2025 - Hardly any hope left!

73 - Damn!

Les Paul & Tele - Bender

See you soon in Los Angeles at NAMM!

Trans Tremola

Les Trem on Dean Zelinsky!

göldo SL-Tuner

It's about time! Design, refinements, technology: here they are, our brand new, half-open, very own SL tuners. We hope they cause a stir at NAMM in Los Angeles in January!

A nice new arrival!

Delicate fragments of a 1962 Wandré Rock Bass. No frets, no binding, no bridge. But I'll get it back in shape, because it's the only model I'm missing in my collection. The body is made of padauk, the African hardwood that companies like Schecter didn't start using for Strat and Tele bodies until 20 years later. Mr. Pioli was always ahead of his time!

Marco Ballestri describes in his book about Wandré that Mr. Pioli was inspired to create this body shape when he observed his urine (very medically expressed!) for a while while peeing, as it passed the toilet seat and dripped into the toilet bowl.

Memphis-Design

Oh, how beautiful! Three designs by my friend Roland Hauke, Vienna – Memphis style. This has always been one of my favorite furniture designs. Take a look here: https://www.hauke-instruments.com/

And another new arrival:

Built 38 years ago and now bought back - a Duesenberg Starplayer from 1987, multi-color “dreadlook” sanded paint job. A real eye-catcher next to my Lady and the Di Donato-Custom!

Even more crazy - Bond Electraglide - 1985

My old dream is coming true after all!

As an old Les Paul Junior and P-90 fan, I've always wanted to reproduce this sound as perfectly as possible. There are replicas of these guitars, but unfortunately they are all too heavy. Here we have finally managed to bring this legendary sound back to life, with its incredible response and light weight. Our new Duesenberg (still a secret!) sounds even better to me, more open than the original. And according to various voices, this 57 here is one of the very best ever built!

Sitarizing

The time has come again, sitar sound on the Tele! Three tiltable, scale-compensated brackets made of ultra-hard, glass fiber-reinforced plastic. I'm certainly by no means the Indian master when it comes to producing this effect. But it rumbles and buzzes very typically, doesn't it?

Interestingly, the sitar sound can also be deactivated for each pair of strings by unscrewing the front grub screw and then tilting the trestle downwards. On the right are the two outer bumps without sitar function. And all three bumps down = Tele “normal” without sitar sound! And this super hard plastic provides excellent vibration transmission, see “graphtech”.

The civilized United States of America!

I love puns and have just come across an incident from 2014. This “Rob” spoke of the “civilized killing” below. It occurs to me today that Trump's seizure of power can very aptly be described as a “civilized coup d'état”. First mobilize everything to make people totally stupid, and then “strike”!

from 2014: Here's this incident that sheds a lot of light on the mentality of typical Americans:

We had dinner with Robert, one of Nathan's helpers, and told him about our upcoming trip to Mexico.

“Mexico? Are you insane? Mexico is super dangerous! They'll just kill you there!” Of course, we immediately countered: “Well Robert, the same thing could happen to you here in Los Angeles in a less affluent area!” Robert: “That's possible. But here they'll kill you in a civilized way!” Civilized killing, what a demented neologism! And Robert continued: “And how do you do that with the language?”

This hillbilly, who lives somewhere in Colorado, had simply failed to realize, due to a lack of schooling and his isolation in the deepest American Trump country side, that the Mexican national language is Spanish - Paloma's mother tongue, a beautiful language that I also speak well enough. We'll see what happens with this country!

And the latest: What borders Mexico and Canada? The stupidity!

Professor Heinrich Gesenius - Discovery of a delicate book!

I just happened to remember a funny story mentioned in the first chapter, “1964-1969: First Affinities,” about my parents and sex education at the time. I was looking for a specialist book written by to my mother's lover, which must have contained some “weird” things about sexual intercourse, including measures that my mother may have used to torment me. Unfortunately, I never got around to reading it, and after her death it was cleared out. Now I've found it in an antique bookshop and I'm going to investigate!

Here my story in the first chapter: Anyway, that was the time when the Stones, the Beatles or, a little later, the Spencer Davis Group or the Doors kicked my ass at night while I blasted their sounds into my ear canals with my transistor radio via small headphones. And I, uptight like most boys of my generation, had at least realized that as a musician you had far more chances with the girls. In any case, it was clear that music and everything connected with it seemed to open doors to other worlds (and not just to girls)!

And I finally had my first crush. But the girl didn't want me because I had no experience. I knew something, but not in detail, and my mother had only explained to me that the woman had a hollow between her legs. Then I acted like a stalker. Of course, it didn't help much, great misfortune with this girl!

My mother wasn't necessarily a prude. She had a relationship with a Professor Gesenius for years. He was the hospital doctor who delivered me by Caesarean section in Berlin in 1952. As she told me at some point, she always used to talk to him in third person (German polite form) - even during sexual intercourse!

