Gudrun Gut
A musician, performance artist, DJ, radio host, club organizer, label owner and more, Gudrun Gut is also a feminist icon who has been at the forefront of forward-thinking music in Berlin for decades. After moving to the city in the ’70s to study visual communication at Hochschule der Künste, she co-founded Einstürzende Neubauten, a pioneering band of the German avant-garde and industrial scene. While Gut left shortly after Einstürzende Neubauten’s initial gigs, she went on to play in several more influential bands, including Mania D, a new wave group who imbued their music with elements of free jazz, all-female post-punk band Malaria! and the more synth-led Matador. In the ’90s, Gut founded two record labels, Moabit Music and Monika Enterprise, both of which exclusively release the work of female artists. After decades of collaborative work, Gut surprised listeners with her acclaimed 2007 debut, I Put a Record On, on which she made surprising forays into downtempo electronic music. Today, in addition to running her record labels and making new music, she is a host on Ocean Club Radio and works as an active member of the international female:pressure network.
In her 2018 Red Bull Music Academy Berlin lecture, Gut reflected on musical life in the city before and after the fall of the Wall, why she prefers collectives over bands and how she feels more free now than ever.
Hosted by Hanna Bächer Welcome the very first lecture of term two of the 2018 Red Bull Music Academy and mostly welcome Gudrun Gut. [applause] Gudrun Gut Hello, thanks for having me. Hanna Bächer We are at Funkhaus, as you all know. And I had to look that up, but it’s four kilometers to what used to be the closest checkpoint between East and West Berlin, which was at Sonnenallee. And it’s another kilometer from there to where the last refugee from Eastern Germany got shot by the border police of the GDR. That was in February 1989. You had lived for 14 years in Berlin by that point. How were you aware of what was going on around the wall? Gudrun Gut Oh yes, I came to Berlin in 1975. I was grown up in North Germany in the “Heatherlands,” where we heard this wonderful tune in the beginning. And naturally we, as West Germans, we knew that West Berlin was occupied, was surrounded by the “Red Sea.” That’s what they called it. Hanna Bächer In the media, or did you among your peers call it the Red Sea? Gudrun Gut In the media. The Red Sea was communism, the DDR. And so to get from West Germany to West Berlin you had to cross the Red Sea. And the autobahn was very bad, and we had to be very nice people at the border and smile and not make jokes because otherwise they won’t let you through, and this kind of stuff. It was pretty serious. Hanna Bächer Can you still remember that very first journey when you came from Lüneburger Heide, which is kind of like northern, very flat lands in West Germany, and then you had to cross East Germany. This very first visit, how did it work? Could you bring records for example? Gudrun Gut I remember it super well, because I came with my then boyfriend who was gay, half gay, and he wanted to show... I was 15 or 16, and he wanted to show me West Berlin where his gay friends were, and he used to work in an antique bookshop, and he wanted to show me his Berlin. I had no idea about it. I didn’t even know. And then we came here... I don’t remember the drive, but I remember getting off at Schlesisches Tor, and suddenly there was this smell, there were these people shouting. It was lively, it was dirty. I simply loved it. Because West Germany was super sterile, and everything was organized, and you know I couldn’t breath anymore there. That’s when I decided to go to Berlin. Hanna Bächer And you applied for art university. Gudrun Gut Yeah, and I studied at the Hochschule der Künste, HdK, now UdK, academy for arts. I studied visual communication. Hanna Bächer Was that some of your early music projects, which we’re obviously gonna get to, have sort of verged in performance art? Was that part of your studies to learn about or do performance art at uni. Gudrun Gut No, no, no. Actually, I wanted to become an experimental film maker. That was my idea. And then I learned, because visual communication was then kind of... I didn’t wanna be a painter, because my understanding of art was a little bit further than painting, and so I wanted to become an experimental film maker, and video and stuff, and I did it as well. But then I learned at the university that it’s really hard to survive with it, that you need to apply for money for it, and that it takes a long, long time. And then came punk music and I thought I better form a band. Because I wanted to have it quick, I wanted to do something. I wanted, I was eager to kind of... Hanna Bächer Impatient. Gudrun Gut Impatient, yeah. Totally. Hanna Bächer I want to play a video, which is video number four, please, and then we talk about what is in there. (video: Mania D – “Herzschlag”)
Gudrun Gut That was a photo session with Bettina Köster on the left, me in the middle, I used to be young, and Karin Luner on the right. But in the band was Beate Bartel as well, later Liaisons Dangereuses. Karin Luner was a fashion designer, and we did this photo session with her on the Teufelsberg in Berlin. Hanna Bächer And what are the instruments we’re hearing? Gudrun Gut Yeah, this is a 7" single we did with Mania D. We mostly did a kind of half-improv, atmospheric, kind of punk mixture concerts and tracks, and this was “Herzschlag,” called “Heartbeat.” I used to play the drums in... [mimics hitting a drum] And there’s another track where I play more drums. Anyway, yeah, I used to play the drums in Mania D and the Korg MS-20. That was kind of the body and head idea, the Korg for my head and the drums for my body. Hanna Bächer Before you did that, I mean looking at your discography, or at anyone’s discography who was around in West Berlin at that time, it feels like there were about 200 people, and everyone was in a band with everyone at one point. Can you still remember, or can you tell us what your very first live experience was? Who was that with, and where? Gudrun Gut My very first band was a band called DinA4 with four girls, but we never did any concerts. We only tried out clothes and did some rehearsals. And then we joined in with a band called Testbild, me and Coca-Cola on drums. I played the Stylophone, which is a little toy keyboard. And we formed DIN A Testbild, and we played the SO36, which still exists. That was the opening of it, I think, and David Bowie was there. Hanna Bächer But SO36, it used to be a Turkish place, right, before it became... Gudrun Gut Yeah, and then on and off they used it for Turkish marriage, and then Martin Kippenberger, for those who are into art might have heard his name, he at one point took over the SO36 later and got Lydia Lunch to play, and James Chance and the Contortions and New York underground stuff. That was later, I think. I’m a little bit confused with time. Hanna Bächer That’s OK. No one’s... Gudrun Gut SO36 was a really important venue for punk times in the ’80s. We played there very often. We