Probably no other musician in Germany holds the flag of the psychedelic higher than Christian "Doktor" Koch, the thought leader of the band Vibravoid founded in the late eighties. In music and lifestyle he orients himself on the forefathers of the movement and acts as an ambassador of an idea that is no longer present in the general public. The man from Düsseldorf himself did not experience the time and its vibrations, and yet he internalized them.
eclipsed: What's the first thing that comes to mind when you think about 1967?
Doctor: What we have lost. Look at the last hundred years: Between 1917 and 1967, much more developed socially than from 1967 until today. Nothing new came in '67. Everything was just further commercialized. There were computers and radios back then, but not so many. People didn't have smartphones to say anything about it.
eclipsed: What about the music?
Doctor: Bands had something to say at that time, not anymore today.
eclipsed: Do you think we have a distorted picture of that time today?
Doctor: Absolutely. I wasn't there and can't give a live report, but I experienced the seventies and eighties. It strikes me that everything's not right these days. Somebody tells me, a band make total sixties/seventies sound, I listen in and realize: is only eighties hard rock. Likewise, Hippietum and Woodstock have nothing to do with the seventies. Today, some people think the Ramones played at Woodstock!
eclipsed: Can psychedelic only exist underground? Is the scene distorted as soon as it is too large and exploited by the media?
Doctor: The people back then didn't necessarily strive for a scene. They wanted change in the world, had relatively concrete ideas about it and tried to implement them. That didn't work because her idea was commercialized. I don't think anyone would have complained if Earth had become a hippie planet.
