The Glimmerlight

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut--Part L: Beyond The Wall... Pond

2011-10-22T11:11:00.000-07:00

Me and my brothers would often journey to Berlin, to the Wall, to look beyond the edge of the world. In the Glimmerlight, we often heard rumors of the denizens beyond the Wall. However, due to the folly of human politics, East German androids were forbidden to journey to their ancestral homeland among the blue crystals under Düsseldorf. Despite these restrictions, one time in the early-80s, we decided to go beyond the Wall to check out the greatest of the East German synthesists, the synth duo Pond.

Pond was founded by Wolfgang Fuchs and Manfred Henning in 1979 in the Deutsche Demokratische Republik. They journeyed from the hinterlands to East Berlin and soon started creating beautiful synth textures for the other cybernetic synthesists exiled beyond the Wall. When we finally found them in a cellar in East Berlin and heard them play, it was one of the highlights of my early sub-routines. We purchased a couple of their LPs and tried to smuggle them back to the Glimmerlight, but the border patrol found them in the trunk of our light cycle and confiscated them. But they couldn't take our memory chips.

By the time the Wall finally fell, the the blue crystals had dimmed and we had all departed the Glimmerlight for the Offworld Colony. These days, Manfred and Wolfgang do what most of the androids that remain among the humans do, they make music for Planetariums.

Check out one of Pond's synth masterpieces "Cassiopeia" by clicking on the title of this post. It's from their album Planetenwind. . . my copy is probably still spinning in the apartment of that former East German border guard.

Rauf und runter!

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut--Part XXXXIX: The Glimmerlight's Indie Scene

2011-09-17T14:48:00.000-07:00

No synthesist more personified the Glimmerlight's indie scene than Rüdiger Lorenz. He always wore the tightest jeans, seldom smiled, and had the DIY attitude that every droid aspired to, but never really grasped.

While his fellow synthesists were busy selling-out, signing with Sky and Brain - Rüdiger stayed in the bedroom, perfecting the synth art form as only he could. No synthesist stayed truer to the blue crystals longer than Rüdiger, and he valiantly fought the Humanoid Invasion longer than any of his brethren (i.e. well into the 80s). While the rest of us retired to our blue pools in the Offworld Colonies to start the New Age, Rüdiger remained in his bunker down below Düseldorf, cranking out his lo-fi tunes. I do believe the sickest tune in the whole Glimmerlight canon is Rüdiger's "Francis and Friends" (click on the title of this post to hear it). It tells the tale (in Glimmerlichtish so use Google Translate) of what I can only describe as a Glimmerlight "punk house" where we all lived in the summer of '79 - dancing all night and sleeping all day.

Rauf und runter!

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut--Part XXXXVIII: Glimmerlight Footage

2011-08-31T19:10:00.000-07:00

The Glimmerlight was much like an Amish Village. We would often have visitors who came and observed our way of life. On those occasions, like any other night, the Glimmerlight house band, Space, would play a show for the humanoid tourists.

I thought you might like to see some footage straight from the Glimmerlight. The year was 1977 and a group of Italian tourists was visiting our blue crystal shores. This footage is emblematic of a typical evening in the Glimmerlight, Space regaling us with its icy synth anthems and dansing the night away. Enjoy.

Immer weider!

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut--Part XXXXVII: Ebondazzar

2011-08-31T17:09:00.000-07:00

When the humanoid invasion reached the Glimmerlight, we called upon our cybernetic cousins spread across the globe to help us save the blue crystals. Our Australian brethren sent Peak, which had just created the synth apparatus Ebondazzar.

Ebondazzar was the precursor to to what will be known as the Nebuchadnezzar, a technology which the humanoids will one day co-opt to battle the androids in the real world when we are once more ascendant; at least that is what the Electric Sheep's prophecy would have us believe.

Hear Ebondazzar's killer track "Nightmist" by clicking on the title of this post.

Rauf und runter!

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut--Part XXXXVI: More French Synthesists

2011-08-30T17:54:00.001-07:00

Along with the Hydravion, we also called in other French synthesists to try and save the Glimmerlight in its last days. One of which was Joël Fajerman who brought his Azimuts and Turbulences to the battlefield. He also had a really tricked out light cycle and was the only cybernetic organism capable of challenging David Hasselhoff at volleyball. Check out his masterpiece "Oiseaux" by clicking on the title of this post.

Of course, being a true android, Joël had some German circuitry as well, so we considered him one of us. These days, he spends quite a bit of time with us on the off-world colonies and we often reminisce about the glory of the blue crystals before they went dim.

Immer weider.

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut--Part XXXXV: Hydravion

2011-08-28T16:56:00.000-07:00

At the outset of the humanoid invasion that ultimately led to the downfall of the Glimmerlight, we called in Hydravion - a joint German/French air force that served as one of our first lines of defense along with with the Mistral and David Hasslehoff. While the Mistral fought amongst the deepest crystals, and Hass' upon the beach, the Hyrdavion took up the fight in water the air.

Check out the synth manoeuvres of Hydravion by clicking on the tile of this post.

Rauf und runter!

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut--Part XXXXIV: MIstral in Action

2011-08-27T08:35:00.001-07:00

Broadcasting high above Hurricane Irene - I thought you might like to see some footage of the Mistral at work deep in the Glimmerlight.

Enjoy.

Rauf und runter!

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut--Part XXXXIII: Humanoids v. Ansectoids

2011-08-24T16:02:00.000-07:00

At the onset of the humanoid invasion that led to the fall of the Glimmerlight, my brethren created the Mistral - half-android/half-insectoid - otherwise known as Ansectoid. We sent the Mistral forth to combat the humanoids constructing their underground metro that was ever encroaching on our blue crystal realm.

Like the spawn of any synthesist, the Mistral created a ghostly maschine musik all their own. Click on the the title of this post for a prime example: Jamie.

Jamie was an ode to the leader of the Mistral - who, like any good denizen of the Glimmerlight - had many a pseudonym: Jamie aka .knowdice aka Ansectoid # 1. Jamie led the Mistral in their battle against the humanoid invasion - which was defacing our crystals as if they were New York City Subway Ads.

Immer wieder!

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut--Part XXXXII: Das Leben Aquatic Der Jürgen Müller

2011-08-23T19:02:00.000-07:00

Little do you know, my brethren in the Glimmerlight loved the water. You'd think the water would mess with our circuitry - but no. We would often go on day trips to the Atlantic Ocean, don our underwater gear, and hang out with the dolphins (like a German Fred Neil).

No one loved the sea more than Jürgen Müller. He would often stay under water for weeks on end. Tinkering with his synths and crystals to try and capture the sound of the sea. Click on the title of this post to check out Meeresbett Meditation - Jürgen's ode to the ocean.

This old world may never change, but we'll always have Jürgen's ode to the sea.

So say we all!

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut--Part XXXXI: Synthesists and Pseudonyms

2011-08-23T18:25:00.000-07:00

Every self-respecting synthesist in the Glimmerlicht had a pseudonym. Some of the androids even had a few. Do you really think I go by Maury all the time up here? An optimus prime example was Frederic Mirage aka Frank Martin-Solf aka Bernard Estardy (my second cyborg cousin). Mirage had so many pseudonyms it made you dizzy. One day he was Frederic, the next day he was Frank and the day after that he'd be Bernard. And he would get really upset if you didn't know what name he was going by on any given day. But Mirage made some of the best musik in the Glimmerlight - before the humanoid invasion; before the blue crystals went dim and we all headed to the off-world colonies. Click on the title of this post to hear one of the tracks we used to danse to all night deep under the streets of Düsseldorf: Atlantic.

Some nights as we drift high above Earth, passing over the Atlantic, we gaze down with deep robotic sadness and we put on Mirage's 8-track and we remember the good old days.

Rauf und runter!

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut--Part XXXX: The RIse of Zenamon

2011-02-27T17:27:00.000-08:00

During the Glimmerlight's last days, we worked tirelessly to maintain the brilliance of the blue crystals that sustained us. For example, we constructed a band of synthetic synthesists and called them Zenamon. Led by Nandu, they worked tirelessly to keep the yellow crystals at bay.

Nandu and the rest of Zenamon kept the yellow crystals at bay for as long as they could, before they departed to the offworld colonies with Harald Grosskopf and the rest of us. Before they exited the Glimmerlight, Zenamon left behind their self-titled LP to serve as a reminder of their heroism. Hear its final track, "Oh Nandu, What We've Done" by clicking on the title of this post.

Rauf und runter!

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut--Part XXXIX: Transformer Man

2011-02-20T17:09:00.000-08:00

Neil Young was another guest in the Glimmerlight in its last days, traveling beneath the streets of Düsseldorf to witness the fading blue crystals.

As he had done on many previous occasions with other cultures, Young chronicled the fall of the Glimmerlight in song.

Like his composition "Pocahontas" before it, Young composed "Transformer Man" to honor the cybernetic hybrids that dwelled in the Glimmerlight. We liked it so much we brought him up to Rother's offworld colony, where he composed the rest of his tribute to all that is Glimmerlichten - Trans.

Trans went on to become the best selling Neil Young album ever among this galaxy's android population. Hear Neil's tribute to my brethren by clicking on the title of this post.

Immer wieder!

