Nico/Christa Päffgen | Page 40 | the Fashion Spot

Nico/Christa Päffgen

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Ahhh thanks odelay! I was always sad that that picture was only small and kind of blurry and it's a great picture, Nico looks so cool in it!

Was Nico's hair blonde or light red in that picture? It's hard to tell if it's the lighting or not, i know the first time she dyed it was when she dyed it light red for Jim Morrison but i thought that she also cut it short but maybe she dyed it first then later cut is short, do you know when the picture was taken?
 
I found more picture on that site that are better quality than previous ones so here they are...

nico1.png


nico2-1.png

www.thevelvetforum.tk
 
a visit in luebbenau, where nico grew up

I just registered at this forum, since I thought you might be interested in some pictures I took.

a few days ago I spent two days in luebbenau, close to berlin, where nico grew up for a few years during the 2nd world war.

I visited the old cemetery. she often said, that it was her favourite playground.

here are the pictures:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/55635466@N00/sets/72157600925931220/

I'm the woman in the video (see post #770), who visited nico's grave. I made the video.

here it is in better solution (the original wmv-file to download):

http://gagavision.blip.tv/file/205954?filename=Gagavision-opus8405.wmv

enjoy.
 
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Wow that's so cool that you got to go there! I've always been curious what the cemetary and town looked like so it's really cool to see your pictures! Thanks so much for posting them! I wonder how different it looked back when Nico lived there, it's very beautiful!

Did anyone there know who Nico was? Every German i've met has no idea who she is.
 
thank you so much for your kind words!

I guess the old town looks quite the same, since luebbenau wasn't destroyed in the 2nd world war, as far as I know. the safety of luebbenau was the main reason why nico's mother left berlin with little christa for the years of war. the old town with the ancient buildings is absolutely authentic. It's not disneyland, if you know what I mean. they are about to restore many of the ancient buildings and are almost finished. they do a great job.

in the street where the house of nico's grandparents was, gueterbahnhofstr. (it's said no. 4) are also only ancient buildings but not that beautifull. I took a few pictures of the house but I didn't like it at all. I stored them and looked them over and over. It looked so severe and so cold to me. after a few hours I deleted them and I don't feel sorry about it. nowadays there's an insurance company in the house. not so nice. normally you expect, that it would be somehow impressing to stand before the building, but it wasn't at all. I was a little disappointed because of the complete absence of excitement.

but the cemetery right behind the gueterbahnhofstraße, about five minutes from the house, is absolutely enchanting. and I'm sure, that it also didn't change a lot since then, because they closed the cemetery in 1960 as far as I know, in the way that there were no funerals anymore. so you see only ancient graves. the ones nico saw.

I guess that many of the young people in luebbenau who are fond of gothic know about nico. I didn't ask anybody, but in the gothic scene she's still very popular. and there's a cultural center in the gueterbahnhofstr., who dedicated a page on their site to nico:

http://www.kulturhof-luebbenau.de/html/nico.html

when I waited on the train to get back to berlin, late at night, I went to a bar to get some coffea, right in the railwaystation, it's was kind of mexican/cuban style, somehow unexpected. and there were some young girls from luebbenau (obviously, since nobody from berlin or somewhere else would go to luebbenau to have drink) having some cocktails. and about two and a half of five girls looked very nico-like. not by nature - there styling was very nico. long hair and smoky eyes. I asked myself if I'm about to hallucinate. but maybe it's just a style many girls nowadays have.

nico is still popular and beloved in berlin. if you meet anybody who is really into music in berlin, will know nico. her last concerts in the planetarium in schoenberg on two days in june 1988, six weeks before her death in ibiza were immediately sold out. I couldn't get a ticket. I felt very sad about that. I'm grateful it was recorded. I often listen to fata morgana. and so beautiful, when she says at the end of the two songs (I will be seven when we meet in heaven & fata morgana), she just wrote for the two concerts: "ich habe noch nicht alle worte gefunden - es tut mir leid - die meisten worte fehlen noch", which means: "I haven't found yet all the words/lyrics - I'm sorry - most words are still missing". very touching, if you have in mind, that she didn't know, that she wouldn't find them anymore.
 
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Ohh that's so sad that you didn't get to go to that! Thank you for the stories! I wonder why Nico's mother (and then Nico) wasn't burried in that cemetary since Grete's family was from there and it was right by their home.
 
I missed her last concert, but I was lucky to see nico live in 1984 or 1985 - I don't remember exactly the year. but it was in november or december. I was right in the front row, just about 3 meters distance. awesome. mesmerizing. I will never forget that two hours all my life. I was so young, about 17 or 18 and I understood any move of her body and her voice. it felt so familiar. still does.

when margarete päffgen died, the cemetery was already closed for further funerals. apart from that, the years in luebbenau were just a state of emergency. I guess, it was more interesting for margarete to make up an independent living in berlin as a dressmaker than staying in luebbenau, which might be somehow boring in the long run. margarete looks quite gay on one of the photographs in richard witts' book. and nico was very affiliated with her mother. as far as I know, nico bought the resting place in the grunewald cemetery for her mother and herself. so it's the right place for nico to be.
 
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From the pictures the cemetaries look similar anyhow. And you're right, they did spend more time in Berlin than Luebbenau. I wonder if the cemetary weren't closed if they would ahve been burried there.

I can't believe that you saw Nico! Did you take any pictures? Did she say anything or look you in the eye? I'm very interested...
 
no, I didn't take pictures. I had no camera with me.

your question, if she looked me in the eye makes me laugh a little bit. nico would not look anybody in the eye. but for a few moments I just wanted to believe, that she looked me straight in the eyes. today I would say, this was probably more or less wishful thinking, because you can't really recognize anybody in the audience, if the spotlight is straight on you. she was sooo far away with sister morphine and looked like a sphinx. nevertheless I felt her energy floating right inside of me and it felt like her energy had a special colour of deep indigo blue.

now and then there was this special smile, a bit amused. she rarely spoke. I was so close to her harmonium, I thought I almost could touch it. and I felt the sound it made. just this sound of her indian organ gave an absolutely incredible sacral atmosphere. and it felt very sentimental, when she said - her voice sounded for a moment so tender like the voice of the very young nico, who sang femme fatale - when she said "this is dedicated to jim morrison. I miss him" (or maybe she even said "I miss YOU"). then she sang her last song - the end.
 
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Thanks for the info and experiences with Nico you've been sharing gagavision :flower: Excellent video and photos.
 
I've heard she would stare at people and they would get scared so i was wondering if she did that to people in the audience. I wish i could have seen her live but unfortunetly i had no escaped from the womb yet.
 
You saw Nico live? You are so lucky! Thank you very much for you interesting posts about Nico. I find the story about the young girls looking like Nico quite interesting... Oh, and the photos of her native town, so great!
 
thank you, iceprincess & nicovelvet. I thought, many people that follow this thread, had the chance to see nico live on stage.

babydoll, in five weeks is my 42nd birthday. I saw some famous people who are dead. I remember very well phil lynott with thin lizzy or frank zappa or frank sinatra. this is one of the good things in getting older.

the last two hours I spent desperately seeking for my diaries of the years 1984 - 1985. I just found them. of course I was looking for the entry after the concert. I found out, it was on december, 2 in 1984, a sunday. it seems there was not much left to say, afterwards. I just wrote "NICO was satisfying." and I normally used to write a lot in those days. probably it was so satisfying, that I had nothing to add, no wishes left. the longer I think about it, the more I remember some details. it was the band with james young on keyboards and they all looked very cool, some wore dark sunglasses. it took quite a while til nico entered the stage. they played and played and played. and then she came with a far away glance in her eyes - moved very very slowly. like slow motion. black leather trousers, black pullover. she sat down and started to smoke and watched the boys as she was an interested critic, who just dropped by. I found that incredibly cool, since you realized, that she's the boss. the chief-goddess from walhalla. I loved her.

she had lots of mascara but her lips seemed naked. I think it's bullsh*t, when people say, she wanted to be ugly. she just wanted to gain another kind of beauty. a dark beauty. otherwise she had stopped to use any make up. in the nico icon documentary you can see her (the 'late nico' in the eighties) preparing for stage by using blusher. eh voilà.
 
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^^Yes, I understand. I am 44 and I saw a lot of shows. Many who are deceased today and/or disbanded. But I do not think that Nico ever came to Montréal. I would have not missed her for sure. Actually, before i got the news that she died I was still hoping to see her live. That was quite a shock when I read it in the newspaper. Correct me if i am wrong, but when she was touring a lot (in the mid-80s), I am not sure if she ever came to North America, or did she?...
About her beauty, it always strikes me about all the time she spends on her makeup. I also noticed it in the Nico Icon documentary. As I read, maybe it is one of her saying that she wanted to be ugly was another of her famous "nicoïsm"... That would make sense...
 
I never got that either. She still seemed to spend a lot of time on her look. I think that she was just fed up with how phony the modeling industry was. She was never even ugly, even what she was at her 'worst' she still looked unreal.

I don't think that she toured North America in the mid-eighties. I think she just did in the sixties and seventies. I was in San Francisco the other day and i saw this book about the punk scene there in the seventies and they had a page about Nico playing there and i wanted to buy the book so i could scan the page on here but i'm too poor and didn't want to carry it with me everywhere but there was a quote about how Nico was like a magician the way she quieted the rowdy punks in the audience when she came out, she just played and everyone was silent.

Did Nico ever play in Seattle? That's where i'm from but i have never heard of her even going there.
 
Beautiful pics babydoll, Nico looks gorgeous :flower: I'm sad to see that site is no longer operating :(
 
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