Can Pt II

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Guten Tag und Guten Nacht! Ich bin Ihr Kommadrer der Markus Parks immer und für immer. Und das ist meine Kommadratin, Karolina Hidalgo. Welcome! Yes, he said welcome. That is what he said. Welcome to Canpart 2! Ladies and gentlemen. Did you say no dogs in space? Oh, no, ich bin ein no dogs in space. Okay. That, actually, that one I was just guessing. The rest was on Google Translate. So yeah, this is No Dogs in Space ladies and gentlemen. I'm Markus Parks here with Karolina Hidalgo. Hello, and thanks for staying with us after one episode of Can. We really do appreciate it. By the way, there's a couple more to go. There's a few more. This story is so incredible. It's going to go places that you cannot even imagine. This is... I mean, they're becoming one of my favorite bands. As far as just being a fascinating story and a fucking inspirational story. They're incredible. Yes, let's get into it. So when we last left Can, they just played their first live gig. And keyboardist Ermin Schmidt's concept of forming a collective of musicians from different musical backgrounds. This was finally coming together after two years of rumination. Good for him. He was thinking really hard. That's good. It works. It works. You ponder over it for two years. Yeah, man. Send that shit out into the fucking universe and it'll come back. Finally. Now, based off that first gig, which was quite possibly the first time they'd ever played together. We don't really know whether it's the first time or not. Can was offered a free residency at the location of Setgig, Castle Norvinch, which was an actual castle. Yes. So any Thunderbolt here would be great because it really is... It's still a castle. I believe they do tours. Yeah, you can actually go and tour where Can played, where Can recorded. Where Can got high. We're going to go to Castle Norvinch one of these days. But at the castle, Can was given the time and space to develop a direction that would create the singular musical organism that Erman had envisioned. Yeah. Remember that word, organism. Erman wanted to make a music baby with them, basically, right? Yeah. Like, let's make something together. Yeah. And they were able to do that in that gigantic castle right outside of Cologne. And remember, there's other artists, sculptors, painters also working and living in that castle and also complaining about the noise that Can is making because that's what they're doing right now. They're making noise. A lot of noise. And that's what they do every day. Every day, the guys in Can would go into the studio at around, like, 11 or noon and they would stay until after midnight working on their music. They're not living there. They're, like, not a commune like Armand Dool, right? No. Like, they actually go home to their families and stuff once in a while. But they are still committed to this idea of throwing away all their influences and starting something new, which, of course, is impossible. But we're going to try. We're going to try, damn it. We don't want to be like our predecessors. Oh, you mean the Nazis? Yes. This is spontaneous and fun. And sometimes, a lot of times, it sucked and it wasn't good. Armand even said there were many times where he thought, this is a stupid idea. The fuck am I doing here? I have a fucking... He just goes in a corner, just being like, calling his wife on a phone booth, being like, I could have had a career with a symphony. I could be hanging out with Lernon Bernstein right now. It's saddening, I'm hanging out with a bunch of hippies in a hallway. I have a fucking child. What the fuck am I doing here? He's about to have a child. But you know what? They kept going and they made sure to record everything they worked on because this is a recording studio. They're not rehearsing. They're making instant compositions. And remember, the rule with that is there are no rules. Yeah, yeah. Except maybe try not to sound like everyone else. Yeah. Yeah, because right now in Germany, this is like 1968 Germany, there are dozens of bands, maybe even more. They're all imitating British rock or American jazz. And we don't need to do that because it's been done before. So like Ermin said, we're not going to pretend we're from Nashville, Memphis, Brooklyn or Manchester because we're from Berlin, Straub and in Dresden. And I know that doesn't mean anything right now, but I promise you it will and it will. Trust me, Kraftwerk, come on. Well, they're from... Dusseldorf. They're from Dusseldorf. But still, you know, it's all in the same country. It is. I actually have a short clip that they recorded less than a year after their first show. This is them hard at work starting with a blank canvas. So remember, don't be too quick to judge. And also don't be too quick to judge your own creative pursuits because remember, this is where Cannes started. Yes, everyone starts in their own way. Hey. Actually, I take that back. That's pretty cool. It's no... I mean, it's no Beastie Boys Cookie Puss. That was the first single. But not even close. But you know what? It does kind of... It is a proto part of Cannes. Yeah. I mean, especially the type of stuff that we'll hear on their first and... Or not first, their third and fourth albums, you know, when they get a little bit more comfortable being themselves, which is, of course, where they started from. It's not always fun. Now, Ehrman's concept was a great idea artistically, but commercially it was a gamble that had no guarantee of paying off. As with any new idea, especially in the fucking music business, the odds of them pulling this off were extraordinarily slim. But while Ehrman Schmidt could still support himself with freelance conducting gigs, and Michael Caroli, he was converting Nazi money from his parents into the future of experimental music... It kind of washes a little bit. It's no excuse. He didn't know he was born into Nazi. No, he did not. But still, it is interesting that it goes from like, IG Farben to Harman Caroli to Tago Mago. Great. To Radiohead. See? See, there you go. Operation Radiohead. In Holger 2K, he only had a temporary cushion from cashing out his Volkswagen stock, so he wouldn't have to take another teaching job. Remember, Holger was a terrible teacher. Oh, yeah. He had unconventional methods. I don't know what that means, but it probably was not teaching. Yeah, sure. So it got him fired a lot. And likewise, drummer Jackie Liebeszeit, he was a World War II refugee. He'd crawled himself out of poverty by being one of the best drummers in Germany, and soon one of the best drummers in history. And when Jackie committed to something, he committed fully, and had therefore dedicated his entire existence to Cannes. So to keep their passion project viable for everyone, Herman used his connections to get the band gigs, composing scores for film and TV. And this would end up producing some of their greatest work, and it's their fucking day job. It's better than Hot Topic. Which was your day job. Okay, we all had... I also worked with children as the clown in the birthday party. It was certainly better than washing dishes and being a janitor, which was my day jobs. Composing music scores. That's amazing. Yeah. Now, Cannes did eventually compose and release some fair to middling projects under the name Interspace. They did the score to a soft-core porn called Kamasutra, Perfection of Love. That was actually released. It's fine. But their first... Did you watch it? No, I'm talking about the soundtrack. I listened to the soundtrack. Oh, okay, okay. It's totally fine. The movie's fantastic. Tour de force. No, it's just... it's Eastern music. You know, it's something that you'll hear by any Sitar album from 1967, and it's going to be pretty much the same as this, with a couple of blues tracks. Beautiful. But their first proper freelance gig was scoring a made-for-TV movie. The movie was called Millionspieler, and the title track that Cannes wrote, which really shows you how incredibly talented all these musicians already were coming into this, basically sounds like the Velvet Underground scoring an episode of Colombo. I would love to see that. Remember, they're doing that at the same time that they're doing the weird goofy shit that we listened to earlier. I don't think they called it weird goofy shit. But yes. Now, Cannes could very well have become one of Krautrock's many also-rans. You know a band who had big ambitions, but ultimately never released anything special outside of the odd soundtrack or score. And even then, Millionspieler, that wasn't released as a single. That was only released years later on the Lost Tapes, like maybe like five years ago? After they became pretty big, and they had a following and a legacy and everything. But when you listen to that, that's like a cartoon I want to watch. Yeah. But in 1968, Cannes took a leap of faith while they were still trying to figure out who they wanted to be. Because they were all determined to fully realize Ehrman's concept of combining as many different influences as they could to create something new. So instead of walking the conventional path, Cannes doubled down on the concept by recruiting a black sculptor from New York named Malcolm Mooney as their lead singer. And it would be Malcolm's percussive driving vocals that would push Cannes to the next level, bring him into the rock and roll space. Yes, exactly. Malcolm, he did bring a vibe to the group, which is definitely his American influence in the music he grew up listening to in Yonkers. Yonkers! Yonkers, New York. Yes, just a bit up north of the five boroughs of New York City. Anyone from Westchester? Okay. But it's still fine place. Tuck-a-ho and the Botanical Garden. And other stops. Right there next to the Cloisters. But still, Malcolm would take the train. He would still take the train down to lower Manhattan and check out great jazz piano players. His father played piano in several jazz clubs downtown, so it was easy to sneak in. But it wasn't just jazz Malcolm was listening to. He was into do-up and soul. And even though he wasn't much of a musician like his dad, he still picked up a thing or two. I believe he played the clarinet as a kid and ruined his sixth grade graduation by playing it in front of people. That's his own...he admitted himself. Oh yeah, he ruined the ever important sixth grade graduation concert. What is that anyway? Okay, yeah, but there is a fun story that he went rogue and the music teacher had to take his clarinet away. And so he's like, okay, so I'm not much of a