Stil in Berlin

Julian Zigerli Winter 2012

noreply@blogger.com (dario) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 10:19:00 +0000

Julian Zigerli presented his newest collection last week, featuring 3 bashful tea-sipping, friendship bracelet-braiding boys sitting in the corner of Happy Shop.

Vladimir Karaleev Winter 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Mary) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 10:23:00 +0000

I also did an interview with Vladimir about art, and art and fashion, and fashion for Monopol (in German).

Interview: Yony Leyser

noreply@blogger.com (dario) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 12:33:00 +0000

Yony Leyser is an American filmmaker now based in Berlin, whose first film William S. Burroughs: A Man Within has just opened throughout Germany. The film features interviews with Burroughs' friends and associates, from John Waters to Genesis P. Orridge to Robocop himself, as well as a soundtrack by Patti Smith and Sonic Youth. He'll be hosting a Q&A tonight at Moviemento, where the film is currently screening.

DN: So how did this all get started?

YL: I had just gotten kicked out of film school at CalArts for an art piece I did criticizing the dean of students. I snuck into her office made a fake expulsion letter to myself on her computer, printed it out, signed her name, blew it up, and put it in the main gallery. She told me I could either leave the school or sue me for libel, so I left. I didn't really know where to go after that, but my sister was teaching in a small college town called Lawrence, Kansas, where William Burroughs had also lived. I'd learned about Burroughs years earlier in Chicago, so I thought it must have been a cool town if he had lived there.

I started working for this really wealthy kid. He was almost comic book rich. His name was just one word, like Madonna. He drove a custom-made Lamborghini to school, had bodyguards, and his buzzer on his house said 'James Bond'. Anyway, he hired me to shoot something for him, and in return I would get the equipment. So once I had the equipment, I just started shooting. Originally it was more about the history of Lawrence. And slowly I started to interview Burroughs' friends.

DN: What was the first connection you made?

YL: I interviewed this trash collector, one of the few women that was friends with him. When I met her she brought half a lamb with her and asked me to drive with her to upstate New York. So I went with her, eating this lamb out of a plastic bag. It was really gross, but I was a broke college student. When we got there, she introduced me to Charley Plymell, who was another friend of Burroughs. I interviewed him as well, and he told me that Sonic Youth lived a few towns away, and we organized an interview with them through him.

DN: When did you realize that it was going to be a film about Burroughs and not Lawrence?

YL: At that point I had already realized that it was going to be about Burroughs. Just before I went on the road trip I had my first experience with psychedelic drugs, and it really helped me form my ideas around the film. Before that experience, I didn't think I could make a film about Burroughs, since I didn't know much about him and his life. But I kind of developed this blind bravado after that and said "Why not?".

DN: How did you end up getting all these big names attached to the project?

YL: In the beginning, I was just getting fake press passes, sneaking backstage, and doing craigslist rideshares to get around. It was kind of a punk rock approach to doing things. By halfway through, when I had done a few interviews and started putting together rough cuts of the film and showing it to people, they began to get on board and wanted to help me. I think people were impressed by the story and how far I got with the method I used.

DN: What did you find out from the subjects you filmed?

YL: I was surprised at how different the public and private personal of an artist can be. For example, as I read Naked Lunch as a teenager, I really thought Burroughs must be completely nuts, from the way he wrote about sex and murder and death. But in private, he was just a really conservative guy. In the film, he's sitting and talking with Allen Ginsberg, his best friend, about sex, and he's squirming in his seat. It was amazing to me that someone could write like he did, but then not be able to speak casually with his best friend about love or sex. Burroughs had this great output, but he struggled in his personal life. I think a lot of people want to be friends with artists, but in many cases I think it's smart to never meet them. Artists are often disturbed personally, which is why they make art, as an outlet for it. Which is great, but it doesn't mean that they would make a best friend.

DN: And what's the response been like in Germany so far?

YL: The Q&A's have been totally different. I've shown this film around the world quite extensively, and my Q&A's in Berlin have been totally different than anywhere else. They've all turned into debates about capitalism. I don't know if it's a post-Occupy thing, but all the discussion has eventually become about late-stage capitalism, which I found to be a strange connection.

