93ELDER JAIME MIRANDA ABURTO

“na endlich, real people”: Punk Rock and the Search for Authenticity

we finally arrive around 8 o’clock in the evening. today is only the third [August] and we still have the whole next day free. this godforsaken hole doesn’t make a particularly good impression, and we’re the only punks for miles. [...]

the next morning we combed the hotels in search of the bands. it turns out that there are still no bands in town, so we decide to invade the grandest hotel in town (rarely have i seen a lousier hovel). we sit there from 11 until 1 but nothing was happening. we head back to our hotel because we become tired from drinking too many cokes.

hardly 10 minutes have passed when we hear english from downstairs. “at last, real people” we think to ourselves, and Janie throws one of his valued glances into the courtyard and who happens to be standing there trying to explain to the confused landlady that two rooms are needed? correct: the Damned.

Mary Lou Monroe, The Ostrich, Nr. 4 (Düsseldorf: 1977), pg.2

Janie Jones is arguably the most famous German punk. Born Peter Hein in 1957, Jones adopted his nom-de-guerre from the title of his favourite song by UK punk rockers the Clash. Growing up in Düsseldorf, in the industrial heartland of the Federal Republic of Germany, Jones was frustrated with the direction his life was taking him. Tired with school, unfulfilled at work, bored with the possibilities that life was presenting to him—a normal past, a common future—Jones sought originality, excitment, distinction, something to enliven the ordinariness of growing up in mid-1970s West Germany, something that would give his life the meaning that he felt it was lacking. Into this maelstrom of too-young world-weariness and premature disappointment—he was nineteen afterall—Janie Jones began to read about a new musical genre sweeping across the British Isles in the summer of 1976.

Immediately recognizing his desires in the new sounds and images, Jones was energized by punk and the burgeoning alternative collective that grew up around the scene bar in the inner-

city, the Ratinger Hof. As he would later observe, Hein underwent an incredible re-birth: “In the span of three months, after I saw the light, I was reborn. Suddenly...the innocent apprentice P. Hein was transformed into the world’s most dangerous Punk-Rock-Terrorist Janie J. Jones.”232 Playing in numerous bands, Jones wrote for West Germany’s first punk fanzine The Ostrich, and was the first Düsseldorf punk to don a leather jacket.233 Together with fellow rebel Mary Lou Monroe (born Franz Bielmeier) and others, Jones formed Charley’s Girls, one of the first West German punk bands. Feted by the press in the coming years for his innovative lyrics, Jones played in a number of famous bands. In 1978, Charley’s Girls disbanded in mid-concert to form Mittagspause, one of the first punk bands to start singing in German.234 Later—after discovering ska during a trip to the UK—Jones sang for the bands Fehlfarben and Family 5. One of the few Düsseldorf punks with a full-time job—at Rank Xerox, a company where Hein would work for twenty-five years—Jones had money to spend on new records arriving at the local record store Rock On; as Harry Rag (born Peter Braatz and frontman for S.Y.P.H.) later recalled, Jones always had one of the half dozen new releases put aside for him every weekend, “...that’s why he was considered the Pope.”235

Forming one of West Germany’s first independent record labels (Welt Klang Rekords), Jones helped record Monarchie und Alltag in 1980, Fehlfarben’s first studio release, an LP recently considered by both Rolling Stone and Spex to be the single most

232

Ulrike Groos et al., eds. Zurück zum Beton: Die Anfänge von Punk und New Wave in Deutschland 1977-’82 (Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2002), p.132.

233 _{Markus Oehlin said Janie Jones looked like a “Christmas Tree” because of all the badges on his jacket. Jürgen}

Teipel, Verschwende Deine Jugend: Ein Doku-Roman über den deutschen Punk und New Wave (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2001), p.55. On Jones as a central figure at the Ratinger Hof, see Bla Bla, Nr.1 (Düsseldorf: 1978), pp.5- 6; Teipel, Verschwende, p.91, 108.

234 _{On the opening night of the nightclub SO 36 in West Berlin, Charley’s Girls literally took a ‘lunch break’}

(Mittagspause) in the middle of their set—they set up a table on stage and ate doners—and when finished they resumed their show as Mittagspause. See Alfred Hilsberg, “Punk-Schlacht an der Mauer,” Sounds, Nr.9, September 1978, pp.12, 14.

important German-language album of all time.236 While turning his back on Fehlfarben and punk in 1981 to protest the popularization of the genre—a complicated storyline that will occupy us in later chapters—Jones/Hein is synonymous with West German punk.