organized parties ourselves there, and played with Mania D and Malaria! very often. Hanna Bächer These different worlds that existed in West Berlin at that time, a large Turkish community in Kreuzberg predominantly, and then you guys, the art school maybe, some sort of highly complex politics. How did that clash? Did you feel like you could just do whatever you wanted, in terms of fashion for example? Gudrun Gut Yeah. In a way. Because Berlin, nobody cared about what happened in West Berlin then, because it was kind of... Here in West Berlin only pensioners were living, and students, and people who didn’t wanna go in the army, because Berlin was kind of occupied... Free sector, so you didn’t have to go to the army. And so this was pretty... Young people and old people, there were no businesses, no real business happening. So we could do whatever we wanted, I think. There was a big feminist movement, a big gay community... Hanna Bächer Related to the fact that you could escape your army duties when moving from West Germany to Berlin, you should say. Gudrun Gut Yeah. It’s true. Hanna Bächer Was it difficult to get specific things to West Berlin? Was it difficult to get records across the border, or clothes or whatever? Did that influence your little store that you had? Gudrun Gut The problem was that there were no real fashion shops like you have now. In those days, we were going to England, to London, to go shopping because it was much cheaper than now and they had the young designers who sold their clothes in little shops, and that’s where we went. And then so we thought we need to open a shop where we can sell Berlin designers and get some stuff from the flea market and change it over, and I bought a knitting machine and was knitting stuff, like really nice trousers for men, I was knitting. Hanna Bächer Knitted trousers for men. Gudrun Gut Yes. [laughs] Hanna Bächer You could make a fortune with those now probably. Gudrun Gut They were pretty cool, and pullovers and... Hanna Bächer Do any still exist? Gudrun Gut No. I have some pictures, but not much... They still look good, actually. Hanna Bächer But that was... You finished, no you were still going to art uni, I guess, and you just opened a store because it was so cheap that you could just do that. Gudrun Gut Yeah. Bettina had found the store, and she lived in the back. It was just easy to rent because it had the store in the front and an apartment in the back, and she was living there, and she asked me, “Shall we open a store?” And I said, “Yeah, why not.” And then we called it Eisengrau because we painted it all in iron gray, which is eisengrau. Hanna Bächer And apart from Bettina, who has been a very important collaborator of yours ever since, there was also another person living in the store. Is that right? There was a young gentleman who kind of like half lived in the store? Gudrun Gut You mean Blixa? Hanna Bächer Yes. Gudrun Gut Yeah. After Bettina found a different apartment... She didn’t wanna do the shop anymore, and so Blixa came in. They changed. So I continued the shop with Blixa Bargeld from Einstürzende Neubauten. But we were all friends before and we used to play in a band together and stuff. Hanna Bächer And that’s pre-Einstürzende Neubauten time, right? Gudrun Gut That’s true. Hanna Bächer How did a guy like him, what was he doing, which kind of art pieces? How was he performing art in the city at that time? Gudrun Gut No, he didn’t perform at all. We had Mania D, I think that was the time we had Mania D. And our rehearsal room was in Blixa’s other apartment, before, or was it afterward...? Hanna Bächer So he lived in your store, and you rehearsed in his flat. Gudrun Gut It must have been afterwards. Anyway, we rehearsed in his apartment, the cellar of his apartment, and he wanted to have a band as well, and me and Beate joined Neubauten for the first year. There was Andrew, Blixa, Beate, me and I think Suse. So it was kind of a 50/50 band, 50% female. And then afterwards I went on with Mania D, and Blixa... We split. Hanna Bächer You stayed friends, though? Gudrun Gut Yeah, we stayed. We were friends before, and we were sharing our love for music. We have similar musical taste. We both love Neu! Hanna Bächer The band Neu!? Gudrun Gut Yeah, the band Neu! Hanna Bächer Because the music that you were making with Mania D and then Malaria! kind of resembles Einstürzende Neubauten in a way that... It sounds new. It’s not that much related to music with traditional instruments. I know that you’re doing it with this idea of not actually learning an instrument and just doing stuff, but at the same time you had a sound engineer on stage which I think in electronic music is sort of the equivalent of a classically trained musician in a band with instrumentalists. You did have a super pro in your band, right? Which is... Gudrun Gut Beate Bartel. Hanna Bächer Which is Beate. Gudrun Gut Yeah, Beate was a sound technician, and she was part of Mania D. So yeah, you can call it that. But the idea... There was this movement in Berlin called Geniale Dilletanten, the Genius Dilettantes, that was a scene in the beginning of the ’80s. All the bands, Neubauten, Mania D, Malaria!, Die Tödliche Doris, Sprung Aus Den Wolken, there were lots of bands in Berlin, in different collaborations, and there was this big festival called Genius Dilettantes where we could associate with, because it was similar in New York as well, that you didn’t wanna be this super genius instrumentalist. It was much more about creativity than to be a good... Comparing it with art, we didn’t wanna be a good painter. We wanted to do art. But we wanted to do music in reference to the art scene a little bit. And the idea was... It was a revolt against the music which was played on the radio, which was over produced LA stuff, Toto and this. We didn’t like this at all. We wanted to have something simple, but street orientated, and it was very fashionable to change instruments after each song. That at the beginning of the ’80s was the thing to do. But because we didn’t wanna do a guitar solo, it was totally forbidden to do a guitar solo. There were rules how music should be. The drums shouldn’t... No solos at all. Simple stuff. Something to surprise the others, do something you’ve never done before... All these little strange rules. Hanna Bächer That’s sort of similar to the approach that Kippenberger had in art, right? Also, he was an extremely good painter but purposefully made paintings that didn’t necessarily show that. Were there a lot of conversations between the scene around him and the music scene in Berlin where you exchanged concepts across music and art? Gudrun Gut We didn’t discuss so many things, we were doing things. So we hang out with Kippenberger, and we played at his office. He called it the Büro, Kippenberger Büro at Segitzdamm in Kreuzberg, and I played with a different collaboration called Summe über Zukunft, later Liebesgier. You don’t have to remember those names. Because we came out of the ’68 generation who discussed everything, we didn’t wanna discuss things anymore, we wanted to do things. Because everything was discussed for hours and hours in the generation which we were fighting against. So we just wanted to do things. Hanna Bächer Can we watch video number ten, please? This is Malaria! live with “Kaltes Klares Wasser.” (video: Malaria! – “Kaltes Klares Wasser” (live))