DN: Is there a connection between Burroughs and capitalism?

YL: I guess there is, maybe. It seems to be a generational thing. Most of the discussion evolves from the comments of an older person in the crowd. At one screening, it came from a discussion of the 1968 Democratic National Convention protests [which feature in the film] and Occupy Wall Street. Burroughs was at the protests, where the police beat protesters in the street.

DN: What's your next film about?

YL: I'm working on a film now about queercore, which is the intersection of queer and punk in the late 80s and early 90s. It was started mostly by G.B. Jones and Bruce LaBruce in Toronto. Punk kind of started out as really queer. The term was originally used to refer to a young, gay hustler. But with the hardcore scene, punk began to turn very macho. So Bruce LaBruce and G.B. Jones created this zine, J.D.s, where they basically got punk guys in Toronto drunk and got them to make out for the magazine. Then they wrote up these fake articles saying there was a big queer punk scene happening in Toronto. It really wasn't, but people were reading it and believing it was true. But eventually the scene did come to exist, which was a real alternative to the normative gay culture that you'd expect in the 70s.

Images taken from J.D.s issue 3

A lot of people involved in this scene now live in Berlin. I've been in and out of the city since 2007. Bruce LaBruce is here a lot, and Peaches and Vaginal Davis and Joel Gibb all live here now. So it's an interesting tie-in for me to work here in Berlin for the next film.

Hien Le Winter 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Mary) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 10:29:00 +0000

Kaviar Gauche Bridal-Wear 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Mary) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:00:00 +0000

PS, If you can't get enough of Berlin Fashion Week: I've been writing a diary of my fashion adventures for Shopstyle.de and you can read it on blog.shopstyle.de.

HUGO Winter 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Mary) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 10:57:00 +0000

HUGO presented its autumn/winter 2012 womenswear and menswear collection last Thursday in the hall of Gemäldegalerie (which is one of the most underrated museums in Berlin, being hard to find in the inaccessible architecture of Kulturforum). I clearly prefer their menswear, while the women's line is a rather bland sequence of current trends, Bart de Backer manages to offer a consistent look and approach. The staging of the show is impeccable and the choice of the venue and music (Bjork!) as well as the selection of models without comparison during Berlin Fashion Week. The video (sadly, without the sound of Bjork) is still on view on hugoboss.com.
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Don't Shoot The Messengers Winter 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Mary) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 10:00:00 +0000

Reality Studio Winter 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Mary) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 10:00:00 +0000

Stil in Berlin x Voo

noreply@blogger.com (Mary) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 11:54:00 +0000

Our shop in shop, presenting our 20 most favorite pieces at Voo is now open until January 28th!

At the shop: Sabrina Dehoff

noreply@blogger.com (Mary) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 09:30:00 +0000

Jewelry designer Sabrina Dehoff at her store Torstraße 175.

At the studio: Malaika Raiss

noreply@blogger.com (Mary) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 10:30:00 +0000

This is Malaika Raiss in her studio in Friedrichshain, who will be showing her second collection this Saturday at Berlin Fashion Week. She worked in the design team of Lala Berlin before starting her own label. Her designs are completely wearable, simple, but always embellished with a certain twist. Malaika and her team make a point of producing affordable clothing - means the label fills in the too often neglected mid-price segment with dresses around 250,- Euro in sale. You can find the label in Berlin at Wald and they're currently looking for an online shop to work with.

At the studio: Julia Heuse

noreply@blogger.com (Mary) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 11:38:00 +0000

Julia is the head of the label JULIAANDBEN and will be showing at the tents of Berlin Fashion Week for the first time next Wednesday.

At the studio: Vladimir Karaleev

noreply@blogger.com (Mary) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 10:00:00 +0000

Almost everyone already knows about my affection for Vladimir Karaleev's talent, his designs, color-choices and his styling. And yet again, he developed his approach further for the upcoming Winter 2012/13 show next week, which I am so so so excited to see, I even lack the words to describe it.

