Group B
1 While almost all of the Bands texts are written by Campino, the other band members von Holst, Meuser and Breitkopf are in charge of the musical arrangements. The two former drummers Trimpop and Rohde are occasionally named on the older compositions as authors. A major part of the music was produced by Jon Caffery; he was however replaced by Vincent Sorg in 2008. The band satirically,critically deals with social and political issues. The texts, mainly first-person narrated , deal with faith, religion, psychology and xenophobia. Major topics in their texts are friendship and moral courage. A common reference to soccer is significant for them and their texts. Their songs seem anthem-like as the chorus is sung by all the band members. Almost all their texts are colloquial language and often contain vulgar expressions. The band furthermore published some drinking songs, which became popular tune in Germany. Moreover the band feels connected to the cabaret. Their friends Gerhard Polt, die Biermösl Blosn, Funny van Dannen and Hanns Christian Müller ,also artists, have been involved in some of the bands productions. The band also had some more challenging projects, as Nur zu Besuch- unplugged im Wiener Burgtheater. They were supported by composers of classical music like Hans Steingen. Furthermore they were joined by various guest musicians such as Tim Cross, Esther Kim and Raphael Zweifel. Consequently since 2005 the band uses more acoustic instruments, both for their new songs and old ones .
The less frequent English speaking songs come out by a total production of Campino and the musicians Honest John Plain ,Matt Dangerfield of “the Boys” and T.V. Smith. Besides many cover versions, the band has published 238 compositions by the time of their 25th anniversary of them being together as a band.
2 Musical Development
Every member of the band taught himself how to play his own instrument. At the beginning of their musical career most of them still attended school. Their first album was recorded unprofessionally in a studio which was rented on an hourly basis. The band kept to simple guitar chords and lyrics and they played their music in a dilettante style, which was common for punk rock. Die Toten Hosen were mainly influenced by Punk bands from the 1970s, who they paid tribute to on most of their albums and at all of their concerts. In addition they occasionally covered the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. The band often plays “Schunkelpunk”, which means simple sing-a-long punk songs like Eisgekühlter Bommerlunder, numerous cover versions of German Schlager music and songs like Azzuro. Because of that they rank among the pioneers of the so called “Volxmusic”. “Volxmusic” is a musical genre which combines elements of German folk music with elements of jazz, hip-hop or rock.
Die Toten Hosen constantly improved their skills through many years of stage experience, new contacts with other musicians and the experience they gained in foreign countries. Since the late 1980s the band had great commercial success which put them in good financial standing and in 1995 they even established their own record label JKP. All in all this enables them to put through their own ideas according to their own visions. In some of their songs Die Toten Hosen experiment with strings or wind instruments. A few songs have elements that are lifted from jazz (e.g. Warum werde ich nicht satt), reggae (Zehn kleine Jägermeister) or Yugoslavian gypsy music (Das Mädchen aus Rottweil).
3 Basically, however, the Toten Hosen have not changed their original musical style significantly. This includes hammered quavers and power chords, easily understandable lyrics, simple melodies, anthem-like choruses and avoidance of long solo passages.
Concerts
Singer and front man Campino is central to all their live concerts. He is responsible for their performance, showing physical efforts on stage and making satirical and provocative announcements. He moves very quickly along stage, he stage dives or climbs up the spotlight towers, from where he finishes a song, sometimes hanging head over heels in ten metres height. The band encourages the audience to sing along and makes them part of the show by anthem-like structured songs, the use of call and response and covering popular tunes.
The band is known for their occasional surprise appearances or spontaneous gigs in front of a small audience (, either) on special occasions or in the living rooms in front of the family and friends of individual fans, e.g. at a wedding celebration or at other unusual performance locations like the penal institutions in Berlin and Düsseldorf, on a Streamer on the river Elbe in Dresden, on top of the Zugspitze, in the monastery school of Altöttingen or in front of the fifth psychiatric department of the general hospital Hamburg-Ochsenzoll. At all those events the Toten Hosen never charged any fees and performed only for board and lodging.
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As their popularity grew it became harder and harder for the band to select the right ones among the many invitations to these „Magical-Mystery-Tour-Gigs“, which is what these concerts were named after an album by The Beatles. For that reason, since 1992 they advertised these gigs in public in order to pick the most original ones among the applications they received. In 2005, for example, they performed in Pirmasens in a flat share owned by students who had won the concert as the first price in a video competition of the band. In September 2009 the band gave a concert in the club SO36 to found the construction of a noise barrier which was imposed by the city of Berlin onto the club managers after they had a dispute with their neighbours.
To be able to perform in front of small audiences beyond that, the band occasionally used pseudonyms. In 1993 they performed as „Das Katastrophenkommando“, in 1998 as „Rheinpiraten“. In 2000 they played several concerts as „Essen auf Rädern“, two of these concerts they played together with the band Die Ärzte who performed as „Die Zu Späten“ in Berlin and Düsseldorf. By now the band came to sell tickets for their concerts in small halls and clubs only if personal information is registered and the identity card shown at the entrance. To foreclose higher prices on the black market the tickets are nontransferable to other persons.
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Social commitment
Political activities
Die Toten Hosen not only repeatedly placed themselves in public on the side of different political and social organizations with music, speech and financial support, but also participated in their campaigns. However, the members of the band declared repeatedly that it is impossible to clamp then in for party political commitment. Thus they denied, for example, a request of the SPD _ to write a song for their European election campaign in 1994. Already in 1991 they were published on the sampler called “Nazis raus” (“Down with Nazis”) with their track “Fünf vor Zwölf” (“It’s high time”) and supported 2006 the campaign “Kein Bock auf Nazis”_ (“Can’t stand Nazis”) of the band ZSK_. 1992 the band took part in a demonstration against xenophobia and performed together with Herbert Grönemeyer _, Nina Hagen _, and others in front of nearly 200.000 demonstrators. They supported Greenpeace_ in 1995 as well as, Ärzte gegen Atomkrieg_(IPPNW: International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclearwar), Aktion Atomstop (an initiative for a nuclear test ban) and the BUND_ (Friends of the Earth Germany), on whose sampler “Stop Chirac” they featured with the song “Tout Pour Sauver L’Amour” (“Everything for saving love”). In 2002 the band attracted attention by posing bare on posters for PETA_, an organization for animal protection, with the campaign motto “We’d rather go naked than wear fur” (“Lieber nackt, als im Pelz”). Moreover, they fund the sampler “On the Run” by the human rights group “Pro Asyl”_ and were represented on it with the track “Meine Stadt” (“My city”). From 1999 onwards, Die Toten Hosen ran an open discussion forum on the internet, where anyone could utter his opinion anonymously. In august 2004, however, the band closed this section on their official homepage without explanation. Die Toten Hosen took part in the campaign “Move Against G8” in 2007 and featured simultaneously with a live-recording of their song “Pushed Again” on the corresponding sampler. With the aim of getting an own idea of the living conditions in Africa, a part of the band traveled under the guidance of the development aid agency “Oxfam”_ to Malawi, Sambia and Uganda in 2007. They were accompanied by Hella Wenders_, who made a short documentation about their stay which lasted several weeks. During the concerts on their tour in 2008/2009 Die Toten Hosen collected together with Oxfam more than 50,000 signatures for a rise of the development aid. They passed the list of signatures on to Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul on the 3rd July 2009. In order to provide the agreed 0.51 percent of the gross national income for development aid until 2010 the campaign claimed an increase of Germany’s annual development support up to 2.7 billion Euros.
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6 Connections to the hometown Düsseldorf
In the course of band history the Toten Hosen expressed their bonds to their hometown through various actions. In summer 1995 the band participated in the ice hockey game “Powerplay des Wahnsinns” (“Power-play of insanity”) in Düsseldorf and formed a team together with part of the Düsseldorfer EG. The opposing team was the Finnish rock band Leningrad Cowboys which were supported by the Finnish national team. Under the team name of “Knochenbrecher Düsseldorf” (“bone breakers of Düsseldorf”) they suffered a narrow defeat of 10:11. In 1996 they slipped into dresses, silk stockings and high heels and took part with their own wagon in the carnival procession of Düsseldorf under the slogan “We bury good taste”.
The Toten Hosen are considered to be the most prominent fans of Fortuna Düsseldorf, the football club of Düsseldorf. At the end of the eighties they helped the club with a donation of 200.000 DM to finance buying the player Anthony Baffoe. From 2001 until 2003 they were sponsoring the club when the latter had gotten into major financial difficulties. 2002 the band entered into an advertising contract with the brewery Diebels and transferred the earnings to the youth of the club who wear the skull emblem on their tricot.
