is a perfect mixture of all these influences. There are three excellent songwriters in the band, a guarantee for diversity in songs and sound. Sparkling guitars, groovy organ, thumping bass, solid drums, and a soulful singer! It’s all there! Mind Kiosk are actually better than most of their British competitors!
The debut release by the Berlin based Rockabilly trio Vintage Riot is a 4-track vinyl EP. Yeah, here comes Kurt’s Come As You Are in an unusual and unheard sound and outfit! American Rockabilly mangles with British Beat: great! Henry (git, voc) shows his talent as a singer and songwriter while he plays his beloved Gretsch guitar. And he doesn’t only look like a mix of John Lennon and Buddy Holly. Britta (with a pony-tail and petticoat) plays the drums standing, and Jens jumps around the stage with his stand-up bass! Check them out while you can! The EP is sold out now, but there is more to come in the future - sooner or later!
From Down Under - South West Australia, the city of Perth - come the Early Hours. They’re young, wild, and wonderful! These guys know how to rock! They play sharp garage pop in the vein of their highly acclaimed predecessors the Stems or the Lime Spiders. In 1995 "Ten Top Hits", the first Early Hours album was released by Spinning Top Records in Australia on compact disc only and in a limited edition of 500 copies. Now the songs from that album plus two extra tracks have been remastered for a vinyl release in Europe! To promote their music, the Early Hours were playing around Europe in the spring of 1996! They played Spain, France and Germany! Among other events they played the prestigious Beat-O-Mania festival in Munich on May, 4, 1996!
Friends of the genre should know the Cybermen from Finland for long. The Cybermen released several 7" records and a vinyl album so far. They developed their music from trashy garage beat to a more sophisticated organ dominated groove oriented style. You can hear themes for imaginary sci-fi serials as well as dub sounds or moody love ballads. The Cybermen were often compared to the Prisoners by people who witnessed their live shows. Now I’d even compare them to the Fun Boy Three or Style Council. Their new LP is truly the Cybermen’s masterpiece! Get it on vinyl! A CD version is available on the band’s own Destination Uranus label. A video for the album’s title track Needle’s Eye was shown on MTV Europe several times! The Cybermen successfully toured Germany in October 1996.
Also from Finland, to be exact from the capital of Finnish Lapland Rovaniemi hail five gentlemen who call themselves Jalla Jalla (after the Arab word for faster). With three albums and several singles under their belt they belong already to the veterans of the Finnish scene. The great breakthrough didn’t happen for them so far. Whatever, their fine rock’n’roll performed with great aplomb, fun and energy cannot be the reason for their relative lack of success. Influences from CCR to glamrock to the Ramones can be found the in Jalla Jalla’s highly melodic straight forward songs. Hospital Waltz is taken from their last CD Snowman’s Land (released by Hiljaiset Levyt), and Jukebox Jive has been recorded extra for this single The Rubettes’ song has always been a live favourite of their shows, as eye and ear witnesses may recall!.
THEE ULTRA BIMBOOS - We Can Go On Together With Suspicious Minds (TS 020 596, 7"EP, sold out)
Thee Ultra Bimboos are four garage girls from Finland! A secret tip for the top! A trashy alternative to the fabulous Lemonbabies. Thee Ultra Bimboos’ idols are bands like the Stooges, the Cramps or Dead Moon! Their first 7"EP came out in Finland on Trash Can Records. A second vinyl EP on TWANG! sold out in its initial pressing of 500 immediately! Now a CD compiling all their recordings so far is released on TWANG! The girls sing about weird dreams, suspicion, lost underwear, ice queens, and about Mrs. Bobbit (remember her?). The music is garage punk with psychedelic overtones. In November 1996 a German tour took place, with great success, as we can recall now! Watch out for more from these ladies! By the way, a limited live tape recorded at one of their German shows in very good quality is now available from TWANG!Leeman was of course Ralf Leeman (git, voc), Moses (bass), Bernd Lauber (drums). This band stood on the threshold to fame already, when they suddenly split up a couple of years ago. After the split Moses joined grunge popper Gum on bass but left this band again recently to concentrate on his work as a studio engineer and producer. Bernd is playing drums for Bobo In White Wooden Houses, a German pop outfit. And Ralf is still working on solo projects including a recent flirt with bluegrass and hillbilly in the fine trio Moebirds, who just released their debut CD "Birds of a Feather Stick Together" on the Orange Shark label. Mr. Leeman is one of the best pop/rock songwriters in Germany, whose talents are criminally underrated though. In the middle of the Eighties he was about to break through for the first time with his neo-mod quartet the Smash! But while the Smash were young, wild, and somehow not ready, the band Leeman developed Ralf’s songs with excellent arrangements and intense interpretations into real classics! The band’s legacy will be released on TWANG! as a CD compiling the best of Leeman’s recordings from 1990 to 1992. This compilation will stand international comparisons even. If it’s Elvis Costello, Bruce Springsteen, Sting, or bands like Soundgarden, the Smithereens, Soul Asylum - there’s no need to hide for Leeman!
