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Joined: May 06 2012
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Topic: Can Appreciation Thread Posted: September 09 2012 at 00:20
Well, recently, i had bought "Tago Mago" and "Ege Bamyasi"...and i was SO easily impressed, mostly by the rythm. Jeez, that drummer literally BREATHES through his drumset. So, i decided to start an appreciation thread for the german krautrock band "Can", if its ok with the forums.
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Posted: September 09 2012 at 00:34
Indeed a great band, one of my favorites. Even their "pop" phase I like, IE "I Want More". My favorite album is...Tago Mago I guess...or Future Days...or Monster Movie...or Ege Bamyasi...What did you think of the Lost Tapes? I made a thread about it if you want to check it out, in Top 10s.
One funny thing about Can is the first time I heard them I didn't like tham at all...at all. I conciously told myself "This is a band I don't like" and now they are probably my favorite.
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Posted: September 09 2012 at 00:45
I've actually only heard the two albums i mentioned. The first song i heard was "Pinch". I had trouble adjusting, but it only took 2 listens and i immediately starting clapping to it. Phenomenal. btw, the band is incredibely influencial, arent they? Even the least proggy bands cite Captain Beefheart and Can as their biggest influences.
I first heard them in 74' and I believe it was the album Future Days. I then purchased Soon Over Babaluma. I truly like Unlimited Edition....There is a piece titled "Cutaway" which I find to be strange. About 4 minutes and 14 seconds into the piece there are chord voicings played on a smooth sustaining keyboard . This entire section is just outstanding for stargazing and I have yet found any other piece on earth that will take me to a place in the stars. It resolves around 7 minutes and 56 seconds. This is a wonderful excerpt from "Cutaway" which at one time I had recorded it on to tape about 10 times with editing. This method I used for stargazing so I wouldn't be forced to interupte the flow of my mind state. This was recorded in 1969 and the keyboard setting I had not heard anywhere else...so that boggles my mind how they experimented and came up with futuristic sounds and settings.
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Posted: September 09 2012 at 12:15
A question for you more acquainted with Can's music. How's the Unlimited Edition compared to say The Lost Tapes? I allready own TLT and like it a lot. Is it worth owning both?
A question for you more acquainted with Can's music. How's the Unlimited Edition compared to say The Lost Tapes? I allready own TLT and like it a lot. Is it worth owning both?
I still haven't heard the lost tapes....shame on me! Unlimited Edition is in fact a collection of odds and ends. Malcom Mooney spontaneous storytelling on "Mother Upduff" strangely reminds me of a mental patient (friend) I use to visit in a mental institution. Oddly enough, (and if I'm not mistaken), something strange happened to Malcom Mooney. I wish I could recall exactly what that was. He was either paranoid or had a bad trip. I can't recall if he died a mysterious death or experienced some strange event in his life? I have to research that again
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Posted: September 09 2012 at 12:38
TODDLER wrote:
I first heard them in 74' and I believe it was the album Future Days. I then purchased Soon Over Babaluma. I truly like Unlimited Edition....There is a piece titled "Cutaway" which I find to be strange. About 4 minutes and 14 seconds into the piece there are chord voicings played on a smooth sustaining keyboard . This entire section is just outstanding for stargazing and I have yet found any other piece on earth that will take me to a place in the stars. It resolves around 7 minutes and 56 seconds. This is a wonderful excerpt from "Cutaway" which at one time I had recorded it on to tape about 10 times with editing. This method I used for stargazing so I wouldn't be forced to interupte the flow of my mind state. This was recorded in 1969 and the keyboard setting I had not heard anywhere else...so that boggles my mind how they experimented and came up with futuristic sounds and settings.
I know exactly the section you mean. It's astoundingly good. Unlimited Edition is a favorite of mine too. It might have actually been the album to push me over the edge into hardcore fanhood, even though I already had Monster Movie thru Ege Bamyasi already. One time in Chapel Hill I was listening to the student radio station and they played the whole Unlimited Edition album, and I recorded it off the radio. I was transfixed by how freaking long it was. Just when you think it's gone on forever already, there's another 9 minute song. And I didn't mind.
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Posted: September 09 2012 at 12:41
At first, I wasn't all that crazy about Can. I liked their weirdness, but the jammy repetitiveness wasn't all that interesting to me at first. But over time I came to understand how intricately detailed those supposedly "jammy" sections actually were. Masterpieces of studio craft, they are. Case in point, Future Days is now my favorite album of all time, but I didn't really care for it all that much for the first 10 years I owned it. And then, late one night, it entered me.
