Maybe it's a strange blessing what's happening in the world. The NWO (New World Order) is full of shit and I am resisting their mandates, laws and control exercises.
The Starved Peasant is the alter ego of Uwe “Balou” Bartsch, and has been around for more than 40 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 punks 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). For more on Balou’s communities of protest click here. 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 Punk, Rock, Blues, sometimes JazzPunk, other times Kraut-Rap (predecessor to Kraut-Hop (German Hip Hop), the Peasant did not repeat himself.
In the early 1980s Balou was asked to "sit in" playing drums (Balou's first and only properly trained instrument) with some Blues cats form the US. Turned out to be John Lee Hooker, Katie Webster and Koko Taylor. Balou bullshitted his way into playing guitars with those three after it emerged that they brought their own drummer. That's when Balou's ears and eyes were opened to the Blues. He never stopped listening to, nor playing them Blues, and he became a true officianado and ambassador of this incredible and original tell-tale art of murder, lynching, sex and abuse. Today, the Bear spends broadcasting, touring, recording, and performing together with Blues and Folk/Blues wanderers and likeminded souls from all over this beautiful planet.
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 Hip-Hop, Kraut-Hop (German Hip-Hop) and mixing it with Blues, Reggae, Punk and often just Poetry, Balou soon became the hot tip-off on the Szene Spree (the Spree is a river that runs through Berlin).
Turbulent times and clashes with the law (kinda) forced Balou to leave his beloved Berlin, so in '87 the Bear moved into his chosen exile to Scotland, leaving a somewhat darker speckled past behind. In the most beautiful country on earth's capital city Edinburgh, he joined 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 and Television have always been in Balou's life, from his runner days at RTL (Radio Television Luxembourg) to his joining a BBC production house as broadcast video editor. In 1989 Balou formed Fox TV in Edinburgh with his best friend and partner Mike Scott and together they produced a series of music videos and documentaries on musical and spiritual themes.
Since then our Bear continued to tour with Blues artists from all over the place to venues everywhere they'll have him. In 2016, after broadcasting his show The Starved Peasant with Balou, at three different radio stations, Balou joined Exile FM in Leicester, where he found a family of like-minded music lovers, eclectic and diverse in persona and taste. Exile FM is now home for Balou's live radio show The Starved Peasant with Balou and airs every Friday night from 9pm - 11pm (UK time) .
Not much changed musically, and today - Balou still performs with different musicians (for a taste of some of their work click here), painting a picture of poetry using guitars, drums, drum machines, beat-box, bass, often brass and/or woodwind instruments...
To listen to last week's live show and to download the whole show, click here. 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!
Balou Rants, Clips & Bloggy Things...
TaSH sULtAna - MRtV - UNplUGged iN MElBOurNe
ThiNKinG oF DaviD BoWIe
ThaT'S hOW It's DoNE
BeST FrIEndS bANd
My most amazing discovery this year so far - SHEL
WoZU sInD KRieGe dA - WhAT arE WArS tHeRE fOR?
WHaT iT wAS lIKe (bErLIn iN theM '80s)
SeAsIcK STeVe - BabY PlEaSE DoN'T gO
Lynzie Dray - Spirited Away
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