Mania D.

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.

Their recognition led to an invitation to perform in New York. On October the 24th in 1979 Mania D played on Broome Street at Arleen Schloss performance loft, A´s. The New York audience responded enthusiastically. Mania D performed at the end of November at Tier 3, without Eva Gossling, who was then living with SAMO, alias Jean-Michel Basquiat at Arleene Schloss A´s. Both experimented with music, sound and tapes. Karin Luner stayed in New York. Eva Gossling was invited by Alexander von Borsig alias Alexander Hacke and Richard Hirsch to play in the Berlin band, Blasse. In December 1979 Mania D performed with a smaller crew. In 1981 they founded the band, Malaria!, which unified elements of free jazz with those of experimental music with a distinctive saxophone sound. Bettina Köster’s especially striking singing voice characterized the band and replicated the music of Berlin in the Twenties. Gudrun Gut and Bettina Köster along with Eisengrau developed an independent fashion label and a concept store. Under this name they created their unconventional stage outfits. The legendary fog-concert occurred on January 18, 1980 at the unheated SO36 club where it was so cold that patrons could see their breath. A never-before viewed video of the event was discovered in 2010 in the archives of the video artist and filmmaker, Werner Schmiedel. Mania D was not part of the commercial oriented new German wave, which started in early 1981 after the growing success of bands like D.A.F. and Fehlfarben. [SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA]