Cooler Than You: Hirsche Nicht Aufs Sofa, Redux

Shortly after Cooler Than You: Hirsche Nicht Aufs Sofa first aired on fakejazz.com, I was contacted by none other than Achim "P. Li. Khan" Flaam himself, who generously offered the following corrections and illuminations. For any fan of this unique outfit, there are quite a few revelations to be found here, including the sources of the bonus tracks on the CD reissues.

My sincerest thanks to Achim for his candor and willingness to dispel some of the mystery that has obscured HNAS:

Here at last is the straight dope, from the head Hirsch:

HNAS:
The name, meaning that deers are not allowed to be (sit) on the sofa, comes from the title/lyrics of a track Achim wrote back in 1983. Achim explains, "In the beginning we found it hard to find a name, so we played under different group names (the 1st was 'LUSTIGE NÜSSE,' many of this 'bands/projects' had cassettes out on the DOM label, that of course no one wanted to buy at the time, they were only given to friends/ collaborators or were exchanged with other small cassette labels. Circa 1984/85 there were only 2 names left: HNAS and....Mieses Gegonge, and as we couldn't agree on one name for the then-imminent Abwassermusik LP, we choose both...leaving the listener alone with the guesses who MG were..."

ABWASSERMUSIK:
"[All stuff on Abwassermusik] was recorded on a borrowed reel to reel machine that I manipulated to get the 'legendary' Mieses Gegonge sound. The was no sampling (we could not afford a sampler...), as all we had was a table-gong, a broken banjo, melodica, and not much else... Musically the record is boring, but as a 'compilation' of our early home-recording phase it is 'entertaining' enough."

ON LIMITATIONS (and the infamous edition-of-1-in-a-honeypot DOM cassette...):
"Of some cassettes (the earlier ones) only about 10-15 copies were made, later ones (Drehorgel als Feuerspritze) came in editions of 70-100 copies, because people started to buy them... There was never a limited edition of ONE copy (in a honeypot or whatever), This is a rumour or a joke, maybe because I did some special packaging of some cassettes for my (then) girlfriend Birgit Utzerath."

MELCHIOR (AUFMARSCH DER SCHLAMPEN):
"After Abwassermusik we decided to try a real studio to record Küttel im Frost. This coincided with our visit to London in 1985 to meet Nurse with Wound. More than happy to get the chance to record at legendary IPS studio, the both of us started to record Küttel when Steve Stapleton asked whether he could release the results of the session on United Dairies. Of course we agreed (as UD was our favourite label!), keeping the title Küttel im Frost for our 1st HNAS release on DOM. I invented the title Melchior-Aufmarsch der Schlampen on a busride to Holland...

We recorded one side (=Side 2) in London (Heemann, Khan, Stapleton, Rogerson) and also played on some pieces for Chrystal Belle Scrodd's first LP (CBS = Diana Rogerson, Stapelon's wife and a premier surrealist artist/filmmaker/musician in her own right). The other side was recorded in Aachen (Heemann, myself, Andreas, Lorelei, Schmitt = Andreas' girlfriend, M.Klaeren, Marcus Meurer). On the next visit to London all was mixed at IPS."

Achim adds, "At the time of recording we did know nothing about Faust, Neu! and all the OHR/Kraut bands..."

ANDREAS MARTIN/HEEMANN:
Well, you can go ahead and add "Frantek" to the confusing list of last names by which Christoph Heemann's brother has billed himself. This also means that Andreas participated in HNAS, at least as a guest, on almost all recordings after Abwassermusik.

KUTTEL IM FROST:
Achim disagrees with my suggestion that this album "shows the first indication of its two orchestrators' incompatible approaches".

"At the time we both wanted to play 'strange' versions of 'poptunes.' A good example is 'Widerlicher Mittelpunkt,' which is a maltreated version of a 'middle of the road' B-side. One of my (our) biggest influence then was early Chrome (esp. Half Machine Lip Moves), and we tried hard (though in vain...) to put together a Chrome-like song ("Heimliche Enthauptung, Steine leben länger..."). On the other hand, we also both wanted some arty improvised, long experimental things on the LP :"Man warf 2 Std"., which is just Christoph + me jamming on everything that was in Ramon's studio."

IM SCHATTEN DER MOHR:
Achim agrees that "Im Schatten... is the highpoint of the HNAS oeuvre, but I still can not see signs of dissolution. It was not Christoph doing drones and me ripping everything apart with a sampler (never liked samplers at all...). All things were done together, and this LP was the hardest and longest work of all."

He also notes that Andreas wasn't new to the HNAS line-up but Birgit Utzerath, "whose vocals add a lot to the atmosphere of the LP," was.

BITTE WERFEN SIE IHREN MÜLL AUS DEM FENSTER:
While I did mention this fine mini-LP as a standout inclusion on the Gengenstände Fallen Zu Boden CD, Achim points out that it followed Im Schatten... chronologically. " Bitte... starts off in a quite different direction. "Nachts träumte er..." is one of the best HNAS tracks ever (thanks to Andreas+Nicole). The other 3 tracks have a very serial/spacy feel. I still like this a lot."

THE BOOK OF DINGENSKIRSCHEN:
"On a train ride, we got the idea of a very limited LP edition (just hand-covered test pressings) to be sold to people we knew. The price (DM 80,-) was just enough to cover our costs. In these times Psychic TV were starting their 'a new LP every week'-campaign, selling people all of their boring concerts. The title The Book of Dingenskirchen really shows what we thought of PTV and esp. their followers...

So we (just for the fun) decided to sell out too. From the start of our studio-recording-'career,' we had one reel of tape with all the leftovers and bits that were edited out...so we decided to keep this tape as it was + release it as an LP---and we did! (with the exception of "Ich hatte im falschen Moment die Schnauze voll,' which was specially recorded for this LP in 2 hours, as we did not have enough material...). In 1988, we were happy to sell them all...I really do not know why people pay $ 600 for an original copy...? It makes me laugh...

It may be a funny record, but not a good one. It just consists of our 'müll" (rubbish) from the years 1986-88. Anyway, 'Ochs am Berge' is fine - a 'disco' mix of "Nachts träumte er..."

ACH, DEISER BART:
Achim confirms that "Ach, Dieser Bart featured the idea that each of us should do their music on one side of an LP, as we could not agree on a direction..."

Incidentally, his side of this LP has not been re-released in any form on CD yet, but "who knows..."

ERRATA:
Achim had nothing to do with the Dragnet label, though he and Dragnet head Ralf von der Weiden did co-release music under the DRADOMEL (DRAgnet + DOM ELchklang) imprint.