“Run her, my towhead grandchillen, and let this geezer dandle you upon his knee. Now let me set my old brain a-ruminatin’, ah, what upbuilding tale from days of yore shall I relate to today?” (Lester Bangs)

Wolfgang Burat sent me these photos yesterday, I had no idea that they existed: me at a concert of Palais Schaumburg, my first job for Spex magazine – standing next to Germany’s punk representative no. 1, Campino, singer of Die Toten Hosen (The Dead Trousers). Had no idea that he was there, too. As one can see, I was more a ‘new romantic’ than a punk back then. Right next to me Boris Löhe, who later became managing director of Mercury and then Columbia.