Stil in Berlin x Voo Store

noreply@blogger.com (Mary) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 16:00:00 +0000

At the studio: Hien Le

noreply@blogger.com (Mary) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 10:28:00 +0000

I went to visit Hien Le, who founded his label just two seasons ago and already developed a signature, minimal style with high quality materials and simple, well made cuts. His studio in Kreuzberg is filled with finished pieces, all in light pastel colors (plus deep blue) with accents in mint for boys and tangerine for girls. Luckily, everything he designs is rather unisex, so don't mind if you like the boys version better (like I do). Hien Le will be presenting his work Thursday night at the Studio of Mercedes Benz Fashion Week. He has some pretty nice ideas to present his work, but nothing is final yet so I am keeping my fingers crossed everything works out as he plans.

At the studio: Augustin Teboul

noreply@blogger.com (Mary) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 10:30:00 +0000

Fashion Week is just one week away - but we're starting a little early this time. I visited some of the most promising designers in their studios to see what they are working on, chat a little and, of course, take their picture.
These two young women are the minds behind the highly regarded label Augustin Teboul: Annelie Augustin and Odély Teboul standing on the balcony of their studio / apartment in Neukoelln. I already saw some of the pieces they'll present next week and was yet again in awe of their effort and richness in detail that is executed in the deepest color of all: pure black. Floor-length sleek gowns lavishly embroidered with pearls and finely draped lines of silk, elaborately knitted short pullovers with sculptural arms and a winter coat with crocheted and embellished cuffs. So much work, material and time goes into these pieces, each is a work of art in itself (hence, the prices - you better don't ask.)

At home: Jan Schmidt-Garre

noreply@blogger.com (Mary) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 11:30:00 +0000

Jan Schmidt-Garre, whom you can see in this picture sitting in the living room of his home in Grunewald last Autumn, made a film about the beginnings of Yoga: Der Atmende Gott (with German subtitles). Of course this ›sport‹ carries loads of clichés (elitist, rich people searching for meaning in life etc.) - Yes, there are teachers who tell you to breath through your eyes and activate your chakras by making gemeinsame sounds like omm....ammm..ummm etc. (I never returned to this class).
And though this film might sound like something only to be appreciated by die-hard yoga-fans, it's gentle and calm approach and intelligent interviews and choice of material makes it enjoyable even for those, who think yoga was made popular by esoteric moms occupying Helmholtzplatz. So this is a full-on recommendation for this documentation, that came to cinemas just some days ago.

At home: Melissa Drier

noreply@blogger.com (Mary) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 11:00:00 +0000

This is Melissa Drier, Berlin correspondent for WWD, in her living room in Wilmersdorf doing a batwoman-pose. What might look like an unusual portrait of the always busy fashion-journalist, who knows fashion more seriously and in depth than most of those who claim this title for themselves, it actually displays her enjoyable, generous and frolic personality pretty accurately. Find out more about her on Vogue.de.

And her bookshelf.

Stil in 2011

noreply@blogger.com (dario) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 06:49:00 +0000

Happy New Year!

A little recap of our favourite posts from 2011, and a bit of news for our 2012 plans (we promise, it will be a more productive year than last). More info after the jump.

We're sure you've noticed that 2011 was a bit of a slow year for Stil in Berlin. By the end of last year, Mary and I had both decided that we wanted to move this blog into a new direction, away from street style and towards a more well-rounded picture of what we thought were the most interesting people and ideas in contemporary Berlin. This proved to be a much bigger undertaking than expected, and coupled with Mary's mega-master-thesis extravaganza and a new job for Dario, we ended up being slower than we would have liked.

Moving into our 6th(!) year, we're happy to be back on track, and in search of our first office space for the blog (which must mean we're serious in our intentions). By the way, we appreciate any and all real estate tips and offers. But in the meantime, some of our favourite people from 2011:

At Work with mono.kultur's Kai von Rabenau & At Home with architect Sigurd Larsen

Fashion Week looks with Vladimir Karaleev, Michael Sontag, and Hien Le

And our first international ad campaign for Adidas.

And of course, more At Home portraits, interviews and a new collaboration with Vogue.de

Hope you're staying with us in 2012, we wish you a fabulous, exciting and active new year!

