Читать книгу Human Punk For Real - Marco Thiede - Страница 6

Bremen-Nord was a town in itself. In the 70s, most in my class were Sweet or Kiss fans.

The Sweet was really my band. From time to time they played on Ilja Richter Disco, Saturday nights on German television’s Channel Two. It happened that the singer Brian Connolly (RIP), broke the microphone and threw it into the corner. Or that Mick Tucker, drummer, smashed up his drums after a song. In the playground the next day that was the number one topic of discussion. Hits like Blockbuster or Hellraiser today are still some of my favorite tunes. At that time, the world’s ugliest band, the Bay City Rollers, attacked the charts. As a result, my favorite band felt they had to compete with them. Suddenly The Sweet played only fuckin ' love songs.

The climax of that cruelty was “Fever of Love”. WTF!

It made you want to scream. Out of the blue, we suddenly became aware of a new sensation out of England. All of a sudden there were articles in the Bravo (Teenie music magazine) on the New Threatening Thing from England: Punk Rock!

It hit like a bomb. Millions of people were disgusted by what had exploded onto the British music scene. Fortunately, this was just what countless crazy and bored people had been waiting for, for years.

Right away, my classmate Voller and I were infected. Many people thought we were crazy, but it wasn’t long till we saw one or two others who were also infected by Punk Rock.

Slowly our situation developed and we set off down the long road to the Viertel - Bremen City’s Punk neighborhood. That took time, thanks to the poor bus service, up to two hours. At flea markets here, you could already discover one or another Punk record. Before long, there was a record store called Govi, which was very focused on Punk Rock. Incredible, that it was possible, even at that time, to buy Punk records from cute, pretty Punk girls working behind the counter.

What birds of paradise!

Julia and Sabine posing in the Govi shop window. [Photo: W. Wiggers]

I'll never forget the first time I heard “Goodbye Toulouse” by the Stranglers, at home with my brother. What a bass! I’d never experienced the true sound of a bass guitar in this way before. Killer! My brother liked that too, although he hated Punk then for some reason.

Kutter ca. 1979

Eventually I met a guy, who I called Sweet Fan, because he had The Sweet logo on his jacket. When I called out to him: Hey, Sweet Fan, he replied to me: I am not a fan of Sweet anymore! I’m a Stranglers Fan and listen to Punk Rock now! That was Wanne of HB-Nord (Bremen Nord). A lifelong Punk Rocker. Just like me.

In the Viertel then there were already Punk or New Wave stores like the Camarillo. We were always happy when we ran into another new Punk. What an adventure!

It was not really easy for us Bremen - Norder. I was born in 1964 and was not even twelve when everything took off. We hardly had any money, and the way to Bremen was very long. Sometimes even longer if we’d been drinking beer and had to take a piss. On the other hand, we still had long hair, and had the feeling that the City Punks despised us because they had short hair or spikes. Then there was the problem that we young sprouts had to be back home on time, which worked less and less.

Near the infamous Sielwall corner was the first official Punk pub called Chateau. Weekends over there were always crazy, and that’s where we first made contact with the Punks from Oslebshausen - which was between Bremen Nord and the City. But the Oslebs Punks didn’t trust us at first, because of our long hair and our oversized, homemade, plate-sized Punk badges.

Only one was very cool to us from the beginning. Hank from Ritterhude. I remember that I met him once at a Buttocks concert where he had his hair spiked with green fluorescent car paint! Unfortunately, that didn’t work out to well for him, so he had to cut it all off down to the scalp. Through Hank I heard about an upcoming Punk concert in Ohlenhof in Groepelingen.

On September 22^nd I finally got to attend my very first Punk concert: Two bands from Braunschweig: Bombed Bodies, (later Daily Terror) and Riot Squad (who were later renamed Sluts). What a show! And so many Punks from everywhere! I was in seventh heaven.

Bombed Bodies

During the show my Dad came to pick me up. I was so excited that I poured my beer in my hair beforehand, and dragged him into the concert hall!

“You have to see this,” I stuttered. But unfortunately, he was extremely shocked and could not share my enthusiasm. The foundation for more trouble in the future was laid ...

Nothing could stop me now. Not even the Punk movement.

More and more shops sold Punk records. Ear Records, JPC.... Fanzines were made, and there were more and more Punk shows going on.

The Schunt was the first fanzine. It was followed by the Endloesung, the Kotwurm etc. It didn’t take long before I made my own fanzine: Trash – Printing: ten copies. Then the Norddeutsche, with a similar amount of copies.

One time my parents went on vacation. When they came back, my hair was gone. My mother was shocked. My dad kind of liked it. I remember like it was yesterday that my classmates looked at me like I was an alien. Actually, I used to be just the opposite, and there was always a big drama when my mother wanted to cut my hair.

