Book report time: Burning Down the Haus by Tim Mohr

 

Mark’s book review time: Burning Down the Haus : Punk Rock, Revolution, and the Fall of the Berlin Wall by Tim Mohr (2018)

Five months ago, I wouldn’t have guessed I’d read a book about punk rock in East Germany. Ten days in December absorbing Radebeul, Dresden, and Leipzig led me, upon our return home, to the Radio GDR podcast. The Radio GDR podcast led me to this book, and it opened a door to a hidden history of which I was completely unaware.

In the late ‘70s, punk rock magazines smuggled into East Berlin from West Berlin sparked what eventually became a movement. East German youth (not all of them, but enough of them) were stifled by the oppressive Erich Honecker dictatorship. As author Tim Mohr writes, unlike the British punk slogan of “No Future” under the Thatcher regime, the problem facing East German youth was “too much future.” Everything, including educational opportunities and employment, was already mapped out for them.

Burning Down the Haus: Punk Rock, Revolution, and the Fall of the Berlin Wall tracks the East German punk movement from 1978 up through the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 and reunification the following year. Though young people were attracted to the music for the energy and fun it provided, it was also a vehicle in which creative and outspoken iconoclasts could express their dissatisfaction with the GDR regime. Throughout the book, Tim Mohr introduces the reader to a variety of East German punk bands, including Wutanfall (which translates to “Tantrum”), Planlos (“Aimless”), Namenlos (“Nameless”), and Feeling B (aka Feeling Berlin).

Punks and punk bands in East Germany had to defy and overcome several obstacles; their unorthodox hairstyles and clothing choices made it difficult to hold down jobs, and not being able to keep a job meant possible imprisonment; East German musicians needed an official license to perform at clubs and festivals, and most punk bands were unable to obtain these (for reasons that are probably obvious—more about this later); the Stasi (Ministry for State Security) viewed punk as a direct threat to the status quo, so interrogation, intimidation, and imprisonment were also tactics used to stifle the movement.

In East Germany, the churches were granted freedom from government oversight, and thus became places of refuge where dissenters and free-thinkers could express ideas and perform anti-authoritarian/anti-government music without a performance license and without fear of being arrested—unless, of course, there were snitches inside the walls of the church, and there often were. Still, churches in places like Leipzig, Halle, and of course Berlin provided a reasonably safe haven for punks.

Mohr makes a reasonably convincing argument that GDR punks were on the vanguard of political change, and though initially viewed skeptically by “regular people,” their willingness to take a stand along with the overt violent response they endured from authorities helped turn the tide against the GDR regime. However, the book could have been improved if a chapter had been devoted to a view of the punk movement through the eyes of regular East Germans.

Tim Mohr helps dispel the notion that East Germans were driven by the desire for blue jeans and Coca-Cola, or that Ronald Reagan declared “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!,” then snapped his fingers, tapped his heels together, and the Berlin Wall magically collapsed. Mohr also demonstrates how Germany wasn’t immediately improved after reunification, and in fact many of the hopes and dreams that East German revolutionaries had were not fulfilled after reunification.

[Sorry: I copied and pasted this and this process always seems to mess up the font].

A great time for "Aging Gen Xer" music

The last few months have been fruitful for excellent "aging Gen Xer" music, with a plethora of albums that I have been enjoying recently.

You may or may not have heard of the band Wet Leg. They have created a sensation in the last few months with their song "Chaise Longue." Wet Leg is comprised of two 20-something women from the Isle of Wight (Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers--could names get more "British Isles-sounding" than that?).

I first heard "Chaise Longue" at the Suburbs Fest back in October 2021, when one of the attendees played the song for a few of us on his phone. At the time, the spare post-punkish tune with the double entendre lyrics seemed like simply a fun novelty tune. I thought it was a catchy song, but didn't give it much thought beyond that.

But Wet Leg continued to release new songs, and they were all pretty good--and now, in April 2022, a full-length album. It's full of short, catchy, pop-punky songs about boredom, 21st century anxiety, and bad boyfriends. It reminds me a little bit of a similar album from 2021 that thrilled me, Dry Cleaning's New Long Leg.

