Farewell hartmuth
posted on 05 Sep 2019 under category History
Note: the original post for this was composed completely in Wordpress in September 2019, and was subsequently destroyed by a shitty webhost in January 2020 (of fucking course…). No matter how hard we try sometimes, everything we do will be gone someday, which is the universe’s cruel joke for something supposed to be a memorial. But then I suppose most rites around death are for the living, not the dead, and while we’re still here, WE still remember.
Or try to, anyway. I’m rewriting this as of March 2021, some 18 months after the fact, so I’m sure I left some details out. Hopefully the more important truths - that he was a great guy, loved by all, and a dedicated metalhead who played a big, important part of my life - still shine through.
Farewell, Hartmuth Schindler, “Opyros”, “Black Goat” - 16 July 1967 - 05 September 2019.
But the most important part of that is the dash. That dash is where he made a large, indelible mark on the metal scene that he loved so much. But let’s not forget that’s also where he was son to his parents. Friend to his friends. Husband to his wife, Cheryl. We are all large, and we all contain multitudes. And I count myself incredibly lucky, blessed, even honored, that I’m some small part of that dash up there.
I remember first ‘meeting’ him online around 1998, through ChorazaiM of Megiddo. I found out after working with him to release the Megiddo demo compilation on UHR that Barbarian Wrath had signed him for the next album. Also from ChorazaiM, I first learned of Countess through his reviews of their albums on LARM. Based solely on his recommendation, I went to blackmetal.com (remember them?) and bought Ad Maiorem Sathanae Gloriam and loved it. I wanted more, and Chor suggested I email Opyros about it. I did, and for the low price of $20 he sent me the other four CDs that Countess had out at the time - Gospel… and Return of the Horned One, Book of the Heretic, and the Hell’s Rock-n-Roll EP. A few months later I bought the first slew of CDs he had released on his then-brand-spanking-new label, introducing me to Gravewurm and Alastor as well.
He saw that I did pretty well at running my own UHR online shop, so he didn’t mind helping me stock a few releases, which of course blossomed a few years later when he wanted to give a second run at setting up an official US distro for BW, and he asked if I’d be interested. I jumped at the chance, and to whatever degree anyone outside of my immediate friend circle knows me, it’s likely at least in large part because of the notoriety I gained by being his distributor. It pushed me to work on my own music and my own label releases, and eventually bloomed again when Toby and I decided to try our own hand at a label, thus birthing Alpha Draconis Records.
Even that, though, doesn’t compare to the boost he gave me when he wanted to sign Death Beast. Of course I had tried to get him to do something with Rampage, but given that Hart was always a guy who liked great lyrics and strong vocal performances, it’s understandable why he didn’t want to do anything with Rampage back when I still had the mic. But that makes his endorsement of Death Beast that much more special - not only did this person, who released so many albums I’d call modern classics, think that something I did was worthy of his label, but he was also the person instrumental in giving me the push to say “fuck it, I’ll do the vocals myself”. One of my proudest accomplishments is getting The Wakening up to the standard that he felt was worthy of Barbarian Wrath.
And, of course, tied with that, one of my greatest regrets is that I didn’t get The Onslaught done quickly enough for him to hear it in all its hellish glory. He had heard scratch tracks and test mixes of the whole thing, up to perhaps a 70% stage of completion (missing maybe a few backing vocals or guitar solos), and I know he liked what he heard.
But that still doesn’t get to Hartmuth himself. He was funny, and opinionated, and charming. Chatting online with him about everything and nothing was great when it was every day (back in the days of AIM and instant messaging), trading emails. We even talked on the phone a couple of times - once I remember when my oldest son was still a baby. I was there feeding him and trying to get him to sleep, balancing the phone on my shoulder so I could talk and feed at the same time while he regaled me with tales of his trip to the US (the one where he did The Cannonball Run!).
I know a lot of people knew him a lot better than I did, but I still think of him as a friend, and I’d like to think he did the same as well. I’ll miss you.