musician because he was an artist. Like as in painting, drawing, sculpting, that's his passion. You should check out his artwork on his website or Google it. It's really cool. It reminds me a bit of some of Brian Eno's stuff. Yeah. Just the art stuff that is. It's fantastic. So by the time that Malcolm was done with art school, the Vietnam War was now front page news every day. And guys 18 to 26 years old were getting drafted to Vietnam and many of them weren't coming back. Yeah, and a lot of those guys getting drafted were black. Yes. It was...okay, yes. It was racist with extra steps where they would... If we really want to get into it, it is like a lot of times they would pool for more like black and Latino groups, of course. But they found ways to do it without...I can't get into this McNamara crap later. But yes, it was so... Find her at the bar. She'll tell you all about McNamara's draft policies. Just buy me a cherry soda and I'll do it with you all day. So, okay. Yes, Malcolm, he was 24 years old by 1968 and he doesn't want to go to war. Why would he? But as fate would have it, Malcolm had a friend named Josh who was going on an extended trip to India to meet a famous guru of the mountaintop. They were just going to go show up, by the way. They were just going to go see the guru on the mountaintop? Yeah, they were going to go talk to him, but unfortunately he... I believed he committed to 40 years of silence. And so, I don't know if they even made it because... Anyway, the point is that Malcolm was invited to go on this journey all across Europe. And this was going to be really cool and he would end up all over the world. I love this part. Now, after visiting nearly a dozen countries in Europe, North Africa and Southeast Asia over a period of several months, Malcolm was on his way back home to New York. It was on one of his last stops, however, in Paris, that Malcolm would meet Herman Schmidt's wife, Hildegard Schmidt. Now, Hildegard Schmidt is the most crucial person when it comes to the business and legacy of Cannes. If you'll remember, Herman's friends and family thought that he was fucking insane for pursuing this project when he already had a perfectly fine career in music. Hildegard, however, believed in Herman from day one. Yes, she was down. She was his biggest supporter. She had no problem with Herman giving up his fancy career in the elitist classical world to make up songs of hippies in an empty hallway. And we love her for that and much more. Yeah, I mean, that belief really demonstrated the essence of Hildegard's spirit. She's adventurous, highly intelligent, extremely savvy. Did not return my emails, but that's cool. She's so cool. Case in point was when she met Malcolm Mooney in Paris and immediately recognized that there was something special about this manic American. And it's not like Hildegard saw him like singing in a band or saw him like she just saw this dude and was like, this dude's fucking cool. Bring him back to Germany and we'll find something for him to do. See, Malcolm Mooney was first and foremost an artist and the Schmitz knew a lot of artists in Cologne, specifically those who worked and lived at Castle Norvige. Yeah, like Ulrich Rukrium, he lived and worked there with his family. He's a famous German artist sculptor. He's like famous for these huge stone sculptures or gigantic. So they're anti-theft, I believe. But they're all over in parks and stuff. Look at them. They're very pretty. So Hildegard, figuring that she could introduce Malcolm to some like minds, she invited him back to Cologne. And so with nothing more than 80 finninga in his pocket. How much is that? Less than a dollar. Oh, God. It's fucking nothing. Malcolm boarded a train to Cologne a few days after Hildegard made her offer and found his way to Ermen and Hildegard Schmitz's apartment. Yeah, so okay. I'm setting the scene, right? Because it's a smoky room because this is Germany. So Malcolm walks into Ermen's apartment and there is Holger and Michael sitting at the kitchen table smoking cigarettes. Yeah, Holger, a balding man with long hair and a big handlebar mustache. Michael Crowley, like a 20 year old guy, again with long hair. He's about to light another cigarette while still holding his other cigarette and they're all staring at him and they say, Hello, Malcolm, we have been expecting you. And Malcolm's thinking, Sprockets, how did I get here? No, seriously, he was the guy in a small smoky room full of Germans and Cologne and they're asking me if I could sing because that's the next question they ask. Can you sing? Just fun doing. Am I being interrogated? I don't know. Am I being detained, sir? Am I being detained? Okay, you see, Hildegard was still in Paris. She called Ermen and told him about Malcolm and that he's an artist and he should come over and everything. But Ermen was thinking like, oh, I don't care if he's an artist, we need a singer. Do you sing? So Malcolm said, like, yeah, I can sing. You mean like technically, yeah, sure. I literally have no money. I need to go along with this. There is no train back now. Maybe one of these guys will buy me a fucking sandwich. At least because I need something or a train. Just take me back. Well, after that, they took him out to Castle Norvinch and after he realized that he had been brought to the studio to audition for Ermen's band, not to check out a space to be a sculptor or a painter or anything, he took the situation in stride and listened to Cannes' latest recording. And before the song was even over, Malcolm grabbed a microphone and improvised a driving percussive lyrical performance that was entirely different from what Cannes had been doing previously. Once the instrumental side adjusted to Malcolm, his improvised performance would be what propelled the opening track on Cannes' debut album to another level. The result was Father Cannot Yell. I am Furtle and the father can't stand. Rainbow Action Down with Stoney Mind creates a big and it's a revel. And you keep me remembering Mother screaming high I'm mother, woman screaming high I'm Furtle and the father, he hasn't been born yet, he hasn't been born yet. All I've been forgot, you've been the faster dirt to rotten rays and smells. My brother is a destiny sculptor, mother there in KT-80, women he mislies their way to, and the father he hasn't been born yet, he hasn't been born yet. My god, they recorded this on the second take. He didn't have like a notepad or anything and his words to the song, they don't have a straight narrative really because Malcolm, he's making it up as he goes along. And he even said, I am not clear of what I'm actually doing. I just know I'm responding. You know, all that time hanging out in jazz clubs of his dad must be paying off because he's practically bebopping with all of them. And I don't know if I know what bebopping is. Bebopping? Yes. It's not scatting. No, but he's just, he's going along with it. He's responding to the music, his thoughts, his stream of consciousness with a groove. Yeah, he's definitely, he's just improvising. Bebopping. He's improvising. Okay, okay. Give me a better word. I'll think of it 20 minutes from now. Okay. Now, if you'll notice, drummer Jackie Leibesite and Malcolm Mooney locked together in that rhythm, specifically with the refrain, he hasn't been born yet. That's what, I think that's what Malcolm Mooney did is that with instead of listening, and that was, I think is genius, was that instead of listening to the guitar or the bass or the keyboard or anything, he listened to the drummer. And he's like, I'm fucking holding on to that guy. And that music relationship between the two of them would continue throughout Malcolm's time with Cannes. And it's generally accepted that the rhythm section during the Mooney years was between the drummer and the vocalist. But when it came to bassist Holger Csuké, the traditional second half of the rhythm section, he also found his place in Cannes outside of the conventional structure of a rock band with the recording of Father Cannot Yell. This second fucking take is just so extraordinarily important to the band from now on. Now, before Father Cannot Yell, Holger was playing more like a jazz bassist, just blasting his way through the song with as many notes as he could fit while keeping in time with Jackie's kick drum. Be bopping. Okay. That's a bit more be bopping. Oh, thank you. Good. I got it. I got one. You're getting closer. Gosh, I'm a host of a music show. Someone escort me. Security. But this wasn't Jackie's vision for a rhythm section. So he told Holger, never play Vi, play, never doubles the bass drum and play any way but that. And for fuck's sake, play less. I love Jackie. He's the best. Jackie's a very no nonsense type person. So Holger positioned his bass in the composition where one might position a guitar while avoiding drums altogether. And sometimes he'd play just a single note throughout a minutes long section of a Cannes song. Because that's what the song needed. And this, another piece of the organism that was Cannes, found its function. So in other words, Jackie said, when you hear this. Boom. You don't play. Right. And then when you hear this. Then you play. Yeah. That's basically what Marcus said. Right. Play around my shit. shit. Don't mess with my shit. I would say more accurately it's like when you hear boom boom boom don't play but when you hear play. Got it great cool I'm glad I'm not Holger right now. Or holding a bass guitar. Yes okay so Irmin Holger, Michael and Jackie they are all in with Malcolm now he is part of the group he is the perfect spontaneous charming madman that they need but as Malcolm is welcomed in remember David Johnson he leaves the band because you know I mean he's still helping out with engineering here and there with David Johnson the floutest yes the floutest the flutist he plays the flout there's still buddies like he'll engineer he'll help them out he'll mix her like their debut album and everything but he's just not into this new direction towards rock and roll that they're heading so David Johnson just goes back to the avant-garde world where he he believes he belongs so he goes back to composing as well as working with Carl Heinz Stockhausen particularly with a piece called himn. Okay guys with an extra n just just for emphasis because I wrote it wrong the first time okay himn means national anthems in German and it's uh it's kind of like this song or it's not like a song it's like a piece it's got many movements it's an electronic slash like concrete mashup of uh the national