Punk Rock now found a place in the media more and more. The Bravo dedicated a monthly page to the “New Wave”. Thomas Gottschalk, the German grannies’ favorite son, hosted the television music show: Szene 77, Szene 78 … where you could watch the Damned, Stranglers, Devo, XTC and other bands. Unfortunately, never the Sex Pistols, but they did show Iggy Pop.

The cool thing about Iggy's appearance was that he stretched himself and flailed his body around, but kept his mouth shut. He was probably thinking “why not?”

Since most bands lip-synced to their recordings. I think this was a very embarrassing situation for German TV!

In Bremen, some bands were formed: A5, Niveau Null, Substral (even till now, Bremen’s only female band!)

Substral [Photo: W. Wiggers]

Blutsturz, Shaddocks, Volksabstimmung, Nylon Euter, AOK, Speichelkrieg, Snobs, Headbangers, Organbank, Modern Primitiv, and, and, and...

In the Buchtstrasse and in the Kulturfabrik Hemelingen and of course at the Schlachthof you could watch the first out-of-town Bands: The Buttocks from Hamburg, ZK (later the famous Toten Hosen) – who were always fun to watch - with Out of Order, the English band that lived in Bielefeld, Wutstock (later Blut und Eisen ), The Aristocats (later Boskops), Blitzkrieg and Kondensators (both from Hannover), Daily Terror, etc…

There was also a mysterious guy I had seen at only two Punk shows at the Marin Werderstrasse (Groepelingen). He was dressed completely like Spiderman and always kept in the background. Now and then he’d pogo like a maniac - for never more than two minutes - till all the furniture near him was reduced to splinters. Real impressive. No one knows who he was, or where he came from.

Maybe he was the real Spiderman ...

The media paid more and more attention. The cops hated us, and there was constantly friction and arrests. In Hamburg, there was a big war between Teds and Punks, and it was always in the newspapers.

We also had a few Teds in Bremen. Some of them we even knew personally. We thought it was stupid to attack Teds just because the press wanted us to. There was only one Ted in Vegesack who, like the Hamburg Teds, wanted war with the Punks. Then, when I wanted to confront him about this one day, he ran and hid in a shoe store. That was our gang war in Bremen. The so-called Popper (Yuppie Disco fans) war would follow, but was actually just as moronic, as well as not particularly noteworthy. Especially in contrast to what was waiting for us with the right-wing Skinheads later!

In October 1979, Sid Vicious made ​​ the alleged murder of Nancy Spungen a worldwide sensation. My father confronted me with the Bild-Zeitung with Sid Vicious on the front page. What could I say?

Meanwhile, in England and elsewhere there were countless brilliant bands: The Ruts, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Buzzcocks, Rezillos ...

From the States, the brilliant Dead Boys, Ramones, Blondie ... The list was and is endless.

We could hardly wait to listen to and tape the newest stuff from England on John Peel's Music program on BFBS.

Of course, the big record companies got wind of a possible quick buck and tried to cash in on what they could get.

The Clash, one-time political rebel flagship band, were the first to give in and sign with a major label. The Big Sell Out began. When the Clash played in Hamburg it didn’t take long before the disappointed audience kicked them off the stage. After all, there was a vision in addition to the music.

ZK at the Schlachthof

Then a kind of stagnation came into Punk Rock, and more and more bands went mainstream and softened their style to New Wave instead of Punk Rock. That was around 1980.

Luckily, there were many who thought differently. And suddenly, new, harder, often more political bands like Discharge, Crass, Varukers, Chaos UK, Conflict and countless others took off. Harder, uncompromising, more energetic. Political Punk Rock at its best.

The new cult of studs and spikes was born. A few Bremen Punks went to Hamburg Bergedorf to a hardware store called Brothers Glunsch very often. There we bought tons of studs for our jackets and were an annoying highlight for the employees every time we showed up...

Many Punks found the scene and music too hard now, and left. We Northerners then hung out more and more with the Oslebs Punks, especially a Punk of Greek descent - let's call him GG - who loved to fight. GG and I were both born in Hartmannstift, Bremen Vegesack’s hospital. GG was born 12 days ahead of me. I am sure that, as babies we made a pact in vomit on the hospital corridor to become Punk Rockers in 12 years! At that time, pregnant women still had to stay in the hospital up to three weeks after birth...

GG was also our excellent secret weapon when it came to fights with Skinheads. More on this later.