This story must not have been easy for my father (a lawyer with the German Federal Railways). You always find out when things like that happen. But he wasn't a child of sadness either. After he left us, we found a notebook in which, among other things, it was noted “Negress - 25 pounds”. That certainly wasn't the lady's weight and at the time it wasn't politically correct to write “black” for a person's skin color. But back then, nobody had any objections to Negro kisses (these meringue-filled, chocolate-covered candy bombs) ... It was quite clear that the currency was the English pound sterling. And that must have been when I spent a short vacation in London with him. A father on the wrong track, while I was hanging around Carnaby Street taking photos of miniskirts.

Let's Toggle

Interesting toggle switch, manufactured by a German relay manufacturer.

Marco Nobach

Oh Marco, what would I do without you!

Marco works as a mechanic/precision engineer in a factory that manufactures connecting elements, mostly from stainless steel or titanium. Marco is also an old-school guitarist and, many years ago, not only had the idea of a trans tremolo based on the “Bigsby,” but actually made it a reality.

Last year, I returned to one of my ideas from 2017, a tremolo with a thick axis that has a notch for each string to modify its deflection depending on the string gauge (see here in chapter 2017). But even after several prototypes, the transification was still not as precise as I had hoped. So how could I determine the exact insertion depths for the E, A, D, G, and B strings, and ensure that it would still sound harmonious in a two-tone range, at least for strings 010 to 050 and 010 to 046, when the lever was pushed up or down?

This is where Marco came into play, whom I still remembered from back then and spontaneously called after a forensic search for his phone number. Of course, he still had the “project” on his guitar, basically the same technology as mine, but that was it, no further commercialization on his part. I described my specifications to him, such as axle diameter, string gauges, etc., and this ingenious precision engineering freak explained to me that he had calculated the insertion depths pretty accurately back then. Well, in a job like that, math is essential, but it's rather foreign to me.

So this genius Marco not only set about calculating all the values according to Duesenberg's specifications using his system, but also manufactured this shaft on the high-tech CNC company lathe (private botch job = outside working hours). We gave him a white Duesenberg TV-Phonic to work on, and the result was amazing. Wonderful tremolo harmony within more than 4 semitones, all built into our traditional tremolo housing.

And now we have a new project in the works, the first true wrap-around torsion tremolo. With Marco's help and ideas, it's going to be a really awesome tremolo!


Thanks to Trump, the Americans are losing money on the dollar, but they can continue to export their guitars etc. to Europe with zero customs duties, while our guitars are subject to 15% duty there. Thank you and congratulations, Ursula von der Leyen!

Asturias

How can I relate this extraordinary story to the guitar? We simply fled from Cádiz to our apartment in Madrid because of the heat and tourist crowds, and from there to Asturias in northern Spain, at least because of the heat. At that time, Asturias was the only province without heat and fire alerts, while large parts of Spain were in flames, with forest fires everywhere. In Madrid, the thermometer read over 40°C, compared to 19°C in the morning in this tiny, high-altitude village near Gijón.
At least I had a Duesenberg Fullerton Hollow with me. Three weeks of lazy relaxation were on the agenda, with occasional trips in the area, lots of guitar design on the computer, watching forest fires on TV in the evenings, and searching in vain for watchable TV series. In desperation, we enjoyed “The Boys” for the third time. And the Spanish series “Sky Rojo” – well worth watching!

Bilbao - Iñaki Antón

Back to the guitar! Before heading back to Madrid, we made a detour to Bilbao to visit our friend Iñaki Antón, guitarist with the band Extremoduro, who were superstars in Spain and South America until they split up in 2019. Iñaki is the proud owner of a considerable collection of Duesenberg guitars.

And as well as being an excellent guitarist and composer, Iñaki is also a great lover of fish and seafood. So he took us to a very special marisquería on our last day.

Upon entering, you are greeted by an endlessly wide, glass-fronted counter displaying every imaginable type of seafood. You order what you want, pay immediately and take your order outside to the terrace, where you can enjoy a sweeping view of the coast and the choppy sea, along with a large, heavy loaf of top-quality white bread.
Soon, the first delicacies are served, all totally fresh, pure, top-quality ingredients.

The only things not from the sea were, of course, the bread and a plate of tomatoes of such intense color and aroma that they are rarely found. I'm raving about it and don't want to keep this experience from you!

Updates!

There's something else I don't want to keep from you. I'm currently reading the biography of Mike Campbell, Tom Petty's guitarist, which I find extremely inspiring.

I've already talked about my musical beginnings in the first few chapters of my website, but everything is very, very condensed. Mike tells a lot more about his early days playing guitar, sore fingertips, other difficulties, drugs, and his first encounters with fellow musicians. I had all of that too, but I think it's worth talking about in more detail.

In his biography, Mike also writes very openly about his experiences with drugs, girls, weirdos, etc. And I see and understand this, my website here, as the biography of my life. And you can publish that much more vividly as a digital “blog” than by simply printing it on paper in a book!

