Rainer Baur - Gift
Born and raised in Augsburg, Baur was heavily influenced by The Beatles and began playing guitar at the early age of 8. He would soon start at school group with other future GIFT bandmate, Helmuth Treichel, and by the age of 14 they played their first gig and thus the legacy of GIFT was born! I remember the first time I ever heard GIFT and was completely blown away! Only two records came out from this band, but their legacy is rich! Over the decades they would quickly acquire a great following of fans from all over the world! I spoke to Rainer about his early days growing up Bavaria, particpating in the pre-GIFT outfit, Phallus Dei, life after GIFT and his current career as a DJ. Enjoy!
Rainer on his axe in the early 70’s.
I was born on July 2nd 1954 in Augsburg, Bavaria, Germany, raised there and I’m still living there. Growing up in Augsburg was very pleasant, country-like, but also nearby inner-city. (300,000 inhabitants) Many friends always playing outdoor- meeting point playground. As my family also was very music friendly, in our house was always music. My father was working for 40 years in the American barracks for the army, as Augsburg was a Garrisontown. First of all, the Beatles changed my life completely. A few years later, when Cream, Taste, Hendrix etc. released their music, my decision was made, to become a rock musician – professionally. Playing the guitar, I started with the age of 8. Founding a group, we decided on the playground listening to Cream – sunshine of your love, together with my friend Helmuth Treichel, who was the singer of the band.
We started, working during our school-vacations, being able to buy the equipment. Name of the band : Deeper blue. Nearby the house, where we have been living, there was a place called Casino Club. Many American soldiers have been there and opened also on Sunday afternoon with live music every day. Mostly English bands. At the age of 13, we’ve been there frequently. Of course it wasn’t allowed, but who cares. At the age of 14, we had our first gig there. I had to escape from stage, when police was coming. We played covers from Cream, Uriah Heep, Grand funk railroad, Taste, Free etc. One big impact for us was of course Deep Purple, playing also in this Club. Every year, there was a band competition in a big hall from a church inner-city . Meanwhile we changed the drummer- Mandy Lange – we´ve been very happy and proud, cause he was the best in town, playing with double bass drum.
Phallus Dei.
We changed also our name to Phallus Dei. Because this was a church hall, they did not allow us, performing with that name. So we changed it for just one gig. Everyone can imagine, what a big theme that was for the local press. The audience went crazy, turning the Jesus cross face to the wall. Finally we won the competition with “ Paranoid“ Black Sabbath. With that we shifted our attention to the producer Otto B Hartmann. He gave us the contract for an album. In that time , we had not one single own song. That meant: Rehearsing, practicing... We changed also the bass player, Uwe Patzke, not because he was very good, more than he was looking good on stage, and he was a good fellow. We rented a big house, where everyone had his own room. And we had the occasion to rehearse whenever we wanted. So, within 3 months we wrote several songs and went to Munich, to record them in “ Union studios”. Our engineer was Reinhold Mack https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhold_Mack who later on recorded all “Queen” LPs.
Uwe`s wife was a magnificent graphic artist and made us a wonderful cover for Phallus Dei, but also the record company “ Telefunken- Decca” did not accept that band name. So we changed to `GIFT`, because that has a meaning in german and English.This was the time of so called “ Krautrock”, but we never wanted to identify with this expression. In my youthful recklessness, I thought, we made it! But in reality, I had to recognize, that we have long time before us, to get really good. For me, it was too early to make a record. We had many guests in our “ GIFT Music House”, to jam with. Among others the Scorpions spent nights with us, when they were in Augsburg.
As I wasn’t very happy with that recording, we was thinking about bringing a second guitar player to the band. I was a huge fan of “ Whishbone Ash”. So we found Nick Woodland, who was playing with a commercial band. He was living with us for about 1 year. We had not very many Gigs and Nick didn’t get along well with the drummer. So he left the band, not playing neither on the first nor on the 2. Album. So we where searching for another guitar player and keyboardist. We`ve been very happy to find Dieter Atterer and Dieter Frei. They were some kind of “Idols” for me, cause they where a few years older than me, and meant to be the best in our town. Im still a fan of Dieter Atterers voice and guitar playing.
