Summer in the 'dorf

Summer has finally arrived in the 'dorf! We are making the most of it.

NEU!: Music history in the 'dorf

A good mate recently visited me in the ‘dorf, and while perusing a music mag in an airport lounge on the way home, he came across NEU! He put me on to them, I did some research and discovered music history gold. NEU! was two guys, Klaus Dinger and Michael Rother, who were members of the original Kraftwerk. They left the band early on and formed their own duo in the early seventies. They never had huge commercial success, but have retrospectively been recognized as an important influence on a lot of the music we have and love today. And they did their thing right here in the ‘dorf.

Listen to some of these references. They’ve been cited as an influence, and their first album as a masterpiece, by David Bowie, Brian Eno and Radiohead. Bowie apparently quoted NEU!’s “Hero” as one of his favourite songs. They’re also considered significant for Sonic Youth, Joy Division and a lot of the electronic music styles that have emerged since their time. Stereolab have clearly been shaped by them in a big way. NEU!'S remix “Super 16” was featured in Kill Bill Volume 1. The Red Hot Chili Peppers had Michael Rother jam with them for over twenty minutes on stage at the end of their concert in Hamburg in 2007.

NEU! is listed as one of the big bands in the krautrock genre. Krautrock is a term that was initially coined comically by the British to label the experimental rock music scene that emerged in West Germany in the late sixties and early seventies. Despite the irreverent name though, these bands developed a large following and respect for their innovation.

In an interview a few years ago with The Wire, Klaus Dinger said that the determination to do something different to what was coming out of America and England at the time was very conscious. “I always promoted the individual, the original and so on, and it still doesn’t make sense to play Beatles, or so. It’s quite natural,” Klaus said. “From the beginning I felt we were quite special.”

NEU!’s development was organic. When asked about the line-up, Klaus said they were only two members simply because it was difficult to find people in those days who understood what they were doing musically, that everything else was far away from what they wanted to do. They were very experimental, taking “sketches” of what they wanted to explore into the studio sessions, and seeing what happened spontaneously from there.

From what I’ve dug up, it looks like these guys paved the way for a lot of musicians in various musical elements. Klaus was the drummer, and is credited with having invented the “Motorik beat”: a repetitive 4/4 beat which generates a monotonous and hypnotic effect. Klaus actually called it “apache”, but it was also known as “hammer beat”, “Dingerbeat” and “Neu beat”. It’s the driving force behind a lot of their songs, and at its most effective I reckon in “Hallogallo” and “Negativland” on the self-titled first album.

Their second album, NEU! 2, is considered to be the birth of the remix, and it came about in a great twist of rock fate. The story goes that just before making the album; they recorded a single called “Neuschnee/Super” which nobody wanted to buy. Later when they went into the studio to record NEU!2, they bought a heap of new instruments, and then ran out of money before the album was finished. Then Klaus had what he called a Schnapps idea. They took the single and manipulated it by scratching it, speeding it up and slowing it down, to produce different tracks with which they filled side 2 of the album. Cassetto was created by chewing the tape on Michael Rother’s old cassette recorder. It was considered really subversive at the time and fans thought they were mocking them. Now there’s an Argentinean band named after that track.

And they’ve also been described as punk before punk. Listen to the droning guitar, fast beat and the groaning vocals of “Lila Engel” on NEU!2 and you’ll know what they mean. And in “Hero” on NEU!75, Klaus’s "singing" is rough and raucous, and he directs blatant obscenities at their record label.

Pronounced noy, the name means “new”, and was, according to Klaus, at that time the strongest word in advertising. The album cover designs look like advertisements too. Düsseldorf was already recognized as a hub for advertising agencies, photographers and the fashion industry. Klaus himself was trying to earn a living through advertising. Unfortunately it didn't have too much effect on album sales.

The two musicians split after their third album NEU!75, on which you can plainly hear their diverging interests. They both collaborated with and had relative success in other groups throughout the seventies, eighties and nineties. Klaus Dinger went on to form La Düsseldorf (perhaps another story for another time in the ‘dorf). He died of heart failure last year. Michael Rother still records and produces solo albums.

A compilation Brand Neu! was released as an homage to the band this year with tracks displaying their influence, featuring Primal Scream, Oasis and LCD Soundsystem among others, but the review in Record Collector recommends just listening to NEU! albums. There’s a link to “Hallogallo” on You Tube below to give you a taste test, and you can find a few of their other songs there too.

Although there are countless references to these guys in music articles, I asked around in the ‘dorf but couldn’t find anyone in the flesh who had heard of them. Until Tuesday night. My neighbour Michael was around the right age in the seventies, and an artist, so I went to enquire. “NEU!?” he asked, hoisting an eyebrow at the memory. “Ja. Funny guys.” And he reached into a drawer beside the door and pulled out all three of their albums released between 1971 and 1975. So I’ve had the pleasure all week.

