Move D… My Wikipedia

 
Music

So, what started off as your everyday Random Facts… with the excellent David Moufang aka Move D quickly mutated into a dissection of his German wikipedia page which appears to have been written solely by a member of his family, much to Mr Moufang's despair.

Wiki is open-source information that anyone can update so it seemed interesting to see if this was all actually true. So we thought off the back of that we'd launch yet another series on R$N called My Wikipedia – think you can see what we've done there. 

Ahead of him playing Farr Festival this Friday as part of Bicep's stage takeover on the Friday, here's an indepth an examination of what you may thought you knew about Mr Moufang and a lot you didn't.

Hi David, where are you at the moment?

Well I'm in New York at the moment but I've just done the whole kinda South West; Phoenix and Austin, really great times. I stayed in Austin for about ten weeks in 1990 which is about 24 years ago. Never been back.

Never been back?

Yeah and it was amazing to go there.

What were you doing there 24 years ago?

Nothing! I was rolling the states over like three and a half months all together. I never planned on staying there that long, but somehow I got stuck in Austin, so… There’s just something about Austin that’s so cool. In a way it’s probably even cooler now than it was back then…

I’ve never been!

It’s really happening in a way, but not so much electronic music yet.

It’s getting there slowly

It’s getting there and it’s been guitar stuff forever.

So what sort of venues have you been playing?

I mean it depends, if it’s during the week like a Wednesday in El Paso it’s more like smallish 150 capacity places.

A nice party then.

Yeah, yeah very nice. LA was an outdoor kinda backyard café, really beautiful with Horsemeat Disco playing before me. So no it was all really great but then there are bigger stages at like Movement especially. So uh, what are we actually talking about today?

Well it’s nice to have a general feel but what we do is this thing called Random Facts which I’m not sure if you’ve been briefed on yet?

Probably someone sent it to me already but uh…

I’ll send you some examples.

So we’re not promoting an event here? It’s journalism more…

(Laughs) Yeah!

It’s fine, it’s fine. It’s just to give me an idea.

I just find it’s nicer…

It’s what I prefer, no worries!

I just think it gets very boring for artists on the promotion side of things, going over the same thing over and over again. It’s boring for you and it’s boring to read treading the same ground over and over again.

Bring it on!

So what we do is we play fact tennis…  you need to come with some p as well, so if you use Twitter the facts are quite questionable, I think they’re abject lies most of the time. Google Facts is really really bad, but you can either just 'Google' some facts or I use Uber Facts which is sometimes good but definitely hit and miss…

It’s a shame I don’t know about Google Facts, but I know about Wikipedia pages. But they can suck if your family knows about them and you’ve fallen out with some of them and they just edit over them.  

My brother and the now R$N editor Ian got banned from Wikipedia for internet terrorism for editing Kate Nash’s page about five years ago saying things like "Kate Nash is responsible for ruining music".

But they just earned some real credit, there was this really cool article about a graveyard in my hometown, a Jewish graveyard. It seems like you can gather likes or points there somehow and now they don’t even seem to edit that shit on there anymore. (Laughs)

Maybe we could start there?!

Yeah we could definitely do this! Because like Google Facts and Twitter or whatever aren’t my world.

 

We can just base it on ‘your family facts’!

Yeah! It kinda goes down well with you along these lines because they're creating these facts and they're not necessarily lies even, they’re kind of unwanted, superfluous information that’s so far removed as well.

Great, I think that comes back to this whole facts thing.

I mean, we might even keep it a little more anonymous, and just say there’s “someone” editing my Wikipedia page.

I’ve got it! 

(Laughs) It says you were born in a house here.

Ah Jesus Christ! ‘When I was ten years old I lost my stepfather and my mum raised me on her own.’ It’s biased writing this you know! Fuck. ‘And I’m like the grandson of whatever and the grandson of that other dude…’ There’s even links. I bet my family put them in. I’m also related to Johannes Kepler, that physicist you know.

Oh really?

