Beat-Club | |
---|---|
Genre | Music |
Created by | Gerhard Augustin and Mike Leckebusch |
Presented by | Gerhard Augustin (1965) Eddie Vickers (1965–1966) Uschi Nerke Dave Lee Travis (1966–1969) Dave Dee (1969–1970) |
Opening theme | Mood Mosaic: "A Touch of Velvet - A Sting of Brass" |
Composer | Mark Wirtz (theme) |
Country of origin | West Germany |
Original language | German |
No. of episodes | 83 |
Production | |
Producers | Radio Bremen, WDR (1969–1972) |
Production locations | Bremen, West Germany (unless stated below) Tiles Club, London (episode 11) Hamburg, West Germany (episode 16) Marquee Club, London (episode 18) West Berlin, West Germany (episode 24) |
Camera setup | Studio Hamburg |
Running time | 30–60 minutes |
Original release | |
Network | ARD (Radio Bremen) |
Release | 25 September 1965 – 9 December 1972 |
Beat-Club is a West German music programme that ran from September 1965 to December 1972. It was broadcast from Bremen, West Germany on Erstes Deutsches Fernsehen, the national public TV channel of the ARD, and produced by one of its members, Radio Bremen, later co-produced by WDR following the 38th episode.
Beat-Club was co-created by Gerhard Augustin and Mike Leckebusch. The show premiered on 25 September 1965 with Augustin and Uschi Nerke hosting. German TV personality Wilhelm Wieben opened the first show with a short speech. After eight episodes, Augustin stepped down from his hosting role and was replaced by British DJ Dave Lee Travis.
The show immediately caused a sensation and achieved cult status throughout West Germany among the youth, while the older generation hated it. [1] The show's earlier episodes featured live performances, and was set in front of a plain brick wall. It underwent a revamp in 1966, when a more professional look was adopted with large cards in the background displaying the names of the performers, who now mimed to their hit records (the standard practice on most music shows from the era) in front of the studio audience. (A companion series, Beat Beat Beat, continued to run live performances.) Around this time, a troupe of young women billed the "Go-Go-Girls," were introduced to dance to songs when their performers could not appear.[ citation needed ]
In early 1969, Travis was replaced by Dave Dee, of Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich. On 31 December 1969, Beat-Club switched to colour and again featured live performances, but without an audience. Dee departed in 1970, leaving Nerke as the lone host.
In the later years of its run, the series was known for incorporating psychedelic visual effects during many performances, many concentrating on images of the performers in the background. When the show switched to colour, the effects became much more vivid.
The Grateful Dead performed on the show on 21 April 1972, halfway through their European Tour (selections of which would make up the live album Europe '72 ). The band played a shorter set than usual, but still included crowd favourites such as "Truckin'". [2] The set is believed to be the last professionally filmed appearance of Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, who retired from the band following his final gig at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles shortly after the end of the tour owing to medical reasons and he later died in March 1973. In 2014, the footage had its first theatrical screening in theatres across the US. [3]
In its seven-year run before being replaced by Musikladen the show featured artists such as the following:
Performances from the show were seen on VH1 Classic, and reruns air in several European countries. Several DVD collections have also been released.
This section needs to be updated.(October 2016) |
Beat-Club is now broadcast on Sunday afternoons between 1 and 3 pm as a weekly radio programme on Radio Bremen 1 and on a web channel offered by the radio station. The radio show is still hosted, rather nostalgically, by Nerke, reprising her role as presenter for the series.
The 2008 Video on demand web portal launched for Beat-Club and Musikladen was replaced by a YouTube channel in 2010.
The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in Palo Alto, California, in 1965. Known for their eclectic style that fused elements of rock, blues, jazz, folk, country, bluegrass, rock and roll, gospel, reggae, and world music with psychedelia, the band is famous for improvisation during their live performances, and for their devoted fan base, known as "Deadheads". According to the musician and writer Lenny Kaye, the music of the Grateful Dead "touches on ground that most other groups don't even know exists." For the range of their influences and the structure of their live performances, the Grateful Dead are considered "the pioneering godfathers of the jam band world".
Pan's People were a British all-female dance troupe most commonly associated with the BBC TV music chart show Top of the Pops, from 1968 to 1976. The group, founded and led by choreographer Felicity "Flick" Colby in December 1966, accompanied top 20 hits on the weekly show for eight years, when artists were unable or unwilling to perform live. Pan's People appeared on many other TV shows in the UK and elsewhere in Europe, and also performed in nightclub cabaret.
Ronald Charles McKernan, known as Pigpen, was an American musician. He was a founding member of the San Francisco band the Grateful Dead and played in the group from 1965 to 1972.
