Mania D

Mania D
Mania D Sept 1979 Berlin Super 8
Background information

Mania D was a Berliner New Wave-underground band at the end of the seventies, beginning of the eighties. They had been part of the Geniale Dilettanten (Ingenious Dilettantes) movement, a merger of the New Wave and post-punk scene. Bandmembers were the predecessors of the all girls band Malaria! , of Liaisons Dangereuses, Einstürzende Neubauten, Die Krupps. Their music unified elements of free jazz with those of new wave by a distinctive saxophone sound.

Members

• Karin Luner – drums (1979)
• Beate Bartel – bass (1979–1981)
• Eva Gossling – alt-saxophone, voice(1979)
• Gudrun Gut – syntheziser(1979-1981)
• Bettina Koster – tenor-saxophone, voice(1979–1981)

 

History

May 1979 Beate Bartel, Gudrun Gut, Eva Gossling, Bettina Koster and Karin Luner decided to start an all- girls underground band, intending to develop a musical language not bound by tradition.  Karin Luner studied at the Berlin Academy of Arts with Salome and Middendorf among others in the class of Prof. Hoedecke. After completing her foundation year she left 1977 for a foreign course of study to New York, were she shot a super 8 movie, “Bored”, which eventually Martin Kippenberger showed in the  Berliner SO 36 .  In New York she took drumming lessons with Fred Maher, Lou Reeds drummer.  On a visit 1978 to her hometown Duesseldorf in germany, she met with Eva Gossling in Carmen Knoebels underground club Ratinger Hof.  Here she suggested to establish an all-girls band as soon as she is back in Berlin.  Eva Gossling, who then studied in Berlin, meet in may 1979 at the subway station Wittenbergplatz, Beate Bartel.  The bassist and sound engineer Beate Bartel came with the tenor saxofonist Bettina Koster and Gudrun Gut owner of a mini moog to the first meeting.   Summer 1979 Mania D. rehearsed daily in their Düsseldorf Martin-Luther street studio.  The idea to Mania D.  came from Beate Bartel, where as Karin Luner had the idea to shoot a super 8 movie to be shown at all concerts. Karin Luner created the styling for the super-8 movie “Fashion Interlection” , the outfit was designed by “EISENGRAU”, Claudia Skoda und Karin Luner.  Martin Kippenberger, Volker Anding and Oswald Wiener promoted the young band with organizing concerts, and diner for free at the “exil”, the restaurant owned by Oswald Wiener.  Their first concert outside of Berlin happened september ´79  in the Wuppertal Nordstadt “Kollektiv Galerie”.   

Mania D Wuppertal Plakat

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Their recognition led to an invitation to New York.  October the 24th 1979 Mania D played on Broome Street at Arleen Schloss performance - loft A´s.  The New York audience responed enthusiastic towards the german all - girl band.  Mania D performed at the end of november at the Tier 3, now without Eva Gossling, who was then living with SAMO, alias Jean-Michel Basquiat at Arleene Schloß A´s.  Both experimented with music, sound  and tapes.  Karin Luner stayed in New York. Eva Gossling was invited by Alexander von Borsig alias Alexander Hacke and Richard Hirsch to play in the Berlin Band BLASSE.  In december 1979 Mania D  performed with a smaller crew, before, in 1981 they founded “Malaria!”  Their music unified elements of free jazz with those of experimental music by a distinctive saxophone sound.  Bettina Kosters especially striking singing voice characterized the band,  and stimulated among New Yorkers an impression of Berlin in the tewnties.  Gudrun Gut and Bettina Koster developed with EISENGRAU an indipendant fashion label  and a first concept store.  Under this name they created their unconventional stage outfits.   The legendary "fog - concert" in the SO 36 in january the 18th 1980, the unheated SO 36 was so cold that you could see your breath, was discoverd 2010 as never shown original-video footage in an archiv of the videoartist und filmmaker Werner Schmiedel. Mania D was not part of the commercial oriented new - german wave, which started beginning 1981, after the growing success of bands like D.A.F. and Fehlfarben.  

Gallery

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  Film location Teufelberg Berlin Mania D Berlin 1979

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  Mania D ICC Berlin 1979 Bettina Koster

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  Doubel sky Berlin Mania D Bettina Koster, Eva Gossling

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  Double sky II Mania D Teufelsberg 1979 Gudrun Gut

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  False color photography Mania D Sept 1979

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  Eisengrau Beate Bartel Eva Gossling

Discography

• Track 4 (1980; Monogam)
• Live in Düsseldorf & SO36 (1980; Eisengrau)
• Jürgen Teipel, Frank Fenstermacher: Verschwende Deine Jugend. Punk und New Wave in Deutschland, Track 22, 2002, Universal Musik, Doppel-CD.

Literature

• Alfred Hilsberg Girls, Girls, Girls (Interview) , In: Sounds 11/79 S. 46, Hamburg 1979
• Woman in Rock, In: Sounds 06/81, S. 26/27 Hamburg 1981
• Aber in die Hitparade möchte ich trotzdem (Interview), In: Rock Session 5, Hamburg 1981, ISBN 3-499-17413-8, S. 40–48
• Jürgen Teipel: Verschwende Deine Jugend. Ein Doku-Roman über den deutschen Punk und New Wave. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt/Main 2001, ISBN 3-518-39771-0.
• A`s, In: "Bowery Artist Tribute" NEW MUSEUM, Editor Ethan Swan, New York 2010
• Das ist kein Koffer" Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, 27. März 2011, NR.12, FEUILETTON 31

External links

References

Mania D bei Arleen Schloss in New York Mania D, SAMO, Eva-Maria Gößling". Website Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung. (viewed 10-24-2011)