One of the legendary figures of Cologne’s music scene is the German singer Gerd Köster, whose sign is the dialect he uses: Cologne’s dialect Kölsch. He is part of the history of Cologne’s most celebrated artists and he first started his music career as the frontman of the German band “Schroeder Roadshow”. It was an anarcho-political-rock band that sang ironically about politics and that became one of the cult bands in the German Federal Republic. Later on, he started his solo career with the project “The Piano Has Been Drinking”, a project that consisted of a Kölsch adaptation of many Tom Waits lyrics and that was welcomed with pleasure in Germany.

The German movement against racism and neo-nazism was founded in Cologne in 1992 as a reaction to the growing racism and brutal aggressions that were taking place in Germany. The colloquial slogan written in the local dialect Kölsch literally means “Ass up, teeth apart!”. The movement brought together some of Cologne’s best bands (BAP, Bläck Fööss, Brings or Höhner, Nick Nikitakis, or The Piano Has Been Drinking, among others) in a first concert that was held in Cologne and that was broadcasted on television. It soon raised awareness and people from the music industry (EMI Electrola) wanted to take that great project in an album for free. That is how the first record was released in 1992 with the title Arsch huh, Zäng ussenander.