Peter Bursch has helped generations of guitarists get started in making music with his books, which have been printed in millions of copies (completely without sheet music). Back in 1968, he and friends in Duisburg founded BRÖSELMASCHINE, one of Germany's first progressive rock bands. In 2021, their highly acclaimed debut album celebrates its 50th birthday; this summer it was re-released in a sonically reworked form. Together with the band leader, eclipsed looks back at the early years of the now re-active group to shed light on the genesis of one of the most interesting musical productions of early German rock history.
eclipsed: In 1968, the year Bröselmaschine was founded, you were 19 years old. But it was not your first band?
According to the "German Dictionary" of the Brothers Grimm, "Gebrösel" or "Brösel" in the Lower Rhine refers to vegetables cooked in a mess. However, the name of the folk herb prog-whatever-you-can-get formation Crumble Machine, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2018 with the box set "It Was 50 Years Ago Today", owes its name to a cannabis crusher. After the Duisburg cult band had only given concerts sporadically between 1985 and 2005, they have been much more active again in recent years and with "Elegy" 2019 they have presented perhaps the strongest work in their long history.
Peter Bursch, known through his books as the "Guitar Teacher of the Nation", is the last remaining founding member of the Breadcrumb Machine, which was founded in 1968. In the interview he talks about the band's latest activities and the joys of age.
When the hippie icon Joan Baez travelled to Germany for Easter marches in 1968, Peter Bursch walked by her side. There can be no more fitting picture for the formation of the crumbling machine that Bursch and four friends created a few months later - political and artistic upheaval was in the air. And a crumbling machine in the middle of it. Half a century, several reshuffles and time-outs later the band is currently very agile. This can be heard on the current album "Indian Camel".
28. The mood in the backstage area of the Burg-Herzberg-Festival is depressed on this late afternoon. At least for Peter Bursch, who had learned a few hours earlier that his long-time friend and band member Willi Kissmer had died the day before. "I wasn't really surprised by the news, Willi had been seriously ill for some time," says Bursch, "but when you're confronted with a fait accompli, it's another story."