Many people started using the funniest nicknames: Fickfrosch (Frogfucker), Kroete (Toad), Katja ohne Zahn (Toothless Katja), Krankenhaus Anke (Hospital Anke - RIP), Bloed (Dopey), Eierpfeile (Balls-grater), Tommy Rinnstein (Tommy Curbstone), Doris Killcat, Staffi, Bloody, Burp, Banana, Droehnung (Shitfaced - RIP), Gockel (Rooster), Shashlik, Koma, … the list is endless! A bit later came Ines Bohrteufel (Ines Drilling Devil), Sonja Säufertochter (Sonja Drunkard’s Daughter), Smeagol, Nikki Bum Bum, Hueftschaden Ute (Damaged Hips Ute), etc.

Now there were more and more shows, and the Schlachthof in Bremen became more and more our home. Also, in other cities there were already many clubs. So sometimes we drove to Hanover to the Korn, Glocksee, or more often to Hamburg to the Markthalle or other venues.

The Krawall 2000 club didn’t last long in Hamburg, and soon the friction with the Teds developed into brawls with Skinheads.

There weren’t many true left wing Skinheads in existence back then. We were actually baffled to hear that the main Nazi leader in Hamburg was a Black man named Heiner G.

How crazy is that?

We heard more and more about fights with Baldies in other cities. In Bremen we said from the beginning: No Skinheads at our concerts!

1981, the Downfall Tour came to the Marinwerderstrasse Youth Center in Bremen Groepelingen. Slime, Betoncombo, Middle Class Fantasies, and Aheads from Herford played.

To our great surprise, a lot of Skinheads from Hamburg showed up. With them came an imbecile named Michael David, the subject of a documentary, “From Nazi to Punk”.

Michael David was actually more of a jean-jacket Redneck with a stupid, distinctive speech impediment. From Nazi to Punk? And now he dared to show up with a horde of Fascist Skinheads? It didn’t take long before there was a brawl in every corner.

The climax came when all the members of Betoncombo put down their instruments and jumped off the stage to join the fight! The whole thing then shifted outside where it escalated even more.

That was it. From now on there was war in Bremen. Anyone in a bomber jacket with no hair was attacked! Now things really took off, especially since the Skinhead scene in Bremen had gotten noticeably larger. The Bremen Skins responded, and began ambushing solitary Punks on the way to the Schlachthof, at the train station or the Findorff tunnel. Especially in the 80s, the Schlachthof was regularly attacked during Punk concerts. Many a time, bands like GBH played to an empty hall because all the people were outside hunting the Skinheads, who never made it into the Schlachthof, because they knew that this would have been a quick end for everyone of them.

It was not long before the first US Punk bands were on tour.

In Hanover, I finally got to see Dead Kennedys and MDC from San Francisco. What an amazing concert! But Skinheads everywhere. While I was pogoing I saw I was completely surrounded by a Skinhead mob, and to this day still don’t know how I got out of there in one piece. There were others who weren’t as lucky as I was.

The concert took place in a venue called the Rotation, and afterwards, Jello Biafra swore he’d never play there again. He called it one of the absolute worst places he’d ever played. In front of the stage there was a broad ditch, which was several meters deep. Nevertheless, Biafra had could not be kept from jumping over the fence, into the raging mob. I thought it was weird that were bodybuilder security goons everywhere on stage!? A short time later, Black Flag came to Europe. First I saw them in Hanover, and then the next day in Hamburg.

48 hours with no sleep and no drugs – then, off to work.

Fortunately, I never had anything to do with drugs. What a blessing.

Also, at these two concerts there was a lot of ongoing Skinhead trouble. It made me want to puke that that a small mob of Skinheads kept reappearing and ruining the shows. It took a long time till the Hamburg Punks were finally able to stand up to the Skins and kick them out for good at a Toy Dolls show in the Markthalle.

Now in Bremen was the ASL (Anti Skin League), which had become known all over the country. There was no chance, even for a single Skinhead to show up at our shows.

So it became true, every other Werder Bremen home game, that we had to defend the Sielwall Corner against local or out-of-town Skinheads. It always felt to me a very dicey situation because sometimes we were just 15 against hundreds - which would nowadays be a different story!

But our bad reputation had got around everywhere and most Skins really were scared to death of the ASL.

Sometimes we had at the time the support of Die Sippe, a mob that consisted of 99% foreigners from countries of southern origin. Brazilians, Turks, Lebanese...

Die Sippe was a cool gang that was always on the hunt for Skinheads. Three of them - against 25 or more from the other side - were enough. All battle-hardened Kamikaze types that had an evil passion for knocking Skinheads out. Many Skins at that time nearly got an unwanted mortuary tag on their toe.

From the same caliber as the Sippe members were also GG, and Sven Droehnung (RIP), both of Greek descent. Sven was also sometimes pretty quick with his knife.

