Date: 18/08/2025

Mood: amused

Listening to: Slutgarden - Marilyn Manson

Asche zu Asche and Stage Persona Misreadings

Look, I try not to care. I really do!! But when people overwrite Paul reality, I get beyond frustrated. Because I enter a state of disbelief. Let me explain.

There's this infamous Paulchard woman online who bugs me. I generally try not to pay too much attention to her anymore. But wow, it's hard to ignore the problems she causes when I hear about it echoed. Then realize the origin of the issue is her. Again. Sigh. This one random post about the Asche zu Asche intro from a random Made in Germany tour show has me in shambles she wrote that absurdity. I'm in disbelief. It's too ridiculous this time to ignore, and touches on issues I can debunk easily.

She's talking about the 2011 Dusseldorf shows that lasted three in a row in December. This was about 30 days into the start of the MiG tour. This moment is kind of famous via gif format because Richard "bit" Paul's shoulder for 1 second.

The video in question is here.

The infamous blog post

Here's her commentary from Ukrainian (edited to shorten).

"As I constantly emphasize, I have my own vision of the relationship between guitarists. And in the period from the 1990s to 2016, I don't see anything sexual in this relationship. Chemistry – definitely. Caring for each other, even in the most difficult times – yes. They were connected, there were feelings and emotions between them, but all of this was in the spiritual realm; the physical component was severely suppressed. Except that sometimes there were some ambiguous gestures that two heterosexual males would never allow themselves, but behind those gestures was a mixture of chemistry and stage shock that was incomprehensible to the guitarists themselves, rather than a desire for truly intimate contact.

Richard's antics in Düsseldorf were not an attempt to arouse Paul or the female fans. It was Richard's reaction to Paul's condition.

That day, Paul came on stage subdued. In complete nirvana. I watched a number of videos from that concert, and the diagnosis is clear. There are doubts about what exactly Paul was high on, but the fact that he was out of it is a fact. That concert was the third in a row in Düsseldorf, and it is quite understandable that at this stage Paul needed some kind of doping.

In principle, Richard agreed with this and did not scold his guitarist, but instead bit him. Maybe Paul was too out of it (his face at the beginning of the intro certainly suggests this), started playing something wrong (with such sound quality, you can't tell what they're playing at all) — and Richard decided to bring Paul's attention back to the concert, to wake him up. And since he couldn't shake Paul's hand, he reached out with his mouth. Or maybe Richard, seeing Paul's condition, got angry and decided to joke, because at that stage of the MiG tour, Richard was extremely friendly towards Paul, and biting his shoulder was their traditional joke since the days of Sehnsucht."

What I took away from her blog post: 🚨 Breaking News 🚨 Woman Can't Recognize Man's Stage Persona

>And in the period from the 1990s to 2016, I don't see anything sexual in this relationship. Chemistry – definitely.

Whenever I look at this, all I see is something like how you bond with a cousin and become close with them. Or maybe a little brother and big brother thing. It has this artificial familial vibe to it. I don't get the "carnal, sexual, romance" hype. I see nothing like that here. Literally, all I see is familial.

>That day, Paul came on stage subdued. In complete nirvana. I watched a number of videos from that concert, and the diagnosis is clear. There are doubts about what exactly Paul was high on, but the fact that he was out of it is a fact.

Promise me this is lost in translation because there is NO way this woman should be insinuating Paul is high on a drug before a concert that would "subdue" him. That is counterproductive and actively harms the concert. Is she trying to throw Paul under the bus right now and make him look incompetent or actively a bad performer on purpose? Even if such a thing were relevant, it would be an upper. Not a downer. He can legally achieve the same thing with caffeine and B12. There is no reason for this suggestion.

However the big thing here is... none... none of this stuff about this Asche clip is accurate. No idea what she's talking about regarding this concert or video in particular. I can debunk it, actually. So, I'm going to. That's the post.

Why "tired" is not evident

Show me the clips or videos she's referencing to have said that because I found nothing of the sort anywhere on December 6th. I looked at 1/2 the concert's set and everything Paul is doing is standard MiG, his norms per song, or high energy beyond what was needed.

>That day, Paul came on stage subdued.

Intro + Sonne? What are you talking about? Why are you literally lying? He plays around to move to the opening intro beats. In good spirits apparently with energy to have fun. Goes hard in Sonne as usual. Nails his final riff ending to go full-bodied energy as he does. Standard stuff here and absolutely none of it is subdued in the slightest. This is peak Sonne energy for this tour cycle. I can debunk this in a YouTube link. What the hell is she talking about? We're off to a great start.

