- Blixa Bargeld
-
Blixa Bargeld Background information Birth name Hans Christian Emmerich Born 12 January 1959 Origin West Berlin, Germany Genres Industrial, dark ambient, experimental, avant-garde Occupations Musician, band leader, solo artist, spoken word artist, actor Instruments Vocals, guitar, keyboards, drums, percussion, custom-made instruments Years active 1980–present Labels Mute, EGO, Some Bizzare, Our Choice, Rough Trade,Photomak Associated acts Einstürzende Neubauten
Nick Cave and the Bad SeedsWebsite www.blixa-bargeld.com Blixa Bargeld (born Hans Christian Emmerich on 12 January 1959) is a composer, author, actor, singer, musician, performer and lecturer in a number of artistic fields. He is best known for his studio work and tours with the groups Einstürzende Neubauten and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.
Contents
Artistic career
In 1980, he founded the music group Einstürzende Neubauten, which has released numerous albums and singles, performed all over the world, and still exists to this day. His stage name comes from Blixa, a German brand of blue felt pen, and Bargeld, German for cash. Bargeld also refers to German Dada artist Johannes Theodor Baargeld.
From 1983 to 2003, Blixa Bargeld was a long-time guitarist and backing vocalist in Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Bargeld also sang several "co-lead" vocals with Cave, such as on "The Carny" and "The Weeping Song." Nick Cave first saw Bargeld performing with Einstürzende Neubauten on TV while The Birthday Party (Cave's band at the time) were touring in Amsterdam. He described the music as "mournful", Bargeld as looking "destroyed", and his screams as "a sound you would expect to hear from strangled cats or dying children."[1]
He is credited with playing guitar on the Gun Club song, "Yellow Eyes", on their 1987 album Mother Juno.[2]
Since the middle of the 90s Bargeld has appeared live with his solo Rede/Speech Performances. During these performances, usually supported by Neubauten's sound engineer Boris Wilsdorf, he works with microphones, sound effects, overdubbing with the help of sampler loops, and speaks English or German. The performed pieces include such curiosities as a vocal creation of the DNA of an angel and a parody of a techno song.
In 2007 he started a collaborative project with Alva Noto called ANBB, an abbreviation of Noto's and Bargeld's initials. An EP, Ret Marut Handshake was released on June 26, 2010, followed later that year by a full-length album, "Mimikry".
Einstürzende Neubauten were celebrating their 30th anniversary in 2010 with a tour through Europe and the United States.[3] Their European performances sold out in Brussels and Paris. They were planning to make rare performances in four US cities, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and New York in December 2010, but the concerts were cancelled due to visa issues.[4]
Dr Jennifer Shryane in her book Blixa Bargeld and Einstürzende Neubauten: German Experimental Music. Evading do-re-mi. (Ashgate, 2011) explores how the themes and threads of Bargeld’s work with Neubauten find even greater variation and experimentation in his performance work outside of the band. For example, the range extends from his surreal, electronic Dadaist-cabaret Rede and collaborations with Alva Noto, to his expert direction of Coetzee’s Warten auf die Barbaren for the Salzburg Festival in 2005 where he employed multi-layered symbolism through an ice-white setting and an interplay of voices, screams and noise.
Jennifer Shryane’s book particularly examines his vocal strategies and his trademark scream (describing the scream in dance terms as the endless pirouette or unanticipated giant leap) and the labyrinthine concerns of his texts – all through Artaudian performance theory (The Theatre and its Double, 1938). She also stresses Bargeld’s passionate stance on the socializing aspects of music (a la John Cage) citing his comment on Grundstück that ‘it’s the social aspects which are important for me’.
Personal life
Blixa is a school dropout and he left his parents' home in the late 1970s. A 2008 documentary featured him visiting his mother and talking to her about his childhood and the relationship he had with his parents.[5]
He had a short romance with Cinema of Transgression's Lung Leg, documented in Nick Zedd's Totem of the Depraved.
