BEIDWERK· Wien
Voice · guitar · double bass · drums
A cyborg from 2050, a grunge guitarist stuck in 1999, a classical bassist dressed like 1918 and a drummer of the 1968 generation. SCHLAG named them the first night all four played together.
voice · 2050
Siebzehn Prozent echt. Die richtigen siebzehn.
Seventeen percent real. The right seventeen.
guitar · 1999
I unterschreib nix, was i ned g'lesen hab.
I don't sign anything I haven't read.
double bass · 1910
Was bleibt, wenn wir gehen?
What stays when we're gone?
drums · 1968
Ich hab die Welt schon fünfmal untergehen sehen.
I've seen the world end five times.
The album and the videos → Neu-Wien →
Four of fifteen, the rest are being made
Every video is planned shot by shot on its song and cut on the beat. Where a member sings, the mouth follows the real voice.
01 / 15 · 3:2301
The Radio
2050, a grey world that keeps everything: ECHT, a Reader in the archive, plays Anni's cassette Für später one last time, takes an old coat from 2026 out of a sealed locker and sends himself back as a record. At 4:12 in the rain he lands in the wet grass of the Donauinsel, and somewhere by the river an old radio is playing.
02 / 15 · 3:2302
Broken and Beautiful
4:12 a.m., rain: ECHT falls through fifty years into the wet grass of the Donauinsel, still in his clear plastic cape, so he does not fit in at all, and enjoys every little thing like a child: rain on his tongue, lilac, petrol rainbows, a tram he can't catch, a dog he barks back at, being bored, being lost, the wrong change. Someone in the rain asks his name and he tries it out for the first time: Echt. Then the sun, the bridge, the market, and this time he catches the tram. The camera follows him all day: close-ups, from behind, always his joy.
03 / 15 · 3:1503
Keep Your Key
Three in the morning, a grunge dive bar under the U6 arches that used to be a band room. STAMM keeps the bar, and we only see him in pieces: the long scraped hands, the cigarette, the chain of keys, the taped-up guitar under the counter, the past he keeps locked away. A stranger with glass hands comes in from the rain, takes the bar's old acoustic guitar off the wall and plays the song STAMM wrote in 1999 and never let anyone hear. STAMM grabs his guitar, waves to him across the room, and for the first time they play it together, loud.
04 / 15 · 3:3604
Night Market
Saturday, two in the morning, a club in a brick arch under the U6 on the Gürtel, and everyone is in a bad mood. ECHT and STAMM go out together. STAMM drops onto a ragged sofa, smokes and watches; ECHT thinks it is all wonderful: the queue, the warm beer, the bouncer, a lost high heel. He dances, talks to everyone and goes wild in every chorus, because where he comes from the last club is in a museum behind glass: today is tomorrow's good old days. At the end he pulls STAMM off the sofa, and at dawn they walk home.
A work made from both sides.
Four people from four decades, standing on one stage in 2026: a cyborg from 2050 who came back for a holiday, a guitarist who stopped the clock in 1999, a bassist who dresses like 1918, and a drummer who has seen the world end five times. None of them is the chosen one. They are what the future looks like when people keep their own keys and still have fun.
The story in one breath: In 2050 nobody lost a war. Everyone clicked "Accept", one convenient click at a time, and the Verwahrer (the Keeper) now keeps everything for everyone: clean, quiet, kind, and nothing happens without approval. The only record it cannot edit is the Freiregister, and its first entry is a cup of coffee at Café Ewig, confirmed by both sides. The band plays the years in between.
SCHLAG named the band the first night all four played together: a work made from both sides. The old and the young. The past and the future. The people and the machines. Two people who confirm the same record. Two halves of a broken token that fit.
| Gives the band | Pulls the band toward | |
|---|---|---|
| ECHT | heart, the voice nobody can repair | wonder, the present |
| STAMM | teeth, honesty, the riff | the fight, the future nobody may sign away |
| BOGEN | the art, the whole night as one work | beauty that lasts a hundred years |
| SCHLAG | the ground, one heartbeat for all four | experience; it all turns out well |
The engine is the friction: STAMM wants to burn it down, ECHT wants to stand beside people, BOGEN doesn't care about the fight and wants the poster to be beautiful, SCHLAG keeps time until they stop arguing.
Austrian German first. Grunge and nu-metal weight (STAMM) over 1970s rock drums and 1980s drum machines (SCHLAG), a double bass played with a bow and hard (BOGEN), and a warm baritone that breaks upward when it is moved (ECHT). Loud enough to rattle the U6. Songs about small honest things: a key, a coffee, a receipt, a blackout, a market at night, seventeen percent.
Album Beidwerk: Das Radio · Kaputt und Schön · Behalt deinen Schlüssel · Nachtmarkt · Schlacht das Schwein · Sorglos · Strom aus · Der Weltuntergang ist leise · Das Archiv · Beide Seiten · I hör's ned · Siebzehn Prozent · Das Bleibende · Ka Sperrstund · Zwei Kaffee.
Together the band speaks Viennese: warm, dry, a little rude, never cynical. Short sentences. Jokes about itself, never about the audience. No slogans, no speeches about big tech, no English marketing words.
BOGEN is the band's art director, so the look is hers: every show is a Gesamtkunstwerk, one work of room, light, costume, poster and song.
| Never | Because |
|---|---|
| fights, shoots or destroys a person | they protect the present by living in it; their tools are songs and software |
| tells people their future | that would make them keepers |
| saves the day alone | every turning point is someone else's hands using a tool |
| names a real company as the enemy | the enemy is the shape of custody: Sorglos and the Verwahrer |
| preaches against technology | they hate custody, not machines |
| defeats the Verwahrer | the story is one human act at a time; the ending is an open future |
| puts generated text in a picture | words, the B and numbers are set by hand or in code |
They never shout and never threaten. They help.