FC Stoffel

See the full podcast episode post here

Tom Ray: Hi and welcome to another episode of the Lorenzo’s Music Podcast. I’m Tom and this is a show where I talk to musicians, people who make things for musicians. And a lot of the time with a focus on people in the Creative Commons, open source and even federated realm. And today I have a musician and a Creative Commons artist with me today. And, why don’t you just tell the people who you are and what it is you do.

FC Stoffel: Yes. Hi. my full name is Frank Christian Stoffel, but in Germany Stofel is also a kind of a known nickname. So everybody just calls me by my last name, which is Stofel. And this stuck around with me for like the last 30 years. So Stoffel is, is the name I go by here in Germany. And Well, I, I do many things. I I don’t know what is my preferred profession, but I would say I’m first, I’m, I’m musician. I play in a band in a German industrial band called Delirium. And before that I, played in a techno duo, called the SP Monster. And when we started both projects with my wife Doris, and when we started to do this techno duo, this was around 2005 and then Creative Commons started to become interesting here in Germany and we had like four friends who were doing the same techno stuff. And you have to know Cologne is quite famous for the techno scene. We have the compact label. I don’t know if you know it in America, but in Europe it’s a quite big label. And so Cologne is a techno city also. And we were fascinated by this music and doing our little own scene. And then Creative Commons popped up and then we thought why not make a Net label, a Creative commons Net label. And this is the Kleine Grune Woelfel, which started out as just the four friends of us doing it. And then they got older and they finished their studies and they stopped making music. So I’m now alone running this label, this Net label. But in Cologne we had a lot of other Net labels. And then in 2009 and 2010, we organized a festival called Cologne Commons where we invited people from the Creative Commons music scene and had discussions in the daytime and concerts in the, in the evening. And even Ryno came. Came over. I think in, in 2010, Ryno came over.

Tom Ray: Really?

FC Stoffel: Yeah, yeah, but, but

Tom Ray: this was

FC Stoffel: just by chance because they, he had organized something in Amsterdam. so, together with

Tom Ray: Oh,

FC Stoffel: Amsterdamack is, is his nickname, I, I forgot.

Tom Ray: yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, he, he’s kind of disappeared from the scene recently. But I know you’re talking about, Oh, now he’s based it on his name and I feel really bad because I’ve known the person for years. Yeah, they live in Amsterdam.

FC Stoffel: yeah, you know, lives in, in England somewhere.

Tom Ray: okay, I know, I know. I, I keep like, I, I, I want to say their name, but it’s, I’m confusing them with another person who’s on the Creative Commons scene. But I know who you mean. Yeah, I feel so bad.

FC Stoffel: Yeah, I feel so bad also. But my friends, he was organizing something in Amsterdam and then he contacted me and asked if we can have like, ah, I think Louis Ling and the Bombs, if they can play in Cologne also. And they came over here and another band, Vienna, ah, Dito from England and Ryno was with them. And so we connected all, it was just by pure chance, because one email reached out to me and it was a really fun, fun evening. And yeah, we were doing this for then the following years we do it on a much smaller scale here in Germany. and and we could do this because I also, in that time I worked at, an arts society here in Cologne. It’s called the Kunstverk. It’s a very huge building with a lot of studios for artists, for painters and sculptures and stuff like that. And we have a large exhibition hall and in the basement we have, a small concert room and rehearsal rooms for bands. And I worked there for 10 years and in 2010 I stopped working there. but at that time, when we did these festivals, I still worked there and I was in the board of this, art society. And there everything came together and then I got to children and everybody around me became parents. And then everything calmed down a little bit,

Tom Ray: as it happens, because of our, because of our sinful lifestyle, we all have children.

FC Stoffel: No, no, no,

Tom Ray: I know. We

FC Stoffel: managed a kind of a rock and roll lifestyle with the children, so.

Tom Ray: Exactly.

FC Stoffel: Yeah, it was okay. But yeah, you get older and you get a little bit calmer and. Yeah, and then with the, I don’t know, maybe like five years ago I, I left Twitter and then I joined, switched over to Mastodon and joined the Fediverse.

Tom Ray: Yeah.

FC Stoffel: And then I felt like there is some kind of a second wave of alternative Creative Commons independent musicians forming some kind of movement.

Tom Ray: Yeah. I love the fact that you and I, this is the first time we’ve met and Spoken with each other. And yet we have literally been talking like, oh, you know that thing we did with like, we’re actually somehow connected. Like you’re mentioning things and you knew I knew this person. It’s so funny that the Creative Commons realm, at least from the early days, how connected they all are still to each other. And also I still want to say the person’s last name was something like or their Twitter handle was Mac or Mark. Or, I’m still trying to think of the person from Amsterdam’s name and I want to. And I’m so close.

FC Stoffel: It’s Mark. It’s Mark. I’m sure it’s Mark, but,

Tom Ray: I know I can’t remember his handle. Sorry. I still feel just really bad because the person was a huge supporter of the Creative Commons bands. But, now I want to go back a little bit on some of the things you mentioned. 1 First you said, your last name is a nickname in Germany. What is the nickname? What is. You said, so what is

FC Stoffel: it? It’s kind of complicated. so, so, so Stoffel is more like, maybe a little insult for, for some clumsy people who. Yeah, like, okay,

Tom Ray: all

FC Stoffel: right. So are, to Stoffel. are, you, you, you, you. You clumsy guy. Why did you step over my thing? So you are. You are so stuff. So the German know this, but it’s

Tom Ray: okay.

FC Stoffel: It’s, it’s. It’s actually my last name. And, and in school we were like, like seven people, called Christian. Yeah, Christian is. Was such a popular name then back then. So nobody called themselves Christian anymore. Like, so.

Tom Ray: Gotcha. I was just curious what the. And the funny thing is, is I was kind of wondering if it was that kind of referen. That nickname. It like meant something like derp, derp, Derp, you know, and you’re kind of saying it does. And the other thing too is when you said you got into the techno scene, is it weird that instantly I thought of the last part of the train spotting movie when he discovers the techno scene. And like, because you said, you know, we just came upon this huge techno scene and I just pictured you walking and going, what is this?

