Beta Evers aka GitZe (Pervers / Deutscher Abschaum)

Originally posted May 19, 2010 
“Around 1980 I read about new wave and punk in music magazines and was fascinated by it. At the same time I discovered a radio show that presented underground stuff. Besides, the boyfriend of my older sister brought me tapes with music by Gary Numan, Siouxsie [and the Banshees] and Stiff Little Fingers. He was a very interesting guy and told me about punk/wave bands and interesting locations where to go. But, I was a kid of 12 or 13. Nevertheless I got caught up by all of this. The late 70s music of Gary Numan definitely gave me a huge 'wow'-feeling and changed my musical affinities sustainably especially stuff like 'Cars', 'Down in the Park' and 'Are friends electric?'. But, the idea to make my own music was definitely initiated by more or less unknown DIY-bands.”

GitZe as a sweet teen giving the middle finger

“Around my 15th birthday I founded my first band called Pervers. It was a punk/new wave/noise band in the tradition of those female German avant-garde bands existing between 1978–1982 like Malaria!, Östro 430, Carambolage and Xmal Deutschland. We were a girl trio and we used a guitar, drums, metal cans, electronic instruments and lots of distortion. I also appeared under the name Deutscher Abschaum (duo with one of the Pervers girls). With Pervers we had two releases on my own tape-label and two record releases on a punk and new wave label from Frankfurt called Zweckfrei.” Beta Evers

“Gaby 'R', GitZe and Vanessa Violence (aka Flizzer), were three very young and defiant girls from the area Augsburg (Bavaria), when they started to play together. In the beginning their band was called Deutscher Abschaum, but soon they re-named to Pervers. First they had also a male member, Ingo Riedl, but he left the band soon due to permanent fights with Vanessa Violence. They titled themselves 'Punkband', but their music sounded not like the typical German punk sound of the 80s. They were quite inspired by German experimental DIY bands (e.g. Hirnheimer, Familie Hesselbach, Einstuerzende Neubauten, Toedliche Doris, Geile Tiere, MDK). Apart from e-guitar, bass guitar and a snare drum they often used objects which weren't very usual for punk music those days (cans, metal objects, distortion/noise modules and an e-organ). Their lyrics mostly dealed with the 'shady sites of human existence'. They recorded two longplayer tapes, which GitZe distributed to underground recordshops in and out of Germany. They also appeared on various compilations (on different German labels). An offer for a release on the well-known german punk-label 'Muelleimer'-Records they rejected, cause of the sexistic attitudes of the label owners. After two years they released their first record, an 7inch EP with 5 tracks (at Zweckfrei Records, Frankfurt — in co-operation with GitZe's label S.U.F.F. — edition: 500 copies). After a positive review of that EP in the US Fanzine Maximum Rock'n'Roll they got some attraction in the US and were invited to come to New York for some gigs, but since they still hadn't the full age, it didn't happen. Vanessa left the band then, but Gaby 'R' and GitZe continued. After a while they did their second deal with Zweckfrei Records and recorded 5 new tracks — co-produced by Vill Love & Friends (Cem Oral, Can Oral, Roger Kobernuss) from Frankfurt — these tracks were published on CD-R after a while (title: We live in a cesspool). In 1989 they stopped, cause their musical preferences developed into different directions.” Joseffa Aggressiv

Pervers (Vanessa Violence, Gaby “R”, GitZe): arty urban misfit girls.

“The first EP was really rough stuff, recorded in bad quality in a cellar, but it found some attention after a positive review in the well-known US-punk fanzine Maximum Rock‘n’Roll. In 1989 both bands ended for various reasons. During the 1990s I didn’t make music, but started and finished two studies at the university, I wrote articles for the German Trust fanzine and organized some parties. After I had founded Kommando 6 (aka K6) in 2000, the wish became stronger and stronger to make music again. In 2001 I bought some equipment and began to produce as Beta Evers then.” Beta Evers

“We had all songs recorded on a tape. I had sent some promo tapes to fanzines / radio stations, as usual. Somehow Vill (Zweckfrei label, Frankfurt) got the tape, liked it and wrote me a letter to ask about a release. He went to small professional studio with the tape and there they told him the quality would be too bad and so he asked us to come to Frankfurt to re-record some of the stuff in better quality. He had a small studio with a 8-track magnetic recorder in his cellar. We only had a tape recorder at home. He also wanted to have some influence on the production alltogether. He was our co-producer, so to say. We had full control over the whole project and could say “yes/no” at any time, but the result sounded quite different to the original versions. It was still our stuff, just a bit different. We were satisfied anyway. Unfortunately Vill added massive FX (delay) to the recordings last minute — at the pressing plant; when I listened to the finished record I was shocked. I did never really understand why he did this. It remained a sore spot between us.”

“During the following years we had no contact to Zweckfrei Records, but all in a sudden Vill contacted me for another record. Our band was not in a very active mode at this time, because Gaby had become a mother, but we had lots of unreleased material and liked the thought to go to a studio in Frankfurt, because that was the plan of Vill / Zweckfrei. The recordings — with some guest musicians in the studio — were lots of fun and went well, but when it came to the realization of the release, we had different opinions. Vill wanted to make it a “bigger thing” than we liked it — promotion-wise and such — and also the cover he suggested was too “glam” for our taste. Once we phoned and discussed things again, Vill became very angry and suddenly hang up the phone. From that point we never talked again. He was obviously very disappointed that we did not want to follow his plan in all details, but we always did only things that we liked, otherwise we prefered to release nothing at all.”

Beta Evers aka GitZe

“The Godhead. Reminds me of Teddy and the Fratgirls or the Foams in the sense that one gets the notion that these must have been fun gals to hang out with or date. The timeless splendor of the arty urban misfit girl: Her goofy charm and no-holds-barred enthusiasm for all that she found weird, interesting or sexually appetizing. A toast to the art school weirdo outcast girls of the world: May they forever paint their room black or read Hermann Hesse to you in bed! The music is wild, out of control amateuristic slop goes from Electric Eels fuzzed out haterock to drumkits thrown down the stairs to minimal teen-angst and then back. Beautiful stuff. Got this in trade from Thurston Snore for some boring free jazz records back in the day. What a chump!” Johan Kugelberg

Pervers / Deutscher Abschaum German Superman EP (Zweckfrei / S.U.F.F. Records, 1985)

Pervers – Asozial


Deutscher Abschaum – The German Superman
Get it here.

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Excerpts taken from an interview with Beta Evers in March 2014. It will be published in its full-length in the third issue of Making Waves — to be released soon.

Visit the official Beta Evers website here.