In March 1994, Hubert von Goisern and the Alpinkatzen left their usual domain of the German-speaking countries and flew to perform first in Paris and then in the USA.

Kleine Zeitung 24th March 1994

Hubert von Goisern tested his songs in New York. The Yanks liked the alpine sounds, but recommend a name change.

"Hubert goes to Hollywood" was planned. Documents and CDs from Hubert von Goisern and his Alpinkatzen were sent to Arnold Schwarzenegger, but the Styrian oak remained silent. The first step out of the German-speaking area was nevertheless successful. After shows in Paris and Houston, Goisern played his first concert in New York on Tuesday night.

In front of around 200 people in the scene bar "The Cooler" in Greenwich Village, our alpine Zappa realised a long-cherished dream - "to play in the city of cities". For two hours he offered a cross-section of his albums Aufgeigen statt niederschiassn und Omunduntn. The Yanks flipped out for Hiatamadl too. Goisern moderated in perfect English and explained his subjects.

Goisern on the leap across the pond: "It's a test balloon we've sent up. We had to reach into our own pockets to do so, but it was worth it. It's an experimental tour. We must wait a few weeks, at the minute everyone is just clapping us on the back and saying "great!""

"Something completely different" the listeners were agreed. Just the pronunciation of the name is a problem. "Hubert von Goisern und die Alpinkatzen" is a tongue-twister. Recommendations from the audience: just "Goisern", "The Alpine Cats" or "Heidi".

Gerhard Nöhrer, New York

Kurier 25th March 1994

In recent years, his fans in this neck of the woods has made him rich. Thursday night, the Omunduntn summit stormer played before just 150 people. Like when he started. But instead in the New York "Cooler" club. Hubert sweated off his kilos in a cold store. Because the cellar pub "Cooler" in a meat-packing district, pervaded by the underworld, in southwest Manhattan.

New York correspondent Chris Weiss was there as Hubert explained his Juchizer philosophy in perfect English. But initially, nobody wants to yodel along. Only after the interval, during Hiatamadl, do the first super storms of applause come. One of the 150 regular guests to the club moves rhythmically to Hubert's rock sounds. Von Goisern is happy: "I see the trip as a adventure. I have the feeling of being at home all over the world. World music unites. I wasn't mistaken for a Lipizzaner or a Mozartkugel here. Music knows no language barriers - you don't need a translation for Mozart either."

Joe Zawinul, who moved to a loft in New York three weeks ago, should have looked in on the Goisern concert. His son Erich organised the "Cooler" gig in New York. But the great jazz musician was playing in the legendary "Blue Note Seven" club on the same evening. His New York debut almost. And didn't come to the Goiserer. Instead, many overseas Austrians made the pilgrimage to the homelike homeland evening.

Salzburger Nachrichten 26th March 1994

New York. The poster promises "Lederhosen rock". "A new brand of yodelling comes to New York", announces the record company BMG. Hubert von Goisern und die Original Alpinkatzen in America. To be more precise: in New York, Manhattan, 416 West, 14th Street - somewhere between Chelsea and Greenwich Village: the club is called The Cooler, in which "the anarchists of the Austrian folk music scene" (Hubert) today played before 200 people - many German speakers among them.

The reactions of the audience in this order: a little mistrust ("What's this?"), mild astonishment ("very interesting"), exact listening ("WOW!"), cheerful grinning ("it's fun"), great enthusiasm ("that's just fantastic").

"Now the nervousness arrives," the Goiserer said a few hours before the appearance late in the evening. But nothing more was to be noticed on stage. The Alpinkatzen fiddled up, played really well.

Hubert von Goisern also managed to bring across his puns between the numbers in English too. The later it became, the hotter the atmosphere. "Really exciting!" thought three bearded fans in leather jackets. They were hearing the band for the second time. They had been at the concert in Austin, Texas. At the end were standing ovations and vocal encores. "Feels like in a church!" said a New Yorker.

What was it then? "Alpine grunge" someone described it. Another was reminded of a Scottish band from the early eighties. "Blues and rock 'n' roll with traditions mix" heard a third.

The Goiserer himself recognised similarities in the Yanks' reactions with the Austrians. The first echoes here in Austria were also "what's that?". Nobody knew what pigeonhole would be relevant.

The Alpinkatzen's mission statement had already come over the ether before the concert. The culture broadcaster WBAI offered an interview . Under which a few samples of alpine singing were to be heard. In conversation with presenter Matthew Finch, Hubert did away with the folk musicians cliché of "yodelling mountain idiots". It is a sacrilege to touch Austrian cultural tradition, which has remained unchanged for decades and was once occupied by the right wing. A lot of intellectuals would have equated folk music with gloomy nationalism. Being boozed up and raucous bawling is on the label.

