Log #148 - The Cosmic Joke That Went Too Far

The Cosmic Jokers were a sort of unofficial Krautrock supergroup including Klaus Schulze and Manuel Gottsching.  Apparently unbeknown to the musicians their jams were recorded and later released. Gottsching first heard "his" record in a store in Berlin and had to ask who it was! Schulze was so angry he actually sued the record label responsible.

It is scarcely believable that The Cosmic Jokers actually went on to be credited with 3 studio albums and several compilations and remixes (all released in 1974).

This album is their first. It's a shame it was released under such unsatisfactory circumstances as I think it is actually one of the best albums I've heard from the so-called second string of Krautrock artists. It consists of two extended instrumentals - side one being more rock based, side two more ambient. The Gottsching influence dominates and side two particularly could be an Ashra or solo piece.

Cosmic Jokers Cosmic Jokers

Guru Guru UFO

Manuel Gottsching E2-E4

Beuno Vista Social Club Beuno Vista Social Club
Nils Frahm All Melody

Coldplay X&Y

The Guru Guru album (their 1970 debut) is of much more basic rock. With it's screeching guitar, driving bass and crashing cymbals, it sounds much like Jimi Hendrix (not quite so good of course) and Interstellar Overdrive psychedelic era Floyd. The tracks are all instrumental and of not much particular interest apart from the experimental title track.

I'm not a huge Coldplay fan but X&Y is a grower and much heavier than I had previously given them credit for. Where does it rank in the echelons of Coldplay? Well, firstly I'm surprised to learn they've only made 7 albums. This is a good thing, or should be, in the quality over quantity stakes. X&Y was their third released in 2005. A cursory google browse suggests this album ranks somewhere in the top/middle range. 

Is the view (one I've previously held) of the band being middle of the road, intellectual, nice guys, and a less interesting copy of Radiohead, justified? I think there may be more to them and I'll play this album, and the other one I have (Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends) some more to find out.

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Log #145 - Last Train To La Dusseldorf

Back in March of this year in Log #131 A Cluster of Faustian Harmonia I pondered the extent of my Krautrock experience. Familiar with the Krautrock mainstream of the likes of Can and... well, Can mostly to be honest (and Tangerine Dream if you class them in the genre) I pondered that there were many other 70s German bands I had perhaps heard of but had yet to actually hear. For a correspondent adopting such a pseudonym as Eddy Bamyasi this was a serious oversight which needed rectifying forthwith. 

The rectification began immediately with Cluster and Harmonia which ironically and bizarrely will almost certainly feature in my best new discoveries of the year review come December. Further rectification occurs this week with visits to the post Neu! La Dusseldorf, a listen to Grobscnitt's most famous album, a first ever spin of a classic Amon Duul II album, more sequencing guitar excursions with Ashra man Michael Gottsching, and, although not Krautrock, Eno and Gabriel trumpet collaborator Jon Hassell's influential debut album.

La Dusseldorf - La Dusseldorf

La Dusseldorf  - Viva

Michael Gottsching - E2-E4

Jon Hassell -  Vernal Equinox

Amon Dull II - Yeti

Grobschnitt - Solar Music

Phew, that's a lot of new listening. But new listening is what is so exciting about music innit. An excitement which I maintain now just as much as when I was a teenager dropping a needle on a new vinyl I'd just picked up from the second hand store. I believe this has a lot to do with keeping to my tried and tested method - physical mediums in their original album forms. None of these easy come easy go digital downloads.

And we're off...

La Dusseldorf formed out of the ashes of Neu! One of the members wanted to play more ambient instrumental music and another one (this one) wanted to go rock. Consequently these two albums are much more rock based than Neu! In fact, reminiscent of the times (1976/8), the albums touch on punk too. The characteristic motorik beat is maintained but there is singing (limited - in the tunefulness sense) and plentiful guitar too. The tracks are quite long and tend to set up an invigorating groove not least on the side long classic Cha Cha 2000 from the Viva release.

Gottsching's E2-E4 is named after a chess move (one of the most popular opening moves in the game). It is an hour long piece that Gottsching pretty much improvised in his home studio one day. It just so happened to come together beautifully and after being adopted by various prominent club DJs became a surprise underground club hit in the mid 80s. It now stands as an early example of chilled out beats with its hypnotic two chord pattern.

