On the occasion of FEELED WHATEVER, the new album by Jochen Distelmeyer, I think back a lot to my first encounter with Jochen and to the meeting of our bands Blumfeld and Tocotronic. We had already got to know the various suits and jacket wearers of Hamburg’s music bohème, from Ted Gaier to Bernd Begemann and Tilman Rossmy to Klaus Ramcke, in the pubs we were going to. Fortunately, they were all very open and friendly to us. And that despite the fact that there were certain rifts between us in terms of clothing, guitar distortion and also a different perception of one’s own meaning or importance.
Some of them, I got the impression, definitely considered themselves to be an avant-garde in the cultural-political field. I found this self-confidence interesting, but it also unsettled me a little. Had I just dared to step out of the punk scene, which had dried up and become cheerless, to lie down in the comfortable hammock of slackerism. Jochen Distelmeyer also had a very special aura. Alone visually: I thought I recognized parts of Marlene Dietrich and Thomas Mann in his eyes. The lyrics of the Blumfeld albums ICH-MASCHINE (1992) and L’ÉTAT ET MOI (1994) literally killed me, “Zeittotschläger”, “About the impossibility of saying ‘no’ without killing yourself” and “Superstarfighter”.
“It smells like shit”
Despite the undoubtedly countless quotations in music and text, it all sounded very peculiar. I was impressed. As far as our own music was concerned, at that time I was more concerned with figuring out which note was where on my instrument. And so we found it very exciting when we were allowed to support Blumfeld for nine shows in Germany and Austria in 1994. Our first meeting took place in Berlin. Excited we boarded the stage for the sound check. We probably disturbed the Blumfeld who were still fine-tuning the sound. During these years they were together with Tobias Levin from the band Cpt. Kirk & on the road, like a nervous ghost he suddenly appeared on stage at the concerts with the last songs and abused his guitar in a unique way. In terms of style and staging, one could learn a lot from Blumfeld.
Back to the sound check, so we shuffled onto the stage with our junk of equipment and were greeted quite friendly. A short time later, however, bassist Eike Bohlken said: “It kind of stinks here.” Jochen: “It stinks of shit.” Tobias Levin: “Of course, that’s probably dog shit.” Drummer André Rattay: “Not from us, the smell wasn’t there until just now.” Jochen spoke up again: “It really is the smell of shit, of dog shit. Definitely.” So that’s how discourse rock works, I thought. Now Jochen turned to us: “Probably one of you has that under your shoe.” We checked our soles nervously, but without being able to notice anything unusual. To this day we have not found out whether the stench was really brought in by us. Eventually the smell went away and we were now in real touring life for the first time.
Every Blumfeld album knew how to surprise
I am still impressed by the Blumfeld sound body to this day. I have no idea what Eike was playing on bass, but it was really unique. When the line-up changed later, Blumfeld was a new band. Eike Bohlken left, Michael Mühlhaus and Peter Thiessen from the band Kante joined. The entire Hamburg music scene was amazed by the monolithic album OLD NOBODY (1999), and every Blumfeld album that followed was surprising. Later I was surprised at the indignation the song “Apfelmann” from the final Blumfeld album VERBOTENE FRÜCHTE (2006) met with in parts of the audience.
For Jochen, this song was probably an attempt to ironically reflect on his function as a teacher for part of his audience. The outraged, on the other hand, now had the opportunity to live out their narcissism about small differences. That’s exactly what some still do today with the help of Jochen Distelmeyer’s music. On the other hand, one of the most magical properties of pop music is that it manages to emotionalize people in both positive and negative ways. FELT TRUTH includes great songs like “Come On”, “Only The Moon” and “Not Lonely Enough”. Although not every title on the album inspires me equally, I am glad that Jochen Distelmeyer has given us a new album and I hope that his voice will not be silent for a long time.
Regarding Jan Müller’s “Reflector” podcast: www.viertausendhertz.de/reflektor
This column first appeared in the Musikexpress issue 10/2022.