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-This programme contains some strong language. -Germany, 1945. Year zero. | 0:00:02 | 0:00:05 | |
Everything from cities to culture lies in ruins. | 0:00:05 | 0:00:08 | |
It was time to rebuild. | 0:00:10 | 0:00:12 | |
This is the story of a generation of musicians | 0:00:16 | 0:00:18 | |
born into post-war rubble | 0:00:18 | 0:00:20 | |
who would forge a new musical identity for Germany. | 0:00:20 | 0:00:24 | |
Between 1968 and 1977, | 0:00:27 | 0:00:31 | |
bands like Neu!, Can, Faust and Kraftwerk | 0:00:31 | 0:00:35 | |
would look beyond western rock and roll to create some of the most original | 0:00:35 | 0:00:39 | |
and uncompromising music ever heard. | 0:00:39 | 0:00:42 | |
They shared one common goal - | 0:00:43 | 0:00:46 | |
a forward-looking desire to transcend Germany's past. | 0:00:46 | 0:00:50 | |
But that didn't stop the music press in war-obsessed Britain | 0:00:52 | 0:00:56 | |
from labelling them Krautrock. | 0:00:56 | 0:00:58 | |
Meine Damen und Herren, ladies and gentlemen, | 0:01:00 | 0:01:03 | |
willkommen to the sound of Krautrock. | 0:01:03 | 0:01:07 | |
This programme contains some strong language. | 0:01:07 | 0:01:14 | |
In the last '60s, this was what German pop music looked like. | 0:01:18 | 0:01:22 | |
# Dondelo | 0:01:24 | 0:01:26 | |
# Wir sind verliebt, wir sind froh, sag mir, | 0:01:26 | 0:01:30 | |
# was kann denn schoener sein, Dondelo | 0:01:30 | 0:01:34 | |
# Wir tauschen nichts dafur ein... # | 0:01:34 | 0:01:37 | |
It was known as Schlager. | 0:01:40 | 0:01:41 | |
Inoffensive, lightweight pop. | 0:01:41 | 0:01:44 | |
A world away from what was happening on the streets of West Germany. | 0:01:44 | 0:01:47 | |
SONG: "All Along The Watchtower" | 0:01:47 | 0:01:51 | |
1968. | 0:01:57 | 0:01:59 | |
The year of a global youthful revolution. | 0:01:59 | 0:02:02 | |
And West Berlin was no exception. | 0:02:02 | 0:02:04 | |
# There must be some kind of way outta here | 0:02:06 | 0:02:09 | |
# Said the joker to the thief... # | 0:02:10 | 0:02:13 | |
Like their brothers in the US and the UK, | 0:02:13 | 0:02:17 | |
these kids were sick of "The Man", | 0:02:17 | 0:02:19 | |
but in Germany, the establishment had more to answer for. | 0:02:19 | 0:02:22 | |
# Businessmen, they drink my wine... # | 0:02:22 | 0:02:27 | |
Following the German surrender in 1945, | 0:02:27 | 0:02:30 | |
the country had been divvied up by the victors. | 0:02:30 | 0:02:34 | |
In West Germany, the programme of foreign aid | 0:02:35 | 0:02:38 | |
had kickstarted the Wirtschaftswunder, | 0:02:38 | 0:02:40 | |
an economic miracle that saw the country prosper | 0:02:40 | 0:02:43 | |
in the '50s and '60s. | 0:02:43 | 0:02:45 | |
But the people running this shiny new Germany | 0:02:47 | 0:02:51 | |
were the very same people who had been in power during the war. | 0:02:51 | 0:02:55 | |
Nowhere was this more so than in Bavaria, | 0:03:01 | 0:03:05 | |
the Alpine heart of southern Germany, | 0:03:05 | 0:03:07 | |
an area with strong historical ties to National Socialism. | 0:03:07 | 0:03:11 | |
Hitler had chosen to start his revolution in Munich | 0:03:17 | 0:03:20 | |
and when not waging Blitzkrieg, | 0:03:20 | 0:03:23 | |
the Fuhrer could be found relaxing high up in the Bavarian mountains. | 0:03:23 | 0:03:27 | |
For Amon Duul, | 0:03:30 | 0:03:31 | |
a group of commune-dwelling musicians from Munich, | 0:03:31 | 0:03:35 | |
the past seemed all too present in 1968. | 0:03:35 | 0:03:38 | |
After the war, you couldn't just, erm... | 0:03:40 | 0:03:44 | |
erase all people or get rid of all people, | 0:03:44 | 0:03:48 | |
especially judges, teaches, | 0:03:48 | 0:03:50 | |
if they were Nazis, they had to take them, | 0:03:50 | 0:03:53 | |
because you can't just kick 'em out and have no teachers at all. | 0:03:53 | 0:03:57 | |
It was all still there, | 0:03:59 | 0:04:01 | |
but it wasn't as loud any more. | 0:04:01 | 0:04:03 | |
Nobody dared to say Hitler or something like that. | 0:04:03 | 0:04:07 | |
The word "Jew" was... | 0:04:07 | 0:04:09 | |
it wasn't there in German language. | 0:04:09 | 0:04:11 | |
Our parents didn't really talk about Hitler, you see, | 0:04:13 | 0:04:15 | |
and about the Jews and what this was all about. | 0:04:15 | 0:04:19 | |
They were just in true silence. | 0:04:19 | 0:04:21 | |
Nobody would really talk about it. | 0:04:21 | 0:04:23 | |
If I asked my father, | 0:04:23 | 0:04:25 | |
he would never say, "I was a Nazi." | 0:04:25 | 0:04:28 | |
If you go to Dachau, which is 30km away from here, | 0:04:29 | 0:04:33 | |
talk to the people there. | 0:04:33 | 0:04:34 | |
"We didn't know anything about it." | 0:04:34 | 0:04:36 | |
In those days, there were bloody Nazis around, all over the place. | 0:04:42 | 0:04:45 | |
There was rebellion against them. | 0:04:45 | 0:04:47 | |
We had these big revolutionary things in the '60s. | 0:04:47 | 0:04:51 | |
All Munich was on the street fighting against police, | 0:04:51 | 0:04:54 | |
against politics, against all of that. | 0:04:54 | 0:04:57 | |
We didn't have guns or the tools to chase them away, | 0:05:04 | 0:05:07 | |
but we could make music | 0:05:07 | 0:05:09 | |
and we could draw audience, we could draw people | 0:05:09 | 0:05:13 | |
with the same understanding, the same desires. | 0:05:13 | 0:05:15 | |
Amon Duul would seek to make acid-drenched apocolyptic music | 0:05:21 | 0:05:25 | |
that soundtracked their vision of a brave new world. | 0:05:25 | 0:05:28 | |
Of course we didn't want to make English music or American music, | 0:05:36 | 0:05:40 | |
and we didn't want to make German Schlager music | 0:05:40 | 0:05:43 | |
so we had to come up with something new. | 0:05:43 | 0:05:45 | |
The only thing we could hold on is classical music or the folk. | 0:05:46 | 0:05:50 | |
Everything else was from... | 0:05:50 | 0:05:54 | |
England or America. | 0:05:54 | 0:05:57 | |
We wanted to be international. | 0:05:57 | 0:06:00 | |
We tried very hard not to be Anglophonic | 0:06:00 | 0:06:03 | |
and not to be German. | 0:06:03 | 0:06:05 | |
So, space is one solution. | 0:06:05 | 0:06:08 | |
