ArtistInfo

Michael Lehnoff

Rock and Pop

Marian Gold told in an interview that the idea for the Nelson project had been developed in Berlin around 1977 between Ariana, Michael Lehnhoff and him. Nelson was planned as a community of artists who would work in all kinds of directions (painting, literature, photography, music etc). Later on, by the end of 1979, part of Nelson was a band of non-musicians, consisting out of Michael, Ariana, me and some associated superbly dilettante instrumentalists: Marian (jobless) was supposed to play the bass at that time, Michael (jobless as well) sang and played keys, Ariana (jobless again) was the drummer, also a saxophone, played by Guenther the cabdriver and a guitar (Stephanie, student of social economics) were involved. That band never had a name and I wonder if it ever deserved one (lets call it Band With No Name/BWNN). In 1980 Marian met Bernhard in Berlin for the first time. He was kinda impressed by Nelson and the idea behind it and he as well as us (meanwhile I had taken Michael's place for the vocals) had produced a couple of demo tapes. It didn't take too long till we decided to put our forces together and create a new musical project, that then later was called Chinchilla Green. Cinichilla consisted out of Ariana, Michael, Bernhard, Fried Tanner (bass) and me. After the move from Berlin to Muenster in early 1981 we started to work on our first public appearance, which took place at the end of the same year at the Forum of Enger, a disco, where Bernhard worked as a DJ. <...> We played only our own compositions and one of them was "Big In Japan". Chinchilla broke up when Michael and Ariana left the band to form their own projects (Melody Nelson and Girl Next Door). The demos on Dreamscapes derived from the original tracks recorded in our studio in Münster/Dahlweg in 1983 were the Nelson community was located at that time. The cast of the musicians inside Nelson consisted out of Bernhard Lloyd (rhythm-programming, synths), Frank Mertens (synths), Michael Lehnhoff (synths, keyboards), Fred Gerber (fretless bass) and Marian Gold. In 1979, along with Ariane Mummert (painter) and Michael Lehnhoff (ex-DJ), Marian started the project Nelson, whose intention was to become a collective of artists of all types and inclinations. In addition to that, they formed the band "Melody Nelson" with Ariane on drums, Marian on bass and Michael on the Roland M100 Modular synthesizer. Since none of them could actually play their instruments reasonably, their efforts focused on emphasizing the lyrics of the songs. It was relatively easy for Michael Lehnhoff to convince Marian that it would be better to make music rather than paint pictures. We dreamed of doing an open air concert at the Kreuzbergpark. We did not do it later. I never considered music as a business: as I said, I wanted to become a painter. Marian lived at this time in Berlin and Bernd, who was still living in Enger, visited a friend who originally came from his area. And as luck would have it, the two met one day with this common friend Michael Struwe (Lehnhoff). Thus, a music project came into existence, consisting of Marian Gold, Bernhard Lloyd, Ariane Mummert, Michael Lehnhoff, and Fried Gerber. They quickly realized that Berlin was too expensive for them and so it was very right, That Ariane's grandmother in Münster could provide very cheap living space. So they moved from the metropolis of Berlin to the province of Münster. On the 31.12.1981 the first performance took place. Under the name Chinchilla Green in the Forum Enger, where Bernhard Lloyd was DJ at the time. In the cast Marian Gold, Bernhard Lloyd, Ariane Mummert and Michael Lehnhoff, they played Big In Japan and Montego Bay. Before this first live performance they had rehearsed for three weeks, so that Marian could hardly sing reasonably. This can be heard very clearly in the live recording of Montego Bay on Dreamscapes.

Genres

• Rock
• Pop
• Electronic
• R&B/Soul

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