get off of my kraut! 1968-1974 - very various teutonic artists again (hier boxt der papst!!)

Another deep dive down into the abyss of unknown local Krautrock 45s of the late 60s and early 70s, rarer than a rabbi in Mecca. - Psychedelic? Dunno, but then again... Progressive?? Maybe (or have been), but ahead of the times these days again. Underground??? Definitely! A saucerful of Sigrids, and a Krautpleaser anyway...

Back again with the sound of the sub-krauts. Took quite a while to puzzle together the successor to "Turn on, tune in, drop Kraut" and "Kraut Mask Replica", two comps dealing with the same elusive matter. Both are posted here on this blog exclusively, and all are part of a series that started long ago with CDs you still had to buy to own. ("Kraut Demons Kraut", "Hungry Krauts,Daddy", "Obscured by Krauts" and "Kraut-Bloody-Rageous".) Here's another one that you'll never find in the shops, cause we give it away for free meanwhile, take it or leave it. I'll keep the liners short this time. If you've got questions, use the comments department please.

This is what you want:

1 :She's A Fire - ROVER GROUP (4'16) (7")

2 :Sad Song - HIDE & SEEK (2'50) (7")

3 :Broadway - CORAM PUBLICO (3'12) (7")

4 :To Fly With A Dream - TUNING FORK (3'26) (7")

5 :Otherwise Happiness, Part 2 - THE TOMBSTONES (6'01) (7")

6 :Dark Twist - CANNOCK (4'19) (non-LP 7")

7 :Giny - THE HUSH (2'55) (7")

8 :Walking In Space - THE BROADWAY MATADORS (5'46) (from LP)

9 :The Walls Of Hell - ERUPTION (CH) (4'25) (7")

10:Remember - JOINT (2'55) (7")

11:Gypsy Woman - HOAX (2'42) (7")

12:Don't Talk To Me - DON ADAMS (3'50) (from LP)

13:Movie Star - ACID (4'02) ( live on TV)

14:Neighbour - STONEWALL (3'03) (7")

15:Painted Lady - MESSAGE (3'24) (non-LP 7")

16:True Experience - GALAXIS (5'05) (7")

17:Camel Is Top - KROKODIL (2'52) (flexi disc)

18:Gloria - ANTHONY (3'15) (7")

19:Elevator Scene - ERUPTION (D) (1'53) (unreleased)

20:I Feel Free - ORATORIUM (4'14) (non-LP EP)

21:Christen und Heiden - THE LIVING STONES (3'50) (7")

22:dreambabydream

And this is what you get:

ROVER GROUP were an amm-ateur hard prog outfit from Aachen and managed to put out this self- released 7" on their own unnamed label in 72 (Mat-Nr.: 7F665602).

HIDE & SEEK from Graz, Austria had four singles between 69 and 71, and most of these are spread across old volumes of Prae-Kraut Pandaemonium and our Real Kraut series. "Sad Song" was the last 7" and the first for Atom records. The others were on Amadeo, but far as I remember that was more due to a name change of the company than a change of company by the band. "Sad Song" shouldn't be confused with a song from the third single which was called, ehm... "Song".

CORAM PUBLICO most probably came from somewhere near Konstanz, as the a-side of their sole offering (Intercord, 71) was called "Bodensee", which translates as Lake Constance. (You'll find it on "Hungry Krauts, Daddy", if you've been smart enough to buy the CD in the 90s.)

That's where you also might take a listen to the other side of this one: TUNING FORK. A great 45 on a German label called Hammer, released in 71. But in about 17 years we haven't found out anything new about this group.

Another 7" b-side, but this one was announced on Prae-Kraut Pandaemonium Vol.19: THE TOMBSTONES from Düsseldorf with Part 2 of "Otherwise Happiness", a private pressing 68 or 69, and, as I said, a perfect example for the music of the transition phase from Prae-Kraut to Kraut. Both sides would easily fit in with both compilation series, and, come to think of it, are another good reason to collect both.

Seems to be flipside day today. Stuttgart's CANNOCK are best known (and best forgotten) for the album "Waiting For The Night" (Peak,80), but six years before that ill-fated new wave cum bubblegum symph-prog effort, they recorded this doublesider, which is a Krautrock gem of some sorts. A private pressing, obviously recorded at Tonstudio Bauer in Ludwigsburg. The other side has been immortalized on "Kraut-Bloody-Rageous".

Not much known about THE HUSH, except that they were from Austria and released this 45 in 1970 on the obscure PPG label. Sounds to me like an early inspiration for Falco's scandalous baby molester hymn "Jeanie".

THE BROADWAY MATADORS were a studio-project hired to accompany another cast of young hopefuls on one of the countless cash-in LPs that reproduced the soundtrack of "Hair", and flooded the market worldwide in 69 with cheapo albums like this one on Hit Records, a shortlived subsidiary of Metronome, if memory serves me. As long as the anonymous Matadors give background to future schlager starlets like Su Kramer, the record is as tedious and dispensable as you'd expect, but when they get the chance to turn up a bit on their own, they do with grandezza. (Suspiciously reminding of some of the products of the Hamburg Mafia, i.e. Bokaj Retsiem or Hell Preachers Inc., but I don't wanna spread rumours here.)

The next three entries are rare 45s from Switzerland. ERUPTION from Geneve had this one 7" in 71 or 72, a private release produced by "Jary Jo". Both sides are primitive instro-prog mayhem, and on the flip they slaughter The Nice's arrangement of Mozart's "Rondo" with equal craftsmanship.

