Krautrock: The Rebirth of Germany Page #2

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a city like no other.

First of all, you have to remember

that Berlin was kind of an isolated place.

So, you couldn't compare Berlin to any other city in the world.

There was a huge wall around it.

In the old days of West Berlin, this was the end of the world.

On the other side was Siberia. Or at least East Germany.

What looks now like a very quiet and peaceful place

was the border.

And...was closely guarded.

In case you wonder on which side of the old border you are,

these hostel ships are named Eastern Comfort

and Western Comfort.

It was a community which had to control more or less

themself.

So, culture and underground whatever you want to call it

was kind of a very, very specific melting pot.

That was the signature of the city at the end of the '60s.

The key underground venue in Berlin was the Zodiak Free Arts Lab

founded in 1967.

It was a magnet for musicians

who wanted to experiment.

Ah, haven't been here in a long time.

This is what's left.

A normal cafe.

This was quite different 40 years ago.

In the evenings, they opened the door.

And we rehearsed on certain way

but it was also a concept,

because the audience was there.

This was kind of a...

kind of a centre...of all music, the Zodiak Club.

The owner, they said more or less that...

"Do what you like here, you can leave even your instruments.

"We lock the door in the night." We were playing there every day.

The idea came from a John Cage concert

given in an arts school in Berlin

where he was running about 35 tape recorders

and different sounds and music all over the place.

We thought what a nice idea to have in Berlin

a place where you can see that day by day, 24 hours.

It was like the ICA.

New York, it was The Factory. The same kind of spirit.

SOUNDTRACK DROWNS SPEECH

The Zodiak was co-founded by experimental artist Hans-Joachim Roedelius.

Older than most Krautrockers,

Roedelius's vision drew from his war experience.

I think all my art is based on living

not on doing art.

On experiencing life in many, many different aspects.

The young part of the Hitler Youth,

it was called "Pimpfe".

And what did you do in that...?

We had to do this...

and all these sh*t.

And to try to make us

discipline of following Adolf.

I had to wear this Panzerfaust.

But I didn't shoot it, they just did try that to make us soldiers.

But fortunately the war ended in the right time.

Roedelius formed Cluster.

They pioneered ambient electronica.

We bought simple tone generators.

And keyboard.

And I had a...cello as well.

Just to fiddle around with the sound.

I was not able to play the cello at all.

Of course, Joachim is more or less...

the guy who makes little melodies.

And I'm the guy who makes more the rhythm and sound things.

A good example for music made by non-musicians.

They had a vision of...

creating some sort of

sonic utopia,

a different world with different sounds.

This is sort of a promise

that there is a way out of the surroundings, society.

The...majority of Germans,

they listened to classic of course

and Schlager.

# Dieses Maedchen aus unserer Strasse hab' ich noch immer lieb

# Und es gibt dann ein Grund dafuer... #

Der Schlager is stupid texts,

stupid melody and everybody loves it.

In way, American hits

are also Schlager.

Elvis Presley,

he was a Schlager singer really.

On the surface, Schlager isn't political at all.

But that's what make it political.

# Dieses Maedchen aus unserer Strasse... #

During the war,

the propaganda ministerium, Joseph Goebbels,

who was a very modern fascist,

he invested lots of money

into creating a music industry to his lies.

# Sie schaut mich immer wieder an... #

The amount of Schlager broadcast in the radio programme

increased dramatically.

Danke schoen. Das war...

There were not too many ways for a German...

..let's say, rock musician,

you know, to perform music,

to develop music,

even to think about the theoretical development of music,

because there was no heritage.

And the Germans...were in a...

..in a very bad situation.

You couldn't forget that.

I mean, they were so stupid and guilty for it...

..to start two wars.

And losing them.

As horrific as it was,

it had one, forgive me to say that, one positive point.

There was nothing else to lose.

They lost everything.

And so, when we thought about

doing music in a different form,

there was only the free form, the abstract form.

Tangerine Dream's electronic symphonies

conjured up a different world far removed from Germany's past.

They, and other Zodiak acts, like Klaus Schulze,

were among the first to utilise the newly-invented synthesizer.

ELECTRONIC MUSIC WARBLES

When I started to do my electronic music,

the first question was, "What is a synthesizer?"

You can imagine today, nobody would even care,

they'd just see hundreds of them.

But at this time, "What is a synthesizer?"

Then you try to explain it, you know.

It was so brand new.

Then we thought, "That's great, let's try something with it."

That was at the point that we actually...

..like kids.

We were turning knobs without knowing what comes out,

but at least it sounds great.

WARBLING AND BEEPING

And as far as they are all connected to each other,

every knob you move, something is happening, you know.

So... But don't ask me, I hear this noise more than 30 years.

I could never create tomorrow exactly the same sound.

Munich and Berlin weren't the only centres of experimentation.

The real heart of the European electronic tradition

was to be found in Cologne,

where leading avant-garde composer Karlheinz Stockhausen was based.

Cologne was at the beginning of the '60s

the centre of modern music worldwide, you can say.

And Stockhausen was one of the composers

who was here.

And he gave some lectures, and I said to him,

"Mr Stockhausen, I can't do anything.

"All examinations, I've failed."

And he said, "What do you want to become?"

I said, "Composer of course."

And then he looked at me...

"Your story sounds good, I take you."

I heard from an undertaker

that in the basement, he was doing a side business

with the thrown out studio equipment from the radio station.

And so I entered his shop.

The coffins were there.

"Come with me to my catacombs," he said.

And I found...

..generators Stockhausen had used for the first time.

And these failed us.

I remember them so well how he was working with it.

Stockhausen had married a rich woman.

And I thought, "I do exactly the same."

And was succeeding, actually.

I was going to Switzerland

to become teacher.

Whatever it was, it does not matter.

And suddenly, I was, erm...

I was engaged,

but instead of taking too much care for the rich girls,

there was a guitar player, he wanted to have some lessons from me.

I could see how talented he was.

So, he finished his school and we together founded Can.

As I said, better a small bird in the hand

than a pigeon on the roof.

Five brilliant individuals, Can combined

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