1986

Picture 1 -3: Die Knallschoten, Hardcore Skiffel Group #1: Biber, Pizza, Timo, Timo, Biber, Biber, Timo, Pizza (Unknown place)

Die Knallschoten were founded in 1980 by Rudi K. (member of the Funzine gang) on guitar, Biber Kießling on bass, Pizza Haracic on drums and Kajan as screamer. They had a big following during the early days - playing Hamburg up-and-down (from Jugendkeller St. Georg to School-Parties and a support stint for The Insane at the Graffiti) and recorded one song for the famous sampler "Waterkant Hits" (Weird System Records), as many other bands of that Generation. Waterkant Hits was the start of Mansur Niknam's Weird System "Empire" and quite a good document of the 2nd wave of punk bands in Hamburg (putting bands like Buttocks, Razors, Slime and others into the 1st).

After a harsh argument of Rudi K. and Karjan with Pizza the group looked like falling apart but Timo (of ex HH-Milch fame) filled in and they continued touring as a Hardcore Skiffel Group for 2 years. After relasing a self produced EP, they called it a day. Pizza went on the be an unsuccesfull record dealer and did play in various bands esp. around the "Schmuddelkinder" scene, Biber continued his studies on african languages and will be a professor of africanistix (and african language expert) at the University of Hamburg and Timo continues his career in database programming after some dot.com failures now with a large aircraft manufactuer.

Picture 4 - 5: Die Knallschoten, Hardcore Skiffel Group #1: Biber, Timo, Timo (drunk)

Picture 6: Die Knallschoten, Hardcore Skiffel Group #1: Biber, Timo (unknown live show)

Picture 7: Channel Rats, Sonderborg (DK), ca. 1986 (Stickel, Pizza, Beyer - sporting an unreal GBH-like haircut)

These were the days when only in Denmark impressing shows could be set up - in Hamburg nobody looked after small local bands. And if they got a chance to play in Hamburg the kids ignored them ("they are from hamburg, thats uncool..."). For that reason Rudi K. called his band "Missing the Scene" as he was missing support from the local punks for local bands...

Picture 8: Missing the Scene outside their practise place, ca. 1986

This line-up lasted not so long as Uli (Bass) was replaced by Öne and Pit (who was drafted by the army) was replaced by Thorsten. They played some gig but their practice place was emptied twice by thiefs - after the 2nd time Rudi K. quit and decided to move to Demark.

Picture 9: Magnetic AD, somewhere for an open-air show, ca. 1986 (Bodo and Henne as Stan&Laurel or Oliver&Hardy or else)

Magnetic AD was a more US-hardcore oriented offshot from Spiel 77 & Channel Rats and recorded one 7" for Martin Stehr's BeriBeri Records - one of the very only pure US sytle records from Hamburg.

Picture 10: Razors at their practise room (Slaugther (b), Schwabe (d), Hake (v), Andre (g)), 1986

The Razors are THE streetpunkband from Hamburg - inspired and fueled by Schwabe. This incarnation was a short-living line-up with young Hake, well known Slaugther and Andre. They had 2 shows with old Razors songs and new stuff (including some great songs like "Johnny T" about a Johnny Thunders show and some more). There is only a tape from the practise room around, they split befor Holy War Records could offer a record deal. See below for more recovered pictures from this session

Picture 11: Hans Rosenthal with his famous Radio show in Friedrichstadt

Picture 11a: On the way to Friedrichstadt (Kay B. (later fame with Schiffen Records), Jürgen (later fame with Bitzcore Records), Dirk (Holy War Records), Uli R. (Konneckschen))

"Thrashy weekend fun. We wanted to become contestants for a Live TV-Quiz but never got picked. We still had a good time. Everyone was drunk , what more can you ask for ?" (Minus)

This is another great out-off town road movie: Hans Rosenthal was a well known TV & Radio star in Germany and hosted a cool "anyone can win on stage" show that toured Germany. Uli Rehberg once had the idea to go there and quickly a car was send out to Frierichsstadt - a small tourist town near the shores of the north sea. On the way we are all crazed up (thanks to shitloads of beer) and we wanted to convince Uli (acting as the driver) to stop near the next farmhouse that we wanted to rob (fresh vegetables and loads of beef and the famous sausages of that area). When we showed up at the show - allready running - and tried to get a chance on stage we were clearly singled out as "to drunk", "to crazy" and "to punk". A very cool trip and hat's off to Uli for taking care of all the young drunk kids.

