From Greg Earle Sent Wed, Jun 10th 1998, 14:53
From Greg Earle Sent Wed, Jun 10th 1998, 14:53
Robert Merlak writes:
> You sound like my friends, who keep telling me that I should go to see the
> Rolling Stones live in Zagreb (capitol of Croatia). They've told me almost
> the same thing you said here ... amazing, great show, once in a lifetime,
The difference is that The Stones are irrelevant and haven't put out a decent
record since Brian Jones learned he couldn't backstroke. (-: They trundle out
horrific versions of what was even good stuff (I've seen plenty of video tapes
of them through the years, including a show from the Voodoo Lounge tour that
was on PBS just 2 months ago), and their new stuff is completely forgettable.
This is not the case with Kraftwerk. Their "old stuff" is timeless and
sounds completely up to date, as far as I'm concerned. While one of their
"new songs" isn't necessarily on the same par as the other material, the
extension to "Airwaves" was as great as anything I've heard lately.
It's getting a bit tiresome to see (here and on other lists I'm on) all these
"Classic Rock" putdowns and other such comparisons. This is Kraftwerk we're
talking about, for fuck's sake.
> I wouldn't go to Kraftwerk if they are playing in my city...
Your loss, really. You'll listen to Dad's old records but you won't go see
the people who helped spawn the ones you bought which came out yesterday ...
> I don't want to give my money for stunning show and a stunning production,
> because I don't care about it.
That's sad, because there's something to be said for seeing the results of
the work of very talented people that have put something extremely creative
together and which you don't see the likes of very often. After a while
even I get tired of Yet Another Rave with a single lazer, a few Intellibeams
and a couple of hand-painted day-glo posters, y'know?
> My interest is Techno as
> I said and I can listen to Techno in my nice quiet room, in a comfortable
> chair, without looking at a bunch of idiots whistling and shouting...
So you've never been to a rave then either?
This is getting really depressing. People denying themselves great experiences
because of preconceived notions, rather than the reality. Let me put it
another way: have you heard *anyone* who saw Kraftwerk in San Francisco or
Los Angeles say it was shite? Or anything else other than amazing/wonderful?
Are we *all* really that wrong, on Crack or out of touch? I think not ...
(Then again, I remember seeing slaggings of their Tribal Gathering performance.
But then I guess we're just stupid Americans, blinded by our rabid idolatry.)
- Greg
P.S. I'm not going to bother arguing with Stuart/Silicon about this. He seems
to have that 20-something "Kill Yr. Idols" mentality and has a lot of
problems with the notion of Kraftwerk As Myth that I simply do not share,
so there's little point in a point-by-point refutation of his arguments.
He can sit and kvetch about the media fuelling the myth while I deal with
them as a *real entity* that I just saw in the flesh about 36 hours ago.
(Though I must say that anyone who thinks Karl Bartos was "taking a crack
at something new" by releasing Electrik Music's "Kraftwerk Lite" album -
or that generic 4-on-the-floor track on T.E.Ex. 1 - has a mighty strange
definition of "new".)