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The Masthead Hot on the heels of Einstürzende Neubauten’s new suppor ters-only CD, Grundstück, comes Die Grosse Untergangsshow: Festival Genialer Dilletanten. The latter is a handsome CD, DVD and LP compilation on Vinyl-On-Demand that documents Neubauten’s par ticipation in a revue of West Berlin’s sick underbelly alongside Die Tödliche Doris, Gudrun Gut, Sprung Aus Den Wolken, future Neubauten member Alexander Hacke, Nekropolis (featuring Mark Reeder, who later founded Berlin Techno label MFS) and others. Translating as The Great Downfall Show, the festival that took place on 4 September 1981 at Berlin Tempodrom laid the foundations for the kind of practices that characterise the best of today’s global Weirdness: communal noisemaking on any implement to hand, musical or other wise, following self-defined aesthetic principles that sarcastically embrace all things diseased, if that’s what it takes to upturn the age’s suf focating notions of beauty. These practices are enshrined in the festival’s ‘ingenious dilletantes’ (sic) tag. Though its origin is disputed, it was most likely coined by Die Tödliche Doris’s Wolfgang Müller, who later edited a fabulously slipper y manifesto, Geniale Dilletanten, published by Mer ve Verlag. Knowingly or other wise, the Geniale Dilletanten variously fused dada and Fluxus tomfooler y with scabrous punk/No Wave licentiousness to produce the bracing blasts commemorated in this box. Bargeld was the prime mover behind the festival itself, programming it and even attending to details like per formance times and fees. Such entrepreneurial gusto may be at odds with his abject image in 1981 (Blixa is pictured here with Hacke), yet from the beginning there was always a utopian element about Neubauten’s attempts to collapse the world around them and rebuild it according to their own designs. That utopian principle is easier to discern in the DVD available with this year’s Grundstück. Filmed at the former East German capital’s Palast Der Republik, it documents one of three suppor ters-only concer ts held by the group to finish the album. Here, there’s no stage, just Neubauten playing amid their suppor ters, most of whom have been conscripted into a 100-strong choir and metal percussion orchestra par ticipating in the making of the music. What began as a tight band of outsiders has since expanded through their Internet operation into a global community of outsiders. Finally Einstürzende Neubauten have succeeded in their long cherished aim of collapsing all boundaries between per formers and spectators. CHRIS BOHN W I R E Adventures In Modern Music Issue 263 January 2006 £3.80 ISSN 0952-0680 (USPS 006231) G R U C H OT : P ETE R P H OTO 23 Jack’s Place 6 Corbet Place London E1 6NN UK Tel +44 (0)20 7422 5010 Fax +44 (0)20 7422 5011 info@thewire.co.uk www.thewire.co.uk The Wire is published 12 times a year by The Wire Magazine Ltd Printed by St Ives plc  Digital imaging by DP Graphics (www.dpgraphics.co.uk) USA: The Wire ISSN 0952-0686 (USPS 006231) is published 12 times a year by The Wire Magazine Ltd at a US subscription rate of $100. Periodicals postage paid at Middlesex, New Jersey 08846. Postmaster, send address changes to: The Wire Magazine c/o PO Box 177, Middlesex, NJ 08846. US agent: Pronto Mailers, 200 Wood Ave, Middlesex, NJ 08846. NB Subscribers, please also inform The Wire direct of any address changes The Wire was founded in 1982 by Anthony Wood. Between 1984–2000 it was part of Naim Attallah’s Namara Group. In December 2000 it was purchased in a management buy-out organised by the magazine’s staff. It continues to publish as a 100 per cent independent operation The views expressed in The Wire are those of the respective contributors and are not necessarily shared by the magazine or its staff. The Wire assumes no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts, photographs, illustrations or promotional items. Copyright in vthe UK and abroad is held by the publisher or by freelance contributors. Unauthorised reproduction of any item is forbidden Subscriptions (see page 96) THE WIRE 23 Jack’s Place 6 Corbet Place London E1 6NN, UK Hotline +44 (0)20 7422 5022 subs@thewire.co.uk www.thewire.co.uk RATES (12 issues) UK £39 Europe £55 USA & Canada US$100/£55 Rest of the World £65 Air/£55 Surface 4 THE WIRE Editor-in-Chief & Publisher Tony Herrington tony@thewire.co.uk Editor Chris Bohn chris@thewire.co.uk Acting Deputy Editor Louise Gray louise@thewire.co.uk Reviews Editor David Stubbs david@thewire.co.uk Editor-at-Large Rob Young rob@thewire.co.uk Interim Art Direction & Design James Goggin info@practise.co.uk The May issue will be on sale on Tuesday 27 April Advertising Sales (7422 5014) Andy Tait andy@thewire.co.uk Shane Woolman shane@thewire.co.uk Advertising Production Slim Smith slim@thewire.co.uk Words Steve Barker, Mike Barnes, Ed Baxter, Clive Bell, Marcus Boon, Ben Borthwick, Samantha Brown, Philip Clark, Mia Clarke, Byron Coley, Neil Cooper, Julian Cowley, Christoph Cox, Alan Cummings, Geeta Dayal, Brian Duguid, Lina Dzuverovic, Phil England, Kodwo Eshun, Matt ffytche, Phil Freeman, Louise Gray, Andy Hamilton, Jim Haynes, Richard Henderson, Ken Hollings, Hua Hsu, David Keenan, Rahma Khazam, Biba Kopf, Art Lange, Alan Licht, Howard Mandel, Dave Mandl, Brian Marley, Marc Masters, Jerome Maunsell, Keith Moliné, Will Montgomery, Brian Morton, John Mulvey, Ian Penman, Tom Perchard, Edwin Pouncey, Mosi Reeves, Simon Reynolds, Tom Ridge, Stephen Robinson, Peter Shapiro, Chris Sharp, Philip Sherburne, Bill Shoemaker, Mark Sinker, Steve Smith, Nick Southgate, Dave Tompkins, David Toop, Elisabeth Vincentelli, Dan Warburton, Derek Walmsley, Ed Ward, Don Watson, Val Wilmer, Barry Witherden Subscriptions & Administration (7422 5022) Ben House, Phil England subs@thewire.co.uk Web Editor Susanna Glaser susanna@thewire.co.uk Images Amy & Tanveer, Frank Bauer, Kareem Black, Chris Buck, Thomas Butler, Mattias Ek, Robert Gallagher, Olly Hewitt, John Hooper, Simon Leigh, Sebastian Mayer, Declan O’Neill, Savage Pencil, Anna Schori, Jun Takagi, Jo Ann Toy, Eva Vermandel, Johnny Volcano, Jake Walters, Keiko Yoshida Distributors News stands UK, EUROPE & REST OF WORLD (EXCLUDING USA) COMAG Specialist Division Tavistock Works, Tavistock Road West Drayton, Middlesex UB7 7QX Tel +44 (0)1895 433800 Fax +44 (0)1895 433801 conrad.cornelius@comag.co.uk Independent record shops UK & MAINLAND EUROPE Shellshock 23A Collingwood Road London N15 4EL Tel +44 (0)20 8800 8110 Fax +44 (0)20 8800 8140 info@shellshock.co.uk www.shellshock.co.uk REST OF WORLD Contact The Wire direct Tel +44 (0)20 7422 5022 Fax +44 (0)20 7422 5011 subs@thewire.co.uk Bookshops WORLDWIDE Central Books (Magazine Dept) 99 Wallis Road London E9 5LN Tel +44 (0)20 8986 4854 Fax +44 (0)20 8533 5821 sasha@centralbooks.com USA IPD (Source Interlink Fulfillment Division) 27500 Riverview Center Blvd, Suite 400 Bonita Springs, FL 34134 Tel 239 949 4450 rsonnenberg@ucsinc.com NB: For US subscriptions contact The Wire USA Forced Exposure 219 Medford St Malden, MA 02148-7301 Fax 617 629 4774 fe@shore.net www.forcedexposure.com NB The Wire can also supply record shops in Europe and the US direct
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The Masthead

