Cash or legend: The famous frontman of Einstürzende Neubauten takes to the stage at musikprotokoll as a purist and (almost) on his own.
“Other people are rich – I’m a legend”, Blixa Bargeld observed in a newspaper interview some time ago: Be that as it may, the multitalent certainly has monetary wealth in his legendary stage surname Bargeld (German for cash). A name that featured in a wide range of entwined, prominent and underground artistic paths over decades past: As frontman of Einstürzende Neubauten, as founding member of the band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, at the Festival Genialer Dilletanten in 1981, at the Salzburg Festival in 2005, in coproductions with Heiner Müller, Peter Zadek and Teho Teardo.
The musician, performance artist, composer, author and actor is now set to make his debut at musikprotokoll. In Graz he is a purist, presenting an (almost) solo, assisted only by his sound technician Boris Wilsdorf.
Speaking of names: The pseudonym Bargeld is a nod to Dada artist Johannes Theodor Baargeld, who died in 1927. In 2016 – exactly 100 years after the foundation of the Dada movement – the attitude behind this word is by no means an old hat for actors such as Blixa Bargeld because, as he once observed in another interview: “The destructive character is cheerful and friendly, it knows only one maxim: Making room for new things.”