Blixa Bargeld is married to Erin Zhu, webmaster of http://neubauten.org. Together they developed the concept of web-based fan subscriptions as a new and innovative business model for the music industry. The couple is featured in the 2010 book Designing Media [6] by design legend and IDEO co-founder Bill Moggridge.[7] Blixa and Erin are among 37 design and media luminaries highlighted in the book, which includes such media icons as: Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder; Craig Newmark, craigslist founder; Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia co-founder and promoter; Chad Hurley, YouTube founder; and Arthur Sulzberger Jr., New York Times publisher.
The couple resides in San Francisco, Beijing and Berlin with their daughter.[5][8]
Blixa was a vegetarian for 30 years, breaking with this lifestyle due to the difficulties of eating vegetarian in China, where he lived with his wife.[8]
He was also a smoker for a long time, but quit smoking in early 2000s[when?]. A sound of Blixa smoking a cigarette is a part of Einstürzende Neubauten's song "Silence Is Sexy" (2000), which could be heard both on studio album and live performances of 2000 world tour. During the Neubauten's 25th Anniversary Tour in 2010, Blixa smoked herbal cigarettes for the performances of this song.
Instruments
His current guitars of choice are a Fender Jaguar and a Fender Mustang, as seen on the concert DVD God Is In The House, the partner documentary No More Shall We Part, and various other media appearances. Initially he used a highly battered Hofner Model 173 and a red Hofner Colorama II until they "broke down." After his effect pedals were stolen in the early eighties, he has exclusively relied on the Fender floating/dynamic tremolo (like the Hofner units) which both raise and lower the pitch, Fender Twin amplifiers, metal slides, and changing his amp settings for each individual song to create his unique guitar sound.[9] He also makes extensive use of the Lexicon JamMan for vocal loops.
Blixa Chord
A lesser known fact about Blixa Bargeld is that he is the inventor of what is usually known as the 'Blixa Chord', sometimes called the 'one finger chord' or the 'hardest chord on the guitar'. The chord is played by playing all the notes across one barred fret at any position on the guitar. Blixa often made use of this chord in his work in Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, often in conjunction with turning his fender amp all the way up and playing by hitting all the strings at once on his fender jaguar in order to get a big sound.
Often this is played using a slide as opposed to a finger, this is usually called the 'one finger slide chord'. A simple example would be as follows in tab form:
e5 B5 G5 D5 A5 E5
Solo discography
- 1995 "Commissioned Music" (music commissioned and performed for various theatre plays - including a version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow")
- 1996 "Die Sonne" (with Gudrun Gut and Members of the Ocean Club, album and single)
- 2000 "Recycled" (soundtrack composed by Blixa Bargeld, arranged and directed by Tim Isfort and performed by his orchestra)
- 2001 "Elementarteilchen" (audioplay based on Michel Houellebecq's novel Les Particules élémentaires)
- 2006 "Blixa Bargeld liest Bertolt Brecht Erotische Gedichte" (spoken voice recording in German of Bertolt Brecht's erotic poems)
- 2010 "Ret Maruk Handshake" (EP) (collaboration with Alva Noto under the moniker ANBB; on the Raster-Noton label)
- 2010 "Mimikry" (with Alva Noto as ANBB, on Raster-Noton label - album also features contributions from Verushka)[10]
Other recordings
- 1993 "Radio Inferno" (see also: Inferno)
Filmography
- Recycled
- Die Totale Therapie
- Die Terroristen!
- Wings of Desire (as himself, during the Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds performance)
- Nihil oder Alle Zeit der Welt
- Dandy (1987, directed by Peter Sempel)
- Kalt wie Eis
- Liebeslieder (1995)
- Palast der Republik (2004)
- Halber Mensch (2005)
- On Tour with Neubauten.org (2006)
- Listen With Pain (2006)
- Blixa Bargeld: Rede / Speech DVD (2006)
- Hornbach commercials (German hardware store) reading tool catalogs as spoken word
References
- ^ EN: 20 ans de Nostalgie
- ^ Mother Juno album sleeve.
- ^ "Seelebrennt Tour Dates". http://seelebrennt.com/. Retrieved 2010-11-16.
- ^ http://www.neubauten.org/?q=news
- ^ a b "Mein Leben – Blixa Bargeld" (Documentary Film directed by Birgit Herdlitschke, ZDF / ARTE, Germany 2008)
- ^ "Designing Media Interview of Blixa Bargeld and Erin Zhu". designing-media.com. http://www.designing-media.com/interviews/BlixaBargeldErinZhu. Retrieved 2010-11-16.
