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The Obelisk Questionnaire: Andreas Kohl

andreas kohl

The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.

Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.

Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.

The Obelisk Questionnaire: Andreas Kohl of Exile on Mainstream Records

How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?

I keep saying it happened to me and that’s pretty much the truth. 25 years ago VISIONS magazine from Germany was asking for writers in an advert and I applied. I was doing shows and fanzines by then already. In 1999 I was offered a job at a big German independent distribution company by an employee who I was publishing a fanzine with. I took the chance and ended up being representing all my favourite labels for Germany as PR rep: Southern Records, CRASS, Dischord, Constellation, Southern Lord, Ipecac, Skin Graft, Alternative Tentacles, Touch And Go, DeSoto, Thrill Jockey among others. That company then went down and I started my own company with my wife keeping most of these clients and started Exile On Mainstream Records as my own label.

The joint morphed into a full running agency with booking, backline and van rental, amp and cabinet repair and build and even a festival. All the steps basically came naturally (‘happened’) as through time I was more than often driven by something like ‘I can do that, so why don’t I?’ and then I just did it. Nowadays only the label remains – this due to probably the only decision I ever failed in prevision – to stop PR business when I turn 40 and leave the field for the younger. And that’s what I did in 2012. Nowadays I keep the label up and work in management in a record pressing plant. Dream job by definition for me.

Describe your first musical memory.

I grew up in a family where music played a big role and was constantly around me. My dad is a true Rock’n’Roller, very much into ’50s stuff like Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran but he doesn’t like Elvis. My mom is a big Elvis fan, so I remember them both arguing over Elvis Presley. And so there was constantly cool music, mainly ’50s Rockabilly or early ’60s Soul being played at home (what was kinda unusual in an early ’70s East German household). My earliest memory probably be like: I’m on the floor playing with some Lego or something while there was some tunes blasted into the room coming from an old Czech Tesla B54 reel-to-reel recorder and my mom yelling at my dad “don’t you think the baby is listening to too much music?” and him answering wordlessly by cranking up the volume.

Describe your best musical memory to date.

Oh well, there have been way too many. I gotta pick four if that’s okay and they’re all related to a live experience:

Bizarre Festival Cologne 1999 – I smoked some earth-shatteringly heavy pot and went for the Masters Of Reality gig. During the set I all of a sudden was able to listen to each instrument separately and completely blocking the others out. And not only that. I had the feeling I could pre-vision the next note played. I couldn’t believe it and freaked out completely how awesome that was. Been trying it again and again since then but it never happened again.

Stoned From The Underground Festival 2006. The last bands on the outside stage on the day had been rather trippy and jammy – Causa Sui, Brant Bjork, Colour Haze. The first band on the aftershow party inside of what usually is a disco place was VOLT, a band whose album we had just released and they were kind of AmRep-styled Noise. So the crowd walks in and you could feel some tension already. Everybody seemed to be into something heavy, massive and challenging after the rather loose sets outside. When VOLT started I felt the joint gaining speed and halfway during their set it was like if the whole room would go up in flames. 300 people completely losing it. The band played insanely tight and the crowd freaked out like I’ve never seen a crowd freaking out before and never since then. The whole room was chaos, even the last rows, the bartenders and the security guys couldn’t resist – fists in the air, screaming, dancing, rocking out like if there’s no tomorrow. I never had the feeling again of a whole crowd being so completely ‘on the bus’, quoting Tom Wolfe. And to be honest it could have had been no tomorrow. The planet exploding could have happened the next day and it would been the perfect ending.

Blisstrain 2008, Berlin @ Magnet Club. In 2008, 2009 and 2010 we had this tour lined up called Blisstrain where five of our bands would go on tour together but not playing their normal sets but in ad-hoc collaborations. We did set up two full stages in each venue, facing each other, crowd sandwiched in between and the bands would play against and with each other, their sets kinda morphing and by the end of the tour it always was just a big clusterfuck of 20++ musicians playing together each other’s songs. At the Berlin show on that first Blisstrain it clicked for the first time. WE INSIST! started into their song ‘Early Recollections’ – a very ritualistic, stomping track. During the song all other musicians joined in, subsequently. Five drummers, six guitar players, five bass players, one violinist, one piano player and two saxophone men completely in the zone managed to suck the crowd in as well. That one track probably lasted for 30 minutes or more and no one wanted them to stop. At the end of the set I looked into my wife’s face and she had tears all over claiming that she now finally ‘gets’ what this label and the vision seems to be about.

