Story:
in the beginning -probably-
there was this mysterious band Ten Beers after.
1984 they were working under the roof of the catholic kindergarten in
duisburg.
The bass player always
muttered something of a man called Frank Zappa and from time to time he
lent out some tapes.
This and the beautiful
sound of the low frequencies of an old tube radio probably made Kai T.
spend all his confirmation money for a lousy bass guitar. ( for sure,
the usual need for admiration of an ugly young man did the rest). anyway,
there were many different stories responsible for this need, but in the
end, playing the bass seemed to become a basic one.
Everything started
with the legendary band Creme Fudge ( right,
the sweets with the cow ) and sessions with strange configurations : double
drums, double bass, flute, horn, vanilla pudding with noodles, strawberry
sauce and many guest musicians.
The bigband of the
theodor-flidner-grammar school was the acid test for the : Wehavetoplaywhatwehaveneverseenortriedbefore
but the first successes with this different music came with L´ ego.
L´ego, seen from the instrumental side, was more or less a classic
Rock´ n´ roll band ( 2 guitars, bass, drums ), but the musicians
came from very different lines. The drummer was a dance musician, the
guitar players were heavy metal men, and the bass player was currently
stuck in a kind of punk hysteria.
A lot of fun in making
and serious words impressed many audiences and caused them to execute
hectic movements towards the exit. We took this as a sign for having performed
a really good concert. Unfortunately, the drummer became a surgeon and
the last concert together with the soap slinky sausages
and 500 funny students in Freiburg was the best cut for a band like this.
1991 kai Kraatz
and Ben Seelenhacker began to collect equipment in the cellar of Hannes.
between hibernating plants and camping equipment we improvised music and
made the experience of frequency killing. We tried to make more with our
instruments as usual and further we tried to kill each other´s sound by
evoking the opposite frequencies. The result were short moments of complete
silence amidst a horrible noise pollution.
Later we realised
that these things were not easy to reproduce live on stage. these tape
recordings slumber somewhere in space.
That time we already
felt that making music live with audience is more exciting than fumbling
in dark, dump cubicles on never heard productions.
For us a recording can never reproduce the moment between people making
improvised music. We always wanted to have a real band performing this
kind of music and so we searched for a drummer to give us rhythmic support.
His bad reputation hurried on ahead of Marc Frommer and it was a lovely
get to know evening with the new
one.
So we became the band
of the frommer, or as we say here: Fromms
Three months later,
Marc Frommer and Ben Seelenhacker moved to duisburg for some days so that
we were allowed to win the second award at the Rock-Festival
Duisburg : A lesson in how to get
rich with music (haha). Ben Seelenhacker almost wasn´t allowed in,
because the organiser in person didn´ t belive he was a musician.
In fact, we were the only ones who turned up in suits and ties. just to
fill up the 3/4 hour Katja H. (25) made the band
matress. As you can imagine with less intelligence than an ashtray
and many ketchup on stage. She was more than persuasive.
We always tried to
work out the improvised parts in our music and bring them in front while
the structure should retreat into the background. Meanwhile, we enter
the stage without any musical structure. usually, the situation of the
room is the base of our concept, and the audience does the rest for the
musical evolution of the evening. surely, we cope with the situation of
the room consciously, e.g. we let mik@ play in another room and improvise
via video-conference. Therefore, every concert is a challenge for us as
nobody can predict the development of the music. This, we think, makes
the thing Fromms so exciting for the listener
and also for ourselves, of course.
in 1998, we could
win a brilliant electronic musician -mik@- from the industrial scene.
this allows us a bigger variety of sounds and samples, and of course,
mik@ as a person plays a part in our productive
inhomogeneousity.
fm as the video artist
( also with us since 1998) helps to arrange the room situation. she e.g.
imports pictures from outside to inside so that new contexts are drawn.
everyone of us does his part in the whole concept and the differences
of our personalities have always been a productive moment. it is almost
impossible to describe the music itself because it is different at every
place and is connected to the mood of the situation. it is our aim to
do things differently at any time, primarily not to get bored by ourselves.
the music of FROMMS
is mostly compact and sometimes a listener is not able to realise which
sound belongs to which instrument. live produced samples and loops are
more relevant than song structures. The listener and observer takes part
in the formation of the music and its disappearance. To us a piece can`t
be repeated the same way a second time.
This is our idea of
music.
Ben
und MNark at studio2000
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1991 First sound experiments of kai
Kraatz and Ben Seelenhacker,
how to wipe out frequencies, "room distortions"
- 1994 Marc
Frommer, the drummer, gives the project its
name. fromms is
born.
- 1995 Second award at the "Rock Festival Duisburg", stage show with
many parts
of improvisation and band mattress. all in all, the pieces were song-orientated.
Consequently
developing into pure stage-improvisation, regular trials in the cellar
of the "50/50"
in duisburg with audience. More and more listeners were committed by
the "unbearability" of
our music. We have always been happy about this. video
production "6 tage lang" ( 6 days lasting ) vHS 30 min, we
worked 6 days in our new trial
room and made a movie about passing on a message which drives the recipient
mad. Marc was dancing.
- 1996 Project with Klaus Jaeger : pop-music & experiments, concert in cologne
- 1997 Project
with mik@ , tapes & live, rhythm and trash ( in muenster ) mik@
went on working with Fromms.
 - 1998 We feel good, have to move out of our trial room. We decided to go to
Leipzig and find places to perform. FM is with us the first time, making
documentary, movies and live video beams. The
direction is ok.
- 1999 Concert
in the "Fabrik" in Duisburg. mik@ is sitting in another room, took
part via live video conference.
-
 
- we played 24 hours
in muenster and separated us as „neighbours" in two rooms
in oberhausen. pictures
and sound could only be seen as one piece in the cinema next door. „swing
beats" called us to play ,so we performed in a museum in muelheim
with fm’ s pointillism movie and
in a pup in dortmund with the „fisheyed room" on the street.
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