Now we’ve reached the end of this little story, but surely not the end of TWANG! Records! There will be 7"45 releases in the future as well as CDs, and sometimes even vinyl albums, if it is really worthwhile. The problem with all these wonderful records is of course, somebody has to buy them actually! Most of my releases never break even, if I count all the costs involved. I am still earning my living as a cab-driver however. Well, yes, the Lemonbabies brought some money to my account, but it didn’t make me rich though. It just helped to release a few more fine vinyl records! The more I am glad and grateful my wife Päivi, and Taija and Timo, my kids, took it with patience all the years, that I have such a tedious yet not lucrative occupation - if not obsession. I should also like to thank a few friends from the circuit of musicians and journalists, with whom I share a fruitful relationship for years. Namely they are Hans Jürgen Klitsch (editor of Hartbeat Magazine), a long time friend since the days of the very first German record fairs in the Seventies, Sandy Hobbs, a reliable friend and partner from the beginning of TWANG! on, Wolfgang Doebeling (host of the "roots" radio programme and writer for the German edition of Rolling Stone), with whom I had many an argument on the topic vinyl vs. CD but also a lot of enlightening talks about rock and pop in detail and general, HP Daniels (writer and musician), also a partner in many stirring conversations, Joachim "Jojo" Friedmann (booking-agent and writer of comic stories), who always brings back reality into my views with his healthy pessimism, Axel Keuneke (former radio dj and now a frustrated mail order dealer), who helped me more than once with his knowledge and moral support, Henni Hell, who does - mostly under time pressure and chaotic circumstances - cover artwork and lay-out for booklets and catalogues, Lutz Buchrucker (former partner in TWANG-TONE record shop), who cleared my point of view from time to time, all my friends in Finland, namely Miettinen and Ursula, Jukka Junttila, Milla and Jarkko, Epe Helenius, Joose and Jorma, Kari Lankinen, and Marko Home. I also share a good relationship (so I hope) with the Grip Weeds as well as Greg DiGesu from New Jersey, and with the German musicians Olaf Schumacher, Thomas Wehde, Knut Eigler and Ralf Leeman, the Lemonbabies, the Weirdo Stompers, the Heartbeats, Mind Kiosk, the Popnauts, the Looney Tones, and the Cuban Rebel Girls. Regards and all to everybody else, whom I forgot to mention here. Keep the faith, and keep on doing whatever you’re doing well at the moment!Berlin, October 1996, updated March 1997 Mike Korbik
PS: Just a little postcript for friends of the riddle. Almost all catalogue numbers of the TWANG! singles have a special meaning. They stand for a special date, which is related to the record or to the artist or to me somehow. For example the Grip Weeds’ 7"45 "She Brings The Rain" has got the catalogue number TS 081 280; this stands for December, 8th, 1980, the day John Lennon was shot by a mad fan. Everyone who finds out the meanings of all my singles’ catalogue numbers will be rewarded with a life-time free supplement of all TWANG! releases!
Promo copies are given to journalists on request. If you review my records, please send a copy of your article, if you play my records on the radio, please send a playlist!
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TWANG!, Mike Korbik, P.O.Box 41 03 11, D-12113 Berlin (Phone & Fax: ..49-30-771 97 32)
Created by JJu: November 30, 1996
Last Updated: March 25, 1997