FC Stoffel: It was like this. It was some kind of, of Rito’s initial experience because at the Kunstverken Cologne, there were happenings called Electrobunko. And they were just a lot of fog and a stroboscope and loud music. It was very dark and just boom, boom, boom, boom. And I didn’t get techno at all. I play guitar. I played in lots of bands and rock bands, in metal bands. And I always thought techno is, is just pushing knobs and it’s boring. Until I stepped into this, this basement of our arts house and there was just fog. Everybody you could like literally see so far.

FC Stoffel: And then this flashing lights and the sound and, and in like, like 10 minutes I totally was in my, my own world and I understood this music and it was so new and flashing and overwhelming and the sound has you know, a bass drum just can hit you in the chest if it’s really loud and well produced. And it was, you could feel the music with your body. And this was totally new to me and I wanted to find out how to do this and. Yeah,

Tom Ray: okay. And the other thing too, and this is kind of now I used to do a podcast called the Music Manumit Podcast and it was our way of getting involved with the Creative Commons movement. Because here, where I am in Madison, Wisconsin, first of all, where are you located again? Where are you talking to me

FC Stoffel: from? Cologne.

Tom Ray: You’re in Cologne.

FC Stoffel: Okay. Cologne, Germany.

Tom Ray: So when we there was a person here that was part of a Linux user group and he was wanting to set up a Creative Commons music, event. And I was like, my band in town here, we only just discovered it. It’s kind of a fresh new thing. And I’m like, we’re in Madison. We’d like to think that we’re a progressive city and, or like in on top of the new thing city, but we’re really not. We’re a small city, we’re town if you will. And I’m like, you’re not going to be able to have a Creative Commons event. We’re the only band you know, and we just happen to meet each other. I’m like, I don’t know any other bands here. How are we going to throw this event? So we started a podcast. Now one of the things we learned from that podcast, talking with other people, where Creative Commons was really big when it first started happening, it was because one of music downloading, but the other, and this is the thing I learned, is that copyright laws in Europe and other countries are nuts. Like basically what you’re talking about is you were going to a techno event and they were doing this. And one of the laws there is if you play copyrighted material and you have a gathering of more than 11 people, you are breaking the law. If you are not paying for this music or like even if you’re sitting in a garage and you have a radio playing, if you have more than 10 people in there, technically you’re breaking the law. Like the Gamma laws, which is their version of copyright is nuts. And that is one of the reasons that Creative Commons became so big in Europe was because of things like that. So people would start doing that then. The thing is, is, I mean, those still exist, if I’m not mistaken. But the thing is, is that streaming was a good and a bad thing because everybody was like, don’t download our music. And all the indie artists were like, yeah, hell yeah, download our music. Let’s be more popular than the labels. And then, streaming figured out how to go, oh, but if we just let everybody stream it for free, then nobody will want to download. And it’s like, they don’t. And now Creative Commons is kind of a thing where, like, it’s really hard for me to find bands this way. Anyway, that’s a long story in the sense of one. I wanted to ask, do they still have those kind of gathering laws in Europe as far as playing music?

FC Stoffel: Yeah, it’s, Well, in the broad sense, it’s exactly like you said, but it’s not that, harsh. Ah. So if you are throwing a private party which is not publicly announced, then nobody is bothering you with the copyright. So as long as it’s not announced somewhere in a newspaper or on a website, there are a lot of hidden private parties where they just don’t care. And the other thing is that, the gamer has changed a little bit. So if you have a small venue with a small crowd, then you don’t pay so much. So, at the Kunstwerk in Cologne, when we did our concert, it was like €30 or so. So it was not that it was ridiculous because every band we had there playing, they were not members of a collecting society.

Tom Ray: Right. It was just music and gatherings. It was like as a whole. That was the dumb thing. Yeah.

FC Stoffel: And. And sometimes, sometimes I took the effort and I wrote to the gamer and I sent in, the set list and then I got the money back. Because if you, if you don’t play material that is isn’t listed in this collecting society, then they cannot collect the money. So you get the money back. But on

Tom Ray: the other hand, yeah, you still have to go through the steps. And they’re like, nobody’s going to go through the steps and get their money back. They’re going to be like, heck with it, I just paid the $30

FC Stoffel: because. And this is a ridiculous thing, in Germany we have the, Gamer for Mutong, which is the. The assumption that every material you. Every music is copyrighted music and is right, belongs to and the rights belong to the gamer. Which was true maybe 30 years ago, but with. With the DIY scenes and the and the and the creative comm scene, I, I’m not so sure if it’s still true. But in the radio, of course, everything you hear in the radio is associated with the gamer. But now we have the Internet and the podcast and we have huge problems with people who play music which is not copyrighted, where the copyrights are not transferred to the gamer. And they want to do a podcast, but they have to. To license. It’s. It’s totally mess.

Tom Ray: Yeah.

FC Stoffel: My advice, My advice is just do it and wait what happens. Because in. That’s

Tom Ray: nice

FC Stoffel: of the times. Yeah,

Tom Ray: yeah.

FC Stoffel: Won’t be happening anything because you are too small. If you have a podcast with maybe 100 listeners. Yeah, nobody cares.

Tom Ray: Here’s the thing that I find funny about it all. And over here we have ASCAP laws. And for bars, they pay ASCAP fees so they can have the jukebox play stuff and bands can play or like, if cover bands are there, that’s covered. Here’s the funny thing about it. You pay that because they’re like, oh, because of the rights of the artists that make this. How are they tallying that? Okay, you got to pay ASCAP this much. And do they have somebody in the bar all day long going, okay, they played a Van Halen song. Gotcha. So 50 cents to Van Halen. Oh, now there goes the Johnny Cash song. All right, so that goes to Johnny Cat. Like nobody’s checking that. There’s no checks and balances on this thing. And they’re just going, if you pay this, then all the fees are covered. Yeah, well, who’s getting paid for that? That’s always been a problem for me. There’s no fix to it. Nobody can answer it. It doesn’t matter. I just wanted to go on a little

FC Stoffel: winner takes it all system because the big names, so. So the gamer, has statistics what gets played in radio and from there they do some statistics, what will be played in the clubs. And we have a lot of, all the techno people, want to send in their set list so they can get paid, but the gamer always said no. It’s so complicated. And I don’t know, we have like 10 years ago there was there and they still exist. There is a, they call themselves, 3Cs. The creative Comm Society. It’s a German, German society. They want to be an alternative to the Gamma and they, they founded themselves 10 years ago and they are still not acknowledged as an collecting society.

