OLIVER STUMM

1980s PARTIES & PHOTOS

HERE YOU CAN FIND PHOTOS & FLYERS OF ICONIC 80s PARTIES

BARONEN BALL 1 (1985): The Baron Invites:

(Click to see all photos):

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!

BARONEN BALL 2 (1985): The Baron Goes To Church:

(Click to see all photos)

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.

PARTY SERIES MILLER’S STUDIO (80s):

From 1986 – 1989 i did a series of parties woth Paul and Jakob Schonenberger & Co. at Miller’s Studio (Muehle Tiefenbrunnen, Zurich). I believe these are photos of one of those parties.

THE FIRST HOUSE MUSIC PARTY IN SWITZERLAND (1986):

Introducing House Music in 1986! I believe this was the first House-Music party in Switzerland. We wanted to show everyone something brand new! Rather than nitpicking about the politics of the different scenes in Zurich we just pushed the envelope instead. Music is for everyone!

NEW YEARS EVE 1987 “MORGENDAEMMERUNG IM TANZPALAST” SHEDHALLE, ROTE FABRIK:

This was our first large party with a powerful sound system (Sound Hire) This event was held at the Shedhalle, Rote Fabrik. For some reason we could get this space through the “Mother of Punks” (I believe her name was Ushi) who actually lived in her art studio there. As you can see we didn’t actually want to make money since the party started at midnight!

REITHALLE ZURICH 1988:

Reithalle with Psychorama early evening…

James Wolfensberger came up with the great idea to team up with my drawing teacher and ask the city to rent the empty Reithalle for an alleged cultural event of the GSMBA (Gesellschaft Schweiz. Maler, Bildhauer & Architeckten). It worked the city gave us the space which was way too big with a capacity of over 1500 people. For this we teamed up with our friends from Psychorama Bern (Peter McTaggert & Katie Grossenbacher) to produce this large event. We provided GSMBA their free event and then used the space for a big dance party afterwards. It was our biggest event to date.

TANZGARAGE LEGENDARY CLOSING PARTY, ALSTETTEN, ZURICH 1988:

Tanz-Garage was an old mechanic’s garage that was turned into a club called Big Apple and we took it over in 1987. It was scheduled to be demolished in 1988 to make room for a large building. We made it a legendary club for this short period of time. Many people were involved: Bernie (technically the owner, manager and bouncer), Paul & Jakob Schoenenberger, James Wolfensberger, Palmo Quero, Urs Muellheer etc. I was the resident DJ every weekend until 6AM. The club had no liquor license. People brought their own drinks!

Here you can listen to a live live recording of the closing party that I recorded with a microphone hanging from the ceiling to capture the crowd’s reaction. Many people called this their home for the short period of time:

FABRIKHALLE STEINFELS, ZURICH AND GRANDE SALLE DU PALACE HOTEL, MONTREUX 1989:

This was a party and live concert I organized with Stephan Kohler aka DJ Mandrax in 1989. This had a lot of moving parts with 2 live bands in 2 cities. We were quite overwhelmed but we got it done! This was maybe the first live performances of a live House Music band in Switzerland.

DOLCE VITA, LAUSANNE 1990:

In 1990 Stephan Kohler aka Mandrax organized a DJ gig for me at the small club Dolce Vita in Lausanne. I didn’t know exactly what it was for since I usually didn’t see the flyer before or at the event. Anyways the flyer said Adamski which was a DJ/ producer at the time. Little did I know that the actual person showing up was his singer to perform Adamski’s newest single “Killer” (released 4 weeks earlier). When I asked the singer if I should introduce him and what his name was he mentioned his name was Seal. The single went # 1 in the U.K. charts and Seal became a worldwide mega star in the years to come.

Keep in Mind: All the events listed above were held before the first Street Parade in Zurich (1992) and before the Zurich Club Kaufleuten opened.