Oh, hi!
Here we are. Another Saturday at The Playground, which means it’s time for this week’s… Ha…
Ha…
HA…
Haiku!
(gesundheit)
If you’re new to The Playground, or have been around for a while and just now decided to actually read it, first of all, well done. Reading is hard. Secondly, here is a convenient link to The Rides that you’ll find here and what days you can expect what. This is the third week of Saturday: Holy Haikus, He-Man! So far, we have discussed hotdogs and nipples. This week, Germans will enter the equation.
A lot of exciting things have happened this week. I finally officially nailed down both North American and European booking agencies for the band that I manage in preparation of their 4th studio release hitting the market in June. They definitely got me really high..I mean this was definitely a career high.
I also was asked to become an “administrator” for the all female HEMA fencers group that I belong to. I still have no idea what “ad-min-i-stra-tor” means, as there is an invisible force field around the section of my brain that would allow for basic computer language comprehension, but I’m told it’s kind of a big deal. I hope to one day understand what the hell they’re talking about, but I suspect a lobotomy will have needed to take place (puff….again).
In the meantime, I’ll place that title neatly next to my Zero to Hero Cape that I will be donning all throughout town in just one week’s time, while wearing my purple sparkle disco pants, and bar hopping with the unicorn. I foresee no hiccups in this plan.
Something else that happened this week, was working 3 days with some German act called Kraftwerk. I guess people like them because they “played” 4 sold out shows in 3 days.
Yup.
You read that right.
Ordinarily, this would be quite difficult for a band to do. I’ll level with you here folks, I am NOT a fan of the electro-synth-pop, and as a direct result, have managed to quite literally, go my entire 38 years without ever hearing a Kraftwerk song.
Until Tuesday.
The guys and their crew are absolutely lovely. One of the easiest productions ever.
With that said…
Not a single stage towel was used.
And that, my fine readers, is the basis of this week’s haiku:
Pling-Plong. Kraftwerk, here!
No instruments. Just laptops.
Ha-Ha, You Dummkopfs.
The Playground 
a video seen
bewilderment envelops
Germans confuse me
Clever, clever Brad.
Sees my haiku and raises
Germans: Odd, indeed
And that was brilliant by the way. I too, was extremely confused, and oddly hungry, after watching that video.
I was going to comment that it is surprising that you have never heard a Kraftwerk song, but then I remembered that I was late in my 30s when I “discovered” the group. One thing that became apparent as I worked my way through their oeuvre is that I have heard Kraftwerk most of my life without realizing it. Like many suburban white kids in the 80s,I became enamored with the new form of music called rap. I’m sure that you know the early days of rap were filled with lawless sampling and borrowing by DJs of instrumental sections of various records. Kraftwerk’s long instrumental passages and popular form of minimalism lent itself to this sort of sampling and reinterpretation. As I listened to the albums of Kraftwerk I realized that I had heard these melodies and motifs before in the works of other artists that I had credited with much more creative originality than they deserved. I realized that Kraftwerk was like a musical octopus with arms of influence stretching in all directions. I even have a vague recollection of the Kraftwerk song Ruckzuck being used on some children’s show in the 70s, such as The Electric Company or Sesame Street.
I will close with one obvious influence of Kraftwerk that I imagine you must have heard because of the ubiquity of the single on radio and television. The band Coldplay used the main melody of the Kraftwerk song Computer Love (1981) for their 2005 hit single Talk. I will include links in case anyone wants to compare the songs. No worries for Coldplay though. Despite being sued in the past, Coldplay actually requested permission from Kraftwork this time by handwriting a letter in German. Kraftwerk replied with a fax of a single word: “Yes.”
Talk: http://youtu.be/EH9meoWmAOM
Computer Love: http://youtu.be/ZtWTUt2RZh0
So here’s something else that will likely upset you… I’ve never heard that Coldplay song until just this moment either. Excellent story about the letter though.
I’m not denying their status of pioneers in their field that paved the way for dozens of other artists… that has been made clear. Still, it doesn’t mean that I have to like the music 😀
Thanks for commenting, though! Don’t be shy and come back any time 🙂
I heard them in the 1980s when I was a DJ at my college radio station. I like electronic, so… They were pretty good to me.
I was also a DJ at my college radio station. But I played bands like Cannibal Corpse and Dying Fetus.
I played Bela Lugosi’s Dead when I needed to go potty.
Ahh, yes… the old cigarette smoking, pee break songs. For me, it was “Chance” from Savatage, or “Fade to Black” from Metallica. With these songs, I was able to not only run for a pee, but also smoke a cigarette.
I wish my show had prog in it. I could have played 3 songs and left.
Exactly. Or even just one if you played your CARTS right (get it? old school radio DJ reference). Dream Theater were another regular standby for cigarette breaks.
CARTS! I remember those, and recording those. Now they probably just have digital stuff.
I know… freakin’ amateurs. They have no idea what broadcasting was really like. Damn kids! Get off my lawn!!!!
In my day we had to memorize the whole show, including the music, and play everything ourselves live.
No we didn’t.
Pffff… you didn’t? We did. And we had to do it uphill both ways in the snow with no feet or hands.
Hill? I wish we had a hill. We had sheer cliff walls
Walls? You had walls? With cliffs attached to them? We had to broadcast inside of an active volcano… in Iceland, that we had to walk to and from four times a day from NJ.
Yeah, the sheer 4 mile high cliffs of Valles Marineris on Mars. I had to walk to Ohio from there every day. And back. Without a space suit or a ship.
But you guys had that sweet CART recording tele-porter, right?
No. We had to carve it in stones. After the lava dried.
Brutal…well, I mean you ARE older than me, so this all makes sense.
You kids have it so easy.
Pingback: Stuffy Nose? Have Some Chocolate. | The Playground·