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waldeck |
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We had seen Waldeck's name scribbled on sidewalks all over New York. Plain white chalk. Impermanent graffiti tactics. I believe it read something like this: “WALDECK JOES PUB THIS THURSDAY” It's raw marketing technique stuck in my mind but fell deaf on my ears because I was already planning on seeing their performance the night before at the Art Directors Club awards party. As good as they were that night, after talking with Waldeck's main man Klaus, perhaps we missed out. A restrictive schedule would have us in transit at the time he hit the stage at Joe’s. He had this to say about the Joe's Pub show and his music in general. "Obviously in a club it’s always more exciting because the atmosphere is so different. Basically we thought of a concept to convey the ideas of electronic music. To bring that onstage, because with electronic music it’s difficult to make happen onstage with the process of the things that happen with keyboards and computers. So we thought having a sofa there, and bringing a kind of the living room up on stage. Basically that’s where the music is actually produced, because it’s my living room studio. That’s also the place where people are most likely to listen to that sort of music. I took the basic idea of the sofa to make it as live as possible, then I brought the keyboards and the live effects." So with the club experience it’s definitely a different energy with your stage shows too? "Definitely, because also with
the P.A. if its more like a conference area you don’t really get the
kick out of the sound. Usually when we play a club we make it feel more
as if you are looking right into someone else’s living room. From the
point of being on stage there’s something in between you and the
audience and one can act as if one was at home. That’s something that’s
completely different with the setup. What are your thoughts on the internet changing music via Napster and the like? "Obviously there is
definitely a need for copyright, otherwise there would be no incentive
to produce music because it’s just costly. People always tend to think
things should be for free but anyone who is selling other things would
never imaging to give it away for free. I think the whole net situation reminds me a little of that, because on one had you can look at this as promotion, but on the other hand if people stop buying records because they can download it for free then it’s killing the music. I think there was a similar discussion in the seventies when home recording became popular, thinking home recording was killing music, and that was not true. You know, it’s quite difficult to pinpoint. I don’t think any one has quite got a grasp on it yet, out of not knowing what to do with it." The nature of music is changing also because of the ability to sample other artists and use it as your own. It’s almost a shame to cut off that part of creativity. "That’s true but there’s also different aspects, because some people take the sample and don’t do any work themselves. They just take the original part and don’t add anything new. That’s just a rip-off. And who should be in the position to judge what is original? It becomes complicated. " What’s your touring plans right now? "Basically we were just
thinking of just covering the major cities, because obviously it’s too
time consuming to cover all of America. We’re thinking of instead of
flying, make it like some half-holiday, so instead of flying we want to
take a tour bus around and see what’s happening. Since the time of this
interview Waldeck has had several sold-out New York City shows and has
scheduled a nation-wide U.S. tour to begin in December of this year. "Well since I’m coming
from Vienna it’s not very unusual that I had classical piano lessons.
Because you have all of this classical background in Vienna with opera
and classical composers. But I was always sort of more interested in
playing my own; I was never really interested in playing other people’s
music. What music do you listen to yourself? "Well right now not much to be
honest. I’m just touring and doing promotion. Also when I was
finishing the album I was quite happy to close my ears up after twelve
hours of sitting in the studio. I wouldn’t have imagined it would be
that I’m doing music but I don’t find time to listen to it. So the cover of "Aquarius" on the new album came through from some of your psychedelic influences. "Yeah, definitely. But I’m
really open to any kind of musical influence. At one point I was really
listening to R&B stuff. What I like about albums and what I try to
achieve myself, is that when you listen to music your brain is sort of
triggered to work out images. That’s what I really like. "Not many people know this
track. For me it was more of an accident really. I knew Chet Baker did
brilliant vocal performance. Especially in a film in the eighties called
"Around Midnight" with Herbie Hancock. It was featuring all
the Parisian Jazz scene in the fifties I think. From that film I knew
Chet Baker and I bought some records then, mostly the old ones from when
he was really young. After repeated listening we will have to agree it all
worked very well. The tempo is perfect to chill to on one of those rainy
days in the city grit. Give Waldeck a listen soon on such a day and see
for yourself. |
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