h.p zinker?

[flo's garage]

hello, I'm new here so hello!
whilst scouring my local store in bath, I came across a copy of OLE-001 1 12” EP H.P. Zinker ...And There Was Light, all in good condition, and still with a lovely untouched poster. Realising that this was the original matador release I thought I'd come on over and see if this was worth getting excited about, it only cost me £4 after some sterling haggling mind? so whats the chat?

[Miss Tasty Princess]

I'd say it's worth getting excited about 'cause it's a great record. I have no idea if it's monetarily valuable but it certainly is auditorily.

[flo's garage]

oh yeah, I completely agree! having never heard them before it was a pleasant surprise. I'm more interested in the rarety of it rather than the value of it, like is that a small piece of indie history i'm holding?

[tinobeat]

Though I don't know a lick about their music, I find it interesting that HP Zinker are basically unknown though they provided the first catalog # for both Matador *and* Thrill Jockey. Who is this mysterious band that inspired the beginnings of two now-large indies?

[Paul]

I've never heard either of the releases mentioned in this thread, but I did once come across (and buy) their 1993 compilation disc Staying Loose.

It didn't leave much of an impression at all, but it had a cool cover.

[Miss Tasty Princess]

Originally posted by tinobeat
Though I don't know a lick about their music, I find it interesting that HP Zinker are basically unknown though they provided the first catalog # for both Matador *and* Thrill Jockey. Who is this mysterious band that inspired the beginnings of two now-large indies? H.P. Zinker mixed metal and indie rock back when things of that nature were frowned upon (snobbish indie types liked to compare/dismiss them to Rush). The "H.P." part refers to vocalist/guitarist (and Austrian indie rock legend) Hans Platzgũmer and the "Zinker" originally was for vocalist/bassist Frank Puempel, whose previous band was called Zinker (German for "liar"). Their two Matador releases were recorded as a duo with a drum machine. They then got drummer Dave Wasik and recorded their first full-length for Roughneck/Fire Records, Beyond It All. They mixed heavy, spacey riffs with mellow bits and were very cool, IMO. Their first several releases are essential (the 12" and 7" on Matador and the two LPs for Roughneck/Fire).

Frank left after the second LP and they recorded the next two, Perseverance and Mountains of Madness, with new bassist Uwe. Both are good albums but not as strong as the earlier material, unfortunately. Hans switched to techno (under his own name and as Aura Anthropica) after their demise but has started a new lineup of HPZ and they have a new CD coming out sometime soon.

Prior to H.P. Zinker, Hans released a great LP called Tod der CD! (Death to CD!), a 12" EP, A Genuine Portion of HP Sauce, and some cassettes under his own name, the LP Wake Up Square with the band Köb, an LP and cassette with Platzlinger (a rock duo with jazz drummer Peter Hollinger), a 7" EP with Capers and a 7" with Bohm Ohne Köb (doing acoustic and rather psychedelic versions of Slayer songs!).

[Paul]

Ha! I've got an Aura Anthropica cd and I had no idea it was even connected to HP Zinker in any way, shape, or form.

It's not bad, either.

[Miss Tasty Princess]

Originally posted by Paul
Ha! I've got an Aura Anthropica cd and I had no idea it was even connected to HP Zinker in any way, shape, or form.

It's not bad, either. Yep, I like it!

[Patrick]

Wow, OLE-001. You never see that anymore. It's not worth anything though.

Patrick

[tinobeat]

This thread made me wonder:

does the matador office have a complete set of all 600+ releases? An archive, library, what have you?

[Patrick]

An active library of all releases? God, no. The closest we ever came to assembling that was probably when we put together the raffle prize for the NYC 10th Anniversary concerts back in 1999, which was one complete Matador catalog up to that point - in all formats! (E.g. if a record was released on vinyl, CD and cassette, you'd get all three.) There were a few Atlantic-manufactured PRCDs (one-track promo CDs for radio, containing the "hit" track off an album) missing, but it was pretty much complete otherwise. Oh yeah, and I think one or two very early promo cassette-only compilations were missing. We're still trying to track down catalog number and title for a couple of those - nobody has any and nobody can remember them.

That said, we've gotten much more active about archiving everything for posterity now. Jesper sends 5 copies of EVERYTHING to a vault we have. And some people, including Jesper, have pretty decent collections in their offices. But nothing close to a complete library, unfortunately. The tendency to chaos and pillage is too strong, and so much stuff has been deleted or lost.

This needs to be updated:

Matador complete discography (http://www.matadorrecords.com/releases/discography.html)

Patrick