^true. 

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/ultimathule/krautrockers.html - Here is the link to the "light version" . A very good and free internet source containing bios and discography.

Julian Cope's Krautrocksampler is of course the classic reference...it's long out-of-print, put I recently found a link to a blog with a downloadable .pdf copy of it, in two parts. And when I say 'copy', I mean a not always legible duplicate pressed page-by-page onto a scanner, but it's still better than nothing (although I noticed one page of the original book is missing!)

 

Here's the link:

 

http://blog.swanfungus.com/2006/10/krautrocksampler.html - http://blog.swanfungus.com/2006/10/krautrocksampler.html

 

Pascal Bussy has a couple of specific band biographies worth reading...Kraftwerk: Man, Machine and Music, which has a brief overview of the early krautrock movement, and Future Days: the Can Story (which I never bought when I had the chance and is now out of circulation)

 

I have one book ... Peter Michael Hamel's "From Music to the Self" ... which is actually a fine book other than the fact that he spends his time trashing popular music and most of all these bands!

 

I have kept and will make some jpegs of these things, many articles and press releases and information on many of these bands, and all in all the history is fine, but severely lacking.

 

For example, in the Egg CD the AD2 information is highly unsatisfying and gives no hint that while the band may not be political, they are very strong in the sentiment and almost violent in their aproach to their work. And "Phallus Dei" makes no sense in any of those terms except something about musicians that are so stoned that they would not know the difference about what they were playing, which of course is not true and was one of the reasons why Kris wanted to leave ... and "Phallus Dei" is a massive dig at the commune thing ... it was all about fun and drugs ... nothing else! Penis God! ... how much more obvious do you want to be? Suggest that they left so they could go worship sex? When the commune thing in Europe and America was mostly about free sex in the first place? ....

 

And then there are things elsewhere ... like some of the interviews here in PA with Florian Fricke, that help clarify a lot of other things that the CD is not doing ... like Florian saying that it was a tape of left over music on the floor and Werner decided that he could use it! And he used Popol Vuh left overs for what ... 7 films? ... and it worked in all of them!

 

There is a lot more. It just bothers me that some of these descriptions are taking out the human element in them and if there is one thing in the "krautrock" that highly evident is the effect of the human spirit ... good or bad ... and it has been a major part of germanic arts for hundreds of years.

 

Likewise, the fear of discussing Tim Leary and the effect on the Cosmic Couriers, although some people probably want to have nothing to do with Tim and probably disliked him sleeping with all their women! And Tim dis-honored them all by nothing being mentioned in a lot of things about Tim later ... nothing like ignoring one part of one's life ... that helped create and focus a MASSIVE music scene ... it might have been by accident, but usually arts, theater, film, music, tend to walk hand in hand ... unless your name is "star" in the Hollywood Blvd!

 

Julian Cope's words are nice. They are overly excited and stoned words about the music and while that's ok with me, it is something that not many people can understand and appreciate. All in all, the one thing that we can not say ... since it is too simple ... is that the music has massive passion, love, hate, and that expression is quite vivid in the instruments themselves (as if they could speak!) and in many of the lyrics. It might not be important to you, but Brecht and Weill were very much like this too? And a lot of other works ... even if we do not know them!

 

The important thing in all this is that if Germans have not shown the work, to say something in words is NOT enough ... and they tend to stretch the instruments and expressions to help emote what they want to do and say ... unlike a lot of rock music that tends to have a singer do that and the guitar simply adds a hook and a small solo under it ... by comparison the krautrock way, you're gonna sit here and feel the guitar cry and shudder and die!

 

Too many of these "krautrock" notes are afraid to help it stand out for the true cultural revolution that it was ... lest you are afraid to let people know that some bands did solos because they were too stoned to do anything else, be it MM Chamsin Soundtrack, or Klaus Schulze or AshRa Tempel or Guru Guru or any other band. That would be a total discredit to the person's ability and their desire to take music further in any form ... which has been a part of Eastern cultures for thousands of years, but the commercial and popular "sound" is now dictating that music can not be your opiate ... just money and the drugs that they want you to take before you die!

 

Sorry ... music is not empty, never has been ... and I really feel that a lot of people writing these things have not listened and are ignoring major parts of the work that many people put together.

 

And what magnific work it was, and still is compared to so much other pop/prog music out there!

Oh, these kind of books tends to become collectors items. I personally wouldn't say its worth more than what I payed for it - ca. 25 €. I'm glad I own it but its not flawless or feels like "the definitive" book on kraut. The introduction chapters are a great read though.

