Twitter machine

Twitter machine
Cornelia Schleime, Wolfgang Grossmann and Ralf Kerbach
General information
Genre (s)	Art punk
founding	1979
resolution	1983
Founding members
singing	Cornelia Schleime
guitar	Ralf Kerbach (until 1982)
bass	Matthias Zeidler
Last occupation
singing	Cornelia Schleime
singing	Michael Rom (from 1980)
singing	Sascha Anderson (from 1981)
guitar	Lothar Fiedler
bass	Matthias Zeidler
Drums	Wolfgang Grossmann
Tuba, violin	Volker Palma
former members
Trumpet	Helge Leiberg (1982)

Zwitschermaschine or fourth root from Zwitschermaschine was a kind of punk band from the GDR . It existed from 1979 to 1983.

Band history

The two art students Cornelia Schleime and Ralf Kerbach met at the Dresden University of Fine Arts . After a failed art exhibition in the Radeburg local history museum, which Michael Rom had organized, it was decided to make music together. Ralf Kerbach was inspired by the Sex Pistols and the Stranglers and took over the guitar. Cornelia Schleime's vocals were also accompanied by Matthias Zeidler on bass. Wolfgang Grossmann was the last to join the band as a drummer. After experimenting under the band names Ende and Schwarz / Weiß , they initially called themselves Fourth Root from Zwitschermaschine , which in normal usage became Zwitschermaschine as the actual band name. The band name resulted either from Ralf Kerbach's predilection for Paul Klee 's picture of the same name ( Die Zwitscher-Machine 1922, 151 ) or from a screening of Luis Buñuel's film An Andalusian Dog , which Schleime had visited. In the winter of 1980/81 Michael Rom finally joined as the second singer. They played at various summer student parties and as part of church events. The avant-garde songe experiments met the taste of the audience. Performances were difficult without official permission; they performed in studios, in the Ernst Busch drama school and in the Erfurt “Galerie im Flur”. Some concerts were canceled by the state authorities. Musically they characterized themselves as New Music , the amateurism of the early days led to a kind of Dadaist concept that was located somewhere at the intersection of demanding music and three-chord punk.

In 1981 Sascha Anderson joined the group and became the driving force. He tried to get the group out of their self-chosen corner and to awaken a more professional understanding of music. Thanks to his status as an unofficial employee of the Stasi , he was able to establish contacts with the West and establish the band in the GDR underground . The music now acquired more rock elements and the structure of the individual pieces became understandable. Together with Rosa Extra they played several concerts that consisted of a mixture of music and performance. In 1982 Ralf Kerbach got out and emigrated to West Berlin . Lothar Fiedler represented him on later recordings. In addition, Helge Leiberg joined as a trumpeter. Via Ralf Kerbach's contacts with the West, the band's recordings came to the West, which were then released as a split release with Schleim-Keim (under the code name Sau-Kerle ) by Karl-Ulrich Walterbach ( Aggressive Rock Productions ) under the title eNDe ( GDR from below ) published in the Federal Republic of Germany. The recordings, some of them with Kerbach, were made by Andeck Baumgärtel in his private studio. Then the group broke up, parts of the band continued under the name Fabrik.

In 1998 a split album by Fabrik und Zwitschermaschine was released. In 2006 Cornelia Schleime worked on the documentary ostPunk! - too much future and talked about her experiences with the group at that time.

Discography

• 1983: GDR from below (split album with Schleim-Keim)
• 1998: All the money in the world costs money (split album with factory)

literature

• Christoph Tannert: Fourth root from the twittering machine . In: Ronald Galenza, Heinz Havemeister (ed.): We always want to be good .... Punk, New Wave , HipHop , Independent scene in the GDR 1980–1990 . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 1999, pp. 196-200.

Web links

• Zwitschermaschine at Discogs (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ronald Galenza: Tattooed Hearts . In: Berliner Zeitung , 23 August 2007.