Yeah, it’s probably somewhere in there. I once sent out a letter of complaint saying like, all this information may not be untrue but is totally irrelevant but I don’t have an account or anything, but somehow the family overreacted and trimmed it down for a while. But now, looking at it it’s horrible. Oh god, I’m so embarrassed about it.

It says you were born in house, is that right? ‘David Moufang was born in the house’, so you were born in a house and not a hospital?

No no no, that’s a translation error! It says ‘he’s the son of my dad's name, and my mother's name, and then my mothers maiden name.'

So you weren’t born in a house? 

No no, I was born in a hospital, that's a translation error!

Your family cares!

Yeah… It goes on. ‘During his school time he founded two school bands. The first band Cat Shock was formed in 83 and was a trio. Only their original stuff, about 20 gigs.' Jesus Christ this is so embarrassing. Do you want me to continue?

What were Cat Shock like?

It was gross, it was bad. You know. Probably kicked it off two weeks after I got my first electric guitar. I mean, this could be anyone's least interesting stuff. Then after that there was a ten piece band with a brass section. That was actually a bit better and we had the first release on a record which somehow qualified for a mention, but the first one I don’t know.

Can you still find that record?

Yeah, I mean second hand you can. It’s called Orcus Depende which means like ‘School Rock’ or whatever and it’s a compilation of ten tracks by a band that had made it in some kind of school band contest. At least it was clear blue vinyl! 

Nice!

Okay so, ‘They also played only original stuff and they did about 50 gigs.’ I don’t know how they came up with these numbers…  It might be roughly right. So now it says that I went to music school doing drums with this guy who was the first drummer in the second Romanian State Ensemble of Philarmonics. I dunno… 'Music theory with Hanno Giulini…’ Jesus Christ. ‘After a few semesters of philosophy…’ I went there one single time, to one single lesson, and they're saying I’ve been there for a couple of semesters! ‘He did a degree in Audio Engineering at SAE in Frankfurt.’

Cat Shock got together by the looks of it!

And then I played in several other bands, they're totally leaving out the only one important guy I ever worked with in my early days, which was an Irish songwriter who was about 10/11 years older than me and he was a big influence and mentor. They're not mentioning because certain family members didn’t like him. It’s so bad! It’s gross!

What’s his name?

Frank Pyne. You will find some stuff on Youtube but not a lot. It’s a shame as he had a good discography but he never uploaded stuff, so all you get is bad live things that sound not too great.


Credited on here as having been recorded by David in 1988

Maybe I could go and edit this Wikipedia entry?

Yeah, you are more than welcome! You can also even say that you spoke to me about it and that there’s too much unnecessary bull in there.

I might need some help converting it into German. 

That’d be awesome. I mean I’m willing to help you but but I just keep trying to avoid this. I mean, at least it’s German so not that many people will read it I hope.

They may do now! Maybe, if anyone reads this! I’ll send you the transcription and you can translate it and then I’ll add it.

If you just improve a little bit on my English one that’s fine, and leave this one alone. Now close to the end of the whole thing we finally get to business;

In ’92 he founded Source Records with graphic designer Jonas Grossmann. Grossmann was responsible for the graphic design  of Source record covers and text fonts blah blah…’ And then it says that in 1995, which isn’t even correct, it says ‘In ’95 the first movie was released.’

Which is not correct.

It is not correct. Then they also say a variation of how I got my nickname Move D which is almost correct but not quite. It sounds like it. I was given the name Move D by a friend of mine, a producer. We did a track together in 1990 that was put out on False Inc. Germany, an old school techno label and in these days things were built fast and records came out overnight so they said they needed a project name and this guy just said ‘Okay it’s Move D and Redagain P.’ His explanation was ‘Move as in Moufang, and D as in David.’ His was Redagain P and in German that was the translation of his last name and then P for Peter. So that guy gave me the name and I kinda like it as the blues guys they gave themselves names like it so I didn’t change it, but I’m not sure if I was ever fond of the name really.

Never fond of it?

