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Today\u2019s house cleaning day, and my partner is busy with other worthy pursuits. So I\u2019m happy to putter around the house, tidy and clean, and enjoy an edible. Thanks to that and a general weekend freeing-of-the-mind, I have some thoughts.<\/p>\n
Thought #1:<\/strong> Those of us who appreciate the sub-subgenre known as krautrock might occasionally think to ourselves (or possibly speak out loud) something to the effect of:<\/p>\n “You know, those late \u201860s to middle \u201870s [West] Germans were really hip with their forward-thinking music.”<\/p>\n The truth is \u2013 as has been told to me firsthand by many German friends and acquaintances \u2013 bands like Guru Guru, Grobschnitt, Cluster, Can and so on were never really popular in Germany, either. Their music was as underground as could be. It\u2019s thanks to later, more popular artists who were influenced by them that we know and appreciate their music today. It also helps that \u2013 to generalize wantonly \u2013 Germans of that era tended to be quite rigorous in the care and handling of their LPs. Find a used German record of that era and it\u2019s likely to be in excellent condition.<\/p>\n Thought #2<\/strong>: Following on from that point, the music of which we’re concerning ourselves here didn\u2019t spring forth from nowhere. Listen to most any of the early- to mid-period krautrock bands and you\u2019ll hear a lot of influences, most notably from the UK. Jazz figured in there, as did a kind of Teutonic rethink of what the Grateful Dead were about musically.<\/p>\n That said, listen to most any of that music and you\u2019ll detect the massive shadow upon that scene being case by none other than Pink Floyd. Notably, it\u2019s not the Syd Barrett stuff (though that\u2019s in there a bit) nor the popular period of the Floyd\u2019s catalog (The Dark Side of the Moon<\/i> forward). No, it\u2019s that in-between developmental era, the five year journey to find their voice.<\/p>\n It\u2019s A Saucerful of Secrets<\/i> and Pink Floyd\u2019s longer-form works that won the hearts and minds of Germany\u2019s most innovative bands. And not just on-record Floyd. While Pink Floyd songs like \u201cCymbaline\u201d and \u201cEmbryo” were short pop ditties on record, live they became multimedia extravaganzas, with live quadrophonic audio and soaring, exploratory excursions. It\u2019s that<\/i> Pink Floyd that influenced krautrock.<\/p>\n Bonus Free Thought:\u00a0<\/strong> And as is its nature, influence works in both directions. Listen to Harmonia\u2019s \u201cWatussi\u201d from 1974 and ask yourself whether Discipline<\/i>-era Robert Fripp (circa 1981, folks) might have heard it.<\/p>\n