The Toten Hosen have rented a space at the cemetery “Südfriedhof” for 17 persons in which they want to be buried after their demise.
buying does not fit that good, rather transfer entered into an advertising contract, better: signed a contract earning, better:gains, because the money is the result of this contract with the brewery financial difficulties, Google has much more results for financial problems 7
The German band „Die toten Hosen“, literally meaning „The Dead Pants“, was founded in 1982 replacing the band “ZK”. It was founded by Campino, Andreas von Holst, Andreas Meurer, Michael Breitkop, Trini Trimpop and Walter November in Düsseldorf at a bar for punk musicians – the “Ratinger Hof”. At Easter 1982 they were accidentally announced as “Die toten Hasen” (meaning The Dead Rabbits) during their first concert at the “Bremer Schlachthof”. During the same year their first single “Wir sind bereit” (meaning We Are Ready) was puplished followed by “Reisefieber” (meaning Holiday Fever). Suprisingly, the guitarist Walter left the band in November 1983 and joined Jehovah's Witnesses. Their third single the party song „Eisgekühlter Bommerlunder“ is said to bet he first decent result since it was played on the radio a couple of times. Their first album “Opel-Gang” labeled “Totenkopf” was released in 1983. In the summer of the same year the music video of “Eisgekühlter Bommerlunder” (meaning frozen, strong alcoholic drink), which was financed by EMI and directed by Wolfgang Büld, was produced in a small Bavarian church. It depicts a chaotic wedding ceremony with Kurt Raab playing an alcoholic priest and Marianne Sägebrecht playing the bride. Afterwards the community thought it would be necessary to anoint the church again and the music video was boycotted by the German puplic television for a long time. At the end of the year 1983 the band, which was under contract to EMI since July, released in cooperation with the New Yorker Rapper Fab Five Freddy a Hip-Hop-Version of the song „Bommerlunder“. They released it as a Christmassong called „Hip Hop Bommi“.
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In 1984 the band accepted the BBC's invitation to perform at the John-Peel-Show. The high travel costs provoked an argument with EMI. Another reason for the argument was the scandal about Norbert Hähnel's parody of Heino, who was under contract with EMI, in an opening act of a Hosen concert. In the Düsseldorf Land court Heino enforced a restraining order against Hähnel.
Finally, „Die Toten Hosen“ parted with EMI and got signed on by Virgin Records. However the arguments were continued when the second LP “Unter falscher Flagge” was published in 1984. Originally, the cover showed a picture of a dog's skeleton sitting in front of a gramophone, a caricature of the EMI emblem „His Master's Voice“. In court, EMI took out a modification of the cover. In the end, the dog's skeleton on the black flag was replaced by an eagle's skeleton, that is still used as the band's emblem nowadays, as well as the Jolly Roger.
In spring 1985, the band toured France for the Goethe-Institute and in autumn „Die Toten Hosen“ travelled Hungary and Poland.
In late 1985 Trini Trimpop abandoned his post at the drums and worked as the band's manager until 1992. Jakob Keusen became the new drummer temporarily and was taken over by Wolfgang Rohde in January 1986. Rohde's first concert as a drummer was simultaneously the band's first concert in front of a huge audience. Along with Herbert Grönemeyer, Udo Lindenberg, Marius Müller-Westernhagen, BAP, the Rodgau Monotones and many others, they performed at the “Anti-WAAhnsinns-Festival” close to Wackersdorf in July 1986 to protest against the construction of the local reprocessing plant.
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In 1986, they recorded the third album "Damenwahl“ (“Ladie’s Choice”). In the subsequent tour named after the album, which was sponsored by the Northern Germany company Fromms, the audience was generously supplied with condoms. In 1987, the band celebrated its first chart success with the disk record “Never Mind The Hosen – Here’s Die Roten Rosen” using the pseudonym “Die Roten Rosen” (“The Red Roses”). The album contains exclusively rock versions of German pop songs; name and cover art of the record are a parody of the LP “Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols” of the Sex Pistols from 1977.
In late 1987, the first live-album “Bis zum bitteren Ende” ("Till the Bitter End") by Die Toten Hosen was released, reaching top 30 in the German and Austrian album charts as well.
1988 to 1995: Recognition and early success
In 1988, the LP “Ein kleines bisschen Horrorschau”(“A little Bit of Horrorshow”) came out, including among others the song “Hier kommt Alex” (“Here comes Alex”), which is considered the commercial breakthrough of the band. For the most part, this album contains stage music written by Die Toten Hosen for Bernd Schadewald’s theater play “A Clockwork Orange”. The play was adapted from Anthony Burgess’s eponymous book and the film by Stanley Kubrick. For half a year, the band played on stage next to Ralf Richter who played the lead character in Kammerspiele (intimate theater) in Bad Godesberg in Bonn. In September of the same year, Die Toten Hosen performed in the Lithuanian cities Vilnius and Kaunas at the Lituanika-Festival where they were chosen by the jury as the best band of the event.
