Robert Carrithers

CITY PRIMEVAL: NEW YORK BERLIN PRAGUE

CITY PRIMEVAL: NEW YORK BERLIN PRAGUE An Anthology curated by Robert Carrithers & Louis Armand (Prague: Litteraria Pragensia) CITY PRIMEVAL: NEW YORK BERLIN PRAGUE is a personal journey through time in each city told by writers, artists and photographers from each city. Robert Carrithers acts as a tour guide throughout the book with stories, photographs and art. The book was published in September 2017. We had book releases with performance, music, readings and slide show lectures by photographers to bring the book alive. The New York book release was November 10th at the Howl Happening, November 30th November 30th at Kino Central and eschloraque in Berlin and at Prague Design Week in Prague December 2nd. These special events brought the book alive in all three cities.

CITY PRIMEVAL is a constellation of personal documentaries of place & time by key contemporary writers, poets, musicians, designers, filmmakers, photographers, artists, editors, performers from within the New York, Berlin & Prague underground scenes from the late 1970s to the present; from New York Post-Punk & No Wave, to the fall of the Berlin Wall & Reunification, to the Velvet Revolution & the Prague Renaissance; including contributions by Bruno Adams, Penny Arcade, Louis Armand, Dale Ashmon, J.Jackie Baier, Markéta Baňková, Varhan Orchestrovič Bauer, Lina Bertucci, Gaby Bíla-Günther Mykel Board, Victor Bockris, Christoph Brandl, Gary Ray Bugarcic, Robert Carrithers, David Černý, Roman Černý, Michal Cihlář, Antonio Cossa, William Coupon, Max Dax, Christoph Dreher, Sara Driver, Glen Emery, Vincent Farnsworth, Nat Finkelstein, Roxanne Fontana, Thor Garcia, Susanne Glück, Carola Goellner, Anthony Haden Guest, Carl Haber, Jere Harshman, Henry Hills, Nhoah Hoena, Michael Holman, John Hood, Chris Hughes, Jolana Izbická, Timo Jacobs, Bethany Eden Jacobson, Tobiáš Jirous, Bettina Köster, Julius Klein, Hubert Ketzschmar, Jaromír Lelek, Lydia Lunch, Rinat Magsumov, Peter Milne, Steve Morell, Mona Mur, Julia Murakami, Shalom Neuman, Paul Pacey, Puma Perl, Rudolf Piper, Rudi Protrudi, Mark Reeder, Marcia Resnik, Ingrid Rudefors, Ilse Ruppert, Šimon Šafránek, Honza Sakař, Oliver Schütz, Marcia Schofield, Tom Scully, Semra Sevin, Phil Shoenfelt, Peter Smith, Azalea So Sweet, Mark Steiner, Kenton Turk, Andre Werner, Ian Wright, Nick Zedd, Dave Zijlstra, Richard & Winter Zoli, Miron Zownir.

The Berlin Silkscreen Series 2013

 

Please click on the highlighted words for further information. I have just recently had an exhibition at the Salomon Arts Gallery in New York from November 11th to January 14th. I exhibited a series of portraits that I did in '80s New York City, a series of fairytale themed portraits of various Prague personalities and portraits of unique and innovative personalities in Berlin 2013. I also did a series of silkscreens as well. I put myself under pressure to do this work in Berlin from September 1rst to November 8th for the New York show. I did over ten thousand photographs and had to edit them, we filmed and edited 2 video portraits and then created five silkscreens. Basically a years worth of work done in two months. By the time time I got to New York we had two days to put together the show. The opening was well attended, but I was too exhausted to appreciate it as much as I would have liked to, but the important thing is that we did it. Once again proved, if you do put your mind to do something it is achievable and will either be appreciated now or later. This was done with the help and support by Gigi and Rodrigo Salomon, who has an amazing old style New York Tribeca loft style gallery, probably one of the last ones around and is on the fourth floor with long steep wooden creaky steps going all the way up. Jana Oberdoerffer produced and curated the exhbition along with her company Arttagged. This exhbition included the amazing work by Berlin artist and photographer Tina Winkhaus.

