[Sound of a film projector]
presents
[Intro music]
PART I
THE RCA ALBUM FROM 1988
A CONVERSATION
Let me rob you of your senses
That's it. We've seen them all.
Seen them too. We've seen those ones.
Same thing.
That was all backstage.
That was a trip to Mexico that we could take
because we got an advance.
The major labels was a world of advances
in the 80s.
It was separate
from the rest of the world.
There was so much money,
that it seems hard to believe nowadays.
When I look at this cover
and how much was spent on it.
This beautiful cover.
We did it in Andy Warhol's iconic style
in various colours.
I really like it now.
The cover alone cost 30.000 Marks.
Is that a photo of the session?
That's the cover session.
Klaus Thumser took them.
At that time he shot all the major productions in Hamburg.
That's also the cover session,
but it wasn't used.
You found the slides and we digitised them.
[Singing] ...with monsters and machines...
We were dressed in silk and satin...
So 80s.
That was so 80s.
Very much so.
[Singing]
You described earlier that it was in '86 that...
it all began with the group.
The group broke up...
Did Dieter Meier see you live?
It was at the same time.
No, what happened was that I met Kiev Stingl,
a poet and musician from Hamburg.
Meier was a fan of Stingl.
He wanted to produce him.
Then we met in Zurich.
I was brought to Zurich.
They were not amused about it at first.
Because all the men involved
thought it would be a boys' night.
Whatever that means.
The next day Dieter said he had listened to it
and thought it was great.
He'd love to produce my music.
That surprised me.
First Dieter...
We recorded the Mona Mur programme again with Nainz Watts.
During that work
the group split up. It was crazy.
And then I started writing my own songs.
Out of necessity.
I had to.
The first is That Night at the Ritz.
Dieter said: that's a beautiful song.
He liked it.
He wanted to be involved.
So then it was a question of
who would produce it.
We had money.
Suddenly it was: JJ Burnel,
he wants to produce it.
In June '87
I flew to London,
and then I was picked up by JJ Burnel
in his Land Rover.
We drove to East Anglia
to produce it.
It was fantastic.
What were they like in the studio?
Were there hierarchies?
Was Dieter Meier there too?
Not at all.
He didn't come.
Dieter made it possible
in a generous way.
At first I thought,
he would be holding my hand.
Nooo.
Dieter wasn't there.
RCA people came once.
To answer your question:
JJ Burnel was the producer.
That's what he was hired for.
He brought Greenfield in as his close mate
and a brilliant keyboard player.
He's...
also a singular talent.
Greenfield was an absolute talent.
So a punk band with this organ...
He was playing these runs with one hand
absolutely brilliantly, perfectly.
Beyond all doubt.
But it was so wacky and insane
against the rest of it.
They were the team.
It was JJ who was in charge.
That was very clear.
You've written all the lyrics and some of the music.
Who else wrote the music?
What was it like in the studio?
They had nothing to do with the pieces.
I came with them ready.
I wrote them.
I wrote some of the lyrics with Stingl.
On some tracks Stingl also wrote some of the music.
I wrote many of them entirely on my own.
There was a Brecht song.
We took it from what we'd done before.
With permission from Einheit
and my previous band.
We took an 8-track recording with us.
Individual tracks went under it.
So Surabaya Johnny is there.
There was no point in re-recording it.
I can only play it like that.
I don't like it any other way.
We recorded the song Snake again
with Alex Gifford, a great pianist.
I covered myself, you could say.
Snake, the song with the stake.
The other pieces were new
and brought ready.
They had no part in songwriting.
They were producers.
How long did the recording take?
For over a year I flew back and forth.
I always stayed there for a few weeks.
Then I returned. And we mixed it.
As I've said...
as producers I put...
JJ Burnel and Mona Mur, because I have the last word.
[Sound of a film projector]
I was suddenly in the world of the major labels, but I didn't have a band any more.
It wasn't easy.
Or to resist something you didn't like.
Or to have a part in shaping
how you are marketed as a product.
You are a product
in the world of the major labels.
I'm almost afraid that it is a type of intrinsic...
How can I describe it?
As a girl...
My parents brought me up cool.
Not: You're only a girl. I didn't have anything like that.
But you were told:
Adapt. Fit in.
That's totally wrong if you want to deal with the major labels.
The opposite is true.
If you have an artistic vision,
you have to push it through like a tank,
plow through the nonsense.
And trust that the quality is sufficient.
And I had to work on that first.
That trust in my own abilities.
Also when it comes to music production, being able to judge it.
I can do it now because I do it myself.
I have done for some decades.
I began right after this production.
I saw that I can only realise my ideas
when I am at the controls myself.
There is no other way.
[Sound of a film projector] [Music]
There was so much money, that you could even shoot a video.
There was that too.
Let's watch it.
[Intro music]
Stranger, take your eyes off me
Stranger, love costs too much
Are you looking for paradise tonight?
Are you looking for the key to my vault?
Gunfire's our symphony
Stranger, I'll lure you into the fire
That night at the Ritz near the Place Vend“me
You stand at the bar like an angel that curses
I'm going to hell, because you are a devil
I wanna be loved by you.
I wanna be touched by you.
Stranger, I can feel your eyes on me
Stranger, like fire and ice
Where was it shot?
The dungeon is Palais Saurau in Graz.
And the square is Heldenplatz in Vienna,
which was cordoned off specially.
We went big.
Now it is the song that...
Dieter Meier liked in principle.
That song was our first demo.
as a piano version with a small rhythm machine
by Thomas Stern thankfully.
Played on a grand piano.
That's the song.
They all expected a lot from it.
Were you happy with it too?
Or did you already feel like
it maybe wasn't your thing,
that you were now this product?
I have to say...
Firstly, I'm not someone...
I don't like to be defined by a music genre.
I've never wanted to.
That's important.
I'm not about a genre.
I didn't understand why I must choose.
As a young singer you are also a projection surface,
not a bad-looking one,
they all want to project onto you.
pull you this way...
They say this, others say that...
I never wanted to be fixed.
I like to rip it apart and synthesise...
I was with people
who did that unbelievably well.
You could not fail to see the quality.
Dave Greenfield...
A year ago, I saw that Dave Greenfield had died.
I was really upset and shocked by that.
That was another thing that made me think
it should be reissued,
because Greenfield's magical sequences are on it,
which he played free-hand.
[Intro music]
And the fabulous Burnel bass.
It is important,
that people can still hear it.
I mean it.
Perhaps that is enough to explain
why I did it.
[Sound of a film projector]
Stranger, I can feel your eyes on me
Stranger, like fire and ice
I know we are gambling with love and death
I put my riches, put it all on red
This film is part of a 4-hour studio conversation
between the musician Mona Mur and the filmmaker Dietmar Post.
More excerpts from it and a longer film version will be released shortly.
It will include:
every record and video
released since her first band Mona Mur & Die Mieter
and collaborations with artists mentioned above.
play loud! has released:
More records are coming.
Subtitles ¸ play loud! productions Translation: Helen Ferguson