Here's a cheaper one at http://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/SearchResults?isbn=9781906155667&n=100121503&cm_sp=mbc-_-9781906155667-_-used" rel="nofollow - Abe Books  (who btw also got one for sale at  £ 164.93 + an additional £ 56.46 for shipping)

I, personally, would rather have Werner Herzog, as Wenders is a bit too slow for my tastes and his tendency to take too long in a moment, might help the ear like "Yeti" and "Dance of the Lemmings", but it will make the whole thing prohibitive in a place like America or England. It's like watching the Grateful Dead do "Dark Star", or Pink Floyd do "Echoes" in the movie ... not many folks have the ability to close their eyes and enjoy "the trip" ... like some of us here can and do. 

Film wise, of all the directors, there is one I think would be the best to make a film on AD2, but not many directors have the "trip quotient" down pat and so vivid that we sit here and go ... wow ... even 2001 was boring now, and this is the part that would make the film more original and exciting for me. I do not think, or believe, I will see this in my lifetime at all. Of all the names, the one I would love to see it done by, would have been Luis Bunuel, who would have matched up surrealistic moments well, and the other one would have been Jean Luc Godard, the most famous, roll the camera and let it happen ... until you wonder, what just happened. Very rock music in the days of getting really high! Just ask the Grateful Dead!

My biggest complaint ... no translation, and that means the writer is not interested in taking this further, and the book by Dedekind fits this mold. It is simply crazy to think that someone would write something and cut down its availability to a minimal number, specially when the stories and the articles referring to many of those bands, suffered horribly from not being available or extended beyond the mother country. This is documented in very tough and harsh detail in the "EUROCK" book and it fits many many many bands in many other countries. It is by far, the worst thing ... but lacking English, these days, pretty much makes one naive and make the work feel like just another college paper for the professor!

To me, the soul of the book is already lost as a limb has been cutoff. I would have loved to read this and review it, and there are a couple of other books on the same subject that also limited themselves to nothing!

But, maybe, the book is not meant to go beyond the borders of the Bardo, because no one will understand it or get it?

  

You are writing this to the son of one of the best known translators in Portuguese Literature ... he brought a lot of American, English and French writers to Portugal, at a time, when it was not being done. I won't ask my mom (she's 95) how much money he made off those ... she'll tell you really good ... but I show you pictures of the shack we lived in in Brazil, when we left Portugal behind.

Translations, in my estimation is about how much you want to communicate to others and share your experience. With that said, there are many folks, that think that one's culture is more important than the rest, and they would not translate, because they feel the language is the important part of the culture. This was the case in many Portuguese departments in the UC system my own father was a part of. They confuse the content for the language itself ... instead of showing how clear and well meaning, many of those artists were and ARE, still.

If money, was the only thing that a publisher looked for ... most of them would be out of business, btw! The fact is that you try things without knowing the result and hope that things turn out ... a translation might have been done by many friends or academics, for nothing, but the credit for the value of the work. In general, it makes me think that some of the material in there is not true at all, and taking it further is counter productive.

There is a lot about that/this scene, that needs to be discussed, and the film/theater and music angle is being ignored, and sometimes, the only things one can read are the likes of Peter Michael Hamel's "From Music to the Self" which is a nice book, but it is also very harsh on a lot of music, because it does not have the academic feel that he wants for all of it. You can't dismiss the human spirit and its differences, and how some of these became a very valuable artistic scene.

The problem is, we do not have respect for the artistic feelings, and confuse those with pop music and its who cares quota, because it was not famous enough! I can list, easily enough, a lot more artistic "scenes" that died with less attention than what we give this one thread!

We, simply, do not believe in it! If we did, its value would magnify and the writers and musicians would extend it a bit more. Which many are doing, because too many of those folks were just getting stoned and partying and did not care about anything else. 

While the "__autrock" is peculiar to the German tradition of music, in many ways, it is an artistic scene that spread with film and literature and theater, and as such, it would help a lot more to expand the knowledge and understanding of that artistic period, by allowing it to be heard, seen and appreciated in other places. This has helped the film and theater world in Germany, but in some ways, it has not helped the rock music as much ... and I find that sad, mainly because this is one style (if it can be called that!) that is very special to me, and my appreciation in music.

And a worthless conglomerate that will be broke soon, because they do not know, understand or bother to take a look at who their audience is. Guess where the majority of the conversation about "__autrock" is happening ... yep, and it's in English.

It's not only naive, it's downright silly!

(PS: Reminds me of American TV ... ohh, let's do a new show ... blahblah crime, again this time with ...")