THEY VOCALISE TO ACCOMPANYING MUSIC | 0:06:12 | 0:06:14 | |
When you hear Phallus Dei | 0:06:23 | 0:06:25 | |
I wasn't really singing, I was into... | 0:06:25 | 0:06:28 | |
a voice-like an instrument, you see. | 0:06:28 | 0:06:30 | |
Or doing crazy stuff. | 0:06:30 | 0:06:32 | |
Some people get very angry about it. | 0:06:35 | 0:06:38 | |
Like my dad did too. He said, "Well, it's not music!" | 0:06:40 | 0:06:44 | |
THEY HUM AND WAIL | 0:06:44 | 0:06:46 | |
Amon Duul's commune was the locum of radical left-wing politics and music in Munich. | 0:06:55 | 0:07:00 | |
Among those who followed Amon Duul were the founders | 0:07:00 | 0:07:03 | |
of the Baader-Meinhof gang, | 0:07:03 | 0:07:05 | |
Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin | 0:07:05 | 0:07:08 | |
and Ulrike Meinhof. | 0:07:08 | 0:07:10 | |
They thought Amon Duul weren't going far enough. | 0:07:11 | 0:07:15 | |
One day, Andreas and Ulrike started... | 0:07:21 | 0:07:24 | |
they're not really listening to us and they're not doing the right thing. | 0:07:24 | 0:07:28 | |
We actually have to make something drastic, | 0:07:28 | 0:07:31 | |
like...burn something down | 0:07:31 | 0:07:33 | |
or blast something. | 0:07:33 | 0:07:35 | |
They burnt down this warehouse | 0:07:39 | 0:07:41 | |
and got busted of course | 0:07:41 | 0:07:43 | |
and went to jail. | 0:07:43 | 0:07:45 | |
When they got out of jail and they were released, | 0:07:45 | 0:07:48 | |
they thought, "Let's go to our mates, Amon Duul." | 0:07:48 | 0:07:51 | |
Once out of prison, Baader and Meinhof | 0:07:51 | 0:07:54 | |
would orchestrate a killing spree | 0:07:54 | 0:07:55 | |
that made them Germany's most wanted terrorists. | 0:07:55 | 0:07:59 | |
We were on tour and came back home to Herrsching... | 0:08:01 | 0:08:05 | |
I went into my room. | 0:08:05 | 0:08:08 | |
And there was Ensslin and Baader. | 0:08:08 | 0:08:11 | |
And upstairs was Meinhof in Chris's room. | 0:08:11 | 0:08:16 | |
And I said, "What the fuck are you doing here? | 0:08:16 | 0:08:20 | |
"You go out immediately. Immediately." | 0:08:20 | 0:08:23 | |
It was heavy. I didn't like it at all. | 0:08:27 | 0:08:30 | |
It wasn't just the worlds of radical politics and music | 0:08:31 | 0:08:34 | |
that collided in the late '60s. | 0:08:34 | 0:08:36 | |
One of the cameramen capturing this experimental Amon Duul | 0:08:38 | 0:08:41 | |
performance was a certain Wim Wenders. | 0:08:41 | 0:08:44 | |
Wenders was part of radical generation of directors | 0:08:44 | 0:08:48 | |
reinventing German cinema. | 0:08:48 | 0:08:50 | |
The most political of these directors | 0:08:52 | 0:08:55 | |
was Rainer Werner Fassbinder | 0:08:55 | 0:08:57 | |
seen here making a cameo in Die Niklashauser Fahrt, | 0:08:57 | 0:09:00 | |
a film that also featured Amon Duul. | 0:09:00 | 0:09:03 | |
But the most famous young director to emerge was from Munich. | 0:09:05 | 0:09:09 | |
Werner Herzog would make films exploring the extremes | 0:09:12 | 0:09:16 | |
of the human condition. | 0:09:16 | 0:09:18 | |
The soundtracks to his films were written by Popol Vuh, | 0:09:18 | 0:09:22 | |
a Munich-based band with close ties to Amon Duul. | 0:09:22 | 0:09:25 | |
They were led by the late talismanic Florian Fricke. | 0:09:25 | 0:09:31 | |
Let me see. Was heisst denn Menschenswuerde? | 0:09:40 | 0:09:42 | |
Das ist es. Dignity! | 0:09:42 | 0:09:45 | |
In those days, he also had the first work | 0:09:49 | 0:09:51 | |
for Aguirre with Klaus Kinski and Werner Herzog. | 0:09:51 | 0:09:54 | |
The reason why they could get together so good, | 0:09:59 | 0:10:02 | |
Werner and Florian, | 0:10:02 | 0:10:04 | |
they had been friends. | 0:10:04 | 0:10:05 | |
They know each other from the schooldays and, you know. | 0:10:05 | 0:10:09 | |
Aguirre, Zorn Gottes, | 0:10:18 | 0:10:19 | |
I give you the fact why it sounds so tremendous. | 0:10:19 | 0:10:22 | |
And...the choral... that sounds like the voices. | 0:10:22 | 0:10:27 | |
There is a machine that came from Vienna | 0:10:27 | 0:10:31 | |
that was just by accident, they found it. | 0:10:31 | 0:10:34 | |
It was really helpful. | 0:10:34 | 0:10:35 | |
It has nothing to do with metronome. | 0:10:49 | 0:10:52 | |
It has nothing to do with playing on the click. | 0:10:52 | 0:10:55 | |
We just... Our heart, our emotion was the timing, you know. | 0:10:55 | 0:10:59 | |
Beautiful. | 0:10:59 | 0:11:00 | |
Of course, the real German music, it was the electronic music. | 0:11:04 | 0:11:09 | |
At a time when most of the West was rocking out to guitar gods, | 0:11:14 | 0:11:18 | |
something very different was brewing in Germany. | 0:11:18 | 0:11:21 | |
Electronic music was virgin. | 0:11:21 | 0:11:24 | |
Neither tainted by the past nor an Anglo-American import. | 0:11:24 | 0:11:29 | |
In 1968, it was being nurtured in Berlin, | 0:11:29 | 0:11:32 | |
a city like no other. | 0:11:32 | 0:11:34 | |
First of all, you have to remember | 0:11:35 | 0:11:39 | |
that Berlin was kind of an isolated place. | 0:11:39 | 0:11:42 | |
So, you couldn't compare Berlin to any other city in the world. | 0:11:42 | 0:11:47 | |
There was a huge wall around it. | 0:11:47 | 0:11:49 | |
In the old days of West Berlin, this was the end of the world. | 0:11:54 | 0:11:59 | |
On the other side was Siberia. Or at least East Germany. | 0:11:59 | 0:12:03 | |
What looks now like a very quiet and peaceful place | 0:12:03 | 0:12:10 | |
was the border. | 0:12:10 | 0:12:12 | |
And...was closely guarded. | 0:12:12 | 0:12:16 | |
In case you wonder on which side of the old border you are, | 0:12:20 | 0:12:25 | |
these hostel ships are named Eastern Comfort | 0:12:25 | 0:12:29 | |
and Western Comfort. | 0:12:29 | 0:12:32 | |
It was a community which had to control more or less | 0:12:35 | 0:12:39 | |
themself. | 0:12:39 | 0:12:41 | |
So, culture and underground whatever you want to call it | 0:12:41 | 0:12:44 | |
was kind of a very, very specific melting pot. | 0:12:44 | 0:12:48 | |
That was the signature of the city at the end of the '60s. | 0:12:48 | 0:12:53 | |
The key underground venue in Berlin was the Zodiak Free Arts Lab | 0:12:54 | 0:12:58 | |
