Outer Music Diary

WDR went haywire on August 6th, delivering 5 1/2 hours of a wide array of Beat Club and other TV performances and videos. As anything of this nature, the clips ranged from the staggering to the hilarious. Here’s my first foray through the first 2/3 of the first night’s material.

1968
Joy & The Hit Kids - Mr. Pseudonym
Wonderland - Moscow

I skipped both of these, although I caught a bit of the Wonderland, which was some pretty decent music mixed in with some corny beat cliches. I want to say this was the band with Reichel (and I forgot to compare the guitarist to Reichel later), but I’m not sure.

1969
Amon Düül II - Kanaan

A very cool early ADII clip. You do have to wonder how the band could do such masterful studio albums when they were a train wreck live, but it’s still fun to watch nonetheless. 

Witthüser & Westrupp - Kinderlied für Erwachsene

I was starting to hack I was laughing so hard at this that I literally went to the next track. Seems like this was a bit before they got really psychedelic. Weird how these guys get lumped in with rock, almost like the German Simon and Garfunkel.

Petards - On The Road With My Bag

Kind of a lousy band, still early enough where they hadn’t shed their beat roots quite yet. 

Wonderland - Love’s A Murder

Skipped.

1970
Xhol Caravan - Talking To My Soul

Skipped this one, as it’s on the Garden of Delights DVD. 

Amon Düül II - Soap Shop Rock

The vocals on this are possibly some of the worst I’d ever heard, the whole band looks like they’re fired up on half a dozen different substances and the camera zooms in on the crowd passing around hashpipes. A sloppy mess, but still fun to watch. Seems to evoke the early 70s German festival scene pretty nicely.

Organisation - Ruckzuck

Think I’d seen this piece before, I think it’s a Beat Club track and it might have ended up as bonus material on the various boot CDS of this that float around. Jamming on one chord for the most part, and very early motorik music. Fabulously atmospheric. 

Can - Mother Sky

Can were also a mess live this early. Damo is his early histrionic, hollering self and it makes me wonder if Liebezeit played to a synchroniser to be so tight on the records, cuz he’s pretty sloppy here.

Petards - Too Many Heavens

Spaced this one. 

Amon Düül II - Eye Shaking King

Band was a lot better by this Beat Club performance, recorded when Renate was out of the band. Had a lower quality version of this for a while, but it looks splendid here.

Xhol Caravan - Oszillogram

Also on the DVD.

1971
Tangerine Dream - Ricochet 1

This was one of the first gems that surprised me, the Ricochet title is very misleading, as this is the band in the early rock band style, starting with shimmering guitar and organ before, I think Chris Franke, it’s hard to tell exactly, hits the drum kit and they go into some heavy krautrock jamming. Probably the least visually impressive though, the quality is a bit rougher and it’s hard to see the members. Then again it is Tangerine Dream. A fantastic clip.

Et Cetera - Raga Lady / Blue Thursday Morning / Sunrise

More bliss, the band with Dauner and Weber killing on improv, droning and then going into nutso synth mode, the electronics really giving the euro-fusion thing a kick in the pants. Very cool to see a clip like this, they’re more parseable being able to see who is making what noise. 

Guru Guru - Electric Junk

One of the best of the night, a classic early Guru trio acid rock piece, the band ripping along like a skewed Cream or Ten Years After. I always thought Uli did most of the singing, but it’s Genrich on this song. They really knocked it out of the park on this performance as well. 

Floh De Cologne - Die Luft gehört denen, die sie atmen

Way too weird, it was a song I was familiar with from one of their albums. But then of course they stop and start chatting with each other, I suppose their impact is totally lost on the non-German speaker. 

Rattles - You Can’t Have Sunshine Every Day

Can’t remember this one. Probably voluntarily. 

Klaus Doldingers Passport - Uranus

Another Beat Club performance, and some pretty good, but straight fusion and well played. But like most of their stuff, they never really fire it up enough. 

Eloy - Walk Alone

Kind of a dumb video of a great track, with the band faking it outside, including an airdrummer.

Can - Halleluwah

They’re definitely a bit more refined here and it’s a pretty classic Tago Mago piece, but it doesn’t have the lift one would want. 

Ton Steine Scherben - Ich will nicht werden, was mein Alter ist

One of the more painful bands on the DVD, I skimmed through them usually after a few bars. 

Kraftwerk - Köln II

Unsurprisingly, quite a bit like the Organisation piece. Very monotonous but spacey music, nice if not particularly challenging.