The Goiserer - incidentally a fan of formations like the Pongauer Viergesang - sets that opposite a principle: "We do not need to be ashamed of yodelling. It is an art form." The appearance seemed "like a dream" to him in New York, the city of towers and ships' masts" (Walt Whitman), the "wonderful catastrophe" (Le Corbusier). Manhattan is a chaos of stone, glass and asphalt populated by millions. It is the district of junkies and the Mafia, the stock exchange and Broadway, jazz and rap. Woody Allen lives there and Madonna, Robert de Niro, Tom Wolfe and Cher. And now those with Hiatamadl right in the middle of it? Correct.

"It's crazy there!" thought Sabine Kapfinger, 20 - "Singer and yodeller" by trade, with a completed apprenticeship in hairdressing, once in the Walchsee Seerosen Trio. "A city you never get out of on foot," the Goiserer commented dryly. Nevertheless, whoever's hoping for the story of the flabbergasted, gawping mountain dwellers in the big wide world, is hoping in vain. A certain disrespectfulness is an urban virtue. The image of the band may be earthy, their English is not. The band didn't leave the mountains yesterday.

Reinhard Stranzinger, 33 - the whom to whom the US trade magazine Billboard assigned the "heavy rock guitar" - once hitch-hiked through Europe and ended up in Munich, where he kept his head above water as, among other things, a trained carpenter, carving statues of the Virgin Mary. Drummer Wolfgang Maier, 33, on the other hand, completed a self-prescribed music programme in Morocco, appearing in small theatres for some years with a beer tent troupe through Canada and Europe. In the repertoire: everything from Oktoberfest to Kasatschok. Hubert Achleitner, in plain language Hubert von Goisern, looks back on years of travelling. In the Philippines, he astounded the audience with the skill in noseflute playing. And keyboarder Stefan Engel, 27, a trained pianist and punk rocker once emptied a jazz festival in Budapest with his band Mozart Mix 6.

"So we are really here in New York and it's going!" The man saying that with mild amazement is Erich Zawinul, 28, son of the jazz musician Joe Zawinul, who arrived in the USA a long time ago. Junior set up the story with Manhattan. The acquaintance of one of the Alpinkatzen's technicians was the impetus: "We're playing in Texas, could you get anything in New York?" Zawinul could.

The Alpinkatzen's producer jumped up. "That's so crazy, we have to try it," stressed Heinz Henn, born in Cologne, chief executive in the Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG). The exotic foreigners from overseas even climbed to the 42nd floor of the enormous BMG building on Broadway. And played something on the spot for the manager of the music giant.

"Something really unique," so Richard Zwertz from the record company Arista summed it up during the Cooler show: "traditional made new, everyone's pleased." And: "it's great entertainment."

Martin Stricker

Billboard 12th March 1994

Hubert von Goisern und die Original Alpinkatzen (Hubert from the village of Goisern and the Original Alp Cats) are one of the most colourful representatives of the new generation of "Volksmusik" performers. Originally from Austria, where his albums have long been best-sellers, von Goisern has since conquered the German market with his unlikely combination of traditional Alpine and R&B influences, a formula that incorporates heavy rock guitar, jazz trumpet, rock'n'roll accordion, and a hearty dose of good, old-fashioned yodeling. Word of this yodel-rock, which is sung in an Austrian dialect, has spread from southern to northern Germany, and von Goisern's debut album, Aufgeigen start Niederschiessen (Playing It Up Instead Of Shooting It Down), has sold 160,000 copies. His new album Omunduntn and single Oben Und Unten (Above And Below) have just been released by BMG Ariola. This month, von Goisern will perform on Germany's longest-running youth TV program, Live From The Alabama, before traveling to France for the Les Eurofolies Festival, and then to Austin, Texas. There he will perform three showcases March 18-20, before winding up his U.S. visit with a date at the Cooler in New York, March 22. As German concert promoter Fritz Rau of Mama Concerts has observed, von Goisern's music has the same sort of homegrown appeal that worked wonders for the Gipsy Kings, and could prove a similar international success.

Ellie Weinert
© Billboard

Live 1994

Hubert was on the Dachstein and on the Großglockner a good dozen times. But he could not prepare himself in the Alps for the expedition he led with his Alpinkatzen in March: his departure to the summit of pop - to America. Live in concert. The diary of a first inspection.

Falco did it: he was number one on the US Billboard charts with Amadeus. Edelweiß, the Bingo Boys and Opus also placed one or other number in the American charts. The common factor of all Austrians hitherto successful in the USA: their music has an international sound, could just as well have been recorded in Vienna as in London or in New York.

Now someone wants to know, who draws his whole potential from the cultural inheritance of Austrian tradition: Hubert von Goisern with his Original Alpinkatzen. Biggest hit until now: Koa Hiatamadl. Record sales until now: 15,000 from first album Alpine Lawine. 400,000 from success album Aufgeigen statt niederschiaßen, (almost four times platinum in Austria). Already 100,000 from the new CD Omunduntn in just 14 days. Route of march: forwards.

Now new folk music is daring to have an adventure. Paris, Texas and New York - the three stops of the alpine expedition without rope. The accordion as hand luggage. A small, middle European, traditional culture afflicted with inferiority complexes shows itself.

