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BaldFriede 
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 Topic: The Krautrock appreciation thread
Posted: June 30 2009 at 13:03 |
Put simply, a thread for the cool people on PA. That of course is a joke because no one is cool on PA  Anyways,
this is my favourite genre without a doubt, and most of the bands are
included here on the archives. To give a few examples of this music, I
will mention a few albums: Amon Düül 2 - Phallus Dei Can - Tago Mago Dzyan - Electric Silence Guru Guru - Känguru Embryo - Rocksession Faust - Same Cosmic Jokers - Galactic Supermarket Some may think: Well, Krautrock is a genre of the past, but this is not true; there are bands which still carry the torch, for example: Psychedelic Monsterjam - Intergalactic Travel Agency Space Explosion - Same No genre ever was that experimental, not even RIO (though they came pretty close). This of course is an answer to Pessimist's "Progressive Death Metal Appreciation" post. 
Edited by BaldFriede - June 30 2009 at 13:04
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 BaldJean and I; I am the one in blue.
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Snow Dog
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Posted: June 30 2009 at 13:11 |
I played The Faust Tapes yesterday for the first time in years.
Brilliant!
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Padraic
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Posted: June 30 2009 at 13:13 |
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Tough time appreciating a lot of krautrock, but ADII is definitely my favorite. Wolf City and Yeti are great albums.
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Finnforest
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Posted: June 30 2009 at 14:40 |
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I'm a Kraut noob but I like what I've heard. AD2 especially. Sinkadoten will have some faves here I"m sure.
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If you love cats, please adopt an older cat. They've been in a cage far too long, and they long for a home.
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CPicard
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Posted: June 30 2009 at 14:48 |
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To me, Amon Düül II's first album was the best one. Wolf City was too gentle and I was lost when listening to Lemmings Dance.
I have some hard time with Faust, except for a few songs.
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Ricochet
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Posted: June 30 2009 at 15:04 |
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I've started my Krautrock "research" (like I did with other genres too, such as Folk, Avant/RIO or Canterbury) and I still have plenty more music to discover/listen to. Apart from Cosmic Jokers and Ash Ra/Ashra (who trailed alongside TD and Schulze in my early music collection), I also singled out bands like Floh de Cologne, Xhol Caravan/Xhol, Kluster (pure gold experimentation).
AD is a popular subject here, so I'll say a few words. The "original" AD ensemble made the best music, with just one tiny disaster rightly named just like that as an album. With ADII, the ecstasy breaks somewhere after the first two albums (my favourite is Yeti), nevertheless until Made In Germany it's all worth it. After that, it's sadly a different kind of music, and the 90s comeback didn't impress me either. Depressing singing and playing in Live In Tokyo, while Flawless has a few on-the-surface pieces, but it's still pretty forgettable.
AD UK were a surprise, there's a vintage sound and some great rock songs. Meeting With Menmachines was an album I liked very much.
Lately, I was also impressed by Between's And The Waters Opened and Brave New World's Impression On Reading Aldous Huxley.
But I would daring to actually move away from the classics or the obvious, and put a different question on the table, which may not be to everyone's knowledge: how are bands like 80 Karat Gold, the 7''-one offs Alaska Range, Baumstam, Blackbirds or Blackwater Park. A krautrock fan focused on the psychedelic, experimental, drenching or hallucinating side of this side could find in the abovemention simply rock music, sometimes (but not overall significant) with a more ragged sound, but mostly barely reaching proto-prog state and fitting a rock or hard rock profile. Is this Krautrock too, or just German early 70s Rock? Even Arktis aren't really what you would expect, with just standard songs, and energetic yet unrevolutionary gearing. It sure confused me, compared to AD, Annexus Quam, Between or Faust.
Edited by Ricochet - June 30 2009 at 15:05
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keiser willhelm
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Posted: June 30 2009 at 21:07 |
heavily appreciated  Can is probably my favorite, tago mago and ege bamyesi being favorites from them. Interesting and surprisingly diverse genre, to have something like faust, can, Ash Ra, Ammon duul 2, harmonium, and Guru Guru all lumped together makes for some adventurous exploring.
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crimson87
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Posted: June 30 2009 at 21:12 |
It's a pity I had started a krautrock thread a couple of months ago , we should put this two together so we can at least reach three pages!
