History Monokel

Monokel is a blues rock group from Berlin. They belonged to the motor of the blues or customer scene, a GDR-specific youth culture, alongside Engerling, Freygang, Jonathan Blues Band and Kerth, and are still active today. Responsible for the "Kraftblues" are the hard guitar riffs of Michael Linke and Bernd Kühnert.

In 1975 Sebastian Baur and Peter Schneider met in the Franz-Club, the East Berlin blues domicile. Together with Horst Trümpelmann, Wilfried Borchert and Michael Mirek they founded the band Monokel, which broke up again in the summer of 1976 before it really started.

But Sebastian Baur didn't give up, gathered new musicians around him and founded the band for the second time. Already in October 1976 he was classified as an amateur band.

The founding members were Sebastian Baur (guitar, vocals), Wilfried Borchert (guitar, vocals), Frank "Gala" Gahler (harmonica, vocals), Mario Janik (drums) and Jörg "Speiche" Schütze (bass).

The band's first line-up change took place in 1979 with the departure of Sebastian Baur, who later played with Keks, MCB and Knorkator, Wilfried Borchert and Mario Janik. New additions were Bernd "Kuhle" Kühnert (guitar, vocals) and Rainer Lojewski (drums) from Engerling. The band around Wolfram Bodag had become too professional for them. Furthermore Michael "Lefty" Linke rose from technician to singer and guitarist of the band. Three years later Gahler left the band to join NO 55. Gerd Pöppel from Berluc came for him. Bernd Damitz, formerly Metropol, replaced Rainer Lojewski, who had left for Germany. The singer Bernd Buchholz came from Passat.

In autumn 1989, the band's continued existence was uncertain. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the then manager of the band had emptied the band's account and left for foreign countries. Schütze tried to preserve the band. It was only when Frank Gahler returned to the band that the crisis was over.

Even before the first CD was released in 1996, Jörg Schütze left the band. He opened a music pub in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg, founded the Monokel Blues Band, got involved with the Internet radio www.rockradio.de and fought with the band in court over the band's name. Gahler also left the band again. However, his pub was not very successful, so he left Germany. But to the delight of the numerous fans he stood together with Monokel on the stage of the castle island Köpenick on 16 July 2006 for the 30th anniversary of the band. Because of the great success, the anniversary concert was repeated on 30 September 2006.

Dicki Grimm has been on drums since 1996; Christoph Frenz replaced Sagittarius on bass. At the concert on 18 October 2008 in Torgau, Frenz announced his departure from the band. Frenz changed to Polkaholix. For him came "Pitti" Pflüger, who already played with Bluestift and Blank.

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