I speak constantly of 2 pieces of music that are very important, in this board.

 

1. Apocalyptic Bore.

From "Vive La Trance". Massive anthem, and it is also one of those that is very difficult to tell what it is they are talking about. But being AD2, they are talking.

 

To me, this is a massive anthem saying goodbye to the old days and the drugs and the whatever was hanging on from the earlier days ... and after that the album "broke" ... a few short songs giving us some fun stuff, nothing serious, but clever and fun. Maybe the commune is totally over for them and it is time to take care of the kids and the hubbies and the wives ... whatever the situation everyone has gone off on their own wavelength (everyone's gone to the big bear -- as in constelation looking up at the sky) ... and what's left? ... but they are not going to go without letting you have it ... and give you one more taste of what they are capable of doing. A massive, absolutely massive guitar violin duet that is unreal and totally explosive ... one of the finest moments in music in my mind, from the off time drum break in the song all the way to the end ... totally beautifully designed and put together. It is, almost impossible to describe. You simply have to live through it and cry and die with it. And in the end, years later, the lyrics are so with it, they are sad, but not sad, since the music is positive and they go out rocking and rolling. It is such a well understood explanation of the time and place ... from its romantic ideals to its realities! Nothing psychedelic in this at all ... just pure reality, and this album is a power house in that area all the way through this song.

 

Sadly this was also the end of "experiments" and "improvisations" ... you have to "let go" with improvisations to get off the "song mentality" ... and that is what krautrock was all about. Sadly after that, AD2 became a wee bit more conventional but still did some very nice things, the best of which is "Hijack".

 

PS: Get Scorpions' album "Fly to the Rainbow", their 2nd. The title cut, supposedly is a take off on Apocalyptic Bore, and you need to play them together one after the other (Guy Guden did it first many times in Space Pirate Radio!!!, so no credit to anyone else!) ... in a way, Scorpions is telling you get stoned and have some fun ... and forget the rest. It also ends with a massive guitar duet that is setup exactly the same way.

 

2. Mozambique

From the same album. Maybe this is more important for me, being that I am Portuguese and naively thought that Angola and Mozambique should have had their independence. But we were living (in those days) in a fascist state and opinions were not ... appreciated or needed, and could get you into trouble! So seeing Portugal rape the oil and what not, and then this and that and this and that ... and the political corruption behind it, makes it more meaningful for me.

 

This is by far one of the most venomous lyrics ever written in a rock song, second to none, and things like Sympathy for the Devil are crap compared to this. This is downright straight out front, take no prisoners and attack ... attack ... and let her rip ... and in the rest of the song, the band lets it rip with everything they got ... and in the very end ... they give you one more ... just a little more ... a nudge ... "unite and fight" ... in other words ... don't quit! ... funny thing ... a couple of months later Mozambique DID get their independence!

 

The lyrics take in consideration hundreds of years of history of catholicism and other western religions that literally raped Africa and Latin America, and you can see a really good example of the same thing in the film "The Mission" ... which was pretty much the same thing.

 

3. Yeti

There is no piece of music that I can close my eyes and I can see more that I possibly could with my eyes open, or my dreams could ever see and understand. In the end, you could be in the highest of the Himalayas, or you could be tripping out seeing the first steps of some aliens move around ... way better than a movie that had little guts! And for me, the best part ... it never ends ... it continues and continues ... and that is something that is magical in all music and memory and mind ... you always remember it and flow with it regardless of where and when.

 

I always thought, that even after Toni McPhee did Amazing Grace, and a couple of weeks later Jimi did the American Anthem, that no one in rock music had ever understood what it was like to "live" an anthem, and Yeti was it. I still think that if Jimi had the freedom to go anywhere he could have, eventually he would have tripped out to Germany and play with krautrockers since they could trip around ... really well, and their inspiration was in the right place ... I mean any Jimi Hendrix fan that has not heard KanGuru Guru simply is not a Jimi music fan at all ... end of story! It wasn't about the blues, the greens or the whites ... or any other bullsh*t. It was about tripping with the music and let it ride and take you away ... and few pieces do this as well as this ... and it states that it is an improvisation ... you can not count in your fingers the talent and the amount of dedicated concentration to create something that beautiful and that strong.

 

I sometimes hear a thing or two about music and its influences ... but one thing that many people are afraid to do is follow a visual ... or an idea ... that has nothing to do with music, blues or jazz or whatever you wanna call it ... and in the end, this is what "krautrock" was all about, and they ended up with some of the most original, powerful and extraordinary music ever put together ...