You can make a fortune with this record.

Richard Branson on E2-E4

Despite Branson's blessing Gottsching did not release the record on Virgin choosing to donate it to Klaus Schulze's fledgling Inteam label in 1984.

The Jon Hassell album is a nice listen. It includes elements of ambience (jungle atmosphere) and world music (particularly through the unusual percussion beats) all highlighted with Hassell's heavily treated trumpet. It's a stage on from Miles Davis' early 70s fusion stuff. An excellent album, miles better than I had reason to hope, notwithstanding the acclaim.

Amon Duul II's Yeti is a powerful rock album. Some of the tracks sound slightly dated with a late 60s Love like feel, especially with the flute, violin, tabla and acoustic guitar embellishments. The vocals are strong and the guitar riffs are powerful. From what I've heard of the Krautrock stable I'd say this band are the closest to the (psychedelic/space) rock music coming out of the UK and US at the time and less characteristic of their German contemporaries. They would have fitted right in headlining at Woodstock.

The reaper on the cover looks like Iggy Pop! It is actually a photo (and hommage) to the band's late sound man Wolfgang Krischke who had died a drug related death the year before.

The difference between mark I and mark II of the band is not actually chronology. The band began life as a loose commune collective in 1967...

We are eleven adults and two children which are gathered to make all kinds of expressions, also musical.

In 1968 several members of the group decided to branch off and follow a more serious musical path naming themselves Amon Duul II. They became the famous band we now know as one of the pioneers of Krautrock.

Both versions I and II actually crossed over and even performed separately at some of the same festivals. Mark I disbanded in 1973 after 4 studio albums leaving Mark II to continue on through the 70s (and subsequently spasmodically in various forms).

Lastly, I say Solar Music is Grobschnitt's most famous album. It is a mostly instrumental live piece recorded in 1978. It takes a while to get going with a series of false starts that sound like premature crescendos but eventually the trademark Genesis keyboard arpeggios and fluid guitar kick in all underpinned by a loud pumping bass. Truly epic symphonic rock closer to prog rock than Kraut and containing passages that remind me very much of their stupendous Rockpommel's Land LP. The English lyrics, such as they are, are tongue in cheek and, along with sudden odd noises and sound effects, add a humourous element to the band. Nonetheless the vocals when they occur are some of the strongest in the whole prog/rock/krautrock scene.

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Log #137 - At The Dawning of a Neu! Age for Invention and Imagination

The Alan Parsons Project Tales of Mystery and Imagination

The Cinematic Orchestra Ma Fleur

Fennesz Endless Summer

Neu! Neu!

Manuel Göttsching Inventions for Electric Guitar

Ashra New Age Of Earth

The Alan Parsons Project album was another one of those albums that was knocking around my latter school and early uni years, but wasn't one I ever possessed or recall fully hearing. I knew Alan Parsons became well known after engineering The Dark Side Of The Moon and also, less so, The Year Of The Cat. He then, evidently by accident, went on to record a number of his own albums (11 up to 1990 and a comeback one in 2014) beginning with Tales Of Mystery And Imagination in 1976:

"We never expected the Alan Parsons Project to become the name of an act. The phrase was designed to describe the identity of the album you are now holding in its orginal form. We would never in our wildest dreams have thought that at least ten albums would follow, performed by this anonymous outfit that never played gigs!"

Alan Parsons writing in the sleeve notes to the remastered release of Tales... in 1987.

Ah, the sleeve notes...at first glance on this CD release they are impressive and comprehensive (so few artists even bother at all these days) - Parsons (I assume they are his words) says himself sleeve notes have fallen out of fashion but then the annoyances creep in. There are obvious typos and a particular reproduction clanger which unfortunately renders the notes disjointed, inconsistent and repetitive. I have no idea how this is allowed to happen. Even when I produce a crappy throwaway  spreadsheet for work, which will be read by hardly no one and confined to the recycle bin within a few weeks, I proof read it 100 times. But this stuff is there forever. I don't get it. Such an easy thing to get right.

The music is so-so. Yet to really form an opinion on it. There is a range of music from rock to prog to classical. It reminds me a little of Meatloaf in the more bombastic moments, and Supertramp in the softer rock numbers. Apparently there was some kudos to having no synthesizers in the original recording of Tales... (I remember this was stated on Queen albums up until the 80s after which time they certainly made up for it!). For this reissue synthesizers have been allowed.