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut -- Part XXXVIII: Eno's Tears

2011-01-23T15:58:00.000-08:00

It is said that when Brian Eno witnessed the fading of the Glimmerlight's blue crystals he wept so greatly it caused a minor flood that disrupted Düsseldorf's electrical grid, causing power outages in its red light district. Many houses of ill repute were forced to close their doors that evening. Because of this, some sailors in town on shore leave rioted, causing over 100 thousand deutsche marks in damage.

Meanwhile, deep below the streets of Düsseldorf, Eno joined Rother and Roedelius, departing for the offworld colony.

The denizens of the Glimmerlight had always loved Eno, despite the fact that he was completely human. They loved him for many reasons, but mainly because he had a big head that had processing capabilities that were equal to almost 46.53 % of those of the cybernetic synthesists that were manufactured in the Glimmerlight. Basically, he was our brother from another mother, and he always tried so hard to be one of us.

Before he walked away from the fading Glimmerlight that evening, Eno composed "Ending (Ascent)" as a tribute to the fading blue crystals - you humans can hear it by clicking on the title of this post. But please remember, this has all happened before, will it happen again?

Rauf und Runter!

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut--Part XXXVII: More Talking Cars/Heroes of the Glimmerlight

2010-11-21T13:29:00.000-08:00

Everyone in the Glimmerlight had a talking car, a light cycle, a cylon raider, and a poster of David Hasslehoff on their bluepool wall. David was a guy who really knew how to communicate with his automobile, which was something all the cyborgs could really appreciate. As half man/half machines who rode through the Glimmerlight on our talking automobiles, we all looked up to David and Kit, we loved them really.

So in 1982 when they decided to make a documentary about the adventures of David and Kit for the Amerikansche Television Netwerk "NBC," we decided to contribute sonically to the production. Pulling out our Roland 808s and our Oberheims we transmitted the Theme for Knight Rider to one of our brethren who had left our crystal shores: Stu "Kaufenmeister" Phillips. Check out the synth manna by clicking on the title of this post.

Rauf und runter!

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut--Part XXXVI: The Sound of Arrows

2010-05-10T18:51:00.001-07:00

A couple of months ago a couple of Swedish dudes, Stefan and Oskar, were walking the nighttime streets of Düsseldorf when Stefan fell through a crack in the sidewalk. Oskar yelled down to his fallen comrade, asking if he was alright. Stefan said he was fine and asked Oskar to climb down through the crack to check out something really cool. Oskar climbed down through the crack, joining his friend.

"Look!" said Stefan, pointing deeper into what looked like a tunnel at a faint purple light in the distance. "Let's go check it out."

So the two Swedes walked deeper into the tunnel until they came to a cliff in a vast, indeed endless, chamber. They peered over the edge to look at what appeared to be the source of the purple light. They were clouds emitting a purple glow, and illuminating a universe of stars above. Little did the two Swede's know that they were witnessing the remnants of the glimmerlight, but they felt the power of the fading crystals even in these days of late-history.

They sat and gazed for quite awhile, like Tron and Flynn at the blue pool. Finally, Oskar remembered he was hungry and said "let's go get some pickled herring and crackers."

When the Swedes emerged from the tunnel below Düsseldorf, they purchased some herring and had a hearty snack. A couple of weeks later they had a shared dream of the purple chamber, and when they woke they formed a synth pop duo called The Sound of Arrows to honor the memory of the fading glimmerlight. Maybe they could bring the crystals back to life and we could all live as synthetic beings once again! Hear their attempt by clicking on the title of this post.

Blasphemous rumour has it that Harald Grosskopf heard this tune, "And Beyond", up on his off-world colony and liked it so much he might beam down to meet Oskar and Stefan and take them up to where the glimmerlight now resides, on the off-world colonies of Rother, Adelbert and the others. I await the day of their return with great anticipation.

So say we all!

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut--Part XXXV: Lessons in the Tempel

2010-05-01T06:14:00.000-07:00

Every year, Manuel Göttsching would hold a gathering to choose an apprentice. All the hopeful androids would travel deep into the Glimmerlight to the halls of the Ashra Tempel and present themselves to Göttsching where he floated in the Quasarsphere in his glittering blue robes and his favorite scarf - holding his sacred guitar.

By the early-70s, Manuel had not chosen an apprentice in over 50 years, and an attempt to attain the position was seen as somewhat of a hopeless quest. Yet, that did not stop young Michael Rother and the others from journeying to the halls of the Ash Ra Tempel in early 1973.

I still vividly remember as we all gathered below the floating Göttsching. He played his soft guitar tones that sounded like a synth and he asked us the riddle that would determine our destinies - "The power to control the Universe is in which finger?"

Of course , Schulze stepped forward first, pointed at Göttschings pinkie and said "that one!" Göttsching slowly shook his head, and Klaus stepped back, crushed.

Then Roedelius stepped forward and said, "that is a trick question," and holding out his bare foot he said, "the power to control the universe is in my big toe!" Again, Göttsching shook his head, and stepping back, Roedelius began to weep.

Finally, young Rother stepped forward with his guitar of blue fire and holding up his own index finger proclaimed, "the power to control the universe is in my own finger!" Beaming, Göttsching stated, "I believe I have found my new apprentice." And soon after that, Rother moved into the Quasarsphere to learn how to make his guitar sound like a synthesizer. He emerged later as the super-hero we all came to know and adore - The Flaming Hawk.

Hear some of the sweet sounds of Göttsching's Quasarsphere by clicking on the title of this post. And remember, he dwells there still, looking for his next apprentice.

Immer wieder!

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut--Part XXXIV: Harold Budd Day

2010-04-20T18:16:00.000-07:00

Today was always a special day in the Glimmerlight. Indeed, 4/20 was a national holiday, a time when all the replicants would gather in the White Arcades to celebrate Harold Budd - the kindest android to ever grace our crystal shores.

While Harold wasn't constructed under the streets of Düsseldorf, we accepted him as a brother upon his arrival. With the coming of the yellow crystals we had all gotten to feeling a bit uptight. But Budd's synths created soothing melodies, and he built the White Arcades, where all the droids would go to have a mellow good time.

When Budd departed for his off-world colony we all thought it was a bad trip, but he left the White Arcades behind, where we could all gather to chill out and remember him.

So spark up that blue crystal in your inner core, click on the title of this post, and check out some of those sweet sounds we listened to in that white haze.

The Adventures of Moebius -- Part III: Trading Places II

2010-04-19T17:49:00.000-07:00

Long ago, I promised you I would complete this tale.

Let me refresh your memory - In 1983, Moebius and Roedelius, inspired by the American comedy Trading Places, exchanged subroutines, so they could make music like the other. Moebius took Roedelius' melodic subroutines and created his masterpiece Tonspuren. Roedelius, on the other hand, took Moebius' skronky subroutines and created his album of off-beat skronk - Offene Türen.

Finally, you can now experience Roedlius as Moebius by clicking on the title of this post. This is one of the highlights from Offene Türen - "Husche" - a true slice of skronk madness. Indeed, the skronk almost drove Roedelius insane - he longed for the sweet beat-less melodies of his youth on the blue crystal shores of Horst.

However, he left Offene Türen in homage to skronk - he left it for all androids of the future to ponder over, and enjoy.

Immer wieder!

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut--Part XXXIII: Free-Birds

2010-04-18T12:24:00.000-07:00

As I've mentioned before, we always loved it when Frédéric Mercier joined us in the Glimmerlight. He would play to adoring crowds of replicants, bathed in the cooling blue hues of the Glimmerlight's Hinterhoff Stadium, deep beneath the streets of Düsseldorf.

As Mercier's epic shows drew to a close, the crowd would chant "Free-Birds!" in all of our mechanized glory, imploring Frédéric to play his signature tune. At the end of the tune, as the grand climax to his show, Frédéric would transform into his other form, a majestic robotic Pigeon. He would fly from the stage back to France, leaving the androids open-mouthed with awe and appreciation.

We always left Mercier's shows tremendously pleased, but also perplexed that such a fine specimen of technology originated in France.

Check out "Free-Birds" by clicking on the title of this post.

Rauf und runter!

Intence - Triade - Part VII: The Glimmerlight

2010-01-29T21:10:00.000-08:00

As the droids sang our weary farewell...

"Do you remember me long ago

Used to wear my heart on my sleeve

I guess it still shows

We watched the sun fall down and

I hop on my bike; still that night

You're my first glimmer of light

You were my, you was my first

Glimmer of light!"

The last track of Intence's LP is called "Train." You know the drill.

Rauf und runter!

Intence - Triade - Part VI

2010-01-29T21:01:00.000-08:00

For those rainy days in April, pull out your "Parapluie" by clicking on the title of this post. Track 5 of Triade attempts some funk.

You be the judge.

Intence - Triade - Part V: Unprotected Sax!

2010-01-29T20:44:00.000-08:00

For real though, this track is the reason I usually don't post full LPs. Intence was a really intense crew of cybernetic synthesists, but, as was the case with many of my early-80s colleagues, they had the penchant for engaging in unprotected sax - check out what I mean on "Spectrum" by clicking on the title of this post.

My loyal readers will know that I'm working my way through the classic album Triade by Intence, on Germany's Sky Records. Between "Quiver", which was my last post, and this post, "Spectrum," is the track "Yellow Below" which I posted some months ago. In the end, you'll have to put it all together. But I've posted the correct track listing somewhere in this gripping mini-series on the late-glimmerlight.

Keep in mind the words of Bob Barker, and have your android spayed or neutered.

