David Stubbs tells the following words which are culled from his brilliant book Future Days. This passage mostly tells us about an action courtesy of Nikel Pallat, the manager for music group Ton Steine Scherben.

There were others, however, including Nikel Pallat, manager of hard-leftist polemical rockers Ton Steine Scherben, who regarded Kaiser as a typical have-it-both-ways liberal bullshitter. This schism came to a head in a televised debate involving the pair on a WDR talkshow in 1971, whose discussion went under the heading ‘Pop & Co – Die “andere” Musik zwischen Protest und Markt’ (‘Pop & Co. – The “Other” Music between Protest and Marketplace’), which can be viewed on YouTube. Its period quaintness lies not just in the length of the hair of the participants, the studio smoking or the orangeness of Kaiser’s jumper, which merely to look at is to overdose on Vitamin C. It’s in the admirably earnest accommodation of those discussing the feasibility and possibility of the overthrow of capitalism through rock music. As Kaiser seeks to dampen this far-left yearning, the debate begins to heat up. Translated, the action runs as follows.

‘Societal change will come in an evolutionary process,’ says Kaiser. ‘That isn’t something that’ll happen tomorrow, but a development that will take probably a hundred years.’ He points out that immediate change was the illusion of the people who marched in the 1960s, important though these protests were. Pallat angrily dismisses this Fabian talk of slow, evolutionary progress, suggesting that it amounts to support for continued oppression.

‘You are working for the oppressor, not against the oppressor. Do you realise that?’ Kaiser defends himself, saying that one has to understand how the media work. ‘Who are you working for?’ retorts Pallat, sharply.

‘You cannot dispute that you are working for the capitalist.’ ‘Who do you represent here?’ comes back Kaiser, with equal sharpness. ‘Don’t you think the TV isn’t also a capitalist organ?’ (Here the moderator intervenes to point out that Kaiser isn’t speaking on behalf of TV.)

It’s all too much for Pallat. ‘Here we have TV making this shit-liberal programme we’re having an opportunity to go on about anti-materialism – socialism … we shouldn’t speak about evolution but revolution, yeah? And objectively nothing is changing about oppression. TV is a tool of oppression by general society. And that’s why it is completely obvious that if something should still happen, then one has to stand against the oppressor and not be neutral … and that’s why I am going to destroy this table now.’

Whereupon, true to his word, he produces from his inside jacket pocket an axe and, snarling and swearing, commences to bash the table as the rest of the panellists edge away in consternation. It is not so much the table towards which he bears a grudge but its symbolic role as polite vortex of sedentary, liberal consensus. Once he has completed his attempted assault on the offending piece of furniture, which proves remarkably resistant to his ferocious efforts, he says, ‘So, let’s continue our discussion.’ No one else, however, is inclined to do so.

Taking full advantage of the freedom temporarily afforded him by his axe to do as he pleases, he gathers up the microphones abandoned on what’s left of the table and stuffs them into his pockets, announcing that he is commandeering them for the oppressed. ‘I need the microphones for the young people who are sitting in jail.’

The resilience of the table is a metaphor of sorts for the resilience of a certain leftist strain of German tolerance and liberality at that time, whose broadmindedness and reasonableness was capable of withstanding even axe attack. The very fact that Pallat had an axe about his person in the studio suggests to the cynical an element of premeditation to his outburst. Nonetheless, as insurrectionary television goes, it rather puts the Sex Pistols and Bill Grundy in the shade.

Alongside Can and Faust, Einstürzende Neubauten’s Blixa Bargeld also listed Ton Steine Scherben as one of the seventies German groups he most admired. On the strength of this performance, it’s not hard to see why. It shows also the depth of feeling and revolutionary commitment that had seized the hearts and minds of the more radical young Germans, as well as Kaiser’s ability to put people’s backs up.

#music #destruction #Germany #video #politics #BlixaBargeld #EinsturzendeNeubauten