Mutter? Looked normal of him even for a slow song where I thought maybe he'd seem more tired or drop the facade. Nope.

Du hast? Doing his usual headbanging. Totally into it as usual. Does his lean forward at the explosion of the bridge as I expected.

Mein Teil? He goes absolutely unnecessarily hard (mute this but watch it) in the intro when he walks backwards from Reesh, actually. Totally beyond his standard of how that is done. It exerted him more effort to do that than I expect of a tired man. He is all over the place in that song having fun.

Engel? Nothing. Standard stuff. Not even at the end of the show does he falter.

What the hell is she talking about? Where is the tired footage? What songs? What links? At this man's point of career, I really don't think three shows in a row is abnormal or going to break him. In the future of the Stadium tour we had shows in a row and nothing was abnormal about him either. Who is gonna break the news to her that Paul has performed four shows in a row in Berlin in 2009 without having a bad performance?

You can watch many clips of him here in Dusseldorf. Tell me where the problem is that resembles anything that Tanya wrote.

Asche zu Asche stage norms

As someone who is the keeper-of-the-jpgs, Paul always looks like this in the Asche intro. Seriously. Many shows allowed the press and media access for photography during Asche, Feuer frei, and Mutter. Many images are taken during this intro. There are likely over 300 from this intro alone. What he looks like in the video is exactly how these images look regularly. Nothing is peculiar to them.

I am the one out here tagging Till and Richard on 800 MiG images. I know what the intro to this song looks like by now. If she thinks he looks tired or strange, it means she's never bothered to stare him regularly. Or hardly at all. This image is from November 25th's Asche too. It looks the same as December 6th.

I am going mad via Asche press photos right now. Everything he does is standard. 99% of MiG photos taken by the press during this moment look the same. Nothing is amiss.

Paul is doing his usual persona work in this December video. It's all his standard and it's hot as fuck to me. Has she never stared at him doing this to not realize how normal this is? He always looks upward and into the distance. Him looking upward and out is actually very very VERY important!! If he did not do this, 90% of photos would look boring and awkward. And not hot.

It looks mediocre if he looks downward, and many images would turn out poor due to not paying attention to any specific camera.

You absolutely WANT him to look upward and out in the distance as the Asche video shows him doing. That is how this happens. Beautiful! *chef's kiss*

Richard's distance and sightline

When he walks up, Paul is already standing center alone and he was too far away from his side of the stage on the other end to even alert Richard to anything. The angle Richard is at doesn't support being able to perceive anything about his facial expression or eye contact state of anything. He is 10 to 20 meters away. Is she seriously suggesting Richard can see nuances of Paul's face from even 10 meters away on the total opposite side? On a partly dark stage? Reesh apparently has the eyesight of an actual hunting tiger according to Tanya Ivanna.

When he approaches, he's looking downward. Nothing about this angle would allow perception of facial nuances. Additionally, when Reesh looks at him; it appears to be somewhere around his neck. This correlates with him thinking about the shoulder and not focused on anyone's face.

Richard doesn't check or make eye contact

Paul wanted to look at him for engagement, but Richard ignored and did nothing to indicate if the message was received. So much for "concern", am I right?

As someone who has bothered to watch these men on stage in phones and random bootleg cameras for many hours, I can tell you when they want to communicate while playing they use eye contact, hand gesture (if they can), and trying to use their face because they have limited ways to speak and be heard due to volume. Nothing here showed communication except from Paul himself trying to make eye contact and failing.

From 1999 DRSG in this clip; Paul does what during the stage gaff? Tries to get visual eye contact with what Schneider's doing as they can't speak at that volume so he can correct the song and fall back in-sync. During that entire debacle, Flake noticed it instantly as well and he kept his eye contact on them back and forth to know what to do next for his own cue that was delayed. If something is amiss on stage, eye contact is crucial. That is my point.

Paul did not change his behaviors

Nothing he did impacted anything. If Richard wanted to risk causing Paul to falter or make error notes – distracting him via sudden touching or startling him like that is a good way to cause mistakes.

This is the equivalent of disrupting an actor mid-scene during an intense emotion. Asche is about ~30 minutes into the show and he's very deep into his role right now. The disruption was external and not himself causing it so he wasn't ready to break concentration. Looking the way he does like that is not his default facial resting position, he has to pay attention. That's why the Du hast clip has him trying very hard to return to before. It seems to be easier to break the character than it is to get back into it. Thus his face lapses tension and concentration for ~5 seconds.

