Antje

Frank J Dougan

I knew it would be trouble the day that I entered the Martinique Club in Fruedenstatd West Germany 1987, the boss and owner was there to see me not to greet me, but to tell me I can and will play in the club.

My reputation had preceded me and he was apprehensive to take me on from my agent in Zurich the agency was called 'Music Service'.

The club boss couldn't speak a word of English neither could anyone else except for this English guy who lived and worked there for the Mengle company who came to the Martinique Club every night and got totally ******; quite understandably so as the place was a horrible scene.

At the time I was there, Terence Trent Darby had his first album out and he sounded like a young James Brown.

There were many great tracks on his album so I was playing his stuff on lots of occasions. U2 had the Joshua Tree album out probably the best they had done and I battered everything from it onto the dance floor. I was supposed to play only German artists who were all totally boring and I told the boss this in his own speaks. At the Martinique Club there were two clubs unfortunately for me I was in the club that catered for the farmers and we had live bands.

I was not clued into the old German sounds that the punters loved as their type of dancing was Fox Trots and Waltzes whereas my stuff was Soul, Blues and Rock along with some of the major American and British hits.

There was a discotheque up above the club that I was in for the young scene of Freudenstadt.

But as you can imagine they were all farmers and Mengle workers and clones. I had to live in the most appalling conditions that I had ever come across in my life. I thought that Switzerland was the pits for accommodation or so I thought. until I saw this filthy pit in Freudenstadt.

Antje and I kept in touch by telephone and she was desperate to join me (There was no Internet or Mobile phones then) She came to Germany from Switzerland a few weeks later she had been heartbroken when I left Switzerland.

She couldn't work or live without me any more in Switzerland and my eight month contracts were completed therefore I had to move to Germany as my Swiss work permits were only valid for eight months for people involved in the music scene. Antje and I had spent six weeks in glorious sunshine and fairy tale scenery totally wrapped in each other's arms and madly in love. I was only one week at the Martinique when she called me begging to be allowed to come to stay with me.

Antje called me and told me she wanted to quit her job there in Switzerland to be with me for the rest of her vacation 'she was an art student'. My heart leapt at the prospect of being with her again and spending every day and night with her.

Antje arrived the next evening just as I was about to start playing at the club. It always takes a week or two to settle into every new discotheque that I was contracted to play at.

At night when the gig is in full swing, it's impossible to sort anything as everything is so fast flowing and to keep people dancing for 5-6 hours six nights per week is one of the most trying professions in the world, more so when its music that you cannot relate to such as German hit parade stuff absolute and utter, rubbish even most of the Germans hate it, but as most of the music are based on rhythms for dancing together.

Germans go to schools to learn this dancing 'it must be played' as the British and American sounds are mostly based on international disco dancing.

I showed Antje to my room which was really a horrid place with a worn out single bed no wardrobes or chests of drawers or rugs and a shared toilet shower with some of the club staff ,but she didn't seem to mind or perhaps notice how bad it looked as we were completely locked in each others arms again.

At that moment in time the world was stopped.

She was peeling off my clothes as I was performing a similar act on her apparel. We found ourselves breathless on the floor an hour or so later having completed our desperation to be locked together with our passionate lovemaking.

We toasted our reunion with a glass of Greek Retsina wine that I had bought from the restaurant downstairs at the disco, smoked a cigarette, kissed and held each other as though it was a dream.

Time to make a move to grab a quick shower and get ready to start at the disco, a full house tonight Friday and I had to check with the House band who were on with me as to what music they had on their play list therefore briefing me, that I do not play the original records such as the big hits of the day, and stealing the bands thunder.

The weekend had been really busy as it was the end of August and summer.

The Martinique Club was a fabulous design with gigantic Greek style statues about fifteen feet high holding up a balcony at the foot of a wide stairway where the punters could watch the dancers on floor below listen to the band or disco.

Dirty Dancing was the big smash music hit from the movie so that got a lot of plays along with U2s 'Still haven't found what I'm looking for'.

Michael Jackson's 'Bad' was still hot from the presses along with all the German hit numbers.

But most important part of the gig was returning to the arms of Antje.