But in 1977, Jones was just another youth arriving in southern France after a seventeen hour train journey to watch the Damned and the Clash play at punk’s international coming-out party at the Mont-de-Marsan festival in August 1977.237 Arriving two days before the festival began, Jones and Monroe bummed around the city looking for action. Searching for the bands at the major hotels without success, Jones and Monroe returned to their “inhospitable” hotel to find out that the Damned were staying there as well: upon hearing English in the courtyard below, Jones and Monroe were overjoyed—“at last, real people.” Soon, the boys from Düsseldorf were sitting around with members of the Damned, the Jam, and the Maniacs, trading badges, swapping stories, and verbally abusing nearby Roxy fans (“that’s not punk anymore!”). The concert itself was a moment of pure ecstasy for Jones and Monroe. Moving with ease between the backstage to talk with “our tommies” and the front row of the concert to catch a number of French and foreign bands, the youths imbibed an evening of musical bliss. As the Clash stormed the stage in the late evening, Monroe could only mobilize an earlier moment from the past that had restored meaning and community to Germans to give readers a sense of the historic nature of punk: “indescribable. an orgy. since the thousand-year reich, nothing has carried away the people in such a manner.”238 The report detailing Jones and Monroe’s trip to southern France that appeared in The Ostrich is an incredible document suggesting why some German youths were so drawn to punk in the late

236 _{Rolling Stone, German edition, Nr.11 (2004), pg.17; “Die 100 Alben des Jahrhunderts,” Spex, December/January}

(1999/2000). See also “Fehlfarben,” in Das NDW-Lexicon: Die Neue Deutsche Welle – Bands und Solisten von A bis

Z, ed., Christian Graf (Berlin: Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, 2003), p.95.

237 _{On Mont-de-Marsan, see Clinton Heylin, Babylon’s Burning: From Punk to Grunge (London: Viking, 2007),}

pp.150-151.

1970s: the search for meaning, the boredom of everyday life, the easy mixture of fandom and musicianship, the transnational material and cultural exchanges, the flirtation with fascism, the disciplining use of authenticity, the creation of new communities, and the desire for alternatives.

As punk exploded in England, reports on the genre began reaching the Federal Republic via the mainstream media. Curious youths like Jones—intrigued by the stories, sights and sounds—began traveling to London to get first-hand glimpses of the subculture, and by the end of 1977, energized by what they had seen, began fashioning punk scenes in the major cities of West Germany. Each city developed its own distinctive punk styles and sounds, a situation that would contribute to dividing the German punk scene in the early 1980s. On the one hand were those youths who were more adventurous and innovative sonically, who saw in the genre a means to revolutionize rock’n’roll and came to be called the Kunstpunks (Art-Punks). On the other hand were those who came to be called Hardcores, who understood punk as a platform for social revolution and were committed to radical leftist politics mixed with harder rock music. While the coming split will occupy many of the following chapters, in the late 1970s, these varying inflections meant that West Germany boasted a multitude of punk styles that built on the existing institutions of the alternative milieu, even as punk contents sought to separate Seventies youths from their Sixties predecessors. Düsseldorf had a more experimental bent reflecting the close relationships between musicians interested in de-constructing rock’n’roll and influenced by the artists around Joseph Beuys’ Kunstakademie and his influential claim that ‘Everyone’s an artist.’239

In Hamburg, by contrast, punk developed a more straight-forward hard rock sound reflecting both the port-city’s tougher working-class identity and the long connections to British

239 _{Commentators at the time argued that punks were following up Beuys’ principles about the democratization of}

art. See Jan Marek, “Dilettanten auf dem Genie-Podest. Zurück zur Trivialkultur: Ein Ausweg aus der Sackgasse der Moderne,” Weltwoche, Nr.1, 3 January 1985, p.29.

rock’n’roll.240

Youths in West Berlin, encircled by the Wall and on the front-line of the Cold War, were at the same time more political, more experimental, and also more fatalistic.241 This potent mixture reflected the heavily politicized local environment and the apparent lunacy of cultural production by those anticipating imminent nuclear destruction.

As the 1970s became the 1980s, punks fashioned new structures and networks to support the burgeoning scenes that gave creative youths outlets to experiment with alternative identities. In 1977, The Ostrich was published by a collective of Düsseldorf authors including Janie Jones and within three years, hundreds of fanzines were connecting scenes across the country. Young owners founded new clubs such as the Ratinger Hof in Düsseldorf, SO 36 in West Berlin, and Krawall 2000 in Hamburg to cater to the new sensibilities of the subculture. Promoters began staging concerts in the cities and increasingly in the provinces, and national events such as the Zick Zack festivals in Hamburg’s Markthalle drew audiences in the thousands. Journalists, especially at Sounds, the country’s leading popular music magazine, began championing the genre as a new and specifically German cultural endeavour. Entrepreneurs opened a host of new record shops such as Rip-Off in Hamburg, Rock-o-Rama in Cologne, and the Zensor in West Berlin to meet the growing demand for punk music from eager consumers. Major English and American acts such as Lou Reed and the Clash toured West German cities and even the Sex Pistols were booked to play the Markthalle on 24 January 1978 but broke up ten days before after their infamous Winterland Ballroom concert in San Francisco. As the 1970s came to a close, punk had become firmly rooted culturally and socially in the everyday world of West Germany.

