Krach – Verzerrte Erinnerungen: Alexander Hacke in Konversation mit Frank Spilker
Alexander Hacke , Frank Spilker
With »Krach – Verzerrte Erinnerungen«, Alexander Hacke has written anything but a conventional musician’s memoir. Instead, the book unfolds as a personal and unruly chronicle of a life shaped by the West Berlin underground, punk, industrial music, film, art, and pop. Originally published by Metrolit Verlag in 2015, it remained unavailable for many years before being reissued in an updated edition by Ventil Verlag. Bringing together memories, anecdotes, and observations from more than four decades of musical boundary-crossing, it is told by someone who joined Einstürzende Neubauten at the age of fourteen and has followed his own path ever since.
In conversation with Frank Spilker, Hacke reads selected passages from the book and reflects on the stories behind them: West Berlin as a laboratory for subculture, noise as an artistic method, collaborations, detours, and the many lives of a musician who has never allowed himself to be confined to a single genre or role. Moving between memories of the early days of Einstürzende Neubauten, encounters with icons such as Christiane F., and stations along a journey through industrial music, country, film scores, and performance, the evening paints a portrait of an artist whose work has consistently resisted categorisation.
Alexander Hacke works today as a musician, composer, and producer. Alongside his solo releases, he has composed film scores for directors including Fatih Akın and is internationally active with the US artist Danielle de Picciotto as the duo hackedepicciotto.
Frank Spilker, singer, guitarist, and songwriter of Die Sterne, remains one of the defining figures of the Hamburger Schule movement. As a musician, author, label founder, and cultural observer, he has spent decades exploring the intersections of pop, society, and storytelling – making him an ideal companion for an evening dedicated to memory, music, and the productive power of »Krach«.
