“And my heart is boiling / And the moon is throwing up / And the world shoots itself dead / And people stink until someone kills them / And everyone is in great need / Everything would be awesome if there wasn’t love / And all the stupid stuff around it / So c’mon beautiful girl be really smart / Show me your back and it’s all over.” These are lines from “Back”, a song from Jens Rachut’s band Angeschissen’s first album. The band, which existed from 1984 to 1989, focused on interpersonal pain. So the name Angeschissen only sounds vulgar at first glance.
Rachut’s band names are all legendary anyway: Fick Fehler, Permanent Frozen, Das Moor, Blumen am Hölle, Dackelblut, Command Sonnenmilch, Oma Hans, Rattengold, Nuclear Raped Fuck Bomb, Alte Sau and Maulgruppe. There is no doubt that Rachut is a person who can deal with language. In the text quoted above, the language does not care about the grammar. Because poetry is above any rules.
No standstill, no repetition, but development
Jens Rachut cannot and does not want to make any compromises, and he does not want to go where he feels uncomfortable. He does this out of instinct and taste rather than ideological reservations. This consistency has made him a legend within the punk scene and far beyond. I sometimes regret that some people lose sight of their music and lyrics because of all the admiration for Rachut’s attitude. Since the end of the 80s he has been releasing albums with his changing bands. In his work there is not a spark of what usually makes the aging punk scene so boring: no standstill, no repetition, but development.
Over the years he has opened up. For example, HITSIGNALE, the highly recommended current album by his band Maulgruppe, has strong electronic components. His other active band, Alte Sau, does without guitar and bass at all. Here his vocal performance in connection with an organ achieves a particularly beguiling effect. Like all good lyricists, however, Jens Rachut had already found his language on the first album. Since then he has expanded his cosmos. He is both an expert and a seeker. And so he finds pictures that no one else can find: “And then sweat like a sofa over there in Singapore or tremble like a wooden fence in Chad” (Grandma Hans).
Rachut knows how to captivate you
In his texts we go to remote regions of the world and we encounter extraordinary animals and real problems, but also funny stories; such as that of the man who sends a microscopic woman playing the violin into his ear to coax a nagging tinnitus out of it. The plan fails. Tinnitus and a violinist form a band together in his auditory canal.
Rachut knows how to captivate you. When I was 17, I succumbed to his charisma at a concert by the band Angeschissen. He was already in his mid-30s at the time and seemed sinister and worn out. There were dark circles under his eyes and his teeth were in ruins. Apparently, clothing also has the function of creating ridicule for him. Whether that happens in rubber boots in connection with brightly colored, ragged 70s clothes, like back then with Angeschissen, or with some Scottish tam o’ shanters, with which the entire band Rattengold was claimed in 2014.
“clocks and fences”
When Jens Rachut is in the right environment at a concert, he makes the best announcements in the world. I remember the year 1992 in the Hamburg bar Treibeis, where he announced the song “Because it’s so true” for his band Blumen am ass der Hölle. He yelled obsessively into the mic, “There are two things that piss us all off. Why do we smoke and drink and hit…” – then he lowered his voice: “And these things are clocks and fences!”
In any case, he can do a lot with his voice. It can produce powerful eruptive eruptions. And he has always managed to find fellow musicians who do him justice. I’ll name two drummers here: the legendary Stephan Mahler and Marc Wills, who tragically died in 1996. Over the years, Rachut has managed to refuse total refusal. You can meet him in the theater and even on television as an actor. He has written several radio plays and is working on an opera and a novel. And the albums of all his bands can even be accessed on the usual streaming portals. They appear as sound carriers on a highly recommended punk label from Jena. Appropriately, it’s called Major Label. Jens Rachut is now 68. He doesn’t look like he intends to retire.
Regarding Jan Müller’s “Reflector” podcast: www.viertausendhertz.de/reflektor
This column first appeared in the Musikexpress issue 08/2022.