The Story
Band Members
Music and CDs

Music and CDs

Zelta Zonk starts out covering classic and fast stuff from Rock 'n' Roll and Hard Rock:




Boogie (Ufo)
Brown Sugar (Rolling Stones)
Easy Livin' (Uriah Heep)
Highway Star (Deep Purple)
Jailhouse Rock (E. Presley / Rod Stewart)
Inside Looking Out (Grand Funk Railroad)
Morning Dew (Rod Stewart)
Nude Disintegrating Parachutist Woman (Budgie)
Paranoid (Black Sabbath)
Purple Haze (Jimi Hendrix)
Rainbow Demon (Uriah Heep)
Satisfaction (Rolling Stones)
Sweet Little Sixteen (Chuck Berry)
Summertime Blues (Eddie Cochran / Blue Cheer / Who)
Smoke on the Water (Deep Purple)
Stoned Woman (Ten Years After)
Sympathy For The Devil (Rolling Stones)



From 1972 on, Zelta Zonk's nucleus group (Andreas, Stephan and Ulli) gains interest in intelligently made Glam Rock. They cover the following tunes:




Desperado (Alice Cooper)
I'm Eighteen (Alice Cooper)
Halo of Flies (Alice Cooper)
School's out (Alice Cooper)
Under my Wheels (Alice Cooper)
Space Oddity (David Bowie)
Sufragette City (David Bowie)
I Wish I Would (Yardsbirds / David Bowie)
Friday On My Mind (Easybeats / David Bowie)
See Emily Play (Syd's Pink Floyd / David Bowie)
Do The Strand (Roxy Music)
Editions Of You (Roxy Music)
Re-make - Re-model (Roxy Music)
Virginia Plain (Roxy Music)



From midst 1973 another shift in taste gets them to Progressive Rock, without neglecting other styles. Lather, being a folk rock softie with rather thought provocing lyrics, is an example:




Lather (Jefferson Airplane)
The Knife (Genesis)
Yours Is No Disgrace (Yes)



During their cover version era, Zelta Zonk only performed one self-penned song "Stück von Alfred E" (song by Alfred E -- just that simple). Stephan writes the lyrics, he is the guy who goes by the nickname Alfred E during school times, deriving from the character Alfred E. Neumann used in the german MAD magazine.




This era is documented by a live recording from about mid 1973, presumely at the Fritz Karsen School. Andreas designed the CD's cover using a photo from that time. This CD Zelta Zonk Live contains these tracks:




Track Title Length Original Artist published Original Album
01 Highway Star 06:26 Deep Purple April 1972 Machine Head
02 Easy Livin' 02:31 Uriah Heep May 1972 Demons and Wizards
03 Summertime Blues 02:43 Eddie Cochran/ Blue Cheer/ Who March 1968 Vincebus Eruptum
04 Sweet Little Sixteen 02:56 Chuck Berry March 1958 (Single)
05 School's Out 03:27 Alice Cooper July 1972 School's Out
06 Desperado 02:59 Alice Cooper December 1971 Killer
07 I'm Eighteen 02:47 Alice Cooper June 1971 Love It To Death
08 Nude Disintegrating Parachutist Woman 08:53 Budgie 1971 Budgie (1st LP)
09 Stoned Woman 03:14 Ten Years After August 1969 Ssssh
10 Purple Haze 02:49 Jimi Hendrix March 1967 (Single)
11 Jailhouse Rock 02:42 Elvis Presley Januar 1958 (Single)
12 Inside Looking Out 10:44 Grand Funk Railroad Januar 1971 Live Album
13 Smoke On The Water 06:13 Deep Purple Januar 1971 Machine Head
14 Under My Wheels 02:38 Alice Cooper December 1971 Killer
15 Stück von Alfred E 03:51 Stephan (Zelta Zonk) around 1972/73 -----
16 Halo Of Flies 08:00 Alice Cooper December 1971 Killer



From mid 70s they do their own stuff, up to 25 minutes of interwoven levels of sounds and music. All typical features are present: changing tempi and measures, stacked instrumentation and chorussed vocals.

This kind of multi levelled, complex music gets continued by their own compositions. Zelta Zonk pretty much quits live performances and works as living room studio band. Their songs list as:




Lady of the Fading Sun
End of the Journey
[Instrumental]
Perfect Hero
Dream Scene
Kubla Khan
The Mewlips
Farewell to Lorien
The Last Ship
The Hollow Men



The lyrics are partly self penned. Most band members are vivid J.R.R.Tolkien fans at that time (the german translations of Lord of the Rings just being published), so Tolkien's lyrics are inspiring (i.e. the track The Mewlips). Other sources are S.T.Colerigde's Kubla Khan, Bernhard Thomson's words to Living Or Dying?, or T.S.Eliot's The Hollow Men.

From that time (about 1975 to mid 1976) there are studio recordings. They were laid down as basic tracks at the music room of the Mittelstufenzentrum, and later dubbed with vocals and additional intrumentation. All recordings are made using two Revox A77 tape recorders, directly from soundboard. Not all tracks get completed to full intention.




Thus the second CD Zelta Zonk Studio gathers seven recordings from their Progressive Rock era. The cover is based on a painting from Andreas (first published in 1971, reworked in 1974). The tracks on that CD are:




Track Titel Länge
01 Lady Of The Fading Sun 09:58
02 End Of The Journey 04:05
03 [Instrumental] (this track never gets a better name) 03:37
04 Perfect Hero 05:22
05 Dream Scene 03:38
06 Kubla Khan 16:58
07 The Mewlips 24:34



This material ist available at Bandcamp.

In 2020 Andreas revisited the tracks, added spoken voices, drums and arrangements, and this too is published at Bandcamp.

Since then Stephan, the Canadian musician Andrea and Andreas work as Zelta Zonk to produce new material.