The King Of Pop - Cologne Tales

We're so pleased to bring you the first installment of a (hopefully) long series we've entitled "King Of Pop - The Cologne Tales" by our local mistral POPNONAME of ITALIC and KOMPAKT fame...I've spent many an evening listening to Jens Uwe share his experiences and couldn't resist but to tell you one of his recent tales through his voice....

So 5 years ago I took a walk - a long walk through the Rheinpark - here on the right side of Cologne. People say it´s the wrong side. Funny things are happening here. Take one day, 5 years ago, when I was walking through the Rheinpark... I heard sounds - like a paradise, warm bell sounds in the wind...I proclaimed "What the hell... is this!?". So I followed the sound- louder, louder - warmer, warmer...it was there that I fell into the grass and I saw a guy having a conversation with a bird! I swear it's the truth- he was serenading it with an instrument called a Schlitztrommel. The bird would answer. He would play again - and the bird would answer once again. They did this for hours. How great is this? And so I eventually decided to interfere - I said, "I like this situation, I like this band, I want to release this stuff!". We made an appointment to make some music together. And so, last Saturday was our first gig. Popnoname featuring Rick E. Loef. The Kölnische Kunstverein invited us to play a version of "you don`t love me yet" The song was originally written by Roki Erickson, an old hippie, who decided to avoid the draft and avoid Vietnam. Like Hamlet, he proclaimed himself insane and admitted himself in a psychatric clinic where he managed to truly become crazy and wasn't released until the '80's.

He records hippie music like in the sixties.. This song in particular is a crybaby song and I originally didn't like it too much. But the came Rick E. Loef - also a hippie, like me came over to visit and the idea came that we do it together. I changed the lyrics from "You Don`t Love Me Yet" to "I Love You All". I had a flokati carpet on my rider and here's what happened...

August 27th 2009

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