Gudrun Gut We didn’t do so many instrument changes. But people did it. We didn’t do it. But we didn’t wanna... I played drums because I didn’t like anybody else... I didn’t like any other people... I wanted to play... Hanna Bächer You didn’t want anyone else to play drums? Gudrun Gut Yeah, I wanted to play drums because I had an idea how I would do it. And we had some other drummers, and I didn’t like how they played. And I said, “I do the drums.” And I did it really simple, but I have a good rhythmic feel. And it helped... I played accordion before, and there you have to, you know, do different things... Coordination. Hanna Bächer You learned that when you were a child or a young person, you learned accordion? Gudrun Gut Yeah. I just wanted to give a name check here. This is Malaria!, and for Malaria! Beate was not in the band anymore. She had Liaisons Dangereuses who had a big success with “Los Niños Del Parque,” and so Malaria! formed after Mania D with Bettina Köster singing, me playing drums, Christine Hahn who used to play with Glenn Branca from New York, and Susanne Kuhnke, and Manon P. Duursma playing guitar. So we had two drums and syntheziser. Hanna Bächer Still in regards to my sound engineering and syncing question, because you were playing machines that you couldn’t easily... Gudrun Gut We didn’t sync it. Hanna Bächer ... It’s not like playing Ableton Live basically. Gudrun Gut No, no. I mean we had two drums, and Susanne played keyboards more, and then it was more a band. We didn’t have so much syncing stuff. She played the synthesizer live. And when I played the Korg I had little notes, it was really hard to remember... It was always a bit different, because the Korg is always different. Hanna Bächer So the whole setup, despite the punk idea, the whole setting up your instruments on stage took you quite a while until you got anywhere. So you did have to prepare each show to make it work. Or how spontaneous were you in that music making with an instrument like the Korg MS-20? Gudrun Gut Not much. But it was, I played the Korg at the very beginning of Mania D... Hanna Bächer And then you gave it up. Gudrun Gut And then with Neubauten. In those days we had more improv sessions. So longer tracks where we had time to kind of adjust it. And with Malaria! I played drums and guitar and backing vocals, so it was more a real live band. Hanna Bächer Did you consider yourself, because there’s surprisingly few recordings, especially of Mania D. You know, you would think there should be a lot more, and I wonder at that time, did you even consider yourself a band that needs recordings to be out there, or was it really just about hanging out and playing together, because that’s the best thing you can do on a Monday night, Thursday night or whatever? Gudrun Gut Yeah. We wanted to entertain ourselves. It was super boring, and we wanted to do something, and we wanted to do something which is more interesting than what anyone else is doing, so we just did what we wanted to do. The big difference I think... It was a very small scene then, and there was no music business as such in Germany, because music business was in UK and America, and we didn’t have any. There was nothing. So it was fun. It was more for fun and art, that’s why the art thing came in so naturally because we didn’t have a biz, a pop biz. Hanna Bächer With there being a music industry now, and it being big and influential, or partly not big and very underground, do you think nowadays you would still, if you were however old you were then, 20, now, would you still make music although there is that industry? Or do you think you would probably not do it because you could actually get released nowadays? Gudrun Gut I have no idea. Because I’m too old to imagine to be young. But I think if I would start now I would do gardening. [laughter] Hanna Bächer Like radical gardening. Extreme gardening. Gudrun Gut Yeah. Or art. Because the music business is... Because I come from a not very wealthy background, and I think a lot of people now who start doing experimental, like arty music, they do have really rich parents. Because you know, it’s not a thing where you can make a living of. It’s really hard, and people know it’s hard to make a living out of music. Hanna Bächer So you need another source of income, ideally? Gudrun Gut Yeah. Hanna Bächer Also, I mean with Malaria! you did have some success. At least you were able to leave the country, you were able to leave the island of West Berlin. Gudrun Gut We left the country the first year of existence. Hanna Bächer And you went to New York. Gudrun Gut New York. Straight to New York. [sings] If you can make it there... Hanna Bächer But the New York you encountered then was also a very different New York than there is now. So the places you played in New York... Gudrun Gut Yeah, it was very close to Berlin feel. It was very underground. Somebody invited us to play there, and then we went. And then we played Washington, Philadelphia, came back and forth, then we met some friends, and then we could play Danceteria, Peppermint Lounge, and Mudd Club later... Hanna Bächer You’re saying that as if you’re, [mimics looking upset] “Uh, played Danceteria...” Gudrun Gut It just happened. Hanna Bächer But those were, I mean, at least speaking about it nowadays, those were like... Gudrun Gut We played Studio 54. Hanna Bächer Yeah, you did. It’s not a random place. Really. What kind of night was that? Gudrun Gut Accident. It’s pure accident. Hanna Bächer What kind of night was that that you played Studio 54 with Malaria!? Gudrun Gut Studio 54? That was Yom Kippur, great idea, and Nina Hagen played there, and she didn’t have a band, and we were friends with Nina Hagen, some might know, Berlin superstar, punk, great person, and she asked us to be the backing band. Then she had only a bass player, and she did three songs with him and three with us, and then we played as well. And then she wanted to play drums with us. [laughs] It was kind of fun, it was pretty fun. Hanna Bächer She’s like, “You’re better than I am, so I can be your backing band.” Can we please watch video number six? (video: Malaria! – “Your Turn To Run”)
