Rude performance art, sonic violence, nudities, dirt, digital madness and fun! Fuckhead started in 1988 as an industrial music duo. since then fuckhead has been performing with various lineups and setups in squats, regular clubs and art spaces all over europe and overseas until now. the founders were the Bruckmayr brothers in linz/austria, who had played “killing joke” sound in austria and germany with their band dead souls in the mid 80s. on vocals and noise generators the punk, david bowie and kraftwerk fan didi bruckmayr, on drums younger brother [crixi bruckmayr. fuckhead was the title of a track from the very political industrial music band test dept. in 1990 the band had grown into a quintett featuring drums, a straight bass, a noise bass, a guitar and vocals, playing a weird kind of noise rock mainly in hardcoreclubs and squats. after 2 studio recordings and tours through germany, poland and italy the guitar and the noise bass players left the band in 1990. they were replaced by two young free jazzers, who shared the band«s interest in electronic music, deathmetal, industrial music and performance art. the new bass player joe linschinger was a trained piano player, the new guitar player michael strohmann basically a bass player, both soon attended classes in computer music at the university for music in vienna. the band started to work on ironic, grotesque stage choreographies and performances like “studies on the human egg” or “unstable sculptures of stupid naked men”, that would cause massive misunderstandings. “special” promo pictures in upper austria«s leading newspaper caused a huge local scandal and state police appearance on the follwing shows. after a show in an underground club run by two gay boys in hannover the band was banned from german underground stages for being homosexual neonazis. the band was too arty and irritating for the underground, but too dirty punk for the art scene.
real fun started! after 2 cd recordings for indie label “gash” drummer crixi bruckmayr moved to germany and the old bass player quit as well. didi kern, former car mechanic, then techno dj and furious jazz drummer, joined the band and established a strong double bass. the band made friends with audio/video hackers ost and hiaz fm from famous electronic music project “farmers manual”, who produced for the label “Mego”. in 1998 the band recorded “the male comedy” for mego, an extreme mix of electronic glitch, noise, free jazz, ambient music and metal. didi kern became the distribution manager of mego. vocalist Didi Bruckmayr went for his phD in economy and concentrated on rude performances like suspensions on hooks, hyperventilation and vomiting. the band hired additional performers like opera singer siegmar aigner from the states opera in vienna, a cousin of didi bruckmayr and former basketball pro, also arthur the sword swallower, or experimental guitar player martin siewert. the band started to perform parts of the show in the audience, using feathers, various fluids etc. band members were naked exept gaffa tape around their dicks and wore black shoes. the shows were a brilliant mess. the band had already produced 2 music videos with digital producer team koch/suk. while “ignorant” got massive airplay, “inside fiction outside war” earned a honorable award at ars electronica festival 1996. due to interventions of local politicians the video did not get the main award. in 1998 the band produced a video for the cd track “burnout brain” with hiaz fm and famous gfx artist tina frank and started to visualise the whole fuckhead live set. hiaz fm introduced didi bruckmayr to object orientated programming, who continued the development of a fuckhead “video arena”, when hiaz fm moved to the uk. scott walker invited the band to the famous meltdown festival in london, which was a major success for the band. a lot of wild festival appearances followed. bbc channel 4 interviewed the band in a public restroom in vienna later on. scott walker sampled from the band for his famous cd “the drift”. didi bruckmayr made his phD and trained for his amateur boxing fights.
the band took a break from fuckhead and performed as a deranged dance combo in silver suits with black faces in the play “elevator symphony” for off theatre company “toxic dreams” in coffee houses all over austria. text fragments from political speeches of austrian politicians, bad jokes, embarrassing music and stupid dances caused a lot of confusion and irritation. when bass player joe linschinger left the band in 2002, he was replaced by opera singer and composer siegmar aigner . the band toured australia and japan successfully and began the work on new choreographies, audio and video tracks. drummer didi kern started to play drums for the notorious noise rockers “bul bul” as well. didi bruckmayr and michael strohmann since then have focused strongly on realtime 3d environments and multichannel audio setups to expand the stage appearance of fuckhead. therefore they’ve created a couple of side projects like “mongobloc” with international appearances. both worked on several multimedia projects for theatre or opera. they won the main award on austrias independent film festival in 2004 and had a lot of screenings on international festival since then. didi bruckmayr performed on austria’s main stage “burgtheater” as well. nevertheless the band kept on playing the clubs and finished the big dvd project in 2006: a collection of new audio and video tracks, live video recordings, interviews and the full back catalogue. the dvd is out on the label mosz in feb 07. fuckhead already showed their new “revue” in the museum serralves/porto in nov. 06 and will hit the clubs in 2007.

Line up:
Didi Bruckmayr: vocals
Siegmar Aigner: vocals
Michael Strohmann: composition, electronix, bass
Dieter Kern: drums
Alexander Joechtl: mix
Peter Pittermann : lights

Thomas Grusch: lights