Book review

Françoise Cactus: Berlin’s legendary anti-punk diva

Françoise Cactus and her congenial partner Brezel Göring formed the underground cult band Stereo Total for almost 20 years.

(Bild: Krone KREATIV/Ventil Verlag, Simgil)

Françoise Cactus, a Berliner by choice from Burgundy, France, made indie music history with Stereo Total. Three years ago, she died far too early from breast cancer. In the book "Oh Oh Mythomanie" (Ventil Verlag), her former creative partner Brezel Göring shares previously unpublished texts, stories and curiosities with us.

In a very classic and comparatively polished city like Vienna, despite all its underground efforts, it's hard to imagine the impact a person like Françoise Cactus once had on the punk scene in Berlin. The lively multi-talented artist came from Burgundy in France, studied in Paris and came to Germany via a Norwegian detour in 1985. She was just 20 years old at the time and immersed herself in the squatter scene. Drunken nights in dimly lit gothic bands before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Toxic relationships with alcohol and all kinds of drugs and the thought process common in punk life denial circles of the fast life, which is best ended soon enough because the world would end in nuclear war anyway, were more than real.

Ending far too soon
These and other insights into a life that would no longer be possible today due to neoliberalism and gentrification can be found in the book "Françoise Cactus - Oh Oh Mythomanie: Erlebes, Erinnertes & Erlogenes", hot off the press. The almost 300-page work from scene connoisseurs Ventil Verlag was compiled to mark the 60th birthday of the tangible anti-diva on May 5. Although this is not so certain, as the quirky thoroughbred artist played with appearance and reality so skillfully throughout her life that not even the year of birth can be guaranteed with absolute certainty. The only certainty is that she died far too early of breast cancer in February 2021 in her beloved adopted home of Berlin, leaving behind a gap that could not be filled artistically.

Cactus was a creative free spirit who spared neither herself nor her surroundings and knew no bounds in the all-encompassing volatility of her ideas. She was both an uncompromising anarchist and an eternal child, whose adulthood was only recognizable in her aging body and merciless identity documents. Cactus' life took a decisive turn when she met the musician Brezel Göring in Berlin in 1992 and founded the cult band Stereo Total with him shortly afterwards. In 16 years, they released 13 albums with their punky synth pop. The duo's sound, close to that of the legendary Andreas Dorau, led them live across the globe and to a career that Cactus himself probably least expected.

Opening up the estate
The extent to which she had to tinker for years in the friction zone between honest underground and easy sell-out becomes clear not least in the novel "Lebenslänglich vierzehn", which Cactus worked on meticulously for 15 years, even researching the places that appear in it, but never published. It is now thanks to Göring that we not only have access to this blackly humorous and sarcastic vacation thriller with references to real life, but can once again immerse ourselves knee-deep in the life of the cult figure. After breaking up their shared apartment, he drew from 16 trunks full of songs, texts, drawings, stories, photographs and collections of ideas, which were meticulously sifted through and organized and finally made available to the public here.

"Oh Oh Mythomania" not only offers a retrospective of around three decades of a semi-public life that allowed itself neither breaks nor rest, it is also a tribute to the emotional world and love of detail of Cactus. As an outsider, you are beamed right back into the exciting Berlin club scene of the 80s, witness how she raves about colleagues like France Gall or Juliette Gréco, how she tried by hook or by crook to give up smoking or how she had to learn early on in her Berlin years that sexist exclusion was also commonplace in the left-leaning milieu - and thus opened her eyes for the future. In her texts, Françoise almost always talks about herself, even if she sometimes chooses the (unsuccessful) path of interweaving narratives.

Consciously anti-establishment
The unbridled imagination in Cactus' language, which could already be followed on Stereo Total, can be recapitulated in song sketches or curious recipes. Anyone who has never come into contact with Françoise Cactus before will get to know an interesting personality through this book, who has probably not existed twice in her direct, completely blind and passionate service to art. As much as Françoise's basic principles may always be rooted in refusal and anti-establishment, her all-encompassing presence also delighted circles that usually paid little attention to the dirty side of a scene with a strong character. And believe me: after enjoying this book, ducks will take on a different image in your mind.