Gudrun Gut Your turn to run? Hanna Bächer Or you turn to run. Gudrun Gut Your turn to run. Yeah. The track was recorded in New York, but the video footage is a bit unscharf, blurry. But it’s Super 8 leftover material from Berlin, ’80s, Kreuzberg after the first of May demonstration, where the cars were... The car where we were in, there were like... Hanna Bächer The burnt car. Someone actually burned that the day before. Gudrun Gut Genau [exactly]. There were a couple of them standing in Dresdener Straße. Hanna Bächer Was that a time... I mean, I guess most people in that scene, like Mark Reeder for example, were involved in also the political side of the struggle of living in West Berlin, which is mostly meant, to be a squatter. Was that your fight? Was it your fight to try to squat houses and rebel against big capitalism? Gudrun Gut We were supporting that, actually. We did go on the street for it, but we were not 100% on the street only. We were kind of more... How do you say that? We were political but not too much? Hanna Bächer More in a private sphere. Was it a political stand to mostly play with women? Or was it because it was more fun? Gudrun Gut It was just a natural thing. Hanna Bächer Yeah. Gudrun Gut Much more like that. Hanna Bächer It’s not like... There was no manifesto, or you wouldn’t have stood on a stage and said, “I mostly play with women.” Gudrun Gut No. Hanna Bächer I know that in basically every interview in that time some music journalism dude is asking you, “Hey, you’re only playing with women.” And you’re like... [shrugs] Gudrun Gut No, but we didn’t like that. We wanted to more have it as if it would be normal, so this was our attitude. I became a feminist in 2000. Hanna Bächer Do you remember the day? [laughs] What happened? Gudrun Gut Somewhere in 2000, because I had an interview with Missy Magazine, and she asked me if I’m a feminist. And I really had to think about it because I never considered myself... I always acted as if everything is normal. I came out like in the end of the ’70s, I was kind of an emancipated woman, girl, but then I just ignored it and did what I did. And then I realized that all the girls are not there anymore, just me basically. The music scene was very male, and then I called myself a feminist, suddenly Hanna Bächer In 2000? What happened to everyone? I mean Malaria! was, I think, playing, the first time you existed, you existed until about ’84, and then these years until ’89, what happened to the scene? What happened to the girls you were playing with? What happened to everyone? Gudrun Gut Beate came back to Berlin. She used to be in Düsseldorf. Bettina stayed in New York, Christine stayed in New York. Beate came back to Berlin, and me, Beate, and... Or Beate, Manon, and me... Hanna Bächer You did Matador. Gudrun Gut We formed Matador. And then we got an Atari computer and started programming and got into this kind of more electronic field. Hanna Bächer The clubs that were around sort of in the second half of the ’80s, I mean SO36 still exists for example, as you just said, but did they change? I mean leading up, no one saw the wall coming down, right? No one anticipated that to happen. But how did the vibe change? Now thinking back to the second half of the ’80s, did it feel different here, or rather, five kilometers from here? Gudrun Gut The beginning of the ’80s was very enthusiastic, lots of stuff happening, like new bands, everybody was doing something. And then suddenly it got really dark, lots of drugs, and it really kind of imploded, and there was no support from the scene anymore. It was really getting a bit funny. I think it’s really nice in the B-movie as well, you can really see it. It was not good anymore. I decided I wanted to leave the city at that stage, but then the wall came down. And then suddenly Berlin was really exciting again. I mean, new, double the size, new clubs, new nightlife... Hanna Bächer New people. Gudrun Gut New people, yeah. Warmth, human warmth coming from the East. I had a lot of new friends from East Germany, East Berlin. It was really cool. Hanna Bächer OK, so I have to ask this since I’m a) too young and b) grew up in West Germany and don’t have a clue really. But this, let’s say one of the very first nights that you went out after the wall came down, you’re standing in a bar that you always go to in West Berlin, and suddenly you have new people around you, you’re like, “You’re a punk, too?” Or was that post-punk, kind of? In that music scene, did you quickly meet across this fallen border? Did you reach out to musicians from the GDR? Gudrun Gut We met a couple, Ornament und Verbrechen, and then the Lippok and the Jestram family, this circle. Hanna Bächer Robert Lippok. Gudrun Gut Robert and Ronald Lippok, Tarwater. But that was a bit later, I think. At the beginning it was just going to clubs, and discovering the streets, and it was really dark in East Berlin. There was no lights, and so you had to kind of, “Where are we?” And then the club’s where you had to dig through holes and suddenly there was a club, and it was really cool. I really enjoyed it. And shopping was really difficult because everybody was queuing up for supermarkets, and you couldn’t get anything anymore. Hanna Bächer But, like... it was hard to get stuff at the supermarket but it was easy to get spaces, suddenly. Gudrun Gut Yeah. There were lots of empty spaces. And then in the ’90s everybody, you know the whole scene changed. Because East Berlin was suddenly so exciting. And you got cheap apartments. Everybody moved to East Berlin. Even from West Berlin. Mostly Prenzlauer Berg. And it was like the life in West Berlin died out a little, the underground, there was not much stuff going on. Kreuzberg got really cheap, the apartments at one point, because everybody moved to Prenzlauer Berg and around there. And then suddenly, when it was official that Kreuzberg... The rents were half price, it got really popular again. Then Berlin got... A big city like New York where you just, the areas, you know, Prenzlauer Berg now super expensive. Mitte was cheap at the beginning, super expensive, Kreuzberg, expensive. Neukölln, Kreuzkölln, Neukölln, now let’s see what’s coming up. All the artists and young people who move to Berlin always have to find a new “Bezirk.” Hanna Bächer A new area, yeah. But at this time, in the beginning of the ’90s you actually came here, to Funkhaus. Gudrun Gut That’s right. So, I know this place when it used to be a radio station. Hanna Bächer Please tell that, I want to know the whole story. So someone told you we’re gonna go to this radio station in the GDR. What did you expect? Gudrun Gut No, I was... Actually I played at the 20 years Neubauten and I think it was, or ten. Hanna Bächer More like ten. I think ten. Fifteen. Gudrun Gut Ten years Neubauten concert at the Neue Welt, and I played, on my sampler, I played an old track we played together live. And Heiner Muller was there... Hanna Bächer Who is Heiner Müller? Gudrun Gut The writer, and he saw me, and they were just producing the “Hamletmachine” at the Funkhaus here, and he wanted me to be Ophelia. So then the producer, Mr Rindfleisch and Blixa picked me up in West Berlin, and we drove here and actually recorded the vocals here, and Neubauten did the music for the radio play here. And so this used to be a radio station. Hanna Bächer But the people working here at that time with you were mostly employees from back in the day, so it was fully functioning as a GDR radio station. How did they react to you doing your Neubauten? Or that was a Heiner Müller thing, but still... Gudrun Gut They were really open, very nice. And later I did more music for radio plays with Rindfleisch here in this studio. And it was really cool. They had a lot of female tone engineers. Hanna Bächer Sound engineers. Gudrun Gut Sound