25/09/2024
ON THE DEATH OF ACHIM SZEPANSKI: It is amazing how the death of a person suddenly creates a completely different, more complete, and sometimes surprising - depending on your point of view - detailed or overall picture in this society permeated by social media, including the daily online press, through the obituaries of the people surrounding the deceased person. In the end, this is what you call history or even legend-making.
Personally, in 1989, I had the pleasure of meeting Achim Szepanski in Frankfurt on the occasion of a Curtis Mayfield interview during his 1988/89 "Live in Europe" tour, which I had to do for NETWORK PRESS. Because my way to the Mayfield concert led me to stop at Boy Records on Klinger-Strasse based on a serious tip from a friend in Cologne. And that's where the later Black Out and Force Inc. driving force and bossman was standing behind the counter. In the constant search for the latest ultimate House, Acid, and early Techno beats for our own sets in the Cologne RAVE CLUB, an intensive exchange about imported vinyl quickly arose. And at the end of that, I left the Boy Record store heavily laden with top-notch Black Gold, of which I have not sold on single 12inch to this day. But in the weeks that followed this wax was immediately played "on heavy rotation" in the still legendary basement club on Cologne's Hohenzollernring. And at the same time, I had the first BLACK OUT promos in my baggage, such as the first "Dance Yourself To Death" compilation and other white labels from Flowers LTD. "The Swingin' Thing" and Deskee's "Let There Be House". Both tracks became real club hits for Roland Casper, myself, and our club crowd in the RAVE CLUB over the next few weeks. Both made the Sound Of Frankfurt well known acceptable in Cologne between what felt like hundreds of tracks from Chicago, New York, Detroit, the UK, and the first relevant tracks from Berlin. And that was long before Cologne producers slowly started to come out of hiding into the bizz in 1990. This was also ultimately thanks to Achim Szepanski's "coincidental" work at Boy Records.
In the weeks, months, and years that followed, contact between us simply didn't break off. Even though most of our conversations lasted for hours over German Telekom lines. But while the stream of Black Out promo vinyl and subsequently Force Inc. Music Works, Mille Plateaux, Communism Records, Contrastate Records, Disco Inc., Force Inc. Limited, Force Inc. Music Works U.S.Edition, Force Inc. UK, Force Lab, Force Tracks, Intense Recordings, Molecular Funk Guerilla White Labels continued to flow into the Network Press/CUT and later D2000 offices, the world didn't stand still either. While my own fortunes "sunk" more and more in the years up to 2003 in time pressure scenarios from club, DJ, and promoter work as well as magazine editor-in-chief, editor, and publisher. Achim Szepanski also advanced on his own path to become a key figure in the electronic music culture of the republic.
With Force inc., he created a European counterpart to the Detroit Underground Resistance Blueprint, which many perceived or interpreted as the stark opposite of the German Techno scene of the 1990s, which mainly had partying in mind in the spirit of fun culture. His attitude towards "zeitgeist" phenomena of German Techno culture such as "MAYDAY" is as clear as it is succinct and is currently documented by BONEDO and Spiegel online (Tobias Rapp), as is his further path as a critical commentator on the scene and further activities, as a philosopher and as a visionary, radical, socially relevant pioneer. And there is no need to go into detail here, even if protagonists of the scene such as Dr Walker / Liquid Sky artistcollective, Thomas Tanith Andrezak, and Marcel Janowsky have now raised further, remarkably interesting aspects of his biography ... or also lovingly spoken briefly as by Stephan Veith. I myself had not been aware of these before and all this should certainly be included in a later comprehensive historiographical evaluation.
What has also stuck in my memory are a number of friendly meetings at Cologne's POPKOMM and Kunstwerk events in the 90s and early 2000s. And many long evening or nighttime phone calls between Cologne and Frankfurt when the annoying topic of ads and discounts for Force Inc. and/or its sub-imprints in D2000 Magazine came up again. And the hour-long conversations often quickly shifted to the socially and politically relevant level. We really didn't always agree on that. Especially since Szepanski was one of the few people in the know about my own previous activity at the government's Federal Press Office. And he knew a lot more in this context that provided a sharper basis for discussion and starting points for attacks against me in the argument. And it was very often long-winded, dogged, annoying, or even bordering on madness until 3 a.m. or later. Just like Ingmar Koch today described his relationship with AS as "direct, crazy, nuts, entertaining, serious, Dadaist, communist, elitist, anti-elitist, earthy, brutal, open, in your face - full of love, in love, self-absorbed, not self-absorbed, uncontrollable, new, badass, broken". In the end, I was usually so annoyed by everything that Szepanski got his advertising discount like his story or review(s). And at least I had the feeling that it was for a more than good cause (I still love his labels to the day). And you could stand up to the better-paying music major establishment and the mainstream that both sides hated, at least in terms of content in your own magazine. And besides, at some point, I just wanted to go to bed. So the winner used to be Force Inc. ... once again.
Two decades later - we had lost touch more and more after 2003 - I saw a poster in my favorite 674FM home base in Cologne advertising an "INTERFERENCE" Force Inc. / Mille Plateau night in the station's own club basement. Achim himself was announced as a performer, among others. But in the end, he did not appear on stage alongside his label artists on July 27th. As I now know, he was already so ill in July that he didn't make it to Cologne in the end. But I would have loved to have talked to him again after all those years, with a wink, about our nightly telephone controversies. Just like about his highly recommended book "The Ecstasy of Speculation", which I secretly anticipated more than I would have thought possible in the 90s, for example. And I would have loved to show him one more of the records that he was the first to recommend to me back in 1989 at Boy Records. And which still has a place of honor in the RAVE CLUB-relevant part of my vinyl collection. CANDY J's "Hurt Me! Hurt Me!" in the raunchy Dueleme! Dueleme! Mix is, for me, actually "written in the stone" in a figurative sense. The Soundcloud mix listed below, therefore, looking back, goes to one person in particular: Germany's only really serious Techno rebel and visionary mastermind. The current streamlined, opportunistic Techno scene in this country could do so much better for a good reason with so many PPL more of his quality today! FAREWELL ACHIM!
https://soundcloud.com/spyinthehouse_radio/one-more-night-at-rave-club