And while reading this, I suddenly remembered lots of old stories that hadn't yet been put down on paper (MacBook), so I felt compelled to write down, for example, a story about a summer in Amsterdam that was saturated with drugs for almost three weeks. I included this in my first chapter, “First Affinities,” but I don't want to deprive you of it here in the course of this terrible year 2025. Because once you've read the first chapters, you won't necessarily look back at them again.

Also, our meeting with Eddie Van Halen in 1982, combined with a beautiful Los Angeles LSD story that I had finished a long time ago, but which my guys from the company “forbade” me to include at the time. I wasn't allowed to associate such drug stories with our company! What nonsense! That was just the time back then when everyone was taking all kinds of drugs, and it has (unfortunately) nothing to do with today, 2025.

Here we go with the old stories:

1964

What's more, even now, at almost 70 years of age, I still consider myself to be “hyperactive.” I'm sure it annoyed my parents, but back then it wasn't considered a “medical condition” for which children are given pills to curb their energy. From the very beginning, I hated wasting time. I always had to do something active to get through the day, something that filled the void, something that could be considered a success in an otherwise meaningless daily routine. For example, on vacation on the Adriatic coast: my parents lay stupidly on their sun loungers on the beach to let themselves get a tan, and I went behind the empty space between the beach and the hotel line to catch lizards, of which there were plenty. I then took them with me in a cardboard box on the train and put them in my terrarium at home. At least that gave life some meaning! I just couldn't do NOTHING. And that's how it has remained to this day. And then came the thing with music.

Music was a trump card for me right from the start. Even the first children's songs like “Im Frühtau zu Berge” appealed to me. There was nothing else anyway. At the age of four, I learned to play the recorder in a children's group. Well, except for well-played transverse flutes, flutes have remained a thorn in my side to this day. They only produce stupid, unmodulable tones. And the Spanish very disrespectfully call a hippie type who sits on the street with his dog and flute a “Perro-Flauta.” A flute simply has no musical or aesthetic value! Spare us!

Having just moved, shortly before elementary school, I heard the older brother of a roommate and future schoolmate playing a guitar banjo. The sound of the six strings on the soundboard, albeit brief, immediately blew me away. And another “bigger” brother of another friend even played the guitar as if it were nothing. It sounded great and motivating to me, although it wasn't until much later that I realized he had tuned his guitar “open” and was thus able to tone at least all major chords without much finger effort.

Fortunately, my parents had recognized that music played an important role in my life. A brief interlude in the trombone choir of our Protestant church—the trombone is almost as bad as the flute! Finally, at the age of 13, I started taking guitar lessons from a private teacher. I was given an acoustic guitar, and I still remember its unpleasant smell of cold tobacco smoke. The teacher was a smoker, like most musicians to this day. So, the first chords, sore fingertips, the string action of this instrument wasn't exactly ideal either. But that's how it is for everyone who starts playing the guitar: pain at first. After “Im Frühtau zu Berge” (E, A & H), we soon moved on to “The House of the Rising Sun.” Wow, that included A minor, then C, D, and F (even played as a barre chord), and finally E. Once you could do that, you had already learned a lot. And your fingertips became harder and harder.

The very first kick:

Just before the Beatles and the Stones, I got my very first kick: in the mid-60s, the music series Nashville Stars On Tour was on TV. Among the artists featured there were a certain Anita Kerr Quartet, Bobby Bare, Jim Reeves, and especially Chet Atkins. He played instrumentals and occasionally used his Bigsby tremolo. That really blew me away. Not simply the sound of this electric guitar itself, but also the effect of the tremolo. The guitar lessons had come to an end. I absolutely had to have my own guitar! At least my parents made a rather modest investment by giving me a Klira Wandergitarre, model “Triumphator.”

And back to those early years: Suddenly, The Last Time by the Rolling Stones came blaring out of my transistor radio. My parents always sent me to bed early. So I hid my radio in the closet and moved a thin cable between the floorboards to my bed so I could listen to music for a long time with headphones without being noticed. It was perfectissimo for spending the time before falling asleep in a delightful way. Soon came The Doors with Light My Fire and the Stones again with Satisfaction, innovative, rocking music that went far beyond the pop hits of the time, such as Schuld war simply der Bossanova by Manuela, a pretty young singer—a fundamental change in my life. Soon I had my own Telefunken tape recorder and used it to record all these songs with a microphone.

And I played guitar on the Triumphator, short scale, red burst. It was okay for learning at first. Barré was the new magic word, every chord in any position, if you placed your index finger wide across the entire fretboard. But it was much more important to be able to hear the chords of my favorite songs. I soon internalized the “secret” system of “tonic, dominant, and subdominant,” which was the basis of practically all simple compositions, e.g., A, D, E, or C, F, G! And there were many more variations, such as A minor in “House of the Rising Sun” or going down from A to G or from E to D. Little by little, I was able to hear all these chords in various songs myself, which was an extremely important step!

And I also wanted that tremolo effect. So I rode my bike to “Musikhaus Schwartz” and ordered a tremolo to be installed. The elderly Mr. Schwartz probably thought that “this young person” was a little crazy, but he did it. Suddenly, a chrome-plated, Jazzmaster-like tremolo was perched on my Klira. Finally, I was able to imitate at least a little bit of the aforementioned Chet Atkins.