By the way: BRAINTICKET  |
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micky
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Posted: June 30 2009 at 21:30 |
 BaldFriede wrote:
Put simply, a thread for the cool people on PA.
Guru Guru - Känguru
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well...I need to stay away I guess... but before I go. I couldn't second that Guru Guru album more heartily. I LOVE that album. 
Edited by micky - June 30 2009 at 21:31
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The Pedro and Micky Experience - When one no longer requires psychotropics to trip
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moshkito
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Posted: July 01 2009 at 10:00 |
BaldFriede wrote:
Put simply, a thread for the cool people on PA.
Amon Düül 2 - Phallus Dei
Can - Tago Mago
Dzyan - Electric Silence
Guru Guru - Känguru
Embryo - Rocksession
Faust - Same
Cosmic Jokers - Galactic Supermarket
Some may think: Well, Krautrock is a genre of the past, but this is not true; there are bands which still carry the torch, for example:
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Not a bad start ... but if you do not catch each of these bands first 3 or 4 albums, you will be missing out on what the term really means ... it was originally slated to mean the free form experimentations and sonic improvisations that many of these bands did ... and as such ... it looks like you kinda missed the boat and just listed your favorites instead -- and I don't think that's what you want to do!
AD2 ... the first album is important, more for its title than its music. I still think that this is more of a commentary on the status of their commune than anything else ... in other words, the real reason for the commune was the free sex and nothing else ... and I have a feeling that Renate and others were tired of it and wanted to move on ... or by the time you have a child ... I think that you grow out of this exprimental phaze maybe?
The same thing happened in SF .. it was not the music or the drugs that killed it ... it was the rampant and abuses that involved sex that killed it. Few survived it and the devastation to AIDS in that area was horrendous ... something that I don't think that was as prevalent in Europe.
AD2 really starts in Yeti and to my ears ends in Vive La Trance ... with Apocalyptic Bore ... which is a song that says it all and for all intents and purposes it really clarifies the music scene in that time and place ... somehow, when they all got tired of getting stoned (so it seems) they think they lost the spark to fly ... well, at least the guitar rocked out one more time in a fabilous duet with the violin ... and to me this is an anthem that is as important to the state of music in that time, as Jimi's was 5 years earlier when he played the anthem amidst all the trash ... nothing mattered to anyone anymore ... not even your country! No one cared anymore. All that was left behind was trash .... and more trash! ... and as the lyrics go ... everything is gonna be ok ... and the duets take over.
CAN ... I agree that Tago Mago is fabulous ... and again notice that these are "improvisations" and that the album before also had them. The following album and the rest of the CAN library lost all free form improvisations for "composition" ... and that is not necessarily a bad thing as Ege Bamyasi, Future Days, Soon Over Babbalooma and Landed ... are fabulous albums and the musical irreverence in Landed is awesome ... unffortunately it made the 'krautrock" scene now come across as intelligent as opposed to improvisational ... and it closed the book on the era for the most part. Somehow, well schooled people all of a sudden think that improvisations are worthless? Even Pink Floyd did the same thing!
DZYAN ... need to hear it again ... sorry ... don't know it well enough.
GURUGURU ... weird that you start with their 3rd (4th? - I don't remember) album ... which is the first one that almost sounds like a Jimi Hendrix trip along ... where the other albums have the two most famous songs of theirs that are some of the original "krautrock" slam dunks.
EMBRYO ... it should be stated here that Embryo was not interested in doing things as a rock band, and that Peter Michael Hamel was already on his way to an academic career and writing a book or two (From Music To The Self) ... and he would not appreciate this band considered "krautrock" when in essence they were far more into the jazz area of things and conceptual stuff. Can't say that I found too many rock elements in their music at all, and I think this is intentional on Peter's part.
FAUST ... probably the most experimental of them all, but they came from another experimental area in Germany ... but did something else with it. You must NOT forget that at the time the German equivalent of the Living Theater were the likes of Peter Handke, and Peter Weiss and eventually folks like Wim Wenders came out of that area. Handke's plays were word plays ... and very difficult to stage ... and guess what FAUST is ... a recorded same thing, but with sound effects and fun and weird stuff ... and lyrics that did the same thing. Was it original? Yes ... but not as original as Handke.
