Krautrock: interesting documentary

I was actually living in Munich when all this was happening (1969-1972) but to my loss was largely unaware of it all. I was totally into British prog and blues-rock at the time, not avant-garde stuff. This BBC documentary puts it in clearer perspective and makes the case for how lastingly significant the krautrock movement truly was. 

Hi,
 
There are some magnificent things here ... that are very helpful.
 
The most important one, for me, is the line from Edgar Froese, about no past, no soul, no person, which was a magnificent analogy for the whole thing and experimentation of the time, and how it went about and came down. All that is left is ... what you find ... and many of the folks off those music schools took on the "no western music concepts" in their work. AND ... IT HAPPENED AGAIN WHEN THE WALL CAME DOWN ... listen to Guru Guru's last cut on "Tango Fango" for a joke on the East German music that was broadcast!
 
As such, a lot of their improvisations and experiments, were excellent and above and beyond what one would expect to find. It's unbelievable to hear "Yeti" (title cut) and think that was an improvisation for 17 minutes ... and what an incredible piece it was. It was unbelievable to hear "Augumn" and not appreciate the total weirdness and nothingness in there, and yet ... you have something ... which Holger Czukay stated that they were pieces haphazardly cut off 20 hours of tape, without any choosing what they were ... point blank! ... a total different form of improvisation, if you will. And then, you have the Faust improvisations ... which are (for my tastes) a good amount of kid stuff ... something that we need more of.
 
There are some things that are strange ... one is Jaki Liebzeit (drummer from CAN) telling you about the composer/instructor he had that things were not "repetitive enough" ... and I think that it was more of a joke than a serious musical statement!
 
There are many things missing ... the most important of them is Guru Guru and their first 3 albums, which were total improvisations, and you can read about them from Helmut and from Mani all day long ... being senselessly stoned ... play something ... what? ... anything ... and when you hear the first 3 albums ... THERE IT IS! ... go listen to "LSD March" or some of the other pieces ... this is as live as anything will ever be.
 
We're afraid of doing these kinds of things, specially in a time and place, where music is not "free" of constraints like today's is ... even though you will find so many more bands and stuff out there, most of it, is the same thing, and the only possible way for you to separate yourself from the rest? ... to do something like this that helps define your work even better ... and makes you different. Most musicians are not willing, capable, or trusting enough in their ABC's to do this ... and while I am not the best teacher/instructor in this area for musicians, the examples I have shared are universal, and have been used before and they work ... if you are willing to learn from it.
 
WEIRD PART:
Amon Duul's first edition was a jam band, that did the same thing as the Grateful Dead drum circles (we will call them band circles now -- due to other musicians in it) ... and "Phallus Dei", in my estimation was a joke about it ... we start getting stoned, then we have sex and party! ... and their next album ... "Yeti" is for the ages ... and all of us can sit here and ask ... wow ... how can that be an improvisation ... but only the stuff that ended up called "Soap Shop Rock" was ever played live!
 
Guess where they learned a lot of these things? Fillmore baby ... Fillmore! ... and some of those things that never made it to albums because of the American music companies killing the experiments ... which Tom Dowd had state started 10 years earlier when the movie studios, just about by themselves, killed most black music in America ... though it came back later, stronger than ever!
 
Now, off the subject ... read my review for Neil Young's film ... not a whole lot of difference after a while ... they trust a lot of the work they do, regardless of how it comes out!

bapu
Hey, I wonder what Pedro's thoughts are on this and music in general?

VOTE FOR PEDRO!

I watched most of this yesterday...missed the last 15 minutes or so...and found it quite entertaining and informative.  Only knew a little about the most popular bands (i.e. Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream) so I quite enjoyed it.  Do have to admit though that I'm not of the school of dragging cement mixers around, beating on them and sweeping up near them and calling it "music"...per se.  But give me enough schnapps and I could be talked into it.
 

craigb
Finally had time to watch.  Very interesting!  There were only two bands that I don't have which, ironically, are very related: Cluster and Harmonia.  I guess I'll have to put them on the list to check out.

The follow ups and individual albums by Roedelius and Michael Rother are ... even better for my tastes ... and you already know I have lots of these, too!
 
Yorolpal ... the Faust folks playing around with the cement mixers, was probably designed to be a joke ... but when you listen to some of their albums there appears to have been a concerted effort to put together some kind of a sound collage ... which at times, you don't even know is there, and find it later. The point with it, was that it could start anywhere, with anything ... and that is the part that "musicians" are too damn serious to every try, and something that "krautrock" had a lot of ... fun and humor!
 
