Jim Rakete

Günther "Jim" Rakete (German: [dʒɪm ʁakeːtə]; born 1 January 1951) is a German photographer, photojournalist, filmmaker, writer and producer based in Berlin.

Rakete shot numerous personalities from the German and international music and film scene and politics.

His managerial work behind the award-winning musical acts Nina Hagen Band, Interzone, Nena and Die Ärzte made Rakete a decisive figure in the burgeoning German New Wave.

Between 1975 and 1976 Rakete developed several magazines for Bauer Verlag Munich while commuting between Munich and Berlin.

In 1977, Rakete rented a 300 square meter loft in the heart of Berlin's borough of Kreuzberg.

Fabrik Rakete, a creative laboratory for music, photography and art, was born.

In the two shooting spaces that were built, Rakete's work became crucial for the advancement of the burgeoning German New Wave.

Through a chance encounter Rakete came across the remarkable voice of a sheer powerful 4-octave miracle: Nina Hagen.

Rakete took her first pictures in the then barren, newly funded Fabrik Rakete.

Shortly thereafter, CBS, with which Hagen had already signed a recording deal, appointed Rakete as band manager for the newly formed Nina Hagen Band to focus on the launch of the eponymous album in 1978.

Successful performances in the Quartier Latin and airplay on German Radio promoted their debut record, which eventually peaked at number eleven in Germany, while also gathering substantial success in Austria and the Netherlands.

Nina Hagen Band was certified gold in France and it went double platinum in Germany.

As Nina unexpectedly quit the project, the band was orphan of its main member just as the demand for appearances exploded, with the band still under the CBS deal.

Eventually, Rakete, Hagen and the band agreed to record their second and last album, Unbehagen (1979).

The album went gold in Germany and France, selling over 300.000 copies in Germany alone.

Despite Hagen's departure, Rakete consolidated his bond with the band, which eventually went on performing under the name Spliff.

The new band (which also included members of rock theater group Lok Kreuzberg) and Rakete embarked on the writing of a small Rock Opera in the form of a radio show, using the AFN legend Rik Delisle as host, Aussie performer Alf Klimek "Klimax" as singer and with the later addition of Dutch singer Josee van Irsel.

The Spliff Radio Show premiered live at Kant-Kino on 2 May 1980.

Tours ensued, and in 1982 the band released their greatest success, 85555, named after the record's catalogue number.

Their following album, Herzlichen Glückwunsch! was released in the later months of the same year.

In the meantime, Spliff and the Fabrik doubled in size the roster of artists: the studios were slowly transforming into a veritable Rock ‘n’ Roll hot shop, with new releases by Interzone and the Edo Zanki Band.

The Fabrik studios ran ceaselessly with Rakete developing campaigns, shooting record covers or posters by day, while musicians and producers sent out banners and press material across Berlin and German media at night.

The Fabrik had long moved to Berlin's Oranienplatz when the members of Spliff started producing emerging artists.

Their first production was the 1983 international chart success Nena, Gabriele "Nena" Kerner's first album.

An instant hit, the Nena Band toured countless European TVs and live stages, while the album's second single 99 Luftballons peaked #1 in music charts worldwide including Australia, Japan, Austria, Canada, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

Rakete says about Nena, "she could get anything across without explaining… That's an ability that is very rare. I do not know anyone of that caliber".

Christiane F.., writer of the autobiographical account Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo, gave a tape of Nena's song to DJ Rodney Bingenheimer who later aired the single on Californian rock radio WLIR, taking the song to #2 on US Billboard Hot 100.

"Even if in German, people felt what 99 Balloons meant and that was enough… It's like a good picture; it's unforgettable" Rakete later said about the hit single.

In 1985 Rakete's management was chosen to produce Band für Afrika, the German counterpart of Band Aid.

The resulting single record was written by Herbert Grönemeyer and Wolfgang Niedeken and performed by 27 different German bands and musicians, including Alphaville, BAP, Marius Müller-Westernhagen, Nena, Peter Maffay, Spliff and Udo Lindenberg.

Band für Afrika gathered over 150 million Deutschmarks.

Meanwhile, Rakete had met the punk band Die Ärzte and put them in touch with CBS.

Rakete had extended living and production periods between Los Angeles and Hamburg until his return to Berlin in 2001, where he continues to work in film, photography, writing, theater, music, and production.

Rakete spent his childhood in West Berlin.

At four years old he was given his first camera, an Agfa box camera, similar to a Brownie, which accompanied him for years.

Rakete continued photographing throughout his school years; fascinated by the mechanisms of photography, he spent a good part of his youth working in the darkroom.

At age seventeen, he began to work as a photojournalist for local dailies, agencies and magazines, while still delivering newspapers to raise the money to buy his first drum kit.

His early band efforts lead him towards his personal pathway into the music world.

As the student movement extended to Germany in the late 60s, Rakete brought his eye and camera to document the people, settings and discussions emerging at the time; he was a photojournalist by day and musicians’ photographer by night.

By his early twenties he was working for German newspapers while keeping on shooting album band covers.