Schund - S/T LP
Label: Hoehnie Records; Year: 2003; Format: Vinyl LP
Fans of worldwide KBD Punk will most likely be familiar with Schund from Vienna, Austria, a band that existed for just a brief period of time and managed to self-release an EP in 1982, limited to just 500 copies. There weren't too many punk rock acts from Austria, and years ago I reviewed "Es Chaos is die Botschaft! on this blog, a great compilation of early Austrian punk and hardcore punk. Before I sat down to listen to this LP tonight I read a lengthy interview with Schund's singer Doris over the weekend and discovered some highly interesting facts about the band and the history of early '80s punk in Vienna (link to the interview in German at the end of this entry). I for instance didn't know that Doris was actually not from Vienna, but instead hailed from Braunschweig in Germany. Doris was into music at an early age and at some point heard about this new wild trend from England called punk rock. In 1979 she got to visit London through a chapter of the Youth Red Cross which organized a bus trip to England's capital. Doris really wanted to see punks in real life and through a funny coincidence at the hotel where she and her group were staying she met Kodak, a punk from Vienna who was also visiting London buying punk records and clothes to bring back to Austria. The two of them became eventually a couple and after Kodak had visited Doris in Braunschweig Doris picked up and left for Vienna after she finished school. Her and Kodak lived with his parents for a little while before finding a home at GaGa, an alternative centre on Vienna's Gassergasse 1, maybe comparable to Copenhagen's Christiana. There she met Bobby, Stefan and Harry who have been jamming for some time and were looking for a female singer. Doris was in their opinion perfect as she spoke high German without a Vienne's dialect.
After having hooked up with the three guys at GaGa Schund was born and kicked off with full steam. Musically the band was influenced by Slime from Germany as per Doris but to be honest it is hard to define Schund's sound as it is definitely not '77 Punk but neither Hardcore Punk. Back in the early '80s, and especially in more remote scenes such as Vienna, bands still developed their own sound and in that sense I'd say Schund stood out to a degree but were unfortunately never able to record properly in a studio. The four songs off of their EP and six other songs that are on the "Studio-Side" on this LP were all recorded by Kodak in the band's rehearsal room and mixed at his home. While the sound quality is not great by any means there is a charm to these songs that one cannot resist. The lyrics are very typical for the time period and for bands from German speaking countries dealing with police oppression, weekend punks, beer & pogo and generally speaking shoving everything up the lame society's ass. The "Live-Side" is interesingly enough almost better than the Studio side with eight tracks having been recorded at the Popodrom in 1982 where Schund participated at a band contest. The story goes that during Schund's fifteen minutes of fame some chairs and table flew in their direction and that the soundman was freaking out wanting to stop the band immediately from playing. Apparently a lot of people did like their set and most likely also some of the excitement as the band came in 3rd place. If crude and raw early '80s punk is your thing you will love this record despite the somewhat rudimentary sound quality. The songs could have only have been recorded during a very intense and unique period in our history and Vienna is amongst the cities that have changed drastically since then. Schund are part of Vienna's cultural past as much as Falco in my opinion, hence do yourself a favor and track down a copy of this LP if you can. Es wurschtln es!