engineers. That was a surprise for me because I’ve seen West German radio stations mostly are male. Hanna Bächer But that’s like in any engineering job, in any engineering profession there were more females in East Germany than in the West. Gudrun Gut A lot. But for me it was, “Wow.” You know, to work with three female sound engineers. It was great. Hanna Bächer You said earlier that Berlin was great to go to as a woman, at end of the ’70s. It was great to go if you were queer. Berlin then opening up to East Germany, did it even... Or becoming actually a part of Eastern Germany after the wall came down, did it make it an even better place to be a woman in because of that? Because there were more female professionals in East Germany than in the West? Gudrun Gut No. [laughs] Hanna Bächer Making radio plays, as you said, and working with Heiner Müller, etc, that allowed you to access other funds. It allowed you to get paid maybe in another way than as an independent musician, right? How did you manage to financially survive in all of these years? I mean, we listen to this amazing music, we see all these amazing gigs. But it’s kind of obvious that you can’t be Malaria! onstage four times a month and then pay your rent off that. Gudrun Gut Well, Malaria! was finished in ’84, already. And then I did some spoken word project in Canada with Myra Davis who had a stipendium [scholarship] at the... There was a thing called The Instability of the Feminist Subject in Banff Center for the Arts. And I did radio plays, music for radio plays. Just found some more solo work for myself. And then I bought myself my first Macintosh. So I was able to produce at home, which... That was very... Hanna Bächer About when was that? ’90s? Gudrun Gut ’90s I think, when it was not that expensive anymore. Because it used to be very expensive. Hanna Bächer Would you say in looking back, were you struggling? Gudrun Gut Oh, yeah. Hanna Bächer Were you sometimes... Gudrun Gut I’ve always had big money problems. And doubts, you know, what am I doing? I think I was getting 30 then, and when you get 30 you think now you have to be “erwachsen.” Hanna Bächer An adult, yeah. Gudrun Gut An adult. And you have to find the place in your life. And so that was a big pressure on me. But I came out of a female household, and my mother always was working, so I never had the idea that I married somebody who will feed me. I always had the... I knew I had to do it. I had to make the money for my living. And, yeah, I just didn’t worry so much. I just tried not to worry too much, and took the opportunities I got, and made the best out of it. And then strangely, if you’re not afraid of things, they come. You know, suddenly jobs were coming, and then I was active all the time. You can’t just sit at home and wait for jobs to come. I was doing stuff, so you meet people, and then I got this offer or... Then we did albums with Mania D. And, yeah, worked in studio service, soldered cables, did some other jobs to make some living. I was never a good bar girl. Hanna Bächer Why not? Gudrun Gut I don’t know, it’s not my thing. But a lot of musicians do this. Hanna Bächer Yeah, well it’s also in the evening, it’s maybe convenient for you. Gudrun Gut I DJed. Manon was working at the bar and I DJed. Hanna Bächer Where did you first start DJing? Because that’s kind in the ’90s. Gudrun Gut In the ’80s already. Hanna Bächer In the ’80s. Gudrun Gut Because I wasn’t a good bar girl. So I DJed and Manon, my best friend, she worked at the bar. Hanna Bächer But your first proper... Gudrun Gut And it was better pay too. Hanna Bächer The bar or the DJ? Gudrun Gut No, the DJ. Hanna Bächer Oh, that’s... I’m not sure that’s still the case in Berlin bars nowadays. It’s more like you pay to DJ, you get paid to do the bar. Gudrun Gut But in those days... And then I still sometimes DJ. Hanna Bächer But your first DJ residency was with the Ocean Club. Gudrun Gut Yeah. Hanna Bächer In the basement of the very first Tresor? Was it the first Tresor or was it... Gudrun Gut Tresor, Leipziger Straße. I think so. I had an album that I did, a solo album with lots of friends called, Members Of The Ocean Club. And for the record release party we thought, OK, it’s called, Members of the Ocean Club because I didn’t want to have a band anymore, I wanted to have more like a free-form club thing. And then the idea was, OK, record release, we should do a club in a club. And then Danielle de Picciotto did decoration down in the Tresor in Berlin. And we had a record release party there. And it was so cool that we continued, every week we had the Ocean Club with kind of strange music. Hanna Bächer These clubs like Tresor, which I think opened in ’92 or so, and other places that were later mostly playing techno in Berlin, were those spaces where you immediately felt like you’re at the right place, or was that confusing and different to you, coming from already being active in the ’80s. Is that something that you were part of from the beginning? Or did you feel like, “What are people doing here?” They’re staying awake for three days. I mean, you probably did that too in ’81. Gudrun Gut Yeah, [laughs] that’s nothing new. Hanna Bächer But the attitude, was it... Gudrun Gut No, it was really strange because nobody knew me, and knew us anymore. Nobody was talking about the ’80s in the ’90s. And that was kind of... Hanna Bächer Was it a relief? Gudrun Gut Freeing. It was nice. And I had the feeling, when I saw Jeff Mills playing at the Tresor, it really reminded me... It was different, but it reminded me of this pureness and straightness from the very beginning of the ’80s. And so I liked it. A lot of my other colleagues from the ’80s didn’t like techno at all. Hanna Bächer Why not, what did they dislike? Gudrun Gut I don’t know, they were really... They thought it was not right. I don’t know. It reminded me very much of... It was very underground, it was great, and pure and true. Hanna Bächer One thing... Gudrun Gut It changed a lot. Hanna Bächer One thing that I think it might still be the case in Berlin but it isn’t in many other cities, is that there are now no cameras in many of the clubs. And there were certainly no cameras in Tresor for the first half of the ’90s. And that did allow for a certain... It did allow for nudity, It did allow for people to be naked on the dancefloor if they wanted to. Gudrun Gut I have never seen that. Hanna Bächer You have never seen that. It’s not actually a thing. It’s just myths that people tell. Gudrun Gut I wasn’t there every night, but I didn’t... Hanna Bächer I’m asking it in regards to... Gudrun Gut We had dirndls. [laughs] Hanna Bächer Yeah. Gudrun Gut Wearing dirndls. Hanna Bächer That’s quite the opposite. Or it’s not, depending on what you like. But I’m asking also in regards to... Because tracks like “Kaltes Klares Wasser,” which we heard earlier, I find are quite erotic in regards to the lyrics. You might want to Google that, or internet search it, translate the lyrics for yourself, it’s sort of about cold water on certain body parts, etc. You reflecting on being rather attractive young women at that time, were you making a conscious choice to put that out there? Did it happen ironically? Was it just the thing that you were just doing? Were you thinking, “We’re going to do this and it does play with people’s sexual fantasy?” Gudrun Gut For me music has, pop music kind of has to be sexy, in a way, as well. It doesn’t have to be, but it is a part of it, the body part, you know? So I have no restrictions. I can’t say it in English. Hanna Bächer Tell me in German. Gudrun Gut [_talks to Hanna in German: man kann nicht nicht einfach negieren, dass es Sex gibt, and that it’s part of…] Hanna Bächer OK, I’m gonna translate. You can’t deny that sex exists, and that it’s part of who you are, and... Gudrun Gut Of pop culture. Hanna Bächer Pop culture. Gudrun Gut Yeah. Hanna Bächer I want to show a video that you made much, much later, which is video number one, please. Gudrun Gut with “Garten.” (video: Gudrun Gut – “Garten”)