I am particularly proud of the silkscreens I made with the valuable assistance by Jonni Berlin. Four of these silkscreens were directly inspired by Berlin and one New York. I will do my best to explain them and what they mean to me. The above silkscreen is the Angel. Of course, because of Wim Wenders, people associate angels with Berlin thanks to his brilliant film "Wings of Desire". With the help of Carmen Aigner we did a special photo session at her gallery Atelier Cross Art. I love film and I wanted to use the theme of Berlin films for the first silkscreens. I had to think about what films captured Berlin best for me and I came up with two automatically. The first being "Wings of Desire" and the angel. The model used in this was Berlin photographer Holger Knote. We projected the image of the angel coming from the clouds on the nude form of Holger. From these photos, I created some transparencies and then printed them on two screens with Jonni. One screen was Holger and the background and on the second screen were the wings. We played with the colors and this is the result. I have always felt a connection between Berlin and New York so not only did I think of "Wings of Desire", but I also thought of Tony Kusner's "Angels in America", the Pulitzer Prize winning play that was on Broadway and traveled the world and then went on to be an HBO mini-series directed by Mike Nichols. Quote from Wikipedia " Set in 1985, the film revolves around six disparate New Yorkers whose lives intersect. At its core, it has the fantastical story of Prior Walter, a gay man dying of AIDS who is visited by an angel. The film explores a wide variety of themes, including Reagan era politics, the spreading AIDS epidemic, and a rapidly changing social and political climate."

This all came to mind when I was doing this and I do this in the spirit of the memories of when I lived in New York and worked side by side with incredibly talented people. I dedicate this to all those that I knew that died from the AIDS epidemic that were dear to me and to the strong survivors that have AIDS and live their lives to the fullest.

The second fim projection that we did was from the other film that captures Berlin for me. This is the 1930 film "The Blue Angel" with Marlene Dietrich and directed by Josef Von Sternberg. The theme of the film somehow captures Berlin and all of it's temptation. It is a story of the fall of a noble man, a well-respected professor, who is consumed with the desire of Lola, a cabaret singer. He is eventually destroyed by his passion for her. I was lucky to find the model Sabine Ratka for this photo session. On her left arm she has a tattoo of the Charles Bukowski quote "Find what you love and let it kill you" which captures the essence of this story and the silkscreen. Once again we used two screens. The background and professor is blue of course and Lola is the colors of fire with the professor putting his hand into the fire/Lola.

The above is one of the portrait silkscreens. This is from a photograph that I took Jean-Michel Basquiat when he was known as Samo. I first met him in New York when he was doing graffiti on a wall somewhere near Broadway and 8th Street. It was not the typical graffiti with the name tagging that was going on at that time. He was writing philosophical and political statements on the outer walls of buildings and signing it with Samo ©. He was way ahead of his time. When I first met and observed him writing, he wrote the above statement. I thought it was appropriate that I do this silkscreen and then write what he wrote in my own handwriting out of respect and in honour of the first time that I met him. 

The above is the second silkscreen portrait and I wanted it to be someone from Berlin. I immediately thought of musician, music producer, DJ and Berlin mover and shaker Steve Morell. He has his production company Pale Music Int. (Click on Steve;'s name and find out more) He is one of the first people I met in Berlin and he introduced to many good people and made me feel at home. This photo was taken in the men's toilet at the infamous bar and performance space in the heart of Berlin eschschloraque. Steve and I had many good times, conversations and many funny arguments there. The words are from a music project that he has been working on.  

This last silkscreen is more of a joke if anything. I was thinking of doing a silkscreen of Berlin symbols. Carmen Aigner was the Berlin project manager and we were running all over Berlin capturing various symbols in the metro, streets and so on. Finally, I thought of the Warhol silkscreens and thought of his banana that he did for the first Velvet Underground album. Well, if Warhol could do a banana surely I could do a Berlin bratwurst! Carmen and I bought one at Alexanderplatz and laid it on the ground and photographed it. We completed it with a beer cap of Berlin's cheapest beer Sternberger. I liked the star and... well... it goes together. What to say? This bratwurst had lots of mustard oozing out of it, but did not come out well in the photograph. It is a pity. I wanted to make the mustard green in the final silkscreen. This is the final result. There will be more to come. .. silkscreens not bratwursts!

Berlin portraits: Kaey

I am doing a series of portraits of very special people in Berlin. This is Kaey.....

