Can and Damo Suzuki

Hi,

Long article as this is a part of my specialty and book on "Improvisation". I would like to say that the current "special" on "krautrock" is crap, and thinks it is good because 5 folks can say hello before passing away. In the end, their work is empty as it really has no source as to where it comes from or help for all the artists mentioned ... it is a commercial thing, designed to make money for a few folks, and not be a valueable article about the arts whatsoever. "Krautrock" on its own, instead of an art form, is soulless! 

Here we go:

History is kinda different and funny sometimes. We have a strange way of looking at it, and constantly ignore the artistic movements during that time, and how they affect things all around. It was a time for a lot of experimentation in West Germany, and the usual nationalistic various short wave stuff assaulting East Germany with Beatles, Rolling Stones and Elvis Presley, and eventually their youth came alive and East Germany was over with the Berlin Wall coming down, though you could see the history coming alive in at least one piece of music by Guru Guru ... Das Lebendige Radio ... which made fun of the designated music in that time over there ... but now, the whole thing, and this was 1976 before the Wall came down, specified that feedback and Chuck Berry was their God, so to speak, not the stuff they were being fed ... and you now can see, a very pointed attack on things, though done so in what is considered a funny style. And it's source? The well known art movement that became known as "krautrock".

How it started has its ... many ideas and touches, and in one "krautrock" special, that had several parts there is a comment by Edgar Froese that is important ... the past was over, the present is here ... and all that is left is the future ... with no direction or understanding, just what appeared to be an empty future, that helped bring about a personal freedom in the arts, that took hold really well, and one of the things that helped it, was ... the most obvious of things of all ... the total improvisations, of anything that went on a stage, or on the streets. It's probably much easier to say that the street always had this sort of thing, but it was never noticed, or appreciated, and all of a sudden ... BOOM! Damo is it!

There was not a whole lot of media discussing this or showing it, but soon enough some film makers went to bat for these new things, and Werner Herzog and Wim Wenders, and probably others not mentioned, ended up showing us some things that were not the norm, or the prescribed preferred chicken music that was shown on TV. 

Now comes the hard part ... you can't discuss Damo, and then CAN, without having a better idea of what the theater and film were doing ... and Werner Herzog went out and found a lot of his early footage and made it into a special on Klaus Kinski, and what was it that was being done at the start? A free form in front of the audience, and he took pot shots at the audience and was appreciated and boo'd as well. We can go to the theater, and at least one playwright was doing "word plays", which is something that Brian Eno adapted later ... with a sort of card game. The word plays had no sentences, or lines per se ... they were strictly word plays, mostly one act plays, that went on for their 15 minutes, as if the words themselves had a different meaning and it was a part of dialogue of some sort ... let's say that it was a dialogue-less moment with words, something that we can not imagine or ever give it a try ... and people always wondered where the communication was? In the words? In the folks involved? Or in some imaginary concept by our minds?

The streets of NY, London, Paris, and Berlin, have one thing that small places often don't ... it has been given a name of "busking", or folks just playing whatever in the middle of the street, and hoping to make a few coins here and there for a dinner, or equivalent ... and you know, for example that NY had the Harlem kids pretty much making rock drummers look like total idiots without a touch whatsoever, except a metronomic left or right hand on a snare drum ... these kids showed the world that "timing" was not what music was about. Add some theater to all this, and folks like Joseph Chaikan was putting together something he called "The Open Theater" in 1963, and it made its mark more in Europe than America, as Europe had a larger history of the arts, and America always made a point of having the media destroy the arts, in the past 75 years, and convert them into commercial adventures. And who owned these things? The movie studios, and this was not new in America, as the movie studios owned almost all of anything done in music, and were the only ones with recording materials, owning the majority of the radio stations since WW2, and secially after the Orson Welles earthquake of farts that scared a nation ... that was never going to happen again, and the controls were created. People still screamed at the image of the train coming towards you, or the gun fired at you in the cinema screen, and it wasn't until after WW2 that this fear subsided some, but by then, things were changing fast and faster.

Europe was a mess after WW2, and it left a younger generation with no connection to a lot of things, and the arts were the easiest things to see. And several movements took off in literature and theater, and film, though in places like Italy the film industry became a political tool. At least in the rest of the European continent most of it was free of influences by political anything.

Things like "The Open Theater" and eventually the loudness of the acting schools coming out of England and America, or the famous great scream, that seemed to wake up a lot of folks, were finally given a voice ... and it was not only heard, it was used massively.

BUSKING, as it is known, is not usually about lyrics or words, it is in many examples just another "word" exercise, and anyone trying to find meanings is going to hit a lot of brick walls. It isn't about meaning, as it is about the feelings at that very second, and sometimes it is on cue with what is around it, and sometimes it is not.