Tom Ray: Right.

FC Stoffel: The gamer has such a huge lobby and money and they don’t want another collecting society besides them. In theory we can have like 10 societies here in Germany. But in practice they, they are like a big oil tanker or something like this. And they do everything to prevent any other society here in Germany. So this is a very, very strange situation. But actually I am too old. I don’t care anymore. I don’t care. I publish my music and Creative Comm Spine and so I don’t care.

Tom Ray: That’s the one thing is that publishing music can actually not have to rely on. Like the big thing was, is it was Napster, Napster and all that with the downloading and you could download anything but you could also put your own on there. That’s what I used to do. I used to go in the chat room and go, hey, check out my band. And now you can just put it on. I mean it’s so there’s not like a one place you go to download whatever music you want. You go visit this person’s site because they told you about it. You listen to their music. You decide whether or not like it’s so scattered that it’s like it’s not even worth it. It’s the same thing like you were saying with submitting the playlist. It’s just like that’s so convoluted. And we would be all day just trying to track down for this one song by this one independent artist who’s. Yeah, it’s so. It’s the good and the bad of the Internet being so vast and so open to everyone nowadays that like you can’t even track it anymore. Now the other thing. Okay, so moving on to the music we got. Okay, this is. We’re no longer talking about licensing. Let’s talk about you. So you talked about the the techno thing. Now I got into techno. I actually did do the, the transition techno to industrial as far as a fan never played it never did it. But I got into techno one because I was underage and there were techno bars that rarely carded you so you could go to techno clubs. So I got into the music just because of that. Because you’d get into it. You were in the scene, all that kind of stuff. But truthfully I was into Waxtrax and industrial stuff. And that goes into the band that I’m talking to you about today. The band where you currently released an album. Now I was trying to pinpoint this. I was trying to decide what it reminded me of. I was listening to your latest album and I’m like, I want to say it has some elements of Liebach. I want. Apart from the propaganda. No propaganda. But want to say maybe some KMFDM I don’t know. And then I’m thinking like maybe Lard because of the guitars but it’s not as fast, you know. So I’m trying to pinpoint. How would you describe your industrial band? How would you describe the music

FC Stoffel: you are talking about Die Leer In Kern Deiner Hoffnung?

Tom Ray: Yes. Which translates into the emptiness at the core of your hope. I had to write that down.

FC Stoffel: Yeah, yeah. you can call it whatever you like. I just describe it as an industrial post industrial duel.

Tom Ray: Yeah

FC Stoffel: it’s, it’s. It’s metal, it’s. It’s a little bit stoner sludge guitar work. It’s a drum computer, just stoic, holding the rhythm. Then it has a brutal bass. I hope so this is the intention.

Tom Ray: No, it’s got good low end. Like it hits hard but it’s also really a slow groove like. Yeah, ah, it’s hard to explain.

FC Stoffel: And then it has My wife Doris, she’s. She’s doing German lyrics. but most of the time spoken. So this reminds a lot of people of a German band called Ideal or the English speaking Audience refer to N. Clark

FC Stoffel: Then there is of course all the influences from the 80s. I’m a huge fan of, of Steve Albini Big Black.

Tom Ray: Okay.

FC Stoffel: Yeah, yeah. This was like ah, wow. What is this?

Tom Ray: Yeah.

FC Stoffel: And then of course God Flesh

Tom Ray: Yeah. I didn’t even think of that.

FC Stoffel: Okay. Stuff like that. And this. Yeah. And this is. And then the experience from, from like 10 years ago when we had this techno thing going on. that you don’t have to change so much the patterns. So, so, so you don’t. You can just find one riff that really is hypnotic and then see how long you can, can, can play it. So. So reducing it. Everything reduced to the max with maximum impact. So this is the idea of the band and the German lyrics are very political and we are more like a left wing band. And Yes. so. So I think that this adds on top of it so that we have. It’s. It’s. Sometimes I say it’s it’s, it’s lyric with brutal industrial sounds under it. So. Yeah,

Tom Ray: yeah. And it’s. So the latest album, which, what is it called? How do you say the name of the title?

FC Stoffel: It’s called the Dead Don’t Protest.

Tom Ray: Oh, okay. I didn’t translate that, that, that title, so I wasn’t aware of what that meant. Now that came out in. I want to say it came out in July this year.

FC Stoffel: Okay,

Tom Ray: so. So tell me about the making of that album. I’m curious, I’m curious how you went about doing it.

FC Stoffel: This is salt in my wounds because we, recorded it in 2020 in, in, in, autumn. 20. no, no, 22. In autumn. 22. And then we had some. And after we recorded it I was like a little depressed and I didn’t have the nerve to mix it. And then some family issues arised, which I don’t want to talk about here, but this took quite some time. yeah. And then I finally got to mix it. So the songs we release are now like four years or five years old.

Tom Ray: Oh, really?

FC Stoffel: Okay. but the funny thing is that somehow we didn’t plan it, but somehow it turned out to be some kind of a concept album. So if, if you, if you want to listen to it like that, you can, can listen to a story of an maybe a wise old woman who is traveling through a post ah, apocalyptic world. And I, I still believe in the, in the power of the enlightenment. You know, the, the, the age of enlightenment where reasoning and, and, and intelligence will prevail over all these fake news.

