Tss crack in the cosmic egg
Mentors of the cliché "agit-rock", Ton Steine Scherben (“Clay/Sound, Stones, Shards”) were well-known for their highly political and emotional lyrics and became a musical mouthpiece of left movements, such as the squatting movement.
Ralph Möbius (aka Rio Reiser) and Ralph Steitz (aka R.P.S. Lanrue) played in a few local beat-bands before joining the street theatre Hoffmann's Comic Teater (headed by Möbius's brothers) and moving to West-Berlin. They founded Ton Steine Scherben with Kai Sichtermann and Wolfgang Seidel in 1970. Presenting their raw aggressive rock frequently at free festivals and on left-wing demonstrations. They never wanted to have anything to do with the music industry and quickly had the idea of self-producing their records.
Their debut single "Macht Kaputt Was Euch Kaputt Macht!" ("Destroy What Destroys You!") became an anthem of the left-field politico underground, and it also featured (as a slightly different version) on their debut album WARUM GEHT ES MIR SO DRECKIG? (“Why Am I So Miserable?”) which was privately issued and exists in many different small press editions. It contains some of the most anguished and lyrically venomous raw rock to come out of Germany. In 1971 their "manager" Nikel Pallat made the band known nationwide by smashing the table with an axe at a talk show, during a discussion with Rolf Ulrich Kaiser.
Toning down their act a little, KEINE MACHT FÜR NIEMAND (“No Power For Nobody”) became one of the most famous german albums with protest songs. Musically, they were on a more accessible footing, less intense it also included a few excellent more experimental tracks and was also lyrically not as aggressive as their first album. The first edition of this album was supposed to come with a small toy catapult, but was confiscated by the police before it went on sale.
Ever trying to move further, both musically and lyrically, they kept coming on in leaps and bounds, taking both the music press and their audience by surprise. After many changing drummers, Klaus Götzner (aka Funky) eventually joined the group on the advice of Embryo.
Their finest moment, as far as we are concerned, was their second double, the really ambitious WENN DIE NACHT AM TIEFSTEN… (“When The Night Is Deepest…”), which saw them develop on an even more progressive level, with heavy rock and psychedelic touches, more Krautrock really, with diversions to Zappa-esque humour, and several experimental moments: most especially the long suite "Steig Ein" encompassing side 4.
In addition to these activities, Ton Steine Scherben has constantly worked as an accompanying band for a number of radical theatre and cabaret groups, such as the Kollektiv Rote Rübe, or the first german gay theatre Brühwarm. They also recorded two children's records with the Hoffmann's Comic Teater. The recorded results of these collaborations are generally quite odd, and not easy listening for non-German ears. A few of their members also joined the Deichtraum Company, which attended at the Umsonst & Draussen festivals but never recorded anything.
After a long break, TON STEINE SCHERBEN IV, released in 1981, was more in key with the NDW era, be it far more conventional than what they'd done before. It seemed they no longer had a unique voice on the scene, and they left that role to the younger generation, splitting up in 1985 after the rather conventional German rock of SCHERBEN.
The band left behind a massive amount of debts, which was mainly paid off by Rio Reiser's contract with Sony. He became one of the most famous German pop singers with hits like "König von Deutschland" and "Junimond". Many of the fans of the old days thought that he had sold himself to the industry. After many years of alcohol addiction he died in 1996. The band had several reunions after that, partly with new members. Today Götzner and Sichtermann play together with the singer Gymmick as a trio and have also released a new album, mainly with old songs.