Name: Michael Reinboth
Nationality: German
Occupation: Label founder at Compost, magazine founder and party organiser at Elaste, DJ, co-producer at Beanfield
Current release: Michael Reinboth is currently in the process of preparing a major book about the history of Elaste. This is what he can already reveal about the book at this moment:

“There will be two or three new written forewords in the book which describe the “making of Elaste”, one article about the spirit of the time and more … 300 pages, around thousand photos, a 100 page text / article supplement in German and English, articles, interviews, reviews, poems and stories and some VIP quotes about Elaste and a lot quotes from our famous interview partners, 2800 dropped names whoever was ever mentioned in all the issues.”

If you enjoyed this Michael Reinboth interview and would like to know more about Elaste, visit the mag's website. To dive in even deeper, we recommend our earlier Michael Reinboth about his past in and views on music journalism, as well as his comments on Munich as a music city.



What were the earliest days of Elaste like? How did the idea come up, who was part of the project? How did you produce and “distribute” copies of the magazine?

Amazing times, best in my life. Of course I had good heydays later on, too, but 1980 to 1985 was impregnable. It was such a vibrant and a unique time with its mixture of creative people from all genres and cultural scenes, like punks, new wave, disco, music, film, photography, fashion, art people were working, dancing and drinking together. Today it’s obviously different.

The idea for Elaste was just like a logical fusion of these mixed up crowds, the atmosphere of departure everywhere, in clubs, bars, galleries, schools or offices. Elaste was of course produced analogue, each issue tooks nearly half a year until we could distribute it by ourselves.

We drove to all major cities in Germany and distributed Elaste to clubs, bars, restaurants, street vendors, galleries, fashion boutiques and few selected magazine stores. In the beginning we were only three guys: Thomas Elsner, Christian Wegner and myself, and we did everything - layout, interviews, writing articles, distribution - by ourselves ... from 1982 onwards with issue number 3 up to 16, we had a bunch of friends and helping hands.

We started in 1980 with 3,000 copies of Elaste no 1 and ended 1985 with issue 16 and 18,000 copies. It’s very very hard to fetch an original copy nowadays. I once saw a copy for €180 at Ebay recently.

We are in the process of publishing a “Best of Elaste” book (ca. 300 pages) which will see the light of day in February or March 2024. Thomas Elsner and myself have been working on this Elaste book for 5 years, starting with transforming analogue into digital, clearing rights with writers, photographers for re-print. It’s hard, time-consuming work.

What was the focal point of the mag? What did you write about, who were interviewees, how would these be conducted?

Our scopes covered all cultural forms, from comic, music, film. fashion, architecture, art, philosophy, politics, literature, underground scenes, photography, up to local VIP gossip. We had exclusive photos by: Ellen von Unwerth, Sheila Rock, Claus Wickrath, Eamon McCabe, Marc LeBon, Jean Jaques Castres, Martin Brading and many others.

We have had Interviews with: Andy Warhol, Kraftwerk, Pedro Almodovar, Bill Wyman, Dieter Meier (Yello), Marcel Reich-Ranicki, Mick Jagger, Charles Wilp, Bob Wilson, Boy George, John Lydon (Sex Pistols) and many others, and we had famous writers contributions by: Giovanni Di Lorenzo, Maxim Biller, Diedrich Diederichsen, Jon Savage, Patrick Moxey, Thomas Meinecke, Klaus Walter and many others.

At the time, non of them was particularly famous … but all of them achieved a high level of popularity later on.

What was the feedback to Elaste like, both from readers and artist featured in the magazine?

Hmmm usually very good. But Elaste was a cultish underground magazine and the cool cats were to cool to give feedback. Of course we got amazing feedback as you can see in the names list above – it's really a who is who of contributors.

To be honest, we were also to cool to answer letters to editors or making further sustainable contact to all the VIPs and dons and famous artists we met. Hey, we met everybody, from Andy Warhol, Mick Jagger, Yello, Pedro Almodovar, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Kraftwerk, Nina Hagen, Duran Duran, Depeche Mode and 100 more superstars - but we never stayed in touch with them.

I was invited by Bill Wyman to play table tennis in his house in South France, we were invited by Andy Warhol (we had dinner with him in Hannover) to visit him again in his Factory NYC …. we got drunk with Duran Duran and had a 2 night hotel party with Heaven 17. You can read each and every single one of these stories in the Elaste book next year.

I know there will be more on this  when the book is published, but can you give me a very short history of Elaste?

Elaste were founded and published by Thomas Elsnesr, Christian Wegner and myself in 1980. Christian is a photographer and nowadays still photographer and accessories designer in China. Thomas is still living – like me – in Munich. He is a trained photographer and graphic designer. Thomas made the whole layout of Elaste for which / he won 3 awards back in the days.

With Thomas I have been running Elaste Records since last year. And we started DJing again – so we did and are doing some Elaste parties where we play all kind of new wave, industrial, bit punk, EBM, electro, proto-disco, all that great and straight early 80s sounding stuff. Means 90 percent old stuff, rest new tracks which replicate the vibe and sound … Elaste Issue 1 had 60 pages, later on up to 110 pages. 16 issues in total …

We had to cease Elaste in 1995 , simply we couldn’t make a living (moneywise) from it, being cool and running an expensive, time-consuming magazine. We were nearly bankrupt. In ’85 we had to take up regular jobs. Thomas became art director of Vogue (Männer and Miss Vogue), I stepped deeper into music journalism, DJing, started running my own parties and did some music consultant jobs.
 
