After reading Alexander Hacke’s autobiography, Blast – Distorted Memories – From Einstürzende Neubauten to Symphonic Drone, it was exciting to learn that he would be following up this achievement with a U.K. tour that included a Liverpool date.
Or did it? I mean, It could have happened. But last Friday night outside the Cunard Building, home to The British Music Experience where the event was set to take place, with the doors shut and the lights off, while there was nothing online to suggest a cancellation, it looked like this was non-starter. There wasn’t even a bedraggled Einstürzende Neubauten fan in sight (other than me). So, did it actually happen? There’s still no evidence to suggest that it did.
Anyway, onto the more pressing matters…
There have been a plethora of rock ’n’ yarns over the years. Many, the usual broth of malevolence, debauchery and the freeing nature one combats to remain outside the cultural norms. Sometimes it’s hard to believe the finer points of these stories. The writer’s license, often blurring the line of fact and fiction.
Hacke knows this all too well. Just from the title of his autobiography, where he claims that journalists are forever getting things wrong. (The worst of it, where someone claimed his then wife, Meret Becker, who featured on Ende Neu’s Star of the Sea, was married to his bandmate, Blixa Bargeld.)
Of course, Hacke’s findings are accurate. Mistakes happen. That’s life. No matter how good a writer is, omniscient they are not. No one, including the protagonist, actually is, which makes autobiographies – particular ones peppered with controversy – open to interpretation. Our own version of events, often remembered differently than others. That’s human nature. Add substance into the mix, and the waters are even muddier, or as Hacke expertly attests, ‘distorted’.
In the case of Hacke story, Blast… is what it says on the tin. While so many in his position haven’t shifted outside the paradigm of the drugs, sex and rock ’n’ roll, while naturally there’s some of that, Hacke has moved to some weird and wonderful places throughout his life, both in collaboration and as leader throughout his many creative endeavours.
From his adventures across the stranger frontiers which have led him to work alongside Gianna Nannini and Rauch, all the way through to film composing and his always-evolving projects alongside his wife, Danielle de Picciotto. Together they began with the monthly BadaBing events in Berlin through to now as hackedepicciotto where the project has taken them everywhere from Brooklyn to Blackpool and, of course, Berlin.
Hacke’s hodgepodge escapades have been inspired by his love for classical music. Something that would eventually take him through a portal that led to Throbbing Gristle. Enamoured by the open-sourced chaos from the industrial titans, Hacke went on to dispense some open-sourced chaos of his own as the driving force of Einstürzende Neubauten. First as guitarist then switching to bass before his departure from the band last April.
For those yet to explore the world of Germany’s greatest export, while perhaps a journey often besieged by their overwhelming body of work and the hairpin turns they’ve taken over the years, Hacke’s guidance proves to be a key reference point.
Hacke’s musings are also a reminder us of just how ahead of time Einstürzende Neubauten have been. Away from the music, the rise Neubauten.org, which pre-dated Patreon and many of its imitators. These organisations, arguably building their model on the back of Neubauten’s original concept.
It’s one of the many facets throughout Blast… that underlines Hacke’s outsider qualities. A renegade who doesn’t suffer fools and can see through the bullshit, making his own informed choices without succumbing to the mob. Hipsterdom and the bourgeoisie, cultures that rightfully stick in his craw. (His view that cheap wine is better than the stuff off the top shelf, a perfect example.)
At the coalface of a Berlin scene that still remains one of the most vital underground history, Hacke’s involvement in Crime & the City Solution was just as fascinating as his career with Neubauten. A band that should have been as big as Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds such as the genius of Simon Bonney, of whom Hacke shares great insight. It was Hacke’s involvement in Crime that inspired him to start his own country-tinged act, The Jever Mountain Boys. The band alongside his good friend, Roland Wolf, the ex-Bad Seed and also a brief member in Neubauten before he died in a car accident in 1995.
From stealing bear fur coats in Russia to procuring bogus Neubauten merch in Mexico and so much more, during his time, a blast is exactly what Hacke has had. And, in turn, he shares it vividly with his readers.
Blast – Distorted Memories – From Einstürzende Neubauten to Symphonic Drone is out now via Ventil Verlag / Turnaround Publisher Services. Purchase here.
