1.Questions&Stories
What is AcidRock nRoll?
It’s a mix out of Techno/Trance and Rockmusic, plus you have worldmusic
elements and text samples …
Originally its coming out of the AcidRocknRoll Massacre, which was a kind of
anarchist jam session of the Playground Collective. We did it in our former
community, on parties and festivals and for research at university…We
set up some electronic and acoustic instruments and then everybody could play
everything.
The original idea was, to break the borders between artsists and consumers,
between the show and the audience, to involve the people, to twist the roles...We
wanted to inspire by a kind of “do it yourself”surprise experience:
making people believe in their own potential.
Wasn’t it completley chaotic?
Sometimes yes, of course. But this was part of the experience, too.
We also had some people and ways to structure the thing a little bit: some prepared
groovebox loops, experienced drummers, DJ with good nerves…So beginners
can easily tune into the groove, stop thinking and being afraid, start learning…Lots
of people never got the chance to do music by themselves. Also we gave them
toys for juggling. Clubs, balls, flowersticks, chains, sticks…Juggling
also is part of our Playground Philosophy . In these new times, its good not
just to focus on one thing, but to see how things are refering to each other,
to see the whole thing, to create a whole piece of art out of our ideas and
lives. We need to learn, to juggle with our homes, families, jobs, identities…I
mean, juggling is kind of meditation like doing music, too.You just need to
find a good groove…
How did you start the live-act?
Out of the Acid Rock n Roll Masacer and the Playground Jams I ve got encouraged
to start playing as a live-act on parties …. I was inspired by electronic
music, by the new sounds and that I could be my own band and do my own compositions.
People and partyorganizers somehow liked it, so they invited me and I came from
one party to the other. In 99 I started to use samples and I also started to
play live guitar again. It was kind of process, learning by doing. I also liked
a lot to play together with our playground fireartists.Its nice to have a interactive
show between fire, perfomance and music.
T oday my live-act is a jam with five instruments and its never the same.It
always depends on the situation, the party, the people, the monitors, how you
feel…
Also it was kind of selftherapy. 97 was a hard year. My grandmothers died, my
mother first time got depressions, I got serious sick with damaged discs. In
98 I split from my band and my job.Also my relationship broke, because I wasn’t
able to have a boyfriend and a lover at the same time…So making music
was helping me to forget the sadness and I spent the weekends by moving from
one party to the other to dance, to play….
Another big inspiration has been the situation on the Michael Barrax our community.
We had lots of wars and problems going on, because different groups of people
couldn’t share a vision about the place, they were fighting against each
other and they all had their different music&parties, like kind of religion.
Hardcore, Punk,DrumnBass, Goa, Rock…
I tried to play music that makes them coming together, using music and elements
of all the styles. So it became a mix of Rock, Psytrance, Dub and BreakBeats/DrumnBass.
We called it modern VolXmusic.
Where is the name Lava303 coming from?
One day I introduced the Groovebox into my old girlband
the Slags and we started the jam project Lava Enterprise. The original idea
of this band was to give up song structures and to melt electronic sounds and
typical bandinstruments together to one sound…
Our boyfriends joined the band and we played some gigs and did some events like
Psychedelica in Batschkapp/Frankfurt and Schweinehalle/Hanau. In 98 I split
from the Slags and then during the summer Lava Enterprise broke,too. Jens from
Nada Brahma booked me as solo-act for Klangwelten and he wrote Lava303 on the
flyer,so this is how the live-act got its name.
What does it mean : Be your own Live-act?
It means, “to do it by yourself”, “to take your life into
your own hands. It was part of our playground-philosophy. Life is a playground!
This experience has been very important for me, kind of creative therapy…
I had to recover from these years with The Slags where I always have been the
little one, the bavarian immigrant, the drunken guitar player... At that time
I had always other people to do things like production, management, agency and
label stuff, and told me, what there is to do, what is the way to do thing,
what is professional , “amtlich”.In the end it’s the same
story like at home with your parents or in school, it was kind of rocknroll
boarding school.
I don’t want to complain, because I learnt a lot, but like this I also
didn’t have control over the things happening in my life. Somewhen in
my life there was a point where I had the feeling,its enough! I have to go my
own way, I need learn how to do things by myself and in my way, to create my
own experience. I need to find out who I really am.
Maybe it also had to do with getting inspired by parties, electronic music,
XTC and then I had a quite intense and horrorfull LSD Trip at a festival in
Budapest. After this I had the feeling that I had believed to much into other
peoples opinion or what is written in books.It was like somebody has taken away
a curtain and suddenly you can see …all the potential, possibilites, life
is bigger, music is more then your band, europe isnt just the west… It
was kind of apocalyptic and I felt, that the old laws don’t rule anymore,
that time has come, to follow the truth inside of myself to create a happy and
fullfilled life, even if I get myself into lots of problems...