The early Cluster/Harmonia/Kraftwerk/Neu folks were heavy in the learning about the "knobs" that became famous in all analog synthesizers, that no one in this board EVER uses again, I don't think.
 
There is another connection that they don't mention, and it was Tim Leary ... who spent time in Germany when he escaped from the place in SLO ... and my take is that he spent his time with a bunch of musicians and artists, and in some ways he helped define things "turn the German hifi into scifi" and then "get into the vibes of the music" ... which was very with it ... and you can find this in ASH RA TEMPEL's "7UP" album. I also think that he spent a lot of time sleeping with a lot of their women ... as some of the recordings suggest a sexy kind of thing, that both Klaus Schulze and Manuel Gottsching have ... pretty much avoided and they still do not discuss it. The "Cosmic Courier" stuff is actually a lot of fun to listen to, but I suppose that you can say that it is really "stoned" stuff! The "Tarot" album is actually outstanding musically and very well defined musically for each major tarot card, but Walter Wegmuller's voice is a really harsh turnoff for many folks.
 
The only thing missing in there, was more Mani Neumeier and Helmut Hattler stuff from Guru Guru and Ax Gernrich, whose three solo albums belong in some kind of ... asylum ... and gives the band's first three albums, more than likely, its freedom of expression and insanity! "LSD March" and a couple of other pieces, are must listens for the improvisation crowd.
 
More on demand as needed or asked

Hi,
 
Given the bad postings, recently, about folks experiences, something like this documentary, all of a sudden is more important.
 
But in the end, it only shows, how much some folks in America are so removed from it all, to the point of thinking that it never happened, and no one could possibly have gone through that, because they didn't. I have a friend that was in VietNam ... and our neighbor thinks he is just milking Disability and other institutions. I guess I can not tell my neighbor to go see "Deerhunter" or "Apocalipse Now" ... because he will say immediately that it was just a movie!
 
Europe had a lot more perceptions destroyed, than America, whose perceptions were "controlled" by the media and movies. Europe had its very foundations of everything, destroyed twice, in two World Wars, and this destruction hurt, a lot more, the arts, and the individual family structures, so something like "krautrock" can happen and take place ... whereas there is no applicable history that harsh in America that would shake the very foundations of the social fabric ... and I'm not sure that I can convince many Americans (check out James' bs on the other thread!) that this was an issue, and that there were thousands of films made, even as far as the year 2000 in Film Festivals that still went over these things ... so the "hurt" lasted 50 years.
 
To me, then, "krautrock" (hate that term!) makes sense ... whereas the SF/LA psychedelic scene, fails to take hold, because there was not enough interest in the promoters, to protect the music, and thus, we barely have a couple of albums with long cuts (Chicago 1 and 2 notably), where as many other "experiments" appear to just be a blues/chord designated piece, as is the case in Iron Butterfly ... but even then, today, we make fun of that and kill the long cut ... it's just a jam! We never said that about Beethoven or Mozart, and Mozart has more jams than anyone out there!
 
Too much of GREAT music history, is a reaction to the social upheaval ... and this is the part that is harsh/hard in America ... the only major "upheaval" they have really had in the arts is black music ... but even then, black film makers are ignored, black artists are still mostly ignored, and black musicians are making it on their own these days, but the jazz guys? Only a handful! In other words, it is not even considered an "art", or a "movement", and I think this tends to hurt the interest and the ability of these arts themselves, getting better understood and appreciated, and years later ... they are forgotten, and all we appreciate is the "image" ...!!! Not even the music ... Elvis being a perfect example!

This video has been pulled ...

sharke I'm fine with so-called "progressive" or experimental music in smallish doses, but too much of it is thoroughly pretentious, pompous and lacking in elegance or charm. I hold the same opinion on most modern art. ...

 
(BTW ... I don't call these progressive any more than I do regressive! They are artistic scenes that had an effect on the arts and the public ... the kind of thing that Americans have a hard time working with because everything is a top ten, and nothing else but, but them hippi's can't possibly be smart and have something to say!)
 
I'm not sure that's fair. But all the other advertising for the top ten, and all the summer concerts is not?  Hmmm ... never thought that Genet was about charm and elegance, but man, those descriptions and visuals are insane!
 
