Saturday Clubs

 

In the early 1980s, clubs were still called discotheques. It was only later that the term “club” became established here too. One of these clubs was the Oz in the center of Stuttgart. The Oz was more of a meeting place than a dance temple for goths and wavers. It was a relatively small space for about 250 visitors, most of whom were dressed in black, wore Doc Martens, and had heavy kohl eyeliner. It was a meeting place for the subculture, and we often went there because there were few venues that played Siouxie and the Banshees, Bauhaus, or Joy Division.

I also witnessed King Kurt throwing eggs and flour sacks on and off the stage and Anne Clark performing her poetry to electro dark wave for the first time. I didn't get to hear a new, unknown electronic band because the hall was completely overcrowded. So I had to listen to Depeche Mode with many others on the stairs leading to the event room.

One highlight was definitely Big Country's performance when they were promoting their debut album, The Crossing. It was a wonderful concert where I met a colleague who took me backstage, and I had the opportunity to exchange a few words with Stuart Adamson and the band.

In the nineties, the club underwent a transformation and dark wave was replaced by techno. I went there a few more times and the music was okay, but I wasn't ready for that sound yet.

Our Darkness

 

Anne Clark did this successfully long before Kae Tempest came up with her songs, or should we say spoken words, which are underlaid with a rhythm. 

At the beginning of the 80's, she brought the post-punk scene to the surface. Her pre-techno dance sound combined with melancholic world-weariness quickly made her the darling of the season. Which is not such a bad thing, as her songs have lost none of their appeal even after 40 years.

In 2021 she released Synaesthesia, a remix album from her songs, showing how much potential these songs had.

Dance Alone

During the last years I often thought most of the best albums of the year will be released from August until October. Now by Shari Vari is one of those that will be in the list of my favorite albums from this year. Shari Vari is the common project of Baltimore born Sophia Kennedy and Helena Ratka. Both living in Hamburg and their gloomy, catchy and groovy sound is filled with ingredients from the last decades. It seems like Psychobilly, Suicide, Art of Noise, Anne Clark and Gun Club went together into an experimental Techno-Club filled with tribal beats.
 

Do You Remember

It is 35 years ago that English poet, spoken-word artist Anne Clark appeared on the scene and it was the first time spoken words were big at our place. Many people translated her poems into German language and were surprised about what she said. After all these years it is nothing at all but the way she performed her lyrics was awesome these days. Bit of avant-garde and probably the first one that tied her words to electronic sounds made her new and unique. In these days I went to see her live and it was one of these gigs I went after half an hour because her words came from a playback tape. From this times on I stopped listening to her until now I got into a mood to listen to their songs again after ages. Without this experience I would like her songs more than now. Afterwards I turned more into another spoken words artists like Laurie Anderson.

Our Darkness

While I was searching youtube for some music I stumbled into early 80s electronic music and found some classics by Anne Clark. Her music was very unusual for these times while most of us listened to post punk and New Wave. Her combination of spoken word, electronic music and dancefloor was very new to us but it was a sound a lot of mates could agree to. The best credit I can give to her is, that she opened our ears to another kind of sound. Nice to remember this after 30 years.