anthems of the world this is this is insane this is crazy stuff but hey check it out it's kind of cool actually I kind of got into it there's also like a whole syllabus if you want to follow it too yeah but but we're gonna do the himnon region 3 usa version right now yeah him region 3 is pretty fucking good region 3 might be my favorite region out of the four regions please please let's save it for our next date oh region 3 and that's like nine minutes into the third region uh aren't you glad we saved you a lot of trouble if you want to check it check it out definitely google it and definitely google the guide to it yeah that's what I would say it's 56 minutes long all together and yeah if you get it if you get the actual like LP which you know I got because this is what I love to listen to like late at night when I'm staring at the ceiling doing nothing I like to listen to stuff like this because it relaxes me good for you it's two records so it's a it's and it's got it you know a full appendix and it's a really impressive piece it's a very fucking cool if you're into this type of stuff which I think more people should be because it's just it opens up it's like I was talking about this opens up those new pathways you know makes you think about music in a different way when you go back and listen to the shit that you've listened to a billion times before you appreciate it in like a different way it's it's very cool I'm very passionate about this no it is it's very powerful stuff but I mean not like what the members of can are about to experience Marcus hell no because this is oh this next part is my favorite part okay so once Malcolm was decidedly in the group they all figured let's paint the town red yeah then they did and I and they decided to check out Jimi Hendrix live oh let's go concert let's go paint the red house yes at the sport alley in cologne that's like their Madison Square Garden so so this is really exciting this is the Jimi Hendrix experience with Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell playing right in front of the members of can yeah this is amazing I mean they weren't right in front the guys were in the nose bleed section I mean they have no money yeah they're broke but anyway we have this recording from that we took from the live in cologne record you know live Jimi Hendrix experience we got this for like 14 dollars this is amazing so this is the same show the same night that the guys in can saw on January 13th 1969 Hendrix performed Foxy Lady yeah which is great it's my old you know ringtone from back in the day voodoo child hey joe and this old girl of a classic the star spangled banner this old girl letter fox the the This is about eight months before Woodstock. So they heard it first, or one of the fifty times that they, Jimi Hendrix did it until Woodstock. I didn't know he workshopped it. I didn't know either. I see, wasn't it fifty eight times that he played it? Fifty or fifty eight. I don't know. Either way, it felt spontaneous at Woodstock, which means he did his job. Yeah, that was Hendrix's genius. I actually thought up until the age of forty one that Hendrix had done that just completely off the cuff because he thought, man, what a beautiful moment this is and decided to play the national anthem. But nope, he been fucking around with it for about a year at that point. In Europe, no less. Yes. So, with the experience of hearing this specific performance in Germany with the other members of CAN, this was a transformative moment for Ermin Schmidt. It was something akin to a lightning bolt striking the part of his brain that processed music. Like Harry Potter. So you're saying that Hendrix tried to murder Ermin Schmidt? What? I'm not throwing these allegations around so willy-nilly like that. See, with Hendrix's version of the Star-Spangled Banner, especially when compared with Karl Heinz Stockhausen's interpretations of national anthems, Ermin was finally seeing what a lot of people already knew, that rock music was not exclusively the realm of beat groups singing about girls and cars and heartbreak. Instead, rock was a genre where true art could live and thrive. So Ermin went all in when it came to integrating rock into his concept. All the band needed now was a better name than inner space. Now the story goes that the band chose their final name through a secret vote in which all the members wrote down 5 suggestions on pieces of paper and put them all appropriately into a tin can. Now Malcolm and Jackie had suggested the name CAN because it's short, it was a nod to Andy Warhol's Campbell Soup can prints, and as Malcolm put it, CAN was a slang term for ass in New York City. So Malcolm and Jackie rigged the vote and wrote CAN five times each, and thus the band was named by democratic process. Beautiful, beautiful, that's how it works these days. Now later, the band members found ways to add more meaning to the name. Malcolm later said it was a kind of affirmation for himself as in, I can do this, I can be in this band, I can stay in Cologne. While Jackie later appropriated a suggestion from an English newspaper that stated that CAN stood for communism, anarchism, and nihilism. Cool, Holger also says A stands for adventure. Because he's like a Rugrats adult or something, I don't know, but I love it, I love it. What does the C and N stand for? Oh, you don't want to know. I really don't. But no matter the origin, Ehrman's concept now had a proper name. They called themselves the CAN, although later they would drop the the between their second and third albums. Maybe die CAN. Decan. Oh, gotcha. No, actually they did go with the CAN. Oh, okay, so they're going to do it English because they want to do international because in a lot of places English is the international language like in FIFA and space sometimes, I don't know. I'm guessing. Anyway, so CAN, they've been, or THE CAN, they've been a band for about eight, nine months now. They're playing every single day and recording everything they do. They have so much material that they're able to parse through a lot of it and figure out, oh my God, we have enough for a whole album. We did it guys. We have enough for a whole album. This is the next step in Ehrman's plan of getting musicians together from different musical backgrounds to create a new kind of sound. And now it's time to show the public what they have. And to CAN right now, that means getting a record deal. But what's interesting about CAN is that they're not going to record labels handing out demo tapes. I mean, remember Joy Division? How badly they fucked that up? Yeah. And then they recorded... Terry. Yeah, when Terry... The manager. Yeah, when Terry took copies when they were still Borsaw and he recorded extra tapes to send to record labels, but he recorded it with a microphone while Coronation Street played in the background. They didn't do that. No. Listen to our Joy Division series. No. CAN actually already recorded the album. They took the entire production process into their own hands from day one, which is actually very forward thinking if you think about it, because 50 years later now it's kind of like you need a whole product before the industry even takes notice anymore. So they're already thinking so ahead and they're 30. Okay, so here's a song that they recorded for their debut album, the one they would call Prepare to Meet Thy Noom with a P. Silent P. I don't know what they were thinking. Guess where the P goes? In the beginning. And Panoon. So, okay. So here's one of their songs. It's Holger's favorite song of this era and it's just a few months after that Jimi Hendrix show. This song, I really like it. It's a really good song. It's a nice beginning. It's called Little Star of Bethlehem. And it's very Hendrix. Yes. That's always fucking railroads and trains with these people. Well, that is a local commodity. I don't know. I don't know. I don't. Anyway, so what happened to Prepare to Meet Thy Noom? Nobody wanted it. Yeah. They got rejected by every record label they sent their already finished album to. And I'm sure their rejections must have heard a little bit because their responses varied from you need a hit song and you don't have one or the sound quality isn't up to standard. Sorry, Holger. Of course, because the album, it was very lo-fi. They could only record with the two tape machines they had and they had at what a handful of microphones only and they couldn't even afford a mixing board. This is not exactly Electric Lady Studios. So it's very lo-fi and they're doing the best they can with the bare bones studio that they have in the castle. And since they're only recording on two tracks, they have to be very careful to not mess it up because otherwise, remember, no mixing board. If you mess it up, you have to start all over again and everyone else's time is wasted. Think about when you first started to learn Photoshop or dialing a rotary phone, but with other people in the room mad at you. It sucks. Yeah, it's like you're the one that has to call in and you'd be the 10th caller to get the fucking Backstreet Boys tickets and everyone's mad at you because you keep fucking it up. What? With the rotary phone. Oh gosh, oh gosh. How old are you? I got old enough to have called radio stations with a rotary phone. For Backstreet Boys tickets? Nah, I don't know why I said Backstreet Boys. It's okay. I just thought of one band that you call up and get tickets for. They're a vocal group, Marcus. Okay, sure, vocal group. Just go back. Bon Jovi. Let's sit Bon Jovi. Bon Jovi. Bon Jovi. They have good songs. Okay, so that's not all the rejections they got. They had one that must have really stung. One record executive said, your decent German group, but the Americans and the English can do it better. And frankly, that's what people want to hear and buy. I know. I mean, that's the exact opposite of what Herman was hoping for, the exact opposite of what he was trying because he was trying, like that's the thing is that they weren't just jerking off in a room. These are guys that are trying to make music to sell, to make a living. Yes, and to make it good in the way they want to. And that's not easy. No. That's the thing is that even though they wanted to make money, they didn't want to betray their artistic sensibilities. In essence, they wanted to have their cake and eat it too, which rarely works out in the music world. But once again, can bet everything on the possibility that this could work. And when Prepared Amethai Noom was rejected, they said, fuck it. Let's try again. But most importantly, they