Building the Band

July 21, 2006 7:29 AM

Lustfaust, an expiremental noise band from West Berlinhas been steadily building an online retrospective archive of band photos, memorabilia from past gigs, and collected submissions of artwork that fans created for their own mix tapes. They can also be found (of course) on MySpace. For those of you in the NYC area, tomorrow is the final day of a show at The Volume Gallery that features artwork created by fans of the underground group . What they've pieced together is a pretty loyal and diverse following for a band that doesn't really exist.
posted by stagewhisper (23 comments total)

"Lustfaust was an experimental noise band active in West Berlin during the late seventies and early 1980s composed of a group of session musicians. Featuring a Japanese jazz drummer, Matsushita ‘Bobby’ Kazuki, a Belgian guitarist/multi-instrumentalist, Guido van Baelen, a German bassist, Hans Berger, and the California-born, German/American Peter Kruger, the band was a curiously international mixture, initially formed through a mutual distaste for the inoffensive music that it was for the most part their job to produce. Their combination of an aggressive on-stage presence, instrumentation through found objects such as cement mixers and pneumatic drills, and the use of an anti-capitalist community-based model of distribution (if you sent the band a blank cassette, they would return it with their latest release) spawned the Dadaist Geniale Dilettanten movement of the early 1980s and pioneered the burgeoning cassette culture of the late seventies."
posted by stagewhisper at 7:30 AM on July 21, 2006

Expiremental bands never last long.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 7:56 AM on July 21, 2006

I'm told their rider included a clause about lingonberry pancakes.
posted by CynicalKnight at 8:02 AM on July 21, 2006

I really wish he had won the Beck's Futures, which he was nominated for this year, and which was won by Matt Stokes (with the qualifier that I do really like Stokes' stuff; anyone who blasts out happy hardcore and black metal on massive church organs in the name of art is fine by me).

It's just so well done, so lovingly detailed – full of the entusiasm and secret pride of the unknown underground. And you can read it as either satire of the avant-garde and its dedicated followers, or as collaged tribute to the same. (In truth it's a bit of both; a delicate ribbing that, like Losing My Edge, requires you, in part, to be the butt of the joke in order for you to love it.)

I also really wish that when they'd tour the Becks show round the UK like they used to, rather than keeping all the best stuff for the Tate leg in London and throwing some artistic scraps to Glasgow and Bristol.
posted by Len at 8:10 AM on July 21, 2006 [1 favorite has favorites]

Expiremental bands never last long.

The only experimental band that I'm familiar with, the Nihilist Spasm Band, has been together since 1965.

I think Einsturzende Neubauten are still putting out reckids too .
posted by Flashman at 8:21 AM on July 21, 2006

Depends how you define "experimental", though, dunnit? I can't think of any experimental bands that weren't also improv bands. Is there such a thing as a non-improv experimental band?
posted by Bugbread at 8:28 AM on July 21, 2006

ya, and ze pigs in blankets.
posted by joeblough at 8:29 AM on July 21, 2006

They fucks you up.
posted by rollbiz at 8:35 AM on July 21, 2006

Is there such a thing as a non-improv experimental band?

Sure. An easy example is Autechre.
posted by Hubajube at 8:51 AM on July 21, 2006

Naomi V Jelish was a real girl, though, right? Right?
posted by jack_mo at 9:02 AM on July 21, 2006

hehe, w-g pandemonium!
posted by troybob at 9:13 AM on July 21, 2006

A german experimental noise band?

That is crazy talk.
posted by tkchrist at 10:20 AM on July 21, 2006

I don't understand how you can link to a band without linking to their music. It's ok, nothing really special, but still, that was the only thing I was looking for when I saw this post. I mean, they're no Turk Knifes Pope.
posted by greasepig at 11:24 AM on July 21, 2006

Hubajube : "An easy example is Autechre."

So what makes him experimental? Would the Boredoms be experimental? Naked City? Aphex Twin?

I sometimes get the impression that "experimental" just means "avant garde". Is it different?
posted by Bugbread at 11:39 AM on July 21, 2006

I sometimes get the impression that "experimental" just means "avant garde". Is it different?

In music criticism, or on the labels on record shop shelves, they're often interchangable terms. Dunno about Naked City, but I'd say Boredoms, Aphex Twin and Autechre can all lay claim to being genuinely experimental (Boredoms especially, I'd've thought - as in they literally experiment with their music, hence the massive difference between early and current work.)
posted by jack_mo at 12:46 PM on July 21, 2006

If that's the case, then I'll go ahead and disagree with weapons-grade plutonium: Lots of experimental bands last a long time.
posted by Bugbread at 2:01 PM on July 21, 2006

Hey, sorry 'bout that, greasepig. The MySpace page loads clips, of course, but seeing as this is conceptual art, the actual product (non-actual product?) struck me as less intriguing than the sum of the parts. Mea Culpa.
posted by stagewhisper at 2:06 PM on July 21, 2006

you might agree with w-g p more than you think, bugbread...
posted by troybob at 2:12 PM on July 21, 2006

troybob : "you might agree with w-g p more than you think, bugbread..."

MGAH!!!!!!

Now I feel dumb...
posted by Bugbread at 3:01 PM on July 21, 2006

We're constantly trying to acquire more material for the archive and so
wondered if anyone here had any tapes, posters, clothing, photos or
even just recollections relating to Lustfaust.

Thanks
Murray

(Sat, Apr 1 2006 9:46 am)
posted by Smart Dalek at 4:31 PM on July 21, 2006

I sometimes get the impression that "experimental" just means "avant garde". Is it different?

I think the term does get misapplied a lot. Maybe for some artists "experimental" means they are experimenting with audience reactions?

I think of my own process as experimental because that's how I put music together, trying things until I like something and then refining from there iteratively (as opposed to hearing music in your head, writing it down, and then turning that into sound).
posted by Foosnark at 4:56 PM on July 21, 2006

none of you got the 'expiremental' gag. jeez.

john cage defines experimental music as that where you're not able to quantify the end result. any performance that's subject to chance or hazard would count.
posted by peterkins at 5:49 AM on July 24, 2006

peterkins : "none of you got the 'expiremental' gag. jeez."

troybob did
posted by Bugbread at 8:51 AM on July 24, 2006