I didn't have a pickup yet. I just remember inserting the microphone of my Telefunken tape recorder into the body above the sound hole and then using the Telefunken's playback and recording functions to create really cool delay effects. Sounds like Velvet Underground. And soon the Framus pickup arrived. With it, you could generate previously unimagined distortion effects via the tape recorder. My friend Norbert Requard then built me my first tube amplifier (18 watts – EL84) and wired the pickup, potentiometer, and jack for me. Of course, I had no idea about such things back then. However, this amplifier often broke down, which earned my friend the nickname “Norbert Reklam.”

In any case, I achieved everything I wanted to achieve and am already revealing another crucial insight into my character here. I think I've always followed the same pattern from the beginning: When I was into something, I made it my own. Listening to music >>> making music. Later: reading a lot >>> writing books myself. At the same time: eating well >>> cooking well myself! Playing guitar >>> making guitars
!

The girls

I, uptight like most boys of my generation, had at least realized that as a musician (which I now desperately wanted to become), you had far better chances with girls. I quickly realized that music and everything associated with it seemed to open doors to other worlds (and not simply to girls).

And finally, I had my first crush. But the girl didn't want me because I had no experience. I knew something, but not in detail, and my mother had only explained to me that women have a hollow between their legs. Then I acted like a stalker. Of course, that didn't help matters, and I was very unhappy with this girl!

My mother wasn't necessarily prudish. She had a relationship with a Professor Gesenius for years. He was the hospital doctor who delivered me by Caesarean section in Berlin in 1952. As she told me at some point, she always addressed him formally – even during sexual intercourse!

This story must not have been easy for my father (a lawyer with the German Federal Railways). You always hear about things like that when they happen. But then again, he was no stranger to scandal himself. After he passed away, we found a notebook in which, among other things, was written “Negress – 25 pounds.” That was certainly not the weight of this lady, and at that time, it was not yet politically correct to write “black” to describe a person's skin color. But back then, no one had any objections to “Negerküsse” (literally “Negro kisses”)... Clearly, it was the English currency, the pound sterling. And that must have been when I spent a short vacation with him in London. A father gone astray, while I hung out on Carnaby Street and took pictures of miniskirts.

Petards Fan-Club

One of our classmates came from Marburg, where the band “The Petards” were at least local heroes. A really good band with a brilliant drummer who always played impressive drum solos on his double bass drum set, which was celebrated at the time, but which soon annoyed me – drum solos = wasted time! Anyway, we founded the Petards fan club with a few other enthusiasts. What times!

1967

So! I learned to play the guitar a little, I was also reasonably good at singing, I was a huge fan of Steve Winwood (Spencer Davis Group), so now it was time to start a band!
My first band, “The Message”, was soon together and I switched to an Egmond guitar from Holland, a special offer from the Brinkmann music store in Hanover. “You can play anything with this!” A kind of “offset” Jazzmaster with three pickups, a rotary switch for pickup selection, and faux leather cover. That was exactly when psychedelic music started to take off, with bands like Pink Floyd, Electric Prunes, etc. The Beatles also brought the sitar into the musical scene.
And I—like most of my generation—was not averse to all kinds of drugs and developed a strong affinity for psychedelic music, as it came to us at that time via Pink Floyd, The Doors, Electric Prunes, etc. So my first commercial activity at the age of 17 was selling hashish before school and in Hanover's old town. But that didn't last too long, and I switched mentally and musically to the Spencer Davis Group. Stevie Winwood—also just 18 years old—what an incredible singer, guitarist, pianist, and Hammond organ player! This man was absolutely brilliant, but then—surely under the heavy influence of drugs—he switched to psychedelic music a little later with his band Traffic, where, in my opinion, his musical qualities came into play a little less.


This reminds me that one day my mother discovered a tin box with about 20 grams of hashish in my room and immediately made an appointment for me to see a neurologist to look for ‘counseling.’ He told me all sorts of nonsense about ‘dangerous drug use,’ which went in one ear and out the other.


Throughout my life, not simply were guitars extremely important to me, but also cooking and eating. My mother (although a Berliner) was not a good cook. Holy Joseph, when I simply think back to the fish she used to serve. Completely overcooked, dry protein fibers that you put in your mouth and chewed on until there was simply nothing left in your throat but a round, hard lump that you just couldn't send down your esophagus. Or the same thing with liver! Veal liver fried on the point in butter (preferably with sage) can be a real delicacy, but if you fry it too long, it becomes like a shoe sole and absolutely inedible. In any case, I often hung around in the kitchen out of discontent. My first activities were experiments with pancakes, more flour, less flour, beaten egg whites folded in, baking powder added, etc. And how to move them from one side to the other most easily, triple somersaults in the kitchen with a few splashes of butter on the floor.