Much more immediately appealing are the Manuel Gottsching albums. Gottsching was the main man behind Krautrock band Ash Ra Tempel and the follow up group Ashra. In fact this album, his first official solo release in 1975, is subtitled Ash Ra Tempel VI thus doubling up as the sixth and final album under the Ash Ra Tempel name. After Inventions For Electric Guitar Gottsching formed Ashra and recorded the landmark New Age Of Earth album in 1976.

Inventions is a fascinating record with 3 long tracks, each of significantly differing atmospheres. For its time the heavily flanger and echo treated electric guitar loops must have been very groundbreaking, and it still sounds fresh and original today. The style is reminiscent of Steve Reich (particularly his Electric Counterpoint for guitars) and Steve Hillage (particularly Rainbow Dome Musick) and even Alex Lifeson (La Villa Strangiato) and John Martyn (Small Hours) with the long sustained notes that build and fade.

New Age Of Earth is essentially another solo album. This one veers off into more Tangerine Dream-like sequencer territory. It's different but equally beautiful and melodic and has been frequently nominated as one of the most influential ambient albums of all time:

Göttsching’s style of looping notes into sequential echoes has inspired a generation of musicians to mimic this process, but in this recording you hear the master at play.

Matt Howarth

These two albums together make a very pleasing pairing. In fact they would have made a masterful double album, and are prime candidates for a 2 on 1 CD release.

I orginally had the Alan Parsons cover as my head shot for this blogpost but to be honest it was a bit dull and the Ashra cover above is awesome! Before looking closely I thought this was a sunrise over a mayan temple or pyramid. A homage to the sun god if you like. It's actually something even cooler. A sunrise over a derelict block of flats set in wasteland and against barbed wired fencing. Like the urban monoliths in High Rise or the shocking tragedy that was Grenfell. The ultimate juxtaposition of nature and man (Led Zeppelin did something slightly similar (but less striking) on the cover of their IV album). I have found no information on the actual location for the Ashra cover shot.

The album title too, potentially overblown in some contexts, is entirely fitting with the cover and the music.

The 4 tracks are entitled:

Sunrain
Ocean Of Tenderness
Deep Distance
Nightdust

Neu! were another German krautrock band from the 70s. As revered as the likes of Can but much less prolific although founding members Klaus Dinger and Michael Rother (both ex-Kraftwerk) were involved in other bands including Harmonia and La Düsseldorf. They only produced 3 proper studio albums Neu!, Neu! 2, and Neu '75, although an unoffical Neu! 4 was later released as Neu! '86. Their debut album is probably the one to start with for beginners and contains the celebrated Hallogallo and Negativland tracks - spacey melodic explorations over driving motorik beats so influential to Hawkwind.

As regular readers will know I chanced upon a whole raft of excellent experimental ambient music towards the back end of last year. I discovered a wide range of new artists and immersed myself in a number of albums. 6 months on it is interesting to see what has resurfaced from the deluge. The favourite to date seems to be the fascinating Fennesz album, Endless Summer, which I keep returning to. A correspondent likened the sound of this album to that of the dying of a distant star. A brilliant and entirely apt description. It is out of this world.

Well I may aswell. Nearly covered all 6 albums in the player this week so here goes with The Cinematic Orchestra. This album is simultaneously beautiful and slightly, dare I say, boring? It's so down tempo it is rendered almost imperceptible. Yes, that's the word...

Maybe this is far too harsh and within the lilting jazz piano and dreamy singing there are hidden depths but I've had this album for years so it's time for it to reveal itself. I'm seeing the group at a festival this summer so it will be interesting how they reproduce their music live.

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Books! Books! Books! There so much to read! I've got 3 on the go at the moment, with a bunch stacked in the queue. I'm cruising slowly through Why Bob Dylan Matters by Richard Thomas. This is all about the lyrics and is a take on why Dylan is as important as the ancient classical writers. I think the author is making a case for his degree course on the subject.

More fun is Julian Cope's twin autobiographies Head On (the trip from zero to hero and back to zero again with The Teardrop Explodes in the matter of only 2 or 3 years) and the follow up Repossessed which promises "shamanic depressions" in the 80s wilderness years.