They're in my top 5 bands now for sure.
Edited by HolyMoly - September 09 2012 at 12:41
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Posted: September 09 2012 at 16:55
TODDLER wrote:
I first heard them in 74' and I believe it was the album Future Days. I then purchased Soon Over Babaluma.
...
Same here. But I was aware of Can, before, via a piece of music they did on the film "Deep End" that had Jane Asher in the lead. It was a rather unusual film, and I would have loved to see Jane do more film work. There was a moment in there that a band was rocking out in a club, and it was Can, doing "Mother Sky" ... and it was blistering to hear that and not find the albums ... until ... finally ... we saw "Future Days" released here.
In those days, imports lagged terribly and Jem records and the guys in NY were not very good at deciding what to bring in, and the numbers were very limited. but we finally found "Movies" and then "Soundtracks" at Tower Records on the Strip, and by 1974, Moby Disk was already carrying all the Can stuff right up to date! Was with them and ALL their releases all the way to about 1985 or so ... I think the last thing I got was the Dr. Walker stuff that Holger did.
While Tago Mago and Ege Bamyasi will forever be the bands quintessential albums, the two albums I play the most beginning to end is Future Days and Soon Over Babbalooma ... and the two long cuts on Babbalooma, back to back is one amazing transition and simplicity and care of detail by a master drummer. He also showed his patience in the middle part of Future Days when it would be really easy to just give it a time keeping metronomic detail, and instead, he sticks to simply adding atmosphere and not timing/drumming a whole lot ... until it comes back to the main theme. You can not, exactly, teach that sensitivity ... it is an acquired touch (taste?) that most musicians do not have, or ever learn to use in music!
Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told! www.pedrosena.com
I was in a record shop yesterday, and the place was literally drowning in Krautrock vinyls - in particular Can albums. I bought a couple, but today I am really kicking myself for not picking up a copy of their Doko E 'album'......
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Posted: September 09 2012 at 17:59
Gotta say after giving Tago Mago a spin recently, the first half is an incredible piece of music, finishing off with Halleluwah, which is one of those great epics. However, after the intensity and musicality of the first half, things start to slip away. The other epic, Augmn is kind of dull after the power of Halleluwah. It seems like the song is about 16 and a half minutes too long. Things pick back up again after that one, but never really recaptures what they did in the first half.
I can understand your anger at me, but what did the horse I rode in on ever do to you?
I first heard them in 74' and I believe it was the album Future Days. I then purchased Soon Over Babaluma.
...
Same here. But I was aware of Can, before, via a piece of music they did on the film "Deep End" that had Jane Asher in the lead. It was a rather unusual film, and I would have loved to see Jane do more film work. There was a moment in there that a band was rocking out in a club, and it was Can, doing "Mother Sky" ... and it was blistering to hear that and not find the albums ... until ... finally ... we saw "Future Days" released here.
In those days, imports lagged terribly and Jem records and the guys in NY were not very good at deciding what to bring in, and the numbers were very limited. but we finally found "Movies" and then "Soundtracks" at Tower Records on the Strip, and by 1974, Moby Disk was already carrying all the Can stuff right up to date! Was with them and ALL their releases all the way to about 1985 or so ... I think the last thing I got was the Dr. Walker stuff that Holger did.
Didn't Greenworld carry imports? I thought they were located on the west coast. Archie Patterson worked for Greenworld if I'm not mistaken. Maybe that was later than '74 . I do recall however United Artists domestic label releasing the Can albums.
While Tago Mago and Ege Bamyasi will forever be the bands quintessential albums, the two albums I play the most beginning to end is Future Days and Soon Over Babbalooma ... and the two long cuts on Babbalooma, back to back is one amazing transition and simplicity and care of detail by a master drummer. He also showed his patience in the middle part of Future Days when it would be really easy to just give it a time keeping metronomic detail, and instead, he sticks to simply adding atmosphere and not timing/drumming a whole lot ... until it comes back to the main theme. You can not, exactly, teach that sensitivity ... it is an acquired touch (taste?) that most musicians do not have, or ever learn to use in music!
This is all very true. Great detailed points about Can
Gotta say after giving Tago Mago a spin recently, the first half is an incredible piece of music, finishing off with Halleluwah, which is one of those great epics. However, after the intensity and musicality of the first half, things start to slip away. The other epic, Augmn is kind of dull after the power of Halleluwah. It seems like the song is about 16 and a half minutes too long. Things pick back up again after that one, but never really recaptures what they did in the first half.
If it weren't for the second half Tago Mago would be a top 10 album for sure.
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