No not really, you know it’s kinda like Benji B and that kinda thing. Just a bit kinda lame…  What makes it a little bit better is that it could be like a chess move or something. At least it has a certain ambiguity or some other meaning or whatever.

There are different connotations to it.

Yeah. So the first Move D release would have been in ’92 I would say.

Ah okay, so Discogs lies!

Yeah I mean, this is the thing, The first vinyl of Homeworks has Move D tracks on it and then there was stuff like we started Source Records on 1990 and the first couple of releases were just white labels that we might have felt penned or just stamped but they won’t show on discogs. So it’s a bit longer ago. They say 1995 for Kunststoff, but it really came out in ’94. 

I think they took the date that we changed to a bigger distribution. I think anyway. So I’ve been doing stuff since 1990 technically but the label stuff was more obscure and you won’t find it on Discogs, it’s so old and devoid now it’s funny.

In the vinyl void.

Yeah, includng myself, I don’t even have a copy. I once lost a big pile of my record compilation, my partner might have some though. They were pretty radical, you’d be astonished. Heavily influenced by British breakbeat. The tempo was really happening, so they were like 140bpm breakbeat, but kinda techno as well. ‘Shut Up and Dance’ was definitely huge, around that time. And XL Recordings.

Yeah around the time that breakbeat and techno collided.

I’m nearly done with this Wikipedia thing now, let me read to the end. ‘Since 1996 David Moufang has been in a collaborative state with the Goethe Institute’, They asked me to do a couple of things for them you know. We’re not in a collaboration really, whatever! ‘Including London Munich and Budapest.’ The one in London is actually really worthwhile mentioning.

Oh yeah?

Yeah because uh, it was like kinda sponsored by the Goethe Institute and I’m not sure if you’ve heard about it…

The Goethe Institute yeah sure…

It’s like the German Shakespeare and the Goethe Institute is a non-government, worldwide organisation. The British Arts Council funded a Sound Works Exchange, it was 5 or 6 UK and 5 or 6 German composers and producers on a panel for a couple of days. The UK side had People Like Us, Vicky Bennett, Bedouin Ascent and who else… I’m kinda sleeping on it now, there were more cool people though. On the German side it was Pete Namlook and myself and Thomas Kunah who’s one half of Portericks who does really amazing deep ambient drone stuff. It was a really interesting combination and the whole event was cool and it was all documented. As well we all had to perform live in some club for those people at the British Arts Council. I mean, they were wearing melon hats or whatever you call them, melons? Kinda old school you know? Just really really amazing.

So when was this?

1996, The Soundworks Exchange in London.

And you can get that on CD?

Yeah there’s a CD! It’s called like ‘The Soundworks Exchange’ and I think it’s on my discogs under compilations or something. And then ‘In ’98 David was commissioned by Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra’, which is sort of like the BBC in Britain, it’s a public state radio, high quality and really into culture. Normally stuff that sells. And for them I’m doing radio plays which is kind of like radio art, but they last for about an hour and most of them I did in collaboration with a German writer and  musician, he plays in a famous German indie band called FSK at some international acclaim. But at the same time he’s kind of a better known for German pop literature writer.

So the first collaboration, he had a new novel out on a prestigious German publisher and the radio approached him saying ‘do you want to somehow make a radio piece around your new novel?’ He then said ‘Yes I’d love to’, and they came back and said ‘We’ll give you first choice of a composer’, and then he said ‘I’d like to work with David because he’s actually in my novel in a way.’ His novel takes place in my town in the student scene in Heidelberg and the students there are listening to Kunststoff and even talk about it, and that’s sweet!