This theater scene that "everything is art" and "everything in sound is music" had started some years earlier, but it had not taken hold until some different things were done with it ... and FAUST put together some fun stuff that made yo go ... wow ... and surprisingly enough forced you to try and make a story of the effects, which of course there was none ... and that was the point ... get your mind working on your own. That was what a lot of this type of challenging film and theater scene was all about ... and I really believe that these people were trying to do the same thing within the musical context and they succeeded.
COSMIC JOKERS ... is not a part of the krautrock scene and for the most part its main drivers (Schulze and Gottsching) never thought so either. But like so many of their counter parts they were 2 of the most important people in the expose of improvisational music, albeit, I would tend to consider this a "guided improvisation" and you color the details with your instrument.
In the end, this provided two of the very best instrumentalists in the free form realm. Both Klaus Schulze and Manuel Gottsching are phenomenal in this area today, and still are experimenting with it, albeit the music is not exaclty hard rock, or as rough as it was then.
I consider the Cosmic Couriers (Jokers was the name of one the albums) a way to figure out how to use electronics with rock music ... and it was clear that a couple of things were going to break out of here ... one became Ash Ra Tempel, and the other Popol Vuh and a couple of other bands that were not as vital or important as these two were and became. Ash Ra Tempel went into a more rock area, with Schwingungen and Join Inn, and then Starring Rosi and only broke the mold in their 6th album (Inventions for an Electric Guitar) ... where as Popol Vuh went immediately into a meditation/spiritual space and their music ended up being used in Werner Herzog films although I would state here that while it was done to great effect the only film where the music is important is Aguirre, where the other films the music is only a filler more than anything else.
In essence, hte Cosmic Couriers really came AFTER ... since it was a conglomeration of the musicians already recorded in other places. And in some ways things like Galactic Supermarket and Gilles Zeitchiff were a sort of attempt to present these artists from this very label ... they never were a band per se ... as far as I know.
But the Cosmic Couriers were not afraid to let you know that they were experimenting and you missed the important words that Timothy Leary has in the Seven Up album ... "get into the vibes of the music" ... which I can tell you that they did ... the rest of them went commercial and thought that a lyric was enough to make you feel a vibe.
Which it is not!
That is an illusion ... and it is what a lot of those word games and experimental theater, film, art and literature is all about!!!
ASH RA TEMPEL ... should be here instead of the Cosmic Couriers ... and while in at least 3 of their albums they went for what could be considered a romantic fanatasy with very nice sounding women vocalizing through out (Schwingungen/JoinInn/Starring Rosi) which made the stuff somewhat of a sexy fantasy for guys, But the 6th album is a major break through ... the very first all guitar album looped all over the place. And then the next one, is the one that no one gives them credit for ... the very first New Age album properly called "New Age of Earth" ... and it is one of the most beautiful things ever done on vinyl musically wise. Since then, Manuel Gottsching has done some things as AshRa and also has a couple of albums of improvisations with Klaus Schulze (In Blue) which are phenomenal, but a difficult listen for western audiences that are conditioned to just 3 or 4 minute songs.
The most important premise of those days in Krautrock is what we never mention ... it was not about the radio or 3 minute song ... it was about the music and its vibe .. the length was not an issue ... and this is the single most important thing that music has lost since then ...
Edited by moshkito - July 02 2009 at 13:26
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Ricochet
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Posted: July 01 2009 at 10:46 |
crimson87 wrote:
It's a pity I had started a krautrock thread a couple of months ago , we should put this two together so we can at least reach three pages!
By the way: BRAINTICKET |
The debut was a crazy listen for me. Delirious vocals!
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A B Negative
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Posted: July 01 2009 at 11:05 |
I just found my Can DVD for the first time since I moved house over a year ago. 
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"The disgusting stink of a too-loud electric guitar.... Now, that's my idea of a good time."
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moshkito
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Posted: July 01 2009 at 11:07 |
Ricochet wrote:
crimson87 wrote:
It's a pity I had started a krautrock thread a couple of months ago , we should put this two together so we can at least reach three pages!
By the way: BRAINTICKET |
The debut was a crazy listen for me. Delirious vocals!
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The delirious vocals are in the Cottonwood Hill album ... and there is a warning on that album! Psychonaut and Celestial Ocean are not delirious at all ...
I had a lady listen to cottonwood Hill once and you know what she said? ... "You men must all think that every woman is that confused during sex ... or anything else!"