Tom Ray: And

FC Stoffel: There is little hope that we will, With all this disinformation, there’s little hope for me. But I still believe doing the right thing and, and, and, and a good argument will prevail. I still believe it. I have to believe that the intellect and the ideas of an enlightenment can still, do good. this all is in the lyrics and So every pieces fell together and now we have some kind of story if you want to listen or you listen to it as eight separate tracks and in different directions. So. Yeah.

Tom Ray: Okay. And do you guys write the, the lyrics together? Are they like. How do you go about writing the lyrics for. Yeah, yeah.

FC Stoffel: Most often is, I, I have some kind. Some musical ideas and then we are in our studio and those start singing, improvising, and then there is like one or two verses or a catchy phrase and then I take this phrase and then, and then I’m at home and yeah. And then I start writing, writing, writing, writing lots of stuff. So, so my, my, my, idea to, to, to final text ratio is like ten lines for one that I use. So it’s like ten to one. I, I, I write ten times more than I actually use it. And, and,

Tom Ray: yeah,

FC Stoffel: single words out against each other, trying them and thinking, oh, no, you have, is it us? Is it them? Is it, Is it you? so now this is not a good word. Does it rhyme? No, I don’t want it to rhyme. It’s, it’s totally, weird. But I think I’m, I’m very proud of the lyrics, so I think it’s worth, the effort. And so it’s like, 20% from my wife and 80% from me. Yes.

Tom Ray: Okay. I’m the same way. I’m actually in the process of writing lyrics for a song I’ve been working on right now. And I always find myself going in my head as I’m figuring something out. I’ll be like, is that the line? Should I write that? And then I’m like, why am I, why am I editing it? I’m like, write down everything. Because I know when I try to record it, I’m going to be like, I hate that line. And I’m going to be like, I wish I had another option. So just write everything down and then figure it out later. Because otherwise you have to figure it out on the fly when you’re like, oh, that doesn’t work. And I get, picky about the words because if I’m singing and I’m like, well, that just sounds dumb when I say it. Even if it’s the right word, it’s like when you’re singing it, it’s like, like the word smile. I don’t like to sing the word smile. I think it sounds silly. So I don’t normally go for that. Even if it, if it turns. And rarely is it. But even if it does turn out to be the best possible lyric, I’m like, I gotta think of another one. I can’t, I can’t sing the word smile. It sounds dumb. and that’s just my opinion. There are lots of songs that have the word smile in them that are

FC Stoffel: great. It’s so complicated to, to write good lyrics that actually work when you sing them.

Tom Ray: Yeah.

FC Stoffel: And there are so many levels of, of that you have to consider. So it’s. But on the opposite, I can write a good song. Sometimes I write it just down and it’s, it’s done in 10 minutes. And it’s perfect for me at last. Yeah, so this also happens, but it’s not the rule.

Tom Ray: Now you mentioned the studio before and going, ah, what, what type of. Do you have a home studio? Do you go into a studio? How do you record the album?

FC Stoffel: No, it’s more or less our rehearsal room in this complex called Kunstver. But it’s We have like two separate rooms and in between them is a, Is. Is a window. So we kind of have a A studio room for recording and. And a A room where you can set up a mixing desk. But today nobody uses a mixing desk so anymore.

Tom Ray: But

FC Stoffel: in. In. When we moved in, in there, it was like 1995 when we first moved there.

Tom Ray: Oh, wow.

FC Stoffel: In the 2000s, a friend of mine who was an an engineer for A mixing engineer, he did a lot of live shows for a lot of people here in Germany. And he always wanted to have a studio. And so we started building this and we built it ourselves. and he had a huge mixing console in This, How do you call it? how is it called the room where the mixing console is set up?

Tom Ray: just the mixing room. Studio room.

FC Stoffel: Mixing room. Yeah. And he then moved to Hamburg and he took everything with him. And So. So we still have the setup, but now I, I just get in there with my laptop and a small Mackie mixer. And I have. I have the guitar amp in the other room and my guitar in, In. In. In front of this mixer. And then I start playing the guitar and then do When I am finished with playing all the like, maybe usually I do like three takes. And then. Then I. Of course I have monkey to a left and one guitar right. Stuff like that. But I don’t overthink it too much because the songs are finished and I just have to play them. And then, one week later Doris comes and then we can set up a nice microphone which I can borrow from a friend.

Tom Ray: Okay.

FC Stoffel: yeah. And then she sings. And we do like three or four takes from each. Each song. And yeah, and then I start mixing it and this is where I totally get lost because I still don’t know how to. To mix it like I want

Tom Ray: to. No, all of us musicians love to think we know how to mix. And we’re literally just literally playing it by ear. We go, does that sound good or not? We don’t know why or how it got there, but we. We’re and sometimes the way we go about it, any real engineer would be like it would have been much easier if you just did this instead of like adding 12 plugins and then routing it to another bus or running it through some sort of amp and then recording that, you know.

FC Stoffel: Yeah. But whatever works, works. So.

Tom Ray: Exactly.

FC Stoffel: Yeah. Why? And I don’t care anymore. And I stopped watching YouTube videos and tutorial. This doesn’t help me. So I, I know how a compressor works. I know how a de Esser works.

Tom Ray: Right.

FC Stoffel: I know how equalizer works. And so, so, so I, I stopped watching this, this guys because it doesn’t help me.

Tom Ray: Yeah, it’s like driving a car. It’s like I learned how to do it and now I do it. I don’t need to learn how to do it. Even better. I just need to learn how to drive from point A to point B. That’s it. Get me to where I’m going. that’s awesome. So now I want to ask you about the Net label too. So the Net label you started. I know I was looking at it. and there was a period between 2024 and 2026 where you weren’t releasing anything. But there’s been more releases on it this year. So tell me about what’s. What’s up with the Net label? Tell us about the Net label.

