Françoise Cactus
May 5, 1964–February 17, 2021
Why
First of all, that name. Françoise Cactus. It just made me want to find out who she was.
Turns out she was a pretty cool musician I knew nothing about until a few days ago. And, back when there were two Germanys and two Berlins, she was one of the few “westerners” to play in East Berlin.
Who
Françoise Cactus was born Françoise van Hove on May 5, 1964 in Burgundy, France, and grew up with three siblings in the town of Villeneuve-l’Archevêque. During her studies in Paris, she spent a year in Husum, Germany.
At age 17, when she was in Norway, she met a man from West Berlin whom she followed to West Germany. She spent some time as a squatter and worked for the German left-wing newspaper Die Tageszeitung, known as Taz. A few years later she founded the band die Lolitas, an all-female rock group.
Die Lolitas toured the USA, Japan, and Russia. They even managed to play officially unsanctioned gigs in East Berlin in the final years before the fall of the wall. The group disbanded in the early 1990s.
Cactus then met Brezel Göring, with whom she formed the Band Stereo Total. She and Göring both sung and played various instruments. When they appeared on stage, Cactus usually played drums…
