Mon Dyh - Am Galgen (Reissue) (1982/1993)

"If there is one thing Mon Dyh (MD) were never interested in, it was the zeitgeist.

MD began to play blues rock when that music was cash point poison anywhere in the world. During the mid-seventies nobody wanted hand-made, old-fashioned guitar music, the great acts of the sixties had disbanded or were but a shadow of their former selves, the gods of blues struggled with personal and/or musical problems (or were beyond problems altogether), promising new groups gave up due to commercial failure.

When, in the course of the German New Wave, noncommittal form and content got the upper hand, MD was one of the most active bands in Berlin's "Rock against the Right Wing". They unflinchingly played sophisticated blues rock and left no lyrical doubt about their background, point of view and perspectives.

At a time when in (West) Berlin virtually everyone who could sing three notes or hold a guitar was a promising talent and chased recording contracts, MD were slogging away in (West German) clubs and youth centres, played at noncommercial festivals, charity events and self-organised concerts.

From that time originates the first LP "Murderer", made in a little studio, without "help" of a producer or support by a record company, but with time for experiments and new experiences. Not that it hadn't been tried - you could have papered several studios with the rejection letters of established music businesses - but of necessity became a virtue swiftly: if you have to do everything yourself you have a less alienated relation to the product, and with complete control of that product, up to the point of marketing, freedom prospers - with the exception of freedom from your own pretensions.

However, there were a multitude of people who bought the record although it wasn't available in "normal" record stores. Because of that, the experiment became so successful that production and preproduction costs for the second LP "Confused mind" could be covered just one year later. This time, production took place in a slightly better-equipped studio, but again - and this time with purpose - without producer and with more time than usual.

Zeitgeist advanced without mercy, and eventually, when the demise of the overpraised German New Wave became apparent, when German lyrics no longer guaranteed, albeit short-lived, success, and when not even chauvinists asserted any longer that German language and rock music were a mandatory combination, MD published a record with German lyrics, in a terrific combination of commercial masochism and defiance.

Consequently, "Am Galgen" was distributed with the help of a - small - record company, which turned out to be the main reason for the total commercial failure of the album. Nevertheless, MD's breakup after their third LP cannot be reduced to this flop. "Am Galgen" was, in many respects, already a product of insecurity and angst of stagnation, and neither the unfortunate marketing nor the attempts at a piecemeal or even radical change of the band's live presentation resulted helpful in solving that basic problem.

The reason why MD, over the six years of their existence, stuck together and - within a certain scope - were so successful, is difficult to sum up. Certainly it has to do with the undeviating steadfastness that allowed the band to make the kind of music they thought to be important and appropriate. But that steadfastness would not have been possible to keep up without an audience who very accurately sensed how strongly the musicians felt about their music, and how faithful they were to their fans.

From 1979 to 1983 I witnessed almost every gig of MD, and the enthusiasm and loyalty not only of declared MD fans but of the most diverse audiences have, time and again, surprised and affected me." (Till Schumann)