Lucy and Max Dax in Prague

Lucy and Max Dax in Prague working on an article about Prague for Electronic Beats. A pleasurable night out at Klubovna to see Nikki Nevver and enjoy a nice night outside in the beer garden. Friday, July 27 2012 — with Max Dax at Klubovna.

Miron Zownir Berlin 2012

I recently went to Berlin to screen my short film "Jákob’s Ladder" (also made with Marianna Auster and the music soundtrack by Czech composer Vladimir Hirsch) at the Directors Lounge during the Berlinale on February 17th, 2012. One of the highlights of my week there was the screening and my experience with the people who organize the Directors Lounge. Julia, Andre and Kenton are now top on my list of people I want to work with in the future and as friends. It was also nice to see Nick Zedd who flew all the way from Mexico to show his films in Berlin at several venues. I also appreciated the support of all my friends in Berlin who attended the screening of my film. You know who you are. And through all of this a miracle happened in Berlin for me. I reunited with a person who I have not seen in over twenty years. A person that I truly like and respect: Miron Zownir.

I have not seen Miron since the wild early days of my life in New York. If my memory serves me right, I first came across Miron when he was the doorman/security at the club Danceteria. I was going into the club and I saw this huge hulking menacing figure in the person of all leather clad Miron. He looked me over with his cold steely eyes and grunted something to me. I thought to myself, "Hmmm this is one guy I am not going to fuck with for sure!"

Also, if I am not mistaken, it was the same night, when I sat down next to him at the bar and had a cranberry and vodka. We looked each other up and down and he laughed that Miron laugh of his and said in a fun way, "What the fuck are you looking at?"

We started talking and found out we had a lot in common with our photography and interest in the sub-worlds that existed in Manhattan at that time in the '80s. We had very similar interests, but with a difference. I would enter these worlds and experience them to the fullest and observe and record mostly in my brain these creatures of the night. I was involved in the club scene and I chose specific personalities to photograph that I found who stood out with their creativity, but I certainly enjoyed the decadence of that time. It was a time of intense creativity, but also New York was damn dangerous and not only did you have to have eyes in the back of your head, but also on the sides of your head and have your radar up constantly not to be attacked by the dangerous elements of the night, but at the same time you could walk through the doors of what looked like ordinary buildings into amazing worlds of colourful creativity or extreme sexual decadence beyond the imagination.

Miron was also fascinated by these various worlds. He always lived his life on the edge much more than me and took things much further than I imagined. He would enter these extreme worlds with a detached eye and started photographing. He would enter the world of people who lived life on an even more extreme level. A lot of these people are no longer alive because they took their lives to such an extreme level through their individual lifestyles with their excess use of drugs and sexuality. Miron never shied away from the extremes and he was able to capture these people in their raw state. He disappeared towards the end of the 80s' from New York when the gentrification started to set in. I had no idea where he went. I now know we traveled similar paths without knowing it, but with a slight difference. He traveled to Los Angeles in the '90s with a car loaded with guns in a wild west drug filled journey. I took a plane. In Los Angeles, He once again involved himself with extremes and was brutally beaten and then imprisoned by the then fascistic Los Angeles police for several days in solitary confinement. I had an argument with the fascistic Los Angles police because I got a ticket for jaywalking. (Crossing the street by foot when the light was red) I took photos of some extreme, but Miron always was one step ahead. 

He went on to capture the breakdown of social order in Russia in Moscow, looking death and danger in the eye and capturing it all with his camera. He told me he often had to literally run away from photographing some scenes or be killed instantly. I moved to Prague and was involved with the changes in Czech society. I did my best to capture some of the events and outstanding personalities of that time, but without the danger. Now here we are in 2012 and Miron and I meet again. It was like we did not have this gap of time. We really had the pleasure of talking and exchanging our stories. Miron is also involved with writing and film. He has had several films out and many books published. I consider Berlin my second home and will hopefully see much more of him. I am now preparing to have a gallery show of my photographs from New York in the 80s' in the Prague photo gallery Školská 28 Galerie Fotograf and along with curator Pavel Turek, we will present "The Groovy Dada Lounge Revisited" with the opening on March 20th. At the opening, I will have 99 photographs of all sizes, New York musician Mark Steiner and his problems (Czech musician Pavel Cingl and Argentinian musician Henry Hugo) will play, the amazing creative talent of DJ, Miki-discjokey and special screenings of films by New York underground shock filmmaker Nick Zedd. I am writing all of this about me along with Miron's photo portrait because, I feel the comparisons between him and I are important and I hope humorous in some ways I also strongly feel that with our meeting along with my gallery opening I have completed some circle in my life which is important. Please click on the highlighted names above for much further information.