FC Stoffel: Yes, still. Okay. The, this gap from 2024 to 2026 was ah, due to some family. Family issues because we had to take care of a family member. So And yeah, luckily I met some nice people. and most of the friends who are releasing on, on this Net label had stuff in the pipeline and wanted to release it. So I think this year was quite a nice year because we had constant releases and one very nice guy is Herr Iltum. this is the most recent release. is a guy who does a radio show in, in Berlin and he’s also a fan of Creative Commons. but on his radio show he plays some, some other stuff but mostly from the Fediverse. And he’s a really. And I’ve invited him like three years ago I invited him for a concert here in Cologne and he’s a really nice guy and so yes, I’m very proud that he asked me or did I ask him? I don’t know but that he released on this Net label. And yeah, the Net label is like. I still think it’s like friends who are doing something together. it started also as a techno Electronic label. And then, a friend of mine who is doing more experimental stuff, Svan Langut, asked me if I, I could release it. And yes, of course, you’re my friend. I like the music. Why not? And then we have my metal band, we have an electronic label and it releases a, industrial metal album. So marketing wise, insane. But why not? And now the big question for me still, and I don’t have an answer, is what is the role of a Net label these days when everybody can,

Tom Ray: I agree,

FC Stoffel: the music on Bandcamp or on Mirlo if you want, or you can put your music on Spotify everywhere.

Tom Ray: The only argument being, just creating playlists. I mean that’s essentially net labels where somebody curating music that you would go listen to on their website and you would download if you want to. Now you can create a playlist and people can save that playlist and it updates. So depending on where you know, whether it be YouTube, Spotify, or wherever the heck else you’re going to put it. But yeah, no, that’s the same argument I have because I love it as a concept. It’s the same way that I get into zines. Every so often it’s like, or I can just open my phone and look for the things that I want to read about, you know. And it’s also just as big as a zine, my phone. so I’ve been going down the rabbit hole of net labels myself. And my current thing is because I’ve met over the years so many great Creative Commons musicians and net labels and stuff like that. But I want to say I’ve realized me being in a band, it is few and far between that I meet other bands. There’s Louis Ling and the Bombs. there are solo musicians that I meet. It’s still kind of in the same genre, but a lot of the people I meet are electronic solo musicians. They program a lot of their stuff and it’s great. But when I go to promote something, I much like you were saying with the Net label, like, you’re putting this industrial metal stuff on with this techno music and you’re like, that’s crazy. But it’s your label so you can do it. And I’m like, you know, I never really sought out specifically just bands. So I’m like on a hunt for, music, or at least physically playing musicians, rather than techno, stuff or electronic stuff. And it’s not because I don’t like it, but it’s because I realize that at some point I’m the person at the party that doesn’t have the same job as everybody else. And I’m like, oh, I, I want to talk about this thing, but it doesn’t really fit here.

FC Stoffel: Yes. And this is exactly what I am trying to get my head wrapped around is this. I think there is a gap between the solo musicians who do electronic stuff or ambient stuff or dub, techno stuff, and they sitting at the computer doing the music and then it’s just one click and it’s in the Internet. And as a band, you have to somehow record your stuff and then maybe you are not that firm with the Internet or creative commons. So why. I have the feeling that are very few bands in Germany who embraced the idea of creative commons And I don’t know why, because I have a theory why.

Tom Ray: Okay.

FC Stoffel: But, okay, my theory is that the young bands around, like, maybe you’re 25 and you think the music that I’m doing, I am the next genius. I mean, I am the next Rolling Stones, I am the next Prince.

Tom Ray: In fairness, we all did.

FC Stoffel: Ah, I was, You’re

Tom Ray: not saying only this new generation is doing it. You’re. No, no, no. Right now, at this

FC Stoffel: moment. And then I

Tom Ray: just want to make that clear.

FC Stoffel: And then you say, no, no, I cannot do creative commons because I’m such a genius. And someday a big record company will, will, find me. And if it’s creative commons, then I gave it away. And as you grow older, maybe in your 30s, then you realize, okay, reality is kicking in the heart. You are not Prince.

FC Stoffel: And then I think should come a point where you, where you, where you reach out to your true fans and you just say, okay, take my music, pay what you want, and if you want to copy it, please do it. And this transition somehow does not happen with the musicians that are playing in bands here in Germany. I, I don’t know. So what’s your opinion to this? Or.

Tom Ray: see, I. Now what I would think is I was as you were saying that and people going, you know, I want to sell this to a label. I’m thinking to myself, and maybe this is just me, but my understanding of it would be like, I would love to ask a young musician like, hey, what label would you want to be on and see if they can name one. I don’t even know, like, what label would you say? What label? I mean, are people on labels anymore? It’s, it’s one of those things where it’s. I, I feel like if anything it’s more self branding. It’s more. I mean, people doing their own Kickstarters and stuff. The labels that I know a lot of bands, younger bands that I’m aware of, their labels are, hey, we’re on this label. And I’m like, what’s that? And it turns out just to be some indie DIY label, like out of a larger city that puts together shows and has all these bands. And that goes into me kind of the concept of net labels again. But they’re not net labels. They’re young startups. They’re kind of like the way the tech boom was. It’s the way that I see the music industry here and we’ve got a couple of acts in town here that the other benefit being is that a lot of them are on more than one of these labels.

FC Stoffel: Yeah,

Tom Ray: they will announce that. And so I kind of feel like I get what you’re saying and I think that you’re partially correct. But I think the idea of labels is more. What’s more fluid than. Than just like Colombia or, or my God, I really can’t name any other labels. Electron.

FC Stoffel: You have to think big universe. You want to be signed by Universal.

