Hip Young Things

Hip Young Things were founded in summer 1988 by Thorsten Abel and Dirk Dresselhaus, who had previously been playing together as a rhythm section in a school band called Minimum Security and several other groups since 1984 in and around the west German town of Bielefeld.
When they found their first line-up, the premise was that each of the musicians involved should take on an instrument that he had never played in a band before.
At their first rehearsal, ex-Psychobilly upright bassist Edgar Winterhoff switched to electric bass guitar; Schneider (aka Dirk Dresselhaus) switched from drums to guitar and vocals; bassist Gumbo Botanik (aka Thorsten Abel) switched from bass to guitar; chanteuse Brit Bordeaux (aka Britta Hamann) never sang before; and the ambitious Crossover drummer Mitch Meyer was forced to play as minimally as possible for musical reasons.
The first H.Y.T. lineup split up in 1990, and they continued without their female lead singer and with a new drummer named Oli Paroli (aka Olaf Arndt).
In 1991, they supported the Walkabouts on their European tour and subsequently received a record deal with the Glitterhouse label. The debut album, Deflowered, was released in 1992 and received positive reviews throughout Europe. The EP Root'n Varies followed in 1993, which, in contrast to the debut album, was only recorded with acoustic instruments. With Shrug in 1994, on the other hand, the rough sound experiments of the debut album were picked up again, and some of the growing intensity of their live shows of that period was captured.
The band became one of the driving forces of their area's indie scene, the so-called "Ostwestfälische Gitarrenschule" ("East Westphalian guitar school") in the early 1990s, and continued to perform regularly live throughout Europe, sharing bills with the likes of Pond, Gumball, The Ramones, Speed Niggs, Motorpsycho, Tuesday Weld, Beck, The Cramps, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Codeine, A Subtle Plague, Rein Sanction, and others. They released their final album, Ventilator, in 1996, which leaned more towards experimental pop music than previous albums and was followed by a 12“ maxi series with remixes by Console, To Rococo Rot, Tonio Neuhaus, Carlos Peron, and others.
The Hip Young Things disbanded in 1997 due to "musical and personal differences.“ The band members remained active in the music scene.
Dresselhaus, who began producing bands like Sharon Stoned in the mid-90s and also joined them on tour as a live musician, initially focused on his side project Locust Fudge, which he had been running with Christopher "Krite" Uhe (Speed Niggs, Sharon Stoned) since 1992 and which already had stronger connections to electronic music, but later became internationally renown for his solo project Schneider TM and the noise outfit (die) ANGEL (w/ Ilpo Väisänen of Pan sonic). He lives in Berlin and works in his studio ZONE on a variety of projects, such as music for film, television, and radio plays; album productions; mastering; and various types of musical collaborations, such as with the legendary Krautrockband faust and members of Einstürzende Neubauten. For some time, Edgar Winterhoff, Thorsten Abel, and Olaf Arndt continued to work together in the band Slip. In 2000, Arndt moved to Berlin and acted as O. Love live and on recordings with Julia Hummer (initially together with Abel) and the Berlin band Mondo Fumatore, which also included Christopher Uhe and J. Mascis as guests. He also worked as a live musician for Jens Friebe and the Kings of Convenience. Thorsten Abel, who relocated to Canada in 2006 after a couple of years in Berlin, is still active in the Vancouver area with several projects like music for film and television, the band Abel Collective, or the kraut-ish electronica project Zuckerzeit IX. Edgar Winterhoff remained in Bielefeld and plays bass in a kind of swing and jazz band called Copa Room Service in his spare time.

Shrug:

H.Y.T.’s second and the first self-produced album. Released on Glitterhouse Records in September 1994. Recorded during the summer of the same year, right after the band & their engineer Sascha Unversucht had built the Firehouse Studio for about 3 months. That’s why many tools like drillingmachine, compressor, acumulator screwdriver etc. are on the record. The studio remained unfinished. The band split up about 16 times during the recording process because they all wanted to play different kinds of music. One can hear that on the album....a freaky kind of experimental-freeform-noise-folk-close-to-collapse-indierock-pop accidently evolved from the situation.
guestmusicians:
Markus & Micha Acher of The Notwist, who Schneider met during the Family Affair Tour in spring 1994.
Volker Backes, old friend and member of The Locust Fudge Band & Me In The Rye.

videos

youtu.be/5IZRDOxBjM8
youtu.be/KY8UKbGxHuo
youtu.be/O64VvHCe5g8
youtu.be/-ShUFQpQQ3E

H.Y.T. at MWM:

mirrorworldmusic.com/artists/hip-young-things/