Hot on the heels of Einstürzende Neubauten’s new suppor ters-only CD, Grundstück, comes Die Grosse Untergangsshow: Festival Genialer Dilletanten. The latter is a handsome CD, DVD and LP compilation on Vinyl-On-Demand that documents Neubauten’s par ticipation in a revue of West Berlin’s sick underbelly alongside Die Tödliche Doris, Gudrun Gut, Sprung Aus Den Wolken, future Neubauten member Alexander Hacke, Nekropolis (featuring Mark Reeder, who later founded Berlin Techno label MFS) and others. Translating as The Great Downfall Show, the festival that took place on 4 September 1981 at Berlin Tempodrom laid the foundations for the kind of practices that characterise the best of today’s global Weirdness: communal noisemaking on any implement to hand, musical or other wise, following self-defined aesthetic principles that sarcastically embrace all things diseased, if that’s what it takes to upturn the age’s suf focating notions of beauty.

These practices are enshrined in the festival’s ‘ingenious dilletantes’ (sic) tag. Though its origin is disputed, it was most likely coined by Die Tödliche Doris’s Wolfgang Müller, who later edited a fabulously slipper y manifesto, Geniale Dilletanten, published by Mer ve Verlag. Knowingly or other wise, the Geniale

Dilletanten variously fused dada and Fluxus tomfooler y with scabrous punk/No Wave licentiousness to produce the bracing blasts commemorated in this box.

Bargeld was the prime mover behind the festival itself, programming it and even attending to details like per formance times and fees. Such entrepreneurial gusto may be at odds with his abject image in 1981 (Blixa is pictured here with Hacke), yet from the beginning there was always a utopian element about Neubauten’s attempts to collapse the world around them and rebuild it according to their own designs.

