Berlin at speed
Tuesday, 9 May 2006
![A lightning trip for a few crucial interviews including Klaus Kruger - the onetime Tangerine Dream drummer who hung out with Iggy and Bowie in Berlin and joined his band for New Values - plus Edu Meyer, the main engineer at Hansa, who’s now retired to Westphalia, and finally a couple of days in Frankfurt with Esther Friedmann, Iggy’s girlfriend from 1977 to 1983.
Esther was slightly suspicious of me when I’d called her back in March; I decided to gamble on giving her Jim’s contact details, and suggesting she email him and ask him to let her know if he objected to her speaking to me. He later informed her that this was ok as Paul Trynka “is not chopped liver.” I’m told it’s a compliment. We agreed that Esther can check her quotes to make sure they’re transcribed correctly, so I’m not including any interview snippets here, but the interview was enthralling. There was a huge amount of valuable information but most crucial of all, I now have a setpiece event for the early 80s, which clarifies the structure of the later part of the book.
Klaus Kruger and Edu Meyer were intriguing, too. Klaus was low-ley, rather discreet, and good on the atmosphere in Berlin, where he’d hang out with people like the artist Martin Kippenberger. I’ve always wondered what it would have been like to switch from playing with Tangerine Dream, to working with Iggy. Here’s a snippet of what it was like.
“I talked a while with Jim and David in our studio. I thought it was really funny , they were really low profile with jeans and a leather jacket and a t-shirt on and very short hair, both. I didn’t realize recognise them in the first minute, but then we were talking and so... a couple of days later he called me. Also we were not living so far apart. A mile or so.. (I was living in) Kreuzberg. And so the first meeting we would just hang out and go nightclubbing, really not too crazy, because Jim also had his little apartment in the same house [on the Hauptstrasse] and his idea was to try to socialize in the normal way. He realized he is way from whatever it was before, in a new town and maybe he took it as a chance and just meet people [who are different]. You know him, once you are talking to him suddenly three hours are gone ‘cos it gets really interesting.
“He didn’t look like anybody I know, big eyes, small but powerful and he was very vocal. This really struck me. He was a good guy. He has no problems socializing. He’s one of those guys who can go into any pub and go up to anybody he’s never met before. [Speaking] In English. He didn’t learn German. He picked up some words because he liked words but probably more because he liked their sound difference from English. He’s a rock’n’ roll singer. I was not a Stooges fan. I grew up liking Muddy Waters. I thought ok he’s jumping around, maybe a little like Mick Jagger? I was talking to him and it was very interesting. He was very open to everything and good at responding to new ideas. He has an intellectual way in conversations, too. It was the first time I learnt more to speak English. I had done it in school, but at this time it was getting better.
“When I played drums for him it was a completely different experience [from] when I played with Tangerine Dream and being a musician and playing different types of music. [There are] all these different concepts or what you project in your head as a musician. Like you are thinking when you are playing. With Tangerine Dream there were no vocals but it was like when I played music I would see pictures. Not drugs or anything. With Jim it was more like it was a story. But it was also like a movie for me.”
PHOTOS](DC14B10B-DD0A-4CB9-B2C4-1949641070E2_files/shapeimage_1.png)
