RIP - Jaki Liebezeit passed away today...:-(

Thank you ... for me, it is all about the "art" in the music, not the hit or everyone's top ten. It's not the same thing, although some folks like to think that I am being this and that because of it.

In many ways, my ideas are that we have to write better critical essays on a lot of this music, so that it can be studied and understood better. In a funny sort of way, the American way of improvising, is to get stoned, and play the same riff ... whereas what CAN showed and many others also did from the (so-called) "Krautrock'rs" to Tangerine Dream to Klaus Schulze to Ash Ra Tempel ... that experimenting was a bit more than just a stoned trip to nowhere ... and this is the part that is a bit scary for me ... some of the bands doing this stuff, even nowadays, are simply putting together an "idea" and think that the audience will get it. Ideas are invisible in one's mind, even to oneself!

But a lot of these critical write ups and the book "FUTURE DAYS" goes over it well, are the only detail that is missing, and the one thing that we find is that there is a person/personality behind it all, a lot more than we think, and the "trip" is just a movie ... not an idea!

Reminds me of Klaus Kinski in "Aguirre, the Wrath of God" ... all ad-lib ... and it works! That's so close to CAN's ideas at the time, it's not even funny. But then ... check out one of those word plays by Peter Handke, and you can see that the scene at the time in Germany was about just ripping anything that had a process to absolutely nothing recognizeable. And I can tell you, as can Guy Guden, that many folks around us did not like it, until the stuff some of these folks did was more "recognizeable", by radio/popular standards.

It's hard to put into words all this, and I am not sure that we all really want to and can, since the feelings just go so far and wide and all over the place.

For me, this is the time, that reminds me of the grand moments that we enjoyed these things when we first heard them, and how different and loving they were. We didn't know music could be this good and this far out, and it seemed that ... for a while ... each new album was even better than the last one, and we just could not even understand ... or listen truly to things from "Landed" (except Guy Guden - who played that album until it had no grooves ... perfect stuff for radio!) ... but we took them home, played them, and it was like ... our secret ... such great stuff ... 

Sadly, the one thing I remember the most from CAN, is not the music, although I love it dearly and live and die with "Bel Air" and the duo of "Chain Reaction/QPhysics", but Holger's letter that I had at one time, when he said that he did not like his first solo albums ... and I was crazy over them, since they were fun, creative, inventive, and so far out there ... no doubt, a moment of insanity was infused there, that was never to be found again anywhere ... and this was something that all the folks in CAN had, and they learned how to infuse these moments ... with grace, touch, beauty ... and make it a moment ... that both you and I will always remember.

I don't know, that any of us, is not specially glad to feel those moments ... not just hear ... has to be more than that, see, or it would not grab you and I ... and this is what pure ART is really all about ... that we forget, when we immediately go for the top ten.

Like it or not, it was Guy Guden that used to love saying ... none of the hits none of the time ... which gave reason for things like CAN, Amon Duul 2 and a thousand or two other bands, the chance to be heard from 1974 on ... and while CAN will never be a bottom 10 band for me, its impressive amount of work, places it amidst the biggest artists of the century for me ... as do many others ... even if this is not the way that many other folks look at these things. 

RIP, Jaki ... and I remember, I think it was a year plus ago ... on a thread here about drummers, and everyone had their favorites ... and Guy said ... Jaki ... and it seemed like the thread came to a dead stop ... not sure many had listened to CAN for its musicianship, any more than we did many other things ... but a day later ... it's impossible not to see it, and not go ... wow ... well done my friend ... so well done and beautiful ... that I don't think that we, as friends, lovers and relations, could possibly ask any more of you and your work.

With much love and care to the family and friends ... you will be missed, but remembered ... and remembered ... and remembered ... and remembered ....

would have loved to hear a james brown/CAN collaboration, based solely on Jaki's masterful sense of the funk

His legacy, drumming seminal to the creation of krautrock, and that influenced countless non-krautrock artists as well, will live on.

RIP Jaki.