 

All from the same area too! ... sorry London ... you are not the best, but your theater and film is very progressive and it had started in the mid 60's ... but the music? ... nahhhhh ....

 

In my book, though, "Wolf City" is one of the best rock albums ever done. Just a shame that people that vote for Genesis and Rush and Yes, are not capable of sitting through it ... because it is a trully magical album and plays beautifully from beginning to the end ... and plz ... the CD has things in the wrong order. In the LP Wolf City was the opening cut, not Surrounded by the Stars. And that transition from Surrounded by the Stars to the next song, is to die for ... one of the most beautiful transitions ever done in rock music ... the visual element of that moment ... is so with it, and so powerful ... as the greatest dreams one could ever have in life!

 

You either love it ... or ... please ... just go back home and put on ... something else!

 

I always think that you have to be a "tripper" to enjoy these things and these longer cuts.

 

One other thing ... if you ever hear Acid Mothers, you will find a lot of guitar thrashing ... and not much else. By comparison here is some guitar screaming that is focused where Acid Mothers is not. Acid Mothers are not trippers and in the old days we would have said stupid things like ... they need to get stoned!

 

It was a different time and place. I would like to venture saying it this way ... it was just like when Debussy came out, or Chopin, or Ravel, and people were laughing and saying that it was not "music".

 

In the end, this is something that most people that are into "popular music" idioms will never be able to appreciate. Why? Easy ... there are not very many variables in the music and its design and style ... and that is something that is foreign to 75% of the people here (ok ... 50% !!!) ... and you can see that when people start talking about "songs" ... the majority of which are sonata format (A-B-A) and repetitious in its compositional nature with a chord change being usually the main definition from one part to another. Almost none of krautrock is anywhere near that, and AD2 is by far one of the wors offenders ... these people knew how to improvise and trip ... and trip hard! and flow with music even harder ... to the point where most people can simply not get it or understand it, and have a massively hard time even figuring out what 3 notes are doing.

 

Again, this is not about "song structure" ... this is about "visual structure" or any other possible idea within an improvisational concept that is not always pre-defined.

 

There is an exercise in advanced theater acting classes for people that think they are good actors ... you lock them up in one room and tell them they have to be that character the whole time. And 3 hours later they are screaming and still trying hard ... what they learn is that what they started with is not the same thing as you ended with ... and krautrock is really about that progression ... could careless about what you think, thought or wanted.

 

In the end, it was about the experience. So if you are listening to it with the same ears and critical context that you do ELP, Genesis, Rush or Dream Theater ... good night!

The funny thing is that th emajority of stuff in the 70's was exactly about that ... it was all show and little go with some lyrics ... that now we call "prog"!

 

In a couple of his solos he plays with some Sufi folks ... and I am pretty sure that he has been a part of that since the early days of the band ... might be a joke but it does explain the use of his violin all over the place ... and always adding something different and interesting!

 

I always thought that the Sufi side of him was interesting and important, and one of the reasons why he/they could make fun of Castaneda ... which I found out later some people didn't like ... yeah ... divine slime!  I had already considered Kris a "Sufi Master" .... going as far back as Yeti ... but not sure that "progressive" folks know/understand the connection between musicians and their spiritual trips and how they do/use the music in their work. The term master in "Sufism" usually is only given to someone that is supreme in his art. And Kris' was the violin and he was the ultimate dervish with a violin in his hands!

 

To me this was interesting, as I was readin Castaneda in the 70's ... being European born and raised, I already knew that the books were not about the "drugs" like most people that were reading them. I found the books really good, but to me, I could easily tell you that AD2 were a much better Castanaeda for me!

AND ... both versions! And the instrumental just before it is the best eastern/western rock music mix I have ever heard ... totally far out! Trippy as heck!

 

In their collaboration album with Embryo (album was called Utopia), there is another version of "Deutsch Nepal" and this time it is done in falsetto. It's funny as heck and I actually like it more.

 

It was from this album that Renata originally did "What You Gonna Do?" ... which she reprises later in one of the live shows. I like the original better. It was more sentimental then. The later version was harsher and sounded bitter to me.

 

Btw, I just asked in the Amon Duul 2 website about this album since it was not listed in their discography, and John called it a "b*****d" ... meaning that we're never gonna see it in out lifetimes again ... I thought it was a nice album with some very good things and that jazzy piece in the end is really cool!