Top of the Pops (TOTP) is a British music chart television programme, made by the BBC and broadcast weekly between 1 January 1964 and 30 July 2006. The programme was the world's longest-running weekly music show. For most of its history, it was broadcast on Thursday evenings on BBC One. Each show consisted of performances of some of the week's best-selling popular music records, usually excluding any tracks moving down the chart, including a rundown of that week's singles chart. This was originally the Top 20, though this varied throughout the show's history. The Top 30 was used from 1969, and the Top 40 from 1984.
David Patrick Griffin, known professionally as Dave Lee Travis, is an English former disc jockey, and former television presenter.
Winterland Ballroom was an ice skating rink and music venue in San Francisco, California, United States. The arena was located at the corner of Post Street and Steiner Street. It was converted for exclusive use as a music venue in 1971 by concert promoter Bill Graham and became a popular performance location for many rock acts. Graham later formed a merchandising company called Winterland Productions, which sold concert shirts, memorabilia, and official sports team merchandise.
Madeline Bell is an American soul singer, who became famous as a performer in the UK during the 1960s and 1970s with pop group Blue Mink, having arrived from the United States in the gospel show Black Nativity in 1962, with the vocal group Bradford Singers.
Hampton Coliseum is a multi-purpose arena in Hampton, Virginia. Construction began on May 24, 1968. The venue held its first event on December 1, 1969, with the nearby College of William & Mary playing North Carolina State University in a college men's basketball game. On January 31, 1970, the Coliseum formally opened as the first large multi-purpose arena in the Hampton Roads region and the state of Virginia
Europe '72 is a live triple album by the Grateful Dead, released in November 1972. It is the band's third live album and their eighth album overall. It covers the band's tour of Western Europe in April and May that year, and showcases live favorites, extended improvisations and several new songs including "Jack Straw" and "Brown Eyed Women". The album was the first to include pianist Keith Godchaux and his wife, vocalist Donna Jean Godchaux, and the last to feature founding member Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, who died shortly after its release.
The Jammy Award is an awards show for bands - referred to as jam bands - and other artists associated with live, improvisational music, created by Dean Budnick and Peter Shapiro. The Jammys are sponsored by Relix magazine, Jambands.com, and Shapiro. The Jammy Awards returned in 2008 to the WAMU Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York City after taking a one-year break.
Der Musikladen was a West German music television programme that ran from 13 December 1972 to 29 November 1984. The show continued the 1960s Beat-Club under a new name, and in turn was replaced by Extratour.
Sounds of the 60s is a long-running Saturday morning programme on BBC Radio 2 that features recordings of popular music made in the 1960s. It was first broadcast on 12 February 1983 and introduced by Keith Fordyce, who had been the first presenter of the TV show Ready Steady Go! in 1963. From March 1990 until February 2017, the presenter was Brian Matthew. Tony Blackburn has hosted the show since 4 March 2017.
The Kids Are Alright is a 1979 rockumentary film about the English rock band the Who, including live performances, promotional films and interviews from 1964 to 1978. It notably features the band's last performance with long-term drummer Keith Moon, filmed at Shepperton Studios in May 1978, three months before his death.
Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions is an American folk music album. It was recorded live by the band of the same name at the Top of the Tangent coffee house in Palo Alto, California in July, 1964, and released in 1999.
The Grateful Dead Channel is a Sirius XM Radio channel playing music spanning American rock band The Grateful Dead's entire career including unreleased concert recordings.
Grateful Dead Meet-Up at the Movies is an annual event that began in 2011. At the Meet-Up, concert videos and films of the rock band the Grateful Dead are shown in movie theaters at multiple locations. Each yearly screening occurs only once. The event provides a venue and opportunity for the band's fans, known as Deadheads, to gather in celebration and camaraderie.
Ursula Nerke-Petersen is a German actress and television presenter. She became well known as host of the monthly music television show Beat-Club that ran from 1965 to 1972 and as host of its successor Musikladen until 1978.
Europe '72: Beat Club, Bremen, West Germany (4/21/1972) is a live album by the Grateful Dead. It was recorded for the Beat-Club TV show instead of at a concert venue. It is notable for being the shortest concert of the tour, because it was a television performance. On the album, the songs "Loser" and "Black-Throated Wind" are not included.
The Best of MusikLaden Live is a DVD of performances by Ike & Tina Turner on the German television program Musikladen and its predecessor Beat-Club.
Gerhard Augustin was a German music producer. He was the first professional disc jockey in Germany and co-founder of the music program Beat-Club. Augustin helped generate a shift in German culture by introducing various genres of music at a time when schlager was the standard by giving exposure to krautrock bands such as Amon Düül II and Popol Vuh. He later became the head of A&R for United Artists Records in Munich, and then the producer and manager for American R&B duo Ike & Tina Turner.