Beat club

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Television broadcast
Original title Beat club
Country of production Germany
Year (s) 1965-1972
length 30 minutes
Episodes 83
Broadcasting
cycle
per month
genre Music show
Director Mike Leckebusch
script 0
Moderation Uschi Nerke
First broadcast September 25, 1965 on Radio Bremen

The Beat Club was the first music show with English-speaking interpreters on German television. It was specially designed for young people , was produced by Radio Bremen and broadcast from 1965 to 1972.

requirement

The widespread ignorance of German public broadcasting with regard to English-language pop music led to the migration of the young target group of 14 to 34-year-old listeners and viewers to military channels such as BFBS or AFN , Radio Luxembourg or pirate channels . From 1960 - and increasingly since 1963 with the emergence of beat music  - the interest of young German people in English-language pop music had grown so much that it was clearly visible in the German charts .

Ultimately, the television makers could no longer resist this zeitgeist and in mid-1965 commissioned Michael "Mike" Leckebusch , who was then in the entertainment department at Radio Bremen, and Gerhard "Gerd" Augustin , a local disc jockey from Bremen , to develop a concept.

Augustin had been able to gain experience as one of the first German DJs in Bremen's “Twen Club” since December 1963, but the concept of the show itself was ultimately based on ideas that the anthropologist and jazz expert Ernst Bornemann had already developed two years earlier for the planned Germany- Television had developed. The broadcast format was based on the model of the American American Bandstand , where performers sang playback and the live atmosphere was to be created by dancing young people, a format that met with absolute incomprehension and rejection from many adults , even though beat music had long since been played conquered the German market and the youth increasingly began to favor the lifestyle of the hippie age and its "flower power generation".

First shipment

Uschi Nerke in the Beat Club

On September 25, 1965, the first broadcast was broadcast live. Fearing the reaction of the older audience, Wilhelm Wieben , who would later become the daily announcer, announced the live broadcast with young people dancing and loud music with an advance warning for the parents (“But you, ladies and gentlemen, we ask you not to like beat music for understanding …").

The moderators Uschi Nerke and Gerhard Augustin , who only stayed until the 8th episode, led through the show . The format envisaged live appearances in front of an audience, films by well-known artists and GoGo girls as eye-catchers. A total of 150 young people from the “Twen Club” as well as friends and acquaintances of employees of the station were invited to the first episode. The first episode could not lay claim to first-class pop stars and had to be satisfied with regionally known performers. The Bremen “ Yankees ” played as the opener of the first episode entitled “Halbstark”, followed by three more songs in English, “ The Liverbirds ”, an English female beat band from Liverpool with three songs, and “John O'Hara & His Playboys ”with also three songs. The program aired from 4:45 p.m. to 5:15 p.m. on Saturday.

Continue

Mood-Mosaic - A Touch of Velvet - A Sting of Brass

Apart from the expected criticism from adults, the first episode met with broad approval from young viewers, and so the program quickly achieved cult status among young people all over Germany (that is, where “Westfernsehen” was to be received, also in the GDR). It was regularly seen by 63% of (West) Germans under the age of 30, 55% of the teens and twens surveyed by Infratest considered the program to be excellent or good. The tickets were in great demand and were traded beyond Bremen, so that demand soon exceeded the capacity of the hall. It was initially difficult for the producers to invite first-class English-speaking performers. This was evident until December 4, 1965, when Sonny & Cher and " Gerry & The Pacemakers " could be won. The success of the "Lords" was not ignored either, so that on January 22, 1966 they were represented with seven titles. Rinky Dink from "Sounds Incorporated" was initially used as the theme music , which was replaced on July 13, 1968 by the now legendary signature tune A Touch of Velvet - A Sting of Brass from the unknown group " The Mood Mosaic Featuring The Ladybirds ", a title which is now traded as a rarity among collectors.