Gift circa: 1971.
When we had the chance to record the 2. Album, we had big troubles with the singer and my friend Helmuth. The other thought, that there is no 2. Singer necessary, when Dieter is singing all songs. So I had to give in and Helmuth had to leave the band. You don’t have to listen very close, to hear, that the style and quality had changed enormously, being influenced from Moody Blues, Yes and Whishbone Ash. We recorded “Blue apple” in Decca studio in Hamburg. For recording, mastering and mixing we had not more than 1 week. At least I appreciated this decision, because I could develop my own style very much and learned many things, I did not know before.
Flyer from a gig circa: 1972.
Recording session in Union Studios Munich circa: 1971.
Our idols have always been English and American bands, so we did not like being called Krautrock. At one sight we were very thankful, being discovered by Otto Hartmann and giving us a major deal with Decca, on the other side, we had to realize, that all in all nobody really cared about us. We did not have a management, giving us enough gigs to survive. The disappointment about this, you can listen to the words in the song “ rock scene” that I wrote. I wrote almost every words of the songs. Nowadays Im pretty astonished about some words I wrote back then. For example “ got to find a way”, desire for things that are rather impossible. In this song, witch was composed by everybody of us, you can here exactly, if you listen close, our heroes. The mellotron from Moody Blues, some passages from Yes.
The Gift house community circa: 1972.
Autograph session, release circa: 1972.
Helmuth Treichel (vox).
Uwe Patzke (bass).
In “ Psalm” you can hear harmonies from the Allman Brothers ( In Memory Of Elizabeth Read ) and also the two guitars. Blue apple is a song from our producer and the words are nowadays more relevant than ever. ( Atomalyptic Picnic by the black and poisoned sea…) There is one song, that I would like to record in a modern style now.” Left the past behind”. Slower, more funky with real horns and brass. I like the way of singing it by Dieter. Also the singing of “don’t waste your time”. The words are actually a joke, that is: Somebody asked Jesus: “Hey, what you are doing up there? Oh, Im just hanging around.” Our biggest performance was in may ‘73 in Frankfurt Festhalle – german rock super concert – 6000 people audience. As the costs of the band ( house, bus, equipment…) was very high and the drummer still worked frequently in his profession ( he lives in Spain since about 20 years), me and Dieter Frei have been urged to work in daytime as auxiliary workers.
German Super Rock Party at the Frankurt Festhalle circa: 1973.
Dieter Frei (org, key).
Uwe Patzke (bass).
Mandy" Lange (dums).
Rainer Baur (guitar).
Dieter Atterer (vox/guitar).
We refused this and I made the proposal, to rehears chart songs and play for example in hotels or American barracks – just to earn more money. Uwe (bass) refused this and so, we’ve been looking for another bass player. It was Albert Wieler, who is seen on the video “got to find a way” on television. The cover band called `music circus` was pretty successful and we played more and more. Finally a job as supporting act for “UFO” was offered to GIFT. But the offer came too late, because music circus replaced the two Dieter`s and GIFT did not exist anymore. All members are still in contact, as we live in the same town. Sometimes I make vacation in Spain in Mandy`s house. In 2014 there was big reunion in german television. After this show the band split finally:
Circa: 1973/74.
Dieter Frei.
Also in the 90’s we tried a comeback
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uSWFezz8kU
And totally other things:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=gift++goes+funky
After “ music circus” I operated several disco clubs and after that I was professional DJ. The gigs got more and more, so I founded an agency for DJs. Nowadays I just book gigs for other DJs and play just for fun in a band called “ bells and balls” (3 female singers).
Dakota Brown
