When Stars Were Born—in My Club
I originally wanted to call this post “Death and Drugs and Rock ’n’ Roll”. It sounds lurid, I know, but those things are part of the story—although the order makes more sense read backwards. Some memories may be disturbing, especially from today’s perspective. Readers of my generation may recognise something of their own youth.
What troubles me most is the number of people who died. Perhaps that is why I pushed these years to the back of my mind for so long.[1]
A poster advertising a Harri Stojka tour brought them back when I first wrote this in 2022. Suddenly I was thinking again about Vienna, my early paintings, and the musicians who rehearsed in our basement.
1975–1978
I want to focus on the years 1975 to 1978. I had only recently begun painting seriously. Living rather apart from things, with a small circle of friends, I was trying to find an audience for my work. In 1978, I left for China for several years. That changed my life fundamentally and brought this chapter to a natural close.
I lived modestly in a small flat. Since I wanted to paint large oil paintings, I dreamed of a studio. Then, without much help from me, one suddenly existed.[2] We called the project Bona Mente. The idea was to bring artists from different fields, especially painters and musicians, into a shared space. Exhibitions and other artistic events would help cover the costs. Birthday parties and the like were certainly not what we had in mind.
The Beginning
It did not start badly. There were fewer than ten of us. Some joined because they wanted somewhere to belong or sensed that something interesting might happen. Those friends did much of the work that kept the place going. As for painting in the studio, that was mainly me. I was inexperienced at organising things; my friend Klaus Weber was a born doer. Soon we had association status and some public funding—though we were certainly no boys’ choir.
The first exhibition showed paintings by Klaus and me. I cannot remember every detail, but I do remember groups of people standing outside, waiting to get in.
That unexpected turnout had little to do with our reputations: we were both largely unknown. Young people were looking for unusual ideas and somewhere to meet others who shared them. Such places were scarce in the conservative Vienna I knew in the mid-1970s.
A Rehearsal Space
Selling paintings did not pay the rent, and the project soon looked vulnerable. Someone suggested soundproofing the large basement and letting musicians rehearse there. P., who was not an artist, handled the practical work with considerable skill. R., who was not an artist either, knew people throughout the alternative music scene.
Some History Was Made
A number of the musicians who rehearsed with us later became well known. Falco is the most famous: “Rock Me Amadeus” reached the top of the American charts in 1986. That international success was still far away from our basement.[3]
The Musicians
The Stojkas were among the first to rehearse with us. Harri and his cousin Jano played guitar; two sisters sang. They brought the basement to life—and how.
Jano died later, away from our club. He was one of several people from those years whose loss would remain with me.
Looking at the little stage now, I can hardly help smiling. None of us could afford high standards. I had made one rule clear: no hard drugs were to be brought into the club or used there. I was not interested in playing the moralist, but I did not want the police arriving either. Keeping that rule was another matter. I was not much of an authoritarian.
The Hallucination Company was a little smaller when it rehearsed with us. Both Falco and Harri Stojka played with the band early on. Several members later developed remarkable careers of their own. They used the larger part of the basement, opposite our little stage.
From Hansi to Falco
When I knew him in the rehearsal rooms, he was Hansi Hölzel. His later career as Falco belongs to the years beyond my account. I associate him particularly with Drahdiwaberl and Stefan Weber, a charismatic, dominant personality whose band shook up the scene. To me, Falco’s later solo career also looked like a way of stepping out from under that dominance. That is my impression, rather than an explanation of everything that followed.
Falco died in a car accident in the Dominican Republic in 1998. I also remember Hansi Lang and Hansi Dujmic from that scene. Their deaths were separate stories; it would be wrong to reduce them all to the same cause.[4]
Among Falco’s best-known songs are Vienna Calling, Der Kommissar and Rock Me Amadeus.
Did I Know These People?
Yes, in the everyday sense. To reach the rehearsal cellar, the musicians had to pass through my studio and down a flight of stairs. I was “the man with the key”. Were we friends? Not really. To be honest, I often found them too extroverted, overbearing and arrogant, especially Falco. We were all far too cool for anything as petty-bourgeois as small talk.
They did their thing and I did mine. Sometimes I went downstairs and listened to a rehearsal; sometimes someone paused in the studio to watch me paint. When I left Austria in 1978, my part in it ended. Bona Mente soon faded away.
Klaus, the co-founder on the right in this photograph, died years later in a car accident. His two young sons were with him and survived.
H., seated in front, also died young. Years later, friends collected money to bring her home from Spain and help her, but she died soon afterwards. These are difficult memories to place beside a cheerful studio photograph.
Painting in Those Years
As a counterpoint to those turbulent surroundings, I immersed myself in realistic painting, sometimes almost photorealistic. These works belong to that period.
Take a Walk on the Wild Side
A portrait of R., who connected us with the alternative music scene and brought the bands to the club. When I wrote this in 2022, he still called occasionally. The years had left their marks, and I found it painful that communication between us had become so difficult. I felt guilty about withdrawing from someone I remembered as warm-hearted and full of life.
And then there is N., the little girl in the next painting. She was a dear child. When we played music together, she sometimes joined us at the piano, aged four or five, and it was astonishing how naturally she fitted in. I later lost touch with her parents. Many years afterwards, I learned that she had died at twenty.
I painted this picture of her in our studio. It is one of the few surviving works from this phase.
Most of the others were sold, given away or lost. Often only poor photographs remain.
Lost Paintings
I do not regret losing every painting, but I do miss this one. It captures something of the Vienna I remember, and I worked on it for weeks. The photograph flattens it and loses much of the detail.
Have I exaggerated? I wish I had. I have left out things that do not belong directly to this account. Behind the familiar story of musicians becoming stars were people whose lives took very different turns. Looking at these paintings brings them back, before I knew what would happen to them.
Extra: Out of the Dark
Of the many Falco videos, “Out of the Dark” reflects something of his public persona for me. It is a constructed image, of course, as a music video must be.
Footnotes
[1] If I were a writer, I would be tempted to write an autobiography—or at least an account of those early Vienna years. Not because I think my life is unusually important, but because that period reflects a society in transition. ↩
[2] At the time, I was publishing an arts and literature magazine with friends. It was quite successful by Austrian standards, and I had begun dreaming of an artists’ circle. ↩
[3] The Vienna Poetry School’s Falco biography records his 1986 American chart success and his fatal accident in 1998. My account of Bona Mente is a personal recollection, not a complete history of his career. ↩
[4] For Hansi Lang, see the contemporary FM4 remembrance by Michael Scharang, which reports that he died following a stroke in 2008. The earlier version of this post incorrectly grouped several deaths together as drug-related. ↩
Related articles: Wien, the Capital of Music · State of the Art: A Self-Portrait Series · The Gift of the Green Snake
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