Last edited Thu Jun 23, 2022, 03:55 PM - Edit history (2)
Google Translate. It's awkward in places but not hopelessly confusing, like some translations I looked at but didn't want to take time to correct after copying and pasting.
Link to the translation:
https://www-ndr-de.translate.goog/kultur/musik/Campino-wird-60-Punkrock-bedeutet-nicht-nur-Vollgas-und-laut,campino270.html?_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc
I thought this quote from Campino about how his band has evolved from punk rock (while still calling themselves punk rockers) was interesting:
Later I learned: punk rock doesn't just mean full throttle and loud. You discover the field of dynamics - and that being still can also have great power.
And I thought this was interesting as an explanation for the name of their current tour,
Alles aus Liebe or
Everything Out of Love:
According to Campino, the title of the anniversary compilation "Alles aus Liebe" goes back to the actor Klaus Maria Brandauer: "Once he came to a concert in Austria. After the show I didn't know whether I should go to him, I was worried whether it was the right event for him. But then he said to me: 'You know what? You can be as hard as you want - I didn't see anything else today but pure love'. In the end it worked out exactly therefore in these 40 years."
That translation is awkward in places, too, but not as bad as some I've seen. Might grab my German-English dictionary later and see if I can fix the awkwardness. (EDITING, with an improved translation of the last sentence of that excerpt, though this is courtesy of using Google Translate for just that sentence, not my own translation: "At the end of the day, that's what these 40 years have been about." )
But I thought it was interesting to see Campino give credit to that actor, what he said at their first meeting, for the tour name.
I don't know exactly when Campino met Brandauer (who was nominated for an Oscar and won the Golden Globe for best supporting actor in
Out of Africa), but Brandauer was impressed enough to cast the rocker as Mack the Knife in a 2006 stage production of Brecht's
Threepenny Opera in Berlin in 2006:
https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/news/2006/03/23/mackys-back-in-town-rocker-to-play-lead-role/28468088007/
Campino, like David Bowie, is an attractive, charismatic singer people in the industry felt should be an actor. Unlike Bowie, who even studied mime at one time and also tried copying Anthony Newley (and later crafted onstage personas like Ziggy Stardust), Campino was always himself onstage (whether he was crowd surfing or climbing the scaffolding, both of which he used to do a lot).
I ran across some video of Bowie in
Labyrinth the other day, video of him with that wild rockstar hair as the Goblin King, and between that and the proto-punk style of some of his best early music during his Ziggy/Aladdin Sane/Halloween Jack days (think of "Rebel Rebel" and "Jean Genie" and "Suffragette City" ), I suspect that if Bowie had headed to Berlin for a change of pace in the late '80s instead of the '70s, we'd've seen something from Bowie reminiscent of Die Toten Hosen's
Clockwork Orange-based "Hier Kommt Alex." (See
https://democraticunderground.com/103476487 .) But by the '80s Bowie was recording very commercial music like "Let's Dance" (not on my list of Bowie songs I most often listen to, despite SRV's guitar), which couldn't have been farther from that punk edginess he'd once had.
Bowie talking about punk rock in 1980:
Die Toten Hosen were much more politically outspoken and active than Bowie ever was. I don't know what they thought of Bowie. I'm guessing they'd probably heard of some statements Bowie got a lot of attention for in the 1970s:
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/01/david-bowie-death-politics-213529/
SC: The murky side of Bowie is that he left England pretty much for good in 1974 and never really lived there after that. And then in the 1970s he was interested in fascism and national socialist memorabilia, and there were lots of stories connected with that—some of them were true, some not true. There was this famous moment when he appeared at Victoria Station in London and waved to his fans, and he was very thin—this was his Thin White Duke period—and when the wave was photographed it looked like a Nazi salute. And everyone said, “Oh, Bowie’s a Nazi.” He wasn’t a Nazi. It was misunderstood.
I think there is a nostalgic nationalism in Bowie—a sort of nostalgia for the utopian idea of Englishness, of Milton or Blake or Shelley. One of the things about Bowie that’s interesting politically is this connection to the idea of Englishness, and this kind of whimsical nationalism that doesn’t really make sense other than aesthetically. I think he confused fascism with nationalism.
Bowie did a concert at the Berlin Wall that got a lot of attention. Kudos to him for that.
But Die Toten Hosen gave an illegal concert in communist East Berlin:
https://www.factmag.com/2016/09/24/punk-priest-stasi-spy-east-berlin-mark-reeder/
Reeder approached the priest to ask if the band could perform at the church. “Slightly sceptical, he saw my enthusiasm and said yes, though insisting that it was a church service and not a gig, and we would have to pray and all the rest, to which we all agreed.” They decided to use Planlos, one of the punk bands from Reeder’s friend’s circle, as a cover. “They officially applied to perform at the church, because you couldn’t just turn up and start playing. It still had to be official, even within the confines of the church. The Stasi were therefore aware but wouldn’t be paying too close attention, and we were able to piggyback on their gig without arousing suspicion.”
Reeder and Die Toten Hosen travelled across the border in groups of three on different trains. “East Berlin was like the hardest club in the world to get into. If we went in as a group they’d be suspicious,” he says. “I went last to check everyone got through. We met up in Rummelsburg, at the apartment of a couple who were helping us put on the gig. We sat there watching a West German TV feature about the difference between an established German rock band called BAP and a new punk band, Die Toten Hosen – who were all sitting in their living room drinking ersatz coffee and eating homemade cheesecake. They couldn’t believe it, the band were actually there in their flat and on West German telly.”
They told only the few East German punks they knew about the gig – the more people they invited, the more chance the authorities would find out. “About forty people came. There were no photos, no evidence. At any moment the Stasi could have kicked in the door and arrested everyone. I was incredibly aware that if the gig was raided I would probably only serve a minimum of time in prison, if any, before being deported, but these kids would have had to live with the consequences. Their lives could be really shit from that point on, their chances of getting a job or going to university could be fucked.
“I made sure they understood, because it was their lives that were at risk. I wasn’t going to get shot or disappeared. They all knew it was totally illegal to have a western punk band playing unofficially in East Berlin. They’d seen bands like Boney M come over and play big sanctioned concerts on TV, but nothing like this. Although we didn’t realise then, it was actually the very first time a band from West Berlin had played an illegal gig there. I wanted to bring them this music because there was no question of them being allowed to leave to watch a gig in West Berlin. When it was finished I was in tears. It felt like we’d done something historic.”
According to the article, this illegal show "galvanised East Berlin’s fledgling punk scene."
And DTH are still speaking out constantly against the far right in Germany.
https://www.dw.com/en/german-couple-lauded-for-anti-nazi-stance/a-18681685
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