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Nina Hagen (Germany)
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October 21, 21:00
Born in East Germany, Nina Hagen had already gained a reputation as a flamboyant rock singer by the time she emigrated to the West in 1976, where she formed a band, signed to CBS Germany, and released their debut album "Nina Hagen Band" in 1978. It was followed in 1980 by "Unbehagen". Hagen's first U.S. release "Nina Hagen Band EP" (1980), was a four-song EP consisting of songs drawn from her two German releases. She moved to New York and made her first English-language LP "Nunsexmonkrock" in 1982. That and its follow-up, the Giorgio Moroder-produced "Fearless" (1983), charted briefly, and "New York New York" was a Top Ten dance club hit. But Hagen left CBS after "Nina Hagen in Ekstacy" (1985). In 1988, she celebrated her marriage with the EP "Punk Wedding", released in Canada, and in 1989 she returned to the German market with "Nina Hagen".
Nina Hagen was born Catherine Hagen in East Berlin on March 11, 1955 as the daughter of Hans and Eva Maria Hagen. Her father was a well known script writer and her mother was a popular actress. Her family felt the oppression of Nazi Germany. Her Jewish grandparents lost their lives in the concentration camp Sachsenhausen. When she was two years old, her parents separated and Wolf Biermann, a songwriter became her mother’s lifetime companion.
In 1967 she was dishonorably discharged from the FDJ, the SED’s youth organization. She left school before completing 10th grade. She was trained at the Central Bureau of Entertainment Music for one year followed by performances with different bands. In 1974 she was elected the best new comer singer of the year. She also got into acting that year and made her first movie performance in ABC "Der Liebe".
In 1997, she presented her own band, the Nina Hagen Band that for the main part she established together with former members of the political rock cabaret Lokomotive Kreuzberg. The punk attitude, sloppy poetry and the cultural interludes of their lead singer, had made the Nina Hagen band one of the hottest bands in Europe besides the Sex Pistols.
Nina’s singing career was taken under the wing of Bennett Glotzer, the manager of Frank Zappa in the USA. In 1981 she had a daughter named Cosma Shiva and in 1990, a son Otis. In may 1996 she married David Lynn but they got divorced in 2000.
Hagen - we must hand it to her – has not got a bee in her bonnet about anything, she has not stopped at what had been accomplished and either her extremely unstable character or eccentric nature made her keep searching. She went from one extreme to another: passion for religions, experiments with her own consciousness, endless relocations, including abroad, contacts and communication with UFOs and other extraterrestrial civilizations with the latter influencing much her already complicated music. At the same time Hagen released albums, gave concerts, took part in exhibitions and performances – briefly, she led a spiritually intense life.
And she keeps the pace ignoring all the comments about her, watching the reaction of nobody and being just herself. She acts in the mainstream movies, performs Brecht's opera arias and Rammstein's compositions as well as takes part in the German version of "Star Factory" reality show being on the jury.
In 2009, Hagen is to release her new album, in which she will keep on enthusiastically furring human mind's space. Most of her new compositions will be performed at B1 Maximum. So, you are not afraid to try this eccentric cocktail than you are welcome to Nina Hagen's gothic-paranoid-absurd-extravaganza theatre!
More info
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