Easystreet
It was Erich Honecker, former Chancellor of the Communist East German Republic (the PDR), who first brought Easystreet to the attention of San Francisco music impressario Sid Butterfield, who in turn brought them to the attention of Tip Records talent scout Elgin Fergus (then known as Fergus Elgin). But the true story – or what seems to be the truth – could only be pieced together after the fall of the Berlin wall and opening of the files of East Germany’s dreaded and omnipresent secret police, the Stasi.
The story is that there was a band called Easystrasse back in the day, and, according to the surveillance reports, Honecker would seek them out at Spaetzle 54, an official “underground” disco club, and bully them into playing Bavarian polkas on their homemade synthesizers. Night after night, often until six in the morning, the reviled leader would sing along, tearfully, to the mawkish likes of “Eine Freitag Nacht,” “Umlaut, Umlaut, Mein Umlaut,” “Fraulein Va-va-va-voom!” and other musical relics, set to a disco beat.
Ten thousand pages of surveillance, not to mention two-plus minutes of blurry black-and-white Stasi surveillance video, attest to this. But Michael Blitzen, Easystreet’s flamboyant lead singer, refuses, angrily, to confirm it, as does longtime band partner Velvet Chang, the enigmatic electronics maestro. Of course, life under the Stasi would tend to make one a little reticent, if not fully paranoid, about events in East Germany. And seven years on the run – following their escape from the PDR, they circulated throughout Eastern Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and Asia, before landing as “cultural refugees” in San Francisco, USA – would tend to reinforce that.
In any case, everything is sweetness and light now, as the once subjugated (or not, as the case may be) disco/techno/post-punk former polka whores unleash their mad happy worldview of glitter and gold-lame-hot-pants, throbbing subtones and throbbing flesh, of full-tilt freedom, fun and tanz-tanz-tanz, on a world sorely in need of it.
And Tip Records helps them do it with the release on 6 June 2011 of International Supernatural, the debut album from the incredible Easystreet, featuring “Gold Theme,” “(More than a Machine) To Me” and many more.
“Who cares where we come from?” says Michael, flashing turquoise dagger-eyes, straightening his fishnets and pronouncing W’s as V’s. “We are here now. In your heart.”
More from Tip Records
News • Current releases • Gary Wilson • The Donnie Finnell Trio • The Tip Records story