Berlin Story: Ramones Museum Versus Cafe Halford

Berlin is not really known for being a rock ‘n’ roll town, but if you are into that kind of stuff, there are some good cafes. There is the Ramones Museum (Krausnickstrasse 23), whose front room is pleasantly coffee-shop-like, with ample seating and rowdy punk music playing at sensible volumes. The graffiti-covered walls are filled with signatures and photos showing luminary visitors from the pop-punk milieu; there is even a Green Day poster featuring bassist Mike Dirnt wearing a “Ramones Museum” T-shirt. The coffee is very good, and you can eat a sandwich while perusing a selection of topical books: Please Kill Me by Legs McNeil, Johnny Ramones’ autobiography Commando, or Joey’s brother’s memoir, I slept with Joey Ramone. An extra 3.50  gets you a lifetime entrance badge.

I would recommend the exhibit, even to a non-fan. Formed in 1974, the Ramones were truly the ur-punks. Their aesthetics, musical approach, and down-to-earth personalities were the blueprint for things to come. Members of the Sex Pistols, the Clash, and Siouxsie and the Banshees attended the Ramones’ 1976 London show, and formed bands shortly thereafter. (One of the most striking photos in the exhibit is of a young Sid Vicious, gazing with intimidated reverence at Johnny Ramone.) Despite their huge and immediate international influence, the Ramones struggled financially throughout their career, and the museum presents us with a seminal tale of behind-the-music tragedy: the grueling tour schedules from 1978 through the early 80s, drug abuse, a love triangle that tore Johnny and Joey apart, so that they spent the last decade of their career, and the last years of their lives, not speaking with one another. The Ramones lived fast and died young: Joey at 49, Dee Dee at 50, Johnny at 55. A slightly somber feeling pervades the museum, weaving through the articles clipped from major press and fanzines, the tour posters and T-shirts, the band members’ clothing encased like sacred relics. The exhibit has been recently improved by the addition of two video installations, one showing a continuous stream of live clips, the other playing a documentary film on the band. The very earliest Ramones footage is particularly endearing, as they argue between songs about which two-minute opus to play next, then shakily perform their act in its embryonic incarnation. “No one’s going to like you,” warned Hilly Kristal, owner of CBGB’s, as he offered them their first gig.

In the end it does come down to whether you like the music. Despite the Ramones’ place in history, they don’t have a particularly big place in my own history. In the days when I was discovering punk, I thought they were pretty good, but Minor Threat and the Bad Brains were faster and more interesting. And as far as formative musical experiences go, I have other hang-ups. There is a place for people like me: Cafe Halford (Mainzerstrasse 15) is an establishment devoted to the “Metal God” himself, Rob Halford, lead singer of Judas Priest.

Wandering through Friedrichshain in the early evening, I see Cafe Halford looming ahead on the corner. The sun is still out, and set against the blue sky and urban idyll of the neighborhood, the black-light-illuminated interior radiates with a kind of menace. The elbows of leather-jacket wearing patrons are pressed up against the window, and from the outside it all looks a bit, well, hellish. There is no neat table of books for those with merely an academic interest. This is rock ‘n’ roll. As I approach the front door, a plume of smoke wafts out to greet me.

The interior of Cafe Halford resembles less a cafe and more a rec-room I would have designed in my teenage fantasies when I was thirteen. Central to the decor is a looming, larger-than-life Rob Halford statue, face contorted in mid-scream, arms sculpted in an exaggerated Greco-roman style musculature. Judas Priest records hang from the ceiling, and Halford-related memorabilia covers every surface. Videos are screened on several large monitors—Manowar, Motorhead, Bon Scott era AC/DC, Slayer. The names of the drink specials give further indication of the musical predilection: Dio, Accept, Saxon, Grave Digger. The back room is filled to capacity with pool tables and the intimidating clientele who generally accompany them. I wonder if these people can clearly recognize me as a poser, and have to remind myself nervously that Halford is the metal god of tolerance.

Cafe proprietor Sven Rappoldt, sporting a shaved head, neatly trimmed goatee and sleeveless leather jacket, is a startling Rob Halford look-alike. He is a cordial guy, and when I ask him whether Mr. Halford knows about the tribute cafe, he tells me that the singer gave his official blessing to use the name in 1991. That’s 21 years of Cafe Halford, and they have been turbulent years for the Metal God: an on-stage motorcycle wreck in '91, quitting Judas Priest in '92, solo career and musical experimentation throughout the 90s, coming out as gay in '98, then the triumphant return to Priest in 2003, new albums, world tours, and by all accounts still as great as ever live. It’s nice to think of the cafe sticking with him through it all. And it is nice to think that unlike real life (the real life of, say, the Ramones, documented and archived as the quintessential cautionary tale of rock), Judas Priest always ends on a note of victory.

 “I take it you’re a big fan,” I say, and then realize I have run out of questions. The logical follow-up might be “what album did you first get into?” or “when did you first see him in concert?” but I realize before I can articulate these banalities that I am not sincerely interested in the answers. I just want an excuse to give my own version of events, to relate something about myself (Greensboro Coliseum in North Carolina, 1984, Defenders of the Faith tour—it was my first concert, and set an impossibly high bar for the ones to follow. Of the thousands of musical performances I’ve seen since then, not one could be said to have “blown away” Judas Priest). Everyone has their own unique story, but the true specifics of our lives are untransmittable, so we speak in the coded language of songs and set-lists. The other approach would be to ask Sven why our generation feels the need to cling to its childhood heroes so tightly. But he is hard at work, serving beer and chatting with customers; it seems like a bit much to demand something so deconstructive of him. Instead I ask, has Halford ever come by to visit? Sven smiles and shows me a photo on the wall of himself and Halford hanging out in front of the Halford statue. What can I say to that? Pretty awesome.