There’s a lot of variety there, and familiarity. I get the sense when listening that I’m witnessing the birth of so many sounds I’ve loved my whole life. At times it’s sparse, spacey and atmospheric, at others tight and edgy. From gently lapping waves to grating machines: Here sweet and ambient, there gritty and grinding.

Describing music musically is not my thing. All I can tell you is that NEU! is all about the journeys. There are mostly no lyrics, so no words to think about. You can just listen to the sounds and ride. The last few nights I’ve been adrift in rowboats, free floating in space, submerged in submarines, and walking through eerie underwater caves. I've been carried along a highway in a cage on the back of a truck, chased by a madman down a deserted beach and through eerie industrial landscapes with no floors.

Now, listen to “Hallogallo” and see if it doesn’t make you wanna take off on a road trip.

www.youtube.com/watch?hl=en&v=ZbAWBElA6dA&gl=US

PS Thanks for the tip-off TC xo.

Sources:
The Wire: transcript from interview with Klaus Dinger
http://www.michaelrother.de/
www.krautrock.de
Wikipedia

In the streets of Bilk

ZIEH DIR WAS AN

It means: put something on.

I found ZIEH DIR WAS AN because a friend serendipitously burnt a hole in my winter jacket. This February was the chilliest in years and I was losing feathers fast. I shivered into the tailors in Brunnenstrasse to ask if they could mend it. But the hole was too big to sew up and they suggested I find a badge or something to cover it up with. I wandered further down the street and came upon ZIEH DIR WAS AN. I saw the Tshirts, belts and stickers in the window and thought they might have something to put on.

Martin, the owner, doesn’t sell badges, but he said he’d make one. He got out some paper and a pencil and together we worked out the right shape and created a wave design for aesthetics. Then he disappeared behind a curtain and emerged with an assortment of big spools of coloured cottons and we selected a pink and brown scheme to go with the jacket. An annoying slip of a cigarette-wielding hand was suddenly becoming fun.

Martin worked fast, imagining me shivering out there in the streets of Düsseldorf without my jacket. I came back in a week and found my jacket transformed, with two hand-made, individually-designed and great-looking badges on the backs of the sleeves.

It was also by chance that last year Martin became the busy owner of ZIEH DIR WAS AN. He had been working as a product manager for a firm for the past eight years and decided he needed a change. He and his partner decided to start an Internet T-shirt company. But one evening, Martin was also walking down Brunnenstrasse on his way for a cocktail at Bar Alexandra, when he spotted the vacant shop space. He decided to rent it as his office, but luckily for us, thought it would be a shame to waste such a great location.

So he filled it with a fantastic variety of Tees, bags, belts and other accessories, and called it ZIEH DIR WAS AN. His simple philosophy is to choose things that he would like to wear or have himself. He likes smaller fashion labels, limited designs, handcrafted pieces and brands that give thought to the environment.

It's amazing what designers are using to make stuff these days. Used fire hoses, for example! Launched in 2006, Feuerwear bags and belts are ingenious. I had no idea of the different grades of softness and durability of fire hoses. Other bags in the shop are by demano in Barcelona, who fashion their products from old windsurfer sails and used billboard posters.

There are some gorgeous handcrafted and painted purses made from vintage materials by Kleinod, the label of Martin’s friend Sandra in Hannover. Her emblem reads “Kauf dich glücklich”. It means “buy yourself happy”.

KaWeDesigns sell MP3 player cases that clip on your belt made from old inner tyre tubes of motorcycles. Martin pointed out the lovely contradiction of the sturdy black manly outer material, and the pretty floral inner lining.

They also make key rings from old air mattresses with a loop of the material and the little plastic peg. Seeing them reminded me of summer pool parties of my childhood and obviously they do the same for Germans. Martin showed me the distinctly different patterns of the materials and told me that one was unmistakably from old West German air mattresses and the other from the GDR.

Other treasures uncovered were bottle openers made from old table soccer figurines, whose designers have a very interesting label: Locl<3n₉3löt>(I hope I’ve written that correctly).

His range of T-shirts is also cool and they come from Dekadent deluxe, Waldbrand, AURORA, Threadless and others.

Besides all this, the Internet T-shirt design company, made of awesome, with locally printed Tees from international designers, is growing.

ZIEH DIR WAS AN was a great place to stumble upon, so if by chance you’re in the neighbourhood, or are looking for an individual gift or a new T-shirt to funk yourself up a bit, I recommend you stumble in there as well. And put something on.

http://ziehdirwasan.de/Zieh_Dir_Was_An.html

Brunnenstrasse 7

(neben den Düsseldorf Arcadan)

40223 Düsseldorf