Duck and Cover (German band)


Duck and Cover were a multinational avant-rock septet founded in West Germany in 1983, comprising Chris Cutler, Heiner Goebbels, and Alfred Harth from Cassiber; Tom Cora and Fred Frith from Skeleton Crew; Dagmar Krause from Art Bears; and George Lewis from the ICP Orchestra. The ensemble was initially commissioned for the 1983 Moers Festival at the request of festival director Burkhard Hennen to Alfred Harth.
Duck and Cover performed a 45-minute musical piece entitled "Berlin Programme" at the Berlin Jazz Festival in October 1983 in West Berlin, and again at the Festival of Political Songs in East Berlin in February 1984. Both performances were recorded and broadcast nationally. An edited version of the East Berlin broadcast was released in September 1985 on one side of the Rē Records Quarterly Vol.1 No.2 LP record.

Name

Duck and Cover's name was taken from the duck and cover drill taught to school children in the United States between the late 1940s and the 1980s in the event of a nuclear attack. The escalation of Cold War hostilities between the United States and the Soviet Union in the early 1980s and the Europe-wide protests in 1983 at the deployment of Cruise, Pershing II and SS-20 missiles were the motivation behind the formation of this ensemble and its music. Before the second performance of the "Berlin Programme" in East Berlin, Heiner Goebbels made the following statement:

"Berlin Programme"

The "Berlin Programme" performance was based on a structure which had been designed by Alfred Harth and written by Heiner Goebbels using fragments of compositions by Heiner Goebbels/Alfred Harth, Cutler/Frith and Bertolt Brecht/Hanns Eisler plus improvisation by all members of the ensemble.
The first performance was at the Berlin Jazz Festival in West Berlin on 29 October 1983. The 45-minute show was recorded by West Berlin Radio and broadcast on 28 August 1984. The songs used were:
The second performance took place at the Berliner Ensemble in East Berlin on 16 February 1984, and was recorded and mixed by radio engineers from Rundfunk der DDR directly onto ¼" master tape. This 40-minute performance was broadcast across East Germany later in February 1984, and contained the following pieces:
To prepare the "Berlin Programme" for the Rē Records Quarterly LP release, Cutler and Goebbels edited the East Berlin radio recording with "repeated listening in mind". They were unable to alter the mixes but shortened the recording to 28-minutes, omitting the closing Art Bears song, "Freedom". Cutler remarked that notwithstanding the edits, the LP version "... does, I think, still convey that contradiction we tried to express at the concert: between the distracting and draining pressure of contemporary life..."

Members