founded in 1967. | 0:12:58 | 0:13:00 | |
It was a magnet for musicians | 0:13:00 | 0:13:02 | |
who wanted to experiment. | 0:13:02 | 0:13:05 | |
Ah, haven't been here in a long time. | 0:13:09 | 0:13:11 | |
This is what's left. | 0:13:13 | 0:13:14 | |
A normal cafe. | 0:13:14 | 0:13:16 | |
This was quite different 40 years ago. | 0:13:17 | 0:13:20 | |
In the evenings, they opened the door. | 0:13:29 | 0:13:31 | |
And we rehearsed on certain way | 0:13:31 | 0:13:34 | |
but it was also a concept, | 0:13:34 | 0:13:36 | |
because the audience was there. | 0:13:36 | 0:13:37 | |
This was kind of a... | 0:13:37 | 0:13:40 | |
kind of a centre...of all music, the Zodiak Club. | 0:13:40 | 0:13:44 | |
The owner, they said more or less that... | 0:13:46 | 0:13:50 | |
"Do what you like here, you can leave even your instruments. | 0:13:50 | 0:13:53 | |
"We lock the door in the night." We were playing there every day. | 0:13:53 | 0:13:57 | |
The idea came from a John Cage concert | 0:14:06 | 0:14:09 | |
given in an arts school in Berlin | 0:14:09 | 0:14:12 | |
where he was running about 35 tape recorders | 0:14:12 | 0:14:15 | |
and different sounds and music all over the place. | 0:14:15 | 0:14:18 | |
We thought what a nice idea to have in Berlin | 0:14:21 | 0:14:24 | |
a place where you can see that day by day, 24 hours. | 0:14:24 | 0:14:28 | |
It was like the ICA. | 0:14:30 | 0:14:33 | |
New York, it was The Factory. The same kind of spirit. | 0:14:36 | 0:14:40 | |
SOUNDTRACK DROWNS SPEECH | 0:14:41 | 0:14:42 | |
The Zodiak was co-founded by experimental artist Hans-Joachim Roedelius. | 0:14:42 | 0:14:47 | |
Older than most Krautrockers, | 0:14:47 | 0:14:50 | |
Roedelius's vision drew from his war experience. | 0:14:50 | 0:14:54 | |
I think all my art is based on living | 0:14:57 | 0:15:01 | |
not on doing art. | 0:15:01 | 0:15:03 | |
On experiencing life in many, many different aspects. | 0:15:03 | 0:15:08 | |
The young part of the Hitler Youth, | 0:15:09 | 0:15:12 | |
it was called "Pimpfe". | 0:15:12 | 0:15:14 | |
And what did you do in that...? | 0:15:14 | 0:15:17 | |
We had to do this... | 0:15:17 | 0:15:18 | |
and all these shit. | 0:15:18 | 0:15:21 | |
And to try to make us | 0:15:21 | 0:15:24 | |
discipline of following Adolf. | 0:15:24 | 0:15:28 | |
I had to wear this Panzerfaust. | 0:15:32 | 0:15:33 | |
But I didn't shoot it, they just did try that to make us soldiers. | 0:15:35 | 0:15:39 | |
But fortunately the war ended in the right time. | 0:15:39 | 0:15:42 | |
Roedelius formed Cluster. | 0:15:45 | 0:15:47 | |
They pioneered ambient electronica. | 0:15:47 | 0:15:50 | |
We bought simple tone generators. | 0:15:53 | 0:15:56 | |
And keyboard. | 0:15:58 | 0:16:00 | |
And I had a...cello as well. | 0:16:00 | 0:16:03 | |
Just to fiddle around with the sound. | 0:16:03 | 0:16:07 | |
I was not able to play the cello at all. | 0:16:07 | 0:16:09 | |
Of course, Joachim is more or less... | 0:16:12 | 0:16:15 | |
the guy who makes little melodies. | 0:16:17 | 0:16:21 | |
And I'm the guy who makes more the rhythm and sound things. | 0:16:22 | 0:16:27 | |
A good example for music made by non-musicians. | 0:16:35 | 0:16:42 | |
They had a vision of... | 0:16:43 | 0:16:46 | |
creating some sort of | 0:16:46 | 0:16:49 | |
sonic utopia, | 0:16:49 | 0:16:51 | |
a different world with different sounds. | 0:16:51 | 0:16:55 | |
This is sort of a promise | 0:16:57 | 0:17:00 | |
that there is a way out of the surroundings, society. | 0:17:00 | 0:17:03 | |
The...majority of Germans, | 0:17:13 | 0:17:19 | |
they listened to classic of course | 0:17:19 | 0:17:22 | |
and Schlager. | 0:17:22 | 0:17:24 | |
# Dieses Maedchen aus unserer Strasse hab' ich noch immer lieb | 0:17:27 | 0:17:32 | |
# Und es gibt dann ein Grund dafuer... # | 0:17:33 | 0:17:38 | |
Der Schlager is stupid texts, | 0:17:38 | 0:17:40 | |
stupid melody and everybody loves it. | 0:17:40 | 0:17:43 | |
In way, American hits | 0:17:44 | 0:17:46 | |
are also Schlager. | 0:17:46 | 0:17:48 | |
Elvis Presley, | 0:17:48 | 0:17:51 | |
he was a Schlager singer really. | 0:17:51 | 0:17:53 | |
On the surface, Schlager isn't political at all. | 0:17:54 | 0:17:58 | |
But that's what make it political. | 0:17:59 | 0:18:01 | |
# Dieses Maedchen aus unserer Strasse... # | 0:18:01 | 0:18:04 | |
During the war, | 0:18:04 | 0:18:06 | |
the propaganda ministerium, Joseph Goebbels, | 0:18:06 | 0:18:10 | |
who was a very modern fascist, | 0:18:10 | 0:18:14 | |
he invested lots of money | 0:18:14 | 0:18:16 | |
into creating a music industry to his lies. | 0:18:16 | 0:18:20 | |
# Sie schaut mich immer wieder an... # | 0:18:20 | 0:18:25 | |
The amount of Schlager broadcast in the radio programme | 0:18:25 | 0:18:28 | |
increased dramatically. | 0:18:28 | 0:18:30 | |
Danke schoen. Das war... | 0:18:33 | 0:18:35 | |
There were not too many ways for a German... | 0:18:35 | 0:18:38 | |
..let's say, rock musician, | 0:18:39 | 0:18:41 | |
you know, to perform music, | 0:18:41 | 0:18:44 | |
to develop music, | 0:18:44 | 0:18:45 | |
even to think about the theoretical development of music, | 0:18:45 | 0:18:51 | |
because there was no heritage. | 0:18:51 | 0:18:54 | |
And the Germans...were in a... | 0:19:00 | 0:19:03 | |
..in a very bad situation. | 0:19:04 | 0:19:07 | |
You couldn't forget that. | 0:19:07 | 0:19:08 | |
I mean, they were so stupid and guilty for it... | 0:19:08 | 0:19:12 | |
..to start two wars. | 0:19:13 | 0:19:16 | |
And losing them. | 0:19:17 | 0:19:19 | |
As horrific as it was, | 0:19:24 | 0:19:26 | |
it had one, forgive me to say that, one positive point. | 0:19:26 | 0:19:32 | |
There was nothing else to lose. | 0:19:32 | 0:19:35 | |
They lost everything. | 0:19:35 | 0:19:37 | |
And so, when we thought about | 0:19:41 | 0:19:44 | |
doing music in a different form, | 0:19:44 | 0:19:46 | |
there was only the free form, the abstract form. | 0:19:46 | 0:19:49 | |
Tangerine Dream's electronic symphonies | 0:19:54 | 0:19:57 | |
conjured up a different world far removed from Germany's past. | 0:19:57 | 0:20:01 | |
