Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Ian P. Christ


Country: Germany
City/ Location: Berlin
E-Mail: ian@death-disco.de

Biography:
I discovered Gothic Rock at the tender age of 14 when I heard "Temple Of Love 1992" for the first time on the radio. The Sisters Of Mercy remained my most favorite band until this very day. After getting into the Sisters, I quickly discovered there was much more, old and new. Thanks to the very lively magazine and fanzine culture at that time and thanks to a lot of friends I traded tapes and later CDs with, it took only a few more years to dive deep into the world of Gothic Rock, Post Punk and Cold Wave. After being a regular visitor of each and every club night and underground gig Berlin had to offer in the mid-90s, I started my first own night "Artfuck" in 2000 which morphed into "Skeletal Remains", later "Remembrance Daze" and finally into "Death # Disco" which is running for 2,5 years now.

At "Death # Disco" which I'm running with my good friend Philipp Strobel (Aufnahme + Wiedergabe) we provide at least once a month (usually more often) an unique platform for new talents in the Post Punk-, Cold Wave and Minimal Synth genre. "Death # Disco" hosted live shows with about 50 different international artists in only two years time which are mostly documented on two CD-compilations we've released for our two anniversary events. The first compilation sold out its 500 copies within less than a half year and is being considered not only as a document of our own events, but also as an overview of what is going on in the worldwide underground in general. "Death # Disco" promoted shows with acts like Ulterior, Martial Canterel, Frustration, UV PØP, Principe Valiente, The KVB, Xeno & Oaklander, Eleven Pond and Lebanon Hanover, to name only a very few. Alongside my highly valued friend and collegue Thomas Thyssen (Gothic Magazine) I also run a regular club night, called "Ceremonies" and co-promoted gigs with bands like Blacklist, Chameleons Vox, UK Decay, For Against, Sad Lovers And Giants, The Snake Corps, Twisted Nerve and many more. Last but not least I also run a small, but constantly growing booking agency, called "Hidden Treasure Music", work as a free editor for the german "Gothic Magazine" for some years now and co-promote the annual "When We Were Young"-events at the Wave Gotik Treffen in Leipzig since 2008. And I still have some sort of a private life. From time to time.

From the second wave to the third wave:

I grew up and loved the second wave of Goth Rock with all its bands like Rosetta Stone, Love Like Blood, The Wake, The Merry Thoughts, Screams For Tina, Secret Discovery, Kiss The Blade, The House Of Usher, Suspiria, Children On Stun, Vendemmian, Meridian and many more and I still adore most of these bands for what they've created. Well, it's no secret that in the late 90's/early 2000's Goth Rock was literally dead and at least from my impression never managed it to recover in a healthy way. Therefore I didn't follow the third wave very much and if I did, I hardly discovered anything that amazed me only as half as much as the second wave did. The comeback album by Vendemmian was great, the debuts by Grooving In Green and Solemn Novena (RIP) too, but that's it basically, at least for me. The only band I would completely attest that they survived Gothic Rock over two decades are The House Of Usher from Germany who still raise the flag for good Gothic Rock, but also managed to evolve within their very own sound. Apart from that my own vision of good dark music is much presented by current acts like Ulterior, Blacklist (RIP, unfortunately), The Soft Moon, Miserylab, A Place To Bury Strangers, The KVB and Dream Affair. Pink Turns Blue's first two albums after their reunion in 2003 also made it for me, but it seems they've lost the plot a bit on "Storm" again. Some UK bands like O.Children, Project:Komakino and Romance were really strong when they started around 2006 in East London, but they either split up very qickly or decided to follow a different path which is unfortunately not mine. As a regular DJ, promoter and writer I would even go that far to say that "Gothic Rock" (in it's original sense and spirit) doesn't play any big role in the whole scene anymore, mostly due to the massive lack of new bands that are more than just "good". They need to be fantastic. But none of them are even close, in my humble opinion. I still enjoy to play the bands mentioned above at a regular basis, though. They didn't lose any of their fascination for me.

13 records of the new millennium (in alphabetic order):
A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS: Exploding Head
BLACKLIST: Midnight Of The Century
DREAM AFFAIR: Endless Days
GROOVING IN GREEN: Post-Traumatic Stress
INTERPOL: Turn On The Bright Lights
KILLING JOKE: MMXII
LED ER EST: Dusk In Common
MISERYLAB: Void Of Life
O. CHILDREN: O. Children
PINK TURNS BLUE: Ghost
SOFT KILL: An Open Door
THE SOFT MOON: The Soft Moon
ULTERIOR: The Bleach Room

Favorite 13 records of all time (in alphabetic order):
CHRISTIAN DEATH: Catastrophe Ballet
DAVID BOWIE: Diamond Dogs
FIELDS OF THE NEPHILIM: Elizium
JOY DIVISION: Unknown Pleasures
LOVE LIKE BLOOD: An Irony Of Fate
ROSETTA STONE: An Eye For The Main Chance
SUEDE: Dog Man Star
THE CHAMELEONS: Script Of The Bridge
THE SISTERS OF MERCY: Vision Thing
THE SOUND: From The Lion's Mouth
THE WAKE: Masked
ULTERIOR: Wild In Wildlife
VIRGIN PRUNES: The Moon Looked Down And Laughed