Bernd Held (born 24/8/1950, in Freiburg) better known as "Zeus" B. Held, was part of the Cologne rock scene from a young age, notably with the seminal but undocumented Sound Edge. Later, he seemed to be the man that pushed Birth Control on to more complex progressive rock, with his ever-broadening instrumentation of winds, keyboards and synthesizers, especially during their concept album phase of PLASTIC PEOPLE and BACKDOOR POSSIBILITIES. But, maybe he was just learning and exploring, as what he went on to afterwards with rather unprecedented!
You see, Zeus' solo debut ZEUS' AMUSEMENT was a bizarrely wide-ranging potpourri of styles, from a corny vocoder version of "The Fool On The Hill" via Kraftwerk style electro-pop, progressive rock, spacey synth music, etc., on to some really good Kraut jazzy fusion. As such it amounted to a good CV demo of all the types of music he was capable of.
Released as a single "The Fool On The Hill" seemed to dictate his new style would be electro-pop, and thus his next album EUROPIUM focused on the Kraftwerk-like and synthesized styles more. As a less patchy release, however, it never contained any of the excellent fusion of the debut. The third album we haven't heard.
Zeus B. Held also went on to be a producer and engineer. He produced Die Krupps 1984 album ENTERING THE ARENA, amongst others.
The Fool On The Hill /
Off The Cuff / Goodbye Europe / Italian Items / Claude / Madmen's Rag / Why
Can't I Be A Singer / LA's OK / Space Cake / Sagenhaft
LP Brain 60.120 (1978)
Zeus B. Held (keyboards,
vocals, vocoder, flute, alto saxophone, percussion),
+ Manfred von Bohr (drums, percussion), Horst Stachelhaus (bass), George
Fisher (vocals), Christoph Noppeney (viola), Claudia Simeaux-Levy (vocals)
Mediafire
