sound of the suburbs

One of the things that I like about blogging is the way it flows naturally almost like a conversation, let me explain with the help of an example, yesterdays post had a drug related title and although I had something totally different in my head for today, LSD got me thinking about another song altogether and so today's post is different from that which was planned. And the song in question 'Get Stoned'. I doubt that many of you have ever heard it, trust me, it's good time music but well worth the listen, a song as full of humour as it is drug references and all this from non English speakers! As regular readers will already know by the beginning of the 90's I was working as a radio DJ for a station that shared it's home with a concert hall, so it was normal for us to promote gigs that took place there. During 1991 a record fell into my hands by a group that I had never heard of, Rausch, as the name would suggest they were German, signed to the major Vertigo, they were already known in their homeland but not in other countries and their record company wanted to give them the big push. They were due to play Montpellier as a free concert in a few months time, so I gave their latest album 'Glad' a listen to, and truth be told it wasn't half bad, a highly competent mix of new wave and more classic rock. There was this one song that stood out from the others and shouted out HIT to me, and that song was of course 'Get Stoned', and so I started giving it some serious airtime while informing my listeners of their forthcoming concert, my enthusiasm for the song was taken up by my colleagues, and the song became a local hit. Come the day of the concert and the hall was filled to it's 1000 person capacity, the group aware of the local status of the song saved it until the end of their set when it was welcomed by an over excited audience that went totally ape sh*t. The group went on to release another album in France but never achieved real stardom, except in their native Germany. An other title I favoured at the time on my shows was the slow brooding 'Let The Machines Work', a litle bit long at five minutes but worth a listen to. I believe the group have split up and a web search was without result, so if any of the German readers can fill in the gaps I'd be happy.