The Krautrock Space

 

I have not yet picked up that CD ... it's on my agenda in a couple of weeks. I've said all along, that the only thing that AD2 needed was someone like me to get over there and kick a few folks in the butt to get some more experiments going ... with one important side effect ... the experiments, would generally mean that Renate would be left out a bit, maybe? ... but I sure would like to tell her to grab a broom, a vacuum cleaner, some boots and add it all on top of the music and watch the others play harder to stay up with her! ... not sure my surrealistic humor would go well, but what the heck!

 

As for the others:

Floyd is over ... no Richard.

Genesis is over ... too many egos

Crimson is over ... Robert has said so, and what he can get with a band to make KC is not worth it anymore ... I would only see them if it was all the folks from the first 2 albums ... not anyone else!

Can is over ... since Michael Karoli passed away. And Holger doesn't think that early music was worth anything.

Rush is over ... too famous and way too pop/prog defined now

Neu .... not sure anyone wants to redo the old playing around with knobs

Mahavishnu ... John is not over himself that others have played faster than him and meant less to the music!

 

But there are a few folks that are still at it ... I really think that Klaus Schulze is better than ever! Tangerine Dream is still very good even though I would like to tell Edgar that it is time to go smoke a joint and enjoy life a bit and then come back to the music ... and Manuel Gottsching is still good ... though I think that he could use starting to work with the ladies again ... so he does not become so repetitive!

...

BUT - I got a phone-call in  form of Bee as Such, which made me think that it didn´t just whither away into obscurity - that thing these musicians were striving for - the art as you put it - I rate some of these experiments just as high, and sometimes the music takes on new form and becomes art. - But Amon Düül ll´s new album certainly proves that embers burn long after the initial fire has burned out. Now we just need other people ready to pick up the baton, and I think somebody has done that. We just need to open up to stuff that isn´t labelled 70s or Floyd-Genesis-Crimson-Can-Rush-Neu!-Mahavishnu etc etc - you probably catch my drift. 

...

Yeah, they had a few of those that´s for sure, but they were nowhere as bad as the Italians in that department Talk about one hit albums - wam bam thank you mam!

A very good example of this in Krautrock is Prosper´s album Broken Door. Killer record!

 

Nope ... that would definitly would not be "Moshkito" ... but if there is one song that almost single handedly signaled the end of the "krautrock" age, I really think that "Apocaliptyc Bore" is it ... and if you never EVER have segwayed this with Scorpions title song from "Fly to the Rainbow" ... and you will get the idea real quick ... AD2 and many other bands were already disappointed and disillusioned with the romantic concepts for music and arts and the whole commune thing ... and it shows in their art ... and Apocaliptyc Bore is almost a good bye to the old days ... and it shows ... because the majority of the experimentation and long cuts pretty much ended ... and the band became more song oriented. The opposite side was Scorpions take on it? ... let's get stoned and have a party ... and not take the whole thing so seriously !!! ...

 

1975 and after, the whole Krautrock scene changed and got corrupted, ripped off and parts of it became commercial and left behind the true experiments in music ... and to me, the "new" bands that came out after that were not that adventurous and while Kraftwerk was ok, listening to Roedelius, Rother and so many others on their own was vastly superior to the commercial stuff that Kraftwerk did --- which to my ears, is not "krautrock" at all.

 

Likewise, Guru Guru had its own anthem, in the last cut of "Tango Fango", but that is not something that most of us can understand or relate to ... and yet, it was one of the most political comments ever done, in a very satirical and with it style ... that we ... the "progressive" folks, can't even listen to or appreciate ... and to think that the Germany's were not together yet when that came out ... and in the end, the "hero" was the music, not the political philosophies, which is a massive statement by itself, but not something that most progressive folks are willing to discuss ... it's actually very with it and quite enormous  and deserves mention with the greatest of artistic comments and appreciation, but instead it is ignored.

 

And this is one of the reasons why I fight so hard to raise the consciousness of music, with electric instruments that our generation helped design and create ... it's an art form ... that will forever live like so many others! ... but we have to stop discussing it as just stuff that we like! ...