Baronen Ball was a series of 4 themed parties in September 1985 held at the Mascotte Club in Zurich Switzerland produced and organized by James Wolfensberger, Serge Becker, Palmo Quero, Dodo Widder, (All photos by Katja Becker) and myself. We told everyone that they had to dress up according to the theme! All movers & shakers of Zurich attended. The artist Jean Michel Basquiat who was a friend of Serge Becker attended the party as well.
Recorded in Sept. 1985 at Baronen Ball 1. What’s interesting is that about 75% of all songs on this tape came out the same year 1985! Back then we played the newest stuff coming out. You can also here the first House songs on this tape!
The interior design of the club was so bad it made us decide to do themed events so we could mask the interior. James Wolfensberger knew the director of props at the Opera House and they gave us all this stuff for free including a 3 meter chandelier for the first event. Since the club had these very high windows we decided to do a church theme for the 2nd event and Serge Becker designed the windows to look like Cathedral windows with “Medieval meets Mad Max” themes. We parked a van outside and put a flood light on the roof to shine into the windows which we turned on to a fake sermon when everyone was there.
Palmo Quero (Café Regenbogen) got the permission to use this square (Rosenhof) for the Zurichfest. His team helped set up everything to make this a legendary event for years to come. It was revolutionary in the sense that most people at the time had never seen or experienced a large dance party like this.
At this event I introduced the brand new song “Gypsy Woman” (La Da Dee) by Crystal Waters . It became an Anthem of the Rosenhof square in one night and I ended up playing it 8 times since the people could sing along “La Da Dee, La Da Da” without knowing the lyrics!
I ended up playing at this legendary event in 1991, 1994, 1998, 2001 and 2013.