But what was my stupid mother thinking? “There's something wrong with that boy! Why is he always in the kitchen? He must be gay!” But that was simply the beginning. I'll jump ahead in time here and say that soon after, I started dating my first girlfriends (“aha, the boy isn't gay after all!”). Of course, they would call and ask, “Can I speak to Dieter?” And the first one she suspected I had hooked up with, she took it upon herself to say to him, "My Dieter has such weak nerves. It's not good for him if you have too much traffic there! Don't overwhelm him!" Just imagine that, the impertinence, the lack of distance, the monstrosity of that war and pre-war generation! I just wanted to get away from there as quickly as possible!

Oh yes, the girls. How young we were, 15, 16 or so? Around 1968, still far too young and far too uptight. We masturbated at night in bed with feelings of guilt or at least with the certainty that we were doing something forbidden. Then it started with parties at someone's house, a place with no parents around, or every other Saturday there were dance parties at the clubhouse of our rowing club on Hanover's Maschsee lake. Suddenly, this new, exciting beat music appeared – or could you already call it rock music? Nights In White Satin or A Whiter Shade of Pale were always the coveted triggers for pressing our bodies against the respective girl while dancing closely. This led to the first smooching, which could lead to ejaculation when rubbing against each other vigorously. What excitement in the erotic realm!

I still remember one situation to this day: We, that is, my friend Herb and I, had been invited to a party somewhere, and somehow we ended up in a side room with a girl, the three of us alone. I simply remember that her last name was Fittkau, because that last name evoked associations with fucking and chewing. Herb, me, and her sprawled out on a sofa, and while we took turns kissing her, this girl started unzipping our jeans and fiddling with what was hidden underneath. It was actually a hot situation. This girl was really looking for adventure. But neither Herb nor I were capable or able to develop anything even more erotic out of it. We idiots should have just gone for it with her. You only get to that stage at a more advanced age. But we were both virtually paralyzed by our damn inhibitions, caused by the damn upbringing of our damn parents, incapable of anything more. Damn it! But those were the beginnings.

At the same time, I had started smoking secretly. At night, I would squeeze myself between the curtain and the open window of my bedroom, look out into the night, and for the first time feel a sense of freedom, a vague certainty that at least for a moment I could do what I wanted. And that was the point, my goal: I wanted to be able to do or let what I wanted as soon as possible, no longer dependent on parents, school, church, authority, whatever... I needed to find people like me!

1969

My musical preferences changed and I quickly had the next band lined up: “Kaffee Am Kröpcke,” which, as a café and bakery, was an extremely important landmark in our provincial capital. And our new band: a combo with saxophone, stylistically oriented towards Bloodwin Pig, Keith Hartley, and similar musical adventurers, paired with psychedelic spheres that I brought to the table. We were right on trend.

I think it's fair to say that I've managed to influence those closest to me throughout my life. And in the same way, I introduced what I was into in this band, initially against the resistance of our drummer: psychedelic spheres. And the drummer eventually gave in, although he now plays in an AC/DC cover band. Psychedelic not only because we were simply very trendy, but also in keeping with the use of various drugs at the time.

And to take the psychedelic vibe a step further, I took apart my Egmond, which unfortunately was good for nothing else, peeled off the faux leather cover, painted the plywood body with neon paint, and instead of the bridge, I put a curved, oval tin lid from a medicine jar on top, and voilà, the guitar-sitar was complete. These were the very beginnings of my guitar tinkering, coupled with my first frustrations with the quality of cheap instruments.

I'll tell you more about my hashish dealing later, but anyway, we all smoked a lot of joints and, with our heads full of weed, came up with all kinds of hippie-esque compositions and arrangements. Yes!

1968 - Amsterdam

It must have been mid-1968, during the summer holidays of my last year of school before graduating. Amsterdam was the place to be; everyone, or at least all music lovers and hashish users, wanted to go there, to the “promised land of hippies.” Me too, of course! I hitchhiked from Hanover towards the Dutch border and realized shortly before reaching it that I had unfortunately let my ID at home. On top of that, I had about 25 grams of hashish in my backpack, the best Afghan hash, purchased in Hanover at a good price. That was supposed to cover my living expenses for the next few weeks, because I didn't have much money with me.

Clearly, without an ID, they wouldn't let me cross the border. Shortly before Enschede, I thanked the friendly person who had given me a ride and got out. Simply fields, meadows, and rows of trees were in sight. And somewhere back there had to be Holland.

Wearing the standard Bundeswehr parka of the time and with my map in my hands, I waded across this flat terrain and eventually came to a small stream that seemed to mark the border. Damn, there was no bridge or anything like that in sight. Why would there be bridges over a border stream? So I had to force myself to wade through it.

The stream wasn't deep, but the water wasn't clear, simply a dark brown, thin mud. I took off my shoes and socks, rolled up my pants, and stepped in. Suddenly, I slipped, and the stinking mud stuck to my pant legs and the bottom of my parka. I stank like a pig!