Hanna Bächer Garden. Was that filmed in your garden? Gudrun Gut Yeah. In Uckermark Hanna Bächer And yeah, you made that video. Or you scripted it. Gudrun Gut I scripted it, I didn’t make it. Hanna Bächer The idea is yours, too? To show a naked person? Gudrun Gut The idea was to have... I didn’t want to do like a playback thing. So, my idea was to have a different sex symbol which has nothing to do with the garden. Because garden is associated with something not sexy. But like a naked, good build male figure, I thought was a perfect garden. [laughter] Hanna Bächer I like that. Just keep it at that. Perfect garden. In Ocean Club in the ’90s, you also had... People dressed up, and you created a space. I mean it wasn’t a garden, it was more like a subterranean garden, I guess. Gudrun Gut We had a mermaid working behind the bar. Hanna Bächer It was weekly right? Gudrun Gut Every Sunday night. Upstairs was Ellen Allien and Tanith, and we were downstairs. Hanna Bächer What did each of the rooms represent sort of musically? What did Ellen Allien and Tanith play and what did you play? Gudrun Gut We couldn’t hear each other, because... Hanna Bächer But you know, you still went upstairs, probably, sometimes. Gudrun Gut Yeah, yeah. They were more techno, and we were more experimental, all over the place. Hanna Bächer And that led to... I guess some of you might know led to a radio show on Berlin airwaves... Gudrun Gut Radio Eins. So, at the same time I think... No, when I started the label. So, in 1997, after the club nights I was, “Every Sunday was too much.” I wanted to, “Ah, Thomas, I think we should do a radio show.” Thomas Fehlmann, partner in the club. And then he said, “Great, but how?” And then he got a call from Radio One, which started in 1997. And they asked him to do a radio show. And then we said, OK, let’s do Ocean Club. Gudrun Gut And then we started the Ocean Club radio show every week, which was really a very nice show where we introduced electronic and international experimental electronic and club music. And we had DJ sets, and we had a mermaid, and we had some spoken word artists, it was pretty cool. Hanna Bächer Ocean Club, you already said earlier, it was more of a collective and less of a band. And that has been an idea... When I look at Mania D and Malaria!, etc, to me it feels like a big collective because everyone played with everyone. But you’re doing also the thing now with Monika Werkstatt. Why is that? Why do you prefer working in collectives than in bands? What does that allow that the band doesn’t allow for? Gudrun Gut Because a band is always “eingeengt...” The people who are in the band, and always have to be in the band, and you can’t change it, and I think a club or a collective, it has... People change. And some want to go, and some want to come in. And it’s nice to have a flow happening. I think it’s really nice to collaborate with others, because I think music especially is one of the only art forms who allow that. Because if you’re a painter, it’s difficult to collaborate. But with music, with the tones in the air, suddenly you make a tone and it rubs against the other tone and something new comes out of it. It’s a really nice thing to play music together. So collaborative work I think is really important. I love to collaborate with others. And every time I do it, I learn something new. Because you, you know, I suck into the other person, take what I want. [laughs] And I give what I have to give. [laughter] Hanna Bächer Having done that over so many years, do you feel like you have a defined role that you always take on when you collaborate? Are you creating the space that everyone comes to? Do you prefer to be on the outside in collaborations, is there a Gudrun Gut collaboration... Figure? Do you become someone, repeat certain patterns when collaborating, when communicating with people? Gudrun Gut No. Because, for example when I collaborated with Antye, I do a lot of two-person things, with AGF. Hanna Bächer Antye Greie Fraktion. Gudrun Gut Yeah. We did the Greie Gut Fraktion, and that was very electronic, free approach, but very modern technology kind of thing. After that I collaborated with Hans Joachim Irmler from Faust, totally different thing because he is a kind of Krautrock, keyboard, synthesizer maniac. And really into improv. And I had always these difficulties with improvisation. I was more getting structure into a track, and organize it, and have it proper. And he brought me back into this kind of free-form. And the influence of him I took into the Monika Werkstatt, because suddenly I thought it’s really important to have this improv stuff back into the music. Which I had at the very beginning of my musical career with Mania D and Neubauten. And then along the line I got very much more into more song structure, structuring more, organizing it, cleaning it out. And then now I’m back into the more rough stuff. Hanna Bächer Can we play a snippet of video number two please? Number two. Gut and Bargeld, “Die Sonne.” (video: Gudrun Gut & Blixa Bargeld – “Die Sonne”)
Gudrun Gut That was from the Members Of The Ocean Club album. Hanna Bächer It makes you extremely happy to watch this. Why is that? Gudrun Gut Because it’s so... Hanna Bächer It is very happy, yeah? The drugs were different in the mid-’90s [laughter] than they were in early ’80s, or late ’80s. I mean, that’s actually an honest question. Gudrun Gut [speaks in German]. I don’t have sex and I don’t take drugs. Hanna Bächer I have to put this in a context. That’s an answer that Gudrun gave to an interview question at, I think, E-Werk, which was an influential techno club in the middle of the ’90s, and someone wanted to interview you and wanted to have that sex, drugs and rock & roll answer, and you said that. Gudrun Gut Yeah. Me and Danielle. And they were like, “What?” Hanna Bächer Did they believe you? No. Gudrun Gut [shrugs] But it was true at the time. [laughter] Hanna Bächer Do you want to elaborate? No. Ocean Club, and E-Werk, and all that, that’s mid-’90s. And after you started with two labels, actually, but maybe... Gudrun Gut Yeah, in 1997, the same year as Ocean Club Radio, I started a label called Monika Enterprise. I already had a label called Moabit Music for the re-release of the Malaria! and for Matador. And then I started Monika, where I signed artists from Berlin, and from everywhere. Mostly female artists. Hanna Bächer Mostly female artists because you felt like it’s a necessity to do that? Gudrun Gut No, because of my personal interest. [laughs] Hanna Bächer Yeah. It’s an important point. Let’s please watch video number eight, about a minute and twenty of it. Thank you. (video: Quarks – “Wiederkomm”)