That utopian principle is easier to discern in the DVD available with this year’s Grundstück. Filmed at the former East German capital’s Palast Der Republik, it documents one of three suppor ters-only concer ts held by the group to finish the album. Here, there’s no stage, just Neubauten playing amid their suppor ters, most of whom have been conscripted into a 100-strong choir and metal percussion orchestra par ticipating in the making of the music. What began as a tight band of outsiders has since expanded through their Internet operation into a global community of outsiders. Finally Einstürzende Neubauten have succeeded in their long cherished aim of collapsing all boundaries between per formers and spectators. CHRIS BOHN

W I R E

Adventures In Modern Music Issue 263 January 2006 £3.80 ISSN 0952-0680 (USPS 006231)

G R U C H OT

: P ETE R

P H OTO

23 Jack’s Place 6 Corbet Place London E1 6NN UK Tel +44 (0)20 7422 5010 Fax +44 (0)20 7422 5011 info@thewire.co.uk www.thewire.co.uk

The Wire is published 12 times a year by The Wire Magazine Ltd Printed by St Ives plc  Digital imaging by DP Graphics (www.dpgraphics.co.uk) USA: The Wire ISSN 0952-0686 (USPS 006231) is published 12 times a year by The Wire Magazine Ltd at a US subscription rate of $100. Periodicals postage paid at Middlesex, New Jersey 08846. Postmaster, send address changes to: The Wire Magazine c/o PO Box 177, Middlesex, NJ 08846. US agent: Pronto Mailers, 200 Wood Ave, Middlesex, NJ 08846. NB Subscribers, please also inform The Wire direct of any address changes The Wire was founded in 1982 by Anthony Wood. Between 1984–2000 it was part of Naim Attallah’s Namara Group. In December 2000 it was purchased in a management buy-out organised by the magazine’s staff. It continues to publish as a 100 per cent independent operation The views expressed in The Wire are those of the respective contributors and are not necessarily shared by the magazine or its staff. The Wire assumes no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts, photographs, illustrations or promotional items. Copyright in vthe UK and abroad is held by the publisher or by freelance contributors. Unauthorised reproduction of any item is forbidden

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THE WIRE 23 Jack’s Place 6 Corbet Place London E1 6NN, UK Hotline +44 (0)20 7422 5022 subs@thewire.co.uk www.thewire.co.uk

RATES (12 issues) UK £39 Europe £55 USA & Canada US$100/£55 Rest of the World £65 Air/£55 Surface

4 THE WIRE

Editor-in-Chief & Publisher Tony Herrington tony@thewire.co.uk Editor Chris Bohn chris@thewire.co.uk Acting Deputy Editor Louise Gray louise@thewire.co.uk Reviews Editor David Stubbs david@thewire.co.uk Editor-at-Large Rob Young rob@thewire.co.uk

Interim Art Direction & Design James Goggin info@practise.co.uk

The May issue will be on sale on Tuesday 27 April

Advertising Sales (7422 5014) Andy Tait andy@thewire.co.uk Shane Woolman shane@thewire.co.uk Advertising Production Slim Smith slim@thewire.co.uk

Words Steve Barker, Mike Barnes, Ed Baxter, Clive Bell, Marcus Boon, Ben Borthwick, Samantha Brown, Philip Clark, Mia Clarke, Byron Coley, Neil Cooper, Julian Cowley, Christoph Cox, Alan Cummings, Geeta Dayal, Brian Duguid, Lina Dzuverovic, Phil England, Kodwo Eshun, Matt ffytche, Phil Freeman, Louise Gray, Andy Hamilton, Jim Haynes, Richard Henderson, Ken Hollings, Hua Hsu, David Keenan, Rahma Khazam, Biba Kopf, Art Lange, Alan Licht, Howard Mandel, Dave Mandl, Brian Marley, Marc Masters, Jerome Maunsell, Keith Moliné, Will Montgomery, Brian Morton, John Mulvey, Ian Penman, Tom Perchard, Edwin Pouncey, Mosi Reeves, Simon Reynolds, Tom Ridge, Stephen Robinson, Peter Shapiro, Chris Sharp, Philip Sherburne, Bill Shoemaker, Mark Sinker, Steve Smith, Nick Southgate, Dave Tompkins, David Toop, Elisabeth Vincentelli, Dan Warburton, Derek Walmsley, Ed Ward, Don Watson, Val Wilmer, Barry Witherden

Subscriptions & Administration (7422 5022) Ben House, Phil England subs@thewire.co.uk

Web Editor Susanna Glaser susanna@thewire.co.uk

Images Amy & Tanveer, Frank Bauer, Kareem Black, Chris Buck, Thomas Butler, Mattias Ek, Robert Gallagher, Olly Hewitt, John Hooper, Simon Leigh, Sebastian Mayer, Declan O’Neill, Savage Pencil, Anna Schori, Jun Takagi, Jo Ann Toy, Eva Vermandel, Johnny Volcano, Jake Walters, Keiko Yoshida

Distributors News stands

UK, EUROPE & REST OF WORLD (EXCLUDING USA) COMAG Specialist Division Tavistock Works, Tavistock Road West Drayton, Middlesex UB7 7QX Tel +44 (0)1895 433800 Fax +44 (0)1895 433801 conrad.cornelius@comag.co.uk

Independent record shops

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