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Half-medium or full-medium. The limits of De-art-ization
'Frieder Butzmann
Frieder Butzmann
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'Thomas Kapielski
Thomas Kapielski
"And now, say, ye wanna have disco music, Electric Boogie, Avantgarde-Noise, slide shows, fireworks, household-sounds, cupboard music, coffee music, New Gothic Sound, cyclopical, espressionistical, decent, tonight --unmixed, unmatched, but at the same time. Then you'd better go and see Butzmann & Kapielski" – on Sept. 12th, at the Stadtwerkstatt Linz.WAR PUR WAR "Why do these two make a record together?
One of them is eating, the other prefers drinking beer and eating Bounty. But on tour they both enjoy roast pork or even the local cuisine.
"BUTZMANN", the folks say, "is a noise-maker doing as if he understood something about rhythm and harmony."
"KAPIELSKI", the folks say, "is uttering unsquare nonsense all day long and even dares writing that stuff into his books under his handknitted photographs."
"You cannot but be bewildered by all of that!"
"Say, for instance, that guy Butzmann, what did he do before?"
"Well, tape music as early as in the 60s. In Constance he even played the piano, stockhausenly, but mostly classic. And organized multimedia-events like the 'Fluxus-Galaxis'. Then, from '75, 'twas Berlin, studying musicology. 1977 pre-punk, then immediately the first post-punk in Berlin. As 'heavy electronics man' (sounds), 'avantgarde god' (music scene), 'Young German Destructivist' (NME) or 'Neo Barbarian' (Liberation) he tours the world with Alexander von Borsig and Thomas Kiesel, makes a X-mas Record with the 'Malaria Dames', has Genesis P.-Orridge sing on his second record and is honoured with the 'New York Interview's' longest Single critique of 1981 etc. etc.
The music/dance/ talk/ film-mix 'Wolfsburg' becomes a smash-hit in various versions in Berlin, Hamburg, Paris, New York and Milan. The male, radical LP 'Vertrauensmann des Volkes (People's Trustee)' and the female, melancholy Do-12 (duration 70 minutes) 'Das Mädchen auf der Schaukel (The Girl on the See-Saw)' are his most famous published records. And today he is working almost professionally at film- and radio-drama music."
"And that Kapielski fellow?"
"Well, him being a Berlin aborigine, he did not even imagine having anything to do with 'moozik'. Only at the beginning of the 80s he meets some artist folks from the Merve Edition's outer circle. And suddenly he starts enjoying fiddling around with tape recordings. He starts producing cassettes in small batches with really daring music collages. And above all he makes books: 'K. greeting The Rest of The World' or 'The Best Werlin Tadio Rower' and 'Einfaltspinsel gleich Ausfalltspinsel' (regretfully none of them appeared in English, but as far as the latter is concerned, the title could not even be translated).
What he likes most is organizing. For instance exhibitions of his or other pictures or a rather 'wet-n-cheerful' bus excursion to Western Germany or -as early as 1982, when Butzmann played the saxophone – a great concert for thirty guys and gals and one huge wind machine."
"And what's them doing together?"
"Oh, jeepers, that's the good thing, you see, the two of them appearing together or singly or with others like Sven Ake Johansson, Judith Flex, Udo Scheuerpflug, Remo Park, the 'Sound Kneaders' and still others on stage or in the studio."
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