240 _{See Alan Clayson, Hamburg: The Cradle of British Rock (London: Sanctuary Publishing, 1998).}

241 _{See Wolfgang Müller, Subkultur Westberlin, 1979-1989. Freizeit, überarbeitete (Hamburg: Philo Fine Arts,}

Punk Tourismus and the Origins of Subculture in West Germany

“Who snoozes, loses”

Slogan spray-painted by N. U. Unruh in the Eisengrau clothing-store in West Berlin, circa 1979242

Punk did not originate in the Federal Republic but crossed to the Continent from the United States and especially the United Kingdom via the mainstream media whereupon eager young Germans quickly rearticulated the genre back home. Youths flocked to the sites of UK punk after learning about them from the mainstream media that had quickly glommed onto the shocking images of British punk. Relaying their findings to enthusiasts waiting back home, alternative travellers acted as cultural mediators between Britain and the Federal Republic, a development indicative of the important role of consumptive practices among alternative and youth culture in the postwar period.243 Returning to the Federal Republic from the UK with what Pierre Bourdieu termed ‘cultural capital,’ these transnational figures were able to help youths rearticulate the genre into the particularities of West Germany in the 1970s.244 And as in earlier moments of German rock’n’roll history, US and UK musical forms were identified as ‘the real thing,’ sought out, imported, and quickly adapted to the local German context. By examining how punk came to West Germany, we can get a sense of how important the press, radio, and television were in

242

Teipel, Verschwende, p.155.

243 _{See Anja Bertsch, “Alternative (in) Bewegung. Distinktion und transnationale Vergemeinscahftung im alternative}

Tourismus,” in Das Alternative Milieu. Antibürgerlicher Lebensstil und linke Politik in der Bundesrepublik

Deutschland und Europa 1968-1983, eds., Sven Reichardt and Detlef Siegfried (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2010),

pp.115-130.

244 _{See Pierre Bourdieu, The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field (Stanford, CA: Stanford}

University Press, 1996); Pierre Bourdieu, The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993); and Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambrdige, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1977). Sarah Thornton has sought to extend to the concept of ‘cultural capital’ to subcultures as ‘subcultural capital.’ See Sarah Thornton, Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1996).

introducing Anglo-American cultural forms to young Germans and how the media was able to suture the diverse threads comprising punk into a cohesive object of alternative style.

As the biography of Janie Jones illustrates, Germans learned of punk via two sources: first, the media, particularly the foreign—especially British—music press and radio; and second, by travelling to London to experience UK punk first-hand. Beginning in the summer and autumn of 1976, punk became a mainstay of the UK news industry, a situation only increasing following the Sex Pistols’ profanity-filled live television interview with host Bill Grundy on 1 December 1976 for Thames Today.245 Eagerly seizing upon scandal to sell copy—especially tabloids such as The Sun or The Daily Mirror—the British mainstream press used punk to bemoan declining morals among British youth and the nation more with every new outrage fuelling the hand- wringing even further.246 In contrast, the UK music press—weeklies such as Melody Maker, Sounds and the New Musical Express (NME)—saw in punk a kind of rock’n’roll Risorgimento following what was perceived by some critics to be a period of musical malaise during the early- to-mid-1970s.247 Musically-inclined Germans long accustomed to following international music trends through the British music press were thus kept abreast of the spectacular events taking place continuously in London during 1976 and into 1977. For example, Alfred Hilsberg, the Sounds journalist who ‘discovered’ punk in Germany, and Wolfgang Büld, the influential filmmaker whose films Punk in London (1977) and Brennende Langweile (1979) helped

popularize the genre worldwide, both read Melody Maker and the NME religiously.248 Detailing

245 _{See Heylin, Babylon’s Burning; Jon Savage, England’s Dreaming: Anarchy, Sex Pistols, Punk Rock and Beyond,}

rev. ed. (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2002).