Hage Hein, the manager of the Alpinkatzen from Munich, had organised the concerts and set up the trip without the support of the record company ("they reacted with the motto 'it flies if it wants to, we will not prevent it'"). The threefold purpose of the trip, with a total of ten flights and 25,000 covered kilometres: firstly, as a primary step to sound the depth of an eventual career abroad, whether a minimal acceptance of songs like Koa Hiatamadl or Oben und Unten could be registered outside the alpine cultural area; secondly, to have a unique life experience; and thirdly to have as much fun as possible.

Expensive fun in any case. The adventure costs a good quarter of a million Schillings. Half of it is financed through the paid fees and through a subsidy from the Austrian Cultural Institute in New York. A quarter is finally being paid for by the Austrian Goisern record company as reimbursement for the media presence in the homeland following the longhaul journey.

The rest, roughly 10,000 Mark, remains as a minus in Hage Hein's account. As an option for a global future of alpine sound experiences. Goisern and his four Alpinkatzen play for nothing, getting only a little pocket money.

Paris. Appearance at the Eurofolies Festival, which lets diverse exotic groups play in clubs in the suburbs. The posters hang all over Paris. "Goisen" without the 'r' is on the card which hangs on the dressing room door. The dressing room: a redesignated corridor. It is close in Club Lino Ventura in Torcy, near Paris. Thomas Boulais from Radio France Inter asks astounding interview questions ("Is there a rock scene in Austria? Do you receive subsidies?). The deputy ambassador Helene Lamesch welcomed them, somewhat generically, cordial greetings of the country. The concert (around 250 French people with free entry) only lasts 12 minutes or three songs. It is part of a strictly timed live radio programme (which will later also be broadcast worldwide on short wave).

The audience reaction: a couple of punks go wild in front of the stage, the more discreet French call with choruses of "plus, plus, plus" (in vain). Encores. Contacts for further appearance possibilities in the autumn are made. From the European late winter to the American early summer. Texas. Sweltering heat. After 25 hours in the aeroplane, there are no more rooms in the hotel. At 4am, you are finally in the refreshing horizontal.

Eight hours later: sightseeing in San Antonio. A German camera team who are accompanying the journey, are treading on the alpine master's heels. Continuation of the journey in the car to Austin, capital of Texas and the American musical up-and-comers: every evening on the famous 6th Street about 100 rock clubs with live bands court the potential audience strolling by the door.

This weekend the situation is intensified: in the framework of a four day festival with associated music trade fair, "South by Southwest", 450 groups from all over the world develop a Babylonian pot pourri of sounds. The Alpinkatzen complete an unplugged concert in a trade fair hall at midday, before the "real" appearance should take place in the evening. The planned soundcheck in the Santa Fe club fails: the required equipment is not on stage.

Just before midnight: The Santa Fe is full, outside there are still another 50 Alpinkatzen-willing Yanks. Diagonally opposite in the Catfish, Seven Ages from the Vienna Neustadt have just enthused people with their ethno-oriented music. Now they are in the front row at Goisern's concert. Red-white-red solidarity.

It works out without a soundcheck. And: The Americans are more than taken with it. Terrific, incredible, funny, great show, unique - are the comments. One thing is already fixed: the next New York trip prospects of a career in America? "Yes, as a sideshow", comments an expert journalist. New York. The expedition became a caravan. The ORF, the German television and many Austrian newspapers follow the master through the wild East.

There is a capella playing for the New York Vice Senior President of Goisern's - hitherto with waiting tactics - record company BMG Ariola, Heinz Henn from Cologne (The President is a Carinthian, but is unfortunately abroad). Henn skillfully avoids the question from Goisern's manager, about how it now stands with a release in the USA.: "you must carry on, not forget your origin, not let yourself be interrupted. Then everything is possible."

A quarter of an hour later, at WBAI 95.5FM, there is a radio interview. And then, in the evening, it comes to the appearance. The club on 14th Street is called The Cooler. Somehow it is reminiscent of a modern Viennese U4. Erich Zawinul, son of the Austro-American jazz giant, Joe Zawinul, organised the concert. About 60 guests pay for the entrance for Goisern, completely unknown to them, the other 150 are invited guests from the media: New York Times, New York Post, Village Voice and colleagues from countries like Brazil, Israel, Italy and Germany. The Austrian Cultural Institute is present as sponsor.

Goisern, hyper-nervous the whole day, pulls out all the stops. And satisfies. Three encores, the last long after 1am, after about two hours of live music, are necessary. While quite a lot of Austrian living in New York go to clap Hubert on the back, Manager Hein looks around for contacts. "Give me the group for a day, I will make them famous," one US manager offers. Another estimates three days.

An adventure comes to an end, and there is alter time to reflect: Three hours after their arrival in Europe, the Alpinkatzen are already standing in front of German television cameras again. Hubert von Goisern's first assessment: "My confidence was strengthened. We found that in other countries they are no different from anybody else and that what we do can be placed quite beside what other people do. You must expect that something of the euphoria with which the Americans prevailed after the concerts remains."