Kraftwerk 24/7

So, last night saw the final date of Kraftwerk's "minimum - maximum" tour 2005. Boy, did they ever deliver the goods to the packed Greek Theatre above LA. My friends and I were caught up in the parking situation, followed by a brief pause that refreshes in the forest on the way to the theatre, so we missed the first number. It was nice and loud, booming all around us, as we descended the hill towards the gate; very cool sensation to be walking around and hearing pretty loud, somewhat muffled electronic dance music in the air. Then, when the track ended and the crowd exploded into applause, we realized how loud and how close this spectacle really was. Impressive.

So we headed up to our seats and proceeded to be blown to bits by Kraftwerk's awesome catalog of crisp, cool tracks. Some of the melodic and lyrical content is such that you have to accept it as a joke (even though stuff like the b-side of "Elektrik Cafe" makes me doubt that these melodies are anything other than sincere) and enjoy the ride. They delivered an unabashedly honest performance. The fidelity of the audio system was breathtaking; I've never heard anything that loud and clear in an outdoor space so large, across the entire spectrum. Wow.

The show's pieces featured excellent visual accompaniment on film projector behind the band. The screen was a triptych (I know I spelled that incorrectly) but also consolidated into a single, ultrawide backdrop. Superb resolution. Tour de France featured some wonderful vintage black and white footage of bicycle races in the French countryside, towns, etc. Likewise Trans Europ Express had excellent film of the pretty 50s/60s TEE trains cruising through Germany; there was also a healthy serving of track-level footage filmed by a camera mounted low on the front of a train cruising through switches, etc. Wonderful. There was also some good "bahnhof" footage to bring back many memories of the Germany I visited in my youth. Of course, that wasn't the end of it... Autobahn provided footage of the German freeways, circa the 60's or thereabouts. Very nice. One could really appreciate the architectural purity of the system in those films. And the vintage computer graphics featured in the "Computer World" tracks and the closer, "Music Non Stop" were excellent.

These guys are great designers. They have command over the experience, fashioning as aesthetically pure an audiovisual experience as can be imagined. At their seasoned age, they are still capable of completely demolishing an audience, as they so deftly did at the packed Greek last night. It was cool, though; the four of them were clearly doing, on their Ableton Live-equipped laptops, something very similar to what Sasha's been doing with his Ableton/"maven" kit at his Fundacion parties in LA and NYC these past several months. As someone who attended every LA Fundacion night, I oughtta know.

But back to Kraftwerk: expect a DVD by Christmas if not sooner. It's already been announced on the band's record label web site. I think they were filming and recording the show last night for possible use in such a product... It was a flawlessly executed show, and under the stars, so unless they've already put together all the footage for the DVD, there's no reason not to use some from the Greek.

However, I had one gripe about the show: why change the title to "Music" non stop, rather than the old "Muzik" (or was it "Musique"?); wasn't the latter so much more satisfying, and more "Kraftwerk"? Not to mention truer to the pronunciation of the word by the computer-generated voice...

So today, the "minimum - maximum" 2CD set came out. Live recordings from the 2004 world tour. Pretty much what I heard last night (listening to it as I write). The booklet has stage shots for most all of the major theme tracks, including the "Tron"-like Music Non Stop. Yeah, I can't wait to see the DVD... Apparently, the group also released tracks from the CD on vinyl in Europe. And this stuff really does drop right nicely into any amalgam of new stuff, particularly the more prog-house material out there. Should be interesting to see whether any of these tracks find their way into any of the superDJs' boxes this summer or the compilations that will inevitably follow. Would've fit right in on Digweed's recent 'Fabric20' disc, for example...

I guess we'll have to be content to listen to the unmixed source for now, and cherish the memories of an excellently-spent evening under the stars.

Kraftwerk's web sites are www.kraftwerk.de and www.klingklang.de.

Kraftwerk @ the Greek Theatre

There will definitely be more on this later, but man... total mastery of the digital domain on those guys. Some wouldn't be all that excited about the prospect of watching 4 guys standing in front of laptops all night, while films play in back of them, but that wasn't the point: Kraftwerk are designers: they design an experience for listeners/show attendees. Their show's music and visuals were so pure it becomes difficult to put into words. The idea of witnessing their spectacle in the forested environs of the outdoor Greek Theatre only made it that much more invigorating.

CMJ Compilations Redux

In the course of searching for an old recording on an unlabeled cassette tape in my bin of roughly 600 tapes, I came across and just finished listening to a homespun tape I made in '95 of the best stuff off of the first CMJ Music Monthly compilation cd that I ever bought. Fantastic stuff, even (or, especially?) after a decade's passed. There's something for everyone on these CMJ discs; this one from 95 has Korn, Stereolab, Radiohead, Dee Snyder's band Widowmaker (great song, "Long Gone" is), Massive Attack feat. the creamy-voiced babe from Everything but the Girl, and a host of others, like "Shudder to Think" (a guilty pleasure).

One of the most interesting things I've noticed in 30 years of record buying is that all the stuff I used to think was losing the thick, creamy sound of all the records I was weaned on (try "Barracuda" by Heart as the epitome of what I mean, mixwise - those drums!!!) inevitably sounds fabulous 10 years later. Jeez, I mean even Faster Pussycat "Where There's A Whip There's A Way" sounds bombastically phat by today's standards, and it clearly sounded hollow and overly-swathed in SPX-digital reverbs in its day.

I bought a lot of those CMJ's throughout the mid 90's, up til around 98/99; I'm tempted to buy one now just to see whether I like anything on it, now or in 10 years.

I also had cause to include some studio cuts off Genesis "3 Sides Live" on the other side of the tape, and that's a treat, too. It's only fitting that those guys found a way to share their out-takes from "Abacab" with the world, since that was pretty much the middle of their songwriting apex; and a broad bell-curve that was, wasn't it? I mean, when you can't find room on an album for songs like "You Might Recall" or "Paperlate", your writing is "on pure", as they say. I loved the sound of that "Abacab" album, too. The drums had air and roominess without being small, and the omnipresent TR-808 is among my favorite things on record. The programming of the 808 in "Lonely Man on the Corner" is especially endearing and really makes the song -- until the middle eight, that is, when the song turns around and kicks you in the pants. And then there's the 808 handclaps in "No Reply". If you like your 808's, you've gotta hand mega-props to Phil Collins for bringing the noise early and keeping that thing close at hand. I mean, he's a drummer, after all -- aren't drummers supposed to hate drum machines? What about all those doofus bumper stickers around Hollywood that implore onlookers, "DRUM MACHINES HAVE NO SOUL". O.k., then; takes one to know one, or something? I mean, where's the love?

I've been a drummer forever and got my first kit when I was 3, but around '84/85 I bought my first drum machine, a Yamaha RX 11 (yeesh) and never looked back... I've owned and used the crap out of several Alesis, Yamaha and other machines; I even had a 909 for awhile back when they were new, but I never liked the sound of it. It looked pretty, though. And I'm perfectly aware that most, but not all, intelligent world-wise drummers embrace machines and electronics as the tools they are, and not the enemy some imagine them to be. But that ain't my stone to roll, so I'll leave it for someone else's shoulder.