 

Tom Scully

I have known Tom Scully for quite some time. I remember Tom back in the daze/days of New York in the '80s. I remember him having wild roof top parties on top of his building on Chrystie Street in Chinatown with films being shown, bands playing and Tom DJing all with the background of the glittering Manhattan skyline. Things always seemed about to go out of control, but somehow when the sun started to rise, it calmed down and everyone was pleased that the roof did not collapse. I recall that there were several casualties at those parties. One person fell off the roof and another walked into the elevator on the 12th floor. The elevator was not there and he fell all 12 flights down the elevator shaft. Surprisingly, both people survived. Tom organized the Psychedelic Weekend Parties at The Cavern. I had my own small bar in the basement. Tom gave me the name of The Reverend (Or The Rev) and named my small bar The Confessional Booth. I was given a punch bowel with a glowing blue liquid in it. I was instructed to give a glass to anyone who gives me a bell. This special brew was spiked with an unknown quantity of acid/LSD. The night got stranger and stranger with bands like The Fuzztones and Certain General playing as crazed painted day-glo blue go-go girls danced out of control. People did not confess at my confessional booth that night because most of them could not speak or were too busy bouncing off the walls and dancing. At the end of the last night, the blue go-go girls kidnapped Tom. He woke up the next morning to find himself painted all blue and had to find his way home. He could not get the blue off his skin for a week. 

Tom was a premier revolutionary DJ throughout the clubs in New York and he eventually started to DJ in Europe. Tom in his day, was a true mover and shaker in New York. In my opinion, he has not been given proper credit for what he accomplished during his time in New York. In 1978, he and Susan Hannaford created and produced the New Wave Vaudeville show at Irving Plaza. Ann Magnuson was the director of the show. This one of a kind vaudeville show was a cultural changing point in New York. It eventually gave birth to the new creative clubs that mixed performance with art, film, music, theme parties and went onto inspire so many creative souls of that time. It was Klaus Nomi's premier performance at the New Wave Vaudeville Show, that amazed people with his other world visuals and sound. From this point, Tom, Susan and Ann went onto to create the infamous Club 57 in the basement of a Polish church at 57 ST. Marks Place in the East Village. Although, let me make it clear, Stanley Strychacki was the original Club 57 founder and also sponsor the sponsor from beginning to the end.It mutated into a warped creative playground for wacked-out kindred artistic spirited funsters. Tom and Susan created the weekly Monster Movie Club and Ann Magnuson was the manager of the club. Ann was able to experiment and develop her ideas and performances. Susan was at the entrance accepting the donations for entrance, looking very much like Morticia Addams from another planet. Tom took his role very serious as the Monster Movie Club curator. He would organize all screenings and was the projectionist. Tom would organize low budget B monster/horror films to be shown to an eager East Village audience. He would organize the filmmakers to come and speak about their films. If I am not mistaken, he even got Russ Meyers to appear, speak and answer questions. Tom was the Monster Movie Club professor whereas Susan encouraged people to talk back to the films, laugh, have fun and create scenes. This upset the professor side of Tom, but after a few drinks he even got into the fun of it. Tom inspired and encouraged lots of people on the scene at that time to be true to who they are and not be afraid to perform and look silly. He always said, "If you can't be silly and idiotic sometimes, what is the sense of it all?" 

Tom eventually moved out of New York with his french wife Sybille. They lived in Paris and then Montpellier. They created two beautiful and talented daughters named Camille and Charlotte. Tom and Sybille live with Camille in Berlin. Charlotte lives in Paris and is a make-up artist for films and photo sessions. She is also pursuing her interest in film and photography. Sybille is a photographer. Camille is presently completing her studies in Berlin and is active in photography with the help of her mother. Tom is involved in numerous art projects and plays in a fun punk band called (what else?) Monster Movie Club! The photo above is Tom after a Monster Movie Club performance in Berlin and the photo below is Tom with his daughters Camille and Charlotte.