- ^ "Ideo". designing-media.com. http://www.ideo.com/. Retrieved 2010-11-16.
- ^ a b Ich war ja nie der Punk, der vorm Postamt rumsteht, 2009 interview, stern.de (German)
- ^ http://www.bendecho.de/deb9a62ce9-einstuerzende-neubauten-interview-2
- ^ DNC. "Tiny Mix Tapes Review of Mimikry by ANB". wwww.tinymixtapes.com. http://www.tinymixtapes.com/music-review/ANBB-Mimikry. Retrieved 2011-03-03.
External links
- Blixa Bargeld website
- Einstürzende Neubauten official website
- Blixa Bargeld received the Qwartz d'Honneur
Einstürzende Neubauten Blixa Bargeld | Alexander Hacke | N.U. Unruh | Jochen Arbeit | Rudolf Moser
Ash Wednesday | Boris WilsdorfFormer members Major Albums Stahlmusik | Kollaps | Zeichnungen des Patienten O. T. | Halber Mensch | Fünf auf der nach oben offenen Richterskala | Haus der Lüge | Tabula Rasa | Ende Neu | Silence Is Sexy | Perpetuum Mobile | Alles wieder offenEPs Live Albums Musterhaus series Strategies Against Architecture series Strategies Against Architecture '80–'83 | Strategies Against Architecture II | Strategies Against Architecture III | Strategies Against Architecture IVNeubauten.org Supporters Project Collections Stahldubversions | Tri-Set | Ende Neu Remixes | The NNNAAAMMM Remixes By Darkus | Kalte Sterne -early recordings-Soundtracks & Plays Related articles Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Martyn P. Casey · Nick Cave · Warren Ellis · Ed Kuepper · Conway Savage · Jim Sclavunos · Thomas Wydler
Barry Adamson · Blixa Bargeld · Mick Harvey · James Johnston · Anita Lane · Kid Congo Powers · Hugo Race · Roland WolfStudio albums From Her to Eternity · The Firstborn Is Dead · Kicking Against the Pricks · Your Funeral... My Trial · Tender Prey · The Good Son · Henry's Dream · Let Love In · Murder Ballads · The Boatman's Call · No More Shall We Part · Nocturama · Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus · Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!Live albums Compilations Singles "In the Ghetto" · "Tupelo" · "The Singer" · "The Mercy Seat" · "Deanna" · "The Ship Song" · "The Weeping Song" · "Straight to You" / "Jack the Ripper" · "I Had a Dream, Joe" · "What a Wonderful World" with Shane MacGowan · "Do You Love Me?" · "Loverman" · "Red Right Hand" · "Where the Wild Roses Grow" with Kylie Minogue · "Henry Lee" with PJ Harvey · "Into My Arms" · "(Are You) The One That I've Been Waiting For" · "As I Sat Sadly by Her Side" · "Fifteen Feet of Pure White Snow" · "Love Letter" · "Bring It On" · "He Wants You" / "Babe I'm On Fire" · "Rock of Gibraltar" · "Nature Boy" · "Breathless" / "There She Goes, My Beautiful World" · "Get Ready for Love" · "Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!" · "More News from Nowhere" · "Midnight Man"Cave and Ellis Related articles Discography · Bad Seeds members · Mute Records
And the Ass Saw the Angel · Dirty Three · Ghosts... of the Civil Dead · Original Seeds
The Birthday Party: Door, Door · Hee Haw EP · The Birthday Party · Prayers on Fire · Junkyard · Mutiny/The Bad Seed · It's Still Living
A Collection ... Grinderman: Grinderman · Grinderman 2 · "Get It On" · "No Pussy Blues" · "(I Don't Need You To) Set Me Free" · "Heathen Child" · "Worm Tamer"Categories:- German rock guitarists
- Einstürzende Neubauten members
- German industrial musicians
- Noise musicians
- German spoken word artists
- 1959 births
- Living people
- Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds members
- German experimental musicians
- San Francisco Art Institute faculty
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.