Mardi Gras.bb

Brass, Soul, Rock / Mannheim, Germany

Über 180.000 verkaufte Alben, Gastspiele in den Metropolen von London bis Istanbul, Lissabon bis Moskau und auf den bedeutenden Musik-Festivals dieses Planeten von Roskilde über das Montreux Jazz Festival und die Filmfestspiele in Cannes bis nach Montreal, wo die Band ihren Voodoo-New Orleans-Groove vor 60.000 begeisterten Zuschauern zelebrierte – inkl. Prince himself als Backstagegast. Mardi Gras.bb hat den Brassband-Sound entstaubt, in die Klubs getragen und wurde selbst vom amerikanischen Rolling Stone Magazine als “Teutonic Phenomenon” abgefeiert.
“Wenn Mardi Gras.bb loslegt, müssen Stühle festgebunden und Hallendächer festgehalten werden”, beschrieb ein Journalist einmal treffend die Live-Qualitäten der Band um “der Welt letzten großen Entertainer”. – Musikexpress
Im April erscheint das Album “Von Humboldt Picnic”, eine musikalische Reise rund um die Welt, neue Wege, aber vor allem zu alten Hochformen. Die Band ist wieder mit zwei Drummern unterwegs, DJ Mahmut rückt erneut in den Vordergrund, das Album ist ein Groove-Psycho-China-Oriental-Funk-Bastard, das einen Bogen von Weltmusik zu modernen Clubsounds schlägt.

Those were the happy childhood days, lying under the coffeetable, a substitute for the warm and dark shelter of an expedition tent, reading “Lord Jim” to my favourite dog in the pale flare of my antique torch light.
On the more fictitious side, James Fenimore Cooper, Jules Verne, Karl May, Herman Melville and Jack London, but also anything about the great explorers Da Gama, Columbus, Magellan, Amundsen, Scott, Hedin, Marco Polo, Lindbergh and Thor Heyerdahl – names provoking shivers, names that immediately took us on a trip into exotic paradises, to “terra incognita”, to places no other being had ever seen before.
And us, right in the middle of all that, in short trousers, with a butterfly net and a botanist´ s container and having imaginary malaria. Adventure!
We were lucky enough to experience our own “real” adventures then, travelling with our music, sometimes almost “following” our music. Meeting people, talking, listening to their stories, falling in love, at times very seriously, at times beautifully flighty and twinkle-toed. Then the pilots and leaders of our childhood expeditions returned, mixing their fiction and coverage with our reality, provoking us to create our own fantasies and mingling all of that, creating the sweetest psychedelic pastry the sultan has ever tasted. Will you still be there when I need you, Winnetou? Is romantic the new politics? Will there be postcards any longer?

Mardi Gras.bb // Von Humboldt Picnic

25-95 sec
Gingerbreadlagoon at Malabacoast. Da Gama leaning against palm – Finally.

25-95 sec // Up into the deep-frozen unflat of the himalaya. Monk Punks. Drunken chasms with mohawk and alphorn – Finally.

25-95 sec //
Moscow. The Underground at midnight. Sinister lure. Ice-blossom and rail services. Irina smiles – Finally.

In the footprints of the explorers and fantasizers, the Mardi Gras.bb caravan swings from the top of the world right into the beating heart of darkness. Doctor Wenz – in a beige Paletot, with a tropic topee and a tsetse-veil, optionally high on camel and/or elephant – sways his neck with the step of the animal. Camera Obscura.
Behind, on a manila rope, the group of explorers:
In the ivory shadow of the referent Krug: The band. Followed by James Fenimore Cooper, Jules Verne, Karl May, Herman Melville, Jack London (as the ambassador of modern fiction), Da Gama, Columbus, Magellan, (the frostbitten) Scott and Amundsen, Hedin, Marco Polo, Lindbergh and Heyerdahl.
…everyone is here by choice.

Von Humboldt Picnic, the last album of Mardi Gras.bb, stumbles up and down the time stream (filled with mischief and lots of good friends), between lottery and life, between botanist´ s container and bomb terror, between container dream and beloved venality. On and on and on…
Mardi Gras.bb discovered the Transhimalaya, the springs of the rivers Brahmaputra, Indus, Sutlej and the lake Lop Nor, as well as the remains of towns, tombs and forgotten towers in the deserts.

Factum infectum fieri non potest.