The Bats - Live Im Star-Club 1964 (1982)

The Bats evolved from the very active scene in Hamburg- Bramfeld in the early Sixties. Towards the end of the Fifties Skiffle groups turned into the first amateur Rock 'n' Roll bands all over Hamburg. An Indonesian, Peter Bosch, alias Pit Kooy, came to Hamburg in 1947 when he still was a young boy. He grew up in Bramfeld where he played bass for Long Erwin And His House Rockers after his first tries with the four string 'Peter Kraus Guitar'. The bandleader Erich 'Long Erwin' Goetze came via Peter And The Outsiders as drummer for the Tonics. The Bats, another of the early Hamburg bands, came together in 61. They went through the usual Star Club routine, but recorded mainly for Polydor after a quarrel with the Club’s owner Weißleder.

Aside from Bosch the group consisted of two brothers, Rüdiger (guitar) and Volker (bass) Neber, and the black drummer [ (Lester)Tony Cavanaugh], an American from Indianapolis, who came from the circle of musicians connected with Tony Sheridan. He was called 'Neger-Tony' by the people of St. Pauli to distinguish his name from Sheridan's. While playing with The Bats in Berlin, he was known as Tony Tornado. In the mid-60s he had a few popular hits in Germany while recording as Toni Cavana & His Beat Bros, Toni Cavanaugh and the Liverpool Triumphs and Lee Patterson.

While in Berlin, the band's crew changed. Tony Cavanaugh went back to his old buddies, and played the drums for Sheridan's Beat Brothers/Star Combo along with bass player Colin Melander. Neber switched from guitar to drums and the one who is the band's backbone today, the guitar player Waldemar Kropp, joined as a new member. Until the bass player Helmut Hackbart appeared on the scene, they worked with Colin Crowley - alias Melander - from the Beat Brothers. Once in a while, even Ex-Beatle Stuart Sutcliffe, who had meanwhile moved to Hamburg, joined in.

The Bats were a huge success in Berlin starting in the spring of 1962. Once in a while popular singers like Gerd Böttcher, Rene Kollo and Manuela joined them and sang their songs in the German language. Both musicians and audience thought that was just fine. No one shied away from that contact.

While most of their records don’t show the group’s true potential, their 7” on WAM, "Got A Girl", was a German garage classic. Unlike other 2nd division veterans, they stayed active and still gigged in the 90’s. In 81 they issued an LP of unreleased late 60’s/early 70’s recordings on their own Summer label. It’s a somewhat uneven affair, but contains 60’s pearls like "You Better Believe It".

Helmut Hackbart died in 1979. Barthold Dunker finished his university entrance qualification and became a teacher at a secondary school. Rüdiger Neber is a trader. Waldemar Kropp first trained to be a dental technician but turned later on into an independent trader. Bosch, who was into body building and the martial arts from early childhood on, achieved the title of Mr. Universum.