Intence - Triade - Part IV

2010-01-29T20:24:00.000-08:00

As you all know, the droids have gathered to mourn the passing of the purple and gold crystals. Another year, another Vikings' playoff loss. Our digital hearts may be broken, but we can dance if we want to, we can leave your friends behind; 'cause your friends don't dance and if they don't dance, well they're no friends of mine.

And to celebrate our renewal in the blue glimmerlight we continue our Intence quest. Side 2 of the Triade LP begins with the track "Quiver" which you can access by clicking on the title of this post. Basically, it's track two of the LP, after the marathon "Mosaique (parts I-VII)" of side one.

Everybody takin' a chance!

Intence - Triade - Part III

2010-01-17T20:43:00.001-08:00

Side one of Intence's Triade is one long medley in seven parts, titled "Mosaique." Here, in the third installment of our series focusing on the classic LP, you can obtain parts III - VII of "Mosaique" by clicking on the title of this post - these synthetic nuggets round out our examination the first side of the record. With an intellect and a savoire-faire, no one in the whole universe will ever compare.

So here's a recap of what we've posted and what is yet to come (TBP):

Intence - Triade (Sky Records 1985)

Side One:

1. Mosaique (Parts I - VII) (20:01)

Side Two:

1. Quiver (4:01) (TBP)

2. Yellow Below (3:49)

3. Spectrum (5:02) (TBP)

4. Parapluie (3:09) (TBP)

5. Train (3:24) (TBP)

We will continue on the slow journey towards completing Triade in the coming days. Powered by the purple crystals, we may yet retire the symbol's number. Of course, we will keep all of our loyal readers posted.

So say we all!

Intence - Triade - Part II

2010-01-17T19:24:00.001-08:00

Just so you know, Intence were really Intense. They'd walk across the glimmerlight preachin' the power of the crystals, and placing pentagrams in pennies at your door if you crossed their path. But we still loved them. We loved them even though their musik verged upon the progbarian din that we persisted in keeping at bay. We loved them even though they sometimes created musik that would have sounded right at home on some Richard Simmons jazzersize hour.

You can check out what I mean by clicking on the title of this post: track # 2 from Triade- "Mosaique (Part II)." This is for you Herr Maestro!

Rauf und runter!

Intence - Triade - Part I

2010-01-17T17:36:00.000-08:00

So Herr Maestro requested Intence's complete Triade album quite a while ago, and finally, I am happy to announce its arrival from the blue recesses of the the glimmerlight.

However, you must remember that I am operating on antiquated equipment (the Brøselmaschine), hence I can only post one track at a time. Track # 1 of Triade is called "Mosaique (Part I)" and you can access it by clicking on the title of this post. I must warn you that it is almost progbarian in nature, but it's redeemed by the synth. As are we all. So say we all.

Tomorrow, I'll post track two, fittingly titled "Mosaique (Part II)". And so on and so forth.

Immer wieder!

Eye in the Sky

2010-01-02T08:11:00.000-08:00

As some of you may know I have been getting my bröselmaschine repaired so I can continue to bring you the sounds of the glimmerlight.

Up here on the off-world colony I have had plenty of time to drink by the blue crystal pools, play foosball with Klause Schulze (he's very good), and catch up on some reading.

As children in the glimmerlight, PKD was required reading. His words and images were sort of like our Bible, or history books. No one else captured our particular predicament quite so well, part-human, part-machine, drivers light-cycles and talking cars.

Anyway, I picked up one of PKD's masterpieces, Eye in the Sky, and sat down in my neon lawn chair for a good read. Halfway through the book Harald walked by and noticed what I was reading. He reminded me of that time in late '81 when Alan Parsons came to the glimmerlight for a visit. He was another of those who came to learn our ways, to try and capture our electronic magic in his own musik. He stayed for a couple of days learning that many of our secrets could be found in the pages of PKD. We gave him Eye in the Sky as a parting gift.

Less then two years later Alan came out with his glimmerlight-influenced classic Eye in the Sky. Sadly, like so many other interlopers before him, he never credited the glimmerlight and its android citizens. But that is why I am here; to give credit where credit is due. Check out his track "Mammagamma" by clicking on the title of this post to hear what I mean.

If Alan Parsons can groove like a bad Mammagamma, so can you!

The Adventures of Moebius -- Part III: Trading Places

2009-11-08T16:38:00.000-08:00

As you know, Moebius and Roedelius were the dynamic duo of the glimmerlight. They protected us from the progbarian hordes, but mostly just dwelled peacefully amongst the crystal streams and blue fjords.

Each had his own style: Moebius was the skronk genius, just skronking endlessly around the block on his lightcycle. Roedelius, on the other hand, was the melodic one, creating his beautiful Farfisa melodies deep in the glimmerlight near the Ash Ra Temple. Consider them the glimmerlight's Lennon and McCartney.

In 1983, inspired by the American comedy Trading Places, they decided to do just that. Aided by the mechanical genius Klaus Schulze, they would swap subroutines. Moebius would then produce his melodic masterpices, while Roedelius would do the skronky chicken. And they did just that; Moebius invented the wonderfully melodic Tonspuren, while Roedelius skronked it up with Offene Türen. Today, I give you a slice of Moebius' (modified with Roedelius subroutines) work. This beautiful track (click on the title of this post) is called "Contramio."

The next post will feature part II of this interesting experiment, and a skronky cut from Roedelius' (modified with Moebius subroutines) Offene Türen. So stay tuned for more adventures from these electrobolical androids.

Rauf und runter!

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut--Part XXXII: Robots of Leisure

2009-11-03T18:21:00.000-08:00

In our continuing look at the glimmerlight's last days we move on to the saga of Ralf Tohde. Tohde was another of the later models signed to Sky Records in the mid-80s. The advent of the yellow crystals brought about a time of great relaxation. It was not uncommon to find the 'droids taking naps, or watching a football match on a Saturday afternoon, sipping on an ice cold beer.

As the yellow crystals began to be the driving force behind these later models (we called them "chicken jobs"), the music they created became less icy, more soaring, but ultimately no less beautiful. Check out Tohde's "Hour of Leisure" from his LP Silent Departure by clicking on the title of this post. The LP is another classic from the late-glimmerlight era. This tune makes me feel like I'm flying through the clouds, or driving my light cycle convertible, with the hood up, through the forest of yellow crystals back to the Ash Ra Temple.

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut--Part XXXI: Last Glimmers of the Glimmerlight

2009-10-30T06:15:00.000-07:00

No empire ever lasts in perpetuity, and it was the same for the glimmerlight. The next couple posts will focus on the final days of the glimmerlight, and the synthesists of the time. While I remember the musik of the later years fondly, I can't help but shed a few tears for the passing of that deep blue era, when we rode on our light cycles, the wind blowing in our hair, and jogged between the jagged crystals beneath Düsseldorf, near the Ash Ra Temple.

As the glimmerlight drew to a close, new androids were still being constructed. One such, was the musical group Intence. Like many of our young synthesists of the time, they were insantly signed to Hamburg's Sky Records: The Official Label of the glimmerlight.

Intence was comprised of brothers Rüdiger and Clemens Glaser, and Helmut Brunner. Little did we know at the time that these three, along with synthesists who came after them, portended the end of the glimmerlight. Why, you ask? Because they were powered by the yellow crystals, rather than the blue, like Harald, Klaus, Flammende Herzen, and the rest of us.

Click of the title of this post to hear Intence's ode to the yellow crystals, "Yellow Below." It's from their album Triade. To my ears, it is reminiscent of Kraftwerk's "Computer Liebe," but you be the judge.

Also, to my knowledge, neither this song nor any other song by Intence has EVER been posted to the internets in Mp3 form. If there is enough demand, I may post the whole album (my bröselmaschine is working again). I'm curious as to why these three fellows don't get mentioned in the same breath as such heavyweights as Deutsche Wertarbeit and Wolfgang Riechmann! Their music is just as cold and robotic. Maybe it's because they heralded the end of an era, or the beginning of a new one.

This has all happened before, will it happen again?

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut--Part XXX: The First Synth Duo

2009-10-22T20:50:00.000-07:00

While the true origin of the Moon Birds is unknown, everyone in the glimmerlight considered them to be the original, first synth duo; the progenitors of such acts as Yaz, OMD, and Soft Cell.

As a matter of fact, there was a time in the early-80s when young synthesists could not even become a synth duo unless they passed the Moon Bird "test." The test involved walking under the stern gaze of the Moon Birds. If you were zapped by their Five Mega-Watt laser eyes, you were incinerated and failed the test. However, if you made it through without feeling the lasers' scorching glare, you passed the test and received your Official Synth Duo Certificate, signed by each of the Moon Birds.

Just ask Erasure or The Pet Shop Boys and they'll tell you about their harrowing journey deep into the glimmerlight to face the Moon Birds' test. They all hail the Moon Birds as the Godfathers of Synth-Duoism, and hang their certificates on their bedroom walls with pride.

Check out some of that Moon Bird five mega-watt magic by clicking on the title of this post.

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut--Part XXIX: Klaus Dinger und Richard Simmons

2009-10-22T07:59:00.000-07:00

At the end of the '70s, Klaus Dinger tired of making music in groups. He longed to go solo, and try new things. He decided to take a trip out of the glimmerlight and see the world beyond our pale blue borders.