I recognized, that all this theories at university and that my band wasn’t,
what I was really believing in. I just did things to satisfy others, my professors,
my parents, my band,my boyfriend… When I took LSD first time all this
what I thought, it is me, (but it wasn’t) broke in pieces and I had to
find myself,to invent myself new. I had the feeling there is kind of golden
source deep inside of me but it got spoilt for along time and I have to set
this energy free again to get happy in life and making more developments as
musician, artists and student or just as person. I also forgot about what I
learnt from guitarlessons,how to play Guitarsolos or trying to sound like somebody
else…I stopped thinking and started to play guitar in my own way, completley
improvisation, noisy psychedelic freestyle, just the way, I just felt …
I had the feeling that only I can safe my mind if I am following my feelings
and visions, if I m doing what I really want to do and really like to do.Not
to do something because others expecting me to do something. This was not an
easy process, because you don’t always know which ideas are realistic
and whats just a nice illusion or simply too far out. Sometimes you think you
must be completley crazy. But in the end its kind of game with reality.You create
your own reality. You start to juggle with your life…So this production
is kind of the result of this process.
How did you do the production?
This production is a documentation of a live or life- experience called lava303,
kind of best of and greatest hits of the last summers.
So I didn’t use any other instruments, I just was working with the instruments
I am playing live, this means no extra guitar amplifier, no additionally synthies
&software, just nuendo and cubase and effects for mixing. So if concerning
the music equippment, its kind of low-fi production….I had some ideas
some songs in my mind, kind of my most loved loops, samples and guitar riff
. So I had to find a 5-7 minute form for jam sessions that normally can last
between up to one hour.This is why I made up new arrangements and didn’t
just record live, besides of some jams. Also I wanted to have better quality,
not just all music on one track like we did with the lover 303 album. I wanted
to be abel to mix the single sounds and loops separatly. I also wanted to make
the experience how it is to construct a song consciously. Some things you cannot
do with playing live, if you have to play 5 instruments at the same time.
What does this album mean to you?
This production documents a important time of my life as one woman band: a spiritual
search and a artistic/musical development. It was made during 9 month of pregnancy
and 9 months of breastfeeding with my son Nepomuk. And somehow producing and
releasing this album feels like a kind of birth, too. Like a second baby…
Finally I brought a teenager dream or illusion to its end. Now I feel more adult
and more open for new things. Maybe in the future I do something completley
different. I also could imagine to play together or do a project with other
people again. It nice to do soloprojects, because your are autonom and do your
own decisions, but also you are alone in your world of imagination and ideas.
And alone on tour… So there are several ideas, this year I want to get
more involved in production of the Dutifull Daughters, which is interesting
because its very experimental stuff…
Why are you doing music?
I also don’t know, but looks like it’s a kind
of drug and its hard to stop it.
Somehow, music is a way of life, maybe you don’t get rich from it and
maybe its also hard to make always a life out of it BUT at least you save money
which you otherwise would spend on the psychotherapist, on paying flight tickets
and petrol for travelling, drinks and entrance for parties.Plus you making connections
with lots of people all around the world and its good for making peace…
at least for one night.
What is the meaning of Crossing Bridges to you?
Crossing Bridges was a kind of selfexperience, inspiration
and political practice for a group of artits and students coming from germany
to kosova.The idea was to stop talking politics but to do something,to stop
watchin TV and Propaganda and to make our own film, our own reality TV Show.
It also is about the potential of parties as a way of political action. Music
is very powerfull and it can make people go into the war but also it can make
people come together and dance and fall in love...
Crossing Bridges also has has to do with a vision on Sebastianos Party in Berlin
and with Raviv my israelian fiancee, who likes to provoke...
For me personally Crossing Bridges ended up by getting pregnant, another way
of creating a bridges between man and woman, between families in Prishtina,
Frankfurt andBavaria: Orest gave to our baby the name Nepomuk, who protects
the bridges in Bohemia. So this is bringing me back to my own family story,.
My fathers family were germans living in Poland and Czech, after the second
worl war, they had to leave as refugees on a train and lost every thing over
there.. The story between Germans and Czek people is still quite complicated,
its still an open question, if it was o.k. to expell the germans, but also it
had some reasons…Its also not o.k. to kill people because of their nationality,
religion, sexuality.. So for me Crossing Bridges is not just a story about serbs
or albanians, it brought me back to my familys history and myself…. If
you are born in Germany you have a certain kind of responsibility. So for me
its been a personal “crossing bridges” to organize the first Festival
in 2001 together with a student group from Prag or to meet people coming from
Israel. Its nice to have friends, who choose to come back to Germany to live
here again like their ancestors.
What is this Crossing Bridges Label?
It’s the idea to publish the music and films we recorded and produced
during the last years as Crossing Bridges Collective. Its connected to the Crossing
Bridges Festivals and to the people we met while touring around on the balcan
and in X-Yugoslavia. It´s about collecting ideas and documenting a new
generation who wants to live another life, standing up against racism, sexism,capitalism…
Music is a way to transport messages, to bring people together, to get connected
and organized internationally.There are tribes everywhere, tribes who resist,
who are able to live another of life and other ideas, because they are not alone,
they are connected, they are a big cybertribe all over the world…
I will know more about the label in summertime, I going to spend some time in
Prishtina and then go to Belgrad for the peoples global action days.Then we
will see…
Its just somehow the thing for what I started to be my own live-act and to get
independent from the mainstream structures. It doesn’t make me happy to
do music and arts just for the money or because its so cool. Its nice to move
people, but its also nice to be part of a movement.