 

Ash Wednesday

I took this photo of Ash Wednesday backstage after the concert of Einsturzende Neubauten at Divadlo Archa in Prague November 2010. Ash Wednesday is known as a synth pioneer. He has broken new ground worldwide with his innovative synth sounds that varied with electronica to punk to industrial and to new approaches to digital sampling. Ash was one of the first to combine experimental analog synesizer textures with punk/rock rhythms. It all began in 1976 with the Australian band JAB and then he carried on with Australian band The Models in 1979. He joined with Al Webb and Andrew Picouleau to do experimental recording projects called "The Metronomes". He worked on many projects and collaborations, too many to mention. One important collaboration: the band Crashland! Ash pursued new directions with this band and developed his approach to digital sampling.

Ash moved to Berlin in 1992 and lived there for 5 years. He worked with Nina Hagen with preproduction and programming for her 1995 album ReuD euch (Bee Happy). He began working with Einsturzende Neubauten in 1997 and went on tours and recorded a number of albums with them. He continues working with them, but he is also based in Melbourne. He reunited with ex-Crashland! Vocalist Lyn Gordon to form “The Tingler” and released a CD in 2000. He continues to divide his time between Melbourne and Berlin creating his special sounds. I met Ash awhile ago in Berlin. I never know where I might run into him. I do not see myself going to Australia any time soon, but I am sure that I will turn a corner or walk into a room and meet him on these shores some time soon.

Berlin Portraits: Steve Morell

I met Steve Morell many times and he has always impressed me. Steve has a great presence and a true talent. I met him in the process of going back and forth between Prague and Berlin. I would meet him in one city or the other. Like me, Steve is also connected with both Berlin and Prague. He is engaged to an amazing czech woman & performer Monika Pokorna (They also are creative partners doing many collaborations together such as the recent video for Paula Immich. It is a video of Steve´s music.Steve and Monika sing on it) and has the strong connection between both of these cities. I am still trying to understand the connection between these two cities. I first saw him DJing, perhaps at White Trash in Berlin, but then again Steve is so much part of the night cultural scene in Berlin I must have met him and experienced his creativity and music many times. I have featured him in the earlier Einsturzende Neubauten photos and writing.

I wrote earlier that John Murphy was the last person that I last interviewed for the Richard Lowenstein documentary about Rowland S. Howard. It was not true. Steve was the last person and we were frazzled and frenzied. Everything was going wrong, we were late, Chris Hughes and I met Steve at the Dead Chicken bar otherwise known as Eschaloraque.in Mitte, Berlin. After being far too late, Steve had enough and was not the happiest. We managed to do the interviews and I took this photo in the toilet at this wonderful sweet Berlin bar. It is the result of this mayhem. It is a frazzled and frenzied photo.

Steve is an incredible Berlin producer, musician & DJ. He has just released 12” single of a haunting song called Loneliness. It is a release from Steve´s forthcoming album “The Life and Death of Jimmy Pheres and his Rise from the Underworld” There are two versions from Steve and refined by the backing vocals of Johanna Sadonis as well as one Remix by Alexander Hacke (Einstürzende Neubauten) and England's best electro producers Punx Soundcheck who just finished a remix for Bloc Party. Steve is the head of Pale Music International. It is a music production company that produces and works with very special musicians. Steve does wonderful remixes with people he enjoys. One of a kind.... Steve Morell. Some times the least amount of words capture a person. Please click on the highlighted names above to find out further information.

Berlin Portraits: John Murphy

John Murphy was the first and last filmed interview that I did for Richard Lowenstein´s Rowland S.Howard documentary. At the time John was living with Chris Hughes. (Chris as usual helped doing the interview) There were a lot of jokes that John was Chrisˇpermanent flatmate. He kind of just moved in when he was exiled from the UK and never left. John has since left and went onto something much better and actually got married somewhere in Finland or the shamanic lapland regions. I have to say John is one of a kind. He is very mild mannered. He is a very private, quiet and mysterious person until you enter his world..., if he allows you to. One would not automatically think of him being in bands such as Death in June and Knifeladder with their reputations of violence and aggression . I should emphasize that reputations and myths are very similar and sometimes is not in fact a true reality, but that is what creates hype and gets attention. I can easily go off on a tangent about Death in June and the sensitivity about symbolism and imagery, but there is not enough space.

