If we associate France with Sparks' biggest European success in the 1980s, it was Germany in the 1990s that produced a whole new audience for the Maels. Their single 'When Do I Get To Sing My Way' (from the album Gratuitous Sax and Senseless Violins, 1994, released by BMG through the German company Logic) was the top airplay record in 1994, sold over 650,000 copies and topped the charts in Germany.

 

There were also a number of interviews made for German TV during the decade that can still be viewed on YouTube and reveal fascinating glimpses of their thinking and self-presentation during that period. Although Sparks had spent time recording in Germany at the Musicland Studios in Munich (for Whomp That Sucker (1981) and Angst In My Pants (1982)) and there had been some gigs in the country before 1990, there were relatively few live performances compared with this significant decade.

The next live appearances were on 2 December 1974 in Hamburg and on 12 December in Munich with a whole new British band: Trevor White on guitar, Ian Hampton on bass and Dinky Diamond on drums. On the latter occasion there was also an after-gig phone interview with fans, organized by Bravo magazine. They performed songs from Kimono My House and Propaganda, both of which had been released in Germany that year. There were also appearances on German TV programmes that reveal how the band’s look and performance was developing: on Germany's popular Musikladen show (5 February 1975), they performed five songs; 'This Town', 'Amateur Hour', 'Something For The Girl With Everything', 'Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth' and 'B.C.'  Russell's performance is hyper-energetic: dressed in a red and white patterned winter sweater, red woollen gloves and a floor length red scarf, he cavorts around the stage, brandishing the microphone in all directions and taunting an impassive Ron, who is now sporting a short sweptback haircut. Some sources indicate that there were further dates in Hamburg, Köln and Munich in 1975, prior to a lengthy tour of the U.K and the U.S., but these unfortunately remain unconfirmed.  

A rare live appearance in Germany in the 1980s was a four-song set at the Circus Krone, Munich, for the Rock and Pop Festival, broadcast on the radio station Bayerischen Rundfunk on 9 December 1981.  The Circus Krone was the first permanent circus building in Germany and, at this time, was a concert venue that had hosted The Who and the Beatles. The new Sparks band now consisted of members of the group Bates Motel: Bob Haag (guitar), Leslie Bohem (bass), David Kendrick (drums), and Jim Goodwin (keyboard).

 

An informal video of the soundcheck on this occasion provides an insight into the pre-show preparation necessary to ensure a slick and trouble-free performance: it shows Ron with a yellow guitar and the setting up of a set of gold-coloured drums. Russell, in a grey jacket and red pants, repeats parts of 'Wacky Women' and 'This Town'.  The set list for the show also featured 'Upstairs' and 'Tips for Teens' (like 'Wacky Women', from 1981's Whomp That Sucker). Video footage of the gig itself has several interesting features: the band members are hyper-energetic, Russell, looking uber-handsome in a sparkling gold suit and shoes and a wing-collared shirt, his hair a curly mullet, slings his arm around Ron's neck as he sings ‘Tips For Teens’ (shades of David Bowie and Mick Ronson) and later introduces 'My big brother Ron Mael', as he still does today, as the one who does almost everything in the band.

 

We see how interaction between the brothers was becoming part of the image: Ron’s facial expressions as Russell claps in his face or shakes his microphone at him are hilarious, especially the wince as Russell hits a high note in ‘This Town’ and a sad shaking of the head with puzzled glances. We are also treated to the sight of Ron leaving his keyboard during ‘Tips For Teens’ to stand and conduct the band to a flourishing finish. At the end of this show, all the participants apparently joined together to play 'Give Peace A Chance' in tribute to John Lennon, who had been gunned down in New York the previous day. 

 

Also in this decade, in 1986, Ron and Russell had done a promo tour in the U.K, France and Germany for the album Music That You Can Dance To, and performed the title song on the TV show Na Sowas with a totally different, modernistic look. They are dressed casually, Ron in a short-sleeved tee-shirt and Russell in a blue denim jacket and white pants, and they are surrounded in an exotic green and gold set by apparently naked painted women decked in metallic masks, necklaces and belts. Is the fact that the women don't move, let alone dance, at all a wry comment on the song and on disco fever itself?

Apart from the fact that the Gratuitous Sax songs would have been new to many in the audience, this show was particularly noteworthy for two new departures: there were two brief interludes entitled 'Ron's piece', during which he stands centre stage while, in the first, a disembodied female voice lectures him on positive thinking and, in the second, assails him with a chat-up line; the concert also introduced Christi doing a surprise turn as main vocalist, singing the delightful 'What Would Katherine Hepburn Say?', while Russell strenuously plays percussion. 