They, and other Zodiak acts, like Klaus Schulze, | 0:20:01 | 0:20:04 | |
were among the first to utilise the newly-invented synthesizer. | 0:20:04 | 0:20:08 | |
ELECTRONIC MUSIC WARBLES | 0:20:11 | 0:20:13 | |
When I started to do my electronic music, | 0:20:25 | 0:20:28 | |
the first question was, "What is a synthesizer?" | 0:20:28 | 0:20:32 | |
You can imagine today, nobody would even care, | 0:20:32 | 0:20:35 | |
they'd just see hundreds of them. | 0:20:35 | 0:20:37 | |
But at this time, "What is a synthesizer?" | 0:20:37 | 0:20:39 | |
Then you try to explain it, you know. | 0:20:39 | 0:20:41 | |
It was so brand new. | 0:20:47 | 0:20:49 | |
Then we thought, "That's great, let's try something with it." | 0:20:49 | 0:20:53 | |
That was at the point that we actually... | 0:20:55 | 0:20:57 | |
..like kids. | 0:20:58 | 0:20:59 | |
We were turning knobs without knowing what comes out, | 0:20:59 | 0:21:02 | |
but at least it sounds great. | 0:21:02 | 0:21:05 | |
WARBLING AND BEEPING | 0:21:05 | 0:21:07 | |
And as far as they are all connected to each other, | 0:21:13 | 0:21:16 | |
every knob you move, something is happening, you know. | 0:21:16 | 0:21:19 | |
So... But don't ask me, I hear this noise more than 30 years. | 0:21:19 | 0:21:25 | |
I could never create tomorrow exactly the same sound. | 0:21:25 | 0:21:28 | |
Munich and Berlin weren't the only centres of experimentation. | 0:21:30 | 0:21:34 | |
The real heart of the European electronic tradition | 0:21:34 | 0:21:38 | |
was to be found in Cologne, | 0:21:38 | 0:21:40 | |
where leading avant-garde composer Karlheinz Stockhausen was based. | 0:21:40 | 0:21:45 | |
Cologne was at the beginning of the '60s | 0:21:47 | 0:21:50 | |
the centre of modern music worldwide, you can say. | 0:21:50 | 0:21:54 | |
And Stockhausen was one of the composers | 0:21:54 | 0:21:57 | |
who was here. | 0:21:57 | 0:21:58 | |
And he gave some lectures, and I said to him, | 0:21:59 | 0:22:03 | |
"Mr Stockhausen, I can't do anything. | 0:22:03 | 0:22:08 | |
"All examinations, I've failed." | 0:22:08 | 0:22:09 | |
And he said, "What do you want to become?" | 0:22:09 | 0:22:14 | |
I said, "Composer of course." | 0:22:14 | 0:22:16 | |
And then he looked at me... | 0:22:17 | 0:22:18 | |
"Your story sounds good, I take you." | 0:22:20 | 0:22:23 | |
I heard from an undertaker | 0:22:28 | 0:22:30 | |
that in the basement, he was doing a side business | 0:22:30 | 0:22:34 | |
with the thrown out studio equipment from the radio station. | 0:22:34 | 0:22:39 | |
And so I entered his shop. | 0:22:39 | 0:22:43 | |
The coffins were there. | 0:22:44 | 0:22:46 | |
"Come with me to my catacombs," he said. | 0:22:47 | 0:22:50 | |
And I found... | 0:22:50 | 0:22:53 | |
..generators Stockhausen had used for the first time. | 0:22:54 | 0:22:57 | |
And these failed us. | 0:22:57 | 0:22:59 | |
I remember them so well how he was working with it. | 0:22:59 | 0:23:04 | |
Stockhausen had married a rich woman. | 0:23:07 | 0:23:10 | |
And I thought, "I do exactly the same." | 0:23:10 | 0:23:13 | |
And was succeeding, actually. | 0:23:13 | 0:23:16 | |
I was going to Switzerland | 0:23:16 | 0:23:18 | |
to become teacher. | 0:23:18 | 0:23:20 | |
Whatever it was, it does not matter. | 0:23:20 | 0:23:22 | |
And suddenly, I was, erm... | 0:23:22 | 0:23:25 | |
I was engaged, | 0:23:25 | 0:23:27 | |
but instead of taking too much care for the rich girls, | 0:23:27 | 0:23:32 | |
there was a guitar player, he wanted to have some lessons from me. | 0:23:32 | 0:23:37 | |
I could see how talented he was. | 0:23:37 | 0:23:40 | |
So, he finished his school and we together founded Can. | 0:23:41 | 0:23:45 | |
As I said, better a small bird in the hand | 0:23:52 | 0:23:55 | |
than a pigeon on the roof. | 0:23:55 | 0:23:58 | |
Five brilliant individuals, Can combined | 0:24:03 | 0:24:06 | |
the influences of the European avant-garde, jazz and minimalism. | 0:24:06 | 0:24:09 | |
Can was founded in '68. | 0:24:18 | 0:24:20 | |
That was the year of the kind of | 0:24:20 | 0:24:23 | |
student revolutions in Germany. | 0:24:23 | 0:24:25 | |
A mental revolution happened at that time. | 0:24:28 | 0:24:31 | |
The war was definitely finished | 0:24:31 | 0:24:34 | |
and the old way of thinkings had to be... | 0:24:34 | 0:24:37 | |
destroyed. | 0:24:37 | 0:24:38 | |
We did not try to play rock and roll. | 0:24:42 | 0:24:44 | |
Because we knew it is not the thing we are born with. | 0:24:47 | 0:24:51 | |
We have to find our own way. | 0:24:51 | 0:24:54 | |
Key to Can's driving sound | 0:24:55 | 0:24:58 | |
was the drumming of Jaki Liebezeit | 0:24:58 | 0:25:00 | |
who had been Germany's top jazz drummer | 0:25:00 | 0:25:02 | |
until he had an epiphany. | 0:25:02 | 0:25:04 | |
A guy came to me and said, "You must play monotonous." | 0:25:05 | 0:25:11 | |
He said it with a voice and with an expression | 0:25:12 | 0:25:16 | |
so I was quite impressed. | 0:25:16 | 0:25:19 | |
I don't know if he was a kind of freak. | 0:25:19 | 0:25:23 | |
Maybe he had taken LSD trip or something. He was completely... strange. | 0:25:23 | 0:25:30 | |
I started thinking about it... | 0:25:32 | 0:25:35 | |
to play monotonous - what did he mean, monotonous? | 0:25:36 | 0:25:40 | |
So I started to repeat things. | 0:25:40 | 0:25:45 | |
We played live in Munich - | 0:25:52 | 0:25:56 | |
we had a concert there, which was a sold-out concert. | 0:25:56 | 0:26:00 | |
And I was sitting, in the afternoon, with Jaki Liebezeit, with the drummer in a cafe. | 0:26:00 | 0:26:05 | |
And suddenly I saw someone coming up the street, in the middle of the street, | 0:26:07 | 0:26:13 | |
and they were praying to God and getting down to the street and behaving very strange. | 0:26:13 | 0:26:20 | |
And I said to Jaki, "Jaki, we have our new singer." | 0:26:20 | 0:26:25 | |
Damo Suzuki. | 0:26:28 | 0:26:29 | |
I'm the nomad. | 0:26:31 | 0:26:34 | |
Nomad in the 21st century. | 0:26:34 | 0:26:37 | |
Traveller... | 0:26:37 | 0:26:39 | |
Hippy, but not really hippy. | 0:26:40 | 0:26:42 | |
Metaphysical transporter. | 0:26:43 | 0:26:45 | |
Human being. | 0:26:47 | 0:26:49 | |
