Hello good people,

inspired by all sorts of brouhaha about punk and the counter culture of the seventies and eighties, let me celebrate this week the German counter-counter culture phenomenon that was the ‘Popper’. No, I don’t mean the ‘attractive but risky’ recreational drug amyl nitrite but the short lived youth culture of the German middle- to upper class that haunted (ok, bored) society in the early eighties. Apart from some selfcongratulatory bullshit in some German qualities there is few material out in the webosphere, so let me enlighten you a bit. According to the lore, the Popper scene spread via osmosis from the affluent suburbs of Hamburg through the rest of the affluent suburbs of the bored German ‘comfortable’ ones. In generously designed detached houses with well-manicured gardens  a new breed of adolescent was being socialised: bored by the general political upheaval within the Republic, driven by long haired, slightly smelly political activists who would march on the weekend, eat muesli and fight the system, some kids chose to spend the evenings and weekends in a sort of civilised cafe society with a strictly enforced dress code. Instead of the knitted jumpers and silly jeans of their more politicised peers they would wear kashmir jumpers, polos shirts and colourful Benetton trousers. Necessary accessories were a Vespa Ciao, Dunhill or Davidoff cigarettes and a if at all possible access to a big wallet (daddy’s would do).

...Dutch can be so uncool.

So after investing numerous hundreds of Marks into the outfit, the aspiring popper was allowed to join his or her peers. Likely to be found in fashionable cafes during the day or in the wine cellar of somebody elses parents, the whole Popper (btw, the name likely to root in ‘Pop Music’. Remember, the leather jacket, motorcycle touting brutes of that area were called ‘Rockers’. Likely due to their affinity to Rock music) thing was mainly about being seen, flaunting dad’s wealth and listening to the right music. Matt Bianco, Sade, The Style Council, early Italo Pop, New Romantics and early synth pop a la Yazoo were very much the music to listen to and on the weekend some poor parent would have to put up with dozens of the little darlings in their houses, moderately but very politely drunk and generally very civilised.

That’s exactly what riled the rest of society: without any typical adolescent intent to rile against the system and quite content to roll with it, Poppers were ridiculed by adults and the rest of their peers for their enforced conformity and lack of interest in anything political. Most wanted to be lawyers or doctors.

These days I am happy to acknowledge to have been one of those precious few Poppers in my little town. Happy to enjoy each others company, happy to ignore the rest of a very angry world around me. I knew life was bound to be getting more complicated very soon, so for a few years I was content to be an apolitical bloke with funny clothes, expensive cigarettes, an underpowered moped and a string of girlfriends with Benetton jumpers.  It could have been much worse. So, to celebrate these few years, I will feature a little piece of Popper world for one week only.

And with ABC’s ‘Poison Arrow’ I hereby declare the international week of the Popper  inaugurated.