The Starved Peasant

The Starved Peasant is the alter ego of musician, actor, broadcaster and dad, Uwe “Balou” Bartsch, and has been around for more than 25 years. Well the alter ego has been, the bear himself is a lot older that 25 years. Starting as a rather rebel bunch of punk oriented folkies in the early 1980s in Germany, the political climate in Germany was somewhere in between Red Army Fraction sympathisers and right wing neo nazi splinter groups, Balou stayed on and off in his troubled, but formidable exiled home of Berlin Kreuzberg. Living in squats, these partisan freedom punkers managed to build their own little communities including shops and bakeries, cafes and hang-out pads, all in the multi stories of derelict SO36 (Post Code). In those days, not unlike now, you’d be pushed to find the Peasant performing with the same artists twice. This was not because nobody wanted to, but due to the fact the Bear (Balou a.k.a. The Starved Peasant) just wanted new stuff, change and no acclimatising in his music and/or uncompromising performances. Sometimes FunkPunk, Rock, Blues, sometimes JazzPunk, other times Kraut-Rap (predecessor to Kraut-Hop (German Hip Hop), the Peasant did not repeat himself. For current tunez and shenannigans click here.

Becoming a DJ and Radio Broadcaster was not what Balou had in mind but it all started in a nightclub on Berlin's Kudamm (Kurfuerstendamm), the centre of this unbelievably lively metropolis of the 1980s. Discovering rap and mixing it with reggae, punk and sometimes poetry, Balou soon became the hot tip-off on the Spree (river that runs through Berlin).  

In '87 the bear moved into exile to Scotland, leaving a somewhat darker past behind, joining Europe's largest night club The Amphitheater as laser and light jockey, dazzling thousands every midnight with the world's largest laser display in any night club at the time. Radio has always been in Balou's life, from his runner days at RTL (Radio Television Luxembourg) to his work at the BBC and Fox TV, but it was at Exile FM in Leicester, that he found a family of like-minded music lovers, eclectic and diverse in persona and taste, and it's now home for The Starved Peasant with Balou every Friday night from 9pm - 11pm (UK time) and Blues 'n Roots with Balou from 9pm - 11pm (UK time) every Wednesday night.

Not much changed musically, and today - Balou still performs with different musicians (for a tase of some of their work clcik here), painting a picture of poetry using guitars, drums, drum machines, beat-box, bass, often brass and/or woodwind instruments... But not all is live music. The bear's trance dj sessions are legendary throughout Europe and the British Isles. This gig is suited best for larger dance venues, warehouses and rave parlours.  To book The Starved Peasant With Balou Trance Syndicate LIVE party please get in touch by clicking here. We can even broadcast your show live, so get in touch by clicking here.

To listen to last week's live show and to download the whole show, click on the photo of Balou. Tune in to Exile FM every Friday from 9PM (UK time) for a live helping of The Starved Peasant With Balou. Click - Like - Share - BE THERE!