In Review: "At the Pulse of time" by Steffen Hammer

Pages: 204
Publisher: Self-published by Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing 
Country: Germany
ISBN: 9798292611264

 

Hurray, hurray... finally something out from the literature front! The front man of the famous German band NOIE WERTE Steffen Hammer just published his autobiography. 

The book appeared simultaneously both in German and English versions I purchased the later one, as my knowledge in German is very limited. What I have instantly noticed (which was confirmed by the author) is that large part of the text was automatically translated by an AI. This was followed by a proofreading by an Englishman as this was the fastest and easiest way this version to be published in a timely manner. For a non-native reader like me the text is easy to read and understand, but for the UK/American readers it will look a bit strange.

As a true autobiography the book starts from his family origins and author's early childhood memories back in the 70's. To be honest for some odd reason I thought that "Hammer" was some fancy nickname of the author Steffen. It appears to be his real surname which comes from Middle High German and it's associated with someone who works with a hammer, a hammersmith. And yes, the Hammersmith district in West London is well-known to all rock fans due to Motorhead's first album "No sleep 'till Hammersmith".

Books goes through the teenage years of the author on the streets of Stuttgart and his first touch with football, music, skinhead cult and often pure street violence. 

In the middle if the book you can find 10 pages with old photographs. Unfortunately, all of them are small-sized 4,5 or 6 per page which is a bit uncomfortable if you like to take a detailed look on every single one of them. I would prefer bigger photos placed inside the chapters they refer to, but this is my personal subjective opinion.

Steffen's personal friendship with Ian Stuart and his frequent visits to the Old Albion are presented as well as author's development as a lawyer up to the present days.

There are 85 chapters in this 200-pages book, as you can guess all of them are just 1,2 or 3 pages long, summarizing the most essential facts and feelings of the author. A true German style of telling the most important to the reader and keeping him focused on the contents.

To sum it up it is a really nice book which I truly enjoyed reading, and I can highly recommend it for all the RAC lovers out there. The both versions of the book can be ordered directly from our friends OPOS records. Unfortunately, the author himself does not have any personal copies so my wish for a signed copy did not materialize.

At last, but not the least I hope this autobiography will inspire other important figures from the German scene to write down their own biographies. Luni, Jens Brandy, Gigi ... I'm pretty sure you have a lot to tell :)