The AD2-Gong-Hawkwind-VdGG maze

Not that I disagree with anything you wrote but Gong alone have such a regular turnover of people (and up to three or even four incarnations active at the same time) and are so communicative that they're well connected to just about everyone reaching as far as the Cardiacs.

Very true. 

Hawkwind basically became "Dave Brock sacks everyone and we all get worse and worse and worse" - but they play Silver Machine, so all the old fans keep turning up. 

Met most early Hawkwind members, Nik Turner more than once or twice. Nice bloke. 

moshkito wrote: Hi, I'm not one for worrying about the inter-mechanics of who sleeps with who and who plays with who.  I, honestly, feel that the music is the important thing, and for many of these folks, it really shows/states how versatile and creative they could be, doing different things. In some cases, it looks like they did it simply to try something that they would not actually do, or did, and I thought AD2 album "Utopia" was a perfect example, when you see in one piece, they can even do jazz, if they ever needed to! I was thinking ... was it not "Embryo" that was kind of a sister band to AD2? The only strange one for me, is how John Weinzierl did not end up getting picked up by a major band, for his ability and creativity. I would imagine that he told them all off, but if my name was Scorpions and I needed a replacement lead guitar to share the duties, I would ask him first!  On the AD2 website, it seems that John did a lot of their html work, or at least answered some of the emails. In communication, once he was not happy with a few things, specially "Nada Moonshine#, which is not a super-super album but it has some nice things, and he called it "b*****d" ... of an album, and I am guessing that they got ripped off in the studio. It was a nice album, I reviewed it, and the only thing it was missing was a little more improvisation to free up the music a bit, since it was all about "the songs", which I think is what JW was really meaning. That's just a thought on my part.  At the time, he was also hurt/disappointed with the "UTOPIA" album which had not made it into CD as yet, and was virtually impossible. The album was magnificent, and I was glad to be able to get a copy in LA (Moby Disk!).  Also, should be listed in the mixing of musicians, Popol Vuh, who had Daniel and Renate with them several times. Her voice is unmistakable in a couple of albums.

A little correction: "Utopia" is NOT an Amon Düül 2 album, and there is quite a story about it:

During the recording sessions for "Wolf City" there were quarrels with threats involving knives and revolvers among the band members (the kind of "I want this song of mine on the album" quarrels). Due to these quarrels the band split up, and one half started the project Utopia and recorded a self-titled album of their own.

Since both bands used the same studio it was inevitable that they met during recording sessions and, in typical Amon Düül 2 fashion, made peace again, which resulted in all musicians playing on both albums. One song (Deutsch Nepal) was so much liked by all that both bands wanted it on their album, and so it happened (I bet a lot of people wondered why the song appears on both albums, albeit in slightly different versions; well, this is the reason). This is why the Utopia album is now correctly listed under Utopia (it was listed under Amon Düül 2 when Jean and I joined the archives, but I had the error corrected).

The Utopia album was later re-released under the name Amon Düül 2, but historically this is totally incorrect.

This information is from the excellent Amon Düül 2 biography "Tanz der Lemminge" by the late rock journalist Ingeborg Schober, who was a close friend of Amon Düül 2.


Edited by BaldFriede - April 01 2018 at 11:01

Amon Din consisted of Dave Anderson, Huw Lloyd-Langton, drummer John Lingwood and singer John Butler.

BaldFriede wrote: Amon Din consisted of Dave Anderson, Huw Lloyd-Langton, drummer John Lingwood and singer John Butler.

There you go - my scatter-brain scrambled memory knew something along those lines. Shame no recordings exist.

Manuel wrote: This makes me think of the wonderful friendship that is the progressive music community, when artists flow from one band to another, enriching their experiences and gathering influences from everyone else. For this, they have won my respect.

This has been in popular music since it´s started. Elvis respected his influences and performed with black artists in the fifties, also with the other fifties rockers from Sun Records. Beatles helped Rolling Stones giving them "I Wanna Be Your Man" in their early career, also giving songs to other UK artists. Rolling Stones made R´N`R Circus, were performing among them Jehtro Tull, Keith Richards, John Lennon, the Who. It was released in the nineties because Stones thought Who looked much better in it, but anyway I think they have a jolly good time. And in prog I think Canterbury has been great example of "one big family"-attitude.

Edited by Mortte - March 31 2018 at 22:36

f**king craptcha that got me, on one of my more serious responses......
Dang, in a nut shell : I knew (vaguely) of names like Yes, ELP etc. I discovered Asia s/t in my sister’s cassette collection (mid-80’s), the rest is history. And I do think highly of Asia’s debut - I guarantee that only musicians of Prog-Rock caliber could produce this kind of accessible ‘Arena Rock’, along with a degree of complexity. So, hats off to Pete Frame and his ‘Rock Family Trees’ studies !! I’m sure if Frame traced back Dire Straits roots, he’d come across Man and Spring (thanks to drummers Terry Williams and Pique Withers).


Edited by Tom Ozric - April 01 2018 at 05:59

"Don't forget, that a lot of this was also happening in FILM, THEATER and LITERATURE, and that it had started way before in the late 60's. And just for a comparison point, it is no surprise that Klaus Kinski was so well versed in the tradition of ad-lib and free form expression, which he used time and again with Werner Herzog in more than one film. It is even said that in a couple of films there was no script at all for Klaus, and does this not sound familiar to the "improvisations" that we are so familiar with in "KRAUTROCK". "

Pedro.
What do you think the word "improvisation" means ??????