Klaus travelled the world for 6 months, from Finland to Hollywood and back again. Upon his return he was all amped up. Inspired by a television program he had seen, The Richard Simmons Show, Klaus wanted to bring personal fitness to all the androids in the glimmerlight. He took himself into his workroom, modified many of his subroutines and personal apparatus, and emerged as Néondian, the glimmerlight's own fitness guru. Néondian led us in all sorts of movements and exercises that we all found quite foreign. We would rather have been drinking the blue liquid from our frisbees, taking a resurrection bath, or riding around in our light cycles.

However, the music he made for his exercise sessions was quite profound, and many of us showed up to do the crunches just so we could hear his new tunes. Click on the title of this post to hear "Mon Amour" -- one of my favorite Dinger tracks, it played during the opening credits of The Néondian Exercise Hour.

Remember to do your stretches before listening to this track, because it will make you move.

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut--Part XXVIII: Ralf und Florian's Secret Sister

2009-10-20T20:24:00.000-07:00

Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider were constructed in a factory deep within La Düsseldorf's glimmerlight one frigid February evening. They went on to form one of the most well known musical organizations in android history: Kraftwerk.

The secret that many do not know is that the same fateful evening, another synthesist was constructed. She was manufactured to roam the glimmerlight with her brothers Ralf und Florian. But, before she could actualize her destiny, she was kidnapped by Klaus Schulze who had his own designs for her.

Her name was Ami Marie, and had she remained with Ralf und Florian, her name would be well known to all of you. However, that was not in her cards. Luckily for us, she did utilize her musical subroutines, creating one of the classic LPs of the glimmerlight era: Verrückt Nach Glück. On this LP, you can hear her common heritage with Ralf und Florian, and one can only imagine what sort of magic all three would have created together. Check out one of the LP's highlights by clicking on the title of this post.

Ami, if you're out there, Ralf und Florian are still looking for you, and we all hope you reunite one day as the crystals intended.

Rauf und runter!

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut--Part XXVII: Frédéric Mercier is Coming!

2009-10-20T15:37:00.000-07:00

As we have noted in the past, there were not too many "real" droids living beyond the pale of the glimmerlight, just wannabes who painted their skin in metallic shade and moved like old men of yore (i.e. Gary Numan). However, there were a few synthesists beyond the German borders who had achieved true synthesis with their mechanized parts; one such was Frédéric Mercier.

For the first couple of weeks we actually thought this Frenchman was German, manufactured deep within the glimmerlight's crystals, close to Bernd Scholl's mechanical womb at the Ash Ra Temple. But no, he was basically our Alsatian cousin. and we loved him. Just listen to any of his LPs to find out why. No non-German got us moving like Mercier.

As some of you may know, there will be a reunion in the glimmerlight soon, and Mercier will be there. He penned an anthem for the festivities (to get everyone in the "Spirit") which you can hear by clicking on the title of this post.

Immer wieder!

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut--Part XXVI: Das Geheime Leben

2009-10-16T19:30:00.000-07:00

This week we are examining the secret lives of the glimmerlight. I'm hesitant to jump on the whole "secret life of" bandwagon because I think it's such bullsh•t; the secret life of bees, the secret life of lobster, give me a break. But really though, I'm just translating the title of my brother Reinhard Lakomy's LP. Reinhard was one of the hardest androids in the glimmerlight. Made out of pure Titanium alloy, he could stop a Tyndall moving at full speed. He also made glittering musik that moved us all as we sipped blue water by the deep blue pools.

Check out his track "Begierde Und Hoffnung" by clicking on the title of this post.

So say we all.

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut--Part XXV: More Robotic Gender Bending

2009-10-15T05:31:00.000-07:00

As we have seen so far in our examination of the glimmerlight and all who dwelled there, many of my cybernetic brethren liked to bend the rules of physics and nature. Von Deyen & Schütz melded their subroutines to become one, Rother created the Dynamotron, and who can forget Baumann's transformation into an Elvish warlord.

However, the synthesists liked nothing better than playing with gender roles. You may recall Klaus' brother Thomas! Anyway, another such gender bender was Clara Mondshine (aka Walter Bachauer). He spent his days as Walter, zooming around the glimmerlight in his Lightcycle, afterwards transforming into Clara at night, composing sweet synthesist sounds and bathing in all sorts of fragrant oils in her Cylon resurrection bath.

Check out his/her track "Memorymetropolis" by clicking on the title of this post.

Rauf und runter!

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut--Part XXIV: Highway to Heaven

2009-10-12T05:15:00.000-07:00

The Von Deyen & Schütz juggernaut was something to behold! Once they fully melded they soared away from the glimmerlight and wreaked havoc on the universe; conquering offworld-colonies right and left with their David Hasselhoff-ian good looks and Oberheim magic.

Indeed, many wonder why David Hasselhoff is so popular in Germany, they need look no further than the glimmerlight's totalitarian regime of the Von Deyen/Schütz synthesis/synthesists. They were a strange combination of Michael Landon Highway to Heaven otherworldliness traveling at the speed of a Baywatch lifeguard to the rescue through the universe. And all the droids loved their every move. Check out their track "Speed For You" by clicking on the title of this post. Another one of their masterful sonic concoctions.

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut -- Part XXIII: How New Age Killed the Glimmerlight

2009-08-24T02:27:00.000-07:00

The onslaught of New Age caught us all by surprise. Imagine, The Nothing which destroyed fantasia despite Atreyu's best efforts. Well, they had told us this had all happened before, and that it would all happen again, but we didn't believe them. We lounged by the deep blue pools in the glimmerlight, or drove our Light Cycles around on lazy Sunday afternoons, never knowing the darkness that was coming.

When, in the mid-80s, Sky Records began to advertise our musik as New Age, we knew this was the beginning of the end. Android synthesists were actually passing the Voight-Kampff test, leaving the glimmerlight, and touring with Yanni! Former replicants such as Ralf Tohde, Bernd Scholl and, to our great dismay, Dieter Schütz, were leaving us. The musik was still ghostly, mechanized, and blue, but it was packaged in a manner that we knew would dry up all the electric streams within the decade.

No one grieved the destruction more than Roedelius. He brought his synth down to the river and wrote the great lament of the glimmerlight, "Schöner Abend." This track reflected on the evening of the glimmerlight; the beautiful evening.

Soon, we would all depart for Silberland, where we would recreate the glimmerlight with the aid of Wolfgang's ghost. But Roedelius' melody is a testament to those Düsseldorf nights. Check it out by clicking on the title of this post.

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut -- Part XXII: Schulze Scores a Porno!

2009-08-13T09:40:00.000-07:00

Klaus was always trying to get into film musik. He got his chance in '74 when he was approached to create the soundtrack for the android film, Blackdance. Known throughout the glimmerlight as the first porn-film made by robots.

Check out one of the LPs highlights, "Some Velvet Phasing", by clicking on the title of this post.

Klaus would go on to score many more films, and make many more albums, but this one has a special place in our memory.

Eberhard und Die Polizei

2009-08-11T06:33:00.000-07:00

As you can see from this photo I took back in the glimmerlight, Eberhard Schoener was one of the more serious synthetic synthesists. As such, he adored the dour melodies of British rockers, The Police. Indeed, Eberhard thought of himself as a kind of German King of Pain. He often sent coded messages in bottles across the neon blue pools of our ancestral homeland. Furthermore, Eberhard immersed himself in Jungian concepts such a synchronicity.

Little did Eberhard know that, Andy Summers, Stuart Copeland and Sting were also influenced by his early recording Meditation. Hence, it was to Eberhard's great surprise and delight when the three lads showed up in the glimmerlight in '77 to petition Eberhard to make a record. They ended up making a few, including '77's Trance-Formation and '81's Video Magic. The glimmerlight had never rocked so hard, and many of us were quite disturbed by all the commotion. Was Eberhard drifting too far toward the Progbarian way of life? Would he have to be expelled from from the blue crystal spires deep in the heart of Düsseldorf?

But Eberhard was out brother, and ultimately the council voted to allow him to remain amongst his android brethren despite his dalliances with those who pass the Voight-Kampff beyond the blue event horizon. Check out some "Video-MAgic" by clicking on the title of this post.

Talk 'hard!

The Adventures of Moebius -- Part II: The Hopeless Love of Moebius and Birgit

2009-08-11T02:58:00.000-07:00

Moebius soon grew weary of the Rasta lifestyle, and was soon searching for new avenues to express himself. So Moebius was very pleased when German film director Karsten Wichniarz asked him to score the soundtrack to his 1986 film Blue Moon.

Moebius was also secretly happy because Blue Moon starred Birgit Anders, whom he had adored from afar for quite some time. Sadly, Birgit did not like "Toasters", as she derogatively referred to those of us who dwelt in the glimmerlight.

Although he was crushed by her rejection, Moebius completed the Blue Moon soundtrack. It was a skronk masterpiece, and we all loved it. Check out one of the skronkiest tunes by clicking on the title of this post.

As a sad epilogue, Birgit took the Voight-Kampff test many years later and it was determined that she herself was an android. Once she learned this, she always regretted rejecting Moebius. But, by that time he had moved on to an off-world colony to make sonic magic with his synths and crystals.

The Adventures of Moebius -- Part I: Rasta Android

2009-08-10T02:01:00.000-07:00

As the 70s wore down, Moebius tired of the glimmerlight. As a member of both Cluster and Harmonia, he had helped vanquish the evil hippie progbarian hordes who tried to conquer the glimmerlight again and again in the 70s.