I went to Damo and said, "What are you doing tonight?" | 0:26:51 | 0:26:55 | |
He said, "Oh, nothing, I don't have anything to do." | 0:26:55 | 0:26:58 | |
"Do you want to become singer in a concert? It's sold out." | 0:26:58 | 0:27:02 | |
"Yes, and when do we make a rehearsal?" | 0:27:02 | 0:27:07 | |
"No rehearsal. No, you go on stage and then you sing. Don't worry." | 0:27:07 | 0:27:12 | |
Damo was first like a Samurai, but a very peaceful one. | 0:27:12 | 0:27:18 | |
When, suddenly, out of nothing, he broke out in an eruption like a volcano... | 0:27:18 | 0:27:26 | |
# Hey you... # | 0:27:26 | 0:27:27 | |
'And the people got so aggressive.' | 0:27:27 | 0:27:30 | |
# You're losing, you're losing, you're losing, you're losing your vitamin C... # | 0:27:30 | 0:27:36 | |
'I would say about 30 people were left, and one of them was David Niven.' | 0:27:38 | 0:27:42 | |
# You're losing... # | 0:27:42 | 0:27:43 | |
And they asked him, "Mr Niven, what do you think about this music?" | 0:27:43 | 0:27:50 | |
and he said, "It was great, but I didn't know it was music." | 0:27:50 | 0:27:54 | |
Actually, I don't have so much memories because at the time I was quite stoned. | 0:28:03 | 0:28:08 | |
And...that's it. | 0:28:08 | 0:28:11 | |
30km north of Cologne, on the Autobahn, lies Dusseldorf - | 0:28:16 | 0:28:22 | |
the Liverpool to Cologne's Manchester | 0:28:22 | 0:28:25 | |
Dusseldorf would give the world Germany's greatest act. | 0:28:27 | 0:28:31 | |
But, in 1970, you might not have recognised them. | 0:28:31 | 0:28:35 | |
This is Kraftwerk's first televised performance. | 0:28:46 | 0:28:51 | |
It features Florian Schneider and Ralf Hutter - | 0:28:51 | 0:28:53 | |
two classical music students | 0:28:53 | 0:28:55 | |
who formed the creative nucleus of the band. | 0:28:55 | 0:28:58 | |
Kraftwerk, then, were a Krautrock band, who also experimented with electronics, | 0:29:05 | 0:29:10 | |
and shared the same vision of German music as their peers. | 0:29:10 | 0:29:14 | |
HE SPEAKS GERMAN: | 0:29:15 | 0:29:18 | |
Ralph and Florian would employ what they would later call "Musikarbeiter" - music workers. | 0:29:35 | 0:29:41 | |
At that time, I was 20 and I was working in a psychiatrist hospital. | 0:29:44 | 0:29:51 | |
And there was another guy working the same job, | 0:29:51 | 0:29:56 | |
and he was invited to join a band called Kraftwerk in the studio. | 0:29:56 | 0:30:01 | |
He asked me, "Would you like to join me?" | 0:30:01 | 0:30:05 | |
I didn't know the band, and I didn't have anything better going on, so I said, "OK, I join you." | 0:30:05 | 0:30:11 | |
When I jammed with Ralf Hutter it was so apparent that we both had the same idea for melody and harmony, | 0:30:13 | 0:30:19 | |
which was definitely not American, not blues. | 0:30:19 | 0:30:23 | |
It was a European music. | 0:30:23 | 0:30:28 | |
There's a German expression called "Stunde null" - hour zero. | 0:30:29 | 0:30:34 | |
And that was more or less my situation, so I was really fortunate to meet those guys at that time. | 0:30:34 | 0:30:40 | |
Rother, and Kraftwerk drummer Klaus Dinger, | 0:30:43 | 0:30:46 | |
would leave Ralf and Florian to form their own project in 1971, called Neu! | 0:30:46 | 0:30:53 | |
The basic idea of this fast-forward movement | 0:30:53 | 0:30:58 | |
was already with us when we performed as Kraftwerk, | 0:30:58 | 0:31:02 | |
but when Klaus and I started recording the first Neu! album, we just had this basic vision. | 0:31:02 | 0:31:10 | |
I always lived near water. | 0:31:12 | 0:31:14 | |
I lived near water in Hamburg, where I was born. | 0:31:14 | 0:31:18 | |
In Munich, right next to the river - Isar. | 0:31:18 | 0:31:22 | |
In Wilmslow, on the Bollin. | 0:31:22 | 0:31:24 | |
HE LAUGHS | 0:31:24 | 0:31:26 | |
River Bollin. | 0:31:26 | 0:31:27 | |
And in Pakistan, at the seaside, and Dusseldorf at the Rhine. | 0:31:27 | 0:31:32 | |
And I feel very comfortable in water and with water and... | 0:31:32 | 0:31:36 | |
It has... It has some... Some... An effect I can't really explain. | 0:31:38 | 0:31:44 | |
It's like time, something to do with time, the passage of time. | 0:31:58 | 0:32:04 | |
And, in a way, it's also a picture like music - | 0:32:06 | 0:32:09 | |
moving along... | 0:32:09 | 0:32:11 | |
Like the music, it's... There are some parallels. | 0:32:13 | 0:32:17 | |
Boy, to put Neu! into words... | 0:32:19 | 0:32:22 | |
The drummer was playing in a... | 0:32:22 | 0:32:27 | |
..a way that, when you listen to it... | 0:32:29 | 0:32:33 | |
allowed your thoughts to flow. | 0:32:33 | 0:32:37 | |
Allowed emotions to...come from within, | 0:32:37 | 0:32:42 | |
and occupy the active parts of your mind, I thought. | 0:32:42 | 0:32:46 | |
It allowed beauty to get there... | 0:32:46 | 0:32:51 | |
The guy has somehow found a way to free himself from the tyranny of stupid... | 0:32:52 | 0:32:59 | |
blues, rock...of all conventions that I'd ever heard. | 0:32:59 | 0:33:04 | |
Some sort of a... | 0:33:05 | 0:33:06 | |
..pastoral psychedelicism. | 0:33:08 | 0:33:11 | |
I mean, at that time it was still a period of leaving the German history behind. | 0:33:14 | 0:33:22 | |
That was also part of the story, the... | 0:33:22 | 0:33:25 | |
the conservative remains of post-war Germany, Nazi times, was still to be found everywhere. | 0:33:25 | 0:33:32 | |
I admired Willy Brandt, for instance. | 0:33:38 | 0:33:41 | |
That was a figure I really looked up to. | 0:33:41 | 0:33:45 | |
Neu! once played for Willy Brandt. He was for reconciliation of Germany with the eastern countries. | 0:33:45 | 0:33:51 | |
Kneeling down in Warsaw, asking for forgiveness in the name of Germany. | 0:33:52 | 0:33:58 | |
That was something that really appealed to my thinking. | 0:33:58 | 0:34:02 | |
Despite combining a spirit of sonic adventure with a desire to transcend Germany's past, | 0:34:05 | 0:34:10 | |
none of these bands could catch a cold in their homeland in the early '70s. | 0:34:10 | 0:34:15 | |
Germans, who liked progressive rock, simply bought records by British and American bands. | 0:34:17 | 0:34:22 | |
