Music journalist Jan Kubon does not tell much that is new in his nine-part “Iron East” and has plenty of clichés ready
“Iron East” doesn’t skimp on clichés. “The main thing is it’s loud!” according to its own description, demands “the hardest MDR podcast that has ever existed”. For nine episodes, journalist and musician Jan Kubon takes a trip to “heavy metal in the GDR”, talks casually about “Meddl”, raves about cowls and riffs, evokes the obligatory drinking resistance. It doesn’t require a lot of previous knowledge and still tries to attract metal fans. Because that’s his own way too. At the beginning he declares that he’s not a metal fan and rather sees himself driven by journalistic curiosity. This initially sympathetically naïve approach sometimes makes you unapproachable, but Kubon often falls into an avuncular explanatory tone, which he himself jokingly describes as a “show with the mouse of East Metal”.
Not much different than songwriters, punks and bluesers
The questions that “Iron East” ponders are not surprisingly those that have often been asked and answered on the subject of music and the GDR. How did you live as a “metaller” in the GDR? Where did the records come from, the clothes, the instruments? Where and how were concerts possible? How was the relationship with the authorities, who were listening and guiding everywhere?
Without a doubt, Kubon unearths fun and exciting things. However, nothing new, the mechanisms are too similar to those that songwriters, punk rockers or blues musicians had to deal with. In addition: Metal came to the GDR from around 1980, when many paths were already paved, even if they were far from paved. Kubon then peels out a few peculiarities. Bands had to sing in German until the mid-1980s, which is otherwise rather untypical for the genre. The genre was more fan-driven than musician-driven, and concerts were always full: In a country where performances by international heroes were not possible, people were sucked in what there was. The bands hardly had to practice competing, a bonus that suddenly disappeared after 1989. The relationship to the state was probably a bit simpler than in other genres. Heavy metal sees itself as apolitical. You wanted to party, drink and be loud after work. But in the GDR, any desire for freedom was automatically political, and the ears of the Stasi were everywhere here, too.
When it comes to women, the cliché is not far away
Unfortunately, the podcast also gets lost again and again in the traditionally strong testosterone surplus of the metal scene. Between lots of beery boy stories, Kubon calms down with “don’t worry, the girls will still have their say”, and in episode 5 you can actually hear a female voice for the first time when it comes to metal fashion. Episode 7, which belongs entirely to the ladies in metal, can’t get away from the cliché even in the title: “Hard sound from a “tender” hand”. But metal and cliché have always belonged together. Subtle, these are different genres. »