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It's the end of '79, in Ludwigshafen...
Ingrid and Pia want to form a band. They don't know how to play, and that's precisely the charm.
They place an ad in the newspaper. Stephanie from Heidelberg responds, half an hour away by car and voilà, the power trio...
Eventually, Gabi also joins and Gabi has a synth. A synth, damn it!!!
The name they chose is fabulous: Trummerfrauen, meaning women among the rubble.
The first seven-inch is fabulous too, starting with that cover that recalls Faust and is alone worth the price of admission.
Nine minutes nine, three songs three.
ABC post punk, unruly attitude, odd and crooked sounds, female screams, and hyper-kraut rhythms.
Track one is an alarm sound, track two a martial chant declared by female soldiers, track three a nice thump-thump for super energetic jumping fleas.
A minor record, certainly. But it still sounds fresh, very fresh.
How many stars? But which stars!!! Back then the moonlight was killed, let alone the stars. Then of course, this is the broth in which as a kid I cooked my cappelletti.
Oh, the name Trummerfrauen is a reference to the German women who, at the end of World War II, cleared Berlin of rubble.
And, even if Pia, Gaby, Stephanie, and Ingrid soon disappeared from the scene, the rubble is still there.
They always will be, I fear.
Trallallà (and end of the review proper)...
…
It was a very "how many times, my son?" period and I, for some reason, had an unhealthy passion for the actresses of the TV series "Inspector Derrick". Those very gray ladies were the absolute protagonists of all my Venus battles and owed their sway to the imprint of an old magazine filled with very strict Valkyries. I didn't know then that those dreams were an affront to the eternal glory of the Romagnol male who, a Teutonic woman, would never dream of dreaming about. She, indeed, and this is widely known, gave herself away so easily that it would be like dreaming of mom's piadina. Not that the German wasn't screwed, but indeed that was his primary duty, but certainly not something to boast about at the bar. I myself, after some years, attending a campsite teeming with magnificent blondes, would have the chance to verify the accuracy of those theses. A verification through others, savasandir, meaning not so much for me as for others. Which means that, except for myself, it was all a great screwing fest. I know, this is certainly not the best way to pay tribute to an ultra-feminist German punk band, but, how to say 1) I'm going off-script 2) I have gone out of the review proper.
At the time feminists in my little village were five, two knockouts, two absolute wrecks, and one whom I will tell you about soon. At the time, in their public circle, the only males admitted were a gay poet (but back then the term gay wasn't used) and a terminal junkie who was their protégé. In private they were almost all quite sporting, that is very, very German. Just to name one, X had a relationship with Y, a guy as crazy as a horse and as ugly as an ogre. The two had made some sort of pact like Querelle de Brest, but one thing is Genet, another is a village like mine. The pact said all passing males could join with either her or him, except no one ever joined with the ogre. At the time I was a kid, 14/15 years old and they were grown-ups, and well, I found them extremely exciting. They looked like stars (that is the knockouts) accompanied by their bodyguards (that is the absolute wrecks). With the formers clad in that strange transition phase holding together the post-freak and pre-wave and the latter showcasing all shades of the unkempt. Among them stood out without standing out the only one who belonged neither to one type nor the other, that is she was neither a knockout nor a wreck. Everyone called her the "tedescona." And it was with her that I happened to have dealings.
She was a tall, angular, massive girl who, almost in contrast, moved with soft and gentle gestures. She had almost boyish manners (zero coquetry, zero affectation) and a shiver in her voice that barely ruffled. Far from any minimal seductive appearance, she dressed as if in a sausage casing (baggy clothes, big sweaters, overalls) without losing an ounce of grace. She had a very strange, beautiful aura, something that concerned, I imagine, matters like extreme naturalness and not pretending to be something she's not. That day we had a very 70s task: to write a report on the film "Stroszeck Ballad" that would be screened the next day as part of god knows what event. So, that I was dealing with such things at 15 says a lot about my foolishness.
Well, it was a beautiful afternoon. At some point, perhaps because the film was German, we ended up talking about that fabulous language she knew quite well. “You all study English and French, but listen to this...”
And there she goes, with her crystal voice, starting a little children's song in German, a bit like "Der rauber und der prinz" by D.A.F whispered by a huge and sweet older sister...
...
“2020”, crash...
Crash!!!!!!
So here I am again on that afternoon. The whisper of the sweet sister turns into the Trummerfrauen's shout or maybe it's the other way around, I don't know.
And, while all the cool Romagnol guys are farting in the flour, four minutes of female soldiers and a giantess are passing the ball of my old heart.
The scene is so tender that the garbage sweepers of spatio-temporal incongruities lose their dull civil-servant aplomb for a moment and give a half-smile. A moment, just a moment before returning to their dirty work.
Trallallà...
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