1981 was really something. Crazy as it sounds, I drove to London with a Skinhead and his nutty, annoying Punk girlfriend. His name was Stefan S. (RIP) from Bremen Nord. He was an extremely nice person. He was in the same class as my brother in school, and now and then we hung out together at Elvis of London (Vegesack’s first - and last - Punk fashion store). He never really hung out with other Skinheads, but he was hard to read. Since he was a lone wolf Skin and hung out with me, he was reluctantly accepted.

England - and especially London - was then the most popular destination of every Punk Rocker. My friend Henry from Hamburg was there in the late 70s on a school exchange. Later, his teacher invited the class to a concert in an old church. It was an early Sex Pistols gig – every Punk’s dream.

I was hoping for something like that too, of course. In those days, we had to travel the old school way: by ferry from Hamburg over to Harwich in England. What takes an hour by plane these days took 24 hours back then. Then the train into London, the Punk Rock Mecca.

When we finally arrived in London, it was like a scene out of a Jack the Ripper movie. A dilapidated railway station built of bricks. No colors, hardly any posters, nothing to break the gloom. Like in a horror film, huge clouds of fog came looming out toward us.

Suddenly a Punkette, with hair like a peacock, stepped out of the fog. Wow, I thought. The second thing I saw come out of the fog was another Punk. I was in heaven. Awesome!

Stefan and I bought Time Out and Sounds magazines and then quickly found out where the upcoming shows were being held.

Lucky for us, a lot was going on and we often went to the 100 Club in Oxford Street. There, we saw UK Subs, Angelic Upstarts and many other bands.

The mood in London was unbelievable. Beki Bondage, from Vice Squad, was there too, and I had a crush on her right away.

Many well-known Punk musicians hung out and had a good time with the rest of the mob at the 100 Club. Sometimes I associate this time with a particular smell. I just can’t explain what kind of smell it was.

We crashed somewhere in a run-down hotel where you had to share your sleeping accommodations with strangers.

Stefan then had the idea to ask people at Punk concerts if they knew of any places we could crash. In between shows, we hung out on the Kings Road, where up to 200 Punks would show up on the weekends. Even the well-known actress Liz Hurley, with hair in liberty spikes used to show up there sometimes. The Kings Road was the place to meet up, because the Pistols used to hang out there at Sex, Vivien Westwood’s bondage fashion shop. But I only found out about that years later.

One time, I went across the street to buy beer. In the middle of the street a little old lady tripped, and fell right into my arms. I just stood there, and didn’t know what to do with her. Everyone was laughing at us. The next thing I knew, a Bobby was taking his nightstick out and running right at me. I still didn’t know what to do with the Granny... At the last moment, a shoe saleswoman jumped in front of the Bobby and explained the situation before he could kick my ass.

Through many conversations we had with Punks that came from everywhere, we learned that foreign Punks were ripped off by asshole Punks in London. Most often when looking for a place to crash for the night. Especially at Piccadilly Circus, extremely questionable poseur Punks hung around, and got paid by tourists for having their pictures taken.

At the 100 Club we met Charley Harper from UK Subs and Knox from the Vibrators. Knox had just sold the Vibrators’ song “Troops of Tomorrow” to The Exploited and bought us a few rounds of beer. That was cool. Real Punk Rock. Everyone is equal, no Rock star bullshit and no hiding backstage. We learned then that The Adicts, and a band named Chaos were playing at the White Lion In Putney Bridge.

London 100 Club 1981: Charly Harper, Knox, Stefan Schmidt (RIP), Kutter.

The next day we went there, and right away Stefan began asking the most scary-looking Punks about a place for us to stay the night. Because of the horror stories, I felt very uncomfortable about this, because these guys looked extremely hardcore.

Each of them had at least two or three mohawks on their skulls. The biggest one was a Frenchman. Half of his face was one big burn scar and he was constantly sniffing glue. These four guys said “sure” right away, and invited us to their squat in Hammersmith the next day. The closer we got to Hammersmith the more nervous I got about the whole thing. Hammersmith was grim and grey; a fucked-up ghetto. When we got there I couldn’t believe my eyes. Razor, one of the main guys at the squat, swept and cleaned our room right away. Here was one of those scary guys with three Mohawks in front of us, cleaning.

An unbelievable but reassuring picture; I wasn’t nervous anymore.

Then he said to us “From now on, you don’t have to pay for the Subway anymore”. “Huh? How?” we asked. “Just always stay right behind us,” he said. And really: every time someone asked to see our tickets, our guys said: “There are seven of us and only two of you. So Fuck Off!”

