For William Röttger there was nothing worse than the supposedly good music or idea from yesterday. Ever, was his motto, never stop, further, be open, just not comfortable.
That was the spirit with which he already swirled in the seventies and eighties through the tranquil Münster. Only when most striking Hippie on the highest platform shoes, later with the avant-garde music taste. He took Einstürzende Neubauten first gig outside Berlin in the Catholic university city, as a concert promoter he let Killing Joke, Gang of Four, DAF and others will go on.In the young Maximilian Lenz Münster he already saw the star, which he as a DJ Westbam would actually be later. William Röttger was probably the first man in Germany, more than 100 Mark Gage asked for a DJ performance of his protégé – and got it. That seemed outrageous, but he did not care.
The DJ as an independent artist and not more than PROVIDING SERVICES plate trailer, hardly anyone has this understanding as claimed and promoted him. There lay for him the new, the exciting. “No more fucking rock and roll” was the slogan of unsentimental former hippies.
The sound fatter, the light show still mad
With Maximilian Lenz and his brother Fabian, he founded 1987, the small record label Low Spirit that the fast successful Electric Label Germany was and with their artists shaped the nineties, not only nationally.
Röttger was the pioneer with the inexhaustible energy, inspiration and motivator of all mitzog simply because his vision seemed so compelling. He has organized tours for its DJs through Eastern Europe, when the Iron Curtain still hung heavy over everything, he bought Marusha after the Fall of a radio show in DT64 and created the first East German techno shipment.
William Röttger was one of the founding fathers of Mayday, the annual techno-Performance Show in Dortmund, where the world’s elite panel trailer stood in line. Nothing could be crazy enough to him there, always the sound was even fatter, the light show still mad – it was do not care if that practically eat all profit.
Cheerful saw him rush through the Dortmunder Westphalia hall on his inline skates, everything for art. If the hymns of the Members of Mayday rang, a highlight of the event, he jumped often the first and most fiercely around the stage, in the midst of the masses happy, which was also his luck.
All ravers high on the Pyramid of the Sun!
As a partner in the Berlin Love Parade he coined the “peace, joy and pancakes” -Move up for sale. For many in the fragmented scene techno slogan “We are one family” was just a saying – not for Röttger. The presented before a people, simply because they were so nice and maybe needed money. The stories about his willingness to help are legion.
Legendary also be interest in art that no one escaped. When the Love Parade was once held in Mexico City, could not only be celebrated, he chased the whole Berlin Raver force once the Sun Pyramid of the ruined city of Teotihuacán high, also the author of these lines.
The art he remained faithful. After his musical activities, he opened his own gallery in Charlottenburg, which Eclectic Window Gallery. Because there had to go on and on, forward, somehow. And while impressive unsentimental.
In his now appear autobiography “The Power of the Night” describes his foster son Westbam as Low Spirit shortly before the 20-year anniversary again has exploratory talks with a manager of record company BMG. The situation is difficult, the mood dampened, it’s about everything.William Roettger, the co-owner, comes into the kitchen, where the negotiations take place to bring the garbage. He briefly supported. “The music business? Is it really what the day before yesterday, the only thing is it for Penner, he said, and went down the trash.” The motto of the Mayday 1992 was called “Forward ever, backward never”. It was the motto of his life.
William Röttger died at the age of 66 years in the night to Sunday after a long illness in his old home Münster with the family.
Rainer Schmidt is a journalist and writer and has written about his Raver time the novel “Love Dance”. He knew William Röttger since the nineties. They were last in Berlin neighbors .
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