From the Sponti underground to the “King of Germany”. One of the greats of the German music scene is being ceremoniously honored
The yellow poster with black block letters looks a bit like the Hamburg “Starclub”. Rock’n’roll look for a “talent of the German music scene of the century” who would have celebrated his 75th birthday on January 9, 2025.
The gala announced in this way in the Berliner Volksbühne at Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz is dedicated to Ralph Christian Möbius alias Rio Reiser, who died far too early in August 1996 at the age of just 46.
The year before, “Rolling Stone” had rated his last solo album “Heaven and Hell” from March 1995. “No one in Germany writes such true, sincerely radical and relatable texts as this melancholic minstrel,” it said. The following May, the singer, who was already in poor health, went on another music tour.
His early oeuvre had long since grown to include hits and ballads such as “King of Germany”, “Junimond” and “Forever and You”. This tour would be his last. In the retreat in Fresenhagen, Reiser finally succumbed to a circulatory collapse.
“Great German Songbook”
In the early 1970s, Moebius, who later changed his name to Reiser, and his band Ton, Stein, Scherber brought a raw poetry to the squatter and street fighter scene. Text and sound have long been part of the “Great German Songbook,” if there were one. The context of the “Rauch Haus Song” from the 1971 album “No Power for Nobody” is now contemporary history, combined with grainy, black and white images. The harsh music, it lives on.
So it’s only logical that the Volksbühne paid homage to Reiser’s 75th as a song recital (which is already sold out).
Under the patronage of Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth (who was the band manager for some time in the late Scherben phase), it is supposed to be a “dazzling evening full of musical highlights”.
On stage in constant rotation: The 2025 line-up of Ton, Steine, Scherben, Selig singer and Reiser admirer Jan Plewka and the Black and Red Salvation Army, Irrlichter, Mieze Katz from MIA, actor-singer Alexander Scheer, Bernadette La Hengst , Sebastian Krumbiegel, Ella Josephine Ebsen, Florian Paul as well as Stoppok and The Chapel of Last Hope.
“Rio Reiser Square”
Three other book and material collections were also published around Reiser’s 75th: by Reclam Verlag Werk and Vita in the “100 Seiten” series (by Hannes Eyber/Jens Johler), and also by Reclam “Rio Reiser: Forever and you. Lyrics” and “Rio Reiser: I want to be me. Selected song lyrics”, compiled by Gunther Buskies at Ventil Verlag.
What’s left to say except pay homage to him?
Where, after a long period of bureaucratic back-and-forth, the old Heinrichplatz in the middle of the old Kreuzberg postal district 36 bears his name. The man belongs to the canon of the republic. His name has been announced on BVG buses since late summer 2021: “Rio Reiser Platz”.