Now that I had actually arrived in Holland, I dragged myself across meadows and fields to the next village, where I immediately entered the first restaurant and slipped unnoticed into the bathroom. There I washed the mud off my pants, parka, and legs as best I could and crept out, at least less smelly, and headed for the main road, where I immediately stuck out my thumb again. The Dutch seemed to be nice, helpful people, no one seemed to be bothered by my lingering stench, and little by little I made it to the promised land of Amsterdam that same day.

I had heard that there were these “Sleep Inns,” so I asked a few people, whom I also successfully offered some hashish for sale, where the nearest one was. What friendly, social places to stay in this paradise crisscrossed by canals! For very little money, you could spend the night in a sleeping bag on a floor mat, and there were even drinks and snacks. “Dat kost je twee gulden tachtig in een dubbele plastic zak” = A slice of toast with hagelslag and a cup of tea cost 2 guilders 80, double bagged. “Hagelslag” was small, colorful sprinkles like chocolate sprinkles, simply not made of chocolate.

At this Sleep Inn, I took a shower, changed my clothes, and took my muddy stuff and parka to a laundromat. This also allowed me to sell another two grams of stuff to the freaks. That was my creative system back then, which would continue to prove itself over decades: you buy something cheap, sell it at a fair profit, use as much of the proceeds as possible to buy more new stuff, and use the rest to cover your living expenses as best you can!

I spent almost three weeks in Amsterdam, about which I can remember simply little because I was so stoned. One night at the Sleep Inn, I made love to a very pretty girl in my sleeping bag, and almost every day I went to a Chinese restaurant with my sales profits, eagerly devouring nasi goreng or bami goreng and drinking tea rather than beer. At the Milky Way (one of the hottest live clubs there at the time), I saw an Amon Düül concert, which you could really only endure if you were simply completely stoned. And the next day, Mighty Baby played at the legendary Paradiso, and I was really impressed by them.

Mighty Baby

At DAMM Square, I sometimes grabbed a guitar from someone to strum around. And I bought increasing amounts of hashish, almost always from guys who came back from Morocco in their VW bus and brought these oval, approx. 20 cm long and 15 mm thick, fragrant green slabs to market from hidden cavities.

In another Sleep Inn, I had to go to the bathroom and unfortunately let my wallet with all kinds of loose change on my sleeping bag. It was gone, lo and behold, the freaks steal too when in doubt! And I began to worry a little about the state of my mind. Enough now! So I wandered through the alleys and canals for two days and sold all of my large Moroccan flatbread to people. After that, I took the train back to Hanover without my army parka, but with a good chunk of money and two small Moroccan bongo drums, without any drug or ID checks. Lucky me!

I completely renounced my Amsterdam trading business and moved to small transports and clearing out properties – see next chapter. I invested the proceeds from the business in the purchase of an old Ford Transit.

But I have nothing against drugs! Consumed in reasonable amounts, they can also open your mind in a very positive way, especially if you belong to the uptight post-war generation.

1971-1972

Despite having plenty of time on my hands, I soon gave up on my big dream of becoming a famous musician. To be precise, after I had to report to a banana steamer at five in the morning with some band members in Bremerhaven shortly after graduating from high school in the fall of 1972 due to a perpetual lack of money, in order to unload Chicita cartons—the yellow bananas onto the animal feed pallets, the green ones for further sale. The job I had originally aimed for in an American club had come to nothing. We weren't bad at all – soul music with all kinds of Billy Preston numbers, etc.

Besides, I was still more of a “rhythm guitarist.” I could play some solos, but never as brilliantly as Eric Clapton or Mick Taylor, for example. I lacked not simply speed, but also a skillful vibrato while bending the strings. “Di,di, di,di,da,la,da” in eighth note steps didn't come easily to me. But I, basically rather lazy, continued to practice anyway.

Besides, I didn't find it desirable to play well-known songs by other groups. That's what you play as a clown in a “cover band,” but you'll never become famous that way. If anything, then something of your own! But achieving success with that is all the more difficult.

Suddenly, an Udo Lindenberg celebrated huge and extremely remarkable successes with songs like “Alles klar auf der Andrea Doria” or “Gerhard Gösebrecht,” etc. This ingeniously cool Udo had hit the nail on the head: awesome rock music with German lyrics! German pop lyrics had always seemed embarrassing to me, even unbearable. And putting our German language into a rock guise seemed virtually impossible before. But that was certainly also due to the deep-rooted guilt of our post-war generation about Hitler's past. The English and the Americans had simply shown us what rock is and how the language should sound.

Yet 98% of music consumers probably didn't understand a word of what was being sung in English. And if you take a closer look at the lyrics of some English-language global hits, it's enough to simply make you want to throw up. Most of it: stupid, banal love stuff, just like what was churned out in German, even by the highly acclaimed Beatles, whom I never really liked. And more sophisticated songs by Bob Dylan or the Stones left simply their melodies and a few phrases that didn't convey anything of the actual lyrics to anyone. “Satisfaction” – most people probably thought it had something to do with masturbation. Yes, “free jerking off!” And all of that is still the case today and will always remain so! Music was the trump card, but its content was “irrelevant”!

