Luk Haas – The Christopher Columbus of Far-Flung Punk Rock Isles!
Fendi found this article on the net recently. It’s about our old friend, UNCHR worker and French punk daddy Luk Haas.
Read on:
Punk from Myanmar and Thailand, underground rock from Indonesia, Macedonia and Nepal, and countless bands from all the distant places in which it is hard to believe that rock exists – all brought together on one label.
A fantasy? No. It’s all available thanks to Strasbourg, France-based Luk Haas, and his label, Tian An Men 89 Records.
from: The St. Petersburg Times – Russia
punk rocking all over the world
by Sergey Chernov (STAFF WRITER)
Luk’s on the left, probably on one of his many UNCHR’s missions.
Punk from Myanmar and Thailand, underground rock from Indonesia, Macedonia and Nepal, and countless bands from all the distant places in which it is hard to believe that rock exists – all brought together on one label.
A fantasy? No. It’s all available thanks to Strasbourg, France-based Luk Haas, and his label, Tian An Men 89 Records.
The label, named as a protest against the massacre on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989, was created in 1993 to release punk music from parts of the world where, due to financial reasons, civil wars or a lack of record factories, bands have no way to release their music.
Although the 7-inch EP-format vinyl records that Haas produces at a factory near Prague are not popular these days, Haas insists they are perfect for the music.
“Certainly, more people have CD players, but most people who are really into weird, interesting or strange music still have turntables,” he says. “There’s a hell of a lot of music still only available on vinyl. It’s a favorite format for punk, rap, reggae … underground styles.”
“The styles I produce are so underground, obscure and limited that I think people who are into discovering it have turntables, so it doesn’t really matter,” he says. “Also, because I only produce 500 copies of each record, I’m not aiming for a ‘market’ anyway. And analog, well looked after, is long-lasting; not like some CD or digital formats that self-destruct after a few years.”
Haas was raised in a remote village of 4,000 people in the minority German region of France, before moving to Strasbourg to study in 1981. His background played a large part in forming his tastes.
“I guess that, being from an ethnic minority in France, and a militant in different organizations as a teenager had some influence on my musical and social research,” he says.
He cites Polish bands Perfect and Maanam, whose records were sent to him by a penfriend, as a “revelation … good rock in Polish.” In the same way, he discovered the Soviet Union’s Magnetic Band and Akvarium.
“It was great; listening to weird music and languages and enjoying it,” he says. “I had friends who were militants in a local organization for my region’s culture, and [via contacts with other organizations] they recorded Basque rock, Portuguese rock, Finnish rock, etc. I loved it. I wanted more.”
In 1983, Haas’ first trip to an Eastern-bloc country – Poland – was decisive.
“I bought all the rock records I could find,” he says. “From blues rock to psychedelic to metal to punk to new wave to reggae. Then I went to Czechoslovakia and Hungary and continued to dig into local rock and punk. It opened my eyes.”
“They were exciting times – the banning of Solidarity, the state of emergency, etc.,” he says. “Very rock ‘n’ roll-influencing situations, especially in the wake of punk.”
Punk, which Haas sees as a form of folk music, made him more than a listener and collector, a fact he attributes to “discovering that DIY spirit, fanzines and small labels, like MRR [U.S. punk magazine and label Maximum Rock ‘n’ Roll], Jazzova Sekce in Prague, and Mikolas Chadima in [Czechoslovakia]. I had to share what I discovered.”
Haas began writing for MRR in 1986, and founded his own label, Ukrutnost Tapes, that year, before starting a fanzine, Wielka Rewolucja, Mala Ewolucja, and then Tian An Men 89 Records. His third, and so far last, trip to Russia brought him to St. Petersburg in 1993, and left ambiguous impressions.
“I was scared most of the time,” he says. “The city looked so dangerous, and I didn’t have much experience in such chaotic places. But I met so many people, and made lasting friendships.”
“[It was] quite an experience – depressing, to say the least – seeing peoples’ situation and being unable to help, or even think of a solution.”
Even the legendary, now defunct, TaMtAm Club, the city’s only underground rock venue at the time, left Haas wondering what was going on.
“I went several times; it was hard to understand,” he says. “One night a reggae band, [another] a Nazi punk band. And people getting smashed on vodka and smoking like crazy. I don’t drink, so it was hard. But, again, I met so many real people – just natural, not fake or pretenders like you often meet in the West.”
In 2001, Tian An Men 89 Records launched “Pank Federatsiya” (“Punk Federation”), devoted to punk bands from remote regions of Russia. The first release was a disc of Kabardino-Balkaria’s Zuby (“Teeth”) and Tatarstan’s Vitamin Rosta (“Growth Hormone”). Later this year, he plans to release a split of Karelia’s Revolver and Buryatia’s Imperya Snegov (“Empire of Snows”).
Despite all his travelling, Haas’ punk map still has blank spots.
“I’m still looking for other Central Asian bands, but it’s not easy,” he says. “I was in contact with a guy in a metal-core band from Kyrgyzstan, but he was stupid, a real metalhead, and wasn’t interested. Nothing at all from Turkmenistan, Tajikstan or Azerbaijan. And the North Caucasus seems quite empty.”
Haas, an idealist whose project is not for profit, no longer believes that music can change the world.
“When I first got into punk, I thought we could change something, and punk … had the answers for me,” he says. “Now, probably not. Music is a superficial artefact that most people see as a fashion show.”
“I love music, and there are great people making great music everywhere,” Haas says. “But, in the end, money and weapons rule the world. … Music isn’t a solution.”
Haas is still passionate about what he does, though.
“Music isn’t a consumer item, to be thrown out when the fashion is over,” he says. “Music is culture, human heritage.”
Luk’s record label & distro: Tian An Men 89
