Recommendations of the editorial team
“Next Friday? Sure, I can do it!” My promise was lightly. It was about submitting the next reflector column in this magazine. About this page here you are reading. In our phone call on Monday, I assured Stephan Rehm Rom Rozanes for the end of the week. Although it was clear that the next day I would go to the third tour stage with my band Tocotronic. It was negligent from me. Extremely negligent. Because it is clear to me that my brain turns into a special condition on tour. It is optimized for social interaction. Real, mental or even creative skills are reduced to zero in this state.
And as I said, I know that. But my brain also knows that I know and trick me. Before every tour it suggests: “This time you will create a lot on tour, Jan!” And so it can happen that I download “Moby Dick” by Melville or the first 5 volumes of “looking for the lost time”. You can advise reading how many pages of these works I have ever managed to read on tours.
I love it how the days on tour run there
Everything is not bad either. Because I love it how the days on tour run. They are shaped by nonsensical, senseless conversations among the fellow travelers. There are also a lot of music in these dialogues. Fortunately, I still get to know new music on tour. Last night on the bus, for example, I was introduced to the wonderful song “On the way” by Klaus Lage. In the text it says: “I sang in Hamburg in the factory / and drove from Bremen to Osnabrück / I was in Stuttgart, then in Trier / in between Cologne, and today I’m here!” I think that’s good because it describes my life situation that has existed for thirty years.
And since life on tour is a constant giving and taking, I was able to counter on the bus with an insider tip. And with “travelers”, my favorite piece by Manfred Maurenbrecher: “We are on a trip / we only take a look at it, we are on a trip / through a strange country”.
There are so many great bands from Hanover
And now I am in the backstage of today’s venue in Hanover, the Capitol. I sit on a red synthetic leather sofa. It is Friday and the clock runs. The Deadline of the Rehm Rozanes explodes. But at least a few lines already flowed into my keyboard. Of course I am constantly disturbed. There are always travelers with important questions. “Why is the tram in Vienna actually called BIM?” Someone knows how to report that it is called “thing thing” in Hong Kong and “Ellebembel” in Darmstadt. Of course, it is important for these dialogues to leave the cell phone in your pocket and not to google. I find this kind of conversations wonderful. But at least they distract me a little from my current task. After all, I was already jogging today. So it is probably, as a rock musician Ü50: jogging instead of excess. I am satisfied with this decision.
Fortunately, with our new guitarist Felix Gebhard we have a real Hanoverian in our ranks. He gave me the recommendation, simply to follow the river Ihme, which flows along the Capitol directly in front of the Capitol. Local music penetrated from my headphones. There are so many great bands from Hanover. Yesterday we already heard the Scorpions on the bus. The people who make fun of the Scorpions should really make sure what a beautiful voice Klaus mine has! However, I decided to go jogging a little differently. It should be the Boskops.
For years I had nothing to do with this band. The reason: I had read Ute Wiener’s’ very worth reading book “Fortunately there was punk”. I can only warmly recommend it to you. Ute Wieners was the creator of the Pogo-Girl fanzines. Her descriptions about the misogynistic behavior of the Boskop’s singer ensured that I still meet this band with a distance.
The question of the extent to which art and author can be separated is so complicated that I could not find a general answer for myself. And so I dared to hear the debut album Sol 12 of the Boskops from 1983 again for jogging. Some things about it are quite critical. But it also includes deep songs such as “fear” or “trauma” and the hit “We all live”.
I fell in love with the city of Hanover today
So I jogged out of the city on the Ihme; Passing the place of the Fährmann Festival, where I once saw the Boskops live and past the ruins of the Continental works in Limmer. Suddenly I passed a punkette. (I don’t know if the word dots are still up to date, but I think it’s one of the noblest words in the German language). So I ran past the punkette, the Boskops still on my headphones. The dots wore colorful hair and many bathrooms on her punk jacket. She was about 60. I briefly considered addressing her. Maybe it’s even Jule, the guitarist of the Boskops, I thought?
Or is it perhaps dussel? Dussel, the singer of Blitzkrieg, the forerunner band of the Boskops? Yes, she looks like Dussel, I thought. Still, I let it address. After all, I wanted to tear down a few kilometers in front of the sound check. After jogging I walked a little through Hanover downtown. But not too long, because I was aware: Stephan Rehm Rohm wants to see the text today.
Nevertheless: I fell in love with the city of Hanover today. This city with all its concrete is actually one of the most beautiful! I passed the “Mode Rock Center” near the main train station and briefly played with the idea of buying a bullet-for-my-valine-shirt. But then I remember that I don’t know the band at all, and I don’t have time for such sparrow. Stephan Rehm Rozanes wants to have the text. Now!
This column first appeared in the music express edition 6/2025.