Birth Control - The Work Is Done

This was a big surprise, they come off like an amped up Deep Purple or Atomic Rooster, heavy organ and guitar, with the drummer singing. Very pleasant hard rock. Never liked the band a whole lot, but this makes me want to revisit.

Bröselmaschine - (I Once Loved) Lassie

Easily the cheesiest song on the s/t album, it’s no better here in hippie drum circle mode.

Joy Unimited - Everybody Knows

Sounds like this band was doing disco years early, a kind of quasi-funk track with no oomph to it. 

Popol Vuh - Improvisation (ohne Titel)

Fricke spitting fire on the big moog with a bongo or tabla accompaniment, someone comes out after a few minutes and as he whispers to both musicians the song ends. Looked a lot like they were being told to stop. Very Affenstunde overall.

Frumpy - Take Care Of Illusion

The #1 gem of the first 2/3 of the night, Frumpy in powermode. It’s hard to believe how heavy and crunchy this band is, you can feel the Leslie in parts better left unmentioned. Inga Rumpf is a great frontlady with a gigantic voice and the somewhat proggy rave-up at the end captures a brilliant track. 15++++ 

1972
Epitaph - Crossroads

They probably wrote the song in 1972, but like a few pieces, some of the tracks are actually later performances, including this one that looks like it’s from the Rockpalast in the later 70s. Almost country rock in a ways, which is weird when I think the band went metal later. I guess they were changing with the times. ;) 

Kraan - Sarahs Ritt durch den Schwarzwald

Another great one, a very early Kraan track. Way too short overall, as it went to the next song my heart lurched. 

Scorpions - I’m Going Mad

A video of the original band. Rudy’s already got a flying V. Klaus Meine, I don’t think you could even recognize him from the guy in the modern band. The videos, of course, aren’t as interesting as the live material. 

Ton, Steine Scherben - Allein machen sie dich ein

*Skip* 

Can - Vitamin C

Definitely a more refined band, they’re also a bit less interesting at this point. Funky in a very Caucasian sort of way. 

Guru Guru - Oxymoron

Oh man, brilliant. Almost felt like a different build up to the song part of it from the Kan Guru version. I’ve always really liked this song, so it was great to see this again. Priceless Guru footage.

1973
Birth Control - Gamma Ray

They’re starting to cheese out by this point, the band acts quite silly before the song starts, the organist coming out, trying to get the crowd raved up. Still looked like the same band, but they’re starting to embrace a less early 70s style by this point, a bit more pop - just a bit. 

Atlantis - Let’s Get On The Road Again

Cool to see Inga again, even if Atlantis don’t hold a candle to Frumpy. But this was probably about as good as Atlantis got. 

Jacques Perrot & Kin Ping Meh - Allegro aus der 40. Symph. v. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Perrot is a guy who plays sounds by flicking and smacking his cheeks and other body parts, and he takes the lead melody with KPM as back up, doing a Mozart track. Hard to see this as more than a gimmick, although it’s still impressive in a mad, eccentric sort of way. 

Grobschnitt - Solar Music (gekürzte Fassung)

Also from the Rockpalast performance they did in, I believe 1978, I found this to be a pretty great listen this time around, especially since the last time I heard SML, I was getting a bit tired of it. The keyboards get really big here. 

Ton Steine Scherben - Wir sind geboren, um frei zu sein

*Argh. Click* 

Guru Guru - Africa Steals The Show

Starting to do their mid-70s, post-trio dive bomb, although they were still a ways from some of their more heinous material.

1974
Epitaph - Woman 60

*Skip* 

Tiger B. Smith - Tiger Rock

Hahahahahaha. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Hahahahahahaha. Oh man. Hahahahahahahahahahahaha. The tiger! *click* 

Achim Reichel - Eisenpferde

Probably the tail end of his great echo guitar era, this has some cool guitarwork over some fairly silly beats. Interesting, but I’d have wanted earlier. 

Gift - Got To Find A Way

Never heard Gift before, but this reminded me of that second Wind album with all the mellotron. They’re not very good but tron freaks would probably dig this cuz it rarely shuts up. 

Can - I’m Too Leise

Later and later and later…

Deadwood Forest – Mellodramatic. 11=11. Mike Prete’s Gnosis review pegs this one. Really nails the proggy prog aesthetic. Anglagard is an influence, but not overtly so.

Radio Massacre International – Zabriskie Point. 11-10. Not at all representative of RMI’s sound. No sequencers here, pretty much in the ambient space. Not their strong suit, but not a bad album either. But they have so much great recordings worth exploring, I’d recommend this album dead last within their discography.

