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Wer wir sind und was wir tun
Der Lollipop Shop wurde 1992 gegründet als Vinyl-Label und Mailorder für psychedelische Sounds verschiedener underground Genres und Labels. Seit 1994 kümmern wir uns verstärkt um Künstler aus Mittel- und Osteuropa. Wir haben Konzerte und Tourneen mit Gruppen aus dem Osten durchgeführt und ihre Arbeiten im Westen und Osten promoted und bemühen uns das Netzwerk zwischen allen Beteiligeten des underground music-biz jeneseits der politischen Grenzen zu fördern. Who we are and what we do The Lollipop Shop was founded in 1992 as a vinyl label and mailorder for psychedelic sounds from different genres. Since 1994 we have been working with artists from Central and Eastern Europe. We have set up shows and tours with artists from the East and tried to promote and distribute their works in both East and West. We are trying to foster the network among all participants of the underground music network beyond the political and economical borders. The Lollipop Shop - History and Myth The Lollipop Shop started out in 1992 as a vinyl label financed by our small earning from a radio show called Formless which was on-air in the cities of Oberhausen and Mülheim in West-Germany's Ruhr Valley from 1991-1994. The show featured all kinds of guitar music from neo-sixties garage rock, New Zealand guitar pop to folk rock. One of the highlights was a Yo La Tengo interview which came along with some acoustic version of their songs recorded on a tape recorder in the backstage. One of the constant guests and contributors was Hans-Martin who had run the Bouncing label (Shiny Gnomes, Green Paymas, Paul Roland, Pull My Daisy). When we settled on our first release - a 500 copies 7" EP by Fit & Limo featuring four cover version by The Incredible String Band - we had to give the whole thing a proper name and face. That is how the Lollipop Shop came to live as the "official" name and roof for the activities of the Bouncing Label and the Ruhra Pente Label, the brain child of Formless' MC Mario Whiterock. The above mentioned Fit and Limo 7" was our and Ruhra Pente's first baby. Well, maybe the second. The name Lollipop Shop was never connected - as many people since then have suggested - with an actual record shop. We named ourselves in honour of a not so obscure 60's West Coast band called the Lollipop Shoppe whose singer was Mr. Fred Cole. Cole had a dozens of groups since the mid-60ties but the best known - to us late born - is for sure the Dead Moon a raw garage rock trio which marked the climax and end of the 80ties Garage revival in the early 90ties. To us the name represented both the dreamy mind expanding aspects and rocking side of psychedelic music. However, we never shared the same idea on "pop". The Lollipop Shop girl of the logo was invented by a guy called Kriso who made the cover art work for a couple of Fire Engine releases of mostly 80's punk stuff. He latter pretended he was blind in order to avoid to work unpaid for underground record labels. The last thing we heard was that he is into surfing now. In 1993 we had the first and only Lollipop Shop festival with a legendary line up: Fit & Limo feat. Riff Gardener on sitar, the Cosmic Kangaroos, The Flowerpornoes, and The Reverend Parsley's Bible Society - on that occasion we released a 7" four track EP for our not so few guests at the Centrum Altenberg, Oberhausen. I guess it was in 1994 when the Mushroomrunner joint our club of very important record producers starting his own label's work with the release of an obscure demo which we got from Finland (D.A. Recipe for Minced Tuba Weasel, LP). It was also in 1994 when I first got in touch with alternative music from Poland, yes, I guess it was through a 7" by the More Experience which I picked up at Get Happy headquarters in Frankfurt. Well, since then I have been bothering people to check out music from the New Europe and that's how the East came into the Shop and the adventure began. The first fruit of our enthusiasm was the release of Atman's Personal Forest album in 1995 (we still believe that this is one of the most important records of.well, let's say the late 20th century) and a tour with the legends in early 1996. Also in 1996 we began to work with St. Petersburg's Ole Lukkoye, and soon after our friendship with Korai Öröm began. Hm, I guess that's the rough outline of the story, but of course I left out a lot, hundreds of concerts, anecdotes, incidents, accidents - the fun we had with the Tribe Of Cro, how we met Jefferson Tarleton, or Sandra Bell at the 1997 (?) Faust show in Berlin, or how we set up a show with Albert, Lu and Yat Kha, our visits at the Atman workshop in the Rainbow valley or at Riff's and Bela's, or what we did on the day we heard of Jerry Garcias death, .one day when we will write our memoirs and we all will tell our version of the story. |