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The spring tour in 1989 was also a success and DTH managed to completely sell out the Westfalenhalle in Dortmund. During this time the band released a video tape titled “3 Akkorde für ein Halleluja” (3 Chords for an Alleluia), documenting their lives as musicians up to that point. In 1990 DTH were invited to New York for the “New Music Seminar” and they performed as the supporting act for the Rolling Stones in Cologne. In summer the band travelled to Italy to report on the Soccer World Cup for the taz and the SDR 3. For this purpose they recorded a rock cover version of the classic song “Azzuro” by Adriano Celentano, accompanied by a corresponding video clip which satirically deals with the behaviour of German football tourists abroad. The double album “Auf dem Kreuzzug ins Glück” (On the Crusade to Happiness) which was released in the same year sold over 150,000 copies in just one week. In 1994 the album “Learning English Lesson One” was released. This LP is a tribute to the musical idols of the band. The songs are mainly cover versions of Punk rock classics in English. During the recordings, there was always at least one member of the original band present. The personal highlight for the band was the collaboration with the British mail robber Ronald Biggs, whom they visited in Rio de Janeiro to record several songs. This production marks the beginning of their enduring collaboration with T.V. Smith, songwriter and former singer of the Adverts.
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From the spring to the fall of 1992 the band went on tour again with the slogan Menschen, Tiere, Sensationen (Humans, animals, sensations). They played many sold-out concerts and performed at various festivals in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Spain, France and for the first time in Argentina,[11] where the band has a strong fan base by now. The band supported the Düsseldorfer Appell gegen Fremdenfeindlichkeit und Rassismus (The Düsseldorf appeal against xenophobia and racism) with revenues of the single Sascha…ein aufrechter Deutscher (Sascha… an upstanding German). The single, released for Christmas 1992, sent a clear message against right-wing radicalism. A German far right-wing party (called Republikaner) failed in the attempt to have the song banned for libeling against a political party. By doing so, the Republikaner unintentionally contributed to the success of the single, which generated revenues of more than half a million Deutsche mark.[12]
In 1993, the album Kauf MICH! (Buy ME!) was released, which hit number one in the German album charts. It mainly deals with topics like consumerism, advertisement and right-wing radicalism. In the summer of 1993, Die Toten Hosen performed as the supporting act for U2 on their Zoo TV tour in Germany, with an audience of more than 50,000 people at each concert. The video to the song Kauf MICH! shows some footage of these concerts.[13] In the same year, the band released their first best-of album with the name of Reich & Sexy (Rich & Sexy). For the cover, the members of the band posed naked, portraying pretentious millionaires from the music industry surrounded by nude women. An international version of the best-of album was released in 1994 under the name of Love, Peace & Money. At that time, Die Toten Hosen were represented in the German charts with three albums simultaneously.
12 In 1994 the band was on the road again almost the entire year to fill the auditoriums in Germany and neighboring countries. In November they gave four concerts in the USA and in Canada as the supporting act of Green Day. Starting in April 1995, the Toten Hosen got their own radio program at the Berlin radio station Fritz. It was called “a thousand beats of dance music” and aired a whole year every Sunday from 7 to 8 pm. At the end of the year the band founded the business company JKP and so took the marketing of their sound carriers in their hand.
1996 to 2000: JPK - the beginnings with the own label
The first album under the own label was released in 1996 and was called “Opium fürs Volk” ("opium for the people"). On this sound carrier the band mainly deals with the topics of faith and religion. After “Kauf MICH!” (“Buy ME!”) and “Reich&sexy” (“Rich&sexy”) it was the third time they were platinum-certified. With the release of the song “Zehn kleine Jägermeister” they moved up to number one of the German single-charts for the first time. Together with Iggy Pop the Toten Hosen appeared as the supporting act at the farewell concert of the Ramones in the River Plate Stadium in Buenos Aires in front of an audience of 75.000 people. An extended tour followed under the slogan “Honesty is the best policy” through Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Furthermore they came on the stage at the Gurtenfestival, the Forestglade Festival, the Berliner Waldbühne and at the Bizarre-Festival in Cologne. In May 1996 they performed the first time as a headliner at “Rock am Ring”. In the same year the band released their second live album with the title “Im Auftrag des Herrn” (“on behalf of the Lord”).
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