Day 279.
Comfort and Joy – A Shiny Happy Christmas Compilation: what an amazing compilation for this Christmas season! The Indonesian label Shiny Happy Records have put together a 23 song compilation with tons of great indiepop tunes by lots of bands we love including Nixon, Apple Orchard, Starry Eyed Cadet, The Suncharms, Den Baron and more. This album is a must!
Gas Station Coffee: here’s a nice song by this solo project by a guy from Cincinnati, Ohio, called Jude. Recorded on his own cellphone the song is called “I Am My Own Virtual Pet :: Cats Dig Don Cherry”, is a nice slice of lo-fi bedroom pop.
Full Power Happy Hour: a new discovery for me. A jangly band from Brisbane formed by Alex, Grace, Caroline, Joe and Finn, that is releasing a self-titled album on vinyl and CD on February 19th. Right now we can preview two of the songs, the opening and the closing ones of the album, “Old Mind of Mine” and “Steely Fences”.
The Bv’s: our friends are back with a new song! And it is a Christmas season song of course! It is called “I Hope There’s No Snow” and sounds amazing (as usual). The Bv’s is definitely one of the best bands of the last few years and I am eagerly waiting for their next release!
Flowers: more friends that released records recently! Flowers put out a 7″ pm Slumberland Records a few weeks ago. It has two songs, “Erik” and “Candour” and they were classic Flowers songs, with Rachel’s unique vocals and their fuzzy guitars! Good stuff! As soon as I return to NY I have to order this!
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Here we are again for yet another post, another great indiepop band from Germany!
This time, for my seasons challenge, I chose Knabenkraut from Hamburg, Germany, who wrote the great song “Hot Winter Rain” on their 2014 album “Someone Still Loves You”!
This band is quite rare for many that I feature on the blog, they have a website! And it works. They also have a Facebook page though not updated much.
The band actually seems to have been born from the ashes of Red Letter Day. Three out of their four band members would end up in Knabenkraut. That is Oliver Goetzl on vocals and drums, Gerrit Herlyn (Oliver and Gerrit had been in the Jesterbells earlier on) on guitar and bass and Thomas Overdick (who wrote the fanzine Pearl) on guitar and bass. The only “new” member was Björn Steffens (from the band Connery) on keyboards, guitar and bass. The band was born in 1995.
There were some more lineup additions, for the band to end as a 7-piece, Carsten Schreiber (from Ms. Wallace and Alaska) became the band’s drummer in 1998 and Melanie Hamdorff joined sa a vocalist in 2003 (previously she had been a guest singer for the band). Johnny J. Müske joined as bassist in 2004.
All of the band’s releases would appear on Marsh-Marigold records. That makes a lot of sense, see Oliver is the person behind the label! It all makes sense.
Ok, what does Knabenkraut means? A quick translation on the web tells me it is a type of orchid, a purple one, very pretty!
What else should we know? Well their releases of course! The band only have two proper releases, two albums, and they took a while to be released if you consider the band formed in 1995 and released their first album in 2002 and the 2nd in 2014!
The first album is called “True Love Can Wait” (MARI 22) and sports an orchid illustration by Max Schulze on the sleeve. The album included 14 songs, “Heaven”, “Swing”, “Riverbeds”, “Promising”, “Pink Fool”, “You Can’t Have the Cake and Eat it”, “Past”, “Stay”, “Rescue”, “Explain”, “Bluebottle”, “Same for Kisses”, “Instead” and “Certain Fall”. The album was recorded by Rainer Heesh, Fredrik Martol and Tord Nikolaisen in Liverpool at the LIPA Studio 4 and 3 and also in Hamburg at Off Ya’ Tree between autumn 2000 and spring 2002. It was mixed at the Liverpool Studio and mastered by Helge Halvé.
The second album, “Someone Still Loves You” (MARI 27), had 12 songs, “Suspense”, “Broken Vow”, “Hibernation II”, “Is there A Place?”, “Beautiful Faces”, “Sunday Rest”, “Shinkansen”, “Johnny & Mary” (a cover of Robert Palmer’s original), “Hot Winter Rain”, “Bessie’s Song to Her Doll”, “White Winter Clouds” and “Heaven (reprise)”.
This CD has amazing artwork by Jeff Cain. Illustrations of different animals abound Tiger, hyena, lynx, bear, vulture and more. On this album we know that Frank Grischek helped with trumpets on a few songs. That “Bessie’s Song to Her Doll” is based on a Lewis Carroll poem and “Is There a Place?” is based on thoughts by Rüdiger Hamman.
Aside from the two albums the band participated on a few compilations. Starting in 1997 with the song “Hot Winter Rain” on the Noiseworks Records (NW 153) CD comp “Voices of the Suburban Youth (A Fieberkurve – Compilation Vol. 3)” and continuing with many more.
So, in 1998 the band appears with “Same for Kisses” on Big Noise Records’ “Your Favourite Waste of Time (Fieberkurve – Compilation Vol. 5)” (BN 538) and also with “Hot Winter Rain (Demo version)” on the “Seven Fantastic Cats (Marsh-Marigold Compilation)” 7″ comp that got released in Japan by Clover Records (707).
In 1999 they contribute “Hot Winter Rain (demo)” to “Clover Club: A Clover Compilation 1” (CLDCD 406) again on Clover. The same song, to the same label.
In 2003 their song “Promising” appears on “SPEX CD #27”. Spex being a music magazine in Germany of course. Then in 2004 they have “Heaven” on the terrific compilation “Pop Renaissance” by Excellent Records (EXCD 014) from Japan and lastly in 2008 the song “Riverbeds” appear on “Series Two Compilation Vol. 8” in the US.
We also know about gigs thanks to their website. We know that they toured Japan in 2003 playing Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Fukuoka, Nagoya, Shizuoka and Sendai. Wow! All gigs had the great Miniskirt supporting them. But other Japanese bands also joined like Sloppy Joe, Snowflakes, Red Go-Kart, Film 400, Pervenche, Swining Popsicle, Mushroom Cloud, Pepe & Prima and Kotolis.
Something to check out is Peter Twee.net’s diary from Japan. He accompanied the band during the tour and has written about it.
In Germany they played mostly in Hamburg (with Coem, Sodastream and Love Dance) as well as in Kassel (Sodastream again) and Berlin (With Spearmint). I see that in Hamburg they played at the Astrastube. That bring so many good memories to me. How I wish to go back there!
Something that many would find interesting is that Oliver is actually a zoologist and animal filmmaker. He studied at the University of Hamburg and graduated as a biologist. He has made documentaries like “Wolverines – Hyenas of the North” as well as working with the BBC making episodes for the film series of Wild Russia or Wild Scandinavia. Very cool! You can check his filmography here.
What do the other members of Knabenkraut when not making music? That’s a good question I hope to get answers soon.
Another good question will be if the band is still going? Are there more songs coming up? Marsh-Marigold seems very quiet these days.
But this was a nice way to remember the label and one of their bands. I really like all the bands Oliver has been in. I’ve worked with The Seashells and have interviewed The Legendary Bang. I wrote a little piece about My Guru Says. I think I should do more about this terrific label. But to start, let me know who remembers Knabenkraut?!
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