Aha! I’ve got more music-related derelict opinions about some of the stuff I’ve been listening to in the last couple of weeks. Can? What’s that? Amon Düül II? HUH? And so on and so forth.

Can

Damo Suzuki was just some guy busking in Berlin, now look at him. LOOK AT HIM.

Can is the arguably most important krautrock band of the entire movement, fighting for the top spot with Kraftwerk. Many contemporary genres and subgenres can be traced back to Can: post-punk, techno, ambient, avant-rock, trip hop, post-rock, and alternative dance. Big names that were heavily influenced by the group include Radiohead, the Fall, Brian Eno, LCD Soundsystem, Sonic Youth, even fuckin’ Kanye West. They were certainly always more accessible than the electronic noise that contemporary influencers Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream were making at the time, too.

I had admired Can for a long time, but only found the urge to listen to an album every once in a while. Mostly relegated to background music, I’d throw something like Tago Mago on while reading or writing; never really sitting down and never actually listening attentively to its hypnotic, extended grooves. When I recently started getting more into Bardo Pond and its fuzzed-out, stoned, psychedelic noodling nonsense, I began to think about the space rock and krautrock of the classic rock era: Hawkwind, Popol Vuh, Guru Guru, Ash Ra Tempel, et al. And when even that wasn’t proving to be musical enough for my RHYTHM-CRAVING BRAIN, I turned back to Can.

I never saw the problem with the debut Monster Movie. I actually like Malcolm Mooney’s horrible, phlegmy voice! Plus, for me, it served as a good connection for the early psych-rock Pink Floyd and the mesmerizing loops of classic Can. Now I love the Damo Suzuki trifecta of brilliance that is Tago Mago, Ege Bamyasi, and Future Days.

Just don’t ask me to listen to anything else post-Damo Suzuki. That’s a whole other vibe.

Amon Düül II

These rapscallions decided to play guitars and synthesizers instead of hurling pipe bombs through hospitals!

And then there’s Amon Düül II with its goddamned umlauts. I can’t think of bigger, more insufferable gang of German hippies. The band members started off, unmusically, living together in a smelly commune. Some of its members joined the extremely leftist Red Army Faction and started bombing and kidnapping politicians for ransoms and sometimes killing them! Other members created a nice band that made fun music.

I have a hard time classifying Amon Düül II as “krautrock”, and they seem to be lumped into that genre solely because of the “hi! I’m German!” part of it. They lack the mechanical repetition and motorik beats that codify other bands into the genre. For instance, I’ve never thought peak-era Can, Kraftwerk, Neu!, or Tangerine Dream were particularly psychedelic or weird, but Amon Düül II is totally both of these things. They’re the German answer to the weirdo British sensibilities of Soft Machine, Gong, and Arthur Brown.

But man are they good. The early albums are rife with extended acid-bluesy improvisations.  The middle albums are more song-oriented and sophisticated. The later albums are way more grounded, accessible, even poppy, but still delightfully strange. I personally like their sloppy debut Phallus Dei (translation: God’s Penis) and the earworms of Hijack.

I believe that anyone with an ear for early-’70s art rock and prog rock would find something love somewhere in the Amon Düül II discography. And you can take that to the bank! The spank bank.

Other Quick Thoughts

Look at this guy. He absolutely does not get laid.

-Speaking of krautrock, there are plenty of good semi-modern bands that follow in the footsteps of the early greats of krautrock and space rock without being complete carbon copies. They even, dare I say, add in new elements to make their own voices! In particular there’s Loop, Stereolab, Spacemen 3, Flying Saucer Attack, and Tortoise. And hey, you wouldn’t have the Fall or Ladyton or Swans either without a heaping helping of krautrock influence! So put that in your smoke and pipe it!

–John Zorn, man. He’s a total control freak spaz. Never even mind his music, his lifestyle is odd and unapologetic. He doesn’t have a kitchen in his house. Unless he was constantly banging girls while he was in Japan in the late-’80s/early-’90s, he seems to be completely asexual. He’s like a Buddhist monk who has dedicated his existence to skronking in a saxophone while real musicians play real music under him. But I kid. John Zorn deserves his own real AudioBiography blurb someday, but let’s just say I’ve been really delving into his many catalogues again recently. It took me a while to realize that I unconditionally love the guy.

-2022 doesn’t seem to be the same deluge of awesome new music we got from 2021, but the year is only half over. It being summer, I tend to gravitate toward old favorites or unheard “new to me” music from the last 60 years. The year is weird like that. Experimental prog rock or international music in the fall, extreme metal in the winter, indie rock in the spring. All three of those seasons I’m apt to devour brand new albums constantly, but summer? I dunno.

All right, thanks for reading my blither and blather! Stay tuned for the next AudioBiography installment where I discuss Vladimir Putin’s favorite country albums and why he has posters of Darius “Hootie” Rucker all over his bedroom.