Andrew Stulle always has been some kind of "star" from a parallel world to me. In another world he probably would've been "famous". In our universe he is just too bizarre and different.
Andrew Stulle is music and sound - 100%. Whatever he does turns into something which sure turns out to be 100% Andrew Stulle. The first time I *met* him was via a cassette compilation in 1984. The Berlin cassette by JAR was quite cult-ish and brought a special brand of Berlin underground. The sound that wasn't easy to put in a category, so it definitely wasn't the cliche Berlin noise scene of those days I found there. One band was Bollerman. Front man was Andrew Stulle, providing vocals, lyrics, keyboards, composition and more. It was obvious that the band was really able to play their instruments. If I remember that correct this was the song on the Berlin cassette - Bollerman: Apparattchic
Bollerman was always *between the chairs* as they say in Germany. On the one hand they had songs close to Neue deutsche Welle pop but they always spiced that with elements that took them somewhere completely different. So I guess they had problems being accepted in all cliche scenes. We liked them and I got many Bollerman release via JAR, who was distributing their releases.
I became a Bollerman fan, invited them to my *Tapedepartement Radioshow* at Radio 100 and played them regularly at my shows. In 2017 I produced a Bollerman special for Radio On Berlin. The songs but one are in german but the presentation is in english langugage. So if you want to get to know a unusual Berlin band .. here it is.
Lord Litter's Radio On Show - 29/2017 - the Bollerman Special https://archive.org/details/lord_litters_radio_on_show_2016_29_201706 In 2016 Uegszel Yazmen, Bollerman's guitar player, died which marked the end of Bolleman. Noone can be replaced in this band. The whole story you can visit here http://www.bollerman.de Here is an infotext from a Soundcloud page which offers a last 3 hour(!!) ongoing Bollerman session: Bollerman emerged 1982 after "alganon", a berlin freerockband, split, with belando belandini and andrew stulle as the founding members. Uegszel yazmen (Guitarist of lutz ulbrich (ashra temple, lüül)) joined bollerman 1983 producing the first 10inch EP with a little help of peter schwertdfeger (producer of malaria) and bommi bommarius (formely drummer of karthargo). Productions and gigs with victor vibrator (guit.) mixing "new german wave" and allstyle improvisations marked the following years, twice a year wuddn joined in on his saxophon. But Bollerman wasn't to stop at that: art projects, i.e. with designers stiletto, gordon monaham and laura kikauka (akademie der künste, berlin '94), tv-shows for open channel berlin (OKB) and the legendary FAB tv live concert (quartier latin) kept everybody busy. The late 90's saw new artists robert ratte, stoepsel, blasebalg, the wonderfull Bert Wax and many others contribute to the ever evolving BOLLERMAN!!!!! https://soundcloud.com/bollerman-das-letzte
Since the early days Andrew Stulle had an own studio, creating whatever, whenever. Here is a view into this studio, taken 2013. As so often the song is an out of the blue creation including lyrics, which are always a special aspect presenting bizarre dimensions.
Andrew Stulle had/has several projects with all kind of very different music/sound.
An early one was Nesthaken, described as "Porn Scratching". Unfortunately the real bizarre first LP is nowhere to check out. This brought Andrew Stulle a short moment on German mainstream TV, presenting his Nesthaken concept. If I remember that correct, the audience stared in disbelief and smiled helpless.
Sometimes he likes to appear as Andrew Stulle as solo piano ballad musician.
Andrew Stulle (bollerman) - poet poet
Sometimes he is FROYD, some kind of Techno Kraut
Froyd - abhöre eins / elektrotonstromsause
A new project(?) simply as Andrew Stulle, some real bizarre creations .. or is it just sketches? ... or what the hell is this?
Andrew Stulle - aeusserstes Level
And a real new online release, some kind of electronic Kraut. Starts with the statement "Dialog mit den Maschinen" / "Dialogue with the machines".
Autopilot - Signalstation
Andrew Stulle is always Berlin, Berlin Kraut living in Rudow. When it was a divided city the district Rudow was almost East Berlin, deep in the heart of the East Berlin districts Treptow/Koepenick. I think that brought a special flavour to his work, a flavour one can't translate. That starts with the name "Stulle", which is translated as "sandwich". Sorry, really total nonsense, a Berlin "Stulle" has no relation whatsover to a "sandwich". The feeling/flair of a Berlin "Stulle" you can't translate - the Berlin cultural context defines a Berlin "Stulle". One song though was *famous* in the USA, a track from the Bollerman LP called "Fuck my horse", which was also appreciated by Don Campau probably not on his radioshow.
Many Berlin musicians became quite famous after the Berlin *explosion* of the 80s - most of them now totally boring to me because they joined the usual choir. Andrew Stulle always stayed in the underground..always interesting and surprising..and still around! ... somewhere in Rudow...
Lord Litter, February 2019
7 Comments
Rafael González
2/3/2019 16:37:41
Thanks for article! I didn’t know him. I loved it!
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2/4/2019 22:17:11
Fascinating and unexpected insights into an artist and band I always wanted more info on. The. Nesthaken LPs was quite remarkable and I always dug it. No matter what anyone says Germans are funky as can be and Bollerman was a good example of head and body flowing together. Does Bollerman have a special meaning in German?
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2/5/2019 06:16:36
Bollerman - "head and body flowing together" .. oh yes!!
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Gaby Tiger
2/6/2019 07:20:02
Hi, Mr. Litter,
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2/7/2019 03:21:37
great article! The bandcamp-link to Autopilot led me to the label Eintakt Records. Very nice stuff! Berlin at these days, ..... many memories came up again.
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2/8/2019 10:56:30
Many thanks for being interested in Andrew Stulle! .. here is more quite bizarre new materail!
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2/18/2019 06:24:41
wenn ick dit wüsste , trotzdem vielen Dank für Eure Anteilnahme ! " voodoo in Rudow "
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