Genius dilettantes

Fun and Games and Tensions: The musical underground of Berlin presented itself in a festival held in the Berliner Tempodrom-Tent at the beginning of September

"That is folklore, Berliner folklore. Simply authentic music from West Berlin", says Blixa Bargeld, singer and guitarist of the group EINSTÜRZENDE NEUBAUTEN. That which he referred to as Berliner folklore was to be heard at the beginning of September in the Tempodrom-Tent on the Potsdamer Square alongside the Wall: the "Festival of Genius Dilettantes", put on by Bargeld in collaboration with the actor/musician/organizer Mabel and the actor/filmmaker Wieland Speck, attracted around 40 musicians in diverse groups. This "Big Show before the End" offered the audience of circa 1500 amazed spectators a type of folk music that has nothing to do with rustic campfire songs sung to an acoustic guitar. It harkens back to the beginnings of folklore in the form of simple music - music simple enough to be played by everyone, but not music for the masses. However "simple" is not to be equated with "stupid", as it was understood by some Festival attendees. Of course these musicians also have standards of excellence, albeit ones not based on the command of an instrument, but on whether or not the music is "exciting or powerful", as Blixa Bargeld describes the sounds of the Berliner musical underground.

And what these performing bands had to offer was truly exciting: in sets of maximum 20 minutes per band, rhythms and sounds unlike anything you've ever heard from the forefront of rock, ie the New Wave. From the mostly short and cynical lyrics one perceives more of the reality of the Berlin between Kreuzberg and Wedding than one ever would from the pithy, peppy "I love Berlin" texts of commercially successful chart toppers. If ever there was a claim to making folk music, then why not this?

The two hours of new music performed that evening in the Tempodrom-Tent were the result of many years of development on the part of Berliner musicians whose boredom with popular rock music inspired them to pick up their own instruments. They had grown tired of all the superstars whose creativity had become stuck in a rut of the same old song structures. It was the punks who were the first to proudly announce that their three chord guitar had brought a new aggression to the washed out scene and its sated superstars.

In Berlin one could first see these hardcore musicians at the "Punkhouse" on the Ku'damm, where groups like PVC and FFURS were the housebands. But even in the early days - when hundreds of people came to the same realization, namely that anyone who wants to make music, can make music - one started hearing groups other than punk bands. Although they had all taken up instruments for the same reasons, these other groups produced entirely different sounds. Din A Vier, today known as Din A Testbild, were one of the seminal groups from which many others were to be formed. They made and make oppressive, cold music, largely created with electronic instruments.

One of the musicians who co-founded the original constellation that was to become Din A Testbild is the multi-instrumentalist Gundrun Gut. Together with two other women she went on to form MANIA D., who were the first group to perform with any regularity (every Wednesday) at the then existing discotheque "Moon" in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, that is as long as anyone found their way to the small, off-the-beaten-track club to listen to the as yet unheard of offerings.

After the "Punkhouse" closed, "SO-36" was probably the most important venue in which everything the new scene had to offer was played. But the most interesting performances took place at "Zensor", a tiny record shop in a backroom of the small Schцneberg department store, "Blue Moon". The newest groups performed there regularly every Saturday. These musically radical bands were rarely heard at "Excess", the New Wave oriented, headliner club of the scene, nor did they often appear at the recently closed

Everyone can make their own, individual music "Music Hall" in Steglitz. "Those were and still are primarily shows for insider people only", says Blixa Bargeld. "For example, if somebody performs at 'Risiko' in Kreuzberg, only a few flyers are passed out. There are no other advertisements, so only those people who are interested and those who know show up". In the meantime, dozens of underground groups were formed, only to play one or two gigs before disbanding, reforming with other musicians under different names, and venturing into entirely new, uncharted territory. The vast number of cassettes, singles and LPs that were recorded during this period, albeit mostly under terrible recording conditions and in limited editions, speak to the immense creativity of the scene. EINSTÜRZENDE NEUBAUTEN.