John is a drummer and is originally from Australia. Unlike a lot of people involved in the industrial music scene, John has had quite a bit of musical training in all music forms from classical, jazz, soul/funk, military/Scottish pipe band to rock 60s garage music, 70s punk to metal and Prog. He has played in numerous Australian and British post-punk, ambient and industrial music bands over the years. John first joined forces with guitarist Ollie Olsen to form the post-punk band Whirlywirld in Melbourne in the late 70s. Olsen went on to form The Young Charlatans along with Rowland S. Howard. Jonh was very much in involved in the Melbourne music scene and that is one of the many reasons why his interview for the Rowland S. Howard documentary was so important. John went onto play with so many bands after that. There are so many, but to name a few, he was involved quite a lot with SPK and The Associates and playing on sessions with Nico, The The, Gene Loves Jezebel and Shriekback. Jonh had played for quite awhile with Death In June. John enjoyed the challenge of Death In June performances. It gave him lots of musical flexibility and creativity from the use of hand percussion in the more acoustic-orientated pieces and to the more extreme martial/military rudiment type of drumming and using classical innovative percussion such as typan, tubular bells and oriental gongs. After 35 years of experience, John still has an intense interest in exploring and bettering himself musically. 

He presently plays in the industrial electronic trio Knifeladder. Knifeladder is a three industrial piece act. John plays drums/percussion ,voice, found sounds, some electronics, drones and loops. ANDREW TRAIL on samplers ,electronics ,synthesizers, loops, vocals and arabic, moroccan horn, and HUNTER BARR ,on bass guitar ,treatments and loops ,engineering and production. Knifeladder has been in existence since towards the end of 1997. Their sound has been at many times over the last few years referred to as Voodoo Industrial Power Electronics. A successful Knifeladder performance is meant to be a emotionally draining and cathartic. A friend of John´s once described their sound and overall performance approach as sort of "like being confronted by the ancient Scythian hordes rampaging over the Eurasian steppes at the end of the Bronze age ..1200 BC.

John also plays in the folk-noise group Foresta Di Ferro and records solo under the name Shining Vril. When John plays in Knifeladder he often does three things at once, playing drums, contributing dronish, hypnotic-orientated vocals and various forms of electronics, samples and live looping. It is extremely difficult to do, but somehow he manages to come out alive after each performance. Shining Vril is for the most part a recording experience. There have been only a few live performances. Shining Vril gives John freedom to do whatever he feels like. There is no sound-shape to the project. How to describe it? In John´s own words, "It tends to be in-between very dark ambient, industrial, some power electronics and Ritualistic, with a little dry Anglo-colonial humor thrown in."

Jonh was refused re-entry to the UK due to visa issues and he moved to Berlin. John is now exiled in Berlin and certainly makes the most out of it. I could think of worst places being exiled. To find out more about John and the bands, click on the highlighted names and it will bring you to their sites or pages with information.

Berlin Portraits: Mark Reeder

   I was in Berlin frantically running around with Chris Hughes filming interviews for Richard Lowenstein´s documentary about Rowland S. Howard. We met with Mark Reeder to do an interview. We had planned to do an interview somewhere outside in Kreuzberg since it was a nice day. We wanted to do it in a park and opted for sitting outside a pub/bar instead. Mark was very patient with me. I took far too long setting up the camera properly for the perfect composition. All I knew about Mark at that time was some connection with Lydia Lunch that I wanted to follow up with after I had interviewed her. Chris and I had more or less specific questions exploring Rowland S. Howard´s working relationship with Lydia. Mark was on tour with both of them and got to know them. At that time he worked as a sound engineer and was co-managing the all-girl band Malaria! They played support for Lydia and Rowland. Mark told many funny stories about being on the road with them. When we had finished the interview we went into the old style Berlin bar and I took this photo. I think it catches Mark´s impish nature in some way. Little did I know at the time, I had interviewed and photographed a Berlin historical character that had influenced Berlin music for three decades.