It really charmed me but I was at that stage where I didn’t want to take on any commissioned work anymore because just before that I did the presentation of the new Mercedes Benz S-Class for the Paris Autosalon in 1998.  And it seemed at first like it was a lot of money and I was doing fancy stuff with John Forsyth from Frankfurt and an American choreographer and really big production but you wouldn’t believe how much they talked into the whole thing, like ‘I don’t like that costume and I didn’t like that move, I don’t like that segment in the music…’ I was so fed up that I didn’t want to take up anymore work like this but because I was in the novel and I’d read the book and I said ‘okay I’m trying to do it…’

And so yeah, that guy became a real fruitful collaboration and we did a cool workshop featuring DJ Late, he’s Thomas Meinecke, the writer. When we were in the studio working together on these radio plays – I mean workshop number 2 was actually a side product – it was kinda recycling the one radio piece we did. So I did the track and he’s there in the studio with me giving comments but not really, and that’s featuring DJ Late. Most of these things have been released later on, and you can find these on Discgos under the Moufang/Meinecke section. And actually, there’s quite a lot of releases on discogs that are kinda hard to find as they’re neither directly linked with my real name, or Move D.

Yeah, I was just looking at that…

And some of them I’m actually quite fond of, just so that you know, like Studio Pankow, ever heard of that?

No…

Try it out! There’s Youtube stuff as well so you can have a look. It’s with Jamie Hodge, who used to be Born Under a Rhyming Planet, in the early plus eight days, and another friend in Berlin in their studio in Pankow, that’s why it’s called Studio Pankow!

Is that Linienbusse?  

Linienbusse, exactly! I think it’s a really cool album. Most people don’t have a clue it’s me also.

I didn’t know that!

Yeah, and then there’s this Conjoint project I did also with Jamie Hodge but also a really famous old German Jazz vibraphonist Karl Berger who worked with the Class A Jazz people, and that project was called ‘Conjoint’ and we have three albums.

 

I didn’t know this either!

It might not all be out to you but it’s stuff I definitely did. I can’t believe that’s not on Wikipedia you know… That’s something that’s really high in my book and Karl is still alive, he’s now in his 80’s though and he lives with Enid Coleman Upstate New York in Woodstock. Making one more album with him is my top priority, but we sort of got a gig sorted in Europe for June which should be awesome.

Talking about obscure projects, I mean the one with Benjamin Brunn you probably know of because it features Move D in the title, which is like number two of albums of the year on RA in I don’t know, 2010 or whatever…

Then obviously all the work with Pete Namlook on Fax Records…

then I did something with Bedouin Ascent… 

Yeah I mean, I think on the David Moufang discogs you find a lot of links in groups or whatever, if you check those out you’ll find stuff.

Yeah, there’s a small anchoring page and then it all goes crazy and links out from there.

The Move D page is probably where most people start looking and there aren’t any links from there really so…

And so, what’s this about the department of experimental radio?

In 1997 my son was born and I had to cut down on playing out and the music production slowed down too, it was taking up a lot of energy and my wife had a steady job, so I was kinda the house man as well. So I was really poor all of a sudden and I got this opportunity to teach at the Bauhaus University which happened by accident like most things in life. People from that radio were all having a class at that university and the students were learning how to interview someone and because they couldn’t have David Guetta for the students to practice on, this woman from the radio thought of me as a sparring partner for the students to interview.

The professor of that chair, which was an experimental radio and a first off for Germany, he was in hospital with a broken ankle from dancing Pogo… But as it was an experimental radio at Bauhaus University that was transmitting, the professor was sat in hospital listening to the radio where the students were interviewing me. Somehow, the professor must have really liked what I said to them and he called and asked if I wanted to teach.

It was so cool because I don’t have an academic degree, I’m only this audio engineer from a semi-private school. But, because I didn’t have an academic degree I was paid by the hour, half of what everyone else got paid, so unfortunately it didn’t work out as it only just about paid my rent. I might have done it for longer that 2002 – 2007, I thought I started in 2000. Whatever, it was great fun for a while but eventually these things wear off and it was really dependant on the quality of students that you got, and each semester it was a different ball game. One year you get a lot of interesting people, the next season you don’t get any. The last thing is that we won this major prize for radio art or radio plays that has been won by John Cage and really cool people, and that was a really big thing and I was given a bit of money!

