Rio Reiser had to go to the record industry alone: in 1987, two years after the band broke up.
Photo: dpa
“When Rio came out of the fog on stage and sang that the dream would become reality, then no one in the audience doubted it,” says his ex-friend Misha Schoeneberg, describing the impact of the legendary left-wing radical band Ton Steine Scherben. And then leftists accused them of wanting something to eat after their solo performances or of Reiser shaking his ass in a “sexist” way. If Lanrue was seen on the Ku’damm, he had to go to the plenum. A bottle of whiskey for 10 marks was a scandal. In their northern German rural commune, to which they had fled to escape the impositions of West Berlin, the cheapest baking margarine was served on their bread. But you could look beautifully over the fields and play city, country, river.
Philip Meinhold tells her story in the very good podcast “Music is a Weapon”. People who grew up with the band (in different generations) are also treated to many enlightening moments, including previously unpublished excerpts from interviews with Reiser that Hannes Eyber conducted in 1993 to write his autobiography.
Ton Steine Shards wanted the revolution, in a way that everyone could remember. Because the slogans and the music formed a unity, says Dota Kehr: “Destroy what destroys you” (1970), “Land in sight, the wind sings into my heart” (1975) or “I let myself into the clouds fall and plunge into the heavens” (1981). Blixa Cash prefers to talk about “resonance” rather than influence. The band went bankrupt despite selling out venues. She still didn’t want to go to the record industry; Rio had to go there alone to reduce her debts. “We remain independent – that’s a wealth that they can’t take away from us,” says her old friend Claudia Roth, summing up this attitude.
“Music is a weapon”, eight episodes in the ARD audio library.
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