Any Krautrock viddies?

Not really sure what you're looking for, but there is Beat CLub stuff like this:





And this playlist of live videos for ADII: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRq4b7KSUXA&list=PLpJ4hSKuh3nWHFq7czx8zkvU-rOeXYcjR

Lots of stuff if you search youtube to find, which you might have done already, but not sure what you are looking for...

Hi,

Both Werner Herzog and Wim Wenders had clips of some of these bands and artists. They were not the only ones, but it has not been documented properly at all ... I have been mentioned this connection for a long time, and I'm actually surprised to see someone actually ask ... all it does is verify that the whole thing that was called "krautrock" was not specific to a rock band or two, but a whole artistic scene that also shared similar ideas and designs. This thought/concept has been ignored by any definition of "krautrock" which is sad, and is like saying that your friends did not even know you played music! Or was in a film or two, or did some serious painting, or wrote plays.

Sadly the early stuff by both Wenders and Herzog is not "interesting" compared to a lot of their films, which is part of the reason why some of these clips are ignored.

There are a lot of stories, relating to Popol Vuh from Werner Herzog, and they are neat to say the least. In this situation it was not the case of music created for the movie, it was more like the movie was made to match/enjoy some of the music that was available. Story went that Werner needed music for a film, and Florian said to look in the closet for something and the next week, Werner comes back ... look I got a new film your music!

The Between The Eyes piece has material from "Dance of the Lemmings" though the visuals at the start suggest from "Yeti".

Edited by moshkito - June 02 2025 at 06:28

DoobieBrother6 wrote: Going back to the beginning     with the Berlin Zodiak Free Arts Lab ('68) (Tangerine Dream,Agitation Free,Eruption,Schnizler,Roedelius,Schultze), there are a handful of youtubes but they are short (1-2 minutes) and, as expected, fuzzy. It's amazing that anything at all was put to film for posterity.

Hi,

To my knowledge, the film stuff survived fine, but the video stuff is another story and often out of sync. In general, Werner Herzog did some AD2 and Wim Wenders did Can, but I have to look at the Herzog book I have for more details on this, though I do not have a book on Wenders with the filmography. The Herzog book does list the early stuff, as far as I can remember. I'll take a look in other spots to see if I can find something. The only hard part, would be at least one of the tv things, the one with the open talks, and sadly I do not know German at all ... and what is being said is not clear for me.

The Wiki information on Werner Herzog is not clean or clear on what the early stuff was, and the band is not mentioned at all ... in all likelyhood none of those films were given any credit in these listings!

Same thing on Wim Wenders for Wiki.

I can't say I have ever seen a filmography for all these bands at all, though both Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze were well seen in the early days, and some of the TD stuff actually became important, as the bootlegs were getting a lot of attention, as what the band did on stage was really difficult to recreate, and for some years, it was all about adjustment, and hope that all the synths warmed up properly and cooperated. The TD book, discusses the music and the difficulties in those days, but does not mention the bootlegs, and instead EF kept giving Chris Franke a hard time, but Chris always made it through each time.


Edited by moshkito - June 02 2025 at 08:42

Hi,

My thoughts are that the stuff that was done with film, in other words, Herzog, Wenders and others, survived a lot better than the video thing, which was really new at the time, and video did not get better for another years or two, right after the DT movie that helped a lot of the video market come alive big time ... as in HUGE! And that was in 1972, so, as we can see, there is some video stuff, but in general it is not very good, and most of it has no credits, and it's like it was done n the fly, like a fly in the wall, and while it shows many of the artists and some of their work, in general, it does not illustrate them a whole lot.

What is strange/weird, is how Werner Herzog did not do anything directly with Popol Vuh, other than using their music. Which has a nice side story that was in the early versions of the PV website ... story is that Werner came in and said he needed some music for his film, and Florian said to look in the closet and pick something out. The following week, Werner shows up like a stoned kid ... look, I got a new movie and I used your music! In every sense of the meaning of the word, that is sooooo "krautrock" that it isn't funny. He blended together a few things, and we already knew he could do it really well, and had already been given credit for some outstanding visuals in his films, with music to them!

The video thing, sadly enough, was too much in the hands of the fans, and had no artistic thoughts or desires behind it ... it was like folks just filming something for fun. Film is an expensive medium, and in 1981, when I did my first 8mm film, the small cartridge of 8mm cost $10 dollars (5 minutes), and then you had to send it to Seattle to get it developed and shipped, and that was a total of $30 dollars, so you spent $40 dollars (1981!!!!!!) and you will be lucky if you can find around 2 to 3 minutes of usable film. Video does not have that problem, although the editing side of it was not available for a while at the time, thus you kinda had to film it non-stop as much as possible to be able to get something that looked OK ... but not many folks had lighting equipment to help video, and that just about kills half of it right there. Film can adjust, as you can get a fast film, or a slow film, with similar numbers as you used to see at the Kodak store with 100, 200, 400, 800, 1200 and sometimes even 2400 ... On bright sunny days you use the low numbers, but indoors on a candle you use the 2400, but it had a bad issue ... you could not move it or touch it, or the picture would shimmer and get blurred quickly.

The likelihood is that there is more video and some of it has surfaced in the Internet, but the bad part is that it is not documented and is not listed anywhere as valuable or important, which kinda says that someone did it without the band knowing it, and if you're gonna show it, you have to do it incognito. While this might have a nice side for the band and the artist, in general, it is also bad for them, as it might not present them the way they prefer or like, unless your name is Damo ... who in a concert here in Portland, joked that if there was a camera to let him know so he could pose and make more expressions ... like he needed that. It got a massive laugh and it loosened up everyone and the band as well!

In the special "Krautrock - The rebirth of Germany" , there are some glorious moments that show some things, and they do not shy away from mentioning Werner Herzog, or Wim Wenders, though you could tell that this special was done by a rock fan, not someone that knew film, or the arts ... it was obvious, though it did mention one thing that was listed way later in a book (Future Days) and it was that the whole thing happened in different cities and the folks did not exactly know each other at all ... thus the fact, and idea, that their wild differences, are a part of something that is common in all 5 or 6 locations ... and that was not true, or possible at all!

That special, at the very least, has a very historical story to tell about the end of WW2 and the growth of the young generation that was the 1950's and then 1960's, which gave root to the newer things in West Germany, since East Germany at the time had music created and made for TV that became known as "schlagger" ... which for many of us means "middle of the road crap", which BTW, a lot of American Radio at the time really was anyway! And this helped bring up the FM radio band in the 1960's with new music, and unlike the previous version, it was STEREO ... and that was massive and a VERY NEW EXPERIENCE to all of us, and had already been in LP's for at least 10 years in classical music!

I have been trying to document as many of these pieces as I can find, but so many of them look like grandpa's party film of his birthday ... and they do not "deserve" the mention, though the ones who might suffer here is that the artist is ignored, and that is not a good thing.

Edited by moshkito - 23 hours 3 minutes ago at 06:09