Future Days: Krautrock and the Building Of Germany

 

You can get a feel for Julian Cope's on his website and on the Inet ... and honestly, if I had to go by his comments, I probably would never have bothered. They are nothing but a stoned kid talking aobut what he thought was real stoney music.

 

In fact, a lot of this music has less drugs than any other scene anywhere! Some of it had it, but then it's like saying that SF did not have the pscyh's, NY didn't have the heroin, and London did not have ... whatever ... and so on. They all did ... but the question and end result is ... what came out of it? And in most cases, it was all killed due to the drug abuse, because the music was not "bigger" or "better" or "artistically motivated".

 

I have more respect for my generation, than just the fact that so many of them were nothing but dopers! And there were a lot of us that were not dopers ... we didn't need to be! And we still "got it"!

Stereotype name-calling amuses me more than it offends as it often says more about the name-caller than it does the culture, race or nationality being slurred. I take the same view when people call me names or launch themselves into an ad hominem diatribe against me - any upset or anger I show is more a reflection of my disappointment than anything else. [We Brits rarely take offence at any pejoratives used against them: Limey, Tommy, Pomme, Les rosbifs, Les goddams and Les fu*koffs is usually met with amusement and perhaps a little self-pride; not even "La perfide Albion" (perfidious Albion) will have us running back home in floods of tears.] One issue I have with re-appropriation of derogatory terms, (and that goes for Nerds, Trehuggers and Gingers too), is when they get all bent out of shape when others use those terms with the same familiarity as they do - if the once-derogatory term has been re-appropriated then it has to be acceptable for all, or not used at all.

It is possible that the term "krautrock" is not wholly connected with the pejorative "kraut" but derived in part from Amon Düül's 1969 album Psychedelic Underground and specifically "Mama Düül und ihre Sauerkrautband spielt auf" ... a title that appears to be a play on "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band". I also struggle to credit the British music press with the wit to come up with the name themselves, I think a better culprit is John Ravenscroft "Peel" for two reasons: one, he latched onto the emergent German underground music scene before the music press and was certainly aware of Amon Düül and two, he was an ex-Public School boy and that kind of childish name-calling is indicative of the type and level of humour in the public school system.

The biggest problem I have with "krautrock" as a genre name is not its pejorative derogatory origins, but its lack of suitability as a name. It's an inappropriate catch-all that doesn't catch-all, the music that we regard as "krautrock" is not a distinct style of music, nor does it have meaningful geographic associations. Each region had its own underground music scene, with a unique sound, style and approach. The bands from Berlin, Köln, München, Düsseldorf were unrelated and essentially disconnected from each other. It wasn't all Kosmische Musik or all Motorik, not every band played synthesisers, not every band was influenced by musique concrete and Karlhienz Stockhausen. It is little wonder that occasionally Triumvirat, Nectar and Eloy get lazily lumped under this lazy umbrella banner.

I'll reword the stuff on my website ... and I agree. doing my best to not use the term again!

 

But we have an issue here ... and it is the same as the "progressive" thing and definition ... we don't have another way to refer to it, although "kosmiche" would not exactly be correct in at least half the works, and in the others, someone will quickly point out that drugs have nothing to do with "cosmic" or anything else!

 

Let's leave it and Pedro in peace.