 

They returned the following year, 1995, for a series of gigs throughout May in Hamburg, Berlin, Mannheim, Stuttgart, Munich, Frankfurt, Köln and Linz, and further concerts in Munich (6 July) and Hanover (22 July) interspersed with visits to the U.K. and Holland.  Some of the July Munich concert at the Alabama Halle has been preserved in a six-part video: Ron, in a white shirt and pink and black striped tie, Russell in an oversize yellow jacket (jettisoned after a few numbers), baggy black sweater and loose black and white striped pants and Christi in her now trademark black dress and gloves and swinging bob perform in front of a crowded stage set of classical pillars, ivy-clad broken columns and an ornate fountain with running water, inspired by a scene in the video of 'When Do I Get To Sing My Way'. 

 

This elaborate background, which appears in Sparks' other televised appearances at this time, is, of course, before bands routinely used projections of complex graphics and films to accompany their music, such as Sparks were to deploy some years later for the Lil' Beethoven show. The set lists seemed to have varied somewhat during this year's tour, but the Munich programme consisted of numbers from Gratuitous Sax and Senseless Violins interspersed with some favourites including 'Number One Song in Heaven', 'Angst In My Pants', 'Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth', and 'This Town'. The audience appear to stand quietly for most of the set, but become more animated for 'When Do I Get To Sing My Way' and cheer when the unmistakeable introduction to 'This Town' begins.

 

The filming of this gig is professional and original, with repeated close-ups of each of the three performers, including some great shots of Ron's hands on the keyboard, shown from above and beneath. It is a hugely energetic performance: Russell bounces and twirls between verses (contrast his 1970s moves), while Christi plays the drums and tubular bells with gusto and Ron tap dances before the band launches into 'When I Kiss You...’, a new dancing skill he was keen to show off in another context (see below). 

The mid-1990s also saw a flurry of reviews, press articles and numerous interviews and appearances on German television shows like Damals und Heute, Hallo Halberg, Musikladen, Fernsehn Garten ZDF and Loloroso WDR, capitalising on their new-found success there.  This discussion can only attempt to consider a few of the most noteworthy or unusual examples, but there are many interesting insights into this period of Sparks’ career. In December 1994, the TV show Rock Archiv dedicated a full hour to Sparks, with interviews, vintage footage, and live performances of several songs from Gratuitous Sax. At an appearance on Stars 95, they are presented with a gold disk for 'When Do I Get To Sing My Way', which Russell announces will be donated for auction to the cause to fight Aids. The upcoming major tour of Germany ('our first ever') in May 1995 (discussed above) is also announced here. The dates and venues appear on the highly imaginative brief video commercial for the Gratuitous Sax album, in which the cover images 'come alive' and Russell casts eye-flutteringly quizzical looks at the changing images of his brother's accusing pointed finger. On March 31, Logic Records had celebrated the success of 'When Do I Get To Sing My Way' with a 'Gold Party' at Frankfurt’s Europaturm, a giant telecommunications tower with revolving bars. Sparks were now definitely big stars in Germany.

 am Viva Germany, broadcast in early 1995, for example, fully conveys the flavour of many such occasions. In several scenes, Ron unaccountably tap-dances on a bar counter while Russell addresses the camera.  Conversely, while Ron comments in deadpan manner, the occasional twitch of Russell's lips suggests that perhaps the remarks should not be taken at face value. This same programme, which contains clips from videos and live shows, actually begins by featuring the wrong birth dates and names for the boys, perpetuating the myth that they were the sons of Doris Day.

 

This false trail, laid at an early stage in their career, was intended as a publicity hook to intrigue the public, but had clearly still not been put to rest at this stage. However, Ron and Russell have serious things to say on subjects ranging from their inspirations and influences, their writing process, their uncompromising determination to avoid pop clichés and their shared vision and goals for Sparks, to their personal image, the role of music videos in enhancing the mood of a song, and the advantages of having their own home studio. Russell, introducing here his own technical role in their work, describes the studio as a 'playground' in which they can explore the potential of working with innovative electronics like drum machines.

 

Their discussion of other bands they have admired (or who admire them), particularly British bands, includes clips of performances from the Rolling Stones, The Who and The Kinks, and more recent bands like Pet Shop Boys, Erasure, Depeche Mode, Soft Cell, Human League and, of course, Morrissey.  They also describe how their love of film has informed their work, in that they regard each of their songs as a miniature scenario telling a story, and they cite the number of films and artists name-checked on Gratuitous Sax.

 

While emphasising their delight at the inspiring response of young audiences to their work, they stress that they make no compromises for a mixed audience. They also joke about other consequences: Russell tells of being mobbed by young screaming females at gigs, including one Berlin girl who, a couple of inches from his nose, kept repeating the proposition 'Du kommst mit mir? ('Come with me?'). Ron follows up by commenting on the different types of fan letters they get: serious ones on artistic matters from intelligent girls for him, and marriage (and other less formal) proposals for Russell.