From episode 35 (September 14, 1968) to episode 74, WDR was added as a co-producing partner, with the broadcasting time being extended to 60 minutes. From episode 51 (January 31, 1970) the broadcast was in color , the GoGo girls had their last appearance in episode 55 (May 30, 1970).

Leckebusch's television implementation of the music was remarkable, accompanied by the use of visual effects to the limit of the technical possibilities of the time. Especially after the advent of color technology, partially exaggerated psychedelic image and color effects dominated. The Beat Club was also the first show on West German television to use jingles .

From 1969 the face of the beat club changed. While it was previously a show with pop and beat music, the show became increasingly progressive. They moved away from the hit parade culture and the bands played more and more often live, playback was soon no longer available. With the beginning of the color era, the change was finally complete. In the future, progressive and jazz rock bands should determine the picture. Soft Machine , Santana , Jethro Tull , Yes , Curved Air , Deep Purple , to name just a few, now performed live in the Beat Club.

On April 21, 1972 the Grateful Dead performed in the Beatclub and played a short set for their standards. Some of these titles were released on the live album Europe '72 .

However, it was no longer the great mass taste that was served here, so that the show gradually became one for connoisseurs and freaks. Since the concept was no longer in demand on a Saturday afternoon, the Beat Club was finally closed in December 1972.

Moderators

The most famous moderator was the architecture student Uschi Nerke. In the men's category, Gerd Augustin was followed on May 28, 1966 by Dave Lee Travis , who also moderated the pirate station Radio Caroline and switched to the BBC after episode 45 (August 2, 1969) . For the next eight episodes Dave Dee could be won over by the music formation " Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich ". Eddi Vickers also appeared sporadically in a few episodes.

On December 9, 1972, the program was discontinued after 84 episodes. Radio Bremen produced the music store as a follow-up program , again moderated by Uschi Nerke with Manfred Sexauer at her side.

Beat Club on DVD

Episodes of the Beat Club were temporarily shown on the VH1 and VH1 Classic channels . Highlights of the programs were published on DVD by ARD ( The Best of '65 to The Best of '72 ). In addition to internationally known stars such as Chuck Berry , Gerry & the Pacemakers , Jimi Hendrix , Deep Purple , Black Sabbath , Jethro Tull , Emerson, Lake and Palmer , Atomic Rooster or The Who , there were also groups in the Beat Club that only survive today these re-releases are remembered as the Yankees , the German Blue Flames or The Phantoms.

In March 2009 three DVD boxes with eight DVDs each were released, which contain almost all Beat Club programs in full length - only two "Best of" programs and one program that only showed music videos are missing, as well as the extra -Beat Club from October 6, 1968 with Frank Zappa and the title Lieder-Liches .

  • the story of BEAT-CLUB Volume 1 (1965–1968) [8DVD Box] 2009

  Beat Club 1 (September 25, 1965) - Beat Club 35 (September 14, 1968) - except for episodes 9 (best of), 13 (music videos only) and 23 (best of)

  • the story of BEAT-CLUB Volume 2 (1968–1970) [8DVD Box] 2009

  Beat Club 36 (October 12, 1968) - Beat Club 59 (September 26, 1970)

  • the story of BEAT-CLUB Volume 3 (1970–1972) [8DVD Box] 2009
Beat Club 60 (October 24, 1970) - Beat Club 83 (December 9, 1972)

Honors

In November 2019, a stamp on the Beat Club was published in the German TV Legends series .

literature

See also

Individual evidence

  1. Gerhard Augustin: The man who brought the beat . one day , December 4th 2007
  2. Gerhard Augustin: When television learned to rock . one day , January 23, 2008
  3. a b excerpts from the first episode Spiegel-Online
  4. Pop Music . In: Der Spiegel . No. 25 , 1970, pp. 114 ff . ( online ).
  5. published on Columbia DB 7801 in January 1966.
  6. http://beatclub.labor1.de/ (link not available)
  7. ^ Series "German TV Legends": Beat Club

Web links