Gudrun Gut. Quarks. Hanna Bächer Quarks, with “Wiederkomm.” Gudrun Gut. Quarks. Jovanka von Wilsdorf and Niels Lorenz. That was the first signing. Hanna Bächer The first release on... Gudrun Gut. It was a 7" on Monika. Hanna Bächer I’m still baffled by it, in a way, because it’s so different than Mania D or Malaria! aesthetics. It’s such a different aesthetic, and the whole context I guess in which that happened, these like, Wohnzimmerkonzerte, feels like how could that have even happened in the same city. Wohnzimmerkonzerte meaning concerts happening in people’s living rooms. So, what kind of Berlin was that, that this kind of existed in, late ’90s? Gudrun Gut That was post techno a little bit. Where Berlin was full of... There were only places for DJs, and no places for music makers. There was this little wohnzimmer scene, and they played in actual living rooms. And the music was, like, the indie alternative scene. Zartcore, you know, quiet is the new loud kind of thing. The major companies were signing this stadium rock, that was a big thing, stadium hip-hop, stadium rock. And this was the opposite. So that was one of the exciting things about it. Hanna Bächer Zartcore translates roughly to gentlecore, I guess. I don’t think that’s a term that’s in use, but obviously say Zartcore because it rhymes with hardcore. But, still, things like Love Parade, etc, continued at the same time, and you continued DJing, and not everything was easy, despite this living room scene. Or was it even that you wanted to create these safe living room spaces because...? Gudrun Gut I just picked it up, I just released it. It existed. Joe Tabu organized a lot of these concerts. And that’s where I saw Barbara Morgenstern playing for the first time. Really impressed me to see this woman playing solo on her organ, her own songs. And I thought, “Wow, she’s really good.” And so, I signed her. And a lot of first signings came out of that. But later I released Cobra Killer, which is much different again. So it’s not necessarily all nice and easy. And this nice feel, and this warmth has... Is reflecting what we all needed then. Because life was difficult, and we want to make it all cozy for ourselves. Hanna Bächer I wonder if we shouldn’t just play a brief Cobra Killer piece. Can we just watch about a minute of video number nine please? (video: Cobra Killer – “Mund Auf, Augen Zu”)
Gudrun Gut No, I wasn’t producing. Hanna Bächer You weren’t producing. I imagined you producing the Monika Werkstatt. So, what is... Gudrun Gut Monika Werkstatt, I organized it. This is an idea, a new idea. The Monika Werkstatt, that’s my recent, kind of the last five years we did this. These are artists out of the Monika/Moabit surrounding, female artists, who are collaborating together on new stuff. We did concerts together, where everybody plays solo and then together. We all three, mostly three or four artists playing together, to introduce the artist plus collaborate. So, it’s a solo show plus a collaboration show, and it’s a great night. And then we were in the studio together producing new material for three days. Ten female producers. And we recorded, and recorded, and recorded. And afterwards everybody took two tracks home and finished the production of the songs, of the material. Edit stuff, everybody did it different. Some, like a remix, some are real songs. Because all of the participating artists were producers as well. So that was kind of handy. Hanna Bächer After first playing the drums, then playing the Korg, or maybe the other way around, and then buying your first Macintosh computer, which are the instruments, or which is the software that you feel most comfortable expressing yourself in nowadays? What is your thing where you’re like, “This is what I need to make music that I couldn’t live without?” Gudrun Gut A cigarette. [laughs] Hanna Bächer A cigarette. A cigarette and a mic. Gudrun Gut And a glass of red wine. I don’t know. I don’t want to be comfortable. Hanna Bächer Yeah. Gudrun Gut For being creative, I don’t want to be comfortable. I want to be creative, but not comfortable. Hanna Bächer Coming from this Geniale Dilletanten, which translates to “Genius Dilettantes,” I think that’s how you say it in English... Coming from that background, did you hit a wall ever, where you felt like, “I need to learn a certain instrument better. I need to learn more about this software to actually do what I want.” Or were you able to stay with that attitude of just, like... Gudrun Gut No, I learned the software. Hanna Bächer What did you learn? Gudrun Gut I mean, every little new synthesizer you get you have to learn it. But I mostly don’t like to read the manual. Hanna Bächer I don’t think anyone does. Gudrun Gut I’m pretty easy, pretty quick with technique. Hanna Bächer What do you use then? What is your favorite software. Gudrun Gut I just got myself a Make Noise 0-Coast synthesizer which is a little complicated. And then I got some Korg, the little toys, the Korg Volca series, four different... That’s what I use a lot. It’s kind of fun and fast. Then Ableton Live I use. I used to have Logic. We started... When I got my Atari we had the... Not Cubase, C-Labs Creator and Notator, which then went into Logic. But, I switched to Ableton Live. That’s what I work with. Hanna Bächer I know that Mark Reeder produced Malaria! at one point, and you went to studios with other people, but at the same time it was kind of more punk back then. Do you feel, making music, do you feel more independent with your set up now? Or do you feel like you were more independent when you could more or less just go up on stage at S036 in 1981 and play the Korg? Are you freer now, with the technology, did that free you? Gudrun Gut Yeah, definitely. Because it was really hard in the old days to have a studio booked. And then you had an engineer you didn’t get on with or something. I have much more control. I have total control because I’m the producer and the engineer. So that means that the result is much closer to what I wanted. Yeah, I think it’s... I’m happy, now. Hanna Bächer And you do release your own music. Gudrun Gut Yeah. And I have my own label. So I don’t have many people to tell me what to do. And so I’m pretty independent. And I have to just question myself, if this is good enough or not, but I have some “Berater” [advisors]. Hanna Bächer Who are your advisors? Gudrun Gut No, just some people I talk to, like business partners as well, who I employ. [laughs] Hanna Bächer Is that funny because you don’t see yourself as an employer or... Gudrun Gut No, because if I employ somebody, he doesn’t really say the truth, does he? [laughter] Hanna Bächer That’s an interesting