When she looks to think he "woke up" - that is him changing emotion within the persona being broken and trying to shift composure to "go back" when he understands Richard is disinterested. This happens during the transition of 0:10 and 0:11 of the video of some sort of of mental thought like, "oh he's not paying attention to me. moving on." And at 0:12 he blinks, re-focuses at 0:13-14, and regains full force composure into the persona again by 0:15.

Tanya believes Paul: "woke up", was "subdued", and "out of it". Literally, all he is doing is what he does on stage every single show since the 90s. Has... has she watched concert videos? Cell phone footage? Anything? What a mess of a post. Was he also subdued and out of it in 1997 to her eyes? I would love to know.

No audible issues with Asche’s notes

Because that part is Paul's "solo", it's incredibly easy to check if he's accurate. Yes, he's nailing Asche's notes in his sleep right now. It all sounds correct and nothing is wrong with this video's sound quality to not figure this out.

The Sehnsucht era "traditional joke" claim

">and biting his shoulder was their traditional joke since the days of Sehnsucht."

The only goddamn thing on this planet she could be referring to is 1999 June Montreal and Spiel mit mir performances. There are no other sources or proof of such a thing. Neither of which sources are shoulder biting. The 90s are very wild and undocumented time. Technically "anything" can happen, but I have never seen any concert report from a fan, bootleg, or photo that shows such a behavior being "normalized" as she says.

Spiel mit mir was the bridge where they'd stand closer or lean to each other.

This is a correlation to the song lyrics themselves. Go look that up. Nothing of importance to speculate on. Biting would make no sense for the lyrics anyway. The thematic ideas presented in the song is two children in a bed with one child giving the other a handjob. That's the song.

In 1999 Montreal Canada, Reesh barely grazed Paul's shoulder with a pretend lick.

My theory is Paul's reaction is subdued because he barely felt it and most of his perception of the event was via the corner of his eye to see it, rather than feel it. The lick looked as a graze if you go frame by frame. I doubt this woman did because she doesn't seem the type to even understand how to get a hold of bootleg raws in a good quality to do that. Let alone have the patience to watch them outside of clips. So much for hours of studying...

She knows it's a joke...

Hold the hell up. When you get to her final idea, she finally realizes what she's saying is absurd and walks it back.

>Or maybe Richard, seeing Paul's condition, got angry and decided to joke, because at that stage of the MiG tour, Richard was extremely friendly towards Paul

This is actually the more obvious answer. But I'd do without the hysterics about pretending anything was wrong with Paul. I'd phrase it like this, "Or maybe Richard, because at that stage of the MiG tour he was extremely friendly towards Paul, decided to joke." Nailed it! Her entire concept can be a single sentence and a video link to it. Maybe a gif. No Asche conspiracies and fanfiction.

Paul's stage persona in his own words

So here's the materials Tanya refused to accept or acknowledge in her theories for everyone to see.

It's what he wants to do. It's what he wants to be. He always has called R+ a type of "theater" and showmanship. Which is true, they're very much an entire act and concept on stage. You never feel like it's "dudes on stage playing music". You know there's artistry and theater here for an act. The thing is, every man is different about it. Different eras have differing levels of cohesion. The way he acts on stage is on purpose. He knows he's doing it.

Question: Would it be a dream you'd have to be recognized solely for your music and to be able to do without all the other stuff?

Paul: That is a difficult subject. How much of our success is due to the shows? I believe that we would be relatively successful even without the stage show since our music has its quality. But such a question doesn't get raised much anymore. On one hand, every effect distracts from the music and turns the whole thing into a type of circus. On the other hand, that's just how we are. We'll never go on stage in lumberjack shirts, playing hour long solos, mutually goading each other - that doesn't fit us. Because we play using sequencers, we are bound with musically rigid guidelines on the stage. We tried to break out of that and do improvised parts, but after three attempts we went back to playing the same thing again. This may be due our German roots. We love to do reiteration and repeat the same thing over and over with a blank expression on our faces.

Question: This monotony is also a large part of your style.

