International Essen Song Days

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The International Essen Songtage 1968 , also abbreviated as IEST , was a festival for rock, pop, chanson, folk song, underground music, cabaret and poetry, which took place in Essen from September 25 to 29, 1968 . It is considered the birth of independent German rock music.

organization

The IEST was organized by the “Arbeitsgemeinschaft Internationale Essener Song-Tage” together with the youth welfare office of the city of Essen (city youth worker Horst Stein). Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser was in charge of the "Arbeitsgemeinschaft Internationale Essener Song-Tage" and Bernd Witthüser was the managing director . In addition to RU, Emperor Martin Degenhardt (brother of the songwriter Franz-Josef Degenhardt ) and the author and organizer Thomas (Tom) Schroeder were responsible for the artistic direction . The press work was done by Henryk M. Broder . The secretariat was headed by Susanne Schaude and Reinhard Hippen oversaw the cabaret events. The head of the youth center was Bernhard Graf von Schmettow, who was significantly involved in the detailed organization of events in the youth center. Furthermore, many volunteers helped in various areas such as B. Artist support (23 multilingual hostesses under the direction of Detlev Mahnert), ticket sales, stage announcement and discussion moderation.

Advisory Board

Among others, Klaus Budzinski , Hanns Dieter Hüsch , Alexis Korner , Ferdinand Kriwet , Aleksander Kulisiewicz , Tuli Kupferberg , Horst Lippmann , Fritz Rau , Dieter Süverkrüp , Siegfried Schmidt-Joos and Frank Zappa work on the advisory board under the name “IEST-Braintrust” .

financing

The city of Essen provided a guarantee of 300,000 DM. For further financing, the entrance fees were used, fees between DM 3 and DM 7 were levied for the events - some events could also be attended free of charge - and the sale of a “song magazine” Program booklet. Mainly book and music publishers ( EMI , Polyphon, Hoffman and Campe, geburtstagspresse, Blanvalet, Melzer , Scherz , rororo , fontana , Philips , Suhrkamp , Europäische Verlagsanstalt , dtv , Elektra / Metronome , Teldec ) but also Lufthansa , Coca-Cola and Dynacord placed advertisements here and thus contributed to the financing of the festival.

Venues

The Song Days took place in numerous locations across the city, from large ones like the Grugahalle or on Kennedyplatz in the city to medium-sized ones like the Great Hall of the Youth Center, the Saalbau Essen or the auditorium of the Pedagogical University, but also in smaller venues like the Dubois-Arena , the Olympic cinema or the pop-in disco.

Guests and some artists slept free of charge in a tent city in the Emil-Frick-Heim on Lake Baldeney ; a shuttle bus , also free of charge , provided the city connection.

"Song Magazine"

A magazine was published parallel to the festival, published by the youth welfare office of the city of Essen. The editors were Henryk M. Broder, Martin Degenhardt and Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser. Gertrude Degenhardt and Reinhard Hippen were responsible for the illustrations and design ; the texts came from Martin Degenhardt, Reinhard Hippen, Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser and Thomas Schroeder. In this magazine Kaiser presented the intention of the festival as a “music happening that opens up mind-expanding and mind-expanding, psychedelic, other modes of experience and thus rather emotionally questions what has been acquired and familiar.” An advertisement in the birthday press in “Song Magazine” showed one Graphic showing a flaming penis as the neck and head on a naked female torso; this had to be stamped over by hand on the copies sold.

opening

At the official reception of the artists by the city in the presence of the then mayor Wilhelm Nieswandt , a scandal broke out when the closed event was blown up by visitors, and Nieswandt left the hall in a hurry, overwhelmed.

Artist

The Essen International Song Festival was the largest European festival of popular music in its time. In five days, 40,000 viewers saw 43 program items with over 150 artists. Concerts, multimedia events and discussions took place. The artists involved included:

Lectures (morning pint):

Non-music program

In addition to the concerts, there were also numerous non-musical events such as panel discussions, cabaret events and performances .