Since the mid-'60s, German record companies had been searching for their own Beatles... | 0:34:27 | 0:34:33 | |
without success. | 0:34:33 | 0:34:34 | |
But, in 1969, Uwe Nettelbeck - a sort of teutonic tony Wilson - | 0:34:36 | 0:34:41 | |
was tasked, by Polydor, to find the Electronic Beatles. | 0:34:41 | 0:34:46 | |
This is what he came up with. | 0:34:46 | 0:34:47 | |
SQUEAK | 0:34:47 | 0:34:48 | |
CRASH | 0:34:48 | 0:34:49 | |
SQUEAK | 0:34:49 | 0:34:51 | |
CRASH | 0:34:53 | 0:34:54 | |
Faust formed in 1971. They came from Wumme, near Hamburg. | 0:34:54 | 0:35:00 | |
CRASH | 0:35:02 | 0:35:04 | |
Yes, Uwe was interested in revolutionary ideas, | 0:35:05 | 0:35:09 | |
and he took this opportunity and... | 0:35:09 | 0:35:13 | |
sold us, maybe, as the new Beatles. | 0:35:13 | 0:35:15 | |
But that's where it ends. | 0:35:15 | 0:35:16 | |
He was well aware, and everybody except Polydor was well aware that we were doing experimental stuff. | 0:35:16 | 0:35:24 | |
And they gave us a studio, which was great, with a day-and-night sound engineer at our disposition | 0:35:24 | 0:35:31 | |
which was great, we were very privileged. | 0:35:31 | 0:35:33 | |
Because of the social situation in the '60s, '70s, | 0:35:36 | 0:35:42 | |
there was lots of revolutionary thoughts in the air, on all levels | 0:35:42 | 0:35:47 | |
so I guess artists usually are just a mirror of what's happening. | 0:35:47 | 0:35:53 | |
And rock'n'roll was not enough to reflect all the facets of what was happening. | 0:35:53 | 0:36:00 | |
We are very influenced by whatever is around us. | 0:36:10 | 0:36:14 | |
So anything that sounds good, looks good to us, we would use it. | 0:36:14 | 0:36:20 | |
And so it's left to chance. | 0:36:20 | 0:36:25 | |
Cement mixer - I like it, so I will play it and I will try to go a bit deeper into that. | 0:36:27 | 0:36:34 | |
You know, living is art, art is living, life is art. | 0:36:34 | 0:36:38 | |
HE SINGS INTO THE MIXER | 0:36:39 | 0:36:41 | |
In the village, funny enough, after they had known us, | 0:36:46 | 0:36:51 | |
they realised we were quite OK. | 0:36:51 | 0:36:54 | |
We had visit from the local... What you call it? | 0:36:54 | 0:37:00 | |
Somebody who is simple in the mind? The village idiot. | 0:37:00 | 0:37:03 | |
When we would play our music, it would soothe his mind. | 0:37:05 | 0:37:09 | |
While Faust's unusual sounds weren't quite what German Polydor had in mind... | 0:37:27 | 0:37:33 | |
..they and the other German bands were coming to the attention of foreign ears. | 0:37:34 | 0:37:39 | |
# Who do you think you are kidding, Mr Hitler | 0:37:41 | 0:37:46 | |
# If you think we're on the run... # | 0:37:46 | 0:37:49 | |
Britain in the '70s was still obsessed by the war. | 0:37:49 | 0:37:53 | |
We won, they were still the enemy, and German jokes were part of our everyday culture. | 0:37:53 | 0:37:59 | |
And the British music press were not immune. | 0:37:59 | 0:38:02 | |
They grouped all the experimental German groups going under the label, "Krautrock." | 0:38:02 | 0:38:08 | |
It was good to be called Krautrock. We even made a song like this. | 0:38:10 | 0:38:13 | |
I remember that, from my father, | 0:38:16 | 0:38:20 | |
that the Krauts are coming. That was the word they said, cos of Sauerkraut. | 0:38:20 | 0:38:26 | |
# Deutschland, Deutschland uber... # | 0:38:26 | 0:38:29 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:38:30 | 0:38:32 | |
Krautrock, actually... I don't like it so much | 0:38:32 | 0:38:36 | |
because it's a kind of insult. | 0:38:36 | 0:38:39 | |
Here, watch. Who's this, then? | 0:38:39 | 0:38:41 | |
HE IMITATES HITLER | 0:38:41 | 0:38:45 | |
I'll do the funny walk! | 0:38:45 | 0:38:47 | |
But, really, it makes me laugh because I don't feel like making Krautrock | 0:38:47 | 0:38:52 | |
but, of course, it could also say it's a terrible name. | 0:38:52 | 0:38:56 | |
It's like if the French would say "Boschrock," something like that. | 0:38:56 | 0:39:00 | |
Damn it! I'm trying to cheer her up, you stupid Kraut! | 0:39:00 | 0:39:04 | |
And, furthermore, there was no real Krautrock scene. | 0:39:06 | 0:39:09 | |
The bands came from all over Germany, and were not even aware of each other. | 0:39:09 | 0:39:13 | |
Perhaps the only personal link between them was Conny Plank, | 0:39:13 | 0:39:16 | |
a visionary producer who worked with Cluster, Can, Kraftwerk and Neu! | 0:39:16 | 0:39:23 | |
It wasn't ALL bad, though. The interest in Britain translated into foreign record sales. | 0:39:23 | 0:39:28 | |
The early-to-mid '70s was the height of prog rock in the UK, | 0:39:28 | 0:39:33 | |
and the Krautrock bands fit in nicely. | 0:39:33 | 0:39:36 | |
The UK's number one prog label, Virgin, signed nearly all the Krautrockers. | 0:39:36 | 0:39:41 | |
And, in one case, bit off more than they could chew. | 0:39:41 | 0:39:44 | |
Richard Branson was...gambling. | 0:39:45 | 0:39:51 | |
So he gambled, he say, "Let's go to Germany, I gamble on those." | 0:39:51 | 0:39:57 | |
It didn't work with Faust, because we still had the same attitude - | 0:39:57 | 0:40:03 | |
no compromise. | 0:40:03 | 0:40:05 | |
And then he lost interest in us. | 0:40:05 | 0:40:08 | |
Or I think we made trouble, but I can't remember. We smoked too much. | 0:40:08 | 0:40:13 | |
HE SPEAKS GERMAN: | 0:40:35 | 0:40:37 | |
Yes. Yes. | 0:40:39 | 0:40:41 | |
-THEY LAUGH -Ja. | 0:40:42 | 0:40:43 | |
Yes. | 0:40:43 | 0:40:44 | |
-What was the problem? -The food. | 0:40:44 | 0:40:46 | |
HE SPEAKS GERMAN: | 0:40:46 | 0:40:48 | |
Other Virgin bands were more successful. | 0:41:05 | 0:41:09 | |
Tangerine Dream became hugely popular in the UK in 1974, | 0:41:09 | 0:41:14 | |
after they were invited to play at Reims Cathedral in France. | 0:41:14 | 0:41:18 | |
The beginning of a concert, 6,000 people were in this cathedral, | 0:41:21 | 0:41:24 | |
where just 2,000 had a chance, even to stand - | 0:41:24 | 0:41:30 | |
not to sit, to stand. You can imagine how the church looked | 0:41:30 | 0:41:34 | |
when all the crowd went out. | 0:41:34 | 0:41:36 | |
So, that was a...such as disaster | 0:41:36 | 0:41:40 | |
