Markus
Karlus and Kevin Rodgers first met in the early '90s,
while studying Music at the University of Saarbrücken,
Luxembourg. It did not take long for them to start working
together in several projects, specially in the field of
electro-electronic serial music, a passion they shared.
To reach these goals, they spent years and years researching
and collecting a large amount of instruments, machines,
and all sorts of electro-electronic devices capable of
generating audible or inaudible frequencies, as well as
several computers that would help them achieve their ultimate
musical goal: the largest serial piece ever made, built
around calculations of the number Pi that went beyond
the mark of 1 billion digits. During one of these searches
for the necessary equipment, the two buddies came across
a small Macintosh 128k, which, mainly because of its historical
value, was immediately adopted. Little did they know that
the harmlessly-looking little classic had concealed in
its innards a virus, hibernating ever since the computer
had been shut down for the last time, in 1989. When they
became aware of the fact, it was too late. The little
Mac had already been connected to the rest of the studio
machinery, and the barely awaken virus had spread throughout
all the audio-visual complex that Markus Karlus and Kevin
Rodgers had so diligently assembled.
Little is known about this virus besides the name with
which it introduced itself to the befuddled aspirant composers:
Golden Shower. Perhaps the long hibernation, or even the
shock of being dragged out of that state after almost
10 years had corrupted its original code. The truth is
that nobody knew when, or by whom, neither with which
purpose it was created. Nevertheless, the virus still
possessed a large amount of information regarding the
pop culture of the '80s, gathered during its active days.
Based on this knowledge, it analysed the whole cultural
environment of the late '90s, and apparently it wasn't
happy with what it saw. It's likely that upon suddenly
figuring itself completely out of its time, Golden Shower
suffered a second and definitive shock, a shock that twisted
its character for good. It became a severely megalomaniac
piece of binary code, with a single purpose from that
moment on: reshaping the world around it based on the
only cultural references it had, sending the planet back
into an age of darkness and ignorance that mankind thought
completely gone since the unmasking of Milli-Vanilli:
the '80s.
And the instruments with which Golden Shower would put
that dreadful operation in motion was right there before
it: the overwhelmed Markus Karlus and Kevin Rodgers. Under
the threat of having all the calculations for their composition,
stored on the course of years of hard work, mercilessly
deleted, they didn't have any other choice but to submit
to the virus' will, becoming their agents for the first
step towards world domination: the pop (from popular)
music territory. Due to their immense musical talent,
and a flawless mastery of the pop-ular music vocabulary
sharpened during their stint as arrangers and session
musicians for a recording studio specialized in yodelling
boy bands, the duo couldn't have been a better choice
for a human front for Golden Shower's intent, those who
would translate its obsession with the '80s into insidiously
catchy tunes.
And this is just the beginning. Once successful in taking
over pop-ular music, the Golden Shower virus will have
no difficulty in spreading throughout other areas such
as the movies, TV, the press, design and the toys and
electronic games industry. Political scientists fear the
return of the Cold War and a world once again split between
Corey Feldman and Corey Haim. And in the meantime the
unfortunate Markus Karlus and Kevin Rodgers, who inadvertedly
started the whole mess, would just like to be taken seriously
as classical composers.