Guido Erfen

No particular memory about an early tape-trade. To be exact, initially there was none. My habit was not to offer trade, but to send cash. (I was into the mail-order-idea, you see?)

In the years 1987-1993 the SHM (a group of 5 people, who weren’t unable to start a band) was into many activities: Mainly it was organising concerts. But there were first steps towards professional music-production as well. A lot of these things are exiting when you’re 21 years old: Becoming a part of the local music-scene respectively nightlife, hunting for some decent equipment, working with the press, placarding illegally, selling beer without concession, having the plainclothes detectives among the guests, having trouble getting the damn screwed-up heater working, having trouble with “soon to become rock-stars”, neighbours, drug-addicts and officials, etc.

In the beginning the tape-label SHM was more a minor branch from all these activities, run by myself and not overmuch supported by the rest of the group. This changed a bit, when the first reviews in the fanzines were published and when the SHM catalogue was upgraded mostly by American artists, who gave the whole thing an international flair (and who were the better artists anyway). It had of course changed in 1989, when we hosted the “First international Tape-Label-Conference” along with the “Cologne Dropouts”-Festival (“Cologne Dropouts” is a compilation on tape), which gained publicity even in the major press and radio.

The most striking moment during the SHM-Tapes period was receiving the first tape from Soviet Union. It distressingly took nearly a year to receive some more. But that was like unearthing a treasure. The result was the CD “Novaya Scena” published in 1993. By then SHM-Tapes had changed into a music-publishing company whose activities lasted some more three years.

But that’s not to undervalue the tape-trading thing! For me personally it meant, that people whose work I admired, were also listening to my very own stuff. Whow! And how many great talents there were to discover! Not experimentalists alone, but obviously gifted songwriters as well. There were a lot of new friendships to make in the world, a lot of touching moments, a lot of letters, a lot of ideas, a lot of plans. (It all improved my English enormously by the way.)

If you ask about the very beginnings: Well, in 1981 we were 15 years old classmates, who just had discovered the opportunity to produce a real “album” by the most minimal means. Our group was baptised “Meadow Meal” (after the song by the at the time almost forgotten Krautrock group Faust). Our album “Can’t Murder my Muffins” was a kind of dadaist statement, but complete with cover-artwork, credits, lyrics and even a label: Carrot Tapes. We were especially proud, that our recordings were in stereo. We sold it for 5 Deutsche Mark (about $ 2,50) per copy. Don’t ask how many it were. Let’s say it were less then 30. (The later cassette “Eat” is a kind of remix-project based on the dry original recordings.)

The best promotion came from our music-teacher. (Just consider we were an exception from the average “school-band-project”, since we never even spend a second on trying a cover-version or something.) Most of our music-lessons consisted of listening to records. Our teacher had given up the regular curriculum and his remaining ambition was the guidance to a development of taste: “Try some quality-prog-rock as an alternative to dump teen-pop and disco”, in that sense. Well, one day we brought our fresh tape-album which immediately landed in the tape-deck and instead of let’s say Pink Floyd we listened to Meadow Meal, as did the fellow-classes during the following days. (“Interesting, even some electronic effects in here” was one of our teacher’s comments. Haha! The “electronic effects” were a simple push-the-pause-button-collage dubbed from a church-choir.)

Not to say that we became popular at our school. Our stuff was for sure much too far out. But a few tapes were nevertheless distributed and one absolutely enthusiastic reaction came from one guy, grabbing me by the shoulder: “This is just great! I never expected THIS from you! This is brilliant! You are a genius!”, leaving me – not knowing he was pothead – absolutely stunned. Our first true fan, whow! Well, that guy turned out to be an musical eccentric himself. At the time he kept an Korg MS-20 Synthesizer (not his own, but impressive enough) and a Revox tape-machine in his room, producing partly spacy things, partly Dada-stuff. His closer friend, a very quirky guy who’s blues-harp-intermezzos and out-of-coconsciousness lyrics where widely perceptible in the school corridors, didn’t share the enthusiasm about Meadow Meal and declined joining our project, but anyway paid some tribute. Here now, you have three guys of the later five-some SHM.

SHM