Who Is Doctor Monner?
Published In Repellent
By Shel Kimen

While it's true that anyone these days can run a small label, put out music from friends, and distribute it more or less hassle free on the Internet, not everyone does. It takes a lot of time, and offers it's fair share of headaches -- finding reliable distributors, endless trips to the post office, the creation of mounds of press releases, and most importantly finding the economic resources.

Somehow, Mooner, as he is called, managed to start a label in 2000 off some proceeds from a royalty check. He's put out 15 releases mostly on vinyl and represents 12 artists including Queen of Japan, Club Le Bomb (one of his own projects), Sterile (the first release) and Nicolas Courtin, a surgeon from France. Almost all of these artists had their debut on Erkrankung Durch Musique. He and the label live in Munich, Germany.

Mooner says he started the label to spread information. He was inspired by a DJ in a club that, in his opinion, needed better records. "Once, in nightclub in Munich, when the music was really shit, I was like: If that guy had the right records... Hmmm. Then I thought: If I could show my favorite tracks to other people, this would be so cool-Why not form a platform - like a label? It was like a flash from the sky! The label is really meant as a platform. I have a strong need to spread information.'

He describes the label as "electro-punq.' When I asked him what this means he told me, "3 years ago we were the first people to release 12"s such as The Magnificents that played real Synth-Rock with the analogue sounds of a punk rock band. Nobody seemed to be ready for it. Now that there's Peaches, DFA, and other people that do stuff like that. DJs are playing that sort of stuff. Even so, at the time, it was really hard to introduce these records. We often didn't sell more than 400. Actually I don't care so much for genres because as soon as you introduce one, there will be exceptions and micro-genres. As for punk, yeah, I was a punk kid. I never stopped playing punk records. The idea of punk rock's DIY attitude is a very strong influence of our Club le Bomb artwork, for example. And: The Screamers were great."

The first release came from Steril, a friend he'd known for years whose music he respected. "Steril was No.1! I released his debut album (his first output ever). He's since released more under the alias LATEX, an in comparison his first release on EDM seems more of a conceptual album with a very strong connection to odd dance classics such as The Normal, Liasons Dangereuses and Miami Bass/elektro/New Wave." A lot of the press material makes reference to being influenced by 'old dance music.' Now, "Old Dance Music' is a broad category, so I asked him what he meant by this...

"I'm inspired by Acid/House: Trax, Phuture, Dancemania, Bam Bam, Sandee, Armando.... Italo Disco: Gino Soccio, Candido, Magnifique, "Wild Horse", "Time Warp", "Achilles", "Kaw Liga", Zyx, Rams Horn....Elektro-old School-Punkfunk-garage: Streets Beats, Levy 167, "Scorpio", Melle mel, Dopplereffekt, Model 500, Sex.Harrassment, Y Pants, Flying Lizards, ESG, Slits, Tomtom Club, Vivien Goldman... Punk-Rock-Spacerock etc: Residents, all old German "Neue Deutsche Welle" odd tracks, Suicide, Dead Kennedys, The Cramps, X Ray Spex, Adam and the Ants, Screamers, Contortions, The Wildbunch...New Stuff I really like: DFA, Environ, Gomma, Dekathlon, new religion, Playgroup, Midnight Mike/Zongamin, Noodles...."

"The First record I bought was Billy Idols "Rebel Yell" album, I still have it and like it. I just graduated from Art school, (I was there for over 9 years.) I started school doing video and performances in 1992. The experiences I had back then still affect my stage shows, or the various Fakes and images of EDM. Also I played music in bands for a long time, but my part was often to form an image or the style of the group as well as do music."

As a self-proclaimed anarchist "Since I'm a little kid I'm an anarchist,' and an art school graduate, Mooner also has some interest in politics, more from DIY perspective than specific issues, and also works under the influence of some key artists and art movements, particularly "DADA, and it's heritage... Industrial (COUM, for example), Hermann Nitsch, Jim Whiting (a lot!!!), Mutoid Waste Company, performance art, Fake art, video art, the concept of 'environment' and 'happening'".

The sounds, the art, the politics, it all adds to the story. "The plot for the label is poppy but kranky (as the name implies). With Erkrankung Durch Musique (sickness through music) more the positive effect of music is meant here, instead of the aspect of Throbbing Gristle's 'Entertainment Through Pain," for example.

The website says "Our favorite Erkrankung's about picking up and re-processing musical history as well as present technological developments in electronic music." But what does this mean? " Basically, I look in shady second-hand record shops and internet servers for odd tracks with high quality production -- tracks that are outstanding for a genre. You know, in every genre there's the "hits", then there's people copying from the hits, then there's always people who do their own interpretation of the whole thing, but these tracks are often too edgy to get to the top, and are forgotten. Plastique de Reve calls it 'lost tracks.' I'd say our productions are influenced by lost tracks. I mean, we don't re-make Eighties Top Ten hits or seventies Disco classics. We are influenced by Punk funk instead of funk, Acid instead of Acid-House, for example. We reprocess things, but not only that. It would be boring only to listen to old records and sample it off and put beats on top. That's what a lot of people do. It can be cool, but for us it's important to just do something special, create more lost tracks...'

There's a lot of debate between those who use "analogue' gear and those who use laptops, and the technology used is a big factor in sound generation, production, and especially live performance. In regards to their artists, Mooner told me "With Club le Bomb, we always use the most trashy equipment! We use old machines we find on the streets as synths, basically a lot of garbage. With Hart of Noise we use Samplers such as Akai 2000 and Laptops. But also for the show, the performance, it is sometimes more important to make sure it works, so we do a lot of half-way playback.' Mooner says that money is the hardest part of running a label but it seems he's overcome the hardest angle, which for many labels is distribution. Mooner ahs distribution through Kompakt/Cologne, one of the larger companies for innovative dance music in the world. Before getting a contract with Kompakt he said he got a lot of negative response to the extent of "If you keep doing that arty shit, no one will buy your records!"

He also sells music online at www.erkrankung.net. "It's basically a very simple form,' he said, "without Credit cards whatsoever. It's running okay, balances the costs for postal fees of my press send-outs.

"Germany is famous for it's electronic music scenes and it seems just in Munich there are several things happening all at once. "Gomma, Deklathon, Erkrankung, we do parties together sometimes and share a scene. But there's also Gigolo, who have kind of disappeared from the party scene, and there's the beat posse Sellwell/Funkstoerung/Compost, they do parties a lot, too, but this is a really different scene. Actually a lot happens underground, a lot of parties are in abandoned buildings etc. There's a real history of illegal parties. If you don't know certain people, you will have no idea where to go. I always call it 'the city beneath the city.'"

He told me he thought Barcelona was the most exciting city right now for bookings and great parties, but that Berlin, Hamburg, and New York also seemed interesting right now. "Hamburg is quite cool and New York seems to have a big output right now!!!!' (Mooner will be here in a few weeks!)





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