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. 

Cool!  I'll have to watch this when I get some time.  I was just listening to some Birth Control last week - heh...

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!

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

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

VOTE FOR PEDRO!

Hi,
 
While I can state that it is fun to see the comments, I can't help thinking that the only reason why the comments are there, is because those folks will never check out the comments, and compare what I said with what is on the program, and how much of it was the local scenes in the arts ... the 6th part has a lot of David Bowie and that one is grossly distorted and damaged and no one can find the original and the BBC won't release it! David himself is not that progressive, but he is not afraid to mix and match odd things ... and has always done that well.
 
I like to have fun as much as you guys, but sometimes, your child, or woman, or guitar is more important to you than a bad joker!
 
This stuff is important to me, because it is who I am, not because I like it, but it is the artist I am, but I doubt that the comments give a damn, and to them I am just another fooh that posts here!

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.
 

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.

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

bitflipper
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. 

I really like how it starts ... it helps, specially for American folks ... seeing that in other places around the world, there were also issues ... I don't think "krautrock" was more important than the moment and place in time ... it was concurrent with the film, theater and other arts in Europe, and in fact, music was at least 5 years behind film ... !!!!!
 
It was one scene, no different than the California scene, with the exception that in America, there is no respect for the arts, only top ten, and most of the experimental music gets killed ... compare the improvisations that you can find in "krautrock", and how many you can find in the Fillmore ... NONE ... and that tells you how much music was killed and not allowed to be heard for us to get a good understanding of what the music and scene was really all about in America -- which ended up distorted and hurt by flowers in your hair mentality and stupidity!
 
This is the part of the American music that I miss ... you know it was there ... but you can't find it. The early bootlegs from the Grateful Dead had long jams and stuff ... none of that ever got to an album, which tells you about the industry's mass mentality and sales ... and the public won't know any better! Even Tom Dowd, suggests that this is the movie studio mentality ... which hurt black music ... which managed to make it on its own, with jazz, and then Detroit helped explode it.
 
Now that you saw that ... go check out Demme's film of Neil Young in Concert ... all of a sudden he is so near "krautrock", it's not funny!