THE COSMIC JOKERS      They're cosmic! Tripping the light fantastic with one of the best-known Krautrock supergroups, which included such notable members as Klaus Schulze and Manuel Goettsching (Ash Ra Tempel) and with five cosmic albums to their name. The five albums were assembled and released all in one incredible year by label boss "The Kaiser" without the performers' knowledge - and that's no joke! 

I stand by both, and am awfully fond of them, and their material, which has stood out time very well ... with perhaps one issue ... the German version is more appreciated, than the American version that went on to be trashed by the media, and eventually thought to not be important, and overly infatuated with themselves ... probably (my thought) because a lot of their material was more "direct" in terms of politics, which created a lot of friction and problems in the media ... at the very least, in Europe (maybe not England ... ) there was a much wider respect for the arts, and music was accepted a lot more, specially when it started to sell, and the German companies stopped asking for schlagger and ignore the money that could be made from their own groups ... however, by the time that took place, it was already slimmed down to a smaller list of groups.

The hatred, and the media attention to the "psychedelia" days in America, were really hard to deal with, and by the time that Altamont came down, the majority of the scene was going down hill, with the Jefferson Airplane bloodied on the stage ... and the media just about said ... well deserved ... and the bad part of it all is probably that America did not have a real publication to help the music, not to mention that what took place in the West Coast was laughed at and ignored in the East Coast, and vice versa, and then you had to deal with Nashville, completely separate, and all of a sudden the southern bands come up big time. 

America, showed itself to be ... 4 different countries, at least, and this made it really tough all around ... but the lack of a real publication that was more serious about the music, and Rolling Stone in those days was not helpful and I still guess that there was some serious issues in publication, but their attention to the sleazy side of all things ... hurt it all, even worse.

"The Cosmic Jokers" is a sad story in some ways, but the worst part of it, is that because of the rip offs, none of it, if any, was thought to have valuable material ... and there were a lot of really fine things in it, that were always trashed and none of the musicians ever saw any money from them ... afaik ... which is really sad, but the romantic side of the whole thing had created some really far out things, even if some of them were a bit off key and weird. "Planeten Sit-In" is a fine album and some of the material was far out. The actual album "The Cosmic Jokers" was really good, and one side of it is an improvisation that is on par with AD2's MM Soundtrack from "Dance of the Lemmings" .... the touch and feel of the material was outstanding, and never has it been recognized ... as musically valid, or valued.

And thanks PP ... for the listing. Sadly, putting together a listing for the Americans, would be much more difficult, with the harsh divisions across the USA. And even worse, was the attention some bands got for trashing Neil Young, at a time, when the media thought all youngsters and students were trash ... and the music was meaningless ... which was something that was sort of forgotten and left behind, by the time FM radio hit the big stage going into 1972 and 1973 ... at least in the West Coast ... but still the "control" was in place of the media, as was evident as to what happened in LA a few years later ... that took a major station down over night and brought it back in the morning, on tape, and "new age" music. The lack of a music periodical to put down the folks that did such a massive thing, was never seen or bothered with ... by that time, RS was more interested in the "stars" and didn't care about the music!

The one band, that never quit, and continued, is the "soul" of the whole thing, even if a lot of folks don't specially like it, but they continued for many more years, and today, are more appreciated that ever, and still sell ... and one could say that it was their bootlegs, most of which came from their sound board with the band's blessing ... that kept them alive and appreciated. 

To this day, American music will not bother appreciating The Grateful Dead and its massive road and history. They DID, and WERE ... the very soul of that whole psychedelia thing and West Coast. And, as sad as this sounds, they never stopped playing!

Today, though, I'm not sure a definitive write up can be put together ... with the Internet as divisive as ever, and all over the place, with nothing to fight for, or appreciate, so it seems, except the almighty number one and the commercial standard.

So hard, and sad to write all this ... I wish I had studied the West Coast better, but it feels like the whole thing is so fractured, as to leave it no choice but to fall off and be ignored. Seeing this article, and desire ... is NICE, and all I can say is THANKS.

Hi,

It's a rather difficult thought and idea ... but there is one thing that stands out in it, and you can see it on many live shows from the Grateful Dead. They take their time, and evolve the details in the music, very well, and sometimes, this is slow, and deliberate, but one is never going to find a moment where you can sit down and say that Bob Weir or Jerry Garcia just noodling around ... and wasting time ... they are doing something that classical music does, and that is ... allow the music to LIVE on its own, instead of being in a hurry to create a bridge, or switch to a solo, or a format that is used in commercial pop music ... which is something that the GD can NEVER be accused of, and that is one of the issues with a lot of folks, TODAY, not liking the GD ... besides the fact that the GD couldn't careless about folks that don't like them ... the history shows an incredible talent, and musicianship (see the Daily Doug do some of their things!!!) that the majority of bands that are listed in a top something or other do not exactly have, other than some more cookie cutting forms and ideas, with the solo at exactly the same place in 4 of the 5 pieces in their album! You won't EVER see that in the GD ... 

My thoughts are that the GD took their time, and great music relies on the ability of it to spread out and live and come around complete ... an idea that many prog-rock folks think can only be done with a format and "idea", that has very little to do with music itself in many hands! 

And "taking their time" is the worst thing in America and all commercial music ... and it is not a secret anywhere, when after almost 60 years, we STILL can only find listings for bands that do "cuts" and "singles" and (in general) their album is not about anything ... except ... we can really only think of it as "pop musik".

And this is the area that both psychedelia and krautrock wanted to get away from ... completely. In reality, it would/could only succeed in Europe, where music is better appreciated than another dollar for the commercial departments in America ... with one really bad side ... the folks that kiss up to the dollar making fun of the folks that are into the music, not the commercial side of it ... and this is the greatest difference about the GD, that will never be accepted by anyone, or any site, where the intent is the idea of commercialism, not the music itself!