Interview with BTU Alumnus Eckart Rehberg (Culture and Technology)
Eckart Rehberg studied Culture and Technology in Cottbus and completed a Master's degree in Intercultural Communication at the European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder). He teaches German as a foreign language in Berlin and has also traveled to Ghana as a lecturer. Music is his great passion and second professional mainstay. Among other things, he sings with the Operators and plays vinyl as DJ Eggs Delicious. In August 2021, he got his own radio show, Elevation, on radioeins (rbb), where he plays his unusual records on Saturday mornings at party time from 1 a.m. to 4 a.m.
Hello Eckart, how did you get your own radio show and what can listeners expect?
I would say first hard work and then luck! My very first time was actually in Cottbus at Muggefug, but I've been doing it more intensively for nine years now. In the beginning, it was often smaller rock concerts in Berlin that friends of mine organized and then I threw the after-show. Or in bars, which can sometimes be boring, but sometimes cool because the DJ isn't constantly forced to make people want to dance to the hits. It's definitely important to be proactive when DJing and to write to event organizers online and make suggestions and things like that. Then luck struck and a friend who works at radioeins suggested me for a night show. Then I recorded a pilot show, as if it was almost a finished existing radio show of mine. This then convinced Anja Caspary at radioeins. Filling three hours coherently is not that easy at first, it's the mix that makes the difference. The show features a lot of music from the golden years of 1966-1974, a time when there was an explosion of artistic creativity not only in rock, but also in funk and soul, for example, with exciting new studio and sound possibilities and a lot of space beyond the format of a three-minute hit single in the album format. Of course, you can always hear a few new releases. With Elevation, I don't just play "western" music, but also psychedelic rock from Turkey or Afrobeat from Ghana or Nigeria. The whole thing is garnished with a few moderations from me, who give some background information about the songs. But the focus is clearly on positive, groovy songs with a few hits and plenty of room for discovery!
You are a passionate record collector, how did that come about and how do you go about rummaging for records?
My brother says that I was already a collector as a child. In the years around 2000, I must have taken all my pocket money to Saturn at Alexanderplatz and built up a nice CD collection. I started with vinyl during my Culture and Technology semester abroad in Arlington, Texas. There in Texas, I bought maybe 25 old records that were on super sale. Somehow that was old and new at the same time for me and therefore exciting. My favorite place to browse for records is in record stores, I rarely buy records online. For me, it's just the most fun to have records in my hand, marvel at the covers, turn them over and read the credits and all that. If you walk into a store and there's a friendly person behind the counter and there's tasteful music playing like DJ Shadow or The Roches, then it's even more fun. It's also definitely a nerdy community where you get a certain reaction to certain questions or comments. And that's the case worldwide, which is why I always look for record stores in every city when I'm traveling, regardless of whether it's in Texas (cheap), Copenhagen (expensive) or Ghana (exciting). You automatically find out a lot about the respective music culture there. And another thing: over the years, the smaller vinyl singles, also known as 7inches, have definitely become more and more important to me. They are simply perfect for DJs. The classic LPs are great, but not when you're lugging 60 of them around at night in a heavy suitcase!
In addition to your passion for music, you also teach German as a foreign language, what does your day-to-day work look like and what kind of people do you teach?
I teach at an adult education center in Berlin and the audience is usually people between 25 and 45 years old from all over the world. Since Corona, the courses have been limited to a maximum of 12 participants, which is great from a teacher's perspective because you can respond to people much better than with 20 people. This means that there are often 12 people from maybe 10 different countries sitting in front of me. And I love the intercultural aspect of it all, when the Indian course participant raves to her Polish colleague about a samosa recipe. Sounds a bit cheesy, but it really is! My day-to-day work is relatively relaxed because the course participants are adults and motivated. I don't have a teaching role. Nevertheless, apart from friendliness and respect, the most important thing in a German course is patience, patience, patience. I've never met anyone who particularly celebrated "der, die, das" or adjective declension. I sometimes briefly remember my school and university courses in French and Russian and then, poof, I'm very patient.
You are culturally active in many different ways, including as a musician and urban historian, what did your Culture and Technology degree give you?
A certain bridge thinking. You learn how to deal with concepts or tools and then you often realize that you can also apply them to other areas. On the other hand, the range of topics in "Culture and Technology" is quite broad, you definitely need your own ideas and a strong drive to really pursue one or two of these areas rigorously. Well, you shouldn't forget to have fun: It was a pleasure and an investment in cultural capital to read a lot during this time. Then I got university credits for a yoga course in Texas, also great! And I DJed with a tape DJ in Cottbus. DJing with tapes is so stupid, it's brilliant again!
What do you miss most from your periods of study in Cottbus?
The cheap rents, haha! There were sometimes crossover effects at university, for example when 10 senior citizens sat in the lecture. I always thought that was great. They brought life experience and good questions with them, which we 21-year-olds benefited from. Definitely also the simplicity of the nightlife. There was usually something going on, one party is enough to go to, you can't go to several at the same time anyway. Last but not least: Idealism, when students got together for some kind of action, whether it was against the next Vattenfall village excavation or an anti-racism demonstration.