Anacrusis – Suffering Hour. 8+9. It’s a mess, but incredibly complex thrash metal fest, with plenty of tricky meters. The vocals are all shriek, all the time. Band would grow leaps and bounds from here. Including tightening the arrangements and adding melody to the vocals. Funny enough, hardcore metal heads will state this is real metal and their later stuff is for p*ssys. “Mallcore dude”

The Fourth Way – Werewolf. 10=10. Like above, but in a completely different genre, this is a mess, but pretty freaky fusion, before fusion was even a term. Love Cry Want is the only other album I can think like this, but not near as intense as Larry Young’s moment in the sun.

Gentle Giant – Octopus. 10+11. 20 years and still waiting for me to be blown away by Gentle Giant. Seems each listen I get closer. Not sure where the barriers are.

Los Canarios – Canarios. 11=11. We just published Gunhild’s review of this 4 sided megapiece. I don’t like classical rips, but so much of this is beyond recognizable for the source, it doesn’t matter really. Been an 11 forever.

Various artists – Puissance 13+2. 10-9. Comp albums are always tough to rate, just due to the diversity. Some amazing tracks here (including Magma’s horn rock version of Mekanik), but there are some serious woofers on here too.

Various artists – Fluorescent Tunnelvision. 10-9. As above with the consistency factor. Pseudo Buddha wins the contest while Finland’s Circle clan (under various pseudonyms) are just awful here (repetitive and irritating to me). They’re much better on their proper albums.

Bi Kyo Ran – Fairy Tale. 10-9. An early effort that has BKR in a more symphonic rock mode. Good musically, but sonically needs work. They never did issue this on CD, and I think I agree with that decision.

I’ve finally been able to pen a few new reviews in the last month or so, which are now up on the Gnosis website. I’m trying to document as best as possible my current listening perspective. Full reviews (meaning satisfactory for me, though hardly masterpieces of literature) are in order most of the time. In other cases, I would rather just put a few thoughts down and move on. These could be where we already have good coverage on Gnosis, or it could be by a major group that I feel others could cover far better than I. These latter type of reviews I will post here from now on.

 
Zao – Z=7L. 11+12. Best listen yet, even though I’ve owned an LP of this for close to 20 years. Interesting to note that my previous grades seem to reflect the opening and final tracks, which has me wondering if I’m not more influenced by the positioning than I should be. Certainly that can be the case when distracted – which is why I’m trying more than ever to have focused listens and not pre-occupied with other things (like work). It is indeed the 4 middle tracks here that are striking. The “operatic scat” vocals, which can be a soprano shriek or a frightening guttural growl are more abrasive and experimental on these bookend tracks than what is found on the rest of the CD. Joel Dugrenot shows off his bass chops worthiness here and gives Top/Paganotti/Moze a run for their money. My-Troung is outstanding behind the kit. Cahen and Seffer can carry any melodic line. The first Zao to break the classic 12 line. I bet some others follow over time.

 
Miles Davis – Kind of Blue. D:10

Miles Davis – Sketches of Spain. D:10. My wife took a surprise shine to my “In a Silent Way” CD recently, but in no way likes ANYTHING about the “Bitches Brew” and beyond era (which makes up the rest of my Miles collection). So it was clear we needed to go backwards in the catalog. She loves “Kind of Blue” but “Sketches of Spain” proved to be a bit more academic for her tastes. Either way, works for me. I’m no jazz aficionado, but sure enjoy hearing these over dinner. I’m so glad she never took to modern pop music – and if we listen to 50s and 60s jazz for the next few years, I will be a very happy man. Very easy for me to enjoy even though they don’t take me to the next level…

 
Fates Warning -  Night on Brocken. 7+9. Much better than I remembered, but hardly an item that needs to be keep beyond a CD-R. It’s amazing how much at the beginning of their career FW sounded like Iron Maiden. “Piece of Mind” must’ve been their favorite record at the time. And I’ll always argue Iron Maiden is progressive minded too… FW would improve drastically on follow-up “The Spectre Within”.

 
Holocaust – Live (Hot Curry and Wine). 9+10. One of the original NWOBHM groups, this Scottish bunch put out a mix of corny rock anthems, and more aggressive metal cuts, with a surprising amount of quality melodies. Not the best example of the genre, but worth having at least a CD-R copy somewhere in the collection. Band reformed over a decade ago and are still around with a pile of albums, which according to the BNR Metal Pages, are highly original and some of the best metal has to offer today. Obviously Holocaust are a true cult band… I’ll need to investigate further.