Smokestack Lightnin'

One Predicate of Modernity is the shift of privacy into the abstract. Local public spirit is superseded by virtual world collectives. The cohesion of such communities is based on interests, predilection, purpose. The modern human creates his milieu. The neighbor, the mailbox, the bakery around the corner appear more unfamiliar to him than the coordinates in his sphere of action which are often globally spread. This is the dialectic of media streams and networks. The emancipatorial component of such development, the gain in freedom, is historically matchless. The borderlines of future societies will not be of territorial, but of ideational nature. ____________________________________________________________ ______ ____________________________________________________________ ______ Smokestack Lightnin’ – biography:_____________________________________ B. Batke, the singing double-bass player of the alt-country dissidents, “SMOKESTACK LIGHTNIN” senses this, but doesn’t make a fuss over it. The fact that his singles “made in Germany” are doodled over and over by chuddy chawing truckers on route 66 is enough for him. If you ask the rawboned and a bit tight-lipped Kraut how it all began, the laconic answer is: "The lack of bassists in Nürnberg during the eighties must have been so devastating, that I landed a job. Maybe I also owe this to the fact that I owned a rehearsel room back then." Sometime during the nineties, after a few detours into rock..n..roll and punk, he finally formed the band SMOKESTACK LIGHTNIN’ with drummer M. Kargel. By now this band has gained worldwide reputation in the genre of “Modern Country”. Batke likes to cover up this fact with an excess of understatement. It..s widely up to your own research to find out that SL in its current lineup (Batke / Kargel / Graef / Hess) since then has covered all major cities of Old Europe from Moscow to Lisbon, Oslo to Rome, with their radical idea of contemporary Country music. Furthermore though, they suceeded in the UK and the USA – how many German bands do that? The ingenious guitarist Rene van Barnevald of the Amsterdam crossover legends Urban Dance Squad couldn..t be held back from slapping his strings for the Belgium recorded SL lp debut “Soulbeat”. Appearing together with Lambchop, Calexico, The Specials, Boz Boorer (Morrissey), Bill Haley’s Comets, 16 Horsepower, Neil Casal (Ryan Adams), Boss Hoss, Bananafishbones, Eddie Floyd, Turbostaat, Koko Taylor, (...) marks the international significance of the Nurembergers. All the way to Hollywood, where they musically decorated the cult road movie "The Big Empty" directed by Steve Anderson, the reputation of the Franken lateral thinkers was reached. And also the german press did not spare praise. The author, journalist and designated roots music expert Franz Dobler even acknowledged the band with references in two of his books – in „Auf des toten Mannes Kiste“ (Nautilus Verlag Hamburg, 1999), as well as in the Johnny Cash biography „The Beast In Me“ (Kunstmann 2002). But, of all things, it was the SMOKESTACK LIGHTNIN’ cover of the cult eighties TV series "The Unknown Stuntman" released by EMI and pitched by Honda for a TV-commercial that brought the band its commercial breakthrough in 2006. The single held up a for good four weeks in the german charts. For its latest recording the band won over the Frankfurt based production team Two Horses and Kaneoka One. The duo are already accountable for such unavoidable acts as Mardi Gras.bb, The Audience, Kool Ade Acid Test, Saccharine Trust, King Khan, The Broken Beats, Hoo Doo Girl oder The Miserable Rich… to mention just a few. The new album, “Heads of Agreement” will be released on Hazelwood Vinyl Plastics at the end of April. ____________________________________________________________ ______ ____________________________________________________________ ______ Smokestack Lightnin’ – Heads Of Agreement (Hazelwood / Indigo)___________Don..t you go to sleep, dear?!…..intone Batke/Graef and board the musical loveletter. With three chord romance and druggy avant-garde, with B52 surf skills and testube folk, it propagates the obscure in Human being. Thereby the rhetorical question is meant quite aimed at the hallucinogenic effect of the weary gaffer. With an overdose of all this, anything from Peter and the Wolf to California daydreams, from submarine bubbling to fuck-you-mentality is packed into Country. As if it had always belonged there. And underneath it all, the Ringo-mania of rhythm beater M. Kargel moves the masses while D. Hess..s twang guitar cuts the raw piece of music into bite-sized slices. Someone here is obviously having a hell of a lot of fun playing with cliches. Is this still called, “Country”? Why don..t you go to sleep, dear?! Wonderful!