Mutter Theresa
The beginnings of what was to become known as Lustfaust came in an aborted recording session in late August 1976. Gerd Gebhardt wants to get his English songstress, Cherry Pickles, into the following year’s Eurovision Song Contest and Matsushima Kazuki, Guido Van Baelen and Hans Berger are hired as session musicians to record promotional material. They arrive at Berühmte Studios to find Peter Kruger closing up his father’s studio for the day. It later transpires that Cherry Pickles had returned to England several weeks earlier but the musicians were never informed that the session was cancelled. The session musicians decide to go for a drink and they warm to each other immediately.
The session musicians meet again on several occasions at what is to later become Lustfaust’s spiritual home – Der Blaue Auster – a cheap dive bar in the heart of Berlin. At some point in November they begin playing together (possibly of Van Baelen’s instigation) on the bar’s small stage after hours. Named Mutter Theresa, they play a handful of shows at the bar and record several sessions on Van Baelen’s primitive equipment.
In Early December, Kruger borrows reel-to-reel recording equipment and microphones from his father’s studio and Mutter Theresa record several hours of material (These recordings later go on to become the first Lustfaust album Kommen Sie Nach Hause Zu Nichts). The band members go their separate ways for Christmas and focus on finding work for the New Year.