But I saw an opportunity in “Rock auf Deutsch” (Rock in German). Back in Hanover, I wrote a few songs like “Hallo Herr Frankenstein, bau'n Sie mir 'ne Frau” (Hello Mr. Frankenstein, build me a woman), “Ausgerechnet in der Heiligen Nacht hast Du's mit 'ner andern gebracht” (Of all nights, on Christmas Eve you did it with another woman) or a masochistic traffic warden song “Fräulein im blauen Dress, ich liebe Dich so sehr” (Miss in the blue dress, I love you so much). Everything was recorded with a 4-channel TEAK tape machine. The musicians involved were: Fargo Peter on bass (then Fargo), Werner Löhr (ex-Scorpions drummer), and Arndt Schulz (then Harlis) on guitar.

Here, please, Dr. Frankenstein:

It became apparent that my German vocal articulation was slightly reminiscent of Lindenberg's. In order to send my songs to the record companies more effectively, I even let them be re-recorded by the Hanover soul singer Rüdiger Lange (Roger Lang), who performed them masterfully without the Udo accent.

Not bad at all. Even the Hamburg record company TELDEC at the time signaled their interest. Unfortunately, the manager in charge was fired shortly afterwards, so nothing came of it. Besides that, I simply received standard replies saying, “Within the framework of our current production planning, we unfortunately blah, blah, blah ...”

I didn't want to appear as an artist, I simply wanted to sell my songs so that they could be published by some well-known singer. Because there was and still is a demand for composers and lyricists.

This songwriting project of mine later gave rise to my band “Otto's Ohrwurm” in Würzburg and then the band “Schulzrock” in Göttingen. “Now finally in German!” The latter slogan was adapted from the very first German music magazine, “Riebes Fachblatt”, which later became “Das Fachblatt” and then “Gitarre & Bass”. Hans Riebesehl, a former roadie, was the editor who distinguished himself with very informative articles on the German rock music scene. It was a revolutionary magazine at the time, but the classifieds section also contained macho content such as: “Groupies constantly wanted for testing!” Funny back then, but today it would cause a shitstorm!

1982 – Rockinger USA – Tru Tune Tremolo, Bernard Ayling, LSD

Unfortunately, Mr. Floyd D. Rose had not been sleeping either, but had developed a fine-tuning tremolo independently of us. We heard about this at an opening party for Musicians Place “MP,” a music store in Hanover. Hiob, the bearer of bad news, was in this case Frank Untermayer, an employee of the Hamer company. And Hiob Frank added: “Kramer intends to end its collaboration with Rockinger in order to do business simply with Floyd Rose in the future.” It's a small world... Züli and I immediately flew to Kramer in New Jersey, USA, to get to the bottom of the rumors. The Kramers naturally tried to deny everything, or at least downplay it. But by chance, we discovered a reference to the upcoming Floyd offensive on a pinboard. It all sounds like a spy thriller, I know...

Coincidence: Also in New Jersey, and in Asbury Park of all places, located right next to the Kramer factory, was a hip vintage guitar dealer named Bernard Ayling, who had occupied part of our booth at the Frankfurt trade fair. He spoke fluent German because he had lived in Saarland for twelve years as the son of an American occupation soldier. We visited him without further ado and explained our situation to him. And lo and behold, he immediately offered to take over the US distribution of our tremolos.
After all, the Kramers had given us a phone number for Eddie's management in Los Angeles, so we promptly booked a flight to the West Coast.

The only real address we had in L.A. was that of a friend of our bass specialist Henner Malecha, whom I had already mentioned. This Angela “Angie” lived in a dilapidated but beautiful Spanish house on Whitley Terrace in the Hollywood Hills with a film producer who was somehow stranded there. So Micha and I drove there in our rental car and rang the doorbell. The guy who opened the door, looking a little confused, must have been the producer. He politely asked us to come back in a few hours because he was on acid and it wasn't the right time. “Okay, okay, we'll come back later!” So we drove back down to Hollywood to the parking lot of a liquor store. We hung out there, got a few bags of chips and who knows what else, and simply watched the people. It had a kind of LSD-like quality, this bustle of hectic figures, a few completely wasted guys, then now and then a convertible with some yuppies, drug dealers—typical California.

Then we took a little drive and went back up to Whitley Terrace. His name was Dennis, and he had pretty much come down from his trip. Angela was there too, a really hot blonde. Yes, there was a free room with two beds on the first floor. We could stay there. They were also happy about the supply of beer cans we had brought with us, because their fridge was pretty empty.

Dennis seemed to be completely broke. On the way back, we bought a load of food and drinks and then made ourselves comfortable with the two of them. There was an amazing view of L.A. from the terrace, and every now and then a hummingbird would buzz in to the drinking station attached to a terrace post especially for it, hovering almost silently, beautifully exotic in the air, sucking water from the glass tube with its long, thin beak, like a large moth or an oversized hummingbird. Where else can you see a hummingbird! These little propeller animals are just incredibly bizarre.
L.A. in summer: It was so warm at night that you didn't even need to cover yourself. The next day, we all went on a little tour together, which led to a barbecue party somewhere further up in the mountains. We let ourselves have a good time there, then drove back to the Spanish house in the late afternoon. Dennis disappeared for a moment. He soon returned, opened his right hand, and we saw four square pieces of LSD blotting paper.

