Edek Bartz
Edek Bartz, Vienna, 21 October 2024
“Vienna was just a desert. Absolutely nothing there.”
A life like a picaresque novel: in late-1950s and 1960s Vienna, Edek Bartz—born in a prison camp in Kazakhstan in 1946 and initially raised in Poland—embarked upon an autodidactic journey that would serve as the basis for a truly unique career. In his roles as a musician (“Geduldig un Thimann”), record salesman, DJ, cultural manager, and curator, Bartz spent decades consistently in the right place at the right time, in the process organizing the first Austrian concerts of Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, and Pink Floyd. In this interview, he talks about that era’s “most interesting folks in town” (artists, of course), about the “Atrium” being the only place to take the Rolling Stones in the then-desert of Vienna, about tours with the entertainer Peter Alexander, and about how he once ended up being “kidnapped” by Frank Sinatra in his private jet.
“Vienna was just a desert. Absolutely nothing there.”
A life like a picaresque novel: in late-1950s and 1960s Vienna, Edek Bartz—born in a prison camp in Kazakhstan in 1946 and initially raised in Poland—embarked upon an autodidactic journey that would serve as the basis for a truly unique career. In his roles as a musician (“Geduldig un Thimann”), record salesman, DJ, cultural manager, and curator, Bartz spent decades consistently in the right place at the right time, in the process organizing the first Austrian concerts of Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, and Pink Floyd. In this interview, he talks about that era’s “most interesting folks in town” (artists, of course), about the “Atrium” being the only place to take the Rolling Stones in the then-desert of Vienna, about tours with the entertainer Peter Alexander, and about how he once ended up being “kidnapped” by Frank Sinatra in his private jet.