Current Program

Saturday, 13.06.2026 - 20:00 Uhr
Wednesday, 21.02.2024 - 01:37 Uhr
Saturday, 13.06.2026 - 20:00 Uhr

50 Years Tuten & Blasen

We’re celebrating our 50th anniversary at the Fabrik

Fifteen musicians—playing saxophones, brass, and percussion instruments—are celebrating the 50th anniversary of their band, which has performed at Kampnagel, the Polittbüro, the Fabrik, and on the streets of Hamburg.

In 1976, four musicians met in the basement of the apartment building Haynstr. 1 to make music. They had chosen wind instruments because they didn’t want to stay in the basement, but rather go out onto the streets to support squatters, the Hafenstraße movement, and the anti-nuclear movement, and to demonstrate against militarization and the NATO Double-Track Decision.

The wind instruments had to get used to being played not by the air in a hall, but by car exhaust, tear gas, and the Atlantic wind at venues in the Old Elbe Tunnel, the shell of the Elbphilharmonie, in Brokdorf, and later in concert halls and movie theaters.

In Freiburg, “Rote Note” was founded; “Tegenwind” in Utrecht; “Dicke Luft” in Cologne; “IG Blech” in Berlin. Leading figures were “Das sogenannte linksradikale Blasorchester” (The So-Called Radical Left Wind Orchestra) from Frankfurt and, of course, “Tuten und Blasen.” A shift in perspective brought about by our travels to Zanzibar, Mumbai, Brittany, Newcastle, and Utrecht—always in exchange with other bands—led to collective music-making, new forms of composition, and gestural forms of expression.

Fabrik  Barnerstr. 36, 22765 Hamburg