Mategra wrote:
It's a bit odd but Guru Guru was actually the first prog band that caught my attention. It was in the summer of 1974 when I got my first very own radio/cassette player. I captured their song "Der Elektrolurch" on tape and I absolutely loved it. It was so weird with its brave electronics and spoken German words. It didn't sound like anything I've heard before!
Some years later I bought the only Guru Guru albums I could find, "Globetrotter" and "Tango Fango". I found them disappointing, there was nothing special, nothing that sounded like "Der Elektrolurch".
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"Globetrotter" and "Tango Fango" only work if one likes fusion and speaks some German, else one doesn't get how funny the combination of fusion and absolutely silly lyrics is. If you want something more daring I recommend the first 4 albums, "UFO", "Hinten", "Känguru" and "Guru Guru" ("Guru Guru" contains the studio version of "Der Elektrolurch"). Beware of the cover of "Hinten" (German for "Behind"), it shows a naked and hairy male ass!
And I definitely recommend the first live album of Guru Guru. On of the best live albums ever, with a special guest appearance by none other than God(!) on the track "Moroso". (In essence it is some ring modulator sound effect layed over a voice that spaks some ominous words in German, which I'll translate into English here: "When the egg of the fast breeder finally burst, a green gallertous mass oozed out over the landscape. That was the time for Moroso, the first mutant that fed on radioactive slime. Everyone has it in their throats!").
The live album has an excellent version of "Der Elektrolurch" too. (One must have seen "Der Elektrolurch", which is German for "The Elecric Batrachian", live. Many Neumeier, the drummer - one of he best drummers in rock, by the way -, wears a silly amphibian costume for it with a long tail.
The live show of Guru Guru is something special anyway. In "Medicine Man's Overdose" the drummer spits fire). The humor of Guru Guru is very strange and twisted, and since they often sing in German a lot of it is wasted on listeners who simply don't get it.