Klaus Lage Band – Heiße Spuren (1985) (24/96 Vinyl Rip)

Once I repaired his Volkswagen bus on the road so he could make it to the next gig in time – but that doesn't make him a good musician, I suppose. He started performing solo with guitar in the Berlin folk pub scene during the 70ies, like Ulrich Roski, Werner Lämmerhirt or Pete Wyoming and many others, he also gave me a demo tape from one of these concerts, where has that gone? To my surprise there are extensive reviews on Allmusic, although German releases are often ignored by them. So here they are, it seems Mr. Genzel has expected more from Klaus Lage, I think the record is much better than most other 80ies releases:

Review by Christian Genzel from Allmusic:
What a disappointing follow-up to Klaus Lage's Schweissperlen, which featured a number of successful singles and showcased a talented and confident musician and songwriter. Heisse Spuren, recorded a year later with the same band and with the same producer, tries hard to replicate this success, but it's a much more uneven collection of songs. First of all, the album doesn't sound very appealing: if Schweissperlen was a product of the '80s, then Heisse Spuren is that decade's victim. With booming drums, cleanly distorted guitars, sterile keyboard sounds, and an overall sense of overproduction, many of the songs have little room to breathe, and the plastic '80s rock sound reminds you why grunge and alternative rock had to happen. Of course, the Klaus Lage band has always been an earthy one anchored very much in the mainstream, but on Heisse Spuren, the production often threatens to suck the life "out" of the songs.
What amplifies the problem is that the songs aren't very exciting: Lage, who co-wrote most of the lyrics with a certain N. Heirell (which may or may not be a pseudonym for Dieter Dehm), has again penned a number of relationship tales, but many of the lyrics are bland and uninteresting, as in "Zuviel Allein" (Too Often Alone), or the one-night-stand-turns-into-something-else song "Stille Wasser" (Silent Waters). On Schweissperlen, Lage's songs always told a story, and the relationships they discussed were often complicated – here, the singer's tales of jealousy and falling in love are often one-dimensional and generic. "Istanbul," a story of xenophobia, means well, but its effectiveness is diminished by lines such as "Tränen auf dem Mantel/sehen im Morgan aus wie Frühtau" ("Tears on the coat/look like dew in the morning"), which are downright kitsch.
Some of the songs are still worthwhile, though: "Faust auf Faust," a single written for the movie Schimanski: Zahn um Zahn (the first theatrical spin-off of the successful German TV crime series Tatort), was a massive hit, and while its story of a tough guy with a soft spot for a woman is a bit clichéd, the song is catchy and energetic. "Out" is an ironic funk song where everything from rap to cocaine, from breakdancing to political parties, is declared "out" (after the piano solo, Lage says that the Lage Band and piano solos are "out," too). "Weihnachtszeit" (Christmas Time) has a more interesting story than the other songs, but the music with its chiming bells is tough to swallow. "Vermisst" (Missed), co-written by former (and future) band keyboardist Danny Deutschmark, is more subtle musically, and there's a slight bitterness in the lyrics that makes the song more complex. Truth be told, if Schweissperlen hadn't been so good, then Heisse Spuren wouldn't be so disappointing. The album isn't a disaster, and it's not a complete failure – but it's the first album where Lage's confidence was much stronger than his songs.

Biography by Christian Genzel from Allmusic
Klaus Lage is a German musician whose mixture of guitar-based pop/rock and singer/songwriter compositions in the Liedermacher tradition became immensely popular in the 1980s. His biggest hit single, 1984's "1000 und 1 Nacht (Zoom!)" (1000 and 1 Nights), is a staple of retro compilations and parties, but Lage has had more hits afterward, writing and performing songs for feature films and musicals, and even creating the official German versions of Randy Newman's Toy Story songs.
Lage was born on June 16, 1950, in Soltau. He is a learned commercial clerk. After he moved to Berlin in the early '70s, he became an educator, then a social worker. As the vocalist and guitarist of the Berliner Rock Ensemble (BRE), he toured Germany in the mid-'70s, together with bandmembers Gregor Schaetz (guitar, vocals), Alex Cremer (bass, vocals), Martin Cremer (drums, percussion), and Ralph Billmann (keyboards).
With an early single release in 1978 ("Alle Ham's Geschafft Außer Mir" – Everybody Made It But Me) and a self-titled album in 1980, Lage tried to establish himself as a solo artist. Klaus Lage (sometimes also referred to under the title Musikmaschine) featured several humorous pop/rock songs, a few more serious tracks, and four international songs which Lage translated into German – among them a literal translation of the Beatles' "I'm the Walrus" and a deliberately silly version of Squeeze's "Cool for Cats." Though still an uneven effort, Klaus Lage was a promising debut that was an interesting precursor to his later work.
Lage's next two albums, Positiv (1982) and Stadtstreicher (1983), solidified his popularity and showcased his more assured songwriting skills with numerous melodic pop/rock tracks that were alternately witty, serious, funny, and knowing. The single "Komm Halt Mich Fest" (1982) (Come and Hold Me) marked his first notable hit.
At the age of 34, Lage finally broke through and stormed the charts with his fourth solo album, the Wolf Maahn-produced Schweissperlen (1984). It continued Lage's penchant for storytelling and produced three hit singles: "1000 und 1 Nacht (Zoom!)," the story of a long friendship that suddenly turned into a relationship, which became one of Germany's biggest pop singles of the '80s, followed by the single "Wieder Zuhaus" (Back Home) and the socially minded "Monopoli."
In 1985, Lage released a new album, Heisse Spuren, and even though it wasn't as successful as its predecessor, it contained the hit single "Faust auf Faust," which Lage wrote for the theatrical feature Schimanski, a spin-off of the popular German TV series Tatort starring Götz George. Lage wrote another song for its sequel, Zabou, which was sung by Joe Cocker ("Now That You're Gone"), and even played a small part in the film.
In 1995, Lage was hired to create the German versions of Randy Newman's songs for the movie Toy Story. A year later, he played the lead role in the musical Stars, written by Dieter Dehm, who had already co-written several of Lage's hit songs. The musical was shown from early to mid-1996 and proved to be successful during its entire run.

Tracks
01. Starke Schläge 03:24
02. Out 04:15
03. Stille Wasser 04:45
04. Vermißt 04:21
05. Faust auf Faust (Schimanski) 05:06
06. Istanbul 03:02
07. Zuviel allein 04:23
08. Eifersucht 04:05
09. Weihnachtszeit 05:44
10. Taxi 02:44
Total time: 41:44

Musicians
Klaus Lage: vocals, lyrics
Rolf Rocco Klein: guitar, backing vocals
Martin Engelien: electric bass, double bass
Göran Walger: keyboards, backing vocals
Rainer Winterschladen: brass
Thof Freier: brass
Wolf Simon: drums, percussion
Wolf Maahn: production