IEST competition for new songs 1968

A jury consisting of Henryk M. Broder, Martin Degenhardt, Reinhard Hippen and Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser evaluated 53 submissions to the IEST 68 competition for new songs. They did not find a contribution worthy of a first prize and did not award the special prize for the best interpretation of an old song. They named four winners:

  • Eckart Bridges for “People, don't make children”;
  • Christian Geierdörfer for “The story of priests' life and freedom”;
  • Diether Dehm as "Lerryn" for "Karriere"; and
  • Ulrich Roski for “Description of a Struggle”.

IEST morning pint

On three days, seminars and discussions were held in the youth center on the subject of "The song as a form of expression of our time - a series with text and theory".

  • Hannsjost Lixfeld: "The song as a mirror of the social and political situation"
  • Theo Herrmann: "Psychological Aspects of the Protest Song"
  • Manfred Miller: "The musical sources of the new song"
Discussion: "Integration"
  • Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser: "Song and Action"
Discussion: "Agitation"

Exhibition and magazine

The “song-documenta” exhibition took place in the youth center, exhibiting and selling records, newspapers and posters from the fields of pop, chanson, folk song and underground.

The “Song Magazine IEST 68” became the forerunner of an anthology that Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser published in the same year (1968): “Protestfibel. Forms of a new culture. "(Scherz Verlag, Bern / Munich / Vienna)

reporting

Several radio stations and television reported on the festival; The film by Henric L. Wuermeling , “Between Pop and Politics. The International Essen Song Days 1968 "(45 ', Bayerischer Rundfunk 1968) and in 1988 for the third television program of the WDR turned documentary" Beautiful poetry is cramp in the class struggle, Essen Song Days 1968 "by Michael and Joachim Rüsenberg , for both 1989 and Adolf Grimme Prize were awarded silver.

On May 2, 2018, WDR broadcast an almost two-hour collage by Tom Schroeder on the subject of IEST 68 - 50 years later - in its 5th radio program : Tom Schroeder: "International Essen Song Days 1968: The festival revolt in the pot - naked truths and a lot subjective impressions of an announcer and co-organizer ”.

rating

The Essen International Song Days took place 15 months after the Monterey Pop Festival and 11 months before the Woodstock Festival . The festival presented many groups and artists for the first time in Germany. Kaiser praised the festival in the accompanying booklet as a "music happening that opens up mind-expanding and consciousness-expanding, psychedelic, other modes of experience and thus rather emotionally questions what is acquired and familiar."

“In contrast to Monterey Pop, the song days were not primarily conceived as a pop festival; Rather, the organizational team was interested in presenting chansons, folklore, political songs, but also cabaret and mixed media events as cultural forms of a committed and social reality in the Federal Republic of Germany. The heterogeneity and range of the musical and artistic contributions presented at the Song Days on the one hand, and the theoretical and ideological overload of the Festival on the other, made the Song Days a unique experience in German pop history. "

"Rolf Ulrich Kaiser became famous as a catalyst and source of ideas for IEST, which made history as the first and largest manifestation of the continental European underground of the 1960s."

The festival is considered the debut of an independent German rock music. Leading American underground artists and German rock musicians were presented - mostly for the first time - to a large audience. The festival was extremely influential for the emerging krautrock and political rock due to the concentrated appearance of so many progressive groups .

The idea of ​​the organizers was to engage primarily those artists who best reflect the jumps and upheavals of the political and cultural present. An exhibition during the festival tried to illustrate the importance of pop-folk music and the 'underground'.

The idea of ​​a festival, which was revolutionary at the time, was supported by a municipal authority (here Essen Youth Welfare Office) and independent organizers and included a variety of artistic forms of expression including political discussions, continued elsewhere: the model is still the basis of the successful annual open today -Ear festivals in Mainz,

literature

Web links

photos

Texts

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Quartet of Critics - Tom Schroeder , Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik
  2. ↑ Thomas Dupke: "From reconstruction to structural change - Essen 1945 to 2000" in: Borsdorf (Hrsg.): Essen - Geschichte einer Stadt , 2002, p. 518
  3. ↑ a b Deep in the West ... Rock and Pop in North Rhine-Westphalia ( Memento of the original from January 8, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ISBN 3-89705-151-6 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.frauenbuch.de
  4. ↑ Frank Gingeleit: The "Progressive Seventies" in South Western Germany ( English ) In: Aural Innovations # 21 . October 2002. Retrieved December 25, 2007.