point though, because I mean you’ve been an influential person in this city for so long. People do respect you, you work a lot with women who are younger than you naturally because they... Gudrun Gut I’m the oldest. Hanna Bächer ... Come into existence. Is it hard sometimes to be in that position where you feel like people, women, respect you but you release their record and you’re like, “I can’t pay you what you think you should get paid,” to pick maybe the most difficult example, is it hard to be, particularly from woman to woman, tell another woman things don’t work the way she thinks? To cut off her dreams? Gudrun Gut It’s reality. No, I think it’s really good to talk about difficult things as well. I’m the person who is not afraid to say anything. [laughs] Hanna Bächer I think that’s actually quite a good ending to this lecture. Gudrun Gut, is not afraid to say anything... Thank you so much. Gudrun Gut Thank you. Hanna Bächer But we might have questions in this room. We definitely do have microphones. There’s a microphone with a person attached there. Who thought about anything during this last hour and 15 minutes that you want to put out there? There’s somebody. Please introduce yourself. Audience Member Hello, my artist name is Loradeniz and I’m Lora, I’m from Istanbul. So my question will be, you said that, “I don’t want to be comfortable.” Then I was wondering, have you ever felt comfortable and not creative at the same time? So have you been in that phase and then experienced that, “No, this is not working?” Like when I’m peaceful, I can not be creative. So why did you say that? Gudrun Gut That was a bit poppy for me to say this. I answered the question because I don’t have a... To start a new track, I don’t go to the synthesizer because I know I’m very comfortable with it. That’s not a good start to be creative. I’d rather start with something I don’t know, just for the process. But sure, you have to be comfortable, at one point. Otherwise, it’s a bit of a nightmare. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean this. And I wanted to add something to the last sentence because I think you shouldn’t be afraid, because the mistakes you make are really good for you. I think every mistake brings you further. So that’s why I’m not so afraid to do things. Audience Member Thank you. Audience Member Hello, my artist name is Perel. Gudrun Gut I know you. Audience Member Yeah, thank you. I really, really, really like your track with Âme together on their LP, and I wanted to know how do you know each other? Is it just like the Uckermark friendship? Because I know they also have a house there and, I don’t know. Not at all? No? Gudrun Gut No, no, no. Audience Member I was just curious, how did this happen? Gudrun Gut Thank you very much, yeah because we didn’t mention this. I did this wonderful track with Âme. It happened because they asked... We went to the Sacred Ground Festival, me and Thomas Fehlmann, and then Frank Wiedemann asked us to join in for the soundtrack of Symphony of Now, which is a production movie about the old symphony, Die Sinfonie der Großstadt, but made today and Frank Wiedemann asked several collaborators to write new music for it, which is pretty cool. Gudrun Gut And while we did this session, he asked me if I would join in on the Âme album and it was like... [snaps fingers three times] And it was great fun to play at Royal Albert Hall on that track. Hanna Bächer In London? Gudrun Gut Yeah. Audience Member Hi, we met. We were interviewed together, yeah, if you remember. I wanted to... Gudrun Gut Close to here. Audience Member Yeah, so what is it like being a woman in the music industry? No. I’m joking, that’s what they asked us and all three of us were like, “Oh my God, again!” Anyways, I wanted to ask you, because you’ve been involved in music for so many years and scenes and you’ve seen so many things go up and down, what do you think about new artists and the new music scenes now? Do you still find it very exciting and new? Which artists do you think are really exciting for you, and original, and just in general, what would you think about new music being put out these days? Gudrun Gut There’s always good and bad music. I mean there’s no bad music. I don’t know. There’s interesting stuff and some stuff is not so interesting. Audience Member What do you like? Gudrun Gut What do I like? I wouldn’t know. I’m not suggesting anything. Hanna Bächer Just follow Monika Enterprises and then... Gudrun Gut Somebody else signs it. Audience Member Hi, I’m Ylia, I come from Barcelona and I am starting a new label and I know some of the other participants are doing that too. So I wonder if you’ve got some advice, regarding to that. Gudrun Gut Do you want to start a digital label or with real distribution? Do you have a distributor? Audience Member No. Gudrun Gut [laughs] It’s very hard to get a distributor. I would definitely do that, find a distributor as soon as possible. Or I really like Bandcamp actually. I think it’s a really good start, because you can control your fans, you can communicate, you can talk to the people who are interested, you can connect. And yeah, that’s something. Don’t spend too much money on promotion, [laughs] because it’s a waste of money. Hanna Bächer It looked like there was someone else but now I feel like everyone’s moving their hands. Audience Member Hi, I’m Octavio from Mexico and I wanted to ask you what’s the best part of all these years of experience and exploration? Gudrun Gut I think the best part is that it’s still going on. When I was 20, I could never imagine sitting here at 60 and still being in the music industry and still getting excited about music. And be happy. I’m much happier now then when I was 20. I think in general, when you get older, you are much more relaxed about life and I think that’s a good thing, because when I was 20, I couldn’t even imagine being 30. So that’s a really wonderful experience for me, age. Audience Member What is the best advice you can give to people who are like me, they’re in their mid careers or starting their careers or... Gudrun Gut Believe in yourself, trust yourself, communicate with others, build collectives. Collectives. Yeah, and do good music. Audience Member Thanks. Hanna Bächer [applause] Thank you again.
[applause] This was Mania D with “Herzschlag.” And who did we see in this still?
[applause] Malaria! live with “Kaltes Klares Wasser.” And I mentioned before that Beate was and still is a sound engineer. How did you sync stuff on stage with all these instruments changing, etc. How did you still make it tight?
[applause] “Your Turn To Run.”
A track called “Garten,” well, obviously... garden.
That’s you and Blixa.
[applause] A band called Quarks.
[applause] Cobra Killer with “Mund Auf, Augen Zu,” who were around Berlin forever, pretty much, right? They did stuff in the mid-’90s and still continue. I think this is from 2004, actually. From Monika Enterprises, your label. Your role in that label, apart from reaching out to artists and getting them to release stuff on your label, where that expanded to being a producer in these collectives, right?