.Wow, I hadn't taken any drugs for years! And my last acid trip, back in 1972, had been pretty unpleasant. But never mind! Okay, okay, pop them under your tongue and see what happens! We drank a few beers, and at some point it started. I looked down from above at the tops of two eucalyptus trees planted below the house, swaying in the gentle breeze, and from one moment to the next I felt like I couldn't focus on the leaves properly. But it was different, more like they were changing from light to dark. And then the smoke from my Winston cigarette took on an incredible plasticity, and I said to the three of them, “Look at the smoke, what incredible plasticity!” This immediately triggered an extreme fit of laughter in all of them. The LSD took effect, this state, suddenly it's there, without it being possible to define the moment of its onset. The brain's ability to select is largely switched off; every event is not simply recorded but also processed intensively. You can no longer simply let your gaze wander; elaborate associations arise from the most insignificant things, and even completely irrelevant sentences or events transcend into a new meaning. Everything is processed according to your current state of mind, which means that, in principle, you feel just as good or bad as you would if you hadn't taken anything. If you're in a good mood, everything seems absolutely perfect on acid; if your mood is bad, everything seems very, very bad. This can result in horror trips with severe anxiety and possibly permanent damage.

Actually, you shouldn't put yourself in unpredictable situations when on LSD. But Dennis suggested driving up to the Griffith Observatory. They were doing laser shows in the dome. Well, we were pretty messed up, but reality was still real—to put it in trippy terms. I continued to focus a little on the eucalyptus leaves pulsating deep below, then we made our way to the car, Dennis drove and I watched the city lights with fascination. Soon we turned into a winding avenue lined with plane trees that led up to the observatory. Oh my, the bark of these trees was like mirror reflections, this light and dark, everything as if you were driving through a tunnel with video animation on the sides. Finally, we ended up at the top of a parking lot and walked from there up to the observatory, where there was this incredibly long line in front of the ticket office. But it didn't matter. We joined the line, chatted, laughed like crazy, and watched the action. A thousand people bustling about, spilling out of the line and back in again, from left to right, from right to left, shifting shadows. That's when I came up with this trip saying: “Well, every line has its order!”

On LSD, everything takes much longer than when you're not on LSD. But eventually, after what seemed like an eternity, it was our turn to buy tickets and we were finally able to enter the sacred dome of the observatory. Looking back, I have to say that without the blotting paper, it might not have been so great, especially since a cop with a loaded machine gun was standing in a restricted area a few meters in front of us, keeping order and watching the crowd. But eventually, the spectacle began. To the sound of Toto's “Rosanna,” colorful laser formations spiraled into the dome of the observatory, colors in full force, and we were fascinated. Acoustic perception intensifies immensely in such huge vaults.
After what seemed like an eternity, the show was over and we made our way outside. On acid, you don't lose your social skills—quite the opposite, in fact—but this “sharing spaces of any kind with others”—in this case, with nearly a thousand mainly Americans who had come up here to watch the lasers and were now spreading out again in the outdoor area or disappearing in groups toward the parking lots—is simply more problematic than when you're not on drugs. Could they tell that you'd taken something? Or what would you do if you got into a fight with some idiot? But, okay, okay, all four of us were well-behaved people. After taking a few more elaborate hikes around the observatory with its optimal view of L.A., we staggered back to the car.

I opened the doors and let myself fall onto the back seat. The seat felt kind of shitty. I reached out with my fingers and suddenly noticed a bunch of tiny glass shards. Damn it, some pissed-off street gang members had smashed a window of our sedan. Confused, I jumped out of the car and explained the situation to the other three. Dennis, as a frequent traveler, seemed to be the first to grasp the situation. “Something must be missing!” Of course, they hadn't broken into our car for no reason. And then it dawned on me, fed up! Unfortunately, in our confused state, we had forgotten that our camera bag was clearly visible on the back seat. But those were earthly things, completely irrelevant. Our camera bag! “They wanted the camera!” Dennis confirmed several times like he was possessed. It was really annoying, not simply because the nice SLR camera was gone, but also because some rolls of film we had shot on the East Coast were gone. Fortunately (see positive vibes), I had put the last roll of film with the “Eddie photos” in my suitcase, as if I had a premonition. So in the end, it wasn't so bad.

The acid had taken a back seat to this incident, but now it was building up again. We continued to talk about the subject and quickly got into a new, positive vibe. It got to the point where we got carried away with the idea that Dennis could make a great movie about this incident, that the script was already written, so to speak, and that he would achieve new, unexpected Hollywood success. Well, the next day we went to the police, filed a report, and later—back in good old Germany—we even got our camera replaced by the insurance company. 

The big US error

I thought they only shot Democrats in the US, but now they're killing fascists too over there. What a country!