Interview: Hopea

noreply@blogger.com (dario) — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 22:54:00 +0000

I'm spending the holidays in Canada, so while I was in the neighbourhood, I stopped by my friend Cosima's studio, where she runs her new project Hopea, an online shop which works as a sort of archive for Nordic and Canadian modernist jewelry from 1960-1975 specifically. I took a few shots of the pieces and we talked about her inspirations for Hopea (which is Finnish for silver), as well as the history behind some of the forgotten designers.

DN: How would you describe the jewelry you've collected here?

CF: Many people call it modernist, but some of it is also antimodernist as well. There were many aesthetics which were interwoven and competing at the time. Everything was happening in new directions.

DN: How did you get into collecting these pieces?

CF: My partner had a collection of jewelry by Guy Vidal, who was a Montreal-based artist in the 70s. His stuff is really Brutalist, but very creative and sculptural at the same time. I wasn't so taken by it at first, but it grew on me and I started to look into the context, and who else was doing this kind of work. As I looked I discovered there was a whole movement.

DN: What was the backdrop for this movement then?

CF: Lots of the groundwork was being laid in the 50s. Things were becoming more streamlined in terms of design, and there was a real focus on Scandinavian design, especially Danish. So these artists began working against the streamlined minimalism and design mores of the time. In Norway, for instance, there was a return to Viking brutalism. They were reacting against that streamlined aesthetic, but reaching back in their own heritage to do so. David-Andersen is an example of that. The firm was really old, but in the 60s they became more forward-thinking and modernist. Their idea was to make replicas of Viking jewelry from 300 AD. So instead of going with a certain direction as everyone else, they reacted oppositely. There were a lot of takes of what was going on, but there was a dialog between all these artists.

DN: Why was this just focused in the Nordic countries and Canada?

CF: There just seemed to be a spark of creativity in the Nordic countries. Individuals like Björn Weckström and Elis Kauppi, who were really driving the movement. Everyone was exploring new forms, but they all had their own take on it. In Finland, it was much more whimsical in a way, and not so stark as Danish, which was very just minimalist. Swedish almost had a feminine quality to it. The movement didn't carry over too widely into Canada. There were just a couple of Canadian artists working within this movement, Robert Larin and Guy Vidal, who were singular in their work, but you could see the inspiration they took from the Nordic designers.

Detail: Guy Vidal "Holly" Necklace, Canada, 1960s, Vidal's Pewter Alloy

DN: Was the movement like a collective, or did it just happen spontaneously?

CF: They were informed by each other, and there was some crossover. Björn Weckström employed Pentti Sarpaneva in Finland, for example. It was like an artist community, their worked with each other, but they all went on to form their own houses eventually. There were also big jewelery prizes, like the Milan Triennale. So certain shows launched Finland onto the jewelry design scene.

DN: Why did you decide to end at 1975? How did things change after this?

CF: It's a pretty specific era. The 80s were not as strong, which becomes pretty evident when you look at a designer's work from the 60s to 80s. Towards the 80s, it seems as if they begin to follow a trend, rather than something which is personal to them.

DN: How did you source your information about the designers?

CF: A lot of them have fallen through the cracks in design history. A lot of the work is very sculptural, and they had the same intention as any of the acknowledged greats in design history. But because their work is associated with industrial design, and because it's considered craft, it's not help to the same higher standard. So part of the project was uncovering any information I could. That was months of research alone. On the website I've built individual biographies, which appeals to my art history background.

DN: Did you get a chance to talk to any of the designers?

CF: I met Guy Vidal actually, which was great. He studied ceramics, and eventually began sculpting these strange pewter forms. It's incredible how labour intensive his pieces are, and how prolific he was. He had a workshop of 20 people at one time, and was making more than a million dollars in worldwide sales. Then he had a fire in his studio in 1977 and he just packed up and stopped. You could see the influence of some of the forms from Scandinavia, but some are also coming straight from his imagination.

I also got in touch with Pentti Sarpaneva's son, who's now a watchmaker in Finland. It was a lot of following crumbs. Some of the artists you can't find any information on. A lot of it is just critical object studies, so you just have to write what you see.

