12.
La Düsseldorf – Viva
I have an original copy of this on vinyl. I heard the song ‘Viva’ and I compared it to what I was hearing on "Heroes" and I was like, ‘Wait a minute, David! What were you influenced by when you were making this record!?’ You know, I’m listening to these guys and I’m like, ‘Wait a minute! A lot of this could be on "Heroes" in many ways’.
It’s very futuristic. I don’t know what period we’re in – modernism? Post-modernism? But this record sounds like the beginning of whatever it is. There’s blues in punk rock but there’s no blues in this. You look at Kraftwerk; because of that we’ve got hip-hop. This is almost like a stepping stone between krautrock and early Simple Minds. Now there’s a band you look at and think where they could’ve been. Where they should be. They were a brilliant band, incredible. I saw them really early on in Glasgow in ’79, maybe at the university, and they were incredible.
That was period of high culture from low cultured people; they came from low economic areas and made high art. It’s almost like the foundation of modern music. They weren’t using computers but they certainly were using technology and done in a very dilettanteish but brilliant way. And it definitely comes from an urban environment.
