Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to another bonus episode of Off the Record.
Speaker 1: My name's Jordan Runtug. Thanks so much for listening. Our
Speaker 1: last two episodes followed David in the late seventies as
Speaker 1: he recorded Low and Heroes, the Twin Pillars of a
Speaker 1: so called Berlin trilogy. Sorry Lodger fans, These records contain
Speaker 1: the most innovative music Bowie ever made and are an
Speaker 1: artistic triumph on almost every level. This is surprising because
Speaker 1: on paper, none of this should have ever worked. Who
Speaker 1: gets an R and B rhythm section to play lockstep,
Speaker 1: crowd rock electro jams? Who loads an entire side of
Speaker 1: what's obstensively a pop album with wordless ambient soundscapes. Who
Speaker 1: makes an album mere steps from the Berlin Wall one
Speaker 1: of the most notorious geopolitical hotspots on the globe. Even
Speaker 1: David's compositional process had changed, adopting avant garde techniques gleaned
Speaker 1: from renegades like iggy Pop, Brian Eno, William Burrows, John Cage,
Speaker 1: and Steve Reich. As is so often the case, David
Speaker 1: fused this collection of disparate ideas and influences into something
Speaker 1: completely new, a sound that's indefinable and sometimes indescribable. What
Speaker 1: would you call say sound and vision At best, it's
Speaker 1: a freakish multi hypha native genres. If you forced me
Speaker 1: to pick a single word, I just have to go
Speaker 1: with awesome. In addition the co producer Tony Visconti and
Speaker 1: arrant Mad musical scientist Brian Eno. Another crucial collaborator on
Speaker 1: the German sessions was Du Meyer. U was an engineer
Speaker 1: at Hansa Studios, the famous Hall by the Wall that
Speaker 1: served as David's creative home during his time in Berlin.
Speaker 1: When he wasn't working on Schlager or schlocky German pop
Speaker 1: that ruled the airwaves at the time, Ido helped David
Speaker 1: put the finishing touches on low. David even enlicted him
Speaker 1: to play the mournful cello part on Weeping Wall, inspired
Speaker 1: by the sim of division and oppression looming just outside
Speaker 1: the studio windows. Du also assisted on the album's David
Speaker 1: produced for Iggy Pop, The Idiot and Lust for Life.
Speaker 1: They're Working. Relationships stretched into the eighties, when David would
Speaker 1: return to Berlin to record the soundtrack to the Berthold
Speaker 1: Brect play Ball and Players legendary seven concert at the Reichstag.
Speaker 1: They'd remained friends until the end of David's life. Du
Speaker 1: occasionally gives speaking engagements in conjunction with Berlin Music Tours,
Speaker 1: the only company that actually takes you inside the famous
Speaker 1: hall by the Wall. I've taken the trip myself and
Speaker 1: being there in the room where Bowie actually belted out
Speaker 1: heroes as truly all inspiring. Edu was giving a talk
Speaker 1: as part of the release celebration for Black Star and
Speaker 1: when he heard the news about David's passing, I'm so
Speaker 1: grateful you do agree to speak with me and share
Speaker 1: his memories of being alongside Bowie as it recorded the
Speaker 1: groundbreaking music of Low. I just start to tell a
Speaker 1: little bit about my turn to Berlin, and actually I
Speaker 1: was I was born as somebody who wanted uh not
Speaker 1: to be a musician and not to be a technical guide,
Speaker 1: but to do both together. So that what that means
Speaker 1: uh I had to had sound engineering course lecture at
Speaker 1: high school in dessert Off. I did this in dessert
Speaker 1: Off in UH nineteen sixty nine to nineteen seventy two
Speaker 1: and made my final final exam in nineteen seventy two
Speaker 1: and started my career as a recording engineer at Cornege
Speaker 1: Studio in Cologne, and from there I got the jump
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy five to Berlin, and very soon I
Speaker 1: came across the Hansa studio manager who whom I asked
Speaker 1: for a job, and who said where you can start
Speaker 1: next Monday. Yeah, that was in February nine seventy six.
Speaker 1: So I came across David Poe. Yet this year nine
Speaker 1: seventy six, in summer he had to contact to Eca
Speaker 1: Fusa from Tantiling Dream uh in a while, and Edgar
Speaker 1: recommended him Answer Studio right to the edge of the
Speaker 1: Berlin Wall. We had the Berlin Wall a few steps
Speaker 1: far from the studio, and so he came across Answer
Speaker 1: and looked at it and said, wow, a big hall.