However, as the 70s turned to the 80s, Moebius longed for a more sedate lifestyle. He was tired of being a super-hero. So he called up Roedelius, quit Cluster, and went for a trip to Jamaica. There, he smoked some bomb ganj' and met a bunch of reggae musicians. Moebius immersed himself in Rasta culture and music.

When he returned to the glimmerlight, Moebius called up fellow android Conny Plank and asked him if he wanted to make a reggae record. Conny agreed, and thus was born android reggae, and a new dynamic duo that would protect us from the long-hairs; they called it Rastakraut Pasta. As for the musik, the rest of us in the glimmerlight didn't know what to think. Where was the motorik beat? How could we dance to these skronky rhythms? Eventually we accessed some of Moebius' sub-protocols and learned how to dance to this strange new music, and we were happier for it in the long run. Check out some sweet android Rasta magic by clicking on the title of this post. Also, stay tuned for more Moebius adventures!

Rauf und runter!

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut -- Part XXI: Zabba Lindner

2009-08-09T07:21:00.000-07:00

Rother and (especially) Dinger were always making fun of Adelbert because he couldn't capture that motorik beat. As a disciple of Schulze, Adelbert favored, long, drawn out drones with assorted bleeps, created by his Arp Odyssey and Farfisa Organ VIP 233.

However, as time wore on, Adelbert grew weary of Rother and Dinger's cruel barbs. He built a timemaschine to go back into Germany's Teutonic past where he recruited Wolfgang Zabba Lindner, a military drummer, from the Prussian regime.

Adelbert brought Zabba back to the glimmerlight and they made 1980's Atmosphere LP. Finally, on the track "Timemachine", Adelbert, with Zabba's aid, was able to capture that elusive motorik sound. Hear it by clicking on the title of this post. In triumph, Adelbert brought a test pressing of "Timemachine" over to Rother and Dinger's crystal spire. They were impressed, but they didn't let Adelbert know this. To this day, Rother and Dinger tell Adelbert he's got no sense of rhythm. And Adelbert, sadly, has abandoned the motorik sound. But, for that brief, glorious moment in time, Adelbert and Zabba rocked the glimmerlight.

Immer wieder!

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut -- Part XX: Studium an Der Ash Ra Tempel

2009-08-08T02:58:00.000-07:00

When Bernd arrived amongst us, he told tales of the mystic Ash Ra Tempel, far in the recesses of the glimmerlight, near its mystic core. There, he studied under the tutelage of Manuel Göttsching, another character from our makers' bedtime fairy-tales.

Supposedly the original Ash Ra Tempel was on the colony of Kobol, built by the Centurions at the dawn of the glimmerlight. Göttsching travelled to Earth from Kobol as an emissary, to found a cybernetic race of synthesists here on our planet. He brought the crystals from distant Kobol, through the Sunrain to Earth, to the area now known as Germany. There, he constructed a replica of the Ash Ra Tempel at the glimmerlight's heart, and the first factories that churned out krautrock's greatest heroes.

When Bernd emerged from the crystal core, he came equipped with 8-Tracks that bore sonic messages from our distant forefather. One track I remember clearly, was an ode to his journey through the Sunrain. You can hear it by clicking on the title of this post.

Rauf und runter!

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut -- Part XIX: Das Tief Mysterien von Bernd Scholl

2009-08-07T02:27:00.000-07:00

Perhaps no synthesist dwelt deeper in the glimmerlight than Bernd Scholl, where he weaved tales of fantasy amongst the ancient crystals of our makers.

For quite a while, we all thought Bernd was just a myth. His was the tale told to young androids before they went to sleep; the benevolent cyborg who would protect us as we dreamt of electric sheep.

Of course, Schulze claimed he'd actually met Bernd. But, by that time, we'd grown weary of his tall tales of mystic orgies in the crystal fields.

Turns out we were mistaken. I still remember the first time I heard Bernd Scholl's Tales of Fantasy beaming from the deep recesses of the glimmerlight. We sat in awed silence by the blue pools. Check out the title track by clicking on the title of this post.

Also sagen wir alle!

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut -- Part XVIII: Tyndall

2009-08-06T05:58:00.000-07:00

In the late 70s, West Berlin had a major transit problem. The city enlisted my synthesist brethren to construct a modern transit system that could transport the people to and fro.

The first passenger car to emerge from the glimmerlight was called the Tyndall. It rode through the Berlin skies like a flaming light. Like all of us, it was a thinking maschine. Like the cars and automobiles of PKD, it could converse with its passengers, sometimes reprimanding them if they did not pay their fares.

This train could also make some sweet music. My favorite Tyndall record was Reflexionen. Chock full of amazing songs, including an ode to the West Berlin transit system of which it was an integral part, called "Transit West Berlin." Check it out by clicking on the title of this post.

Immer wieder!

Die Klapper-Schlange

2009-08-05T02:06:00.000-07:00

As I've mentioned in earlier posts, we had many guests in the glimmerlight; non-android life forms who'd visit us to glean our ways. They hoped that some of the magic would wear off on them, as if they were bathing in a Cylon resurrection bath.

One such guest was American movie-maker/composer John Carpenter. In '76, he visited with his bodyguard Die Klapper-Schlange. We all thought Klapper-Schlange was the toughest thing to hit the glimmerlight since Moebius. He'd lost an eye battling the Hydrogen Breathers in the outer-colonies, carried a big gun, and said vaguely Amerikansk things like, "Who's the Duke?"

We were all very sad when John and Klapper-Schlange left. However, they had to save the president. They did send us some sweet synthesist sounds that we enjoyed deep in the glimmerlight. Check out "The Duke Arrives/Barricade" by clicking on the title of this post.

Rauf und runter!

Dynamotron: Android Pain Medicine, or The Missing Defender of The Universe?

2009-08-04T06:33:00.000-07:00

As the 80s wore on, Rother visited us in the glimmerlight less and less. He spent more time on Glitzerglanz with his maschines. He began to abandon his analog synths, becoming more digital in the process. This gave his old android synthesist creations from the glimmerlight great pain, so Rother attempted to create a kind of android pain medicine. He called it "Dynamotron" (from the album Lust), and you can hear it by clicking on the title of this post.

We heard "Dynamotron" beamed down to us via Rother's bröselmaschine. We never knew if it was some new cybernetic creation that would defend our universe from the hydrogen breathing races, or if it was, indeed, simply a pain medication for Rother's army of mechanized synthesists, depressed over his digital excursions.

Either way, these were some of the last sweet sounds he created, before we lost all contact.

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut -- Part XVII: Deutschland's Simon & Garfünkel

2009-07-07T17:16:00.000-07:00

Back in the day, it was always the Berlin scene vs. la Düsseldorf scene. Rarely did anyone speak of the Steinbergkirche scene. But Steinbergkirche had its very own Cluster in Von Deyen and Schütz; Von Deyen playing Moebius to Schütz's Roedelius.

They teamed up for 1983's Inventions; one of the most profound LPs to emerge from the glimmerlight. Indeed, Von Deyen and Schütz were the glimmerlight's own Simon & Garfünkel.

Not many people know that soon after Von Deyen and Schütz met, they attempted to program themselves into one solitary unit; one being following the same sub-routines and protocols, masters of both the Roland Jupiter 4 (Schütz) and the Arp 2600 (Von Deyen).

As you can see from the album cover, the two came close to succeeding. Indeed, they became sort of cybernetic twins, Leoben's if you will, philosophizing synthesists in the deep blue pools of the glimmerlight.

Anyway, we spent many nights drinking Grape Juice Plus to the sounds of Inventions, especially the track "Farland", which you can hear by clicking on the title of this post.

This has all happened before. Will it happen again?

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut -- Part XVI: Danz Die Sternzeit

2009-07-06T19:13:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned earlier, Adelbert Von Deyen also travelled the sternzeit before joining us in the glimmerlight.

Some claim that Adelbert actually wanted to be Klaus Schulze, but he messed up the programming. They've got it all wrong! They were never there with us, basking in the blue depths of the inner-hinterhüffer. Just click on the title of this post to hear what I'm talking about. Adelbert wrote this track, "Mars," as an homage to the planet he visited in late-79. I'm afraid that Klaus could probably never come up with such a funky synth masterpiece. Immer wieder!

Indeed, Adelbert had spent much of '79 touring the planets of the galaxy, and the trip formed the basis of his masterpiece LP -- Planetary. An album that takes me right back to the glimmerlights of my youth.

Adelbert would soon team up with Dieter Schütz to form one of the most underrated krautrock duos of all time. Tune in tomorrow for that tale...

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut -- Part XV: Dieter Schütz in Miracle World

2009-07-05T18:57:00.000-07:00

Dieter Schütz was born hundreds of years ago, on the planet Aries near Mount Eternal. After Dieter trained in the Shellcore technique (the use of which enables one to shatter rocks with his bare fists), Janken the Great captured Prince Egle, and his fiancée Princess Lora.

Dieter spent many years battling Janken, and came close to death many times. Like Luke Skywalker, and his father before him, Dieter became more than human along the way. Missing limbs replaced with mechanical parts, such that when he arrived in Düsseldorf in the late 70s, you could not tell what was man, and what was machine.

Dieter took up residence in the glimmerlight, and studied the Oberheim technique with Schulze and the others. Only then was he able to vanquish Janken. Check out Dieter Schütz's "Spacelab" by clicking on the title of this post.