The CAN folks were not kids that just picked up their instruments and one day learned nothing in school, and were handled out like a machine, or as was romanticized, a meat market! They were students at a very well known school that had gathered a lot of respect, and had managed to survive under the radar of things. The question was how it was going to be done, and CAN had already started with an American actor, and though some of that material is on record, it has nice stuff, however, it really was not a free form experimentation as it was handled like a preset improvisation, designed around the actor's words and singing, which in some ways, when heard, are not designed to be thought of as "meaningful" and this is important ... but I think it lacked the freedom of FORM ... meaning ... no style, no known music, no known ideas ... and this was some of the work that the Berlin School had been trying to help folks learn and discuss, since so much of the stuff coming out of the WW2 was so nationalistic as to make one sick, of the ideas created to convince people of their righteousness and political designs. And it worked in almost all of Eastern Europe, mostly because of the strength of the Russian leaders in that area ... but in the Westernized World, it was not going to happen ... there was a lot more freedom in the arts, and its history, for example, for folks to be able to be conducted like cattle to put together a song!

Holger Czukay specified that he was immediately excited when he saw Damo Suzuki perform on the street ... there was no self conscious attitude, or attempt to ask for some money, or even a thank you ... he was busy with the microphone near him and his eyes closed, and his attention was "internal", not external ... and Holger immediately proclaimed that this was what he was looking for.

It's easy to see how something like "TAGO MAGO" was created at this point ... a sort of attempts at finding something, out of nothing ... and Holger had specified that Tago Mago was taken from some 20 hours worth of stuff kinda put together in whatever way seemed to work better ... and from then on, came the series of concerts  that ended up in the creation of Ege Bamyasi, and then led to Future Days ... when it became evident that Damo's time with the band had come to its end ... it is thought that it was that Damo would not, do "lyrics", and I think the record company had a lot to do with that ... even though CAN was mostly self produced and invested, something almost no other band out there did, btw.

If you see the film, about Damo, and his story, and specially read the book, you will find a tremendous artist with no fear of going onto a stage with ... NOTHING. He was, basically, naked each and every time, all the way to the end, and while not as well to do financially, he was ok, and happy with every thing and his attitude, and studies were inspiring. And, when it came to the music, he really was not going to speak about it, since it was not about "ideas" or "thoughts" ... it was about improvisation, the pure kind not the idealistic concepts of it, and no form, so that the inner self could have some expression, and eventually come alive ... this was something that a lot of audiences got to see, but did not always enjoy and appreciate, since the whole thing and design was to be commercially viable so the bar, or venue, could make enough money and everyone gets paid ... but in touring in America and Europe, for some reason, his shows sold enough to be able to maintain ... and he always liked using new folks behind him, and never wanted to rehearse, or prepare ... the stage was it ... PERIOD ... and this is something that 99.9% of all musicians are afraid of ... but this one person, easily sliced through all that and more often than not put on some memorable shows, and something like we have never seen, or will ever be likely to see.

If ever there was a person that was the true inspiration of what theater, film, and the art of performing was about, there was only one that could stand up and give us a lesson, and Damo was the one, and it is sad, and a shame that he never EVER, showed up at the Acting Studio and talked about how he did what he did, which in the book and a few words, is not really defined, except that we know that it is some sort of inner stream of consciousness that he is capable of letting out, which most actors are not exactly able to do so, and at this point, you can see how some of those folks are considered "crazy", as Robin Williams was always thought of. But, it begs us to make room to what this "crazy" and "different" thing is all about ... and the only thing that can be said is ... shut up ... stop trying to define it, and just enjoy the sounds, and whatever else comes along with it is the only thing that matters, since we did not exactly go to Harlem to watch the kids drum up the whole thing by tapping on anything they could find or touch, and we still can't give it an important specification of some style or other, and its best to just not do so ...you got to let it live on its own. It is a beautiful thing and not some magic that we have to interpret and define. 

I like to say, in honor of Damo, that it is the life and art of it all like we can not imagine without our own anything that we must have in our lives to be satisfied with ourselves. With only ideas and thoughts we are just a silly empty shell of nothing!

The moment you can get around that, Damo comes alive, in your head, like it's something new, a special moment that you will always remember. 

Must see moments:

The Damo Susuki film by Michelle Heighway with Elke Morsbach's help.

Werner Herzog's film "My Friend"

Various articles I have collected since 1972

Works by Wim Wenders

Works by Peter Handke

Guy Guden and his Space Pirate Radio shows for never giving up on CAN

The Jaki Liebezeit Special Tribute ... the Damo part is incredible and tells you all you need to know.

The filmmaker Fassbinder was also using a lot of improvisation.