Future Days: Krautrock And The Building Of Modern Germany is a chronicle of the German experimental music scene of the late 1960s and early 1970s, examining how it arose from the post-war cultural situation in West Germany and, despite being largely ignored in its own time, went on to become hugely influential, a largely unsung testimony to the German capacity for regeneration and innovation. Or, put another way, a f***ing doorstopper of a tome dedicated to one of the most woodwarpingly tedious f***ing genres of modern times, made by a bunch of f***ing strangers to the tune, the razor blade and the f***ing point, who if I’d f***ing had my way would have been rounded up, their heads pinned down on f***ing tabletops and forcibly f***ing shaved by specialist squads of f***ing sheep shearers flown in from f***ing Australia!
“Krautrock”? Sure, it was a f***ing insulting term. Like calling French guitar music Frog Rock. And sure, it was invented by some English hack. But don’t you get it? We were trying to be f***ing kind. No f***ing disrespect but you’re German. You do cakes, sausages, beer and long f***ing roads. You drive home in your Mercedes, listen to some f***ing yodelling music on the wireless then go to f***ing bed at 8.45 pm. That’s how it’s meant to f***ing be. What you weren’t meant to f***ing do was sit cross-legged and play f***ing four hour flute solos to bewildered rows of Düsseldorf f***ing art students. Sure they were all on f***ing drugs. They’d f***ing need to be! Eased the f***ing pain! Frankly you’d need to be under general f***ing anaesthetic to get through the first four f***ing Amon Düül albums!
Let’s go through some of f***ing legends of this f***ing “unjustly ignored” scene, shall we? Can! When I think of the amount of f***ing blu-tack and number of two pence pieces punters must have stuck over their needle heads when they tried to play f***ing Can on vinyl to stop it jumping, only to realise that for reason that passeth even God’s understanding it was f***ing meant to sound like that, I f***ing weep. Go somewhere, you chorus averse c***s! Kraftwerk! That’s not singing, that’s the weak, bleating sound a f***ing goat makes after it’s had its f***ing throat slit! I’ve made better music than that assembling f***ing Meccano! Faust! Holy Christ, when they took the register at the local f***ing asylum and found themselves half a dozen short, they need have looked to further than the f***ing recorded studio nearby they’d all f***ing absconded to! Neu! Yep, why bother having more than one f***ing idea when you can just stretch the first shit one you have over four f***ing years?
I mean, let’s just f***ing pause for a second – and f*** knows, you need to be very near a f***ing pause button when this f***ing anti-music’s playing – and consider the f***ing term “motorik”. Based on the f***ing idea that driving isn’t about a monotonous, tedious f***ing functional activity you have to do to get from f***ing A to B, ie to the f***ing off licence, to load up on kegs of f***ing megastrength brew, then f***ing off back home and imbibe yourself into a braincrushing stupor to help you forget that human is one long round of cheerless f***ing c***ache from cradle to f***ing crematorium! The driving itself isn’t the f***ing interesting bit, you Syndrome-stricken f***ing Euro-nerds! “Motorik”, my anus – we’re talking about the sort of f***ing people who don’t listen to records, they f***ing watch them – “the record on the table goes round and round – round and round – round and round – all day long.” Actually, that’s unfair, because at least that tune has a f***ing tune!
Tangerine Dream! Switch on a couple of f***ing synths to preset Drone mode, sneak out for a f***ing curry, then come back in two hours’ time to receive a round of applause from a concert hall full of stoned, gullible f***ing hippies! Yes, we get it, the cosmos is extremely f***ing boring, almost as boring as a f***ing Autobahn, a place where f*** all happens forever, not unlike your first 26 f***ing albums! Conrad Schnitzler! Well, what can I say other than that there was a bloke who needed to put in some sort of old people’s home at the record breakingly f***ing young age of 30, so bereft of his f***ing marbles was he? “Don’t let him near the radio, he’ll start fiddling with the dial, he thinks he’s making music. Yes, I know, but there’s no telling him. One air raid siren too many when he was a f***ing kid.”
Popol Vuh, soundtracker to the f***ing movies of Herzog! Well, there was a f***ing cinematic genius, as anyone whose slept through one of his f***ing movies will tell you – immortal classics steeped in one-finger drone music such as Dwarf In A Crate, The Man Who Mistook Himself For A Character, Straspulia (Or The Glass Hammer), The Enigma That Wasn’t, Slide Slowly Through Mud, The Wrath Of Paying Audiences, Plosnek, Bosnek and Nonek (A Trilogy) or his unmade sci-fi movie Spacewaster, all of them starring Klaus f***ing Kinski as a c***!
Krautrock, my arse still sore from the last f***ing bloodlined shit I took, whose aesthetic merits are roughly 36 times that of the complete works of f***ing Cluster. (Yeah, just cluster right f***ing there so I can catch both your f***ing heads with one swing of the f***ing bat!) Jesus f***ing H. Tell you what, they’ve dropped a serious f***ing bollock with the f***ing title. It should have been called, Future Days: Music Made By Teutonic Tossrings In F***ing Flares For Shitwitted F***ing Clothheads!