I finished my studies, so you get presents!

noreply@blogger.com (Mary) — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 12:15:00 +0000

Last week, I finally handed in my M.A. thesis. Which means my time being a student of art history and Japenese studies came to an end. It took me one year to finish my exams and the thesis, and this had a seriously negative effect on this blog, which you might have noticed. I am more than thankful for everyone of you who is still here, waiting patiently for more posts to come. This is why I want to give you a gift. Although you might already be more than tired of the gazillions of gift-giving that happens during christmas time on the blogs out there, I hope some of you might find these pieces appealing.

All you have to do to get one of these is to send a mail to info-at-stilinberlin.de naming which piece you'd like until Thursday, 22nd, 1pm.
Of course I'd appreciate a ›Like‹ or ›Share‹ of our Facebook Page. - The game is closed, we received over 200 mails - and all winners have been noticed by mail - thanks for playing!

a (black!) shirt made from recycled clothes by schmidttakahashi (also for men! approx. size M),

a cosy shirt in creme-beige by Michael Sontag (size M),

a transparent shirt in burgundy by Issever Bahri (size S), and

a little jacket in blue by Vladimir Karaleev (size S-M). Kindly sponsored by Müller Zenone.

Du hast mir die Pfanne versaut, du Spiegelei des Terrors!

noreply@blogger.com (Mary) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 12:12:00 +0000

You ruined my pan, you horrible fried egg! A parlour game by René Pollesch and guests, that was played last Friday at the opening of Pollesch's exhibition at Daniel Buchholz. It will be played again on Sunday, 22nd of January. Come early to reserve your spot!
(A profound knowledge of German is necessary to enjoy the game, though.)

The Müjdecis of Oranienstraße

noreply@blogger.com (dario) — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 10:21:00 +0000

Kaan and Yasin Müjdeci (Kaan on the right, Yasin on the left), the two wunderbrüder from Istanbul and owners of two of Oranienstraße's most well-known establishments: the bar/café Luzia and the concept store Voo.

Interview: Goodyn Green

noreply@blogger.com (dario) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 11:50:00 +0000

Goodyn Green is a photographer who has recently self-published her first photobook, The Catalog, a collection of female nudes featuring queer women whose poses reference gay men's magazines. Here she is in Kreuzberg's The Fab Lab, where her photos are currently on display. A short interview follows, along with some of her work, which is probably NSFW (depending on where you work, that is).

DN: How did you start this project?

GG: I was in Barcelona about 2-and-a-half years ago, looking for inspiration for photography. I came across this gay men's magazine called Kink, which I really loved. But when I saw the lesbian version that they made, Marikink, I got so provoked by the photography. The photographers were the same as the men's version -- two male gay photographers. It was mostly just women with long hair in the forest, this typical female tenderness that is so often shown when referring to female sexuality. So that made me want to start something similar to Marikink, but for queer women. And specifically on androgynous looking queer women, because those are the ones that turn me on.

DN: Where did you find your subjects?

GG: I shot in different cities. There are four models from Paris, one from London, one in New York, and a couple from Denmark, and friends from Berlin as well.

DN: Did you find there was a difference between Berlin's queer scene and the other cities you went to?

GG: Berlin is so political -- there's a big focus on not copying these stereotypical gender roles within the queer scene. Even as a homosexual man here, there is a tendency to deny these roles. The Parisian scene is very different from Berlin, for instance. In Paris there's a big femme scene, and a big butch scene, but they are still playing these roles, albeit exaggerated. To me that's something that I never fit into.

DN: Why do you think that Berlin has developed such a unique queer scene?

GG: I think it has a lot to do with it being so left-wing oriented. Berlin has a huge anarchist scene which doesn't exist in other cities anymore. The anarchist scenes are such smaller there, and also less well spread out. In Berlin you even have a specifically queer-anarchist scene, which is independent from the anarchists. So this leads to a bit of a reputation internationally, and you get queer people coming from all over, which makes the it even stronger.

DN: So do you see this as being a lesbian project, or a queer one? Or do the two have to be mutually exclusive?

GG: The word lesbian has been kind of taboo in the queer circles. I'm not afraid of using the word lesbian anymore, but I think mostly I refer to queer women. The difference is that queer women want to expose themselves and show they have a strong sexuality. Some lesbians would be provoked by my photography and find it unappealing. This is the audience that Marikink is speaking to, a more mainstream lesbian audience.