Speaker 1: And he named it the Big Hall by the wall,
Speaker 1: which was originally the Masters are the house for the
Speaker 1: Masters of building houses. And so we had a new
Speaker 1: name for international name for Answer Studio too, um, which
Speaker 1: was Studio Too, because we had one studio at another
Speaker 1: location in Berlin. Uh. This was, by the way, the
Speaker 1: studio where we started to listen to David's tapes. Because
Speaker 1: Answer Studio Too the Big Hole was busy with our
Speaker 1: Schlager producer Jack White in Germany who produced all these
Speaker 1: uh Lager people um from morning till night, and uh
Speaker 1: so the studio was busy day and night, and yet
Speaker 1: to move where to direct him to the Nestor stars
Speaker 1: of the studio One, which was a very good studio
Speaker 1: and meanwhile very famous studio as well for for the
Speaker 1: Berlin music scene. So we started as well with Iggy Pop.
Speaker 1: He was present at the time as well at the
Speaker 1: very beginning of David's work in Berlin and did some
Speaker 1: of his finished some of his plans to uh bring
Speaker 1: out some music, some new music the Idiot for example,
Speaker 1: And so we worked on on the baking tracks of
Speaker 1: Low who were produced in in France before. And David
Speaker 1: was a bit fed up with the studio in France,
Speaker 1: and so he came to Berlin by recommendation as well
Speaker 1: of Edgar Fursa, and and I knew Edgar Fursa as
Speaker 1: well a little bit before. So when when we started
Speaker 1: at Hansa One in Nestor, starters came closer to each other.
Speaker 1: First of all, I was the one the guy who
Speaker 1: directed Tony Visconti to the specialties of the studio and
Speaker 1: of the plug ins and or or the equipment which
Speaker 1: was available to do something with the tapes, and they
Speaker 1: got cassettes to rehearse and to listen to it in
Speaker 1: their hotel UH rooms. And so then I decided to
Speaker 1: do some work on it. And later we had another
Speaker 1: session in Uh Answer too in the big Hall by
Speaker 1: the war and so we were worked on the album Low,
Speaker 1: and he added some small vocal parts and the saxophone part,
Speaker 1: and we did two new tracks as well with the
Speaker 1: equipment in the studio where there was was a maremba
Speaker 1: phone and David played on this marimba phone in the
Speaker 1: Big Hall and he said, okay, can can we use it?
Speaker 1: I said, of course, we can use everything here in
Speaker 1: the studio. And then he started to record one of
Speaker 1: the tracks of the B side of the album Low,
Speaker 1: which was the Weeping Wall, and he did a count
Speaker 1: on tape on one track from one two hundred and
Speaker 1: eighty and UH. Every time he was overdubbing his counting,
Speaker 1: he said, okay, dropped me in at six, dropped me
Speaker 1: in at ninety, dropped me in anywhere you want. And
Speaker 1: so he used this marima phone to do UH certain
Speaker 1: kind of musical carpet on on on this tape, which
Speaker 1: was the basis for the Weeping Wall, and then he
Speaker 1: added some other things to it as well. As when
Speaker 1: he find out found out that I was trained musician
Speaker 1: on my cello, he had the idea, uh, and Tony
Speaker 1: Visconti as well, to do some overdubbing with my shadow.
Speaker 1: So I brought my shadow into the studio and so
Speaker 1: we did eight tracks on her art decade and uh
Speaker 1: so UM got some bow scratching from my cello to
Speaker 1: this track, which made it much more alive than it
Speaker 1: was when I listened to it. And Tony Visconti wrote
Speaker 1: a little score for me because I'm a classical musician
Speaker 1: and I'm used to play music from scores, and so
Speaker 1: it worked. It worked, very funny. What did you think
Speaker 1: of the music David was playing as you were working
Speaker 1: on it? Was it apparent early on that this wasn't
Speaker 1: just an ordinary pop album. Well, it was something very
Speaker 1: new for me because the way we did recordings at
Speaker 1: Ansa and as well in Cologne before was like somebody
Speaker 1: who was organizing this on scores and writing scores for
Speaker 1: the single musicians and uh, they used to play from
Speaker 1: from this course, and this was a sort of completely
Speaker 1: different stuff that there were no scores at all. There
Speaker 1: was no written music except maybe for some lyrics of
Speaker 1: David and Um as well with Iggy Poppy. He wrote
Speaker 1: very much lyrics on a piece of paper. He had
Speaker 1: had a role from the kitchen and he sat in
Speaker 1: the side room where he could look to the console
Speaker 1: and watch Um watch the movements on the recording session.