There are no boundaries, everything's allowed for example, recorded their first four live appearances onto cassettes, of which only 20 copies of each were made. Nevertheless, two people actually managed to get their own labels off the ground in order to be able to produce their own material. Burkhard Seiler, proprietor of the "Zensor" record shop, founded the Marat label. Michael Voigt, musician and organizer of concerts at "SO-36", cofounded Monogam Records together with Elisabeth Schдumer. Several of the more interesting bands recorded their early records on these labels - MANIA D.'s first single was on Monogam and their next incarnation, MALARIA!, recorded their first EP on Marat. Marat also released the first single of Frieder Butzmann, who had been part of the underground scene from the beginning. The production of these groups was not without problems for both labels - Monogam had great difficulty in bringing their "Monogam"-Sampler of various Berliner groups into stores. It took almost half a year after the album was first reviewed by the critics for it to become readily available.

Other groups sought the experience of bigger, out of town labels. TODLICHE DORIS and EINSTÜRZENDE NEUBAUTEN both recorded albums on Alfred Hilsberg's Hamburg based label, ZickZack (known for distributing albums directly to the critics). Due to financial difficulties, Hilsberg had to sell some of his wares to other distributors to pay off the debt collectors who were knocking down the door.

The female groups MALARIA! and DIN-A-TESTBILD tried their luck elsewhere. MALARIA! recorded a new album on an English label based in London. And DIN-A-TESTBILD, reduced to a duo, recorded their second album on IC-Records, electronic musician Klaus Schulze's label. But these recordings which only offered fragmentary glimpses of the scene, were of secondary importance to most musicians, whose primary interest remained in performing live. Live performances offered a group the opportunity to hone their ideas into full-fledged songs; this meant that a piece could sound entirely different from one day to the next. In Blixa Bargeld's opinion, "Recordings only lay down the framework. We establish a starting point - what happens from then on depends on the audience, the space in which we perform, or the way in which we structure the performance".

Or it depends on the instruments: the trio DIE TODLICHE DORIS, together a mere six months, used a violin during their concert at the Tempodrom, thereby gaining a new, more psychedelic sound.

Several groups created entirely new tones and sounds with the use of unusual, creative instruments. EINSTÜRZENDE NEUBAUTEN, for instance, play on largely self-built drumkits made of steel drums and pipes, which give their music a certain hard, clattering sound.

What has developed is a type of music that not only defies categorization, but also actively spurns categorization. Largely simple rhythms, played on conventional and unconventional instruments, are hacked up, turned upside down and taken apart. "Everything is allowed", says Blixa Bargeld. "Everyone can make their own, individual music. There are no boundaries". Except, that is, that it is not experimental music, whatever that may be. "It may have started out as something experimental", says Mabel of Die Gesunden kommen, "but nowadays, each group is doing their own thing. . . and it's all just music".

Sometimes one hears familiar tunes, as is the case with the duo Sentimale Jugend (Alexander von Borsig and Christiane X), who layered the text "Hiroshima, how wonderful it was" over a slow waltz.

One finds many such cynical lyrics - mostly short statements, no longer than one or two lines, which directly address the state of the nation much more effectively than the long tirades of moralizing songwriters.

Music and text are played off of one another: a musical theme is developed to express a certain feeling, which in turn is put into words. The words are added to the music, thereby refining the song.

But one cannot expect artistic perfection, especially when Blixa Bargeld readily admits that he "really can't play" and that he can't repeat "that which I played once already". One must understand that these musicians make music with a purpose: to prove that anyone can make music full of ideas and energy.

Many musicians continue to be surprised by what is being sold as the "Berliner scene". Bargeld said, "If all the things that are being marketed were no longer to exist, then that what we are doing would be the true Berliner scene. I don't even know the people that play in the prominent bands, even though I've lived here at least 20 years longer than they have".

Hans-Georg Sausse
"Tip", Berlin, 20/1981 (25.09-08.10)
(Translation by Katherine Lorimer)