March 1st, LAUT kicks off Sunday concerts with drum legend GEORGE KRANZ, co-author of Germany's best-selling "Linie 1" musical, producer of the DIN DAA DAA club classic, contributor to the "Breakin 2" movie soundtrack and starring actor of a film featuring young Samuel L. Jackson. George has been doing theatre and jazz and is only now considering, as a side project to his tour with Lars Eidinger, to return to the dance clubs, live on drums and microphones, with support from Bizarre Billy who has been reworking the songs to ensure a smashing impact on today's cosmic italo-80s-ignited dancefloors.

How DIN DAA DAA topped the U.S. Dancefloor Charts

Christmas 1983: George Kranz enters the U.S. billboard dancefloor charts and climbs to the top in a few weeks with his breakdance banger DIN DAA DAA, keeping "Owner Of A Lonely Heart" from reaching #1. For a few weeks it was the most played song by deejays in all of the U.S. including Larry Levan, Ron Hardy and Afrika Bambaataa. This happened because the song had become popular in the early breakdance scene and the makers of the "Breakin' 2" movie decided to use it as the key song in the final scene. Interestingly, they cut the drum solo short and emphasized the powerful synthesizer brass part. The prominent banging position in the movie catapulted the song onto everybody's turntables and into the dancefloor charts. It's also considered a classic in the later hip-hop and vogueing scenes. Vogueing-icon Kevin Aviance even made an excellent cover version.

Who came up with those amazing brass chords after the solo?

The hardest part for Bizarre Billy reworking and rearranging George's dance tracks for the new live show was figuring out the synth programming and the voicing of the crazy brass chords that appear after the drum solo. They are essentially progressive rock chord progressions played by an LFO-enhanced '80s brass patch. They are super tough for a reason: they were done by Chris Franke of Tangerine Dream.

Why was it Tangerine Dream's only ever club hit?

Tangerine Dream and George Kranz had an intense informal exchange. He was playing a lot of drum tracks for them to use in their movie soundtracks. When Chris Franke of TD saw George do his vocalised drum solo during a live gig with his New Wave band "ZeitGeist", he suggested to turn the solo into a complete song. So they went to the studio to record DIN DAA DAA with as little money expense as possible. It was totally unexpected that the American breakdance community would pick it up as one of its hymns. Ironically, TD never managed to land a club hit on their own.

Performing live at Paradise Garage in New York City

He was invited to perform live at Paradise Garage in 1984 by Larry Levan. When he arrived there were several thousand gay black men in the audience looking at him like "What is this white dude doing here?" — The Din Daa Daa 12" had been released without record cover, so they all thought George Kranz was black! Since for the first time he was playing to an audience who all knew the song by heart, he applied his theatre skills and split the audience in several parts. One was singing the bassline, another the Bah! and the clap, another the "din daa daa dao dodo" and so on. As soon as the whole venue was singing his song, he started playing it on the drums. Unfortunately there is no recording of this experience, we only know from George. Kranz did a whole tour of U.S. clubs including Studio 54.

3 fun facts about his New York City movie "Magic Sticks" from 1987

1. Yes, it's really Samuel L. Jackson; 2. the choir singing in the background is Michael Cretu and his wife Sandra, the one from "I'll never be... Maria Magdalena"; 3. Yes, the verse groove is taken from Supermax: the record label made a deal with Supermax to re-use it, because in the mainstream of the '80s hardly anyone knew that song. It achieved club classic status later in the early '00s.

Drum programming for Claudja Barry

Fun fact for '70s disco experts: Kranz is friends with Kordak, the husband of Claudja Barry. There is a version of "Trippin' On The Moon" with electronic drums programmed by George. Kordak in exchange did the "U.S. Remix" version of DIN DAA DAA.

How Billy met George Kranz

For a funny reason Billy happens to know Lars Eidinger, a notable cinema actor in Germany who started touring with George recently and couldn't believe it is the George Kranz from the legendary DIN DAA DAA club hit. Turns out it's really him and he was happy to hear Billy had a plan to have him play his old club tunes at DISCO BIZARRE. He had been doing theatre work for decades, hardly ever playing his own beautiful songs. If he's back on tour playing his own early songs it's not for the money. He's doing it out of love and passion for his earlier career. George still bangs the drums and sings his lungs out as ever before. It's a blessing to experience.

What did Billy do to George's songs?

Turns out George has a lot of very clubby tracks on his solo albums. Still, remixing and remastering brought out a whole new amount of extra energy. HiNRG to be exact, that dancefloor sound from the '80s pioneered by folks like Patrick Cowley, Divine, Sylvester and Frankie Goes To Hollywood. DIN DAA DAA has an extra proto-housy bassline additionally to George's vocal one that helps drive the energy straight into your legs. You will experience those good old tunes in a lot more in-your-face way than before. For now they only exclusively exist at the live shows, but it's inevitable that they need to be released someday.

What else happens during the gig?

George is also banging and singing to Billy's best unreleased bangers. How can they be bangers and unreleased? Well, if they work super well each time Billy plays them, they are bangers. He's just too slow in getting them released. Simply expect damn good stuff you never heard before.