At 12:23 AM -0700 7/26/96, Sugatis & Co wrote:
quoted 9 lines I just got "The Mix", having not heard any Kraftwerk before (except for>I just got "The Mix", having not heard any Kraftwerk before (except for
>bits of "Trans Europe Express" in a music history class). I was quite
>frankly amazed by the quality and the freshness of the music, given that it
>is all supposed to be from the 70's or something... this left me wondering,
>is "The Mix" a compilation of stuff off various albums as I think it is, or
>is it a bunch of remakes/remixes? Most of these tracks sound as though they
>could have been made a few months ago, not a whole bunch of years ago, and
>the production and sound quality were first rate. It is just wierd, is
>all...
No, it's remakes and retakes and remixes and refixes.
But it's quite amazing, no?
So amazing, that you should check out the following:
1. Trans Europe Express (English-language version)
2. Trans Europa Express (German-language version)
3. Computer World
4. Electric Cafe - I can't help it. I love this record. Musique non-stop.
There also exist various bootleg CD remix comps. I found two kickacious
ones at the bizarre bazaar in Berlin almost at the exact centimeter where
the Berlin wall used to cross the main thoroughfare. That's Berlin for
you. Funky town. With a zillion weird acid jazz and techno and electro
nightclubs in the scariest sections of the East side. Eerie that there's
nothing left of the Wall. Just a section or two left in out-of-the-way
neighborhoods. You can find more post-Nazi memorabilia in a Pink Floyd
cartoon movie. But the past is not so simply eradicated, is it? Think
Anselm Kiefer. Or Wim Wenders. Then again - don't think. It weakens the
government. Didn't like Germany much, until I stayed in a gay hotel in
Berlin. Actually, I didn't know it was a gay hotel until one day my
breakfast chum leapt across the table for a kiss. Impulsive, that. He
simply assumed I knew, so that I must be, too, and that was that. Another
gent later told me that the gay scene in Berlin was more tolerant than that
in U.S. cities. Well, just goes to show how far stereotypes go. Wasn't
this thread about Kraftwerk? Michael Cretu did a simply amazing record
with Peter Cornelius.
Anyway, about those Kraftwerk bootlegs, a term which brings to mind
fascism, strangely, since it's a sort of anti-establishment thing, but
there you have it. Think moonshine. Records? No, the real deal.
Includes some razormaid mega-mixes. Some of these mixes were definitely
done on someone's car-stereo Gremlin 8-track. Does anyone hear remember
the Gremlin?
I once bought one for $200 because the ad said "complete with 8-track". I
thought this meant a multikulti recording studio. But all I could do was
listen to the Greatest Hits of the Sweet over and over and over. Got me
all misty-eyed.
Thanks to one of our beloved list members, I now proudly own the William
Orbit remix of "Radioactivity". See, there was that male acquisitive
blah-blah-blah impulse again...
Zenon M. Feszczak
Kraftwerker