Altoxic

The Playboy Channel is a short sound collage/spoken word piece by the Bay Area avant-garde band Negativland from their famed 1987 album Escape From Noise. In it, band member David “Weatherman” Willis describes a hypothetical situation in which the Playboy Channel is jammed by a signal similar to the Russian Woodpecker.

The Russian Woodpecker, officially known as Duga-3 or Steel Yard, was a disturbingly powerful 10Hz shortwave signal that broadcasted from Kiev Oblast in the former Soviet Union. Its official purpose was to serve as a radar system, even though before the USSR collapsed, theories floated around that it was a Soviet mind control tactic. Blame McCarthyism for that, I guess. Anyway, the radar produced a strange tapping sound as a byproduct, and the signal was so powerful that it interrupted broadcasts on American airwaves. In fact, by the 1980s most analog TV stations had installed measures to block the Woodpecker from interrupting them.

BLAKE’S KRAUTROCK HISTORY LESSONS, VOL. IV: Faust

Possibly one of the most creatively fearless bands of the era was Faust, who were originally active 1971-1975. They pulled no punches about how weird they were, and if weird meant that you didn’t get any radio play or perform on any German variety shows like all the other people, so be it.

Faust was formed in the West German town of Wümme by producer Uwe Nettlebeck, who wanted a German performing unit to compete with the Rolling Stones; this event stands as possibly the only time a producer put together a band that didn’t break up after punching each other out or bitching at each other or something. After assembling a group with musical ambitions similar to his, Nettlebeck went to work recording Faust’s debut album, released on Polydor Records in 1971. The group set themselves apart not only with their audio concrete style and highly treated instruments, but also with their creative packaging designs, which featured things like a clear vinyl LP in a clear sleeve (above), embossed black text on a black background, or a bunch of blank musical staves.

Faust was also one of the first bands to sign with Virgin Records. A deal between Nettlebeck and Virgin stated that the producer would give the label tapes of all the new music they had been working on for free; the label then assembled the new songs, as well as numerous recording experiments that had been captured on tape, into two side-long collages and sold the completed album for 49 pence in the UK (roughly 75 cents USD). The cheap selling price of the collage album caused the album to sell 50,000 copies in England, because why the hell not, but it never charted due to it being the price of a 7-inch single and therefore ineligible to appear on the album chart. On their fourth and final album of the 70s, the band also helped to popularize the term “krautrock” by using it as the title of an epic 12-minute drone rock piece.

BLAKE’S KRAUTROCK HISTORY LESSONS, VOL. III: Neu!

Neu! (lit. “New!” in German; pronounced NOY) was an influential Krautrock duo active from 1971-1975. The band consisted of guitarist Michael Rother and drummer Klaus Dinger, who met each other in 1970 as touring members of Kraftwerk when they were still a rather unremarkable guitar-based prog rock band. After appearing on and touring for Kraftwerk’s now-obscure debut LP, the two made a rather amiable split from the band, claiming they were talented but suffered from a lack of direction. They formed their own project that same year, and began recording their own debut in December of 1971.

The band suffered from creative differences throughout their short career. Rother was a classically-trained professional guitarist (once described by Kraftwerk’s Florian Schneider as the best he’d ever seen), while Dinger was a self-taught drummer and a high-school dropout. Michael preferred majestic, melodic flourishes whilst Klaus strived for loud noises and chaos; odd-couple hijinks ensued. The two bickered and struggled through three albums, even getting so fed up with each other that half of their second album was just one of their singles played at different speeds on a turntable, but what work they did complete together is considered some of the most creative experimental rock of the 20th century.

BLAKE’S KRAUTROCK HISTORY LESSONS, VOL. II: Can with Damo Suzuki [1970-1973]

In December 1969, Can’s first vocalist, Malcolm Mooney, allegedly suffered a major psychological breakdown. Stranded without a vocalist in the middle of their debut album’s tour, the members of Can were afraid that their band’s run was over before it had even began. Even so, they felt they had to find a substitute vocalist to finish up the rest of the tour. Walking outside the venue, they found their substitute in the form of Damo Suzuki, a Japanese busker performing for tips on the street corner. Desperate, they invited Suzuki to perform with them at their next gig--and he blew the crowd away. The band soon realized how well they worked with Damo in the lead, and before he left to return to the States, Malcolm gave the busker his blessing.

A master of stream-of-consciousness improvisation, Suzuki could record the vocals for a song in real time, often with barely any lyrics written beforehand. Possibly the biggest proof of this is the song “Don't Turn The Light On, Leave Me Alone”, which is rumored to be from Can’s very first jam session with Damo in 1970. It was also during this period that Can moved away from the bluesy, Americanized sound that they had developed with Mooney; the krautrock scene was shaping up to be about forging a musical sound entirely different from the music people made in English-speaking countries.

Over the next three years, Can recorded four studio albums with Suzuki as their singer. The double album Tago Mago [1971] made great leaps into the band’s experimental vision, merging studio jams with snippets from backstage rehearsals surreptitiously recorded by guitarist Holger Czukay. Shortly after, Ege Bamyasi [1972] saw the band shortening their compositions to pop-single length. The album scored them a local hit in the form of “Spoon”, while their growing popularity inspired them to hold a free concert in their hometown of Cologne.

Following the recording of the ambient-inspired LP Future Days [1973], Suzuki became a Jehovah’s Witness and left the band. Critics now note that the band’s creative drive seemed to fizzle out after Damo’s departure left them without a sense of direction. They put out a handful of poppier albums, most of them receiving lukewarm reviews, before breaking up in 1979. Damo disappeared from music for a number of years before suddenly emerging in 1983 as the leader of a musical collective called Damo Suzuki's Network.

BLAKE’S KRAUTROCK HISTORY LESSONS, VOL. I: Krautrock Origins and Can with Malcolm Mooney [1968-1970]

Post-war Germany was not the best place to live. It was split directly in half by a wall, and the children of both the Nazis and their victims grew up apathetic and cynical. In West Germany, many people turned to music as an output to their frustrations. West German interest in rock and roll grew after the Internationale Essener Songtage festival in September 1968, but many German musicians were eager to cast off the “Nazi” stereotype placed upon them and began experimenting with more psychedelic variations on the theme.

That same year, Can formed in the city of Cologne. Keyboardist Irmin Schmidt had just returned from a two-year stay in New York City where, as a student of German avant-garde composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, he had traveled to spend time with musicians like Steve Reich and Terry Riley. Soon, however, Schmidt showed an interest in the work of Andy Warhol and was exposed to the music of The Velvet Underground, who enthralled him. He traveled back home where he got in touch with some of the people he had studied music with and excitedly told them about what he had seen. Music teacher Holger Czukay had performed as a classical guitarist until he heard “I Am The Walrus” on the radio; Czukay, his teenage pupil Michael Karoli, and jazz drummer Jaki Liebezeit joined Irmin’s band shortly thereafter. The group picked up Malcolm Mooney, an American art student who had fronted an a Capella group in New York, as their vocalist and set out recording an LP.

Can’s sound was punctuated by an adherence to rhythm that allowed them to jam at length without boring listeners. One of the main elements of this technique was what critics termed the “motorik” beat; a continual, pounding 4/4 drumbeat that kept audiences exited by adding a number of fills or variations every few measures. The band would record their songs on a 2-track system as they happened before going back and adding in extra backing tracks. The band recorded two albums with this lineup: Prepare To Meet Thy Pnoom [1968], which was rejected by every label in West Germany and went unreleased until 1981, and Monster Movie [1969], which became their official debut. Also yes, that is a surrealist painting of Galactus on the front cover.