Chapter 3 - on the move


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1989 I moved from the lake of Constance to the Black Forest. Luckily I could store all my instruments at the company where I worked. 1990 I finally moved to a big enough flat, so that I could set up all my musical gear in a dedicated room, actually I might as well have opened up a museum with all that vintage gear. For the interested ones, there was: The Hammond M3 from 1950s, the Polymoog from 1975, a Hohner String Melody 2 from the 1970s, a Hohner Clavinet/Pianet from the 1970s, a Dr. Böhm drum computer and the youngest keyboard the Korg Poly 800 from the 1980s.

Sadly I never have been able to use the Hammond and the Polymoog on stage, or may be luckily.. the Polymoog has not been renown for its reliability, and hauling a Hammond around is no fun either ! So I just used the instruments to play music in my flat. Until 1993 when I turned my back to Germany and left for Thailand. Because I did not plan to come back and because it was much too expensive to take the instruments with me, I decided to sell them all.

The first few weeks in Thailand I started to missed playing music so I went to a department store and bought a Yamaha PSR home keyboard (yuck) definitely no Hammond, nor a Piano, but at least a keyboard. Many years I just played at home, very seldom on some occasions, like Toastmaster parties. Then I discovered that Rolf Dieter Daniel one of my close friends also loved to play music and that he had yet another friend Albert, who played the guitar. So, one Saturday we met at Albert's place, a nice town house hidden deeply in a Soi of Sukhumvit road. We did not disturb anyone, because Albert lived alone - well almost - he had a maid who was very essential, because she made sure that the supply of our favourite drink Gin Tonic and pizzas from Domino's Pizza never stopped. She also took care another essential of our weekly rehearsals the "Kao Niau Mamuang" which is glutinous rice with mango and coconut milk.

When we were not eating, which is difficult when there is a Thai maid around, we were playing music from the Dire Straits, Eric Clapton, Bon Jovi and other. We definitely had a good time. After a while I got bored with the sound of my Yamaha, so I asked my parents to please send my trusty Dynacord CLS 222 leslie simulator to me. Amazing how good a cheap Hammond sound from a cheap Yamaha keyboard can sound, when it is run through a CLS 222 ! Rolf-Dieter, Albert and I had a great time together and I still often think about them.

After 5 years in Thailand, my wife Duangdao and I decided to go back to Germany. In May 1998 we moved to Munich,where the musical things really started.


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