and then, I got a letter from the Vatican, | 0:41:41 | 0:41:46 | |
saying, because of this, we are not allowed to play in a Catholic church again. | 0:41:46 | 0:41:52 | |
Then, about three weeks later, I got a letter from the Dean of the Liverpool Cathedral in England. | 0:41:53 | 0:42:01 | |
He heard about it and said, "OK. If they don't allow you to play in any of their cathedrals, | 0:42:02 | 0:42:08 | |
"we invite you to all of our cathedrals, worldwide." So... | 0:42:08 | 0:42:12 | |
The country was great. You know, we... | 0:42:16 | 0:42:19 | |
We stood in our hotel in Coventry. | 0:42:20 | 0:42:22 | |
I went out in the morning of the concert. | 0:42:22 | 0:42:25 | |
At the lobby, there was a news stand and I saw a picture of myself. | 0:42:26 | 0:42:32 | |
So I read the line. | 0:42:32 | 0:42:34 | |
"40 Years back, they came to bomb the place, today they come on synthesisers." | 0:42:34 | 0:42:41 | |
Eins, zwei, drei, vier... | 0:42:49 | 0:42:51 | |
SYNTHESISER PLAYS | 0:42:51 | 0:42:53 | |
But the band who would truly break through were Kraftwerk. | 0:43:01 | 0:43:06 | |
By 1974, Ralf and Florian had gone totally electronic, | 0:43:09 | 0:43:13 | |
ditching the guitar and drums and hiring other Musikarbeiter, to work in their famous Kling Klang Studio. | 0:43:13 | 0:43:19 | |
This is famous Mintropstrasse here, where we are right now. | 0:43:23 | 0:43:27 | |
At the moment, this is not so interesting for normal people, | 0:43:27 | 0:43:31 | |
but for electronic music people, they know what Mintropstrasse is because the Kling Klang Studio was there. | 0:43:31 | 0:43:36 | |
You can't see much here. | 0:43:50 | 0:43:52 | |
It's just some steps. That was the way up to that door. | 0:43:54 | 0:43:59 | |
And then to the left was the main entrance to the Kling Klang Studio | 0:43:59 | 0:44:03 | |
which is only these two windows. | 0:44:03 | 0:44:06 | |
HE SPEAKS GERMAN: | 0:44:21 | 0:44:24 | |
Germany developed more and more after the war. | 0:44:34 | 0:44:37 | |
Everything had to be rebuilt, neu Autobahn. | 0:44:37 | 0:44:40 | |
As they build more Autobahns and more Autobahns, | 0:44:40 | 0:44:42 | |
and we could drive longer Autobahns and longer and faster and faster. | 0:44:42 | 0:44:48 | |
And the engines became stronger and the cars more and more beautiful. | 0:44:48 | 0:44:52 | |
Young men, which we were, could afford to buy such cars | 0:44:56 | 0:45:02 | |
and we took a car and went, just for fun, on the Autobahn. | 0:45:02 | 0:45:07 | |
120, 140, 150, that was fun. | 0:45:07 | 0:45:10 | |
We opened the window and we heard, "pft, pft, pft, nyaaaaaoooow-ow-ow!" | 0:45:10 | 0:45:18 | |
Or we had the wind, "pf-pf-pf." | 0:45:18 | 0:45:20 | |
And we made all of these things...music. | 0:45:20 | 0:45:24 | |
In combining a progressive technological vision of Germany, | 0:45:28 | 0:45:31 | |
with electronic music, humour and romanticism, Kraftwerk had transcended Krautrock. | 0:45:31 | 0:45:37 | |
They didn't even look like scruffy Krautrockers anymore. | 0:45:37 | 0:45:41 | |
Ralph and Florian came from very elegant and rich houses. | 0:45:42 | 0:45:46 | |
They could afford to have handmade shoes. | 0:45:46 | 0:45:50 | |
And Ralph and Florian rubbed their noses on the windows of shoe shops | 0:45:50 | 0:45:57 | |
where they made, for 1,000 Deutsche Marks, handmade shoes. | 0:45:57 | 0:46:01 | |
We wanted to be so different from England, from America, | 0:46:03 | 0:46:07 | |
this was why we had our hair short, we wore elegant suits, | 0:46:07 | 0:46:13 | |
which were made for us, you know. | 0:46:13 | 0:46:16 | |
The big one for me was Radio-Activity. | 0:46:25 | 0:46:28 | |
I would go to sleep at night listening to a Geiger counter. | 0:46:29 | 0:46:34 | |
All it is, is... | 0:46:34 | 0:46:35 | |
HE MAKES AN IRREGULAR PULSING NOISE | 0:46:35 | 0:46:38 | |
..as they manipulate the wand closer and father from a piece of radioactive material. | 0:46:40 | 0:46:46 | |
# Radio-activity | 0:46:47 | 0:46:51 | |
# Is in the air for you and me... # | 0:46:54 | 0:46:59 | |
I went shopping once for asparagus with Florian Schneider. | 0:46:59 | 0:47:06 | |
I met the two of them and he suggested... | 0:47:06 | 0:47:09 | |
-IN DEEP GERMAN VOICE: -"Well, if you like, it is the asparagus season, | 0:47:09 | 0:47:13 | |
"I am going to the market to select some asparagus. | 0:47:13 | 0:47:18 | |
"Would you like to come along?" I said, "Yes, I would." | 0:47:18 | 0:47:21 | |
And we had a very nice time doing that! | 0:47:21 | 0:47:25 | |
# Tune into the melody... # | 0:47:26 | 0:47:30 | |
TRANSLATION: | 0:47:30 | 0:47:32 | |
TRANSLATION: | 0:47:57 | 0:47:59 | |
I never felt like a Mensch Maschine, you know, I was not a music worker | 0:48:10 | 0:48:14 | |
as Ralph always liked and used to explain. | 0:48:14 | 0:48:18 | |
I always corrected him afterwards. | 0:48:18 | 0:48:21 | |
"I'm not, Ralph! I don't feel..." "Don't tell that anymore!", you know. | 0:48:21 | 0:48:26 | |
"I'm not a music worker." | 0:48:26 | 0:48:28 | |
# Radio-activity... # | 0:48:29 | 0:48:34 | |
It was always fun, until the end, you know. | 0:48:34 | 0:48:36 | |
But the end is always not so fun. | 0:48:37 | 0:48:40 | |
Cos it's the end, you know? It stops. | 0:48:41 | 0:48:44 | |
Kraftwerk's complete artistic vision transformed them | 0:48:51 | 0:48:54 | |
into the one truly global German band. | 0:48:54 | 0:48:56 | |
The same could not be said of their electronic peers | 0:49:01 | 0:49:04 | |
such as the equally pioneering Cluster who by the early '70s | 0:49:04 | 0:49:08 | |
decided it was time to leave Berlin and get back to the country. | 0:49:08 | 0:49:13 | |
Roedelius and Moebius took up residence in a 16th-century hamlet in Forst in Lower Saxony | 0:49:15 | 0:49:22 | |
where they were joined by Neu! guitarist Michael Rother | 0:49:22 | 0:49:26 | |
to form Harmonia. | 0:49:26 | 0:49:27 | |
The first Harmonia album was recorded right here. | 0:49:47 | 0:49:51 | |
You see the room on that... | 0:49:52 | 0:49:56 | |
On that photo, hanging on the wall, it's the inside of the first Harmonia album. | 0:49:56 | 0:50:02 | |