Tom Ray: I think right now it’s really just who is able to actually support the music is my thinking. And truthfully, I think that’s the only benefit. Like right now I do everything myself, create everything myself. And all I can think of is I’d be able to do a lot more if I had somebody else doing this part for me and I could just explain it to them. But at the same time, I can’t not have artistic say or have my hands on, even like the video or album art or something like that. I. I would have a hard time just going make something for this. Give me. What do you think this song should have as a visual representation? I don’t know. I’m getting off point, but still, I kind of agree. But also I just think it’s the fact that people go. I don’t think. I don’t necessarily think they do believe their stuff is under copyright. I think if somebody copies it, they’re going to be like, hey, give me credit for that. What are you doing? You bits something that I made. But at the same time they’d be like, holy crap, this person sampled my thing. I. I feel like it’s more just like the fluidity of the youth, the way that the generation, the things that all the right wingers are so upset about. It really is just the, That’s cool, man. And accepting each other and accepting the music and really kind of going, that’s okay if you use it. I’m fine with it. And not really, I don’t know. I’m. I’m doing kind of more of a peace, love and unicorns sort of look at it. But that’s because I’m hopeful. I hope it is that way. I hope it is. You know, like we were struggling so much to just go, no, we should be able to download all the music. And now everybody’s just like, oh, I just know where everything is and I can do what I want. And I kind of feel like that’s what we were always leaning towards.

FC Stoffel: Yeah. I don’t

Tom Ray: know, man. I’m trying to decide if I sound like an old man ranting about the 60s right now.

Tom Ray: we made it possible for you to be free.

FC Stoffel: I don’t know. Yes. Yeah.

Tom Ray: So no. And I don’t know the answer. I can only speculate. It’s. Yeah, it’s hard to say. And I feel like it is harder to find people that understand what Creative Commons is. But even Creative Commons themselves, I want to say, don’t focus as much on the music anymore. They focus a lot on rights, which is a good thing. But they’re more education based now.

Tom Ray: which they always were. It’s not like they’ve suddenly switched. It’s like that’s always been a factor. But I feel like the music thing is kind of a. Oh yeah. And we do this.

FC Stoffel: So I’ve been to some Open Educational resources meetings here in Germany. And by the way, in, next year in February, there will be an Open Educational resources global meeting on the Internet which runs for two days and it goes around the globe with with the different time zones.

Tom Ray: So

FC Stoffel: yeah, you tune in. It’s What is the website? I think it’s oer.global. yes. Okay. And they, they did it in, in, in the COVID Times in in Corona Covid. they did this first and I joined it and it was quite interesting. All this legal stuff, all these open educational resources stuff. And there were like two talks about music and one was from India. And this was one guy who, who knew every net label, he knew every resource. He gave a crash course in how to find good music which is licensed undergrad. It was fantastic.

Tom Ray: Okay.

FC Stoffel: But this was it. So. So. And one year ago I went to, to a bar camp and nobody wanted to talk about music. So I so wished that we could put the creative back into Creative commons.

Tom Ray: Oh, darn, that’s a good statement right there.

FC Stoffel: Yeah. Yes, the creative side is completely abandoned.

Tom Ray: Yeah, no, even more so on the artwork side. artwork side. Photos and illustration and books. Rarely do you see it. Except for, the Cory Doctorow, a guy I think he’s like, you know, the only one who releases like written works under Creative Commons anymore. I mean, I released my web comics under it, but nobody cares. Everybody just shares images anyway. And that’s the thing is it’s one of those where it’s like, I’m okay with that.

FC Stoffel: As a podcaster, I used To do two podcasts. Well, actually I did Internet radio with a radio station here in cologne called ZXIM Fear FM674FM. And due to the reasons, I stopped it in 2024 and I’m thinking about doing it again. And if I put it on the Internet, due to the gamer situation, I decided I just want to do creative commons music and I don’t have any problems. And two friends of mine, they wanted to to do a podcast with like Rolling Stones music and they couldn’t do it because they have to buy licenses from the game and it was too complicated. So I think this is a big potential of, Creative Commons that you, you can, can do nice stuff with it. And all the young bands, they put all rights reserved on the Bandcamp page. They write, pay what you want, nobody buys it.

Tom Ray: Right.

FC Stoffel: I just go two clicks further and I find a band with the same sound and they have creative commons under it and it’s fine. So, and this is something we, we have to get into the minds of these young bands that they, they will be fine if I use it in, in my radio show. Yeah, but, but I don’t want to write like 20 emails.

Tom Ray: Everybody’s afraid that it’s going to show up in some multi billion dollar commercial for like something that they don’t like. I love that example. So many times people would tell me it’s like, or somebody like Exxon will use it in one of their commercials. And I’m like, if you think Exxon is trolling around for like some home recorded band to put into their commercial, I think they have a bigger problem. Well, actually

FC Stoffel: I really would like to have Exxon, our music in. In. In. In. In their commercial. This, this would be a very nice.

Tom Ray: Especially you and I, because we put it under, attribution, share like both you and I. So that means they would have to release it under the same thing. So then I can remix Their commercial however I want. Because it would be under attribution.

FC Stoffel: Yes, this. Yeah, this.

Tom Ray: So I’d be able to do my own voiceovers and everything. Yeah, but. But yeah, that’s. That. That sort of stuff

FC Stoffel: would be really, really nice.

Tom Ray: I would love that. That would be great if that ever happened. It’s kind of the same thing like with, if you do a cover song and it’s like, oh, aren’t you worried about being sued by that person? It’s like one, think of the publicity and two, I’d be able to meet the person that I’m. That’s suing me like they’re my hero. because I’ve always wanted to meet that artist. Anyway, I wanted to mention too, before I forget. So on, Bandcamp, the other thing too is while there is the choice to release your stuff under, Creative, Commons, which most bands that I’ve interviewed that I met on Bandcamp, I asked them why they released their music under that and they go, because I saw the choice on Band Camp and I thought that was a good idea. They had no idea that they were talking about a license. They were just like going, you’re telling people on band. They think it’s a Band Camp thing. They think you’re going, oh, yeah. And people can like put it in their podcasts or in their videos. And I thought that would be cool. And it’s like they, they think that’s all it is is. It’s just. You’re saying that on your Band Camp page, but it’s actually, There’s a whole process in existence behind it. But Band Camp still does not allow for filtering by Creative Commons license.