The end of this Wikipedia is just discography and radio plays… There’s a lot of stuff but it’s just not complete in any way… Whatever. But that was a lot of talking! So what’s next? 

Ha! Anymore interesting facts we should know about Move D?

Another interesting facts thing is like, as you can tell I’m not doing things like Twitter or Instagram and I don’t do facebook really, but people were telling me that there’s a Move D page and I want to see that, but I found out that in order to see anything on facebook you have to have your own account, so I opened one but I didn’t intend to really use it so I was taking the piss a little bit and since I was in the states, whilst I was opening this account, for some reason I put my hometown as Heidelberg, Texas because there is a Heidelberg in Texas but it’s just a farm or something really,  really small. And that’s why they rounded it up to McAllen, Texas and that’s what my private Facebook says up to this day. It’s so funny how people are like ‘Oh that’s cool you’re in my neighborhood’, and just how many people relate to it. The other day I was looking at pictures and comments and the ‘Pride of McAllen Texas’ had posted and I just found it really funny that I had made that hoax myself.

Nice main image; ‘We Shall Not Be Move D’?

It’s a fact/non-fact yeah man, we shall not be Move D.

Do you have control of your own page then or not? 

Yeah I do, and like I got my own account and reached out to the guys to ask if they were running the Move D page and nothing happened. I just watched the page having more and more followers and filling up with more and more spam like ‘Make Bucks at Home’ so I wrote to the guy several times, and then I’d totally given up and then like a year later all of a sudden I get a message from him that said ‘I’m just an English dude living in Berlin and I started the page and totally forgot about it and just realized how busy it is so I’ll make you an administrator.’ He did and then eventually just signed off himself and now I run the page by myself which is really cool as he didn’t blackmail me or ask for money or anything so now I have an artist page and a private page and I barely knew how to create them in a way…

And you’ve got a Don’t Mess With Texas t-shirt, is that related to this?

I actually bought it in Austin in a trendy second hand clothes store and paid some ridiculous money for it and all the paint on it is kinda peeling off, it was $50 would you believe! But I really loved it. The slogan is really common but it’s a real nice font and it’s just really cool and vintage. And of course I had to bring it out, but I don’t really wear it that often because of the paint peeling off so I just try to keep it in the wardrobe and yeah, this was one the rare times that it came out.

I’m sorry, I’m just looking through your pictures!

Have a look at whatever. I’ve had great times!

Ah, you were with Keith Worthy and everyone?

Yeah, I mean they weren’t really playing they were just coming to my gig and taking me home. Actually, I did attend one gig and Keith and Glenn Underground were on the bill. Glenn Underground really killed it. That was a Detroit vs. Chicago party.

I was the first vinyl J of that day on that stage, maybe in the whole festival at the stage that used to be the beatport stage. And I came off there, it was a high stage with many stage elements and all the normal elements, but they were all tied together and the whole thing was rocking like a boat! The turntables were sitting on these stage elements with no suspension what-so-ever. No concrete plates nothing. I said to the guys ‘this isn’t going to work’ and he said ‘oh it’s no problem we’ve done it before.’

So I put the fader up, vinyl on, everything set straight in the green, not loud at all and then the stage starts moving and the needle moved all over the record… I was just like come on, it’s a festival. They said we’ll get suspensions for you and they arrived like an hour into my 2 hour set and then they didn’t know which order to put them in. They put the concrete plate first and then the turntable and I said no it’s the other way round. 

But the whole stage was so shakey it never really worked and I always had to high pass… It was okay though because it was in the afternoon and I didn’t have to hammer it really. I played cheerful music and people were really into it and I used the mic and said, ‘look at this movement, it’s not prepared for a vinyl DJ!’

Sounds fun! Maybe we can do random pictures or to go with this or something like that. We could sign all this off with a random pictures selection or something. Might be quite nice.

Let's go… 

 

 


 

Move D plays Farr Festival on 18th July. More details on that can be found here. and Field Maneuvers later in the summer

More on Move D can be found on his facebook – which he now owns! – and Move D Discogs here or as David Moufang here