did this without blaming anyone else for their failure. If people don't like it, it's up to us to make something that they do like. See, Herman's concept, this wasn't just an intellectual exercise. This had to work financially. And when Cann gave it another go, they finally produced something that connected with the taste makers in Germany, which sometimes those are the first people you got to convince. Yes. As you were saying, I do find it admirable that the band just said, OK, let's keep trying, because there's three ways of going about being a creative and getting doors slammed in your face left and right for years. It's one, you either quit or two, you become bitter and keep going without any real self-reflection or listening to valuable feedback. Or three, you go the third route. The route we've all gone. You stop for a moment and you just let it happen. And that's how their next song happened. This was sometime in late July, 1969. All five members were in the castle working on their next song. Holger and Jackie were trying to work out a rhythm together. They were just doing the boom, boom, boom. Am I doing it right? There you go. They're doing this. They're like, OK, you go like that and I go like that. Remember, don't step on my shit. OK, got it. And they'd been at it for like an hour or two when Malcolm walks in with this just grim look on his face because he had gotten a letter from his girlfriend that morning. His girlfriend, she was an American who lived in Cologne too, but she eventually had to go back home to America. So she sent Malcolm a loving but sad letter and it said something like, I miss you. I wish you were here with me, but this is goodbye. And this was really crappy for Malcolm. You know, he's been having a hard time adjusting to living in Cologne for the last year. It can be pretty lonely when you don't speak the language. And Malcolm, he works great with his bandmates, but there's like a bit of a language barrier there. And losing your English speaking girlfriend. And then she tells you to move on. So as Holger and Jackie continued working on their rhythm, the boom, boom, stah. There we go. That's when Malcolm already having a lot of feelings grabs a microphone and with a letter in his hand, he starts reading parts of it while adding his own thoughts to it at the same time. The title of this song is straight from a line Malcolm's girlfriend said to him in the letter and it said, you do right. Now that you're in love with me, you made a believer out of me, babe. You made a believer out of me. You said you, I do you right. You said you, I do you right. You said you, I do you right. You said you, I do you right. You said you, I do you right. You said you, it's all right. You said you, it's all right. You said you, I do you right. You said you, I do you right. You said you, I do you right. You said you, I do you right. When I ask that's wrong, I say okay. Oh, I'm in love with my girl. She's away. I need your help. I need your love today. I send a letter right away. I send a letter right away. When I was blind for now I see. Now that you're in love with me, you made a believer out of me, babe. Baby, baby, baby, it's okay. You said you, I do you right. You said you, I do you right. I don't have a driver's license, but I'll send a car and scream that out in the driver's seat, in the parking lot. You can do that in our driveway. Listen, it took 12 hours to compose that song. All in one day, one long 12 hour day where Malcolm had to sit with his feelings of getting dumped. And it worked. Well, that's the thing is that you do right session. It wasn't 12 hours of straight playing. Okay, they took, yeah, they had lunch. But they had a couple of breaks, but it was damn near. I mean, the song didn't necessarily evolve as they played it throughout the day. As Herman put it, the song just became more complete because they were all trying to play with as much restraint as they could. They were all trying to play with as much restraint as possible because they wanted to create a tension that counterpointed Malcolm's desperate delivery. And they wanted to use these like cyclical patterns and repeated lyrics. You made a believer out of me. You made a believer out of me. And the band achieved this through the process we mentioned in episode one, instant composition. Making shit up on the fly. That's right. And it's great. But with intention. He left through a window and he took Michael Crowley with him to get some food. Like they went for a long walk. They had a long talk. They got brought worse than beer. They walked all the way back and then when they got back to the studio, the guys are still playing the same damn song. So Malcolm just jumped back on the mic and continued on. That's how they do things. And that's how it works because Herman said Malcolm really makes his life into an art form. And that's how the personal moment or feeling and expanding it to something universal. Gwen Stefani has done that once or twice. And don't make fun of me. Anyway. Malcolm is an artist. Malcolm, he makes art out of a shitty situation in this case. And listening to Michael's guitar and listening to Holger. Even Holger said, I felt that real human emotion too. Everyone in the room understood what Malcolm was going through. It was like Stalic 17 or Cool Hand Luke. I'm all with him on this. I love those movies. It's Mad at Damn Damn Eggs. Yeah, that actually. George Kennedy. Underrated. So what we're saying basically is you do right as Malcolm Mooney getting mad at Damn Damn Eggs. Exactly. And everyone else saying good. Let that end up just rubbing his stomach the whole time. You do right ended up running 20 minutes, an entire side of the eventual LP. It was all a side B. And the thing is about that is that that 20 minutes, that's just the best 20 minutes out of that day. They just lifted that up and put it on the record. But it was those 20 minutes that caught the attention of a forward thinking musician named Karl Heinz-Karli Frenik. Now when Karl- Wait, wait, he's German. Oh yeah, Karl Heinz-Frenik. I'm gonna be clear. And it's probably Karl. Now when Karl- He was himself transitioning out of a solo career as a singer-songwriter. In 1966 Karl had briefly styled himself as Germany's answer to Bob Dylan with the song Ich bin ein Deutscher. Ich bin ein Deutscher. Und ich bin ich sehr stolz. Wenn ich mich in der Welt bewege. Man ist ewig ein Fremder. Einige sind noch Behände. Man schmeißen einem gleich wieder raus. Man erinnert sich, schimpft und zieht mich am Haar. Everybody now. Sorry, you don't know the words. And that was put up by Star Club Records too. Yeah, no, it's pretty good. We got Bob Dylan at home. But you know what, he did a good job. Yeah, he did alright. Now by 1969 Karl Heinz had pivoted to the film and television industry. And after being shown some early footage of Cannes in the studio video footage, he immediately wanted to meet the band. Because he was already in the process of setting up one of Germany's first independent record labels. Yes, Schithaus Records. Schieishaus. Yes, that was the name of Karl-Frenik's record label. He was just setting up and soon to be folding. Because Schieishaus records, Schithaus records, he thought it was hilarious. Yes. Okay, so I mean, you know. Actually, I think there was also a punk label in America called Schithaus Records. I believe you're correct. It's some, the West Coast people. We'll talk about it later. It sounds like a West Coast punk record label. Absolutely. So yes, Karl-Frenik, he believes Cannes has a lot of potential. And at this time and in this place, they truly sound like no one else. And they're going to fucking prove it. So in late August, 1969, The Cannes released their debut album, Monster Movie. Thanks to Karl-Frenik, Schithaus Records. Or I think they had to call it Music Factory, a division of Schithaus Records. So they could print it on the record because Gemma was not going to deal with that shit. They printed 500 copies because I think that's all they could afford. Plus, they weren't sure if anyone was going to buy this crap. So, it's not crap by the way, but you know, that's probably what they're thinking to themselves. Karl-Frenik, he started taking the records around and selling them to head shops and other underground spots. You know, very, uh, I haven't got a college student, you know, go to a bench and find a bunch of guys with long hair and just be like, hey, you guys want to buy this for a co-c- Where'd the cool kids hang? Yeah, of course. And it worked because Cannes album got around all 500 copies sold out and word of mouth got them a bit of buzz. Now, now, today, do you want to know how much the original pressing of Cannes Monster Movie, which is the most records by the way, a division, a division, is worth today? I know, but I'd like, I would like you to let the audience know. Okay, one LP out of 500 pressings right now on Discogs.com. It's on sale for $11,234. Jesus. Just one record. Yeah, one single record. And out of the top 20 most expensive records ever sold on Discogs, which Discogs is like the online marketplace for records, and the Monster Movie that pressing a monster movie shows up twice at, I think, $14,000 and $12,000. My God. Yeah, it's a nice car. Now, in the fall of 1969, Cannes played a residency in Zurich, and the near 30 shows they played in just two months allowed them to truly lock in the concept of instant composition in a live setting, which is much different from a studio. I mean, that didn't mean that it worked every time. Sometimes it was an absolute disaster, but the process, at the very least, became defined. For Malcomuni, though, this residency was a mental and physical drain, besides the exhausting task of improvising lyrics in every performance. And that's the thing. I don't know if we really got into that too much, is that like Malcomuni's lyrics, like, they're improvised every fucking time. Yeah, sometimes he'll go with something, and sometimes he'll go repeating something upstairs, downstairs, and he'll get into this thing for about 30 minutes just saying upstairs, downstairs. But whatever he's doing is really taking a lot out of just taxing his brain and his body. Yeah, and he's also doing these songs that are lasting 20, 30 minutes, him going, I, are you waiting for the street car? And just doing that over and over and over again, and improvising and making it sound fucking awesome. But Jesus Christ, that's tiring. Yes. Malcomuni was also drinking a bottle of wine on stage most nights. And this, paired with a heavy hash habit, meant that Malcomuni's already brittle psyche was starting to crack. Yeah, Malcomuni was definitely, he was feeling homesick by this time. Like I said before, he's living as a foreigner, and he doesn't really speak the language. He said himself, he got self-conscious. Because how can you not, if you keep putting this workout, and his work in Cannes was getting more difficult for him. And also, we have to remember, Malcomuni is a black man in 1969, in Germany, in the US, in anywhere. It cannot be easy. I mean, I don't know what it's like to be a black man, but I know it's like to be a foreigner. And he was both, and dealing with mental issues, I just can't even begin to understand. But from what I've seen in interviews, and some of his writing, is that he's really authentic, and he's a caring person who's just suffering at that time, and he really needed help. 