I knew the name Mark Reeder was familiar, but it wasn´t until several days after the interview did I realize who exactly we interviewed. He is known as one of the Godfathers of the early electronic music and gothic music scene. He is a musician and record producer. He started working for a Virgin Records in his native Manchester when he was 14 and it took off from there. He moved to Berlin in 1978 and has been an early pioneer of the electronic music scene . He is founded the electronic dance music label MFS, (which stands for "Masterminded For Success") The name MFS was actually taken from the initials of Ministry for State Security  otherwise known as the Stasi in East Germany. It is said that he coined the term trance music. He also discovered and guided the international DJ Paul Van Dyk. Mark's career has spanned over three decades. He has been a participant and behind the scenes influence for many now famous artists, spread over a wide cross section of contemporary musical genres.

There are too many things to write about Mark, I will try to get to the main points, but you can read more in his own words if you click on his highlighted name. Mark Reeder first formed the early punk band The Frantic Elevators in Manchester in early 1977. In 1978, he decided to leave England and moved to Berlin.  He became Factory Records German representative promoting the bands Joy Division and A Certain Ratio and at the same time worked as sound engineer and manager of Malaria! and Die Toten Hosen. In 1981 he formed the band "Die Unbekannten" along with Alistair Gray and Thomas Wydler that combined the best of new wave, gothic and post-punk music. In 1983, Mark helped put together the Berlin Special of The Tube, a popular and highly influential UK channel 4 TV pop programme. This show featured music from both sides of the walled city.  It was also the first time that a British TV crew had ever filmed a pop programme both in the GDR and West Berlin.  In 1984, "Die Unbekannten" changed their name to "Shark Vegas! " and toured Western Europe with New Order. Mark had contacts with the East berlin underground music scene and travelled a lot to East Berlin for concerts. He helped to smuggle Die Toten Hosen over to East Berlin for their two secret gigs in 1982 and 1988 (the 1982 gig being the first concert by a western punk band in East berlin, disguised as a religious service). In summer 1989, he was officially asked if he would produce the album Torture, for up-and-coming East German indie band "Die Vision" for the East German state owned record label AMIGA in East Berlin. This was probably the first East-West joint venture. Mark is recognized as the only Englishman ever to have make a record in the East, because literally days after finishing recording the album, the notorious Berlin wall fell.

Mark had made useful contacts at AMIGA the (now former) East German state owned record label, now renamed ZONG He managed to convince them to allow him to set up a new electronic dance label office in the "Abhoer Raum 101" situated in the building directly behind the Reichstag. In December 1990, Mark founded his own music record label "Masterminded For Success" or MFS as it became known. Mark had a gift for uncovering the hidden talents of many early techno and trance artists. As an artist himself, Mark was the creative driving force behind his labels, which provided a great platform for many young and then unknown artists. He ran both his labels with an unconventional approach and a passion rarely seen in the music industry. Reeder was deeply devoted to all his artists and was involved in almost every aspect of their musical productions, from their concept, recording and mastering, to PR texts, as well as their artistic cover-design ideas.

In 1993, a trance music documentary Berliner Trance was born, presented by Mark Reeder, directed by Ben Hardyment.Since then MFS have unwittingly pioneered in creating trends rather than following them, for example, in February 1992 MFS released the worlds first real Trance Compilation:Tranceformed from Beyond (this album comprised of specially remixed and sequenced tracks). It was also the first time, that a compilation had been created whereby the music continuously melted together without a pause - like a DJ mix - all tracks were specially remixed for the compilation by Cosmic Baby & or Mijk van Dijk.

In the meantime, Mark has returned to his own music production. He worked with German filmmaker Joerg Buttgereit on many of his film and theatre projects (In 1991, Mark starred in the Joerg Buttgereit splatter film Nekromantik 2.) Reeder has since remixed tracks for many well-known artists like the Pet Shop Boys, Sam Tazlor-Wood and Bad Lieutenant. In September 2009, he released a collaboration album of reworks of tracks by Blank & Jones called Reordered for which he rewrote and replayed all the tracks. This album features vocals by such artists as Robert Smith of The Cure, Steve Kilbey of The Church, Bernard Summer of Joy Division/New Order/Bad Lieutenant, Claudia Brueken of Propaganda and Anne Clark. Mark just keeps going and going like an Energizer battery working and creating. Listen to his music and read his own words by clicking on his highlighted name which will bring you to his site.