Strobocop
Since ’97, Strobocop’s label Karaoke Kalk has been pumping out bleeps and jazzy riffs to cutely destroy the prevalent cliches. Besides Karaoke Kalk, artists Takagi Masakatsu, Julee Cruise and Antonelli, label boss Thorsten Lutz likes to sit on the fence, creating his own niche next to the competing camps of post-glitch a la Mouse on Mars and minimal techno that have traditionally dominated the music scene in his hometown of Cologne. Pop sensibility finds an avant-garde outpost alongside acoustic instruments and all the nostalgia of a drunken singalong. In his lecture at the 2006 Red Bull Music Academy, Strobocop tells us about how shook off his indie roots for a life of rave.
Hosted by Nick Dwyer Welcome Mr. Thorsten Lütz, aka Strobocop [applause]. How are you, man? Strobocop Erm, sorry? Nick Dwyer How are you? Strobocop OK, a little bit nervous. Nick Dwyer Little bit nervous? Strobocop Yeah. Nick Dwyer That’s not so bad. The last few years you’ve been living in Berlin, but you’re originally from Cologne. How much of your life have you spent in Cologne? Strobocop You mean how long I was living there? Nick Dwyer Yeah. Strobocop I was born in Cologne. I’m originally from Cologne and for 32 years [I was living there]. And then there was a time to decide to see another city and to get new impressions and stuff like this. Then I decided to move to Berlin. Nick Dwyer Tell us a bit about Cologne then... I mean, Cologne as a city in terms of music over the last decade plus, you know, with the Kompakt thing and so much more, there seems to be bit of a mystique when it comes to Cologne about music. Tell us about the city. Strobocop Cologne is not a city, really. It’s a small village looking like a city. Everything is very close to each other. There is a small center and you have record shops there, all the clubs are there, the pubs are there, the bars are there, people are living there. So you have only short ways. You walk down the street and for sure you meet four or five people that you met in the bar the night before, and you say “Hello.” This is very nice on the one hand, on the other hand sometimes it gets on your nerves and it is a little bit too much. But I think this is one of the good things in Cologne, of course. I think this was the reason that a lot of labels, especially in this kind of electronica/house/techno, labels like Kompakt, Areal, Italic, maybe Karaoke Kalk and all these labels, could grow. That’s very good in this city, it’s very good for working together. Nick Dwyer So there is this feeling of camaraderie between not just what’s happening between the techno guys? Strobocop A good example is that when I started in 1997 I [didn’t] knew anything about running a label. I only had a small amount of money and a bunch of friends who started to produce music. I was DJing around that time, it was 1997, and I was thinking about what I could do next. Producing? Not really. Then I decided to do the label. For example, Wolfgang Voigt, [AKA] Mike Ink, was helping me a lot during that time. He was supporting me, I was able to ask him about anything, because he already was in this business for years and he knew exactly what to do. So it was very easy for me to find a way to do these things and start the label. Nick Dwyer You just said up to 1997 you were just a DJ. How long have you been DJing for and tell us a bit about the foundations of the music scene in Cologne, say in the ’80s, and when you first started to play records? Strobocop Well, I was starting playing records about 1989 and during that time I was more into guitar music. I was listening to My Bloody Valentine, Prefab Sprout, a lot of English bands, and I was even into hip-hop, because I think that was a really good time for hip-hop in the early ’90s and at the end of the ’80s. When I was playing I couldn’t mix, I was only playing one record after another. In 1991 I became a raver [laughs], as there were parties by a DJ team called Cosmic Orgasm. Triple R, who runs the labels Traum/Trapez, was part of that and also Bleed, who now publishes a magazine in Berlin called De:Bug. They had parties every weekend, mostly in empty factories or warehouses. It was a time in Cologne when it was still possible to find space like this, also squats and so on. Every weekend there were parties and I was really addicted, asking myself what they were doing as they played a real mixture. They would start with hip-hop. Bleed’s first track, for example, was by Paris - “The Devil Made Me Do It”. Then they would play early breakbeat stuff, and then techno. The techno was very fast. When you looked at their records they only had white labels, but they knew exactly which record it was. So I was really impressed, thinking, “Wow, this is nice.” And so I became more and more addicted to this kind of electronic music and at the same time Delirium, which was a record shop ran by the people who later were doing the Kompakt shop, was my second home. Every week I’d go there two, three times buying a lot of stuff. So I became more and more addicted to this kind of music. Nick Dwyer But this has nothing to do with your label. Strobocop Yeah, this is completely different to techno, this has nothing to do with it. Nick Dwyer Just to give people an idea. Do you have something early from the label that you like to play first? Strobocop Yeah, maybe this (shows record sleeve of Wunder). This is a record from my label Karaoke Kalk. It is called Wunder. This was the seventh release, and this was the turning point for the label because this was a great success. Before we were releasing more electronica, selling about 800 copies. Then we released this one and it exploded, at least in our terms. Nick Dwyer You had a lot of support from like the Jazzanova guys behind this. They were big fans of this record. Strobocop Yeah, could be. I don’t know [laughs]. Nick Dwyer Should we play this? What’s this track called? (music: Wunder - “Noitz’s Kakao” / applause) So tell us about this. What’s the name of this artist? Strobocop I didn’t produce it, I’ve only released it. This is a record from a guy called Jörg Follert, who is from Cologne either. Actually, he is releasing under the name of Wechsel Garland because we had some copyright problems because of the name. The name of this project was Wunder, but there is a crap guitar band in Hamburg and they really have a copyright on this name. Wunder means “miracle,” and so we decided to find another name for this project so now he’s releasing under the name of Wechsel Garland. This record is unbelievable. We released in 1998 and we’re [still] selling it. Within a year I now sold 600 or 700 copies, which is amazing, especially to Japan. The Japanese are completely addicted. We are always wondering what they are doing with them, “Wow, they’ve ordered 150 copies again, but this record is ten years old.” Nick Dwyer Wow. Strobocop They always find new people. Sometimes I think they eat the CDs or I don’t know what they’re doing with it (laughter). I can say that this is the most successful record of the label. Nick Dwyer When the label first started was it more of an album project or singles? Strobocop No, in the beginning we were only doing white sleeves, everything was very cheap. Then we had those labels. At the beginning, we’d take motives that were connected to Kalk, which was the part of Cologne we were living at. I can’t remember the story why we’ve decided to put this guy on this label (points at the label of the record). It’s a shame, I forgot. I’ve tried to find it on the internet, because there was this kind of family tragedy, but not so bad, more funny. Nick Dwyer So he’s immortalised on your first release. Strobocop Yeah, this is the first release. I think the Wunder record was the first one where we used a complete, full artwork. (music: Kandis - “Lunar Corona”) Nick Dwyer The name of the artist and the track? Strobocop The name of the artist is Kandis and the name of the track is Lunar Corona, I think. Nick Dwyer You have a DVD as well, don’t you? Strobocop Yeah, maybe if you want we can take a look. Nick Dwyer Yeah. Strobocop This is an old video from a band called Donna Regina. They’ve released on Karaoke Kalk since 1990 and it’s more pop-influenced music. (video: Donna Regina – Unknown / applause) Nick Dwyer So tell us a little bit about Donna Regina. They are two people? Strobocop Yes, they are a married couple, Günter and Regina Janssen. They are also living in Cologne and they were producing music for years and years. Before they came to Karaoke Kalk they were releasing on a label called Strangeways, and they’ve already released four records before they released their first record on Karaoke Kalk. They are one of the artists I’m working with since the beginning. Nick Dwyer Are they exclusively with your label? Strobocop Yes. Nick Dwyer They are? Strobocop Yes, until now they’ve released four albums, the fourth one was released in November of last year. Nick Dwyer Let’s say you talk to Donna Regina, and they’re going to do a new album for you, they give you an album, you love it, but maybe there are two or three tracks where you go like, “Nah.” Do you ever step in or do you let the artist have complete creative control? Strobocop The artists have complete creative control. Sometimes, not really often I decide to say, “Please think about maybe we can leave this track away or can we exchange it?” But that’s not very often. I mean, Donna Regina for example or even Wechsel Garland, I have a lot of respect for them because they are very good producers. So normally, I accept it straight away. When they give me their idea of an album I agree most of the time 100%. It’s different when I work with a newcomer or a so-called newcomer artists who never released an album before, or they release their first album on Karaoke Kalk. Then I try to get more influence, and I try to ask them if they have more tracks available, bla bla bla. Audience Member [inaudible question] Roman, Polish guy. Strobocop Roman is a Polish guy living in Cologne and he already released two albums on Karaoke Kalk. There is a new one since January this year. He’s completely [on some] other stuff, because no one understood why I released this record. Maybe to get a better impression we can hear something. Some people hate me because of that. I love it. Audience Member I love it too. Strobocop Hey, you are the other guy (laughter). First track. Nick Dwyer So how old is Roman and how long have you known him for? Strobocop I know him since three years. He came into my office saying, “Hello, I’m Roman and this is my music.” I was really into it, I really love the music. (music: Roman - “Saving Juno”) Nick Dwyer Thorsten, thank you very much. Strobocop Hey, thank you.