Hello, my name is John and I’ve setup this website as a fan site to the legendary DJ and Producer Rune Reilly Kölsch or to most people known as just Kölsch.
Below is just a little bit of a story about why I created this website. This website is just a bit of fun really and I wanted to see if fellow fans of Kölsch would visit and interact in the forums and share their Kölsch experiences; be it music, clubbing experiences or anything else Kölsch related.
So, the story behind the fan site! I guess I’ll start at the beginning, and my love of music, growing up I listened to many different types of music in my house, the Beatles, Elvis and Pink Floyd from my Mums side and Rod Steward, Fleetwood Mac and David Essex from my Dads side. Having two older brothers whose music choice was either UK chart music or dance music. Well it was dance music that caught my interest, hearing some of the best tracks from the age of around seven or eight, tracks such as Jack ‘N’ Chill – The Jack that house built, InterCity – Big Fun as well as a huge dose of acid house music, this was my real entry into dance music.
So living in the UK, when I was at school we swapped tapes of recorded radio shows, DJ mixes and recordings from local club nights, also my brother would often drive up to London as he was eleven years older than me and would get me recordings off pirate radio show such as Fantasy FM and I used to listen to them all the time as at that time you couldn’t buy that type of music where I lived or listen to it on the radio.
During my teenage years, music from where I come from (Essex!) was all about hardcore and jungle music with the likes of Slipmatt, Dougal, etc. However, in 1995 my oldest brother headed off to Ibiza for a whole season and came back with some new tapes. This time from places like the KU club with new sounds of house music. I have no idea of the DJ’s and even if they were really from the club in question on those tapes, however the music was new to me and amazing. So, there was one tape that had this one song, that just changed everything for me music wise. That track was Josh Wink – Higher state of consciousness. Wow what a track, over and over I played that track some might say to death, (it will be my funeral song; even my wife knows that.) It is what kicked started me into music in a big way and my first step in to becoming a bedroom DJ.
So, I asked my other brother if he could lend me some money to buy some decks? He said yes and my first decks arrived they were a cheap belt driven pair and a basic mixer, but it did not matter I wanted to learn to mix and more importantly buy the music. So, then I tracked down record shops and tried my hardest to track ID music on tapes I heard. (No Internet or Shazam at that time) to get vinyl. I loved it but it was costly! Every spare penny I earned went on paying back my decks or buying vinyl.
Consequently, I was never the greatest mixer / DJ but that did not matter it was always about the music. I brought old and new tracks if I liked it, Acid, Techno, Trance, Speed Garage, Breakbeat, Hip-hop you name it I brought it. Then after my first year of belt driven decks I traded them in for some Technics 1210 Mk2 and life was good, but vinyl was still expensive, however the Internet come along helping me ID tracks. Also as I was getting older I could start getting in to clubs such as Oscars on Clacton Pier and Home in London (Leicester square) and enjoying the music finding more and more great music.
Music was good and I was getting a little better on the mixing front not perfect but enjoying it, I did get to play on some local “community” radio stations even, so shout out to Mission FM and SKY FM (Essex). However, I guess come the mid to late 2000’s music changed a lot for me it become very Electro and EDM which just didn’t click with me, ok there was the odd good song, but it was different to me in a not in good way. Vinyl seemed to drop off with the new world of mp3s and CDJs and seeing auto mixing come to life, I guess I was getting older and didn’t feel the excitement of that. I was in limbo for music, so at this point I just kept going back to the old school days of music. Vinyl collecting now was very much just luck for me as most record shops closed and people just wanted mp3 files (as I guess was so much cheaper).
So does the story end there? No, so what of today, well. I was on a long car journey one Friday night and listening to BBC Radio 1 and Annie Mac and on come a track called “Walking with Elephants” by Ten Walls and it made me “turn it up” and listen again almost like the Josh wink track did all them years ago. However, when I got back from wherever I was, I searched for this track and found it. Then I see lots of comments about this track, “This track is much like “Grey” by Kölsch, so I tracked down this “Grey” track and BOOM this was the Josh Wink moment again. What was this track? It was just amazing! So, it begins again for me, back catalogue searching every track, every remix, album, and every DJ set I could find that Kölsch had done. I listened, played and purchased on vinyl where possible all of Kölsch’s music and I am back mixing again (well trying) on the 1210’s.
The love of music was reborn. I am back listening to the radio again, YouTube, Spotify, SoundCloud, etc. Tracking down other DJ’s like Kölsch. Another favourite DJ and producer of mine is Michael Mayer who in the time of writing this in the madness of the year that is 2020 (look it up in the history books) has also released amazing tracks such as “Higher” by Michael Mayer. I am even planning a trip to Germany to visit Kompakt records to get the vinyl buzz back of walking out with another shoulder bag of vinyl to play (again once the madness of corona virus is over).
So, I am in lockdown and I thought, I would like to share my re-love for music. I thought I would build a fan site and see how it goes and this is where we are at today. I am not the greatest website builder / designer in the world, and I know it is not perfect but hopefully it will grow and adapt over the years to come. I am welcoming feedback about how to grow the website and forums.
I hope to write blogs of my thoughts on music (all types but mainly Kölsch related), share my new discoveries in music, share anything Kölsch related I come across that I might not have seen before or is worthwhile to share with other likeminded fans. Show off pictures of clubbing experiences, share photos and videos, records collections, or t-shirts in the forum.
I have also collected links to all the different social media platforms in one place, links to Twitter feeds, Instagram feeds (both official Kölsch and official Kölsch Fan Club), YouTube videos, SoundCloud, Beatport, Spotify playlists, Bandcamp, Record Labels and Shops (Kompakt, IPSO), etc as your one stop shop for everything Kölsch.
Thank you for joining and sharing the journey.
John