30th aniversary on stage!

We've been "on" for a couple of decades now, having our 30th birthday played out on Oct. 17th 2015 at Berlin's famous Roadrunner's Paradise Club.
The location was sold out immediately after proclaiming the venue. But just before we entered the stage the room was packed. beyond expectation. At an all too familiar incident of staging a concert, but for some years now an unprecedented case of The What..For! playing live their all out set, we were occupying the stage for as long as anyone in the audience was able moving upright or seemed to be conscious and present!
The heat was on from the very beginning. Friends and memebers of our Mod-family been chanting and dancing from the very first chord. The temperature was rising steadily thrilled by our numbers called "Rotkarierte Petersilie", "I Want It All", "How I Feel" to "Mach Mich An"!
After 2 hours of decent musicmaking we'd had to call it a day (prefereable next day) 'cause me voice had been gone and the total exhaustion was overwhelming, at least.

Bestest to all who stood next to us!
Bestest to all who stood out there rembering us!

YoUrs

Next Gig

Hi fellas,
the link to total understanding and instruction:
www.readysteadygo.info
Come and gather around the stage on February 10th at 21:00h,
first 20 visitors earn the new EP for free!
Your captain loves U!

Everybody listen up!
The captain has a special anouncment today.
After the successful BerlinBeatExplosion combo gig w/ ol' Edingburgh pals The Thanes at the wonderful and outstanding Lovelite venue last autumn, on September 16th 2006, we took a well deserved rest from stages. Many polite comments and requests for the one or other song led to the decision to meet again, sooner or later There are still unheard pearls emerging into broad daylight from the depths of The What...For! archives.
Somehow four of them seem to manage to appear on vinyl within the next few weeks - due to the generousity of a long lasting friend to the boys!
Moreover the unrivaled kings of mod in town will also be appearing live on February 10th 2007 at 21:00h at the Schokoladen in Berlin 10115, Ackerstr. 169, near Torstr.!
Record release and ocational reunion on location.
Come stop, look and listen - or be square!

The recorded history

Dear reader, interested visitor, in the following post I'll try to implant an impression of the back catalouge, musical-wise, The What...For! released over the years between 1985-1996. These are our two EP and the LP covers, let alone the contributions to compilations and samplers.
The first EP is 20 years out of print now, but the two follow up releases are maybe on stock at our lable's shop: http://www.twang-tone.de/mo.html

To look at our oeuvre we concentrate on the full-right The What...For! releases.
The first one took us a whole afternoon in an cellar-studio in Berlin-Spandau outskirts back in 1987. MissTake Rec. label was an entrepreneur's adventure into the music industry by some nutty/rude-boys we established a nice relation with.
The 500 copies were sold out immidiately after release.
Notable is the version of Gaby, a cover of Berlin's 6T's beat legend The Boots, whose singer Werner Krabbe was impressed by our fervour and raw power.
This release paved way for our first scandinavian 'Sex ist Trumpf-Tour' in early 1988.
The snow was building sky-high over there, but them girls melt it all away.

The LP was recorded within 3 days in spring 1989 as a result of winning a counsil's rock-contest in late 1988.
We changed our guitarist and integrated regularely our harp player. Our whole sound improved on a technical basis. This record was the biggest selling succsess of our record label twang-tone.
At least we managed to distribute around 10.000 LPs in 3 editions worldwide. This led to the experience in the year 2000 to find my record in a San Francisco second hand record-shop for 10 bucks. As I heard, it sold for a mere buck (1$) in NYC!
We heaviely toured the LP, but when the wall tumbled everyone, especially the kids in the east, was interested in everything but a German, Berlin-based Mod-band. We played our regular venues throughout the city once or twice a week, with our regular support attending, but the scene came to a halt and wasn't growing anymore.

In 1991 we again changed a guitar and became more rockin' in expression. Our 'Out In The Rain' EP was the opener for our big Euro-Tour with the Lemonbabies as support in 1992. The tour was great, very exhausting but succsessful and promising. Back in Berlin we had our problems within ourselves over the years, 2nd guitar left for Sweden, lead guitar want's to be Hendrix, a.s.o.
In 1996 we called it a day and declared The What...For! a closed chapter.

Thanx for your patience
YoUrs Corto

The What...For!

They were really a hillarious bunch, The What...For! The founders Stephan Schulz, Urs Zelle, Pete Johannsen stuck together to the end and beyond. The 8T's were their period with a lot of success and a constant following throughout Europe. Always underestimating their own potential, they made legend being busy taking on the next beerbar within reach! Let alone the beer depots on location in backstage - which led to incredible extensions of their live-sets, until morning broke and even the last spectator was gone.
It was a fantastic time - then.
We considered ourselves as Mods. At least that was what we've come from in the early 8T's in Berlin. As a very small scene we had to commit to our Mod style or we would've been marginalized and vanished from Punk, Skin and Rock'a'Billy culture. Curious, but we build up an especially good relation with the Rockets (as we called the Rock 'a' Billys due to their hair-style), visiting each other's concerts and partys. Another regular relation-basis was the moderate rude-boys and nutty-boys scene we partnered with. Clashes were fought between Skinheads and Mods during the mid 8T's, Rockets and sometimes Rudies helping us out, thanx god. Later the Skins overwhelmingly turned fascists - but became so dull, not to recognize a Mod anymore, thanx god again! But anyway, dear almighty god, please curse those with extremely painfull diseases to their testicles for the rest of their lifes.
Over the time towards the end of the 8T's we sported a more Beatnick-Bohemian outfit style. Our music became more 'ravish', listen to 'I Want It All' from our LP. During several changes on the guitarist's position we regrouped without organsound. In 1992 we had our last big tour and rocketed through Germany and neighbouring Europe. We stayed busy during the mid 9T's until in 1996 we called it a day.
Everyone of us, except for one, has children now! We hope to encourage and educate them to appreciate and love good music and style. We meet and play together on occasion, at least everyone preserves a certain favour for the 6T's style and culture.
Last month, on the 16th of September, we played a gig together with the unbeaten Thanes from Edinbourgh/Scotland at the Lovelite vicinity in Berlin. If you're in town, spend a few hours and € there!
Maybe we meet somewhere,
thanx for listening,
YoUrs