There is the theory that music and poetry have the same origin. Since the Nobel Prize for Bob Dylan, it has also been proven that a song lyric can be high literature. And after all, there has to be a reason why song lyrics are called “lyrics”. For Markus Nägele, music and literature have always belonged together. And that was also the reason why he casually combined readings with music and DJ sets in his “It’s a Hardcore Night” series, which he started ten years ago. The series took place in the Unter Deck pub in Munich. In the Corona year 2020 it was over. Also because, according to Nägele, the beautiful, “legendary” format for some had become somewhat dead. But he wasn’t the only one who had the feeling that something had been missing in Munich since then.
That’s exactly why the new series “Lost in Music” starts on April 4th at 8 p.m. in the Club Live/Evil in the Fat Cat (the temporarily used Gasteig). There, too, the literature is about music. There are readings and live music on a rotating basis. Afterwards, DJs who are friends of Nägele will play their favorite records and ideally there will be dancing, drinking and partying.
But there are a few small differences. This is already shown by the name, which in the earlier series referred to the Heyne Hardcore publishing house, where Markus Nägele was the publishing director. The publishing house has been history since 2022, Nägele is now program manager at btb Verlag. And that’s why Heyne texts are no longer read in “Lost in Music”.
Markus Nägele invited illustrious guests to the issue. Florian Weber, writer and drummer for “Sportfreunde Stiller”, will also be reading at “Lost in Music”.
(Photo: MIRCO TALIERCIO)
There will be music from “Angela Aux”. The requirement: He has to play cover versions.
(Photo: Milena Wohan)
Kaline Thyroff, BR journalist and musician (“Doe Bed”) will also be a guest.
(Photo: private)
Instead, letters, (auto)biographical texts, articles and excerpts from novels from the wide world of pop music are generally presented. Namely from authors, musicians, presenters or actresses. On April 4th these are the author and BR presenter Achim Bogdan, the musician and Ego FM presenter Sandra Gern, the author and Sportfreunde Stiller drummer Florian Weber and the musician and BR presenter Kaline Thyroff. The music is provided by Angela Aux, who also writes poems and short stories under the pseudonym Heiner Hendrix and works as a journalist under his birth name Florian Kreier. And there is Austrofred, known as the world’s best Freddy Mercury impersonator and under his real name Franz Adrian Wenzl as the singer of the Austrian band Kreisky.
The musical requirement for “Lost in Music” is that the musicians dedicate themselves to the “fine art of the cover version”. Austrofred is of course in his element and you can expect that the songs selected have something to do with Freddy Mercury. And with Angela Aux it will be interesting to see what he will sing. At the end, alongside King Brownie, Markus Nägele himself is at the turntable as a DJ, under his pseudonym Don Marco, with whom he has been making music in various projects for years. A lot of program for the 15 euros that were initially set as a trial balloon. Markus Nägele hopes that they will support the event with the appropriate number of visitors and that, ideally, he will be able to pay out a small fee to everyone involved at the end.
As with “It’s a Hardcore Night”, Nägele is doing the whole thing “on his own, with opportunities and risks”, as he reveals on the phone from Leipzig, where he is at the time of the conversation for a reading by an author he mentors . That means: A colleague used to “make the posters” for him. Now he has Christian Heine as his helper. Munich night owls know Heine as the former operator of the Atomic Café, which was resurrected a few months ago as a party series at Live/Evil. In fact, “Lost in Music” also runs under the “Atomic Café presents” label.
If Atomic Café guests come to “Lost in Music” out of curiosity, then that would be in Nägele’s spirit. The fact that pure concert-goers sometimes “get lost” at a reading or writers “see new bands” or artists meet “who usually only do something among themselves”: According to Nägele, that was exactly what made the “Hardcore” nights special made. Revitalizing this is also important to him because of the corona pandemic. “A lot of things collapsed that haven’t really been repaired properly to this day.”
What this means is that clubs and bars are sometimes completely “shut down” “because everything has become so expensive”. On the other hand, Adele was “in Munich for ten days, and the local scene was crumbling and some musicians or authors were shelving their dream.” Added to this: “The really young ones, they go out again, they find their places.” But “this one generation older, of which I am somehow a part,” some of whom “did not come back” after the pandemic, says Markus Nägele. You have to “switch it back on somehow.” And he says, “It would be nice” if “Lost in Music” worked. In that case there would definitely be a sequel.
Lost in Music: Read & Cover, Thursday, April 4th, 8 p.m., Live/Evil, Rosenheimerstr. 5