We’re humming right along this week in our initial exploration (I’m sure there will be more!) of the Nurse With Wound List. For those of you who haven’t seen Monday and Tuesday’s posts, the albums highlighted in this week’s installment of the An Album A Day series (hard to believe I’ve stuck to this for 5.5 weeks, as I have a long and storied history of giving up on projects shortly after they begin) all appeared on a list included with copies of the first album by Nurse With Wound. That list, which has since been expanded upon, cites almost 300 artists that influenced the British industrial/experimental group. It has since become something of a “shopping list” for record collectors and fans of avant-garde music. I’ve posted a number of albums by artists whose names appear on the list over the past five years, but this week I’m highlighting some favorites from my personal record collection.
Ton Steine Scherben are considered to be one of the most influential and important German bands of the ’70s and ’80s. The politically-charged, emotional lyrics of vocalist Rio Reiser literally became rallying cries for the New Social Movements in Germany. The bands name loosely translates to Clay Stone Shards, and has reportedly been described as an homage to the Rolling Stones or a play on Bau-Steine-Erden, the name of a West German labor union. They quickly garnered a following with young radicals, developing a fervent following of anarchists living in Berlin. Whenever the band tried to shed their heavily-political reputation they were literally forced to move out of Berlin to escape their own fans. Although they existed for fifteen years their early/mid ’70s output is the most revered era in the band’s history. They were viewed as renegades almost from their very first show. At their first large outdoor concert a house near the stage caught fire, and word-of-mouth led to people thinking the band members started the fire. They were strongly pro-socialism (even the socialist USSR wasn’t socialist ENOUGH) and anti-capitalist. They had connections to the German Red Army Faction terrorists. Ton Steine Scherben were pretty much the equivalent of “punks” before that term officially crossed the Atlantic.
Keine Macht Für Niemand (No Power For Nobody) was the band’s second studio album. The lyrics on this record are hyper-critical, calling for resistance against the extant system. The song “Die letzte Schlacht gewinnen wir” (“We [will] win the final battle”), the demand for a replacement of the present capitalist system is very clear. The phrase “No power for nobody” is a synonym for the basic premise of Anarchy. It’s an intensely political and emotional German language record, but you can find translations of the lyrics easily enough online, as it (and the band) has a very rabid and vocal cult following.
My copy of Keine Macht Für Niemand is sadly not an original, but a 1976 reissue (the original was released in ’72). Original copies were supposed to come with a plastic toy slingshot, but they were confiscated at a living community raid by police and special forces. Only two of these are known to be still in existence, while some original covers rested for more than 30 years in the attic of Rio’s living place in a small village in northern Germany. They were used to house the 2007 re-release of the album. My 1976 pressing is packaged in a slightly different version of the infamous cardboard “box” envelope sleeve, with the fold-out black and white insert. Yesterday I described the mouth-watering record collection that was purchased by a former co-worker of mine. I picked up my copy of this album from him on my first (and sadly only) visit to his house once the collection was sorted and initially offered for sale. October 7th, 2010 was the day I brought this record home, and it’s impressed everyone who has seen/heard it ever since. And now I can share it with you!
Ton Steine Scherben
Keine Macht Für Niemand
(April ?– 00007, 1976)
A1. Wir Müssen Hier Raus
A2. Feierabend
A3. Die Letzte Schlacht Gewinnen
B1. Paul Panzers Blues
B2. Menschenjäger
B3. Allein Machen Sie Dich Ein
C1. Schritt Für Schritt Ins Paradies
C2. Der Traum Ist Aus
D1. Mensch Meier
D2. Rauch-Haus-Song
D3. Keine Macht Für Niemand [MP3]
D4. Komm Schlaf Bei Mir
