Günter Zint, 79, can say of himself: "I took maybe 80,000 photos in the Star Club, over 1,000 of them by John Lennon alone." Today the photographer keeps such and other treasures a good 500 meters away from the former location of the West German music club, which was the most important in the 1960s, in the Sankt Pauli Museum. This is now threatened by closure at the end of March 2020 due to a rent increase.
The founder of the Star Club was Manfred Weißleder, born in 1928. He had made money with sex shops in St. Pauli, liked the new music from England and the USA and rented the traditional star cinema in Große Freiheit 39. It opened there he founded the Star Club on April 13, 1962.
"The need is over," it said on posters. "The time of village music is over. On April 13th the Star Club will open the Rock'n'Twist parade." That was an ambitious announcement. White leather dreamed of opening the "most famous club in the world," as he told musicians. The Beatles played at the opening. When 1200 were in there, no one was let in.
Günter Zint: I thought the bands were all great and didn't think the Beatles were so outstanding. The Beatles were loud and fun like all bands. With 30 watt vox amplifiers - which every ghetto blaster has today - they have sounded the whole room. But sometimes the audience was louder than the music. A silhouette of New York shone behind the stage, painted by the backdrop painter Erwin Ross, who was legendary in the neighborhood. One day Manfred Weißleder came up to me and said: You can take photos, I absolutely need photos for the showcases on the street. That's how I became the Star Club's house photographer. I photographed the bands, my wife was at the cash register and also sold my photos. Our slogan: "You too can have your stars at home." When white leather, the slit ear, realized that I was making money with the photos, he took 60 marks a month from me for the use of the showcases.
White leather was the father of the star club. He had the idea, he had the money, he booked the big stars like Ray Charles and brought them to Hamburg.
Zint: He looked more like an official from the tax office, was a good administrator. With his puff called "Red Cat" and with restaurants, he made a lot of money in the neighborhood and thus financed the Star Club, which was a losing business. Music, that was Weißeder's passion, his life.
In the beginning it was rock'n'roll: Bill Haley played in the Star Club from September 24th to October 7th, 1962. Admission was two marks, and white leather paid. Little Richard followed in the fall of '62. And there came Chuck Berry, Ray Charles, the Everly Brothers, Gene Vincent, Chubby Checker, Bo Diddley, Jerry Lee Lewis. The pantheon of rock'n'roll.
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Hamburg Star Club: "They were buddies, not stars"The Beatles were also rock'n'rollers back then. They wore black leather pants and leather jackets, had oiled Elvis rags and played there for 79 days in the first year of the Star Club. Two to three sets of one hour a night. They are said to have taken Preludin properly to get through their shifts with the stimulant. After all, they got an impressive 500 marks per person per week. And already 600 marks when they reappeared from November 1 to 14, 1962.
Zint: The Star Club was a former cinema, relatively dark. The stage was 1.30 meters high and almost 4 meters deep, the hall a good 4 meters high. The dance floor in front of the stage, tables behind it, was a gallery above everything. To the right of the musicians bar were the musicians and the girls who wanted to tow musicians. In the front left corner the bums, leftists, fan buttons and exis, as we called ourselves. The waiters didn't like them because they didn't make much money. The beer cost 1.50 marks, too much for us. Officially, 600 people fit in, but the big concerts had up to 1200. Of course, that was not entirely legal. But a lot was not legal in the Star Club, and protection of minors always came at 10 p.m.
one day: What was the atmosphere like in the club?
Zint: The musicians were relaxed and funny and did a show. The VIPs dressed up and hung one of the groups on a cross to make fun of the Christian religion. But when John Lennon only wore underpants and boots, toilet glasses around his neck, went on stage, the white leather was too much. He quoted the Liverpool boys in his office and said, "The contract with you has ended." But the barmaid Betty, who had a relationship with John, cried so bitterly that he changed his mind again.
one day: Who went to the Star Club?
