Mania D

Mania D
Mania D Sept 1979 Berlin Super 8
Background information

Mania D was a Berliner new wave-underground band at the end of the seventies, beginning of the eighties. They had been part of the Geniale Dilettanten (Ingenious Dilettantes) movement, a merger of the new wave and post-punk scene. Bandmembers were the predecessors of the all-girls band Malaria!, of Liaisons Dangereuses, Einstürzende Neubauten, Die Krupps. Their music unified elements of free jazz with those of new wave by a distinctive saxophone sound.

In May 1979 musicians Beate Bartel, Gudrun Gut, Eva Gossling, Bettina Köster and Karin Luner started an all- girls underground band, intending to develop a musical language not bound by tradition.

Karin Luner had studied in the class of Professor Hoedecke at the Berlin Academy of Arts along with Salome and Middendorf among others. In 1977 she left for a foreign course of study to New York, New York where she shot “Bored”, a super 8 movie which eventually was shown in the Berliner SO 36 by Martin Kippenberger. While in New York she took drumming lessons with Fred Maher, the drummer for Lou Reed. On a 1978 visit to her hometown, Duesseldorf, Germany, she met with Eva Gossling in Carmen Knoebels underground club, Ratinger Hof. It was here that she suggested establishing an all-girls band as soon as she returned to Berlin. Eva and Karen, who was studying in Berlin, met Beate Bartel, a bassist and sound engineer, at the Wittenbergplatz subway station. They were joined at their first meeting by tenor saxophonist Bettina Köster and Gudrun Gut, the owner of a mini Moog synthesizer. During the summer of 1979 Mania D rehearsed daily in their Martin Luther Street studio. Beate Bartel named the band, whereas Karin Luner had the idea to shoot a super 8 movie to be shown at all concerts. Karin Luner created the styling for the super-8 movie, Fashion Interlection. The outfit for the video was designed by Eisengrau, Claudia Skoda and Karin Luner. Martin Kippenberger, Volker Anding and Oswald Wiener promoted the young band with organizing concerts, and diner for free at exil, a restaurant owned by Oswald Wiener. Their first concert outside of Berlin was in Sappened in September of ´79 in the Wuppertal Nordstadt Kollektiv Galerie.