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Get the deal. Believe in chicken. KFC. Available until 17th of May. Subject to availability. Participating restaurants only. Not available on delivery. See website for full desancies. Now, during the Zurich residency, Malcolm came to accept that his time in Cannes was coming to an end. One day, when Malcolm showed up late to rehearsal at the theatre, he decided to stand in the back and just listen to the band play without him. After a while, he realized that the music was good enough on its own. Jackie and the boys, they didn't really need Malcolm anymore. And that's not in a bad way. It's just more in the sense that Malcolm could leave without feeling like he'd abandoned his friends. This realization actually came at the right time. Because by the time Cannes returned to Cologne in November of 1969, Malcolm's emotional state was getting desperate. Malcolm was manic depressive, and it was starting to really show. And this anguish would be no more on display than in a song Cannes did for a movie called Medkin mit Gewurt, which literally translates to Girl with Violence. In America, it was called The Brutes. Sort of like Last Hour. It's like a revenge film. I don't know. I mean, I don't even think it survived anymore. No, I don't think you can see it anywhere. Yeah, it's like I spit on your grave. It's that sort of movie. I gotcha. I mean, to each his own. To each his own. Now, originally, Herman told Holger that they shouldn't make this song too interesting, lest they ruin the film. To that, Holger said, Oh, come on, let's destroy the movie. And destroy it they did with one of Malcolm Mooney's classic. Yes. This is Soul Desert. Cha Cha Soul Desert. Cha Cha La Soul. Cha Cha La Soul Desert. Cha Cha La Soul. Cha Cha Soul Desert. Cha Cha La Soul. Cha Cha La Soul Desert. Cha Cha La Soul. Just one thing that's really interesting, because he went as Desi at that time. So him repeating desert desert, this kind of like, it just feels like he's calling his own name out. Yeah. It's very, very interesting. And I just noticed this just now. No, I actually, I'd never noticed that either. Now, Malcolm's mental state had been unraveling even before Zurich. And his manic depressive tendencies were by the end of 1969, rapidly cycling. As his friends put it, Malcolm was constantly walking the tightrope of mental stability. Sometimes it could be a lot of fun, but a lot of times it was rough. Sometimes an episode would be small and relatively harmless, like when he manically walked eight miles to town from Ehrman's house in the freezing cold and stopped on the way to help some road workers repair cobblestones for a couple of hours, just because he'd never done that before. Other episodes, however, would be devastating, like when Malcolm locked himself in Ehrman's cupboard for four days, refusing to speak because some of Cannes' leftist friends told him that he should be ashamed that he was playing music in Germany instead of fighting for his civil rights in America. Oh, fuck you, man. Yeah, go fuck yourself. I mean, do not shame when... Where do you come from? Where are your parents? If they're not dead, they're complicit. No, they're not. Okay, maybe they might be. I don't know, but still, how dare you fucking judge? Yeah, exactly. How dare you fucking judge? Why am I so mad? It's been 50 years. Longer. The breaking point, however, came from a major manic depressive episode when Malcolm decided on a whim to drive to Zurich from Cologne to see his girlfriend, who was visiting Europe from America. Lacking any documentation whatsoever, Malcolm was stopped at the German border. Overwhelmed, and by this time frenetic, Malcolm tried crashing through, which led to a fistfight and an arrest. Ehrman was called to save Malcolm in the middle of the night, but by the time Ehrman arrived, the consequences of Malcolm's actions in his manic state had already settled in, and Malcolm was found crumpled in the cell, crying, confused, and, once again, refusing to speak to anyone. Malcolm was in such a state that he still doesn't remember how he got the money to get back to America, but by December of 1969, a month after Cannes residency in Zurich ended, Malcolm Mooney was out of the band and back in New York. But just before leaving, Malcolm recorded a song that was intended for Cannes' next album. Oh, it's so good. It's incredible. It's an almost tranquil tune. It's the most romantic song Cannes ever recorded. I would venture to say it was the last romantic song Cannes ever recorded. I'll take that challenge. It was dedicated to guitarist Michael Corolli's sister, who you might be able to picture as one of the two models on the cover of Country Life by Roxy Music. But considering Malcolm's mental state during this recording, She Brings the Rain is made all the more beautiful by its singer's perseverance in the midst of a total mental breakdown. She Brings the Rain. Oh, yeah, she brings the rain. In the dawn of the silvery day, clouds seem to melt away. She Brings the Rain. Oh, yeah, she brings the rain. She Brings the Rain. It feels like spring. Magic mushrooms out of dreams. She Brings the Rain. Oh, yeah, she brings the rain. It's a beautiful song, and it really shows that Malcolm Mooney is so... He's just so much more than an emotional and percussive vocalist. I wish we could have seen more from him, but they did have a reunion many years later, and there's time maybe we'll talk about it. We'll see. Yeah, of course. No, it does. I mean, this was meant to be on Cannes' next album. This wasn't just a soundtrack. Like, it was a soundtrack, but yeah, they... I mean, it was a soundtrack. But they wanted it to be for, like, that was a possible direction for Cannes. Right. That, of course, changed when Malcolm Mooney left. Yeah, so, yeah, okay. So back to this, you know, crazy time with Malcolm, leaving to spend time with his family and taking care of his physical and mental needs. The band, Cannes, they're still pushing along. It's 1970 now, and for the first time in Cannes' short history, they actually got good news. I'm serious. Their friend, Callie Frennic, Bob Dylan at home, he was able to get the band a record deal with Liberty United, artist records. Okay, I'm saying that weird. Because Liberty Slash United artist records. Eventually, Liberty will... When they do the merger, Liberty will be gone, and it's just called United's Artist Records. It's a major international label. It's a big fucking deal. Exactly. And they were actually one of the labels to turn Irmin down when he tried to shop, prepare to meet... Boom. Boom. This is very interesting. So they got their deal because of two things. One, believing in someone's project and two connections. That's how it happens sometimes, right? Callie Frennic, he believed in Cannes' potential, so he brought one of the 500 copies of Monster Movie, and he gave it to Siggy Locke, who was head of Germany's branch of United Artist Records. He was just blown away. He loved this. He couldn't... He's like, this is so original. This is so cool. We don't have this in Germany. Siggy Locke had already signed Amandoul II just the year before, and he didn't regret that. No. He just put out God's cock, and he's like, I want more. Foul stay. Yes. In Latin, it's awesome, and it was selling pretty well at that time, so why not take a chance on another cool local band like Cannes? So when Cannes signed the contract with Liberty's last United Artist... Okay, let's call it Leonardo's Artist. They unfortunately couldn't do it with their friend Callie Frennic because he was in Greece at the time. Greece, the country, not the musical. No. Who? Who? Who? He wouldn't do that? I'm just saying this because Callie actually wrote the German version of Hair that we will talk about later. But yes, he was in Greece, the country, and so without knowing what to do, Callie contacted his friend, Abbey Offram. He was a former singer, turned music publisher, and he asked him to sign the contract for him. This would prove to be an extraordinarily bad idea since Abbey Offram signed it with his name, not Callie's. Sorry, I accidentally signed my own name, you know? So Abbey became their agent and their manager. Became Cannes' agent and manager? Yes, no, not Callie's. He's in Greece. He actually became Cannes' agent and Cannes' manager and even convinced Siggi Locke to pay him double what Siggi gave Callie because he promised I'm going to make them all big stars. If you go with me, yes, whatever you do, I'm going to make you guys really successful. I'm going to get you guys in convertible VWs it by the end of the year, right? I've heard that before. So in August 1970, United Artists Records released Cannes' monster movie with massive distribution in Germany and in the UK. This finally got Cannes' attention in the right places. Their album cover art was on the cover of the German music magazine Sounds and as a fun surprise, they got a pretty positive review in one of UK's premier music magazines, Melody Maker, who we don't always agree with, but they are huge. Okay, so the review was four short paragraphs. But hey, monster movie only had four songs, so that's fine. It pretty much said they sure love the Velvet Underground. Which they did, they did. Who does it, right? But the review did end with a sentence that I'm sure Irmin was proud to read. It said, nobody in Britain is playing this kind of music, which is well worth hearing. Boom, match, there you go. Fuck off. Yeah, it only took one failed album. An entire album. So with Malcomoonie back in New York with no plans to return, Cannes auditioned dozens of lead singers. None even came close to fitting the bill, because as one