Schatten Voraus

In the times when punk broke and new wave began to conquer the world the music print medias mostly ignored it or told us that it was just another trend of the year and will be gone soon. The only magazine that argued with this in Germany in 1979 was SOUNDS (SPEX as the main medium for new music appeared one year later). I remember the discourses in the editorial office of the magazine about the new music and the old ones that stuck in their old musical taste praising all the yesterdays music as surpassing. As a part of the DIY-culture two SOUNDS editors formed with  Holger Hiller (shortly later co-former of Fehlfarben) a band called Geisterfahrer (wrong-way driver). Their first album is called Schatten Voraus (Shades Ahead) and a typical product of German new wave. It is a mixture of cold-wave and gothic rock that prepared the road for dark-wave. Their music was groundbreaking in Germany and sadly they never got the critical acclaim they should have and it is worth to remember them. Maybe it is the start of small series.

Geisterfahrer - Das Ufer
Geisterfahrer - Sand am Meer
Geisterfahrer - Vertrauen

Geisterfahrer

Back in 1979 when punk swapped over to Germany a band formed in Hamburg by the name of Geisterfahrer (wrong-way driver). They really had the spirit of punk. As far as I know they played live a kind of electronic noise that the local punks in Hamburg switched off the electricity. But they made a few records at this time that I used to play the recent days. It's a sound hardly inspired by Joy Division with a pumping bass, cryptic lyrics and a voice the would become good to some dark wave bands.

Battle Of The Blogs ... Round 1

Alright Dirk, I will accept the challenge with great pleasure. I also don't wanna bore anyone with less details in this post - just adding a few songs to see what will happen. More stories and details will be published on my regular series. I totally agree to your intention to your post and looking also forward to some comments about our German tunes. 

So listen and enjoy, friends.

The first one in this round is from a Hamburg based band and they published their few records on the famous ZickZack-label founded by the godfather of punk and New Wave journalism Alfred Hilsberg. It's a cracking song from Geisterfahrer and means 'Heaven on earth'. 

Geisterfahrer - Himmel auf Erden

The second one in this round is from a band who was very successful all over the period of NDW although they didn't made that plastic sound lot of others did. They saw them self as a part of the punk movement. And here are Extrabreit with 'Policemen'.

Extrabreit - Polizisten