Scrapbook
1997

Taken from the magazine "Xcentric" issue December 1997
Courtesy of Xcentric (Ralph Otto)!

A complete possessed fan of a half forgotten band

Karsten Wagner works in the registrar´s office of the "Landeswohlfahrtsverband Hessen". Documents! Documents! Documents! And always think of the copy machine. - But in his real life he is a music fan - even a very special one who´s liking is not shared by milions of people.
No Elvis, no Jimi, no Stones - he fell for SAILOR.
--- The freshwater Sailor ---

And that - meanwhile - with not so much hair on the upperdeck. His maritime treasury shines with five organizers, half-hundred SAILOR-vinyle + silvers (CDs) - including with bootlegs and rarities plus three dozen videos. The wardrobe is full of the right outfits, and naturaly Karsten, like Georg Kajanus, sometimes has an anchor on his cheek. However, the 33 year old man has never really had spray of waters on his moustache and he has never seen a real harbour-tavern from the inside. The experiences of that man from Kassel are limited to the "Zissel", a waterparty in Kassel. But he remembers that in 1976, HR-3 moderator Werner Reincke played 3 songs in a row from the SAILOR-album "The Third Step". "Unforgettable!"
Nowaddays unbelievable.
Our freshwater SAILOR got much more seasick when SAILOR - at the beginning of the 90s - after several shipwrecks and mutinys, came on board again in the original line-up. Very soon our superfan likes to hire, he'll have his equatorbabtise-ceremony, and for sure he can join the captainscabin and bridge. He can lay hand on the famous Nickelodeon. One fine day, Karsten and his sister Katrin have been invited to a special meeting by SAILOR- member Henry Marsh. This has happened on 30 December 1993 at one of these nostalgic-grotesque Oldie Nights in the backstage area of the "Westfalenhalle" in Dortmund, Germany.
The beginning of an accumulating friendship. Sometimes they would meet after the gigs in order to talk about new information or to help Grant Serpell´s son to find his father. A symbiotic relationship. Matelot Wagner was once asked to do the official SAILOR fanclub. "But I had neither the time nor a computer. That is why a Kajanus-friend from Berlin finally did the job. Nothing works since he left the band. Now they all write letters to me." All? - Even more seasick people? Fact is that a list from 29 February 1996 includes not only fans in Alfeld, Duderstadt, Groningen, Malmö and Aberdeen but also a fellow from Redwood City, L.A..
Sailing is obviously a must. Karsten Wagner works very hard on a SAILOR comeback. "One hour a day is okay." Some successes have already come along.
He wrote to "Gottschalks Haus-Party" in order to persuade him to invite them to their show, the "Musikexpress" published his letter about SAILOR. He is also investigating in order to discover new unauthorised CDs. "I have discovered one of these here in Kassel."
And on more and more occasions Karsten Wagner is greeted with "Ahoy!" during his CD shop-visits during the lunch hour.

SAILOR
The British band around Georg Kajanus, son of a russian prince, was formed out of a housecombo of a nightclub in Paris. Their sound was created by the self-invented Nickelodeon, a monster that is played by two persons - a mixture of fairground-organ, a pub-piano and a synthesizer. Optically and musically they widened the image of the lonely sailor in the redlight quater of the harbour pubs. Their climax had been reached in the middle of the 70s with the hits "A Glass Of Ahampagne" and "Girls Girls Girls". After the break of the band, Kajanus manufactured three Technoid albums under the name "DATA" in the 80s. Meanwhile Phil Pickett became a co-writer of "Karma Chameleon" in Culture Club. The surprising comeback of the original line-up happened in 1989 with "The Secretary" and "La Cumbia", and soon they were back in the single charts. In 1995, Kajanus left the ship once again and Peter Lincoln came. A new CD was released only in Denmark until now.

The text next to the photo of Karsten and SAILOR says:
19 November 1994, Hotel Mövenpick, Kassel: What a shame. You appear in your special SAILOR dress and the band comes in private outfits.

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