Paul: Yeah. There are some of us who get sick of certain songs. So sometimes we remove a song from a set. Most of the band loves doing the same thing over and over again. The dull repetition of the constant thing. Like in theater, maybe it's a tad harsh but I see us like we're music theater. When you play as Hamlet, you can only deviate from the role to a very limited degree. And that's how it is with us as well, we're not casual. No one imposed that on us. It's a voluntary corset. Perhaps a railing we coast on safely. That's beautifully said! I'm impressed. (laughs)

Question: Does it cause problems for you to maintain that the image of Rammstein of hard, angry men who are always strong and can never cry?

Paul: Before Rammstein I played for ten years in a fun punk band, and that was much more demanding. Because as a fun punker, as Die Ärzte can attest to, you always have to be funny. The fans tip beer over your head and you have to come across nicely. With Rammstein I can be 99% whatever I want. Being stern is simple, it requires no disguise. Even in a bad mood, it's still awesome. Everything pissing me off 100% enhances the show. I can stand there the entire concert like a pawn in a game of Chess, without batting and eyelash, but the show is still great.

Both of these translations are my attempts to make him come across in English properly of tone and my own work. I will 100% stand by my translation of "grimmig" to be "fierce" and "stern" in English. Fight me 1v1 in a Lidl parking lot.

I say he doesn't mean "grim" (same as grimmig in German of root word) because grim has several usages in English. I took my synonym from the definitions of relevancy. It is the meaning - fierce, stern, firm. Or even harsh. He goes on to express ideas of angry, pissed off, or frustration. Which grim's other meanings in English does not correlate with. Thus I think a synonym used would help clear up this discrepancy to a native speaker to eliminate the ambiguity.

From experience, I'd say the hardest bands are often the kindest ones. However, a threatening, scary, or aggressive effect on stage can't totally be acted out. The roles we have on stage are hidden somewhere inside us. Though this side of us isn't turned on all day. If everything was faked, people would notice that and it wouldn't be well received. You have to find a middle ground somehow. There's no such "after show creepiness", you have to have something in you or the fans would feel it."

My point is he knows that when he's on stage that he is: 1) acting and 2) angry, stern, firm, or fierce looking. Or that sometimes he doesn't need to act and the emotion felt is real in some shows. Or in this woman's mind she thinks he looks "tired". When that is not how he perceives himself on stage doing this especially in the MiG era where his persona work was the standard.

Excuse me, I am asking you to respectfully tell me how many concerts, audio recordings, and bootlegs you have watched from previous years. If you started with him in the 90s and then went forward on the timeline, you'd know that nothing about MiG's Asche in Dusseldorf is concerned commentary worthy.

Because Ezzy's camera captured him again at 2:07 and 2:57. Tell me what's so "tired" about it.

I do not understand how anyone who wants to appreciate Paulchard could or would manage to fail the basic 101 of "watch concert". Yet here we are. The MiG tour is important for us Paul girlies because he does two things that are important musically as his equivalent of a "solo". That being Asche's intro and Mann gegen Mann's interlude. These are pristine moments for us that I can't imagine anyone who likes him to not be familiar with MiG tour cycles because of it. I don't know how someone could be unfamiliar with Asche or MGM footage standard norms.

If this woman wants to commentate him in MiG playing Asche; tell me why you think you're qualified to say he's in a tired condition. What do you know about his persona's norms? What have you studied? Share your findings with the class. Because I just explained above my own findings and pattern recognition from "studying the materials" as she claimed we should.

From my time watching LIFAD and MiG footage, he is most likely to be tired looking around the encore. You know like MHB, Amerika, Pussy, Ich will, Engel? There. That cluster. If you want to see a man look anywhere near tired, you'd need to go there. He often slows down in those songs. He's still doing well but he's like 50/50 chance to do less depending on the show. Sometimes he's still totally at 100% and then sometimes, I can see an "I'm tired" decline to like 60% energy level. Usually Amerika or Pussy starts getting really by the numbers. It's okay to pull back then sometimes. I wouldn't say it's a constant thing though. I just happen to sometimes notice he gets a bit more sluggish at the end in some random shows every now and again.

Issues in Tanya's transparency and biases

Has she ever stopped to ask, consider, or perceive how Paul wanted to be taken on a stage like this? Because if she's ever read his words, she'd know his own description of himself and then realize "tired" wouldn't make sense. That she should first consider his own stage act and stern behavior before she makes any other conclusions or conspiracies to be the most reasonable conclusion. Shouldn't she be taking this into account for all her "hours of material" studying??