We live in an era in which the common perception is that guitar rock, or rock music in general, is dead. Hip-hop and rap have taken over the charts, along with the hearts & minds of young people. I'm not complaining about this like some cranky old guy. It's just the way musical tastes change. When anyone under about age 30 forms a guitar-based band, it feels like an anomaly.  I wonder if any of their fans are under 30? The music seems created in a laboratory to appeal to Gen Xers like me.  Whatever the case may be, I'm not complaining, because Wet Leg's self-titled debut is a lot of fun.

Tears For Fears is a band that was popular when most Gen Xers like me were in their teens and 20s. Quite amazingly, they are back with their first album in 18 years. The Tipping Point is not just a "isn't it cute that this legacy act remained upright long enough to record new music" album, it is a legitimately outstanding record that can stand alongside Songs from the Big Chair, The Seeds of Love, and The Hurting. I dare anyone to listen to "Break the Man" and not have that earworm stuck in their head for the rest of the day. The album is full of the hook-laden melodicism combined with thought-provoking lyrics that characterized Tears For Fears' best work.

Urge Overkill is among the quintessential ironic Gen X bands. Back in the early-to-mid '90s, their music was humorous, tongue-in-cheek, and often referenced 1960s/1970s pop culture. The guys in the band dressed in snazzy lounge-lizard suits on stage, flying in the face of the torn jeans and plaid of the "grunge" movement. The band members had ridiculous over-the-top fictitious names (Nash Kato, King Roeser, Blackie Onassis). Urge Overkill at least pretended to be a band that wanted to be famous. It was hard to tell if they were being honest or facetious. They took shit from the likes of Steve Albini, who questioned their authenticity and I'm sure was disappointed that UO abandoned their punk roots. (Of course, Albini gave EVERYONE shit back then). Regardless of what the self-righteous 1990s hipster police may have thought, the music kicked ass and still kicks ass--the bastard child of Blue Oyster Cult and Cheap Trick with maybe a little Stooges sprinkled in. UO released several good-to-excellent albums in the 1990s, along with the moderate hits like "Sister Havana," "Positive Bleeding," and their cover of Neil Diamond's "Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon" from the Pulp Fiction soundtrack. Then, in the late '90s, the band disintegrated for a variety of reasons. Nash and King reunited in 2011 for the album Rock & Roll Submarine--a solid return to form--but then disappeared again. 

Now, Urge Overkill is back with the album Oui (the title of which seems to be not a nod to the French word for "yes," but a salute to the defunct men's magazine that had its heyday in the '70s. Even the font is the same as the masthead for the old Oui magazine. It's completely fitting for the modus operandi that UO has had their entire career, paying homage to 1960s and 1970s pop, trash and/or sleaze culture). I have been enjoying this new album since it was released in February, and it has sent me down an Urge Overkill rabbit hole of which I have not yet emerged. I may need to devote an entire post to Urge Overkill.

When I ordered the Wet Leg album from Target (could it possibly get more middle-aged than ordering from Target? We had a few Target gift cards that nobody else in the family had any intention of using), I also decided to add the new Superchunk offering, Wild Loneliness. I am, at best, a casual Superchunk fan,. That said, I pretty much like everything I've heard by them. I also respect their integrity in resisting major labels and creating their own successful independent label, Merge. 

Tossing Seeds: Singles 89-91 is one of the handful of Superchunk albums I own. As the title indicates, it's a compilation from the early days of the band. They were snotty, fast, stripped down, and punky. This makes their evolution into a contemplative and nuanced band even more fascinating. Sure, they still like to occasionally dip their toes into their loud-and-fast past, but for the most part they are more introspective now, happy to implement acoustic guitars, string arrangements, a saxophone solo, or heavenly background vocals. Witnessing this evolution is like watching someone grow up and mature in public. And to make it for fascinating is that the folks in Superchunk are about the same age as I am.

So that's what I've been listening to recently. Certainly not exclusively, but predominantly. It's been an enjoyable winter and spring, from a music-listening standpoint.