And you see that oven? | 0:50:02 | 0:50:04 | |
That was the only way we could heat the studio in winter. | 0:50:04 | 0:50:09 | |
HE LAUGHS | 0:50:09 | 0:50:12 | |
You can imagine the cold fingers and cold feet! | 0:50:12 | 0:50:14 | |
It's so special to have this view. | 0:50:16 | 0:50:19 | |
You look for miles and you don't see any human structure. | 0:50:20 | 0:50:24 | |
In 1974, Harmonia's ambient electronica came to the attention | 0:50:27 | 0:50:31 | |
of a British rock star in search of a new direction. | 0:50:31 | 0:50:35 | |
I first liked Roxy Music without knowing Brian, | 0:50:35 | 0:50:41 | |
and I thought to myself, | 0:50:41 | 0:50:44 | |
"What a stupid, extravagant guy that must be." | 0:50:44 | 0:50:48 | |
Just from the picture. | 0:50:48 | 0:50:51 | |
He came to a concert of Harmonia in Hamburg in '74, | 0:50:55 | 0:50:59 | |
he was very nice, | 0:50:59 | 0:51:01 | |
and we said to him, "Come to our place and let's do some real music." | 0:51:01 | 0:51:05 | |
Another two years passed before he rang and said, "Can I come and see you?" | 0:51:05 | 0:51:11 | |
And that's what he did. | 0:51:11 | 0:51:13 | |
Brian came to our house to learn from us | 0:51:17 | 0:51:21 | |
and we didn't go to him to learn from him, | 0:51:21 | 0:51:27 | |
he didn't know what to do, really, I think in this moment. | 0:51:27 | 0:51:31 | |
He was at a dead end of a street. | 0:51:31 | 0:51:33 | |
There was not the idea to record an album. | 0:51:36 | 0:51:38 | |
We just exchanged ideas, took walks and played ping-pong, | 0:51:38 | 0:51:45 | |
and stuff like that. It was a very pleasant stay. | 0:51:45 | 0:51:50 | |
And at the end we had I think three tapes full of music which Brian took with him and - | 0:51:50 | 0:51:56 | |
he brought those blank tapes with him, we were poor, | 0:51:56 | 0:52:00 | |
and we didn't have blank tapes... | 0:52:00 | 0:52:02 | |
It did really change a lot in our life. | 0:52:04 | 0:52:08 | |
But he said to me once in the studio, "Don't worry, Moeby, you will be rich as well one day." | 0:52:08 | 0:52:14 | |
But he still is not right! | 0:52:15 | 0:52:17 | |
He left Forst and the idea was to continue working together | 0:52:19 | 0:52:24 | |
but that didn't happen. He left to record - I think it was - Low with David Bowie... | 0:52:24 | 0:52:31 | |
In 1976, David Bowie started a new career in a new town. | 0:52:33 | 0:52:38 | |
Bowie was famous for being in the right place at the right time, | 0:52:43 | 0:52:47 | |
and in '76 he knew Berlin was the place to be. | 0:52:47 | 0:52:50 | |
Accompanied by Brian Eno, Bowie would record his albums Low and Heroes | 0:52:53 | 0:52:57 | |
in Berlin's magnificent Hansa Studio. | 0:52:57 | 0:53:00 | |
My memories are that this room has a nice acoustic, maybe you can listen to it. | 0:53:14 | 0:53:21 | |
You can hear this little echo behind my claps. | 0:53:24 | 0:53:28 | |
And I think that was what David Bowie liked very much with this big hall by the wall. | 0:53:29 | 0:53:35 | |
The studio's control room, now a bar, looked out upon a watchtower on the Berlin Wall. | 0:53:42 | 0:53:48 | |
I am quite sure they knew what was going on here. | 0:54:00 | 0:54:03 | |
When we sat in front of this console with a few lamps on top, | 0:54:03 | 0:54:11 | |
I just directed one of the lamplights to the policeman, and David and Tony | 0:54:11 | 0:54:18 | |
just jumped down under the console and said, "Don't do that!" | 0:54:18 | 0:54:22 | |
And I said, "It's funny, it's a joke. They would never hurt us anyway." | 0:54:24 | 0:54:30 | |
Bowie would assimilate some of the Krautrock vibe on both albums. | 0:54:31 | 0:54:36 | |
Side two of Low would showcase Eno's Cluster influences. | 0:54:36 | 0:54:40 | |
And Bowie originally intended to record Heroes with Krautrock musicians. | 0:54:40 | 0:54:45 | |
# I... | 0:54:45 | 0:54:46 | |
# I wish I could swim | 0:54:48 | 0:54:49 | |
# Like the dolphins | 0:54:52 | 0:54:54 | |
# Like dolphins can swim... # | 0:54:56 | 0:54:58 | |
David Bowie called me in '77 and that would have been interesting to record | 0:54:58 | 0:55:04 | |
with Brian Eno and David Bowie in Berlin but something went wrong. | 0:55:04 | 0:55:09 | |
# We can beat them | 0:55:10 | 0:55:11 | |
# For ever and ever... # | 0:55:13 | 0:55:15 | |
He said that those two tracks of Neu! '75 were his favourite tracks - | 0:55:17 | 0:55:24 | |
Hero and After Eight. | 0:55:24 | 0:55:26 | |
It's anybody's guess where the name for that album came from. | 0:55:26 | 0:55:33 | |
Released in '77, Heroes was a big hit for David Bowie. | 0:55:35 | 0:55:39 | |
But the real heroes were the Krautrockers. | 0:55:40 | 0:55:43 | |
# Ich... | 0:55:44 | 0:55:46 | |
# Ich bin dann Konig | 0:55:47 | 0:55:50 | |
# Und du... | 0:55:53 | 0:55:55 | |
# Du Konigen | 0:55:56 | 0:55:58 | |
# Obwohl sie | 0:56:01 | 0:56:03 | |
# Unschlagbar scheinen | 0:56:04 | 0:56:06 | |
# Werden wir Helden | 0:56:09 | 0:56:11 | |
# Fur einen Tag. # | 0:56:13 | 0:56:15 | |
The funny thing is... | 0:56:15 | 0:56:17 | |
they're doing something they call Krautrock again. | 0:56:18 | 0:56:22 | |
So I have to decide, shall I go there? | 0:56:26 | 0:56:30 | |
What I fear is that it's only related to the word Krautrock | 0:56:30 | 0:56:37 | |
and not to the music, and even if it's related to the music, | 0:56:37 | 0:56:41 | |
it misses the more important part, being Krautrock as part of a social movement. | 0:56:41 | 0:56:47 | |
And you can play the records again, but this won't come back. | 0:56:47 | 0:56:52 | |
Krautrock may be over but theirs is not an unhappy ending. | 0:57:04 | 0:57:08 | |
Today these artists remain as gloriously uncompromising as they ever were. | 0:57:11 | 0:57:16 | |
Unlike many of their Anglo-American peers, | 0:57:18 | 0:57:21 | |
they have refused to be drawn into becoming establishment figures. | 0:57:21 | 0:57:25 | |
There are no Knights of the Realm here, | 0:57:30 | 0:57:32 | |
just happy experimental musicians. | 0:57:32 | 0:57:36 | |
Subtitled by Red Bee Media | 0:58:15 | 0:58:17 | |
Email [email protected] | 0:58:17 | 0:58:20 |