You know, she wanted to make the disclaimer on her old Diary.ru blog in general that she believes:

"All we can do is carefully analyze the slightest nuances in each of their moods, deviations from their usual daily behavior patterns (details can say more about a person than their words. A person can lie, but their facial expressions and gestures never can). For such work, you need to have a solid foundation in the form of hundreds of hours of videos, interviews, and other similar materials filmed over many years.

You have to be a true fan of your idol to be able to determine at a glance, based on the smallest details of their behavior, what state they are in, what mood they are in, and what relationship they have today with one or another member of their team. In short, it is the practical work of an amateur physiognomist psychologist."

I don't know why Tanya is using words she doesn't understand. Physiognomy is not what this is. The dictionary says she literally wrote physiognomist as transliterated from English. Which is incorrect and makes no sense. If this was physiognomy, she would be saying things like: "Richard has a strong brow ridge and that makes him prone to having more anger than other people" because furrowed eyebrows can be a sign of displeasure. That is not what she is ever posting about. Nonsense word to use. What she is doing is personality psychology or emotional language reading of body gestures. Which has no conclusive scientific basis due to gestures varying wildly culture to culture.

You see, her disclaimer about psychology and "physiognomy" is from her old blog. This disclaimer was removed from her new blog for a few years now. She never mentions her fictional claims via IG at all and doesn't warn anyone there. She doesn't warn people anymore that half of her ideas are fanfics, headcanons, and made up psychological theories. Yeah. She used to openly admit it's all a bunch of stupid behavior for fun. Now she doesn't.

All of his stage persona and nuance has been thrown out the window. If Tanya would like me to study her posts and give her a psychological theory like she does with Paul, I would say she: is actively looking for reasons to degrade or make Paul incompetent so she can project her fantasies of savior/doting Richard fanon and wish fulfillment on Paul. She made up this fake situation where Paul is in "need" in order to write her own Richard fantasy of him being attentive and caring. Even if nothing at all of any kind supports this in the video. The video is playful! A joke! That's it. Nothing more.

>For such work, you need to have a solid foundation in the form of hundreds of hours of videos

I have watched several hundreds of hours of MiG and LIFAD tour footage. I have spent hours and hours of my life staring at Paul jpegs. Including many from MiG and Asche specifically due to press photos.

>You have to be a true fan of your idol to be able to determine at a glance, based on the smallest details of their behavior

I can tell you at a single glance of clicking this YouTube link she provided, on my first viewing, first watch, a single ~15 seconds I said: "this is nothing. it looks like typical Asche zu Asche intro."

Seriously, when she said >I watched a number of videos from that concert, and the diagnosis is clear. Girl, show me. Link me! Put up or shut up. I have provided my own video and photo citations of why this claim is utter nonsense. I want to see the videos she watched.

Conclusion

I will not stand for this MiG tour era slander about his amazing hot stage persona behavior lol. Have we no culture?? The disrespect right now for this sacred era of muscular bicep arm shirt will not be tolerated.

Okay, okay. I will be serious. I have been pent up and frustrated over this woman online for like five years. You cannot have conversations with her to correct these posts. All she does is block your comments. Whenever people get confused or ask genuine questions, she gets annoyed all "I have explained so many times" despite the fact her opinions are confusing like this sometimes.

And people listen to her as an authority about these things...? Huh? Why? What basis? Because she makes big claims and pretend to be "in" on some deep secrets? She claims to know Richard "personally", and I'm laughing. He has many die hard fangirls who know more or as much as this woman, who have been his fan far longer than her, and even then... he doesn't personally talk to them that way. Precisely because of women like her who will public speak and cause gossip problems. She causes rumors and damage all the time to anyone who listens to her ideas. She often ends up having to walk ideas backwards with placation or diffusing statements.

In the hypothetical reality where she has possibly spoken to Richard via Internet chat one time, that doesn't mean she knows him "personally" or has any bearing of "authority". I really don't think if she knew him "personally" that she'd be sneaking around his home neighborhood in her spare time on vacation. Nobody who knows him "personally" would need to go see him at a hotel like she did in 2023 and 2024. Why does anyone give her a scrap of attention for behaving like this?

When will I escape shipping? I miss my freedom. Show me the women who enjoys him without needing to utter any secondary sentence about someone else. When Paul is being funny, fans know it's a joke and have a chuckle. When Richard wants to be funny, women are out here writing conspiracies about it instead of laughing at his joke. RZK fangirls are another category of woman. No idea what goes on with them. Have mercy on me.