holstuonarmusigbigbandclub

They named their band after a cabin up in the mountains of the far West of Austria, in the “Bregenzerwald”-area in the county of “Vorarlberg”. They are from the rural realms of the “Wald”, meaning forest, but apart from out-of space forest trolls and nymphs their sound also appeals to people from the streets.
Word and pictures by Christina Burger
The 5 lads of the
“Holstuonarmusigbigbandclub” are partly freaky folk kids with the tendency to wildly mix all sorts of genres, like folk and pop and
hiphop and reggae – their beatbox skills are remarkable – but they mainly also convey proper street credibility, and are thus reaching the masses. They are mainstream in the sense that their music is based in the genre of folklore. Folklore music can go awfully wrong, it can come across as kitschy and people with a strong tendency to nationalism often listen to, from my point-of-view, folklore-gone-wrong, which is folk music minus its magic appeal and wrapped in poppy überkitsch. But the HMBC-lads (lads being “Kerle” in their neighbourhood) make folklore that is much more green-party folk than nationalistic politics-voters friendly. They are boys that are so not like the others, meaning the folkmusic-gone-wrong Austrian boy-groups.
The HMBC appeal to the masses, but also to alternative kids, their parents and grandparents. Their frontman is Philipp Lingg, a chap from Schoppernau in his mid twenties. He is currently studying music in the big city, in Vienna, far away from home. It seems that he couldn’t get the “Wald” out of his head, so he wrote the song “Vo Mellou bis ge Schoppernou” (from Mellau to Schoppernau). It is about a gang of boys who need a ride home to Schoppernau from the disco in Mellau. They are tumbling along the snowy road, moaning that their legs hurt “d’füass hean weh taun”. This line, I find, has by the way a double meaning, because its sound is identical with the following set of English words: “way down”.
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??I am pretty sure that that similarity was intended, as the protagonist is physically and psychologically on his way down. So it figures, innit. The rest of the gang are: Bartholomäus Natter on the trumpet, Stefan Bär is on several instruments, but mainly is the brilliant beatboxer, Johannes Bär on the horn and Andreas Broger on the saxophone. I have just been to a gig of the lads, where I was blown away by their rich mix of different styles. More to their live performance after a quick reflection on their spiritual and natural background, the “Bregenzerwald”. Decisively the “Bregenzerwald” is, to my mind, an area which has quite a riot-esque history. I am especially referring to enfant terrible “Franz Michael Felder” here, who in the mid-19th century wrote down his revolutionary, anti-clerical thoughts, which were then published and are still widely read and discussed, especially in West Austrian schools. (see his books , for example “Aus meinem Leben” or “Sonderlinge”) Felder still has enemies, who claim that he was an Antichrist, having brought shame on the area. He was different. And he was one hell of a stylish kid in riot. He and his cousin Seppl Felder, my great-great grandfather, had books and clothes sent to them up the mountain from cities far away. They were fascinated by the French revolutionists as well as modern urban clothes as opposed to what people wore in their hinterland-neighbourhood.
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??Like Felder singer of “HMBC” Philipp Lingg is from Schoppernau and, as I find, also different from the average lad from Schoppernau. He went away, moved to Vienna, wrote songs, came back and made a difference. On top of that he is also one hell of a stylish kid. His trademark is his bowler hat, paired with lederhosen. At the gig he reminded me of Alex the droog, the main character of Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece “Clockwork Orange”, a movie about a gang of rascals, the droogs, that act as Robin hoods of today, robbing and torturing the rich. Lingg does not have the crazy eyelash- make-up and isn’t such an obvious rascal, but as far as his performance goes he can act quite mad, at one point he was rocking on his chair and once he was down on his knees, hiding behind his bowler hat. Which brings me to the live performance in Bregenz, Vorarlberg in front of 3500 people, the biggest crowd HMBC played in front of so far. Their recent and highly successful gig in the Flex in Vienna was tiny compared to the dimensions of the show in Bregenz, not far from their “Wald”-roots, on the 2nd of December 2010.
They kick started their show with a Robbie Williams-cover, “Let me entertain you”. Good stuff. They did the whole folklore traditional in between songs, they though pepped it up with covers of Michael Jackson, “Heal the world”, Take That or “Warum?” by TicTacToe. I was a big fan of TicTacToe, the German version of Spice-Girls-gone- totally-bonkers. Then Lingg and band also wowed the primarily female crowd with “Every breath you take”. They then gently climaxed - stylishkidsinriot.com