246 _{See Heylin, Babylon’s Burning; Savage, England’s Dreaming.}

247 _{Heylin makes the argument that the British music press invented punk before the fact in the early 1970s in their}

desire for a ‘new’ rock’n’roll. See Heylin, Babylon’s Burning, pp.2-8.

248 _{Hollow Skai, Alles nur geträumt: Fluch und Segen der Neuen Deutschen Welle (Innsbruck: Hannibal, 2009),}

pp.24, 87. Büld’s films were quite influential. Brennende Langweile received the highest viewer ratings to that date in history on ZDF’s series Kleines Fernsehspiel when first broadcast on 11 January 1979. Punk in London was also

the new styles emerging in the UK capital and connecting Germans to the English music scene, the British music press served as an intermediary between the UK and the Federal Republic.

The West German mainstream press quickly followed suit. Attuned to shifting aesthetic tastes, already in 1976, articles began appearing in West German youth magazines. In September of that year, articles featuring the leading bands of US and UK punk began appearing in Bravo, then West Germany’s largest youth periodical with a weekly circulation figure of more than one million readers: by the end of the year, Bravo had run features on the Ramones, the Clash, the Damned, and several on the Sex Pistols with Johnny Rotten even gracing the cover.249 The West German dailies, tabloids, and magazines also picked up on punk, though in contrast to the teen- magazines’ celebration of punk style and aesthetic innovation, more serious reportage tended to focus on punk’s nihilism, violent behavior and especially the genre’s flirtation with fascism. Quickly, punks adorned with swastikas became a favourite image mobilized by the media in the late 1970s to decry youthful decadence and belief that punk represented a new form of

fascism.250 While we will explore how the mainstream press constructed punk for the public in detail in coming chapters, what is important about these early exposés was that they teased Germans with snippets and pictures but never provided enough information or images to satisfy curious youths.

very influential for Janie Jones and Harry Rag. Brennende Langweile (DVD, director Wolfgang Büld, 1979); and

Punk in London (DVD, director Wolfgang Büld, 1977). See also The Ostrich, Nr.7 (Düsseldorf: c.1978), pp.17-18.

249 _{Bravo circulation rose to 1.66 million by the early 1960s. See Stiftung Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik}

Deutschland, ed., Rock! Jugend und Musik in Deutschland (Berlin: Ch. Links Verlag, 2005), p.36. Bravo had used the term “punk” to describe Eddie and the Hot Rods already in 1975. See “Eddie and the Hot Rods,” Bravo, Nr.2, 30 December 1975, p.12. See “Ramones. Man muß sie lieben – oder hassen!” Bravo, Nr.37, 2 September 1976, pp.6-7; “Punk Rock. Sex Pistols” Bravo, Nr.41, 30 September 1976, pp.2-5; “Verdammt gut, diese Gruppe Damned!”

Bravo, Nr.42, 7 October 1976, pp.4-5; “Punk Rock. Clash,” Bravo, Nr.46, 4 November 1976, pp.68-69; and “Feuer

frei für Sex Pistols!” Bravo, Nr.48, 18 November 1976, p.46.

250 _{For examples of these early articles, see “Punk,” Szene Hamburg, Nr.11, November 1977, pp.18-19; “Ratten in}

Jeans,” Der Spiegel, Nr.16, 11 April 1977, pp.212-215; and Olaf Leitner, “Punk-Rock oder: der Protest als Illusion,”

In the first hour of punk, image played a crucial role in elaborating the genre to West German audiences. Fashioned in bondage gear, ripped clothes, and bright, garish colors, the first wave of British punks were flamboyantly and outrageously dressed, and camera lenses zoomed in eagerly to capture the vividly-attired youths. Newspapers and television programs latched onto punk fashions, abetted by youths’ desires to shock observers with their sartorial revolution. Perusing the memoir literature on punk for what I call ‘conversion stories,’ one is immediately struck by the repeated references to mainstream media introducing the author to punk for the first time.251 Punks cite Bravo or their local newspapers more often than not, especially if ‘converted’ to punk in the late 1970s. Male, the first West German punk band, formed in late 1976 after reading about London youths in the Rheinischen Post. Ralf Real Shocks, a Duisburg fanzine writer, was introduced to punk by Bravo in late 1976. Tommy Molotow, singer of Canalterror and Molotow Soda, saw the Sex Pistols on the popular ZDF television program Disco with host Ilja Richter. These examples can be extended almost indefinitely.252 In most cases, images of punks appearing in the media drew young Germans to the genre. Leather outfits suggested taboo sexual desires, metal chains as fashion gestured towards the imbrications of slavery and

consumerism, haircuts and makeup outwardly expressed the ugliness punks purported to see in mainstream society. Through these fashion codes London punks became photogenic objects of