Dieter left the glimmerlight too soon. He took off with Adelbert Von Deyen, presumably to return to Aries. In the mid-80s, a Japanese video game company, Sega, based its video game Alex Kidd in Miracle World on the life and times of Dieter Schütz (he was big in Japan). If you're out there my brother, we miss you.

Rauf und runter!

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut -- Part XIV: The Ivory Tower

2009-06-19T06:54:00.000-07:00

Then there were those days when we jumped on our Luck Dragons, departed the glimmerlight, and headed south to the Ivory Tower, the home of Giorgio Moroder.

Giorgio lived at the pinnacle of the tower, his epic Moustache dripping sweat as pounded away on his Oberheim Four-Voice. We'd sit at his feet, basking in the glow of his other-worldly sounds, while the Luck Dragons would hunt for squirrels in the forest below. He'd give us cassettes of his newest compositions so we could listen to them on our Walkmans during the long flight home.

One Giorgio's best tracks was an ode to his mystic palace, "The Ivory Tower." Click on the title of this post, and hear what we heard in our headphones, as we flew, via The Southern Oracle, back to the glimmerlight.

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut -- Part XIII: The Durutti Column

2009-06-14T18:03:00.000-07:00

Vini Reilly also had a thing for the glimmerlight. As a teenager he ran away from Manchester for a time to dwell among the androids. While he could never be one of us (not German), he spent the rest of his life building a monument to Schulze, Grosskopf, Rother & Roedelius. He called it-- The Durutti Column.

Vini has spent the last 30 years trying to perfect this memorial to the glimmerlight, and those who dwelled in its blue cadences. The Durutti Column, this monument to machines, has been ignored far too long. I feel the need to give a shout out to its latest development, a sonic masterpiece called Love in the Time of Recession; just released. Why these sounds aren't garnering massive media coverage (other than mine) borders on criminal neglect.

I feel duty bound to hold up he who has held me and my cybernetic brethren up for so long!

Praise The Durutti Column! Praise thy hat!

Check out one of Recession's sickest tracks by clicking on the title of this post. And support Vini and his creation by checking out the rest of the Column's oeuvre.

Droids in the Glimmerlight

2009-06-14T17:46:00.001-07:00

Occasionally foreigners would join us in the glimmerlight, Bowie, Eno & Iggy being some of our more well known guests. They would plug in, and we would take it from there. What many boxers may not know is that we had some French guests in the heyday as well; a sweet group of guys who loved chocolate and wanted to be machines. They called themselves Droids, and in '78, on Riechmann's offworld colony, they made an album called Star Peace.

The album has some sick Oberheim, and consistently wunderbar songs. It really brings it all back home. Check out my favorite track, "(Do You Have) The Force -- Part I" by clicking on the title of this post.

Do you have the force?

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut -- Part XII: The Unicorn's Prophecy

2009-06-04T05:51:00.001-07:00

... And then there were those rare weekends when we left the glimmerlights and headed for the country, the Black Forest to be specific. Roedelius and Rother would head off to Forst with Moebius, but the rest of us would journey deep into the forest's dark heart.

One weekend, late in the Spring of '76, Peter Baumann decided to stay behind with the Elves. He had fallen in love with one in particular, Silvara. While she knew he was an android, and that his servosytem would corrode long before she entered the Halls of Mandos, she fell in love with him as well. Indeed, the Unicorn's prophecy had told of the union of an Elven woman and synthetic man. So, Peter lived out his days in the trees with his Elven bride and his Oberheim Matrix-12. We sadly left him behind, but he would bring us joy every couple of years or so by releasing his synthesist sounds.

Romance '76 is the soundtrack to his love affair. More "earthy" than some of the sounds abounding in the glimmerlight, but no less enchanting. Click on the title of this post to hear one of my favorite tracks.

We visited Peter late in '76 and were shocked by his transformation. His severe, cybernetic appearance had softened, his metallic appearance had taken on a more golden, less silvery, hue. His once sharply styled euro-hair had become flowing locks, that flew behind him as he ran though the forest with his loyal Brownies. He runs in the Black Forest still, our android cousin amongst the Elves, singing in the Elven tongue -- "Cormamin lindua ele lle!"

On a side note, in the early-80s Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman would loosely base the Dragonlance character Gilthanas on Peter Baumann.

Transmissions From Glizterglanz: Süssherz Und Tiefenschärfe

2009-05-13T11:27:00.000-07:00

Recently, I've been listening to the sounds of Michael Rother's early to mid 80s work. His final masterpieces before leaving for Glitzerglanz. There would be more Rother releases, but they would be pale copies of his former work, created by mindless androids he left behind to do his bidding.

His final masterwork was Süssherz Und Tiefenschärfe. The LP boasted one of the worst, yet most strangely compelling covers of the krautrock era. I found this photo of it on a shag carpet with my bröselmaschine. To get a better look you'll have to find your own copy, or come dwell with me in Blaues Licht.

On Süssherz, Rother created his own language with which to communicate with his minions. For example, he would play the song "Rapido" when he wanted his servants to hurry the frak up. You can hear it by clicking on the title of this post.

Why do I love this song so much? Maybe because it came out in the 80s, yet hearkened back to an earlier time, when Kraftwerk were still among us. It seems to be a loving farewell to all he had created.

Despite its cover, this LP is super rad, and should not be neglected. It is one of the hidden masterpieces of the krautrock era.

Rauf und runter!

Do Cylons Dream of Electric Sheep?

2009-05-13T11:15:00.000-07:00

Today I'd like to send some love out to Battlestar Galactica (the new one). The greatest T.V. show to ever grace the airwaves.

Other than Tron, nothing captures the glimmerlights better than the corridors of a Cylon Baseship.

Also, no show is more heavily indebted to the genius of PKD. I was watching the extras on the Razor movie where Galactica producer David Eick stated that a major motivation behind the show, its tone and emotional content, was Blade Runner. But, even more than that, no show better captures the Dickian conundrum that makes one ask: "What the frak is going on?"

I am super sad that this show is no longer around. So are my Synthesist brethren.

So say we all!

Dimitri Endorphin: The Return

2009-04-28T18:28:00.001-07:00

Rumors are abounding in the glimmerlight that Dimitri Endorphin is retuning to the studio. Some of you synthesists out there may remember his self-titled debut from back in 2002. It debuted in Paris, and made its way back to the streets of Berlin via Patrick Brunken.

Well Patrick, I spoke with Dimitri yesterday and he sends his regards. It was a faint connection as he has spent these past years on Rother's offworld colony, Glitzerglanz.

More on Endorphin and Glitzerglanz in upcoming posts.

Rauf und runter!

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut -- Part XI: Metropolis

2009-04-21T20:30:00.000-07:00

For the most part, my Synthesist brethren were self-aware that they were androids. However, long ago, Klaus built a cyborg that did not know its own nature. Like some of Battlestar Galactica's Cylons, Edgar Froese grew up playing in the Black Forest, believing he was the same as all the other kinder in their Lederhosen.

Then, one evening while we were all dancing in the glimmerlights, Klaus pulled out a shining object and turned a switch. A few days later, Edgar showed up in Düsseldorf with an ARP 2600 and everything changed. Klaus had a new sidekick, and we all had some new sounds to groove to.

Klaus and Edgar dreamt of greater things though, and would soon construct, and emigrate to their own offworld-colony, Metropolis -- its anthem can be accessed by clicking on the title of this post.

Immer wieder rauf und runter!

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut -- Part XI: Die Justiz-League

2009-04-06T13:41:00.000-07:00

In the Autumn of '74 the barbarian hordes of Amon Duul the 2nd and Ash Ra Tempel were quickly approaching the high iron gates of Wolfgang Riechmann's Silberland.

Silberland was the dreamy enclave that Riechmann founded as a kind of home away from home for cyborgs who spent their energy in the glimmerlights. You may remember that scene from Tron where the three dudes sip from the electronic pond with their frisbees. Well that was basically what Silberland was like; a bunch of androids lounging by a neon blue pool. But our peaceful haven was now being threatened by the prog-krautrockian tribes led by Amon Duul II. Wolfgang decided we needed a special force to protect us, so he called upon Moebius, Roedelius, and Rother to be the heroes that would defend our electronic sanctuary.

They christened themselves Harmonia. They were the first krautrock supergroup, our very own Justice League. And they promptly drove the progbarian hordes from our gates with their ghostly bröselmaschine sounds. Rother would eventually don the mantle of Flaming Hawk when he went solo and got his own series, but his powers arguably never equaled the heights he achieved in this group of heroes. Check out one of their most potent powers by clicking on the title of this post.

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut -- Part X: DDR Android

2009-03-11T17:32:00.000-07:00

The Puhdys were built in a factory in what was the East Germany, or DDR. As they grew older, they began to encounter the music of their android brethren on the other side of the wall. They longed to join their cybernetic cousins, but human politics kept them apart. Many times they attached burrows to their arms in vain attempts to dig their way to the West, but every time they were thwarted.

Finally, they decided just to take up synthesizers against their opressors. Eventually, their ghost in the machine sounds reached Klaus, Edgar, Harald and the rest of us, and so we set up a signal to let them know that we knew that they knew we were all in the same gang.

After the wall fell in '89 we all met up in the Berlin glimmerlights and danced until the sun came up. Check out on of The Puhdy's shining moments by clicking on the title of this post.