member of Cannes put it, the problem with every singer they auditioned was that they could all sing. But just before the band was about to continue without a vocalist altogether, they stumbled upon a miracle in the city center of Munich. This miracle's name was Damo Suzuki, and he would soon begin the path that would make him one of the most singular voices in the history of rock and roll music. Music Music Music Music Music Music It's quite a change. It's quite a dramatic change. It's an incredible change. And I love this era. This is going to be really, really cool and really interesting. I mean, this is the era that people know Cannes for. This is where Cannes' big hits are. This is where Cannes becomes Motherfucking Cannes. So thank you for waiting for three hours to get to Cannes, the Motherfucking Cannes, because we got to get into Damo Suzuki. I mean, Kenji Suzuki, that's his government name. He'd later pick up the nickname Damo after a manga character. So we're going to call him Damo. That's the name he wants? That's the name we're going to give him. So Damo's from the seaside town of Oiso, which is south of Tokyo in Japan. And his father, he was an architect and later an interpreter for the U.S. military after the war, but he died unexpectedly when Damo was just five years old, which was devastating. But fortunately, Damo lucked out with a super strong-willed and tough-minded mother who raised four kids on her own by running a small grocery store. And with a lot of determination and hard work, Damo's mother managed to send all her kids to private school. They even went to college, except Damo, actually. I mean, that's one of the things that I find incredible about Cannes is that it's completely made up of men from post-war countries, from Germany and Japan. Like, from the losers. They just needed an Italian and they would have had the trifecta. Oh, my God. But Damo, he's not a loser. I mean, yes, he's not big into school. He would skip class to take the train into town and watch live Japanese bands cover American and British rock music. And when he couldn't decide whether he liked the Beatles or the Stones, he decided to go with the Kinks. He's that kind of guy. This is the village ring, preservation site. Damo even ran a chapter of the, I believe, unofficial Kinks fan club in his hometown in Japan. I do not believe Ray Davis showed up at any time. But he did say that all they did was listen to records and just talk about music and stuff. And so he was just not going to school like ever. But that's fine, because by 17 years old, Damo was really done with school anyway. And that's because he's about to figure out his path in life. And the thing that helps him come to that realization was a cigar-shaped UFO, or what they call now UAP. His sighting is legit. Like it's a legit fucking UFO sighting. In 1967, Damo was outside the train station near his school in Odawara where he saw an oblong shaped flying object that was deep, deep blue with no windows on it. And it moved in a way, right, left, down, up, up, down. That, of course, wasn't technically possible for any other kind of aircraft. UAP. As they all say. Damo could not believe his eyes, but he knew what he saw, damn it! And that experience pushed Damo to what he really wanted to do, which was to travel and see the world. Maybe not other worlds, but this one. There are more things in heaven and earth ratio than I dreamed in your philosophy. So, yes. He was not tied down to his home in any way. And actually he preferred to live in Europe for the rest of his life later. So, it makes sense. His destiny is over there. So, after spending seven months working at his uncle's business for a one-way ticket, Damo Suzuki, on his 18th birthday, got on a ship from Japan to Russia where in Moscow he experienced negative 30 degree weather, which is negative 22 degrees in Fahrenheit. He felt this for the first time in his life. Yeah, it's fucking cold. But that was just a stopover. Because then he went over to Finland, then spent some time in Sweden, then kind of stopped in Germany. He went to Norway. Spent a lot of time in Ireland, made good friends there. He just bounced around a lot. Because he goes wherever the wind blows. And it doesn't bother Damo that he practically spoke no English or any European language. He's very clever and sweet-natured and funny. I mean, he wins over strangers with his charm and his broken guitar that Damo would take around and bust for spare change. Like, he wasn't particularly good at guitar, but he could improvise with two or three chords and put together folk-type songs or pieces of songs and just kind of charm the local people. Well, he could be entertaining. And that's all he needed to do to get his next, like, you know, like 20 Deutschmarks to move on to the next place. Exactly. Like, whatever could bring money for food and traveling, because even though he's a traveler, a tourist, he's technically a homeless wandering hitchhiking streak musician. But with a heart of gold. Yeah. And even if he's crashing in park benches and couch surfing, like, he did find a cool spot, though. He found a cool spot in Amanduul Tu's commune. If you guys remember from our last series, way back when. And I'm not sure if he stayed at the Cronwinkle Castle or at the apartment in the center of Munich. I believe it might have been that one. But there he was in Munich hanging out with Amanduul Tu, which is really fucking awesome. If you ask me. So, yes, Damo, he didn't make any music with Amanduul or anything, but he did appreciate their lifestyle and aesthetic. And by this time, Damo's hair was long as fuck. In pictures, if you look at it, it goes either down his, past his waist or at least below his shoulders. And that is long for a guy in 1970. So it's 1970 now. So that means he's been a homeless street musician for almost two years already, which is crazy. But now that Damo is in a big city in Munich and there's a million busking musicians, he's going to start looking around for work. Because he needs money. And it can't be too hard since the city was already busy preparing for the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. Oh, those? Yes, yes. Nothing will go wrong. Nothing, I say. Tons of jobs there. But you know what? Fortunately, Damo ended up instead in a better place. He ended up in the new hit musical called Hair. Which was written by? The German translation was written by? Bob Dylan, we have a home. Khaled Prenik wrote the German, he translated it. The German libretto, yeah. Exactly. So yeah, Damo actually got into the musical Hair because he has the hair. Yeah. Now, mostly he was either dancing or shouting in hair. And he was even given a nude scene at the end of the first act, couple of dudes lathering him up on stage. If it's get your kit to the plot, yeah, then do it, man. He got that part because his acting wasn't very good. Because it really was the case that he was in hair solely because he had the hair. He doesn't have any lines. No, but he gets what? What lines is he going to deliver? But Damo Suzuki was not the only famous singer to break out of this particular production of hair. Damo shared the bill with the disco queen herself, Donna Summer. Yes. And her very first single, released in 1968, almost a decade before I Feel Love. And this wasn't her first German single, this was her first single ever. It is an incredible German version of the age of Aquarius called Vossama. Damo was like, I didn't know her, but she was talented. Yeah, it's Donna Summer. No, I know. I'm just saying that he did write it in his book, in his autobiography, I Am Damo Suzuki. And he did say she was talented and very nice. Yeah, of course. It's Donna Summer. And actually she got her name Summer because she married a German guy whose last name was Somer. And when they printed her very first single, they misspelled it as Summer. And so she became Donna Summer from then on because it sounded cool. Very cool. Yeah. RIP. Now in May of 1970, Holger Chouquet and Jackie Levisite were sitting outside of a Munich bar around the corner from the Blow-Up Club. Blow-Up Club, that was where Amandoul 2 had been regulars around this same time. But on that day, Cann were about to start their own sold out four night residency at the Blow-Up. So Holger and Jackie were killing time before the first show. Yeah, because you remember they don't prepare anything. So you might as well just go get lunch or something. Yeah. And that's when they saw Damo Suzuki busking, although the term busking doesn't quite apply here. According to Holger, Damo was, quote, making an incantation to the sun. His more performance art than playing guitar for spare change. But that's how Holger put it. The way Damo remembered it, these performances more often involved him standing in the street while screaming out of frustration. But no matter what Damo was actually doing that day, without ever hearing him sing, Holger turned to Jackie and said, Jackie, this man wird unser neuer Zange sein. In English, that means, Jackie, this man will be our new singer. Thank you, Google Translate. Thank you. And after a very brief, incredulous response from Jackie that Holger all but ignored, Chuke walked over to Damo to ask him what his plans were. Was he like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's too fucking late now. Now we have a singer. Damo said he had nothing going on. So Holger asked him if he wanted to sing in a band for a sold out concert that night. And Damo said, I believe he said, is there going to be a sound check? And they're like, no. Is there going to be practice rehearsal? Anything, any kind of meeting? No. All right, yeah, I'll do it. Absolutely. And that is how it worked, because Damo stepped on the stage with Cann in front of 1,500 people at the blow-up club. And this was crazy because Damo, like they were watching him intently. He started out very quietly. Holger even described him as more like a cool samurai. But then. What a cool samurai. I don't know. The words, everything seemed very cool and very mellow for a little bit, because we know Damo could be mellow. Yeah. But then somehow somewhere halfway through the song or through the set, he just started getting aggressive and he unleashed his fighting samurai. Yeah. According to Holger. So when that happened, it got confrontational. It got aggressive. And the audience were not liking that at all. Actually, some people were scared. They were moving back to the room. They were leaving. They couldn't handle this because, as Herman described it, he called it the