Monarchie & Alltag

Monarchie und Alltag (Monarchy and Everyday Life) is a work by the punk/wave combo from Düsseldorf known as Fehlfarben, and was considered by Rolling Stone to be ‘the most important German pop album of all time’. On 9 May 2017 the band will bring that 80s feeling back to the 21er Haus, and will play all eleven songs of the legendary album that led to the band’s breakthrough.

With this live presentation of Monarchie und Alltag, the 21er House – Museum of the 21st Century – not only forges a new path, but refers to its own history as well:  It was in May of 1980 that the band Fehlfarben performed in what was then referred to as the 20er Haus. The concert was organized as a part of the Wiener Festwochen that, under the signature ‘Arena 70’, provided the appropriate framework for music productions of the time.
 
Düsseldorf was the point of origin for German punk, which eventually brought about the Neue Deutsche Welle (German New Wave), and it was Fehlfarben that played a key role in this time of musical departure. Their legendary album Monarchie und Alltag (1980) decisively influenced subsequent developments such as the ‘Hamburg School’ and today’s post-punk wave.
 
In the 36 years since the release of their debut album, the band has resisted obscurity. Monarchie und Alltag was consistently reissued and sold until it was awarded a Gold Record in 2000. After breaks from music-making and phases of broadcast silence, the musicians always found their way back to one another to release new albums and take the stage together.
 
In 2017, Fehlfarben is going out on tour again to bring that 80s feeling back to the big stage. Their only appearance in Austria will take place at Vienna’s 21er Haus. The original band members, notably singer Peter Hein, will play all eleven songs of Monarchie und Alltag for the first time in one place, original and unabridged, supplemented with other well-known songs from later productions. This will include perhaps Fehlfarben’s most famous song, ‘Ein Jahr (Es geht voran)’ (‘One Year (It’s Moving On)’), which became the anthem for Germany’s squatter scene during the 1980s.
 
Throughout the album’s collection of songs, the energy never falters. Next to other top hits, Monarchie und Alltag is a document of a radical aesthetic upheaval. ‘Rough and intelligent, funky and punk.’ ZAK Düsseldorf considers it ‘an album that revived Germany’s post-war years and expressed the zeitgeist like no other record’.
 
‘The contradiction of Pop as a vehicle for contemporary fashion, concerns, and urgencies on the one hand and as a domain for timeless, enduringly valid, canonized music on the other, is a topic for discussion. Monarchy and everyday life, the past and the 21st century, the artificial framework of a museum and the presence of sweat, leather jackets and rock ‘n’ roll’: It is this contradiction that music journalist Walter Gröbchen looks forward to witnessing at this extraordinary 21er Haus revival concert, which he also initiated.
 
Before the start of the concert, all visitors are invited to see the exhibition Daniel Richter – Lonely Old Slogans on the upper floor of the 21er Haus. Admission is included in the concert ticket.