Every time, the ticket-takers were pretty distraught about the situation, but quite helpless against us. In those days it always worked; today it would be a different story … These guys were really our big aces up our sleeves.

Two years later, I was able to discover my Hammersmith buddies’ picture on the cover of the “Punk and Disorderly Vol. 2” compilation. From now on, England was my constant destination.

Kutter, Francois, Razor, Badger, Devil, Spit (below)

In Bremen, there was a new Punk pub called Kirmes. A fully fucked up tavern, owned by Renate, the poor hostess.

You could really feel sorry for her because, like an infestation of parasites, we had simply taken the place over. Sometimes, glasses would get smashed in the bathrooms. When Renate ran, screaming toward that sound, half the Punks would jump behind the bar to help themselves to all the free drinks they could get.

From time to time the tram stopped right in front of the pub, although there was no official stop there. That was always Shaschlik showing off. He was a newcomer in the scene who was trying hard to gain our acceptance.

In the meantime, in Bremen Nord, the first houses were now being squatted:

The Nawatzki Haus, the Gaswerk, and later the Thiele Speicher, as well as other short-lived locations.

At this time, In Bremen Vegesack we had an incredibly strong Left-wing scene. I knew most of these people, of course. One time I arrived too late at a demonstration at the City Center and looked for the Norder Mob. I only had to look for the biggest ruckus and the most ski masks.

At this time I hung around a lot with M. Krusewitz (RIP), who was a class above me, when I was still at secondary school.

Krusewitz was something of a mentor to me. He broadened my horizons extremely and really gave me a lot of musical knowledge.

The two of us put out a fanzine called “Kindertorso” where we only told lies. Like for example, that we were both in London, at a gig by The Fall and Flying Bricks from Brixton (a band that actually never existed!) where only special guests were invited to attend.

Of course, a “certain UK Subs fan” from Bremen knew this band and had all their records….

At the time Einstuerzende Neubauten were becoming well-known, in the basement of the Thiele Speicher squat we had a rehearsal room. We started a “band” Junge Union and then pounded like crazy on shopping carts and empty rain barrels. As I said, I could never really play an instrument.

We went to concerts and handed out flyers that read: Junge Union: “Performance Banned”. Of course, not one word of this was true. No one had invited us to and we had no interest in ever playing anyway. It was all about attracting attention and pissing people off. We even released a tape called Robbenfaenger (Seal-hunter).

Krusewitz had studied art at Waller High School and somehow convinced the Principal to allow our “art project” to perform at a school festival there.

Of course I had no idea what to expect when I arrived for our performance. Neither did the approximately 500 spectators awaiting us. Of course not.

Krusewitz and M. Glomb, his girlfriend at the time, had set up something like a scaffolding and a few metal barrels in the auditorium. In a shopping cart there were plastic bags filled with pig’s feet and intestines.

We began our performance by smashing everything around us and pelting the audience with the pig parts. The whole thing lasted about two minutes, and the hall was empty within one minute, except for a few stubborn hippies who refused to leave, and responded by throwing things back at us.

We then ran to the emergency exit, smashed a window to escape and disappeared from the school grounds, laughing our asses off. So much fun!

The Thiele Speicher squat then put out its own squatter zine, the Urknall (Big Bang), that I used to draw a few comics for, from time to time. When we were printing them at Charly's, there were undercover cops in front of the house constantly. It was a strange feeling, but fortunately they never searched the house.

Wanne, Voller, Krusewitz and Thiede at the Utkiek in Vegesack

Bremen Vegesack was then a relatively good location, as opposed to today. There was hardly any stress with Skins or rednecks. Luckily, through my brother, I knew all the bad guys and had nothing to fear from them. Except once, when I was at a local carnival, standing at the bumper cars with a friend, and a girl passed by with two guys. I only heard the usual “fucking Punk”, and the girl had a hard time holding the guys back. I knew the guys would come by again on their way back, and would try to kick my ass for sure. Luckily, a few of the local bouncer type thugs that I knew were just passing by, and I called to Panther: “Hey Panther, I think I’m about to have some trouble!” “All right, we’re just gonna go get some beer,” he said.

Panther looked like the scariest Viking you could ever imagine, and he had a voice like 100 razor blades. And let’s not even get started talking about his criminal record. And then it happened, just like it should. From the right, the two redneck wankers, and from the left Panther and his “part time killer gang”.

I only said: “those guys,” and pointed to the stupid baffled assholes. After that, it was nothing less than a bloodbath that took place between the ice cream stand and the almond vendor’s booth. The blood spurted so high that it the colored the cotton candy red. This went on till a couple of medics came up to me and begged for mercy for these guys. “Panther, that’s good enough,” and afterwards everything was cool, too. I met one of these dudes a few days later, again and he actually greeted me in a friendly way. Problem solved!