I'm not sure that your "looking" is wide enough, if you don't mind my suggesting that. It's different in every country, but the German one, was wider, than otherwise, because it also involved film, theater, literature and music. The American scene that compares is the psychedelic/beat poet thing, that even then gets trashed silly and now one person, or two think that Tom Waits is great, and they never even heard of all the others that were there before him! And all of them FAR BETTER, and interesting! Tom, however, probably is more of a musician than all the others!
 
What is missing, is not you're finding something or not ... it's the historical perspective that helps create the material, because all of a sudden it is not "empty" ... it's much more than we think, but if all we can find is the 4 beats and the knob twisting (my joke about Kraftwerk!), then the whole conversation is lost. Gone. There's would be nothing more to say.
 
Read Patti Smith's book about her experiences with Mapplethorpe and where it led it all ... there is a side of NY that is not about money, but the ability to concentrate on their art piece ... so most Americans think that Pollock is just throwing paint from a distance ... it's not art ... but the amount of work suggests there was more to it ... and where is that "it" that helped create the art?
 
it wasn't just a person sitting in front of their computer ... and turning on the DAW ... you know there was more to it ... but we don't read about it.
 
Patti's book is magnificent, but it will also tell you that NY had two Gods and no one else could do anything because their mafia took you down!
 

sharke ... You have a tremendous number of so-called "artists" who feel superior just because they're doing something which is "outside the box," but clearly ones distance from the box is not necessarily in direct proportion to ones artistic merits. ...

 
I've never met one, and I spent time with some of the best. About the only one that ever showed an EGO to me, and tried to display it as a Hollywood star, was SW and John Wetton. No one else. Vander and his wife were wonderful, Gomelsky was a heaven send, Daevid and Gilly were supreme folks and fun, Ferry was excellent fun, Froese was hilarious despite all the stories, Zappa was not my type but he was OK ... and just so you know, the only place I see an "ego" is (sometimes) on a place like this ... because folks can only discuss their ego, and not the art!
 
You are white and someone else is blue, one is from Venus and the other from Mars ... we just have to put that in a perspective, and some will say that they don't mix and we don't want no christians here, but right away you find others saying we don't want no moslems, either, or spanish speaking bums! The musical landscape, or artistic landscape is starting to feel like that and I find it sad ... all of these different cultures have great music ... but none of us will spend the time to listen to it, and then think it is boring and not an art form.
 
Somewhere, we have to come to grips with the "quantity vs quality" kind of thing, but here it is hard to discuss, since most know the "quantity" and when told about the "quality" they think it sounds the same!
 
It isn't! Either way you look at it, it's people looking for an expression, just like YOU!
 

bitflipper
Experimental music serves the same purpose as a brainstorming session in marketing or engineering. The goal is to generate ideas, and not qualify them up front. Later on, others will pick and choose the elements that they deem worthy of developing further.
 
Most of the stuff that came out of the pre-synthesizer experimental "music" movement in the U.S. is quite unlistenable. But they were cutting up tapes and looping them, and sampling everyday objects to use musically, both common practices today.

The cut up part has another side, though ... and it was that a lot of the stuff could not be repeated well enough, and thus, the only thing one could do, if recorded, was to put the tapes together. But I think that by the time of Beaver and Krause, that "controls" of the basic instrument were already in place, and then Walter Carlos came about, and right after folks like Tomita and Emerson came around ... and things changed. Even Terry Riley was highly repetitive, suggesting the controls were not that great.
 
But, here is "influence" for you ... we know that well known composers frequented the music schools in Berlin, and that various folks and groups of people studied there (pretty much all of the major electronic folks!), and one of the things that you can read on CAN's home page, is Holger Czukay discussing how "Tago Mago" was pulled together from 20 hours of tapes and simply cut and paste and nothing else but ... and it kinda shows how one slight detail can easily influence others and help create something ... when you listen to the album, and it's side long pieces, and the rest, you would never think of about 20 hours of tape at all ... maybe from the two long cuts, but even then, it's hard to not think where the cutups are ... they flow pretty well as they are.
 
 
You and I would be very hard pressed to find any American band that even considered that. But too much of the long cuts and experimental stuff was buried and dumped and not considered as music ... it's still one of the weirdest things ... Grateful Dead known for long cuts, and none of their albums have them! And their bootlegs had whole sides, some 45 years ago! That have never been released!