I always loved that reply ... but the album is totally nuts ... and a lot of fun to listen to in my book ... and my favorite part is seeing how many people drop out and how fast!
Goes to show you how much they can handle reality!
hehehehe
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Ricochet
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Posted: July 01 2009 at 11:13 |
moshkito wrote:
Ricochet wrote:
crimson87 wrote:
It's a pity I had started a krautrock thread a couple of months ago , we should put this two together so we can at least reach three pages!
By the way: BRAINTICKET |
The debut was a crazy listen for me. Delirious vocals!
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The delirious vocals are in the Cottonwood Hill album ... and there is a warning on that album! Psychonaut and Celestial Ocean are not delirious at all ...
I had a lady listen to cottonwood Hill once and you know what she said? ... "You men must all think that every woman is that confused during sex ... or anything else!"
I always loved that reply ... but the album is totally nuts ... and a lot of fun to listen to in my book ... and my favorite part is seeing how many people drop out and how fast!
Goes to show you how much they can handle reality!
hehehehe |
I said the debut, did I not? That's Cottonwoodhill, with the two-part "Brainticket' epic.
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fusionfreak
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Posted: July 01 2009 at 14:19 |
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Many talented kraut disciples have come to the fore these years,I'm thinking about Circle,Pharaoh Overlord,Space Debris,Acid Mothers Temple,Turzi,Marble Sheep......Krautrock will never die!It's too innovative,powerful and dreamy to fade away.Many reissues these times too such as Ibliss,Haboob...
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I was born in the land of Mahavishnu,not so far from Kobaia.I'm looking for the world
of searchers with the help from
crimson king
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American Khatru
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Posted: July 01 2009 at 17:38 |
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I'm probably, more than anything, a Symphonic Prog fan, and you can throw some Folk influenced Prog in there. But I have no problem telling you that I'm huge into Can. I have nearly their whole catalogue. I love their jam side, especially with vocals (like Halleluhwah for instance). And I'm especially intrigued by their three pop-song-like songs because their approach is so weirdly tentative (Tango Wiskeyman, Mushroom, Vitamin C).
Given this, can someone really tell me newer bands that carried this torch? I'm looking for suggestions here, but I mean REALLY carried this particular torch unequivocally, not just somewhat. It's ok if there aren't any, I'm just wondering and I'm sure there are plenty of experts on the matter that will be attracted to this thread.
So help a brother out.
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 Why must my spell-checker continually underline the word "prog"?
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Captain Capricorn
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Posted: July 01 2009 at 17:51 |
American Khatru wrote:
I'm probably, more than anything, a Symphonic Prog fan, and you can throw some Folk influenced Prog in there. But I have no problem telling you that I'm huge into Can. I have nearly their whole catalogue. I love their jam side, especially with vocals (like Halleluhwah for instance). And I'm especially intrigued by their three pop-song-like songs because their approach is so weirdly tentative (Tango Wiskeyman, Mushroom, Vitamin C).
Given this, can someone really tell me newer bands that carried this torch? I'm looking for suggestions here, but I mean REALLY carried this particular torch unequivocally, not just somewhat. It's ok if there aren't any, I'm just wondering and I'm sure there are plenty of experts on the matter that will be attracted to this thread.
So help a brother out.
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Can is one of the most unique bands in the history of prog ...I can't think of any bands that even come close.
...sorry 
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American Khatru
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Posted: July 01 2009 at 18:11 |
^ Yeah, I was afraid of that.  Thanks for the honesty.
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Why must my spell-checker continually underline the word "prog"?
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moshkito
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Posted: July 02 2009 at 14:02 |
fusionfreak wrote:
Many talented kraut disciples have come to the fore these years,I'm thinking about Circle,Pharaoh Overlord,Space Debris,Acid Mothers Temple,Turzi,Marble Sheep......Krautrock will never die!It's too innovative,powerful and dreamy to fade away.Many reissues these times too such as Ibliss,Haboob... |
I'm not sure that it will happen ... and I'm not saying that we need to hear the same thing again.
Here's why ...