Meanwhile, the Oslebs Punks, a few from Marssel and other parts of Bremen-Nord hung out in a disco called Break Out, in Bremen Lesum. The owner hated us, but we took that place over as if we were a mob of parasites. The store was completely ours! Next door, across the parking lot, we went to Futterpeter, a fast food joint. Cheap beer and Hamburger Koteletts (like Schnitzel sandwiches). Even to this day, still a killer menu.

Once in a while there were fights with Disco assholes, but in our mob we had more experienced street fighters, like GG and others like him.

R. Blanke often broke into a car and drove it around the neighborhood. Despite the fact that he had no driver's license. One time I was talking to him, right after he’d broken into, and hot-wired a car.

“Thiede come in,” he said. We’d only managed five yards before we drove straight into a car parked in front of us. Then we went back to BO and continued drinking.

In the Gaerdestrasse there was one party after another. Afterwards, we often went to venues in villages, like Circus Circus in Kuhstedt, or Circus Musikus in Merschendorf, or to the Punk commune in Ahlhorn. We were a relatively mobile mob. Constantly on tour to Hamburg, Holland, Groningen, to hang out with out our friends Thermo and Robbie in WNC squat, to Winterswijk in the Chi Chi Club, to Hengelo to gigs at the Babylon, to Amsterdam, or to visit our other Dutch friends Dick, Ed and Klaas in Hoogeveen.

Berlin was always a great place to visit. Nothing was too far away for us.

In December 1981, I organized my first Punk concert at the Alt-Aumund youth center in HB North. I actually don’t remember how I got in touch with all these bands. Aspirin from Duesseldorf, GG's band Volksabstimmung, Niveau Null, Dorfjugend, and Schweine im Weltall from Oldenburg. Other bands might have been part of this line-up, but today I just don’t remember. The concert was well attended and a great success.

Volksabstimmung: Staffi, Fickfrosch, ?, ?

Nights, when we came back from the city, the ​​BO or anywhere else, we went always went to one of the two private alcohol sellers that we had in our neighborhood. Places like this existed only in Bremen Nord. Private citizens with a special license were allowed to sell alcohol out of their homes. It made no difference whether it was five A.M. or later, we got Grandpa Pezel from the Pezelstrasse out of his bed. To wake him up, in winter, we threw snowballs at his window, in summer it was old shoes or gravel.

Besides the BO, we also often hung out with our friend Riedl (RIP), in his basement in Oslebs. It was always a blast. And all the tough guys always cowered when his mother, “The Crab” Erna,came stomping down the stairs. Riedl would always just yell “Shut the fuck up, Crab!” at her.

In Riedl’s basement the hookah never went cold and we partied ‘till the crows were puking.

Meanwhile, the scene in Bremen, began to change. It became more hard-edged; increasingly harder drugs were now in play. When I excitedly told my head-shaking parents that I’d just seen my friend Droehnung with a needle in his arm, no one could predict the Sielwall corner would soon morph into Zombieland.

It happened very quickly, and all of a sudden people had to watch out who they invited to their parties. It was really a shitty situation. People were overdosing on coke or heroin left and right. Hacki, Manni, Emilio... because of this, the mood at the concerts changed a lot. Again and again, out of town Punks got beaten up, which I thought was pretty shitty.

Meanwhile, we Punks began hanging out at the marketplace in Bremen’s city center.

In 1982 the UK Subs were supposed to play a live show on Radio Bremen. The dummies from Radio Bremen (I hate to say) gave out – like they did before with the Ramones - ten free tickets. And how dumb were they? They printed black and white tickets. Off we went to the copy shop and about 80 -100 Punks made ​​their way to Radio Bremen. The two chubby little ticket-takers of course, could not do anything about it when we all showed up en masse. Then the wave of our mob crashed against the stage and gave the Subs a fine audience. Fuck sitting down like stupid Hippies, like that time with the Ramones. I bet that those were the last black and white tickets Radio Bremen ever printed.

Aladin - a giant disco in Bremen Hemelingen - was now also putting on the odd Punk show or two. The first of these would have been around 1980, with Hans-A-plast, Bärchen und die Milchbubis and 39 Clocks - all from Hannover.

There was an aggressive mood at the concert. The Milchbubis were quickly chased off the stage, and soon afterwards we “bottled” The 39 Clocks off the stage, too. Hans-A-plast were actually quite good.

I now moved out of my parent’s house, began an apprenticeship as a painter and decorator, and moved in with my sister Pedy Pengpeng.