South Of Mainstream Festival 2012. For a few years we hosted our own open air festival in a very rural area, not far from where we live. It always was a blast and was more a gathering of friends than a commercial endeavour, to cushion the fact that we went almost broke each year after it. Not saying we lost money, we basically just bought ourselves a weekend of what we had a vision of how a festival should be and we just never compromised. The 2012 edition was the last one, it happened on my 40th birthday and it actually was the day I closed the agency and announced it there. So it was already a bit emotional but this all got topped by the all-around perfect vibe this weekend presented. The bands, the weather, the food and the music. The backstage area was fully empty the whole weekend and all artists were outside in the crowd celebrating each other. In fact it was a goal achieved, a musical experience not to be made better and the perfect ending of an era. The charge my batteries received from that weekend will probably last forever.

When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?

That’s a hard question. I consider myself quite the ‘anything goes’-guy who is focused and always has a plan, but mostly for myself. So it doesn’t hit me as hard if things go different ways. Nailing it down to a special occasion where a belief was tested seems to be impossible. But of course it always baffles me, makes me sad and angry if artists I admire turn out to be walking questionable political or social paths. Don’t get me wrong, I have no issues with different opinions, I even can admire arrogance as it plays in with what defines stardom in some ways, but when artists and musicians from our scene start biting the hand that feeds them and acting violent, racist or misogynists, I’m losing faith. When their political agenda turns into some right-wing bullshit following leaders and ideals that work completely against the freedom based on empathy that made Rock’n’Roll possible in the first place (as I see it) I’m standing there in awe how this is possible. I really don’t wanna name anyone but truth be told, how could you, in the US, support a Trump/ GOP agenda if you are a musician? How could you be a self-employed artist but be against a concept of public healthcare? How could you as a UK artist support Brexit? How could you be violent (verbal and non-verbal!) against women and or people of colour but simultaneously building your career on Worksongs, Ragtime, Soul and Blues? How could you even care about a sexual orientation of people or, even worse creating an issue over it publicly while you expect people letting you live your way of life? Or in other words, how can you use your talent for being AGAINST something instead of FOR something? I’m not sure if this accounts for beliefs being tested but it remains baffling for me, over and over again.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

To beliefs being tested, haha.

How do you define success?

Money. Tons of it. No, seriously, here’s how I see it: you wake up on a good morning. I mean, a REALLY good morning. You slept well, sun is shining and that morning welcomes you as a friend, the day is gonna be your partner, your acolyte, and it seems like you can do whatever you want. You take a piece of paper, write down what you wanna achieve on this day and then you go out and do it. Live that day, use that day. In the evening, before you go to bed you look at that piece of paper again and realize the day brought you what is written down there – being it a day on the beach, a nice hangout with your partner, playing with the kids, rocking a club to pieces, recording an album, fixing the roof or just a simple to-do-list that has all points crossed off and there’s nothing left to achieve. You made it. Now that is success.

What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?

Coven live at Roadburn 2017 – In little more than an hour they ruined everything they ever meant to me.

Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.

A wide open area in some rural spot. A nice house built on it to live in, with an open air area and a big garage – both well designed to host events without any governmental and financial restrictions, lovely neighbours, appreciating the arts, where people can come and hang out during the summer months, camp, BBQ and play music at their own gusto, with some arranged gigs from time to time. No admission, no obligations. Just arts.

What do you believe is the most essential function of art?

Bringing people together in the wish and will to charge their batteries by creating something together or appreciating the creation of others. Art shall be the counterweight to accomplishing requirements by society, whether it be in your job, your family, your partnership or whatever. It’s the place where your mind can run free by creating something in opposite of meeting someone’s expectation and adjusting your actions to it.

Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?

The mountains. Always and ever. A year without at least two trips to the mountains for skiing in winter and climbing in summer would be a lost year. Dolomites preferred. It’s ritualistic and mind-clearing to not to worry about anything else than the next curve or the next peg.

https://www.facebook.com/andreas.kohl.399
https://www.instagram.com/exileonmainstreamofficial/
http://www.mainstreamrecords.de

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2 Responses to “The Obelisk Questionnaire: Andreas Kohl”

  1. Peter Dlugosinski says:

    Such an amazing guy! I miss visiting him at his Roadburn merch table.

  2. J. says:

    Gotta agree with the Coven show. That was such a bummer.

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