How did Mekong Delta start
The line-up and the history of german band Mekong Delta was to be the best kept secret in the world. At the end of '85 an idea was born to start a studio project with german metal musicians. It was suppost to outshine all independent releases musically. The thought that german musicians would not be accepted, made the people of the project decide to keep everything about the band a secret. The name Zardoz was rejected followed by the acceptance of the name "Mekong Delta", named after a riverbed in Vietnam. The entire project was started by Ralph Hubert, sound-engineer of Warlock, Steeler and Living Death, and owner of the recordlabel "AAARRG". The first demo's are recorded with the following line-up:
Jochen Schröder (ex-Rage) on guitar Peavy Wagner (Rage) on bass Jörg Michael (ex-Rage and Paganini) on drums Wolfgang Borgmann on vocals
Jochen Schröder did not fit in and was soon replaced by both 'Living Death' guitarists Reiner Kelch and Frank Fricke. When Peavy leaves the project, Ralph takes the bassguitar himself (on the albums he's better known as Björn Eklund, and by that name he does all the telephone interviews in the name of Mekong Delta) Also he replaces the rest of the band, so the line-up looks like this:
Björn Eklund (Ralph Hubert) on Bass/Acoustic guitar Gordon Perkins (Jörg Michael) on Drums/Percussion Rolf Stein (Frank Fricke) on Guitar/Backing vocals Vincent St. Johns (Reiner Kelch) on Guitar/Backing vocals Keil (Wolfgang Borgmann) on Vocals/Stick
The Albums
These five men record the self-titled album 'Mekong Delta', produced by Ralph Hubert himself. For the shortly thereafter following Picture Disc "The Gnome", Jörg Michael was replaced by Patrick Duval (Ulli Kusch) because he was touring with his current band. After a year of complete silence, Ralph and his men return to the studio around newyear '87/'88, and record the concept album 'The Music Of Erich Zann', with the same line-up and again produced by Ralph. After finishing the album, Reiner Kelch leaves the group because of differences with the other members. Due to, or, because of the mystery (there are no pictures of the band at that time, everyone is using a false name, and there have been no live performances), the band's big breakthrough stays out. Many people think that "The Music Of Erich Zann" could well be the last Mekong Delta album ever made.
How wrong can those people be. Reiner was replaced by Mark Kaye (Uwe Baltrusch) and at the end of 1988, Mekong Delta releases the 12" 'Toccata' and in the spring of 1989, "The Principle Of Doubt" hits the stores. Frank Fricke then leaves the band to concentrate himself on other musical styles, and the band decided not to replace him as Uwe was able to play all guitars alone. Another long period of silence followed, and again people believed it was over with. This period was used to compose a "Rondo for Rockgroup" (now, better known as Dances of Death). While recording the album, Wolfgang (picture: second from the right) leaves the band because he couldn't identify himself with the material of this album. He was replaced by the american Doug Lee, former singer of Siren. Doug has known Ralph for several years and when Ralph asked him to join Mekong Delta, Doug accepted. These men finished recording the album "Dances of death (and other walking shadows)". After recording this album, Jörg Michael leaves the band and was replaced by swiss drummer Peter Haas. They also started touring through europe, and on the 12th of October 1991 they played their first gig in holland. The CD 'Live at an exhibition' was recorded a day later in Germany. The release of "Kaleidoscope"; could be seen as one of their best efforts to reach new fans. The band itself about this album:
Ralph Hubert
For me, Kaleidoscope is the best done combination between complexity and the possibility to listen to music without going deep into technical structure of the composition until now. You can listen to the record while doing something, but you can also sit down with a headphone and listen to the path of the instruments which play the song together, but all walk on own ways, which actually are own songs...
Uwe Baltrusch
After Ralph showed me the riffs for the new album I was totally amazed, 'cause they were a big new task for me. Riffs which were so groovy and also full of complexity we haven't had before. I am sure - and Ralph knows this - that this is the best album we have done so far.
Peter Haas
While touring I noticed that the work for the new album, on which the first time I could work together with the guys, would become incredible cool. The first time I would be able to play strange things on drums without the other musicians getting out of time or asking me endless questions about the rhythm because they did not understand what I play.
Doug Lee
For me as singer the new record is a big step forward 'cause this is the first time that Ralph takes care of the vocals while composing, so I could put in my voice the way I thought of.
"Kaleidoscope" also contains a coverversion of genesis's 'Dance on a vulcano'. The release of 'Classics' in 1993 shows what the band has been up to since their first album. Only the tracks on this album are a collection of all classical pieces Ralph has ever arranged for the band. The only classical track missing on this album is 'Sabre Dance', which can be found on the "Kaleidoscope" album. In 1994 Mekong Delta still has not given up hope and continue their work with the release of 'Visions fugitives', with yet another classical masterpiece arranged by Ralph. The rumors that Peter Haas would have left the band are false. Ralph stated: "Peter didn't leave us, he is just a professional and works in different groups to survive."
Then came a silence of 2 years in which we heard nothing of Mekong Delta. Not even a 12" or CD-Maxi was released. In januari 1997 the release of "Pictures At An Exhibition" was a fact. On this album Doug is not mentioned, and he's not even singing on this album (because it's completely instrumental). Later that year the group released their CD-ROM, containing a complete discography of the band as well as a biography about Modest Mussorgski (the original composer of 'Pictures at an exhibition'). The CD-ROM also contains a virtual tour along different 'pictures' from different artists, which have been made for the group's cd-booklet of 'pictures...'. Finally, the CD-ROM also contains some never before published photo's from the band and some 'live'-clips (in .MOV format).
In november of 1997, Mekong Delta had finished remixing and remastering the first of their albums. 'The principle of doubt' is now available in a new Re-mixed/Re-mastered version. Continuing through the first half of 1998, Ralph has been remixing all other Mekong Delta albums so they would sound much better than the originals and they would be available again and much easier to find and to buy. 'Dances of death' was the second album to be remixed.
As I write this, it's the year 2000 and all Mekong Delta albums should be remixed by now.
It's Januari 2001 and there has been no word from any of the musicians of Mekong Delta. The last thing that's been known to turn up is that Ralf has fled to Turkey or Greece for reasons unknown at the time.
Source: http://listen.to/mekong-delta