Picture 12: Uli R. with DIY Steffi Graf badge - allways the driver!

Picture 13: Channel Rats live at the Let's Rock (Stickel (g), Pizza (d), Beyer (v), Pohl (b), Bodo (g))

This is at the Let's Rock, one of the smallest clubs ever in Hamburg. Alltough it was a very, very small club - the mighty Government Issue played there in 1986 (maybe at that spot because during that days punk shows were not taken on board by the bigger clubs - punk in Hamburg had it's first "low time").

"Around 1986 the Let’s Rock was just a small (very small!) live club in the basement of a regular house in the so-called Karoviertel, in general people asked if it’s possible to doing shows there and when the owner said o.k., people just did it, it wasn’t a Hardcore club only, but open for all different music styles, e.g. an unknown band like Fury in the Slaughterhouse played there and 6 people showed up, a few years later they played as a main act in big stadiums before a crowd of 25.000. As far as I remember the club was closed down at the end of 1987,‚coz the neighbours were not so amused about the spectacle that happenend under their feet. Nevertheless, lotsa great shows happened there....!" (Thomas Koch)

Picture 14: Another great story from our beloved Mopo

The nice thing with above story is that the "Streetterro in Hamburgs Slums" is orchestrated with an old pic (the left one) of Savage Army guys (a right wing gang with ex punks and skins) dated around the beginning of 1982 and taken during the usual football trouble (and showing a well known punk!) and on the right side a pic from a crustcore show - thus bringing punks & skins into the picture. Nice one.

Picture 15: Promo Sticker for the Holy War "The Rise and Fall of Oma Hodel" EP - a great Sampler w/ some bands shown here (Terrröristleri, 100% Diskretion, Spiel 77, Meine Schuppen, Kavelin Rosebud, HH-Milch) - Still available via BeriBeri Distribution.

This pic is taken direct from the TV watching germanys then biggest saturday night show ("Wetten, daß..." (for all you natives: "Bet, that...") where allways someone from the audience could challenge the showmaster at the beging of the show with a "free form" bet. On this time (we had our usual saturday livestyle being: meet at Unterm Durchschnitt to pick the first few beers, than more beer and if there wasn't a show around it would end  drunk&disorderly in front of the teley...) someone challenged for "Bet, that you won't be able to bring 20 bankers at the end of the show with a fresh cut mohawk..." - that did freeze us in front of the screen. When the bankers came up all of us went bust!

Picture 16: The Rise and Fall of Oma Hodel EP (Holy War Records)		Picture 17: The backcover has famous Oldpunks like Toni, Ego, Markus, Dirk within the picture that is a cut from the Mopo

One of the highlights of DIY Punk - all recordings for this record where done "self" and on worst equipment ever (low quality rules, the lowest was Spiel 77 who did record via ... walkman!). A pure gem of complete different sounds, capturing great bands at their peak!

Picture 18: Band at work - 100% Diskretion pining down the lyrics to their song for "Rise and Fall of Oma Hodel", Jürgen's appartment

"Caught in the act , Mark, Minus and Jürgen seem to talk about song lyrics for 100 % Diskretion." (Minus). The full story behind "Oma Hodel" has now been documented too - follow this link!

Picture 19: Ticket for Angelic Upstarts and The Business (canceled support), Markthalle 22.10.1986

This could have been a legend, if only The Business did not decide to go out of service for a while back then. It took some 10 years more to bring Micky Fitz and the boys over. I hope they know what they have missed.

Picture Credits: (1) - (3), (6) by Timo, (4) - (5) by Minus, (7), (9) by unknown (supplied by Rudi K.), (8), (10), (12), (14) - (17), (19) from the Holy War Archive, (11), (11a) and (18) by Minus, (13) by unknown (supplied by Pizza) - All pictures are (c) 2011 by The Holy War Archive Foundation and unagreed usage will result in unhealthy punishment by the Holy War Team.