Elaste was often compared or associated with the magazine I-D which started a few month earlier than us, and bit later also compared to The Face, Wiener, Tempo, or Actuell in France. But Elaste was more underground and had no big publishing company as a backdrop for economic conditions and distributions.

There were Elaste compilations as well as Elaste parties – what was the connection between Elaste and Compost like?

Since Thomas Elsner and me have been friends since ’79, and both started as DJs in Hannover, we are both following, sharing and liking the music of our youth. We did not come from scratch with all of this - we really lived all of this, it’s our history, our genesis.

The four Elaste compilations (first in 2007, last  2013) were a mixture, an A&R decision of Zeitgeist, disco revival, our history, licensing raries, reflecting the open mindness of Compost. The comps came out with the cosmic disco revival around 2007. Thomas Elsner made the beautiful graphic design for the Elaste compilations.

Participating in music, in the beginning, is often playful and then becomes increasingly routine. How important is playfulness for you today and if it is important, how do, concretely, you retain it?

Oh yes you’ve made a good, important point, because I know a lot of good people who couldn’t handle the routine - keeping the fun, the passion, can be a challenge. Often they are lost in drugs, guzzled up by bureaucracy, by partners, by the biz, flops … or if artists are very successful, sometimes they became arrogant or self-centered, isolated.

I think it is very important to handle the routine (especially the Sisyphus back end work, paper work, legal matters, account stuff and all those things which have to be handled professionally), with pleasure and spirit and desire. I think it requires a convinced mindset to enrich the playfulness and fun again and again. If you accomplish that, you'll regain your respect after that routine work is done. If you lose the passion to work for your artists, it can be over. If you steadily work for your own career, for your personal profile and stardom, it can be dangerous.

Better stay down to earth, remain real yet avoid the routine becoming a mental overkill. And you should have friends, of course good staff to handle it.

I am still nervous when I am DJing. To me, that’s a good sign. If anything were to turn into a mirthless routine, I guess I would immediately stop and take another path. Being, handling flexible is a key.

You once mentioned that Nelly Furtado almost ended up on Compost. How did this come about – and how do you look back on that decision from today?

Nelly Furtado never ended up on Compost although we did have the chance to sign her first ever single. But we didn’t.

From today's point of view it was the right decision. If we had gone through with that deal, we would not have had the space, and capacity for our other artists or compilation series and indie label life. We wanted and still want to stay indie, underground. We can not deal with charts, majors or tough managements.

Anyway, I don’t regret that.

Was there ever a moment in the history of Compost that you thought that things could lose the initial joy that sparked your love for music?

I never had the feeling that things could lose the joy. I am not cheerful by nature.

On one hand I am a person who hates narrow minded people or narrow minded DJ sets or producers who repeat themselves, or musicians who are still playing their old old sound and getting old with it. On the other hand I do nothing particular for my mindset, neither physically (sports or something similar) nor taking drugs or reading books about mentality, how to have success or how to survive.

Also,  I do not believe in something abstract. I have no idols. I keep faith in openness and I am not in it for getting rich. My tastes when it comes to my most beloved records are changing from time to zeitgeist.

Compost has an instantly recongisable profile while also being highly versatile. That said, is there still space for just doing something for the sake of it, just like you once did with Elaste?

Yesss! Nearly every project we sign or run is for the sake of showing openness, mutability. Mutability is maybe the best description. And the old Elaste days offered a lot of room to move freely and with free room of motion, much more than it might be possible in times of fake Internet mobility. Guess everybody can see or read that I am a Bowie fan. I don’t change outfits so much - in that vein I am conservative. But I am a mental chameleon.

In general music - and politics – there are so many good and bad things going on, and there is to much good music around (old or new), that it would be mentally defective to miss out on that. It makes me happy if we can show just a tiny little bit of the good side of these cosmos and I am always happy and still getting goosebumps if I hear an amazing new or old track.

And with my experience, that refreshes the routine, this keeps me young (I am 64 but that’s just a number). It's still getting better, going on for longer, giving me more joy. Perhaps forvever.

The music industry has become more professionalised than ever. Especially artists have learned to treat their vocation as a job and/or business. Is that something you regard as encouragng or as a loss of innocence?

Yes, it is true that artists can achieve much, much more by themselves. And yes, they should make use of that. For example, by maintaining their Insta account.

On the other hand I do feel that I should point out that they also need reliable partners, friends and helping hands. A label nowadays is more or less nothing else than working as a team of buddies – contrary to big companies, large booking agencies, global distributors. We understand ourselves as such buddy teamwork. That’s why a lot of old Compost artists are still with us.

Almost all good artists we respect have built their own network, label imperium, sublabels or booking unit, so the basic label work is still needed and necessary for digital deliveries (no single person can send music to Spotify without an aggregator or label) for promotion, and the backbone for success, for cult status and a kind of replacement for family. A tasty label trademark may help in terms of promo, awareness.

So yes, the business has changed a lot, but artists can respond to the demands of the times with even more flexibility and concentrate on the creative, artistic side if they have a bunch of professional friends doing the job for them.