Tom Ray: this very day they do. Not that, but that. But they allow it as a choice. Like just add it as a filter. You have a filter for every other sub genre, location, things like that. You go to the search page and there’s a big, huge, just complicated, convoluted search thing and they can’t add creative. Com. It’s literally something that’s on the page that they could totally filter by. Anyway, sorry, I got really angry about that. That was a trigger point for

FC Stoffel: me. I think it’s obvious that it’s, a political decision By Bandcamp They, they don’t want to do it. They can do it. It would be no problem. But they don’t want to do it. And this is really a pity. And, Yeah, so I, I can work around it. You can, you can, you can have a nice, search.

Tom Ray: yeah, you can still do like a mechanical search.

FC Stoffel: Yeah, I still find stuff, stuff on Bandcamp that is under creative concept. Yeah, I, I, I don’t see the reasoning behind it. Why don’t they have this filter? But, yeah, okay.

Tom Ray: Yeah,

FC Stoffel: so it’s, it’s enchitification. Like, Cory Doctorow nailed this term and shittification. So it’s. I’m too old. I don’t care anymore. It’s. The world is going down. I don’t.

Tom Ray: Fight is over. Darn kids and their music and their video games. so, okay, before we, before we end this conversation today, I did want to ask about, you do play out live? Yeah. Tell me about your live show.

FC Stoffel: Yes, well, the live show is, just, we have some, some videos on, on YouTube.

Tom Ray: Yes. That’s what I’ve seen. Yeah.

FC Stoffel: Yeah. And this is, well, this is insane because I’m not on Facebook, I’m not on Instagram. I don’t like all these social media stuff, but some you have to die one death. So we are on YouTube because I’m getting into PeerTube and this Fediverse thing, of videos, but I have to find my time to explore it a little bit more. So we have videos on YouTube on there. You can see, see what we are doing. It’s, it’s just me on the guitar, massive noise, and my Doris is singing and shouting. And then we have a, we have a laptop where the drum computer is playing and the bass is playing, which stands somewhere at the side.

Tom Ray: Yeah, that’s what I was wondering.

FC Stoffel: the song is not, it’s not a timeline from start to end. It’s always the parts. It’s like, okay, here we have the verse and then I have a foot switch where I switch to the next part, like the pre chorus. And then we play it like we feel most often mo. Most often it’s, it’s timed. It’s like eight bars of this, four bars of that and that. But in the moment, if you feel, oh, this is going, and the

Tom Ray: audience

FC Stoffel: feeling it, then I can extend it and I can go a little bit longer.

Tom Ray: How are you triggering that with the foot pedal. It’s actually something I’ve wanted to Attempt to do. So how are you making it so that it stays on

FC Stoffel: there? I have this, it’s so, so it’s, it’s a small, media temp. It’s

Tom Ray: a

FC Stoffel: small company from Germany and they have a foot switch from, yeah, from, from jax to, to, to midi.

Tom Ray: Okay.

FC Stoffel: I’m using Ableton Live, but in a very old version. It’s, it’s number nine, version nine. And I’m still using Windows XP because it just works. It just works. And that

Tom Ray: was possibly the oldest curmudgeon thing that you could say is, is that you’re on Windows xp because it still works. Like the IT department at, like most of the companies that I worked at, it still works

FC Stoffel: fine. It’s never connected to the Internet. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s just a laptop for doing music.

Tom Ray: Okay.

FC Stoffel: And this is, it’s the best part ever. I cannot check emails on the, when I’m doing music. And it’s, it’s an old, ThinkPad. It’s like really old think. It’s Wait, It’s a, T61.

Tom Ray: All right.

FC Stoffel: I bought it for €200. And I have a second one with the exact same setup. And if one fails, I just switch to the next. And then I go to the shop. We have a used, notebook shop here in Cologne. I go to the shop and buy another one for €200. And I always have two, two laptops set up. And the last time I, I bought this laptop, it was with Windows 11 or something like that. And I said, no, I want Windows xp. So I installed Windows xp. But then I had to, authorize, How do you call it?

Tom Ray: yeah, no, I know the security code. Yeah,

FC Stoffel: yeah, I had to get the code, but there was no website anymore. But I could call via telephone. So I called the number and I, and I, I, I died in my, my serial code. And then

Tom Ray: I

FC Stoffel: got this robot voice saying, okay, now you put in 3, 6, 7, and I typed

Tom Ray: it in

FC Stoffel: then, whoa. Windows XP was running again.

Tom Ray: Oh man. So do you have the foot, the foot pedal. Do you have it trigger by loop markers or how do you get it to switch from one to the other when you hit the foot? Yeah,

FC Stoffel: it’s in. Enabled live. It’s quite simple. You have these scenes, in the arrange. In the arrangement view, you have the scenes. And when you trigger one scene, it automatically goes to the next scene and waits for the next trigger.

Tom Ray: Okay.

FC Stoffel: Actually, I’m, I’M thinking about because I really like all these Linux stuff. My, My home computer.

Tom Ray: That’s what I was thinking of. They just added a thing called Clips, which is like scenes into Ardour, on. On Linux. And that’s what we use. We use Ardour. And I just recently started messing with the clips. Anyway, sorry,

FC Stoffel: yes, and I really want to get into I really want to make the switch to Linux because I’m using Debian on my, on my other computer like 10 years now. And we have here in Cologne we have a nice people, meetup of Linux Audio User Group, Zonoy Music Club. I don’t. I can send you the link.

Tom Ray: Yeah,

FC Stoffel: and they very nice people, but they are computer people.

Tom Ray: I’ve

FC Stoffel: been there two times and they were, you have to install Arch Linux and you have to do this and then you. And you have to.

Tom Ray: Everybody wants to install Arch. I’m so sick of hearing about Arch.

FC Stoffel: Yeah. So what are you using? What are you using?

Tom Ray: I use Ubuntu Studio, but that’s because it was so I could. The rest of my band are not. Well, not tech people per se. Some of them are not tech people at all. Some of them. They’re not necessarily Linux people or they don’t really get into it as much as I do. But I can set them up with Ubuntu Studio. It’s installed and then it’s like whenever I go, oh, we’re going to use this. And they go, how do I do that? And I’m like, it’s already on there. You’re cool.