 

On their unusual image, a perennial topic in interviews, Russell clarifies that in reality they also like normal things like shopping in the supermarket for cookies, and that the perceived eccentricity is not an artifice, but 'just the way we are'.  He is keen to stress that they have no need of drugs because they get their high from performing, but admit to loving food and fashion.

 

This programme certainly attests to the latter, as each section presents a different sartorial image: Russell's silvery grey silk waistcoat is particularly striking and his long-lasting love affair with stripes is amply apparent here. Lastly, they depict their pet likes and dislikes about Germany: German girls and coffee (likes), and traffic on the autobahns and smoking (dislikes): 'Das ist nicht gut', Russell earnestly informs us. Above all, they express their affection for Germany, their 'new home', and Ron makes the point that their current manager, Eric Harle, is of German origin. Unfortunately for non-German speakers, the discussion in this fascinating, wide-ranging and lively programme is overlaid with a simultaneous translation into German so that much of the dialogue is obscured, but viewing is still immensely worthwhile.

 

Many of the issues raised here are repeated and developed in other interviews of the period. 

In another 1995 interview for VH-1, the sensitive question of similarities to other contemporary bands (notably The Pet Shop Boys) is raised again, and Russell's diplomatic answers are couched so that nevertheless, the 'public can see the chronology of events' as he puts it. When the same issue arose in a 1994 VH-1 interview in respect of Roxy Music, Russell had reminded the interviewer that Sparks had already released two albums before Brian Ferry's band hit the scene and in 2000, in a Sparks Special Kuno's programme, he asserts that Sparks were creating effects like stacking up vocals before Queen's monster hit 'Bohemian Rhapsody' appeared. The comparative lack of massive commercial success and formal recognition for their constant innovation and their status as forerunners of so many musical trends must have been a constant irritation to them, as indeed it is incomprehensible to fans.

 

On the same Kuno’s show, they comment on their musical career album by album leading up to a discussion of Balls, and present the different colour covers, inviting the viewer to collect them all. The orange one, designed for promotion only, is apparently the most rare (and hence most desirable), any lucky owners please note. At the end of this programme, they are asked how long they think they will go on. The answer; ‘well, hopefully, a long time....’!

The concept behind the new album Plagiarism is developed in an interview on VH1 in 1997. The same excellent bilingual interviewer as in 1995 both chats with Ron and Russell and communicates their responses directly to the German viewers.  Using 'This Town' as an example, they explain their feeling that their songs are not easily dated since they were always felt to be ahead, or on the side of, the times. Their hope was that Plagiarism, which presents many of their best-loved numbers in new and sometimes surprising guises with innovative orchestration and collaborations, would be seen as contemporary, while at the same time initiating new listeners into their past work.

 

This album, which features the sensational version of 'This Town' with a heart-stopping sweeping orchestral accompaniment and the memorable collaboration of Russell with Jimmy Somerville on 'The No. 1 Song in Heaven’, was certainly a bold and exciting venture to delight fans both old and new. This same interview reveals Ron's love of Nike Air Jordan shoes because of his admiration for Michael Jordan of the basketball team the Chicago Bulls, and, even more exciting, perhaps, for voyeuristic fans are the shots of Russell’s collection of models of Elvis, superheroes, monsters and other figurines and the discussion of their liking for souvenirs acquired on their many overseas visits. Unforeseen humour is caused when the interviewer is momentarily confused by the discussion of Ron's collection of snow domes, which he mishears as 'snowballs'. 

 

As he queries the problem of the climate in their home town, Russell hastens to clarify that a more typical dome for Los Angeles would contain black, swirling fog. In further L.A. shots, the pair show off their cars: Ron's boxy black German car and Russell's beloved 1956 Ford Thunderbird (in 'willow green', he explains proudly).

Also in 1997, Ron and Russell presented a programme on Hogh 5 VH1 of their choice of five favourite music videos, with a brief commentary. Their selection is interesting, compared with their choice of tracks for the more recent BBC Music Radio 6 programmes (Jarvis Cocker's Sunday Service) in 2015 and 2017. For German TV, they chose 'Wuthering Heights' by Kate Bush, because they too like to include literary and cinematic references in their work, Public Enemy's 'Fight the Power', Faith No More's 'Easy', Kraftwerks 'Trans Euro Express' and one of their own, the video for 'Number One Song In Heaven'.

 

This video, with its stunning ferris wheel sequence, they say, is specially for people in Vienna, who will immediately grasp its significance: the giant wheel in Riesenradplatz was featured in the iconic movie The Third Man, and was placed on the list of Treasures of European Film Culture by the European Film Academy in 2016. By way of sign-off, Ron, in typically laconic fashion, tells viewers that if they didn't like their choices, they can 'piss off'. (Could viewers have imagined then that he would one day write a song called that?) 

Despite the German-linked conceit of the career of Lil' Beethoven, a fictional Sparks' invention that was to become the name of their own label, there appears to have been no live presentation of the album that bears his name in Germany in the first decade of the new century. However, the Hello Young Lovers show did reach Hamburg in February 2006 and, as everywhere, was very warmly received. On this tour, the new band consisted of Dean Menta (guitar), Josh Klinghofffer (guitar, alternating with Jim Wilson), Steve McDonald (bass) and Tammy Glover (alternating with Steve Nistor) on drums. The set list comprised the songs from Hello Young Lovers in the first half, and a Sparks Show of earlier material in the second half. 

 

As the DVD of the live show (called, unsurprisingly, Dee Vee Dee), filmed at the Forum, London, reveals, Sparks’ investment in stunning projected video images, including cat-headed figures ('Here Kitty'), guitars and umbrellas raining down for 'Waterproof' and a thousand marching Rons and Russells in uniform for 'Baby, Baby, Can I Invade Your Country', adds an hilarious and uniquely Sparks-like element to the performance. Ron displays his talent for drama, already seen in 2004 for Lil' Beethoven, by interacting dynamically with the videos, fighting with a projected image of himself for 'The Very Next Fight', and playing a gigantic cartoon organ for 'When I Sit Down To Play The Organ (In The Notre Dame Cathedral)'.  Russell is more formally dressed than usual in a natty red and black striped jacket over a white sweater, but in the second half, the jacket is jettisoned and his sleeves rolled up as he gets down to the business of delighting the audience with old favourites.

 

The live shows for Exotic creatures of the Deep (2008), also gave Germany and many other European destinations a miss, perhaps because of festival commitments in Tallin, Japan and Scotland in the summer following the epic and doubtless exhausting 21 x 21 Spectacular in London in May-June, and the start of work in 2009 on The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman, commissioned by Swedish radio.

 

However, the Sparks website announced on 1 October 2008 a 'German Renaissance', listing a huge number of press accolades and media plays of Exotic Creatures, which was released in Germany on 4 October 2008, and became record of the month on WDR2, the biggest radio station in West Germany. The same announcement also alerts fans to interviews in German publications and on radio stations WDR2 and 3, so the German fans were certainly not being ignored.

 

Two years on, on the same date, 12 September, Hippopotamus arrived at the Columbia Theatre, the Modernist concert hall in Berlin, for what, according to reports on social media, was another joyous occasion. Sparks' new and dynamic band consisted of Evan Weiss and Taylor Locke (guitars), Zach Dawes (bass), Tyler Parkford (keyboard) and experienced Sparks' drummer Steve Nistor.

 

The band was kitted out in Breton-look navy blue and white striped tee-shirts, while Russell wore a striped sweater (replicated by a number of the audience), and a rather eccentric combination of cut-off pedal-pusher pants and formal black shoes with red laces and no socks. On this occasion, Ron shone in a striped jacket and matching tie, which combined his usual sartorial style with the overall look of the band. They performed six numbers from Hippopotamus ('What The Hell Is It This Time', 'Edith Piaf Said It Better Than Me', 'I Wish You Were Fun', 'Missionary Position, 'Scandinavian Design', and, of course, 'Hippopotamus') and nine other songs, including the perennial crowd-pleaser 'When Do I Get To Sing My Way'. 

 

The band made a surprise return to Berlin on 6 October at the Schwuz club for a gig in the Arte Concert series, which was streamed live. A slightly overawed Russell began the event with the words, 'Good Evening Berlin, Good Evening the World!' before the full set as elsewhere was performed. 

Sparks and the Hippo returned in June 2018 for gigs in Munich, Cologne and Hamburg with a new line-up and a new look. The equally strong and enthusiastic backing band were Evan Weiss and Eli Pearl (guitars), Patrick Kelly (bass), Steve Nistor (drums) and Alex Casnoff (additional keyboards).  The fashion theme this time was pink, with the band in pink denim jackets, Russell in an elegant pink military-style jacket and Ron in a pink tie which was thrown into the audience at the start of his dance. (Perhaps you have one??)

 

The 18-song set list differed slightly this time, with six songs from Hippopotamus and older songs including ‘Tryouts For The Human Race’ and ‘B.C.’  Before the (almost obligatory) rendering of ‘When Do I Get To Sing My Way’, Russell sang a verse of the classic ‘My Way’ (‘and now the end is near..’), an unusual departure that may have sparked fears for a brief moment, of an imminent retirement announcement. No Way!