most violent performance he had ever seen before in his life or even after. And this man is over 80 years old today. It was like an Antonin, like, art-todd fever dream that was too weird for even an Antonin to write. Okay, so there was panic in the audience. They got scared. They started fleeing the auditorium. But it wasn't just Damo that was doing this. He wasn't, like, just freaking everyone out because the guys in Ken were all so crazy. Herman had put two huge bricks on his keyboard, on the keys, and turned it up to the highest volume, like, what's 11 in German? Michael, he put his guitar against a loudspeaker to make that loud feedback and just stood there looking at it. Jackie's face is all red by drumming like a madman. And then I can't believe I'm saying this. The cake comes out. Holger, who was supposed to be playing bass, somehow comes back with what Herman described as a huge bag of cake. I don't know. When they do these interviews, they're usually in English, and maybe some of this stuff gets lost in translation. Maybe you just put a cake in a bag. I don't know what they were doing in Germany back then. 1970. Anyway, Holger's holding the bag of cake. When Damo reaches inside, he takes two handfuls of cake and he rubs it all over his face and everywhere. The keyboard is screaming, the guitar feedback is screaming, Damo is screaming, and there's fucking cake everywhere. Actually, we did a bit of a reenactment, I guess you could say. We did it in our homes, in our home, quote unquote, home studio. Yeah, it's just a room with a couple instruments. But we reenacted the whole thing just so you guys can kind of have an idea of what kind of music was emanating from this huge auditorium. Here he goes. That's the guitar feedback right there. Keyboard. Keyboard. There's the keyboard. There's the bricks. We got those locally sourced. So that was it for about what, an hour? Hour and a half. Hour and a half. And by the time they were done with their sets, most of the 1,500 people or so had left the club. And about 30 people remained, including a very confused David Niven. He's a famous British actor. Please watch A Matter of Life and Death. It's a really great movie. Now David Niven, he's the actor that you, when you imagine a British actor from the 1940s with a mustache going, I say old man, it's David Niven. Yeah, and read his books. They're insane. Yeah. Anyway, so David Niven was brought there by Cairns new manager, Abby Offram. Remember when he stole that from Callie? Yeah. Right, Nick? That asshole. Anyway, I mean, Abby, that's it. So Abby, he wanted to bring a celebrity to make him look cool and all important and show off his new band that he was managing. But all David Niven saw was a loud screeching feedback show. And with a Japanese street performer yelling, cake, eat cake, everyone take some cake. And Abby offram, he was humiliated by the whole experience. He was pissed at Ken and Damos and spent the rest of the night apologizing to David Niven, who was tickled pink by the performance. Felt it. Yes, David Niven even told Holger. He thought it was amazing, the great show. But I don't know if that was music, but cool. All right, man, keep it going. Not sure I just saw old boy, but it was quite a rocking good time. Exactly, exactly. Oh, Clark Gable did something like that one time, but with his ass. So Carol Lombard was there, was weird. So the promoters and club owners, they hated the show. They hated Ken, the audience, almost all of them hated it too. And their manager, Abby, the whole show was a disaster, except it wasn't. Because Ken actually intentionally bombed that show. I found out much later. I thought they were just doing it for fun because that's like how they were feeling. But they bombed it because they hated their manager. That was the beginning of hating their own manager and screwing it up. Thank you replacements. Although they did love their manager. So I guess it might be fair to say that Damo was invited on stage in order to be bad? I think it just kind of came together. Like a cake. Like the ingredients of a cake. But Herman Schmitt, he did say that after the show that they knew that Damo was the right man for them. And therefore he was in. Now the show at the blow-up club had been a lot of fun for Damo. Even though most everyone in the crowd hated it besides David Niven. I know, I love that. Put it on the thing on the CD. So Damo left his role in Hair and joined Ken. Because again, that's just what Damo does. But when Suzuki entered the studio with Ken for the first time as their new lead singer, the reality was far different from what he was probably expecting when that strange man with the handlebar mustache asked him to be their vocalist. Holger? Holger. Quite suddenly Damo found himself 350 miles away from Munich in a castle in Cologne with four extraordinarily talented and more importantly highly disciplined musicians. Strangers. And they were all expecting him to slot into this concept they'd been working towards for years. As such Damo was having doubts about what he was actually doing there. And as a result he was in a pretty fucking bad mood. Or at least a bit of a. Yeah. Ken meanwhile didn't care whether he stayed or left. They figured it'd be nice to have him, but if he can't do it, he can't do it. But thankfully Damo reached deep into his Dada's soul and produced his first recorded performance with Ken. A soundtrack to a movie called Cream entitled Don't Turn the Light Off. Leave me alone. Fight a looking in Burning black Sing a song One nation They say They don't like it What I love I like loving What they do Ever since that movie today It will be Dear love too All around All the trees Don't turn the light off All around All the trees Don't turn the light off Now after Cream, Ken moved on to a movie called Deep End. The director had listened to Monster Movie and had been blown away by Udo Wright and wanted something similar for his movie. He wanted a piece of music about 20 minutes long that played under a linear series of very different scenes, but also changed with each scene while also being a cohesive composition. Okay, I'll accept that challenge. Small target. So, Irma decided the way to do that would be to have Jackie play a single monotone rhythm throughout to anchor the entire song. That's brilliant. That's the beginning of something. I promise you. That's like, you know, 2001 Space Odyssey. We're there. This is the monolith. Yes, this is the time where you raise the bone and now you're making a tool. Yeah. Now, incredibly, although this song is edited and taped together from multiple recordings, Jackie Liebesite kept the exact same rhythm in every recording without using a click track. This is an incredible feat for a drummer. And he marked each change from loud to quiet with a resounding overdub thwom on his tom. The result was possibly, I don't know, I'd say top three favorite canned songs for me. Mother Scott. Yeah. Now here in Mother Sky, this is when Jackie Liebesite really starts coming into his own. This is what we call hall pass. Wait, are you saying that Jackie Liebesite's your fucking hall pass? I don't believe in hall passes. I think it's stupid. But it does exist. Jackie Liebesite is just, yeah. You know what? I'm not going to even get mad. You shouldn't get mad. You should be like, have fun with my wife. I'm not fucking getting cooked by Jackie Liebesite. He has passed away many years ago. And I'm sorry, I beat all respect to Jackie Liebesite. I just love talent. Yeah, you love drummers. Now the beat Jackie Liebesite used in Mother Sky is one of the earliest examples of a defining feature in the loose genre that would come to be known as krautrock. That beat is what's known as the motorrick, which translates in German to motor skills. Basically, this simple beat that... This is one of the things that gives certain krautrock songs its drive, its propulsion. And it is quite possible that the drive Jackie found for Mother Sky is an extension of what he learned while playing with Malcolm Mooney. But while Mother Sky is the motorrick beat with a slight variation, it's not your classic... The most well-known examples were from former or active members of the band Kraftwerk. Particularly, the beat is most on display in the song Hallow Gallo. Oh my God, just put this on everything. Put this on every playlist that you'll ever make. Yes, it's by the Kraftwerk offshoot band. Oh come on, it's better than that. I mean, it's technically offshoot band. Is it technically enough? It's like a frazier to the cheers. It's better. Actually, that is the great way to put it. Yes, Noi is to Kraftwerk what frazier is to cheers. Don't get this smart just naturally. It's Hallow Gallo. No, that song of course shares quite a bit in common with the Kraftwerk hit Autobahn. Which we love. And saw Kraftwerk live and I almost didn't believe that they were playing, but they were. They were. They were. They were very amazing. They were incredible. Fascinating. Fascinating band. Now Mother Sky was only Damo's second recording with the band. But with this session, Damo gained a more complete understanding of what his place could be within the Cann organism. And the Cann organism itself evolved as a result. See, where East Malcolm Mooney locked in with Jackie Leibesite's drumming because he was a more rhythmic singer, Damo Suzuki was more melodic, more ethereal and more mysterious with both his delivery and his lyrics. The way Ermin Schmidt described Damo, he was less a singer and more a phenomenon. If Mooney Stah was a steady thunderstorm, Damo Suzuki's was a foggy snow that hid sporadic strikes of lightning. As such, Damo formed a relationship with guitarist Michael Corolli, partly because Damo's vocal style matched more with Michael's melodies and partly because Michael and Damo were the same age. They were both about 10 years younger than the rest of Cann. Yeah, they were like in their early 20s, mid 20s by this point. Yeah, and the rest of Cann was in their early 30s to mid 30s. The first example of this relationship was in the loud, quiet, loud structure of Mother Sky, where the valleys of the song are shared between Michael's subtle, soft, funny, and funny. The song was composed with a subtle, soft fuzz and Damo's disoriented dreamlike delivery. Now, Corolli sews a few times over the course of Mother Sky's 15 minute runtime, matching scenes that warranted these sonic explosions. Because remember, this is a movie soundtrack. They're playing this over an actual movie and scoring it to match the scene. And you can actually find that scene on YouTube. It's really, really good. Yeah, but it's Corolli's last solo, when he straddles the line between Stooges style psychedelic napalm and the avant-garde. This stands as one of Cann's greatest moments. In my opinion. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Woo! I know. God damn! We're trying to play this whole song for you, but it's like 20 minutes long. Michael Corolli, the guitarist, he said he doesn't like doing solos, or rather he liked it better when everyone did their own solo at once, which is Cann's instant composition and everything. Everyone solos and Cann, right? But sometimes it was necessary because Irmin told Michael, do those solos because that fits in this film. The music should follow the film's drama-turgy, which is my new SAT word. Drama-turgy. Drama-turgy. So that means put in solos, cliches, gunshots, whatever. The rules were different for film scoring than Cann's proper albums, but they're still both Cann at the end of the day. So on Cann's next film project, they were in the Castle, Castle Norvignage, and they were recording this new song. And I swear to God, no vocal effects or dubs or anything. It was just Damo sitting on the floor, cross-legged, with a microphone in his hands. They recorded my second favorite Cann song ever. Tango Whiskey Man. Love it. You're just singing right, don't lie, but Cann, you hear me, my friend? Don't play a move, wish you luck. Why, why don't you dedicate? You're for the whole shit, so stupid, it's like a layoff from you. I know you're being born. Life is still a cry. We promised that they would go a long way. And so they have. I mean just compare that to Father Cannot Yell. Or even Cut Away. The first thing that you heard when we played it. Yeah. The first thing you heard this episode. Ding, ding, ding, ding. To like, this masterpiece. Yeah. And this is all just like part of a film score. This is a soundtrack for a movie, a movie called Deadlock. So what happened, this is how they got the job. What happened was that Erman's friend Peter, he was a movie editor and he had the job of editing a movie called Deadlock. And he was told by the director that he was gonna use his own compositions for the film. Like the director was an actor and he kind of could play the guitar a little bit, but he was definitely not a musician at all. Bad idea. So when Peter finished editing Deadlock with the director's guitar strumming film score to it, Peter swiveled his chair around to the director and said, look, you're fucking up the film with your shitty music. I know a band that can't help you. So the director, he finally asked Ken if they could score his film. And he also added with the, it needs to be done by Friday. So like less than a week. Aw, babe. And they're like, what? Okay, okay then. And we'll do this shit in five days. So the band would do a night session and Herman would take an early flight to Berlin to help with the mix. And then he would fly back that night for another recording session, all while taking at least 12 ounces of speed a day. God damn. And sleeping during the one hour flight each day. And this went on for five to six days. I don't know how he made it. I mean, he actually ended up in the hospital for a day after that. You just gotta take care of yourself. Yeah, he did at one point start yelling, start crying, and then passed out and then he was in the hospital. Isn't that fun? But somehow during this whole rush, Ken actually managed to pull it off. They did Tango Whiskey Man. And then of course they did the title song, Deadlock, the instrumental version. So yeah, think about that. Five days, Tango Whiskey Man, Deadlock, and the theme to Deadlock. Lots of speed. It's a lot of speed and it's fucking incredible. So Deadlock's done. Great, what's next? Oh, another album, fucking great, cool. When's it due? Now, interesting. Well, that's what Sigilok said. It's like, you know, you gotta, it's due now. Cause I don't know what's going on. I don't know what's going on. I don't know what's going on. I don't know what's going on. I don't know what's going on. I don't know what's going on. I don't know what's going on. It's due now, cause as we always say, your first album takes a lifetime, but the second album, you can only write in six months. Yep. And so the problem with that is that Kan had spent so much time doing film scores that they didn't have an album ready to go that was up to their standards by the time the deadline for the next album came. So working with what they had, Kan took six songs that they'd written for their last five assignments. Two songs with Malcolm, three songs with Damo, and one instrumental. So we got Deadlock. Tango Whiskey Man, Soul Desert, She Brings the Rain, Don't Turn the Light On, Leave Me Alone, Mother Sky, and then Deadlock, the instrumental version. Those songs, all of them, let's just throw them on the album. This compilation was released just a month after Kan finished work for Deadlock. And while it technically isn't an album in the strictest sense of the word, Soundtracks has become one of Kan's most popular releases, not least because it contains some of their most accessible songs that had to be somewhat accessible because they were Soundtracks. Yeah, I mean, that's why they called it Soundtracks. I never knew that until we started, like until we started doing this series, I always thought that the Kan album Soundtracks, I thought that they had made imaginary Soundtracks for movies that didn't exist. I thought that for like 20 years. No, Germans are way too pragmatic. And as you can see, Kan doesn't really do concept albums. They're no dead Kennedys. But the concept only arises when the whole thing is done. So Monster Movie also, that didn't have a concept either. Just picked the best songs and slapped them on a record. And I liked that. And Kan's first compilation album, Soundtracks, still not, definitely officially the second album, doesn't matter. It was released on September 17th, 1970, to some actual fanfare. So they had decent sales and more than one good review this time. Yeah. Which is awesome. The Kennedys monthly music magazine, the UK equivalent to NME, they polled their readers and Kan won second best German group after Amanduul 2. Yes, they tellied the votes. Amanduul 2 got 1,026 votes and the Kan got 278. But they were still second. That's still silver. And Kan's Soundtracks also won second best album of the year in 1970 after Amanduul 2, who slayed it with Yeti. Of course. But if you go up against Yeti in Germany, you're gonna lose. And then eventually everyone loses by Kraftwerk. But we'll get to that later. Now by this point, Kan was firing on all cylinders. Soundtracks was a relative hit and the arrival of Damo Suzuki had, just like the arrival of Malcomuni, taken Kan's artistic capabilities to the next level. In other words, they were ready to record the music that would make them one of the most influential bands of the century. It was finally time to record Tago Mago. Kid A-Wah! Yeah, Beyonce what? For that, wow, that was a really fucking deep, drag race deep cut. Yes. And so was that Radiohead album. Apollens. But it's with Kan's work with Damo Suzuki, Tago Mago, Igabami Asi and Future Days that we'll conclude our series on Kan next week. We might have to split it into another two parts. We might have to, actually I think we will. But it's with Tago Mago that we'll definitely cover next week. Yeah. In case you guys are not getting enough of this, but we do have a really big announcement to make at the end of next week. So just check that out, because we have an amazing band for you guys after this. Yes. You're not gonna believe it. They're not German. No, they're not. That's all we're gonna say. Let's just say we're gonna be returning to our roots real soon. Your roots, England. That is the one hint. My roots. I say, oh boy. I'm South American. Yes, we're gonna go back to David Niven and check out, oh no, I'm just kidding. Okay, so we have t-shirts in classic logo, Rocket Dog, Rabbit Dog and Galactic Pop Tee in men's and women's sizes. Check out lastpodcastmerch.com. Check out our Instagram, noDogsPod. And for just updates or whatever, we'll let you know what's going on, some behind the scenes stuff every now and then. It's fantastic. If you're into social media or if you hate it, I admire you. Also, check out our noDogs playlist on Spotify and YouTube as well. Yeah, just for Spotify, just search my name, Marcus Parks, and every single playlist for every single episode we've ever done can be found there. We even made massive playlists that bring together entire seasons. So thanks everybody who follow those playlists. They're real fucking cool. They're a lot of fun to make. I love making playlists. Absolutely. Or you can Google YouTube, noDogs in Space, podcast, and you'll find our thing. And thanks to our research assistant associate producer for the Crot Rock slash Jamontza series, Patrick Fisher. Super helpful. Thank you so much. I'm so glad you speak German. Yeah, thank you. And thanks to Kelsey Netser for all her help, of course. And thank you so much for Rob Oakey, for editing our stuff as always. And I'm gonna give out the sources at the end of the series all in once this time. It's easier to do, but I do wanna highlight one really excellent interview with Malcolm Mooney that I checked out, which really helped a lot with the series. It was called The Road Taken with C.T. and Bayo podcast. These are the guys from Vampire Weekend, and they did such a great job interviewing Malcolm Mooney. And they just seemed like really cool, knowledgeable guys from, I think, New York as well. So very cool. And yes, so if you make any noise or any sounds at all, or you have any comments or questions, or if you need to know anything, please email us at nodogsandspace.gmail.com, because at the end of every episode, we will feature a band. Yep, for our band of the week this week, we have from Parts Unknown, a band called Second Variety, which is really just a guy named Seth who's making all this on his own, which is something I love to hear. Seth, Seth, Seth, Seth, Seth, Seth, great job. The song is called Mural Collision. It's available on Spotify, band Second Variety. Go check it out. Thank you so much for joining us on this canned journey. We'll see y'all next week for Tagal Margo. Goodbye. Enjoy. Goodbye. Goodbye. I need a last word. This show is made possible by listeners like you. Thanks to our ad sponsors, you can support our shows by supporting them. 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