In July 1978 Karin Luner, K.H. Hödicke student, who lived in NYC, and I decided to form a band after a disco tour with Florian from Kraftwerk through Düsseldorf. In the spring of ’79, I met Beate Bartel, a sound engineer at Sender Freies Berlin. She also wanted to make music. Realised in May 1979 in Berlin, when Karin came back from NYC, the all-girl underground band Mania D. was founded with frienfs of Beate, Bettina Köster Tenor-Sax and Gudrun Gut, Moog Synthesizer. On the recommendation of bass player Beate Bartel, I travelled to her friends in Paris to buy a Henri Selmer Alto Saxophone.
It was Karin`s idea to shoot a Super8 film for our performances. She did the direction, styling, make-up and our fashion for the film „Fashion Intellection“. The film was shot at the ICC and on the Teufelsberg, supported by Michael, my brother.
„Anyway, our first concert was in a gallery in Wuppertal. Volker Anding was a gallery member and gave me the space to organise a show. I put together a Super 8 programme with films by Rainer Fetting and I also exhibited fashion, „Art as Art as Fashion“ was a concept that was later much more recognised. The gallery members hated the concept…The film „Fashion Intellection“, a film with exclusively Mania D, unfortunately got lost in my eternal moves“, so Karin Luner, the driving force, which brought us to NYC when the Lower East Side was decaying in nineteen hundred and seventy-nine.
At A`s, Arleen Schloss/ Schloß, 330 Broome Street, I shared a chamber with the 18-year-old SAMO© aka Jean Michel Basquiat.
And then: most glorious music, I assume. Bettina Köster with „Der Novak“. „Kaltes klares Wasser“ and „Geld/Money, Malaria mit Bettina und Gudrun, Director Brigitte Bühler. Beate Bartel with her band Liason Dangereuses „Los niños del parque“, produced by Conny Plank, who gave Kraftwerk, Eurythmics, DAF, Ultravox a.o. their sound. BLÄSSE with „Lieben Sie Saxofon“ SAMO© idea of two sax melodies playing around each other. „Die Sonne“ Gudrun and Blixa Bargeld, just cool.