And finally I've just started the impressive Electric Eden by Rob Young - a lengthy tome on the history of English (folk) music from Vaughan Williams through to Fairport Convention, The Incredible String Band, and all that Joe Boyd stuff. 100 pages in and it seems to be a cut above the usual surface music writing.

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Log #135 - I Wish Tour '74

Father John Misty God's Favourite Customer 

Rory Gallagher Irish Tour '74

Me'Shell Ndegeocello Peace Beyond Passion

John Grant The Queen of Denmark

Manuel Göttsching - Inventions for Electric Guitar

Wishbone Ash Live Dates

A couple of old favourite live albums this week. I used to love the cover to the Wishbone Ash Live Dates album. It feels very exotic and from another time and place, like Lawrence of Arabia, The English Patient, or Our Man In Havana. I don't think the reality was quite as exotic. Some of these live recordings come from err... Reading. They are superbly recorded though with long instrumental passages displaying the band's famous dual lead guitars.

The track titles are a bit sword and sorcery, like The Pilgrim, The King Will Come, Throw Down The Sword, and Warrior. But it's immaculately rendered if you like your guitar rock on the melodic and slightly soft end of the spectrum.

Several forms of the band are still touring relatively small venues today. I did see one version (with one of the original guitarists - I forget which one) tour Live Dates a few years ago in a church hall type venue. With the crowd seated in metal school chairs the atmosphere wasn't conducive to rocking out. Nevertheless the fans were lapping up the signed vinyl copies of the album after the show. I see they are back again at a venue near me this Autumn.

The cover to the Rory Gallagher album is suitably minimalist. Just some red type over silver chrome (and a gatefold of tour photos inside). It suits the music - straight forward blues rock played by one of the pre-eminent electric guitarists of his day. 

One time, many years ago (Rory died in 1995) I was lucky enough to see him live at a venue in Southampton. He played a blistering 3 hour set including my favourite song at the time A Million Miles Away (which is also on this album). I then drove to Cardiff to see a repeat of the concert the following night. They don't make 'em like Rory anymore.

In January 1974 against a backdrop of the Irish troubles Gallagher toured dates in Belfast, Cork and Dublin, refusing to cancel despite security issues (the day before the Belfast date 10 bombs went off at various locations around the city). 

Unlike many live albums which seemed to catch a band off colour Irish Tour '74 captured Gallagher and his bandmates at their peak, doing what they did best, playing hard and dirty blues rock to an ecstatic homecoming crowd.

With Rory, if he didn’t have somebody to look at then he couldn’t feed off the energy. That’s why Irish Tour is such a good bloody album because it was recorded live, he got the crowd there with him singing along and sort of like urging him along… without the presence of an audience the recording process for Rory was a bit of a strain.

Keyboard Player Lou Martin

Gallagher was one of those rare musicians who could literally make his instrument sing. The guitar became part of his body and the sound (hardly embellished by any effects save for a bit of whammy arm) became an extension of his voice. Indeed, it's been said many times, and probably on this blog before, but Jimi Hendrix allegedly said he was the best guitarist he'd ever heard.

[Can we have some more meat on that bone of a claim please Eddy? Ed.]

Well, not much actually.

There is evidence that in a TV interview (which I can't uncover) that when asked how it felt to be the best guitarist in the world Jimi responded: "I don't know, you better ask Rory Gallagher."

But this urban myth has also had the names Chet Atkins or Phil Keaggy or Randy California or Terry Kath inserted in place of Rory Gallagher, so it seems it probably didn't happen. I've also found claims that ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons was Hendrix's favourite guitarist.

Here, right now, I'll add my own versions of the alleged quote for the sake of confusing google searches!:

When asked what it was like to be the best guitarist in the world Jimi Hendrix responded, I don't know, you better ask Tommy Emmanuel.

When asked what it was like to be the best guitarist in the world Jimi Hendrix responded, I don't know, you better ask Andy Latimer.

[This is just getting silly now. Stop it. Ed.]

Ok, let's just say the dates could fit, and it could be feasible. Gallagher was an amazing guitarist and Hendrix could have heard him sometime after Gallagher's original band Taste were formed in 1966. Hear some of his music or check out footage on youtube and decide for yourself. 'Nuff said.

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