DN: What's your next project after this?

GG: I have a new project at the moment; People who mainly identify as women, but who are being mistaken as another gender. But The Catalog might continue as an ongoing project. I'm definitely not done with these kind of photos.

Interview: Mark Reeder

noreply@blogger.com (dario) — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 09:00:00 +0000

A little bit of research into Berlin's music history, and Mark Reeder's name will probably appear. Since moving to Berlin from Manchester in 1978, he has worked as Germany's rep for Factory Records, toured with New Order, managed Malaria!, organized the first secret punk rock show in East Berlin, was certified 'subversive' by the Stasi, and produced the last record ever produced in East Germany (which was also the only record ever made by an Englishman in the DDR). And that was just before the wall came down. Since then, he was the one to discover Paul van Dyk in 1990, and sign him to his record label MFS, which was also responsible for coining the term 'trance music.' On top of that, he was also in his own band Die Unbekannten (later Shark Vegas), which has since developed its own cult status. I sat down with Mark, and after a few hours talking, hadn't even gotten past 1990. So get your Sunday coffee and prepare for a long but fascinating account of 80s underground music culture in Berlin, both East and West.

DN: How did you end up coming to Berlin in 1978?

MR: It was just a whim. Manchester was a pretty desperate place in the 70s. The prospects weren't looking so good. As it was getting towards the end of 1977, I was seeing the fire being burned out by so-called New Wave, which was rock music being disguised as something new. For instance Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers was just a normal pub band. I saw things going another way, and I wasn't very interested in it. I'd been interested in electronic music for quite a long time, and there was very little of it in the UK. Everything was coming from Germany. So I went to Germany to see if I could find it.

DN: So what did you find?

MR: I didn't. I got Edgar Froese's address in Schöneberg and I went and knocked on his door. I don't know why. But I thought if "I'm here, I might as well say hello." And his wife opened the door and said "He's not here, he's in England." So I never actually met him til years later. But after living here, I found that Berlin that was developing it's own little music scene.

DN: Was it different than what you left in England?

MR: It had the same kind of energy as England, but a different mentality. In England, everybody wanted to make a hit record and sell millions, whereas in Berlin they wanted to make a record and express themselves. It was very refreshing. It wasn't driven by commerciality, it was driven by artistic expression. Certainly there were bands who, later on, wanted to become popstars. But bands like Mania D and P1/E made really different records. The records still sound refreshing today. I just wanted to find out more, and find more people making this kind of stuff.

DN: Where was the scene located then?

MR: The clubs were SO36 and Exxess. SO36 was always a real dive, and still is. Exxess is now a gay sauna on Kurfürstenstraße. It kind of looked like the "Bela Lugosi's Dead" video that was used at the beginning of The Hunger with David Bowie & Catherine Deneuve.

DN: You also worked as the German representative for Factory Records. How did this come about?

MR: Tony Wilson and Rob Gretton from Factory had sort of designated me as the German representative. It had just started, sort there were just one or two releases, but since I was in Germany, it made sense for me to promote whatever it was they planned on doing. I worked with Factory til 83, just before they released Blue Monday. I knew it was something I couldn't handle. The idea had been that I start Factory Germany, but they weren't prepared to give any money to do it. They wanted me to pay for it, and if it worked they'd get all the money, and if it didn't it would be on my back.

But generally, the myth of the label was much bigger than what happened. The label made a loss on every single record they released. They made a loss on Blue Monday, which was the biggest selling 12" ever, and still is today. Financially, Factory was a total disaster. They did make money, but it was all squandered on ridiculous things. There were studio sessions in the Bahamas for records which were never produced, and Peter Saville making a record cover would take months of design, and the cost of the record cover would be more than the cost of the record. So all this kind of crippled the label. It was very nice to look at and great to collect, but as a business enterprise it was a real disaster.

DN: How did you start performing here?