My sister is four years older than me. But with her ​​it was not until the late 80s that she joined the scene.

Our home base was and remained the Schlachthof, where Change Musik was founded in the early 80’s, by a group of active Punks.

In front of the Schlachthof ...

... and there were all jackets, I painted back in the day.

At the Schlachthof itself, from time to time there was a battle of the giants. Lohse and Schachti were both over two meters tall. Schachti always sat in the pub and started getting drunk, and at some point he’d say “Lohse I m ready for you...” Actually, Lohse never was someone who liked to fight.

Sometime later J. Kahrs had begun regularly brawling with Andrew, a much larger guy. Andrew actually didn’t much like to fight either. I still remember, one time during a fight, when Andrew hid behind the bar and Kahrs threw all the barstools into the wine rack behind the bar. “Cool, I saw that on teevee one time,” Kahrs said to me later. Kahrs loved a good brawl.

Actually, he had very skinny arms, but for him that was no issue. Once he took me in his arms because he was so happy and proud to tell me that his 15 year old brother had knocked out his father, who was also a very big guy. Ooookaay I thought...

During some brawl with Skinheads somebody shot Kahrs in the forehead with a flare gun, but that didn’t bother him at all. When he got to the end of the old Lloyd tunnel, all the cops had to do was open the doors of the police van and push him in.

In Bremen Nord we also hung out off and on at the Sedanplatz. Digger started a band called Nebenwirkung, which was part of our scene for many years. Schumann, the guitarist, had at some point beaten up a Hippie at the Schlachthof. Not down the stairs, as usual, but up. The Hippie had hair down to his ass, and Schumann kept giving him the right-left combination, with these words: “You fucking Skinhead!”… Schumann was tough as nails ... especially when he’d tasted his own blood.

For a while I had started trying to paint the some Punks’ leather jackets. Sometimes I spent up to 12 hours on a jacket, for about 25-35 D-Mark (German marks). Everyone knew that I could draw a bit, and that’s how I made my nickname: “Kutte” is slang for a vest with a logo; later it turned into “Kutter”, which means an old fisherman’s boat….

In the 90 's then there was a guy in Bremen Nord named Tede, who could draw a lot better than me. Despite this, I still benefited from his work, because the people asked: “Hey, who painted your jacket? Tede … oh cool, Thiede, awesome, I should’ve known!”

Anyway. About '82 then I also started to draw a Punk comic, called Sabberblatt. You could pay me in beer or D- Marks back then. Was always very pleasantEspecially on the Marktplatz, the Sabberblatt sold quite well.

One day I was sitting with GG at the Marktplatz and we were drinking a few beers. Suddenly a guy came riding up on a bike and said, “A few of your guys are in trouble in the Soegestrasse”. GG and I rushed there immediately.

When we got there, we saw Schaschlik and Gockel were having trouble with a Turkish guy. As a joke Gockel and Schaschlik had shaved their heads and dressed up as Skinheads! When they were at the movies, the Turkish guy suddenly began attacking them. He looked more like a businessman than a typical Turkish gang member. He was in a suit and carried a briefcase...

Gockel was covered with blood and kept hitting the man with his belt. But the briefcase seemed to be a good shield. Shashlik then pulled out a teargas pistol that was not even loaded. He rushed the guy, pulling the trigger and it just went just click, click, click... A sea of ​​retirees and shoppers threw themselves to the ground, screaming. What a scene! Schaschlik and GG forced the Turk towards a shoe store, where all of a sudden, he opened the briefcase and pulled a gun. When he took aim at the two, GG gave him a well-aimed kick under his hands, so that he shot into the ceiling. (I do not know to this day whether it was a teargas gun or not. I sure didn’t smell any gas!) Then GG gave his opponent a good punch, which knocked him right through the plate glass window. Now it was time to get the hell out of there. But Schaschlik and I did not get far. The cops nabbed us at the Marktplatz.

The officer frisked us, with our hands on the police car. Right away, he found a can of CS gas in my jacket pocket, which he then showed with pride to the applauding mob, who were ready to lynch us.

We were then arrested and taken to the main police station. During the police line-up a few Hippies showed up and testified on our behalf: “It wasn’t those guys”. And so that’s why the friendly officers had to let us go.

As we were leaving Schaschlik spoke up. “I did it!”. What a stupid idiot, I thought, but that was just showtime as usual for him …

A few weeks later, there was a party at Lohse’s place in the Gertruden Street. There were lots of people there. Schmanuel came up the stairs and told us that outside, a couple of our people were having trouble with two Fascists, but for some reason they were too scared to fight them … Whaaat …? Seven of us against two, but they’re scared shitless? That made absolutely no sense to me, and I ran downstairs full of rage. Right away I started shouting at them with the biggest mouth on earth.