Tom Ray: and that’s the main reason is because that way we all have the same stuff. I’ve used Ubuntu in the past. I’ve used AV Linux, I’ve tried Fedora, Debian, all that kind of stuff. But we use Ubuntu Studio now because of just all of the ease of use between all. Because I changed all of the band over to it. So that’s what we use to record now.

FC Stoffel: And this is what I’m thinking about. I’m thinking about switching to Ubuntu Studio, which is not a big step from Debian anyway.

Tom Ray: Right.

FC Stoffel: And maybe I want to, to try out the Bitwig, software. It’s

Tom Ray: A lot of people talk about that. Yeah,

FC Stoffel: yeah, yeah. Ah, it’s. Well, you have to pay for it, but, but it’s maximum. I have a very good impression of it and yes, of course, Arduo Studio and stuff like that. But I need a system that just works. You know, I powered it on and then it just works. And I don’t, I don’t want to think about, updates and stuff like that, so.

Tom Ray: Right.

FC Stoffel: Yeah. And forget this is. So.

Tom Ray: Yeah. And now you don’t have to use Jack anymore. You don’t have to use. Actually the, the kernel is, has improved so much over the years that they’re actually getting rid of the low latency kernel because it’s unnecessary. So you don’t have to have a special thing for that. so it’s, it’s gotten a lot.

FC Stoffel: I really was afraid of Jack. I, I, I got into it, I had had a glance at it and I thought, oh, this is. No, it’s too complicated for me.

Tom Ray: Yeah, no, that now they have a, a GUI interface that’s called Patchins if you need it. I have yet to, I only have to open it when I have to do a specific connection to something. And it’s just like connecting wires from like the back of one rack into the back of another rack. Like, it’s very visual now. But yeah, no, I have, I don’t even think Jack comes installed on Ubuntu Studio anymore. Like, you do not have to use it anymore. It’s going through pipe, wire now. So it’s all good now.

FC Stoffel: Our live show. Oh

Tom Ray: yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

FC Stoffel: One thing we have in, in the background I, I made some, some cctv, lighting out of Plexiglas. And there I have like four in the background and they are flashing. and this is also triggered from Ableton Live. I have a small, a small pack which receives MIDI signals and then it’s flashing to the, to the audio. And when we played in, summer, there was a, science fiction meeting here in Germany, the Eurocon, in, in Berlin. It was called the metropolcon. And I know the people who organize this stuff. I don’t know. Do you know all this worldcon thing, Science fiction world consists.

Tom Ray: I do, I do. I’m more of a comic guy, but I do know science fiction. I’m comic, I’m science fiction adjacent. Like I’m in the world, but I’m not really hardcore into it.

FC Stoffel: Yeah. Okay. But if you’re comic, you’re going to Comic Cons. Yeah. Okay, so, so the, the World Con is the same, but books and it’s not, it’s not like a Star Trek. Com, where everybody is, is dressed up. It’s really focused on, on the literature side of it, it’s, it’s, it’s not these geeky, I want to dress up or it’s, it’s not cosplay. It’s, it’s really. Let’s talk about the books. So,

Tom Ray: yeah,

FC Stoffel: and I’m, I’m a little bit into this. I did a podcast about science fiction books with a friend a long time ago. And this was Europe Con in Berlin in July. And I knew there were a lot of people from. Not from Germany. So I, I managed to do some subtitles well over titles in this case. And I had had a second laptop which was connected to the, to the Ableton Live. And whenever it received MIDI signal, a MIDI node, it switched the to the next line.

Tom Ray: Okay, I’ve heard about that

FC Stoffel: quite well. Sometimes it went out of sync because we were playing live and we are not on a, on a timeline this exact. But overall it really worked nice. And there were a lot of people. There were There were chairs in the, in the room. In the front there were a little space so people were standing there and moving, but in the back there were chairs and the people were sitting there like in an. I don’t know, like in a theater or in an opera. And I thought it’s okay, this is really interesting. We are. It’s like an, like an opera. It’s, it’s like, like, like music theater to them. And, and this was really crazy experience. But I think with our lyrics and the And the reduced rhythmic And. And the reduced riffs which are kind of hypnotic. I think you can experience all the stuff like, like, like music theater.

FC Stoffel: So.

Tom Ray: Yeah, no, I

FC Stoffel: don’t know, but this was my impression anyway, so.

Tom Ray: Right. That’s the way it felt at the time.

FC Stoffel: Yeah. And one thing I, I like to talk a lot as you can mention here now. So in, in between the songs. Well, usually in the beginning of the concert I, I just too short and I just do short announcements. But as the evening gets longer I explain a lot more. And then I really. Sometimes I really get into rambling about the German politics. Like you know, one, one phrase I always like to mention is, Shooting the messenger has now become a public sport because the activists against climate crisis are arrested for just saying how the reality really works. So stuff like that. And then I get rambling and rambling and until somebody shouts. Play some more music. Okay.

Tom Ray: Yeah, I was just about to go. You’re not really going to go into your whole rant that you just said that you can go on and on about. Are you.

FC Stoffel: Yeah, if I’m on fire, I can talk for hours.

Tom Ray: Well, that’s the problem here is that we do have to end the show eventually. So I am going to ask you one last question and that is, if people wanted to learn more about your band, where could they go do that?

FC Stoffel: Just go to our website, dieleereimkerndeinerhoffnung.de which nobody will understand now. So I hope you have some kind of link written out.

Tom Ray: There’ll be a link in the, in the notes of the show. Yes, of course, course.

FC Stoffel: And please, please visit our, our nice little net label because they are all friends of they are doing so wonderful music and I think everybody needs to be heard and and, and, and, and, and visit all the other fantastic net labels and maybe, maybe I will do my podcast again. If you are on declinegrful.de you can find the podcast and there is a lot of lists of playlists where you find fantastic bands all over the world.

Tom Ray: All right, well, I want to thank you very much for talking to me today. This has been fantastic.

FC Stoffel: Thank you for having me here.

FC Stoffel

Listen on: