Outside the ZDF studio door

Smooching superheroes are hiding under Danger Dan's leather jacket

“Fear Is a Man’s Best Friend,” sang John Cale back in 1974. Fear as a good advisor and not as a whip of intimidation. “Keine Angst” is the name of Danger Dan’s album, which was released at the beginning of October and has been on everyone’s lips since the canceled appearance on the ZDF satire show “Die Anstalt”. Now there is a hot debate about whether you can appear as a combative Antifa type on ZDF, whether Danger Dan is a supporter of the state or an enemy of the state and whether you, as a pro-Israel leftist, even understand anything about antifascism.

Danger Dan's songs, which can be classified somewhere between Georg Kreisler, Billy Bragg, Bruce Hornsby and roots reggae, skilfully dance on the borders of what can be said. This is exactly where all democratic debates have been failing for years, with Markus Lanz and Sandra Maischberger only producing lame dog barking while the AfD wins land.

Bomber jacket, Doc Martens boots, electric piano: this Redskin look alone evades the widespread desire to be able to classify him politically.

On his previous album he focused on the NSU scandals with the title song "It's all covered by artistic freedom." Now he's dealing with his fears, which also have political causes. He suggests - note the irony - that Nazis should be treated as badly as women, attends a bar brawl in the Kreuzberg "Rote Rose" bar, and discusses his eye disease and the death of his friend NMZS. Danger Dan is not a piano virtuoso, but his timbre gets under your skin. Bomber jacket, Doc Martens boots, electric piano: this Redskin look alone evades the widespread desire to be able to classify him politically. So we remember the eighties and the infiltration of the skinhead movement by right-wing groups, while the real skins were politically completely different and preferred to listen to ska or soul music. And they were pretty great dancers! But most people still associate the skinhead look with right-wing extremism, while the real masterminds of the right have always looked like the neighbor next door.

It is obvious that the right-wing extremists are gaining space in the cities without a functioning Antifa. “The myth of Berlin runs into the problem that hardly any young Antifas have followed for at least a generation,” Danger Dan tells us in an interview. After the tour for the album, he dreams of having his own off-theater in Berlin. Self-organized. With friends. No social media. As close to the people as the next Späti.