How influential was Faust?

Saperlipopette! wrote: Love IV, but I think So Far is their strongest effort. The Faust Tapes actually sold 60 000 units in the UK (where it was sold for the price of a #7 through Virgin Records), so they were more known outside of Germany than most other Krautrockers. But I think their influence was on the DIY movement and underground noise musicians. Nothing much resembling Prog. My impression is that among listeners, Faust are mostly for the freaks - who love them - and hipsters - that pretend they do.

I loved So Far , especially the first half of the album. The last 3 songs kind of felt downgraded to me.

I like their work, a lot, and have like 5 or 6 albums ... however, it is strange and weird to think of FAUST as a band that originated something, which a lot of folks (later) thought became influential.

The theater, literature and film scene, were vastly more experimental in many parts, even when you consider someone that went on to write for various films, and had been doing "word plays" ... not sentences, not lines directed at another person, but simply words in several of his one act plays. Peter Handke was doing this way before FAUST. Also the German scene was invaded by actors that ended up in film, and we can see them in several clips on the net, the best of them is on Werner Herzog's film, of Klaus Kinski in front of an audience totally ad lib. And in theater, the well known theater group LIVING THEATER was putting on a lot of experimental work on stage and eventually did stuff with actors in the middle of the audience and an open stage. And they were likely the first to bring Beckett to America, which at the time, was a very experimental and bizarre experience for theater, specially in America, but it took hold well, surprisingly enough, though THE LIVING THEATER did not become as huge as they were thought to be, specially when Julian Beck died in 1985.

It's weird that we think, or imagine, that FAUST was the only one being crazy and nuts ... and if you go back, easily enough, to EUROCK's first issues (they are all in a huge book now as well), you will find a nice look at many folks doing weird, crazy, strange stuff on the stage, in the late 1960's, and onto the 1970's.

While FAUST added an audience to what they did, brought the younger generation, it really showed a lot of the incredible amount of different things that a lot of folks were doing artistically, which were way more visible in Europe where the history of the arts had many hundreds of years of change, and appreciation. In America, the commercial media trashed a lot of it, and made sure that "them foreigners" didn't get nothing (no kidding ... name withheld ... goon still alive!!!), and within film, even the Foreign Film Oscar was considered, until the 1980's a waste of a statuette ... but in general, it could be said in American Theater that the specter of the Acting Studio and Lee Strasburg was still en force, and we all heard loud and clear .... the great scream ... that only the progressive folks on PA have never heard. Guess what helped wake up a lot of rock music?

I wish I had a more concise and complete history, but this is not easy, as a lot of fans here are not exactly theater fans, some film -- most commercial stuff -- and it kinda stops there. And it is like saying that the Rolling Stones did not know theater, and Mick's girlfriend was on West End ... right ... next!!!!! You pick things up bit by bit ... as you go along.

Rick1 wrote: My introduction to Faust was The Faust Tapes (sadly, the full price version on Recommended Records) around 1980.  I was a Henry Cow fan so my ears were prepared for the onslaught and the album had already acquired legendary status.  About ten years later, I was fortunate enough to see them at their 'comeback' concert at the Marquee in London.  I later learnt that it had been organised by Julian Cope and that Mick Jagger was in attendance!  (Don't recall seeing either!)  The music was a continuous noise fest supplemented by industrial tools - no recreations of 'Jennifer' here - more 'Krautrock'.  Influential, well...yes!

Isn't Faust Tapes very musically tough to enjoy? I mean, a thing can be influential without being commercially successful [looks at Velvet Underground's debut] but that album is blurring the boundaries of music and noise for me.

100% in agreement (including the part of hipster pretending), especially for So Far.