Speaker 1: And he had a role and he wrote lyrics and
Speaker 1: the role was hanging just around the whole room. The
Speaker 1: long role of of of written stuff of lyrics. I
Speaker 1: don't know what for. Maybe it has written some letters
Speaker 1: as well. Yeah, funny, yah, quite funny. What was David
Speaker 1: like in the studio when he when he came into
Speaker 1: the studio did he know exactly what he wanted and
Speaker 1: he sat down and did it or was there a
Speaker 1: lot of experimentation at this time and trying stuff out
Speaker 1: and then kind of making a decision afterwards when he
Speaker 1: heard all the different options. Well, and he was present
Speaker 1: all the time, of course, and David was was very
Speaker 1: keen on working on his stuff. And no drugs, no
Speaker 1: drugs at all. And yeah, little box of beer beer
Speaker 1: bottles was around. He was very keen on working on
Speaker 1: his tapes and so whatever there was a discussion about
Speaker 1: how to do something, David had the last word and
Speaker 1: he was doing what he wanted. Everybody was most clear
Speaker 1: that David's ideas were performed, of course, so when when
Speaker 1: he performed himself as well, he did what he wanted
Speaker 1: and and he was very clean, very clear on on this.
Speaker 1: And of course he was interested in everything which has
Speaker 1: got to do something with the technique of the studio,
Speaker 1: and I mean V six cannot be compared to a
Speaker 1: studio technique today. And there was no digital stuff at all,
Speaker 1: and there was everything was analope and if you wanted
Speaker 1: to head it music you had to cut the tapes
Speaker 1: and was very heavy, very much. What was his working
Speaker 1: relationship like with with Tony Visconti, How did they push
Speaker 1: one another and and uh and and work together. They
Speaker 1: they were um master and client and from both sides,
Speaker 1: I mean, David said Tony what to do, and Tony said,
Speaker 1: recommended David something and he accepted also. Uh. They were
Speaker 1: good friends, and so I came to both of them
Speaker 1: after a while as a good friend too. And first
Speaker 1: of all, there was a skeptic, isn't And so we
Speaker 1: were fresh and not yet colleagues like we we were
Speaker 1: later on. And so during the whole time with David Bowie,
Speaker 1: I mean at lasted until until eighty seven, him last time,
Speaker 1: except for the concert he did in two thousand two.
Speaker 1: But all the time we were good friends and Uh
Speaker 1: and I had contact until he finished his contact with
Speaker 1: his friends before just two years before he died. Probably
Speaker 1: the doctor had said, you have two more years and
Speaker 1: and that's it. And at this time we were good
Speaker 1: friends together and well, uh could smell each other very
Speaker 1: very well. I know you were at a Black Star
Speaker 1: a listening event at Hansa's studios when when you heard
Speaker 1: the news of his passing. In a strange way, it
Speaker 1: must have been nice to be surrounded by so many
Speaker 1: people at that moment who loved him. Yeah. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: had no idea that two days after the publication of
Speaker 1: Black Star David would pass. I mean, this was was terrible.
Speaker 1: It was It's like, I can't believe what's going on.
Speaker 1: And so it was a very heavy time at this time.
Speaker 1: And I flew from Berlin when Tino woke me up
Speaker 1: in the morning after this weekend and said, David has passed,
Speaker 1: and I said, no way, it can't be. But it was.
Speaker 1: And our telephone lines were blinking all the time, and
Speaker 1: it was very heavy, and I said, I have I
Speaker 1: have to quit now, I have to go back to
Speaker 1: the country. At this point, yeah, that's That was the
Speaker 1: tenth of January two thousand sixteen. It was very heavy,
Speaker 1: heavy for us, for the whole world. I guess David's
Speaker 1: relationship with Berlin always seemed very special. When I visited
Speaker 1: Berlin a few years back, I got the sense that
Speaker 1: David was revered as far more than just a pop
Speaker 1: star or a talented musician, but he meant something to
Speaker 1: the German people in a much deeper way. Berlin has
Speaker 1: sort of adopted him as there their adopted son, and
Speaker 1: it seems like he felt really comfortable there. The stories
Speaker 1: as well was with a girlfriend he he had. She
Speaker 1: talked about him that in the underground when somebody asked
Speaker 1: her is this David Bowie, she she made something very
Speaker 1: strange like, uh, she talked to him in German. Uh,
Speaker 1: and uh, we have forgotten to to buy some potatoes
Speaker 1: high she said. She said she if she covered him
Speaker 1: from everything, and as well, Coco I was taking care
Speaker 1: of him all the time, and Coco was watching, uh
Speaker 1: the tapes and no, no tapes out of the studio
Speaker 1: and so they had made bad experiences with stolen tapes
Speaker 1: and uh yeah, something like that, and so I took
Speaker 1: very much care of all the tapes and yeah, that
Speaker 1: worked one for you. Spent Christmas with with David and Coco.
Speaker 1: I think it was Christmas even, Yeah, how was that?
Speaker 1: What was that? Like? Yeah, it happened that they invited
Speaker 1: me to a Christmas meal. I said, oh, yeah, why not?
Speaker 1: And so I came to Houstraza and I was shown
Speaker 1: around this apartment and it was many rooms, one after another.
Speaker 1: You could go like an archum around the whole apartment.
Speaker 1: All the rooms were just one matters or nothing in it,
Speaker 1: and exactly for the year. For the last room, which
Speaker 1: was David's the sleeping room where he had a real bed,
Speaker 1: and and an idle where he had his paintings, and
Speaker 1: I can't remember which painting was just on the eisle.
Speaker 1: Maybe was just the aisle standing there alone. But the
Speaker 1: last room was the kitchen, and there was everything you
Speaker 1: needed to prepare the food and a meal. And Coco
Speaker 1: had had a rooster in the oven in the oven,
Speaker 1: and and there were a couple of people of course,
Speaker 1: Iggy Pop and his son and David's son and Cocoa
Speaker 1: of course. And yeah, it was was a very funny evening.
Speaker 1: Was David in his privacy, uh with with a goose
Speaker 1: a goose? Uh brown baked brown and very tasty. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Did you see him much outside of the studio aside
Speaker 1: from this Christmas meal? Did you go out to dinners
Speaker 1: or go up coffee or anything like that? We we
Speaker 1: have have not. We didn't have very much a private
Speaker 1: contact just I mean just the studio was was our
Speaker 1: meeting point all the time. And I didn't need to
Speaker 1: fear as well, because there was going there were going
Speaker 1: things around like the divos was was his lady in Switzerland, Angie.
Speaker 1: There were strange stories and so I couldn't even follow
Speaker 1: the speeches which were held there on telephone and um.
Speaker 1: And there was trouble with a lawyers as far as
Speaker 1: I remember, There was trouble with R. T A with
Speaker 1: the company who didn't like the duct of low and
Speaker 1: what have you. What what a ship is on this tape.
Speaker 1: It's so funny to hear that now because everyone loves it. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's very strange. David's spoken a lot about the studio's
Speaker 1: proximity to the wall, the Berlin Mall being something that
Speaker 1: that really unnerved him. You could see the guards from
Speaker 1: the control room. What was the atmosphere like? Look through
Speaker 1: when you sit in front of the console, You could
Speaker 1: look through a window right to the wall, and there
Speaker 1: was a big house behind the wall, and on top
Speaker 1: of the house there were two little barracks for the
Speaker 1: guards who were wearing binoculars and machine guns on on
Speaker 1: their backs. And very funny, and did someone we opened
Speaker 1: with we we we listened to the tapes on with
Speaker 1: open windows and I'm I'm sure they could listen and
Speaker 1: they could watch us with their binoculars. And one day
Speaker 1: at the very beginning, when we were standing in front
Speaker 1: of the console and looked to the wall, I took
Speaker 1: one of the lambs and and directed it to the
Speaker 1: to the guards on top of their And at the
Speaker 1: same time Tony and David jumped down under the desk
Speaker 1: to hide themselves because they thought they were they were
Speaker 1: doing something with their guns, and I said, they like us,
Speaker 1: They they don't do us anything that they were going
Speaker 1: to get shot at very funny, many little jokes around
Speaker 1: a situation, and I mean the results were quite all right.
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