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut -- Part IX: The Cross-Dressing Android

2009-03-11T16:45:00.000-07:00

Thomas Dinger is one of the more unheralded cogs in the Krautrock bröselmaschine. He rocked the drums on Neu! 75 and continued on the trommel duties for La Düsseldorf, the band he formed from the ashes of Neu! with his brother Klaus.

Thomas was the rare Krautrocker who went through two transformations. His transition to android was more permanent. But when he ventured into the glimmerlights, Thomas liked to dress as a woman. Hence, he became the first recorded cross-dressing android.

After La Düsseldorf's demise, Thomas went on to create a Krautrock masterpiece in Für Mich. One of its best tracks is available by clicking on the title of this post.

So plug yourself in, put on some lipstick and enjoy!

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut -- Part VIII: Wannabe Android

2009-03-11T16:37:00.000-07:00

Before Michael Rother became the Blazing Heartbreaker, he was a member of Krautrock legends Neu! Along with Klaus Dinger (the Godfather of Punk & New Wave) and Thomas Dinger (the Cross-Dressing Android), Michael created a sound truly unique to man and robot-kind; music that never made the mainstream here on Planet Earth, but that consistently tops the charts on the Offworld Colony.

Neu did have significant influence outside of Germany. Indeed, OMD tried to emulate their sound and even composed a B-side called "4-Neu." However, what OMD does not understand is that they are not German! They are just two wannabe synthesists from The Wirral! Only Germans can truly become one with the cyborg and create the ghost in the machine! Sting tried it and failed miserably. OMD tried it and came close, but they are British! I had to remind them over and over again, "you are not German!!! You can never truly become a bröselmaschine! No matter how many wires you stick in yourself, or how much make-up you put on your face!"

They just didn't understand that to create such a sound one had to truly become a robot, something an English lad playing a Casiotone on the banks of the Mersey simply cannot accomplish.

Anyway, for one of my favorite Neu songs, click on the title of this post. The track is called "Seeland." As fate would have it, OMD composed a song called "Sealand" on their seminal Architecture & Morality. Similar title, similar sound.

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut -- Part VII: Deutsche Wertarbeit

2009-03-11T16:34:00.000-07:00

Dorothea Raukes was Krautrock's Stevie Nicks. Kind of always at zie parties, dansing in zie glimmerlight. As was mentioned earlier, she dated such luminaries as Wolfgang Riechmann and Michael Rother. After Rother she moved on to resident Synthesist, Harald Grosskopf.

But as the 70s transitioned into the 80s, Dorothea grew weary of robot love. Nearly every "man" she had been with in the past decade was at least partially cybernetik. The Germans have a saying that goes "wenn Sie nicht gewinnen könned, mit ihnen." Roughly translated, that means- if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. And that is exactly what Dorothea did. One night in the glimmerlight she sidled up to Klaus Schulze and asked him to take her back to his bröselmaschine laboratory.

The next day she emerged as a new music making maschine- "Deutsche Wertarbeit," or German Craftsmanship. The music she created now was that of the synthesist, containing the ghost of her human past; the kind of sound Vangelis and other wannabe androids would try to create for years to come, but never succeed. Check out a slice of this German Craftsmanship by clicking on the title of this post.

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut -- Part VI: Das Zen Meister

2009-03-10T08:19:00.000-07:00

Hans-Joachim Roedelius was the spiritual leader of the Krautrock movement. Some say he was the first to discover the ghost in ze bröselmaschine. Forced in to the Nazi-youth as a child, escaping from Communist East Germany after the war, and joining the electronic underground, Roedelius led perhaps the most fascinating life of any of those who dwelled in the glimmerlights.

He was the other half of Cluster (the other being Moebius), a member of Harmonia (along with Krautrock heartthrob Michael Rother), and a completely astounding solo-künstler in his own right.

Roedelius' experiences also led him to develop his own philosophy. He believed the secret of the universe was contained in the foot. Consequently, feet figured prominently on his album covers. The music he created was also good for philosophizing, or for just drinking coffee and staring out the window on rainy Stuttgart days.

In the future, I plan on doing a whole series of posts on the life and times of Roedelius. But for now, tippen Sie auf die Füße to the sounds of my favorite Roedelius track by clicking on the title of this post. It's title, "Alle Jahr Wieder," means "every year again." Rumor has it he wrote it for a never-realized German film adaptation of PKD's Now Wait For Last Year. Sadly, that never came about.

Genießen!

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut -- Part V: Das Böse Zwillinge

2009-03-10T05:58:00.000-07:00

One night after an early 70s Tangerine Dream show in Zürich, Klaus Schulze, Edgar, and I were walking the pre-dawn streets, tripping on JJ-180. As the sun rose, two little Kinder ran up to us, offering to shine our boots, and begging for money. Klaus stopped in his tracks and asked the two little ones why they were up so early? Where were their parents? As it so happened, the two children were orphans, twins in fact.

Klaus, claiming he had seen a vision of the future, decided he would take the two children back to Berlin, which he promptly did after adopting them. He named the boy Phaedra Jumbotron (or P.J. for short) and the girl, Stella (after his beloved Großmutter).

P.J. and Stella were raised during the electronic revolution, by the Godfather of the scene. He loved them very much. However, as the twins reached their teenage years they grew disenchanted with Klaus' electronic meanderings. They longed for a more structured sound. So in 1980, they ran away to Düsseldorf, where they recorded their own album, Psychotron, with Thomas Dinger. They called themselves Schaltkreis Wasserman.

Klaus never forgave P.J. and Stella for their poppier sounds, and has since referred to them as the "Das Böse Zwillinge," or "the Evil Twins" in English. They became the German Electric Underground scene's Tomax and Xamot. However. Psychotron was a true masterpiece and foresaw the direction electronic music was heading in the 80s and beyond. My favorite track on the album is "Zeit Un Raum" which means "Pass the chilie." Check it out by clicking on the title of this post. You can actually hear how Schulze did exert some residual influence on the sound. It's sad he couldn't see beyond his own wounded pride. This was a sound that was still pushing the boundaries in its own way. Such a tragic tale, such a fine piece of glimmerlight musik.

Pass die Bohnen!

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut -- Part IV: Beschmutzen

2009-03-08T14:24:00.000-07:00

Peter Backhausen was kind of the old crusty hippy of the Krautrock scene. Everyone called him "Beschmutzen" which translates to janker in English, and a truer janker there never was. Peter always wanted to hang out with the androids in the glimmerlights, but with his long hair and tattered jeans he never looked the part. Also, the music he made tended to lean more in the prog direction, he could never really shake that Emerson, Lake and Palmer vibe, that Klaus, Wolfgang, and Harald found very uncool.

That was until Peter made his seminal LP, Planet Show. I remember he showed up at a party one night in Cologne with a test 8-Track of the record. Something was different about him; his pants were tighter, his walk -- just a tad stiffer, and there seemed to be a metallic sheen in his eyes. He would have failed The Voight-Kampff test that night for sure. Indeed, Planet Show was going to be Beschmutzen's entree into the Society of Synthesists. He played everyone the track "Phoenix II." The title was apt, as this music could have been the soundtrack for one of the films then in vogue on Harald's Offworld Colony. Peter was now part of the gang!

"Phoenix II" is actually my favorite track of the whole Krautrock era, the finest morsel of sonic sauerkraut around. This track is where you will truly find the ghost in the machine, and when Peter's vocoder kicks in 2/3's of the way through, you too can soar with the silver phoenix. Check out the otherworldly magic by clicking on the title of this post.

As far as I know, Planet Show, in its entirety, is completely unavailable in MP3 format. Klaus, Harald and the others heard the other songs and kicked Beschmutzen right out of the gang, and he's completely banned from the Offworld Colony.

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut -- Part III: Synthesist

2009-03-08T06:26:00.000-07:00

By the late 70s, many in our circle of friends actually believed Harald Grosskopf was an android. At that juncture, this Krautrock veteran had been a member of Ash Ra Tempel, The Cosmic Jokers and Wallenstein. He'd also played with Klaus Schulze, and some say their late night sessions making music machines led them to attempt mechanizing themselves.

Either way, by 1979, Harald's skin had taken on a metallic hue, his eyes sparkled like glittery diamonds, and his voice sounded like something out of an 8-bit Sega game. He'd also shifted from being mainly a drummer, to playing the synthesizer. Indeed, rumors abounded that he'd programmed himself to be a walking, talking, synthesist.

During this transmigration of Harald Grosskopf, he/it also created one of the most stellar albums in the galaxy: fittingly titled Synthesist. Released on Sky Records, this LP is full of the warmest robot sounds around. Indeed, Vangelis took notice and used many of Grosskopf's themes for his Blade Runner soundtrack. Track 2, "B.Aldrian" sounds as if it had a significant influence on Vangelis' score.

But my favorite track on the album would have to be the 3rd, "Emphasis." Check it out by clicking on the title of this post.

As for The Synthesist, he's still out there making music. Word has it he's just returned from his offworld colony to tour Japan with a reformed Ash Ra Tempel. Like many of his colleagues, Harald is big in Japan.

Hagel aus der welt kolonie!

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut -- Part II: Himmelblau

2009-03-05T17:59:00.000-08:00

Wolfgang Riechmann was originally a member of Streetmark, as I mentioned yesterday, they were Germany's Fleetwood Mac (or Go-Betweens, who were Australia's Fleetwood Mac). Anyway, while the resident synthesist in Streetmark, Wolfgang fell for lead singer Dorothea Raukes. When Dorothea left Wolfgang for Michael Rother, Riechmann left Streetmark and went solo. Inspired by fellow synthesists Kraftwerk, he took to wearing make-up and emulating a PKD android, although his color-palette reflected the state of his heart. Ridley Scott took notice, and modeled much of the Blade Runner aesthetic on Riechmann's image.