Zint: It was young people who couldn't stand it at home. I just loved the atmosphere, unless there was a fight with the waiters. There were the "Exis", derived from "existentialists", to which I belonged and which were disparagingly called "bums"; the mods were very attentive to clothing, and there were the teds. Finally rocker. There was little contact between the groups. The rockers sometimes made stress, then there was something on the mouth. And the pimps didn't like the store at all because the musicians drove their women crazy.
one day: Did the store have anything political?
Zint: We loved the Star Club because our parents hated it. That is. The music was brand new and revolutionary: rock'n'roll, blues, rhythm & blues, then beat and underground. However, if someone had told me back then that 60 years later there was a lot of hype and I would make so much money with the photos from the Star Club, I would have said that you are crazy. Back when we were sitting with the musicians at Grete and Alfons, they were buddies. They weren't stars. They only became stars later.
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Kibermanis, Tania
Wild times: Hamburg photographs by Günter Zint 1965–1989
Publishing company:
Junius Hamburg
Pages:
256
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€ 49.90
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one day: The biggest later star in the star club was probably John Lennon.
Zint: John Lennon never crawled on anyone's cross, I liked that about him. He insulted journalists when it was necessary. At a press conference, he made a face as if thinking, what kind of idiots are in the hall again. He started answering questions that were not asked. "No, I don't wear long pants; no, I don't like pea soup." When an outraged journalist said he shouldn't talk such nonsense, Lennon replied: Ask a wise question and you will get a good answer. John Lennon was one of the funny, loud musicians in the Star Club and very cheeky. He was the head of the Beatles and most interested in politics. Paul McCartney was a well-behaved, nice villain that you wanted to have as a son-in-law. George Harrison wasn't without either, but didn't get away with it.
one day: Among the musicians you photographed, an American named Jimi Hendrix was probably just as famous.
Zint: I still get goose bumps today when I think of the four concerts Jimi Hendrix gave in the Star Club. Two years before Woodstock, he sawed the US anthem in the Star Club. If he started with his feedback and rammed the guitar into his amplifier with speakers, this Marshall tower threatened to tip over. His manager Chas Chandler then ran onto the stage and held the system. Hendrix could play really well on his back. Or with your teeth. Madness. It wasn't just a show, it was part of his music. Nobody got his sound on guitar like this anymore.
I had been commissioned by his record company Metronome to photograph the cover for "Hey Joe". We took photos in a garden on the Alster, then Hendrix, Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell came to my studio. Hendrix saw the stereo and a sofa. In his hotel he received a warning for listening to music too loud, so he said: "I don't go back to this shit hotel, I stay here." And I already had a subtenant for the weekend. Colette, the friend of a business partner, was there for the photo sessions. He always called her cutlet until I said, "She is called Colette, cutlet is something to eat." He said: "I would love to eat her." She lay down on the table, so this silly photo of her, Jimi and his band snapping at her with a knife and fork, was taken.
one day: How was the Star Club received in Hamburg?
Zint : Very bad from the citizens. There were constant raids. If you were under 21, you were taken away first. When an acquaintance under 21 admitted that she had a boyfriend, she was forcibly examined for venereal diseases at the Heidberg Hospital. That was the time back then. The authorities fought the Star Club from start to finish and wanted to close it. The tax office demanded 400,000 marks of entertainment tax from white leather. He then tricked and transferred the license to straw people, an electrician, and a kitchen assistant. The establishment and the politicians did not understand at all that music history was written in the Star Club.
After rock'n'roll, blues and beat came the underground. The hair grew longer, the drugs harder. Vanilla Fudge came from New York, The Cream from London with guitarist Eric Clapton. The Pretty Things played in the Star Club, Eric Burdon, The Small Faces, Taste, Nice. Hardin & York gave the last concert on New Year's Eve 1969. After less than eight years it was over.
Zint: At the end of the 1960s, the fees shot up. Flying in four bands, the hotel costs, was no longer possible. And then the discos came. The top ten only played from the record. The discotheques were the death of the star club.