New album
Östro 430 – Original punk housewife style
The cover of the album “Punkrock nach Hausfrauenart” by the women’s punk band Östro 430. Photo
© Thomas Polajnar/Wallpaper Records/dpa
They are considered the first women’s punk band in Germany: Östro 430. After a break of 35 years, the band was founded again – and is releasing a new album. Well-known companions are also part of the party.
Some consider them to be the first women’s punk band in Germany, but this is not historically certain: Now Östro 430 has found itself again after a short creative break of 35 years. The band around founding members Martina Weith and Bettina Flörchinger is even releasing a new album: “Punkrock nach Hausfrauenart” (release: September 1, 2023). Bela B. from the doctors and Ruhrpott bard Stefan Stoppok are also part of the party.
The band was founded in 1978, says singer Weith, others say 1979. “Then we first looked for a guitarist for two years in vain,” remembers Weith. Östro 430 finally had their first appearance on May 3, 1980 in Neuss. But are they now the first German women’s punk band? “Well, no one knows for sure, but I think so,” says Weith.
What is guaranteed: Östro 430 started in 1980 without a female guitarist. After their first concert, they were immediately engaged as the opening act for the legendary group Fehlfarben led by Peter Hein. “Our second concert was in Wuppertal and our third in Heidelberg. That brought us quite a bit forward. But we also delivered,” says Weith (63).
Then there was shift
“I mean, calling yourself a punk band without a guitar, that was daring. But that was also our lyrics, our snotty demeanor, all our aggression that we let out.” But in 1984 Bettina Flörchinger started her practical year after studying medicine and became a gynecologist. “That was shift. That was it.”
35 years later, Flörchinger gave up her medical practice and found time for her again Music. Weith, who has worked as a journalist for a long time, now works as a kindergarten teacher in Hamburg. An idea emerges that sounds like something out of the cult film “Blues Brothers”: “We’ll bring the band back together!”
In 2019, the group actually reunites with two new musicians, Anja Peterssen (bass) and Sandy Black (drums). There are eleven tracks on the new album, the titles of which leave no doubt about the blunt nature of the punk band: “Old Men”, “Your Butt”, “Fick the System”, “Lahmarschfete”.
You know each other
But how did Bela B. and Stoppok get guest appearances as news anchors on the new album? “You know each other from before. We played together with the doctors when they weren’t even in the “Bravo”. They were thrown at them with flour and eggs in the Ratinger Hof,” remembers Weith.
In addition, she had a short appearance on a doctor’s album herself: “I’m shitting a rapper together. I just drank two cans of beer beforehand, scolded myself and they took some part of my rant. And we have Stoppok “Toxic” covered.”
The punks got involved with the Toten Hosen when the Hosen called themselves the Red Roses for a while. “We covered an Abba song on the Rosen album.”
Campino got to know the punks in the Ratinger Hof – that’s what he remembers: the day we got to know each other better was November 9, 1979, when the London band Wire performed.
“The Ratinger Hof was bursting at the seams, we were stuck together like sardines in a tin. So we inevitably got to know each other on what was perhaps one of the best nights the Hof has ever experienced,” Campino recalls of the band’s reunion in 2019. I’m glad to come out of the same “swamp” as Estro 430 and to have accompanied her part of the way.”
The Ratinger Hof in Düsseldorf’s old town, run by Carmen Knoebel at the time, is considered the nucleus and Mecca of punk in West Germany. “It was the only place that played our music and played the music we wanted to hear,” says Weith.