The story of Noise Records is the story of its founder, the maverick engineer-turned-anarchist-turned-prison bird-turned-metal impresario Karl Ulrich Walterbach. It’s a story packed with narrativ e ammunition, from the Red Army Faction to Celtic Frost’ s Cold Lake – possibly the most misguided album release in the entire history of rock – and it’s a story full of spite, conflict, recrimination and lawsuits. It’s a story that needs a devoted, unbiased teller, and in journalist David E Gehlke it has that.
It’s a story Gehlke has clearly spent a lot of time on, with 500 densely packed pages of interviews, rare photos and fliers. It’s a story that deserves to be told brilliantly. And while the detail is fascinating and the interviews frank, it’s a story told without any humour or poetry or lightness of touch, and it’s a chore to read.
A story for Noise freaks only.