One of the Hools, named Fish, got in my face right away to confront me. I could not believe it, Schaschlik, Koma, Gockel... all good fighters, and everyone was shitting their pants...

Anyways, Fish and I were standing nose to nose and egging each other on. (Fuck, I thought, now it’s getting real, and up ‘till then I had until then I’d never been involved in a serious fight) I was shaking all over and told him, “I’ll let you have the first punch.” “No, you.” That went back and forth a little while, until I thought, get him first, before he punches me. So I smashed him in the face. As he wobbled back and forth, completely surprised, I grabbed him and pressed his head against the curb. I held him down until he gave up and then took off, crestfallen. Everyone patted me on the back and then bought me drinks the whole night long. Koma, especially, seemed to have been quite impressed.

More ambushes on Punks who were on their way to the Schlachthof would follow.

That’s how they caught Zulu, who was walking alone through the Findorff tunnel and was intercepted by about 40 Skinheads. One of the spokesmen, K. Panzer - whose father was infamous in Bremen as a bad cop - put his gas gun to Zulu’s head and pulled the trigger. Zulu had to stay in the hospital for quite a while, and he ended up suing the guy.

Eventually it came to trial, and as luck would have it, I had a court date the same day for a minor traffic offense. Slyly, I went an hour early to the courthouse to watch Panzer’s case. When I arrived, the judge had just locked up the courtroom. Someone had written “Kill all the Punks!” in blood on the waiting room wall! “What was going on here,” I asked. The judge explained the situation. He told me that Zulu’s father had come into the courtroom and rammed a knife into Panzer’s neck. Some other Punks then took care of the remaining Skinheads who’d shown up at the trial.

Panzer survived and made it to the front page of Germany’s famous Stern magazine.

The one who had written “Kill all the Punks” on the wall, is now a good friend of mine. Holger K., - who used to be on the other side - told me the same story from his point of view at a dinner a few months ago. Crazy what you find out thirty years later…

Week by week we hung around at the Sielwall corner and had all kinds of fun. Rain or shine. And at every Werder Bremen home game we were called upon again to hold our ground. Minor incidents always happened. Meanwhile, the Skinheads had acquired their self-appointed would-be leader named M. Privenau. Privenau had made a name for himself in Bremen, because he had shot and killed a hunter by accident during one of his paramilitary exercises.

He got probation…

Unbelievable! If an RAF sympathizer would have done something like this he would have received at least a life sentence. But the German government was and is often blind in the “right eye”.

Privenau held his mob together and organized frequent ambushes on lone Punks. But we Punks also gave back as good as we got.

One time I was sitting with my sister and Gockel in my car on St. Juergen Street when I saw Privenau go by on his bike. I yelled, “There is Privenau, the fucker!” Privenau was stopped at a red light and hadn’t noticed us. Immediately I hung a U-ey and got right on his ass.

What came next could have been a scene out of a bad Buster Keaton movie. Gockel pulled himself out of the side window with a baseball bat, ready for action. I steered one tire over onto the bike path to get closer to him.

This stupid Fascist still hadn’t noticed us. As Gockel then wound up and swung,

Privenau suddenly took a right turn and still hadn’t noticed what was going on... How stupid that must have looked! Regardless –second try. The same thing happened again, as we were tracking him on the Kurfuerstenallee. But this time he noticed us just in time and when Gockel swung, he only nailed him in the hand. We hung another U-ey and the chase was on through the back streets.

Sometime during that chaotic chase, I set him a trap and we caught him in a blind alley. He drove at me with his usual battle cry and I threw my baseball bat him with all my might, nailing him right in the chest. Unbelievable that he didn’t fall off the bike!

He went a few meters, but decided to leave his bike behind to escape through the backyards. The next day the headlines read “Neo-Nazi Threatens Colored Doctor With Ax”. What happened?

Privenau was probably hurt worse than we thought. During his escape, he broke into a garden shack and stole an ax to defend himself in case of an emergency. When he arrived at the hospital to be treated, a black-Skinned doctor came to help him; he immediately threatened him with his ax. What a sick cunt!

Dive bars like the Kogge in Groepelingen, the Storyville and the Chateau unfortunately didn’t exist anymore. Now we hung out at the Roemer and in the Kirmes.

One time a Saturday brawl with Football-Skins took place directly in front of the Kirmes. Actually, we had the situation under control with just a handful of people. But Kahrs once again couldn’t get enough and ran too far into the enemy mob. Unfortunately, a tram cut him off from the rest of us, and then he had to battle it out alone against the much larger Skinhead gang. He was fucked.