Bowie and Berlin: An everlasting love affair

Even weeks after his death, the city mourns rock icon’s demise as if it lost its own son

BERLIN:

I was standing outside Köthener Straße 38 in what used to be the Kreuzberg district of West Berlin. As I waited for Thilo Schmied, the owner of Berlin Music Tours, to join me, I noticed the word ‘Meistersaal’ engraved on the facade of the building. As Schmied joined me, he explained that Meistersaal was originally built for a real estate association of Berlin and later became a Master’s guild and, despite the rumour, had nothing to do with being a dancing ballroom for the Nazis. Its real claim to fame, however, goes to being the Studio 2 of world famous Hansa Records. This recording studio became the focal point of David Bowie’s Berlin trilogy, with Low and Heroes releasing in 1977 and Lodger in 1979. Bowie made the studio famous and its record label went on to release acts such as U2, Boney M and German sensation Nena, amongst others.

My visit to the studio was part of a mini pilgrimage that I was undertaking to trace Bowie’s love affair with Berlin; an affair so strong, that even weeks after his death, the city mourns him as if it lost its own son. People flock outside his old apartment in the Schöneberg district, laying down flowers outside the place where Bowie resided with Iggy Pop. Bars refuse to play anything that is not by the legend. Those who can, organise memorial services, concerts and fashion shows in his name. Aspiring musicians jam to his tunes in subway stations. Even the transgender community of the city organised exclusive shows in his memory; perhaps to commemorate the star’s admiration for them.  Not to be left behind, the upcoming International Belinale (Berlin Film Festival) changed its schedule to squeeze in movies and documentaries dedicated to the rock star.



David Bowie wanted his ashes to be scattered in Bali

The Berlin Music Tour has also joined in the celebration of the life and times of Bowie. They conduct several tours that include a special one on Bowie, where fans get to experience life as lived by the star. Starting from his residence in Berlin where he lived between 1976 and 1978, to the sights and sounds that consumed his time in the city. It was one of the happiest periods in Bowie’s life, as he once said in an interview with CBC. “My womb of Berlin, well it was a womb because of the wall, I guess it was all very psychological to go there, the tension there was terrific and that helped me to revaluate my position in the society. I think it’s a very good, therapeutic city for an artist to go to.”

We were still standing outside the studio building, waiting for the tour group to complete. Schmied pointed out, also told Bowie in the interview, that back in the 70s, Berlin was still a divided city and the wall was merely 150 metres away from our station. Perhaps, it was the proximity to the wall that led the studio to be called ‘Hansa by the wall’. I learnt that even the glamorous recording studio was in shambles, with the back wall partially damaged by the war. It reeked of pigeon excretions. Perhaps, the state fit in with Bowie’s own state of mind; broken but ready to reinvent itself. The singer had moved from Los Angeles to the former West German capital with the surprising aim to attain sobriety in a city known more for one of the hardest drug scenes in Europe. It was here where David had to start from the beginning. In the walled secluded city, no one cared who Bowie was or did, with the exception of his trusted secretary Coco, Pop and later, Eno. This gave Bowie anonymity, which was a far cry from his lives in Los Angeles and London. It was here that Bowie rejuvenated. Suffering from a falling marriage, he is said to have dated transgender persons and had affairs with anybody and everybody.

Schmied recalled his own teenage years in the then East Berlin. It was 1987. Bowie and Michael Jackson were performing in a concert in West Berlin. The venue was across the wall, in front of the Reichstag (German parliament). East Berliners could hear the music from across the wall. A crowd started forming near it. As Jackson performed A Man in the Mirror, the East Berliners got so excited they started chanting, demanding for the wall to come down. The situation got pretty out of control, with the police arresting several fans. Schmied remembers the electrifying moment when he was able to see Bowie up close in 1988. The government had invited Bowie, Brian Adams, Bruce Springsteen amongst others, for a special performance as part of a propaganda campaign to keep the agitated population calm.

Every day people flock outside Bowie’s old apartment in Schöneberg district, laying down flowers outside the place. PHOTO: AMNA YAMIN

‘David Bowie is my idea of a rockstar’

For all we know, in those politically changing times, Berliners saw Bowie as the idol whose appeal went beyond the wall, and for this generation, Bowie stayed there, forever.

Schmied and I were joined by a couple of other people, also interested in having a look inside Hansa Records. We soon went in where Bowie and Pop played. It was upstairs in the control room where Bowie was inspired to write the title track for Heroes, after he saw people kissing near the Berlin Wall. The album also contains tracks honouring the nearby areas of Neukölln and Potsdamer Platz. No wonder the Berliners felt connected with Bowie in a way they could with no other star.  It was here where his journey from addiction to affliction started. He learnt to appreciate himself. The anonymity let him evaluate himself and he flourished. From a celebrity paranoid of his own existence, Bowie became the messenger for all the nobodies, telling them they were beautiful ... that they, too, could be themselves.

Later that day, I walked past his old apartment in Haupstrasse. I saw a couple laying down flowers outside the doorsill. It was surreal. A bystander mentioned that if I want to get into the Bowie mood, I should head to the bar round the corner where Bowie, Iggy and Eno would spent time, basking in the deliciousness of the Berlin that was. I responded by saying, “I will”.

Amna Yamin is a social entrepreneur on the path of discovering the world, one city at a time. She tweets @AmnaYamin 

Published in The Express Tribune, February 13^th,  2016.

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