MR: I played a gig at the last night of the Excess Club, on Dec. 31 1980. Everybody who did it was in a band. I was asked as the rep from Factory Germany to do a couple of songs. They knew I'd played in a band before, so they asked me to just come up with something. I asked a friend of mine who was a drummer, Thomas Wydler, who is now with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, and we wrote a song. It was actually a completely stupid song, but the organizer of the night thought it was really good. He must have been really drunk. So he asked if we'd perform again at this Konzert zur Einheit der Nation, on the 17th of June, 1981, at SO36.

A couple of months after the first gig, I bumped into Alistair, who I'd met a few years earlier but not seen since then. We started chatting and I told him I had a gig coming up and asked him if he could sing. So he immediately crooned "Strangers In The Night," and I said "Brilliant, you've got a gig." So I invited him over to my flat, I taught him how to play the bass, and we wrote a few songs. The show was a disaster. I had tuned my guitar backstage, where it was much cooler, and when I went out to the stage, it was a million degrees due to all the lights, so my guitar immediately went out of tune. Then I switched the wrong program on the drum machine, so it was playing something completely different. We had no idea what we were supposed to playing. But people thought it was some sort of avant-garde thing, playing against the rhythm kind of set. So much so, that the woman who owned Monogam Records, Elisabeth, thought it was fantastic and released our first two records as Die Unbekannten.

DN: What was it like as a foreigner here in the 70s and 80s? I imagine there weren't as many as there are today.

MR: There were foreigners here, obviously. But Alistair, myself, and two guys called Trevor and Piers, who played in a band called White Russia -- we were the only English people who got involved in this little scene here. Everyone else was Germans, and they were only really interested in what they were doing.

DN: Was there a difference between the music they were making and what you and Alistair were doing with Die Unbekannten?

MR: For sure. We come from a different school, a different musical upbringing. The way we wrote our songs was really British. It wasn't like the way Mania D wrote their songs, for example. And of course our lyrics were in English. We were considered insider outsiders. Being inside this scene, and accepted for that, but also something quite outside, as we were very English.

DN: In 1982 you also organized a secret concert disguised as a religious service by Die Toten Hosen in East Berlin, which was the first concert by a western punk band in East Berlin. What was the connection to East Berlin?

MR: I had met some people in East Berlin years before; I went over there quite often. They were fans of John Peel and Factory. They wanted to listen to alternative music which they couldn't buy in their local record shop.

DN: Why wasn't punk allowed in East Germany?

MR: It officially didn't exist even. It was seen as a throwback to capitalist society. Punk rock equaled unemployment, and in the Arbeiter-und-Bauern-Staat, there's no such thing as unemployment. Even if you didn't do anything at your job, you had to have one. For something like punk rock to exist in East Germany, it meant a failing of their system. So that's why they removed anything that's to do with punk rock. New wave eventually became a more acceptable term, but that's because it was new wave, and not punk. Punk being a revolutionary kind of sound, and new wave.

DN: How did they get to know that this type of music existed in the first place then?

MR: They taped it off the radio, or got people to bring cassettes over, or records if they were lucky. Most of the time John Peel played music you couldn't buy anywhere anyway. But the John Peel Show was like this religious service they heard every week. They heard it from the radio, through the BBC world service, and on the British forces radio. So they got a double dose every week. They would sit their with their cassette players and record everything on the show. On that show they would hear music that they would never get to hear again.

DN: So how did you meet these people?

MR: I saw this one kid once on the U-Bahn when I was in East Berlin who looked a bit punky, but like a nice punk, not like punk rock's image is today. He just had a bit of spiky hair and drainpipe trousers on, but that was radical enough in East Berlin at that time. He obviously had this passion for this type of music, so when he got off the train, I just followed him and asked him about the underground scene in East Berlin. "I bet he knows where there's a gig tonight," I thought. He said "there are no gigs, there's no subculture here at all." So I told him to let me know if something's happening ever. I gave him my address, and a couple of weeks later I got a letter from this girl who said "I'm interested in this music, I'd like to meet you." Basically they wanted to see who I was and figure out what it was I wanted. So they set up this meeting in the Palast der Republik. In the cafe there was big beautiful round bar, where you could have all these obscure East German cocktails. So we sat there and had a lengthy chat about music, and I discovered a lot of things through her.

DN: What kind of scene was happening in East Berlin?

MR: There was no real punk rock scene there at all at the time. There was just a small group of kids who would get together and listen to John Peel and dream about Depeche Mode. So I thought, "there's something there." I had heard about what was known as a Blues Messe, like a Blues Mass, in this church in Rummelsburg. So I went to see this priest, and asked if it was possible if I brought a band over from the West. He didn't see how we could do it, as we of course couldn't bring our instruments over; The border wouldn't let us. But we arranged to borrow the instruments from people living within the East.

An electric guitar was something that was out of the reach for an average East German to own, but we somehow arranged to get all the instruments together. We found people who knew people who knew someone else. In East Germany, you had to go through a process to get permission to play in front of an audience. It was kind of a group of men in brown suits who would watch you and judge if you were proficient enough, what your lyrics were like, what your music is like. It was a huge process just to determine if you were worthy of a piece of paper which would allow you to buy an electric guitar. These people that we eventually found with the equipment, they ended up becoming Rammstein years later.

DN: How did the gig go?

MR: When the day came, I said to Die Toten Hosen, "We'll go over in threes, you don't know anybody, you're just coming as a tourist. And if anybody didn't get in, the show is canceled." We made it through and went to the Blues Messe. We had to do a bit of praying, and then they could play. It was really emotional. It drove me to tears, to see that we pulled this off. This gig for these kids who would normally never have this opportunity to see this band in their life. That we managed to pull this off, and go against the authorities and have this band play in this place.

DN: And they never found out?

MR: Later on, when I got to see my Stasi file, I learned that from the very first encounter I had with this kid on the U-Bahn, he actually was an Inoffiziele Mitarbeiter for the Stasi. And at that gig, there were also kids who were spying for the Stasi. They had to, due to the activities they'd been involved in previously, in trying to be a punk in East Berlin. It was not an easy task. You weren't even allowed to look like a punk. If you went anywhere near Alexanderplatz looking like a punk, you were immediately removed. I met kids who were arrested and carted off and given an Alexanderplatz-verbot just for wearing a spiky armband.

DN: Why Alexanderplatz in particular?

MR: Because it was the main focal point for all the tourists. Any Western tourist would go to see the TV tower, and even the East German tourists visiting Berlin would go there. So they certainly didn't want any East Germans to see punk rock in East Germany. There were huge cameras all around Alexanderplatz, so they could see anything that was going on. That atmosphere was obviously quite oppressive.

DN: So why did they let you in the country if they had a file on you and knew what you were doing?

MR: They were very interested in what I was doing. I was classed as subversive, out to corrupt the youth of East Germany. The Stasi thought I was trying to infiltrate the political underground, because when I had this first encounter on the U-Bahn and asked for the underground, they thought I was referring to the political underground. They had no idea that such a thing as a music underground could even exist. Obviously they were very interested in my activities, and that's why I was never stopped going over, because they wanted to find out who and where and what I was doing, to try and draw something together. I only found this out later, when I saw my Stasi file.

DN: Did a punk rock underground ever emerge in East Berlin?

MR: Of course, more and more. But it was a real fight. It was very politically driven, in a different sense than it was in England. In England it was seen as sort of a fashion thing, but in East Germany the whole momentum behind it was freedom of speech.

DN: Do you think that this connection between the underground and politics has changed? Is there such a thing as an underground anymore even?

MR: There's too many different opportunities today for an underground like there used to be to exist. It had something to do with buying records I think. Today you don't ever have to buy music, so it has no value any more. Now, the only value is in being elitist enough to have something which is new that you think everybody should be listening to. But in the 80s, when you had to buy music, it had a greater value. A group would have to get so far as to actually make a record. Today music is just a throwaway. The value of music has changed, and the meaning of having a musical revolution has changed with it.
Music is all over the place today. It used to be a political expression, as well as a generational expression. It expressed a radical change in people's mentality. That's a bit confused these days. There isn't an apparent statement in music today. It's there, but it's not apparent. For that to arrive again, I think we'd have to have a lot of hardcore political changes happening.

Mark Reeder will be releasing a new album in the next week, "Five Point One," which features a selection of his remixes. A rare Shark Vegas track has also recently been re-released on Strut Records' Fac.Dance compilation.