Art scenes don't usually duplicate ... the feelings and the transformations are different. In the late 60's and the same thing goes for music, theater and film, there is a lot of experimentation ... even Yoko One was one of them ... the white wall with a dot on it ... it was all about breaking down the mechanized expressions and seeing things differently, and this was a fall out from the 50's and many artistic scenes that had started with the surrealistic movement ... from Sartre, Camus, Orton, Beckett, Pinter and others, and later the alienation that the American writers were showing in theater with Williams, Albee and many others ...
The Living Theater, and many other experiments, created a visual point, that was very good for music and lighting and such and this is something that art schools (like the major one in Berlin -- where so many of the bands we loved came from, btw!!!) loved playing around with.
As such the "free love", "free living", sharing the space, and many other concepts would bleed into the arts ... and for music this meant "experimentation", which we got to see full blast with Amon Duul 1 ... and when that ended, or dried up it became Amon Duul 2 ... and that's when you can see that the times started changing, or the kids were growing up ... or as The Who said ... the kids were alright ... even if they were stoned and out of it ... they meant well.
At that time, there was a very high level of acceptance for improvisations ... today there is not ... and until we allow these improvisations and experiments to "live" and "allow the seeds to grow" ... the chances of a musical band doing this by themselves is not likely ... the "support" and value that you gain from your friends also doing it and sharing the experience and how they see it ... is what makes something like this come alive ... and places like America are so "separated" from their source because of commercialism, that I am not sure that it can happen ... unless there is a revolution of sorts. And that is not likely, I do not think.
I am of the opinion that until the day that we see ALL music labels on the Internet selling their work bia download, the chance of seeing something different is going to be extremely difficult ... witness ECM, a massive jazz oriented label (horrible description of half their music) that has 40 years of music recordings and still not getting them online ... and you can have an idea of how, in the heck can anyone find out about these people ... it's tough.
My hope is that the sell via download explodes ... and this will open the way for jazz places, classical music places and it will hurt the likes of iTunes and other biggies that do not give a darn about serious music, since after all they are in it for the money, not the music ...
The new scenes and ears will be simply different ... and yes, my hope is that the popular music stigma finally die so we can start taking music more seriously by people that deserve it ... most of these "krautrock" folks are very well educated musicians and knew very well what they were doing and were not afraid to try things ... and that is something that you can learn with stage and film people around you ... rehearsal time baby ... which is something that musicians in general are not very good at doing due to them not have a director or person to help them see "outside of themselves" ....
The other side of it, is the eastern influence in the music ... if the proliferation of japanese, hindu and other eastern arts and music gets better and stronger in this "world market" illusion thing, one can only hope that dirges and ragas make it here (again) and be shown and discussed and even played with rock instruments ... which, as I have said all along, is what many of these people were doing ... rock ragas! But in this fast pace western world where all experience ends after the guitar solo or 3 minutes, your chance of seeing more than just a hint and appreciating it again ... are minimal at best.
The closest America came to these art scenes was the NY scene that gave us many talents and for music ended up giving us the likes of Velvet Underground, Andy Warhol, the Pollocks, the Basquiats .... LA almost had a scene but drugs decimated it before it could take off. Hollywood has always been known for its excesses anyway! SF had a scene that was pretty much decimated by its abuses with sex and drugs and its unreal decimation with AIDS for many years after.
It won't be the same the same ... times change and so do people and places.
Edited by moshkito - July 02 2009 at 14:45
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moshkito
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Posted: July 02 2009 at 14:19 |
Captain Capricorn wrote:
Can is one of the most unique bands in the history of prog ...I can't think of any bands that even come close.
...sorry |
And you can see where I am coming from ... CAN's early works were with an American actor ... and then Malcom Mooney and then Damo ... and "acting" involves a lot of free form experimentation in rehearsal to get actors to loosen up and find their center better ... and you can see where this helps the music get focused ...
But I seriously doubt you can do this in America where things are so separated and people are into "rock'n'roll" or "jazz" or any other idiotic description, to have any kind of idea of what an artistic gumption and discovery is all about.
Not giving a darn, about history and its lessons (this board is the best example you will ever find!) is the other issue!
And if you ever get a chance, read Peter Michael Hamel's book ... "From Music To The Self" .... which clarifies unintentionally, a lot of these things. He has become quite an "academic" and has a tendency to dislike things way too much, but it will give you an idea of what kind of people and musicians you were dealing with ... these were not "kids".
Edited by moshkito - July 02 2009 at 14:35
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The Krautrock appreciation thread
