About Thierry P.F. Verburgh

I am a history student and I am currently finishing my Master thesis at the University of Amsterdam on 'punk and inter-subcultural identity formation in the urban space of West Berlin, 1976-1981'.

“In that mess we became part of the Geniale Dilletanten scene”: Mark Reeder and the West Berlin avant-garde music scene around 1980 (Interview)

Mark Reeder, 1999.

The West Berlin avant-garde music scene from around 1980 was a wild movement. This scene is an inexhaustive source of fascinating stories and ideas. For instance, while the rest of West Germany was trying to cope with the threat of a nuclear war, Blixa Bargeld tried to recreate the sound of collapsing buildings, and the girls from Malaria! played with the gruesome idea of bathing in ice cold and clear water, as if they couldn’t wait to speed things up and call upon the end of the world by themselves. Frontstadt West Berlin was the perfect playground for developing an experimental and mysterious scene like this one. But how to define this avant-garde scene?  Continue reading