JOINT from Zurich were one of the most promising Swiss prog bands, and it's more than a pity, that they broke up too soon to release more fabulous records like this debut 45 on EMI-Columbia in early 71. May take two years again, but if we ever compile another volume of this here little series, you'll find the a-side "Collage" there.

HOAX released their only single self-financed single on the backyard label WA (what ever that stands for.) It's a naive, but oh so charming attempt to play in the league of the big boys. (i.e. Jethro Tull in this case.)

Blues-Rock usually isn't our cup of milk, but this one's too good to be ignored. Though from Scotland, DON ADAMS was an integral part of the German scene since the early 60s. His records here for Metronome, Ariola and Orange never made the charts, but on the club circuit he was appreciated as some kind of white Otis Redding, and indeed, if such a doubtful award would have been on competition, he'd have got my vote. From 69 on he was active in Munich, where he recorded for the German branch of Liberty, and did a lot of anonymous session work with the local crew of hipsters like Olaf Kübler, Lothar Meid, Ingfried Hoffmann and the like.(Remember The Tabarins?...) His projected 1971 album "Watts Happening" (got it? there's a riot going on!) for Sunset (a Liberty subsidiary) never got over the test pressing status before it was shelved, and to be honest, it's not that much of a loss as you might think. But here's the stand-out track, and well, wow! Even Canned Heat would have have been proud of it. (Boogie is like concrete: it always depends on what you make of it.)

Initially ACID were a mildly progressive group from Austria , but their three albums from 74 to 78 - while hard (and only expensive) to get these days - consist of increasingly indigestible pop schlock. But they debuted in 72 with an impossible to find live-EP, and that's something else. They also played "Movie Star" on the annual talent competition "Show Chance" on Austrian TV in 72. Back then they had no guitars, but what a hell of a drummer.

STONEWALL (not to be confused with the American band of the same name) was a group from the outskirts of Frankurt and thus had the chance to record a single in 72 for the local Bellaphon label (BF 18074), but vanished without a trace soon after. Strange enough, they obviously weren't considered "underground" enough to be put on the Bacillus label, Bellaphon's famous outlet for Krautrock and all things progressive. An aquired taste, but in my book that beats most of what Joy Unlimited have done with Erna Strube as the lead pipe.

No need to introduce the (half British, half German) Kraut legend MESSAGE. At least the first and second album should be part of every self-respecting collection of Kraut, prog or just good uncommercial music. Much harder to find is this non-LP debut 7" for Bacillus from 71. The flip "Smile" is equally great and might be included in a future volume. For reasons beyond my knowledge both haven't yet been included as "bonus" tracks on the numerous reissues of the bands work. There even seems to be another 71 single for Bellaphon, but this one hasn't crossed our way yet.

The GALAXIS 45 is a veritable mystery, and sometimes you simply have to be glad to run into such an artefact, even if it's worn-out and scratchy, and the unnamed private pressing's label doesn't give any information, except that it's an early 70s record made in Germany. If anyone out there owns a cleaner copy, please get in touch. The flip is another scratched-to-shreds-killer that would deserve a second life in the aether.

Switzerland's KROKODIL are another of the better known bigger names, but this freebie giveaway promo on-sided piece of thinness on "Auravision" (69) for Camel cigarettes is a rare and less known part of their work. Ask any crocodile: it's a small step from the jungle to the zoo. And a whiff is as fine as a blow to a camel...

Ha, another version of "Gloria"?!? ah, come on... But, yep, this one's different. Heavy stuff from 1970 by ANTHONY on one of the Bacillus singles that never show up. Anthony in fact was Eckhard Kühn, singer of Berlin's beat group The Hound Dogs, who had recorded "Gloria" in 65 before their permanent hometown rivals The Boots had the German hit with it. Tragically the man man died a year later, and left us without a follow-up.

Not to be confused with the Swiss Eruption (see above), Berlin's ERUPTION was an experimental electric project led by Conrad Schnitzler, Klaus Freudigmann and Wolfgang Seidel, while more familiar names like Klaus Schulze, Manuel Göttsching, Lutz Ulbrich or Hartmut Enke were involved now and then. Not much of the group's eruptions have been recorded, and most of what was, has been bootlegged erroneouly (or, come to think of it: might as well have been intended...) as Kluster outtakes. This unreleased snippet comes from an uncredited underground movie filmed in 68, but I guess the sounds to it emerged a year later.

ORATORIUM, an xian prog group from Hof, Franconia, are best known for their eponymous rock mass-album from 72. While this is extremely hard to find (except on the net, see: prognotfrog.blogspot.com), the self-released EP "Einsamkeit ist nur ein Wort" (Loneliness is just a word) from 74 was completely unknown until a couple of weeks ago. "I Feel Free" ( not the Cream song) is one of the rare occasions to hear the band trying to transport the Gospel in foreign tongue.

Talking of Christian rock (of ages)... As you may have recognized, 60s British xian beat is one of the new perverse obsessions of the Pope and Popeye (see previous entry on the blog: Mercy! Sound!!UK!!!), but this genre was a common phenomenon in Germany too, although it started a little later here. (I remember how tough it was for an agnostic bonvivant like me in 71 to have to play a so-called "Beat Messe" once a month in church, just to keep your rehearsal room, which belonged to the Papists.) Not many half-decent records were released in this field, but THE LIVING STONES' "Christen und Heiden" (= christians and heathen) from 72 with the humble "Hey Joe"-reminiscence is one of the less annoying examples.

And that's it for now. Sing Hallelujah and stay tuned.

Your boy Lolly Pope (plus westfauster, thee nuntius)

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