There are two Andreas in Hamburg. One is my friend Andreas Hering and the other one is the pop mastermind Andreas Dorau. Ok, maybe if I look on the phone book there’s more, but does that really matter?
I met Andreas at Eldorado, a small club/bar in Hamburg four or five blocks away of the main street of the Red Light district. I was DJing some indiepop tunes thanks to the fantastic help and organizing skills of Nana and Henning. They had arranged this small happening so all popkids could receive the 1st of June here, which is a holiday in Germany. We could stay till late, drink lots of Astra, no one had to work next day. It was all perfect. On top of that, it was promoted really well. I met many friends that I only knew online or by name. The only familiar face was the great Peter Hahndorf. But in a matter of minutes all of the crowd became familiar faces and good friends.
I met Andreas after DJing almost at the entrance door. It was below the street level, a couple of stairs down. He was carrying some black and white posters for the Liechtenstein concert he was organizing for his “Adventure Playground” night some months later. I got a couple of those posters, one is now scotch-taped on my wall. I believe he has booked the fantastic Swedish all-girl band a couple of times more including the Hamburg Pop-Weekender he has organized along other friends. This is happening now in April and I’m totally ashamed of missing it. If you can make it there, I totally recommend going. The lineup is really to die for, including: Days, Northern Portrait, Horowitz, The Manhattan Love Suicides, the aforementioned Liechtenstein and many more. Even they’ve got The Motifs to come all the way from Australia! This is what the indiepop community is all about. And Andreas knows it. Since the day he made that legendary tape Everlasting Happiness when he was just a kid to organizing the Pop Weekender, he has been committed to indiepop.
On another dimension, Andreas Dorau was singing ‘From Jupiter comes Fred, the marvellous Kosmonaut. All the girls feel enthusiastic about him and want to keep him here forever.’ It was 1981 and he was only 17 years old. Die Doraus und Die Marinas recorded this fantastic single for Mute Records. And it was a big hit in Germany. A blissful slice of electronic pop, shambolic choruses by Die Marinas, and a fun, fresh and naive vibe that electronic pop has lost many years ago. This is one of my favourite songs, even though I only understand four or five words out of it. And what about the video for this song! The children morning tv show kind of look, Dorau’s face painted green and Die Marines having a blast throwing out some of their best dance moves, brilliant! And it doesn’t matter if Mr. Dorau had some other hits like Girls in Love more recently, nothing can compare to this song. Also there I find that there is something about the German language that also fits and suits this song perfectly, proving that pop music is universal.
Werner Herzog went to look for El Dorado in Peru on his movie “Aguirre, The Wrath of God”. I, humbly, went to Germany to look for Eldorado. Andreas Dorau brought Fred from Jupiter to Earth. And Andreas Hering will take indiepop from Earth and, I wouldn’t be surprised, take it to Jupiter one day. His love and energy is, indeed, everlasting (happiness!).
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