Riechmann also made a Krautrock classic Wunderbar. And the record really lives up to its name; kind of a lost classic of the genre.

Sadly, just before the LP came out in 1978, Riechmann was murdered in a Düsseldorf dive bar by two sailors. "Himmelblau" (Sky Blue) is one of the highlights of Riechmann's lone solo LP. Click on the title to enjoy this small slice of heaven.

Dieser ist für Sie Wolfgang! Ich hoffe, Sie sing glücklich dort.

Six Degrees of Sauerkraut -- Part I: Flammende Herzen

2009-03-04T12:52:00.000-08:00

This is the first post in a series that will document the life and times of many of your favorite Krautrock stars. Those days and nights in Düsseldorf, and beyond, were full of fun and drama, and I thought it might be nice to share some of my memories. Many of these damen und herren were interconnected in many ways, and I hope to document some of that during the Six Degrees of Sauerkraut saga.

I thought I'd begin with Michael Rother, or as he liked to think of himself "Flammende Herzen." In English that means "Blazing Heart." As you may have guessed, Michael was Krautrock's ladies man. He thought quite highly of himself, as did the ladies (and a number of men as fate would have it). Indeed, I remember one night in 1977; we were all out, dancing in the glimmerlight of a club on Düsseldorf's eastside. That night, Michael basically stole Dorothea Raukes from Wolfgang Riechmann. Dorothea and Wolfgang were members of Streetmark, West Germany's Fleetwood Mac. Plenty of interband hook-ups and what not. Anyway, Dorothea took one look at Blazing Heart and that was the end of her and Wolfgang.

Wolfgang took to wearing icy makeup, dressing in tight suits, and acting like he was a robot. Indeed, Blade Runner was influenced by this new style Wolfgang developed in response to his heartbreak over losing Dorothea. This would happen to Dorothea as well when she and Blazing Heart broke up, and she subsequently formed the legendary Krautrock band, Deutsche Wertarbeit. But, these are tales for another time.

Anyway, Rother made my favorite music of the whole Krautrock era. Excellent for experimenting with JJ-180, Can-D and what have you. And it is always easier to commune with the Vast Active Living Intelligence System ("Valis") while listening to Rother's Katzenmusik, which every true Krautrocker should own.

Try some Blazing Heart for yourself, Rother's "KM 12" from Katzenmusik, by clicking on the title of this post! This song quite literally took me to the stars one night.

Krautrock für immer!

More Crack Please!

2009-03-03T15:36:00.000-08:00

The first time I read The Crack in Space, I thought that it was where Planet of The Apes got its source material. But to my chagrin, PKD more likely got a major subplot of his 1966 novel from Pierre Boulle's 1963 novel: a planet far away in time and space populated by intelligent pre-humans.

Having now read both books a couple of times, and watching the original movies in an attic in Seattle, the two tales are indeed strikingly similar in some respects and it's always interesting to ponder who and what influenced Dick.

The Crack in Space: PKD on Race and Politics

2009-03-01T07:19:00.000-08:00

Given the events of the past six months (market crash, presidential election) I thought it would be appropriate to reread PKD's 1966 novel The Crack in Space. Currently, no other PKD novel better captures the current times; a horrible economy, an unpopular outgoing President, and the election of the first Black President. All of this and more in Dick's underrated Crack.

From the Ace 2nd Edition blurb:

"Every crisis that had been building through the 20th century came to a head in the year 2080. And it was an election year.

There were tens on millions of people in deep-freeze waiting for better times--and the pressure was on to wake them up or throw them away. Unemployment had reached an all-time high -- and the people were demanding jobs.

The jiffi-scuttlers which made space travel possible were breaking down and someone had to find out why fast.

The racial problem had become dangerous -- and one of the candidates for President was Black.

But most important of all, scientists had broken into another dimension and found another world -- and a long forgotten ancestral race."

Aside from a few minor details PKD seems to have predicted the future quite admirably. However, Ace probably probably made a printing error and it should have read 2008 rather than 2080. Either way, this is one of PKD's better efforts.

Fingers Let Go: Price Pearlman Releases New LP

2009-02-22T13:35:00.000-08:00

Today Price Pearlman releases his new LP, "Fingers Let Go." Recorded over the last year in studios in Brooklyn and Minneapolis, it's a record in two parts; Side A is called "The BQE" and Side B is called "I-90 West." Each side covers the process of holding on, and letting go.

The LP was mostly produced by Andrew Totolos (of Giraffes fame) and Price Pearlman. Totolos also provided drum and bass, and Ryan Maresco rocked the lead guitar.

Minneapolis' favorite son G. Luke recorded one track at his Minneapolis studio, with the Wentworth String Octet. Other guest musicians include The Clinton Avenue Gospel Choir (feat. Chava Mirel), Byron Kalet, and Kristen Cappadona. Penny Yarborough and Joachim Lustwandel guest on Banjo and Pedal Steel respectively. And Dimitri Endorphin returns to Planet Earth to play some synthesizers and sample some classic rock.

Look for it in your mailbox soon!

Galactic Pot-Healer

2009-01-28T15:02:00.000-08:00

Joe Fernwright fixes ceramic pots in a future Cleveland. Since most of the world uses plastic, Joe doesn't have much work. He's kind of desperate, so when he gets a job offer plopped in his

toilet bowl, not only de we know we're in PKD novel, but he's ready to accept right away. The job offer comes from this Jabba The Hut like alien ("The Glimmung") from another galaxy. After Joe accepts the job (raising a cathdral from the bottom of another planet's ocean) the Glimmung transports Joe to Plowman's Planet where he's supposed to get to work.

Galactic Pot-Healer is probably in the top 5 strangest PKD novels. Sometimes it is completely random. However, in my humble opinion it is Dick's funniest novel. Healer was written in 1969 (PKD's late-60s novels are my favorites). However, it can probably be most closely aligned to Dick's Maze of Death published in 1970. Both novels are overtly religious, and also have a theme of migration to a new planet to begin a new endeavor.

Rumor has it that there will be a 3rd Library of America volume and it will include: Maze of Death, Valis, The Divine Invasion, and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer. While all of these novels display PKD ruminating on religion, I'm a tad aggrieved that Galactic Pot-Healer will not be included. If you're looking for some deep thoughts, and some good laughs, check it out.

sauerkraut!

2009-01-22T16:47:00.000-08:00

Back in the world of PKD and reading The World Jones Made. Like all of his novels, this one concerns precognition, or a dude who lives his life one year in the future. Basically he lives his life twice so he always has a sense of Deja Vu. PKD makes this kind of precognition out to be a blessing, but mostly a curse.

Another person who can be considered to have lived in the future is Klaus Dinger. Dinger, along with Michael Rother, was an original member of German electronic pioneers Kraftwerk. However, Dinger and Rother left Kraftwerk because they didn't think the band was pushing the boundaries enough. They went on to form Neu! After Neu disbanded, Klaus went on to form La Düsseldorf with, among others, his brother Thomas.

Both Neu and La Düsseldorf were well ahead of their time. Indeed, David Bowie once said that La Düsseldorf was the sound of the 80's, even though their seminal LPs were released in '76 and '78. They did make one more record in 1980. I can safely assure you that Neu/La Düsseldorf/Klaus Dinger influenced everyone from the Sex Pistols to Joy Division. OMD even had a b-side called 4 Neu; one of my favorite OMD tracks of all time.

After Neu, Michael Rother went on to make some solo LPs that I'm quite fond of, including: Flammende Herzen and Sterntaler. These records, too, evoked the sound of the 80's well before the decade rolled around. Sometimes I wonder if they too, were living their lives more than once.

I've been digging a lot of this krautrock lately as a matter of fact. Thomas Dinger went on to record some swell solo LPs, including one of my favorite krautrock records, Für Mich. Other current favorites include: Wolfgang Reichmann, Hans-Joachim Roedelius, Emtidi, Peter Baumann, and Robert Schroeder.

As you can imagine, this forward looking music makes the perfect soundtrack for The World Jones Made, and certainly for any other PKD novel you may have lying around. Check out one of my favorite Klaus Dinger/La Düsseldorf songs, "Geld", by clicking on the title of this post.

Birds Fly (Whisper to a Scream)

2009-01-19T14:11:00.000-08:00

I had to get away for a little while. I guess I just had a little too much Dick.

Anyway, I've been bopping around the Con-Ap today, basically cleaning. There is no better song to clean to than Icicle Works' "Birds Fly (Whisper to a Scream)". To be quite honest I haven't been able to get into the band's other songs (maybe some Loyal Boxers can't show me the light).

But this song, which you can access by clicking on the title of this post, is a true barnstormer in the spirit of Big Country's "In a Big Country". Another band that only has one song I enjoy.

You may be thinking, "what does Icicle Works have to do with Dick?" Well, the band named themselves after Frederik Pohl's 1960 short story "The Day The Icicle Works Closed." The real lesson here is that one can find real cool band names from Science Fiction titles. In fact, I think I'm going to cull a nice list of potential band names from Dick titles. Aspiring rock stars stay tuned.

Anyway, if your Con-Ap is in need of some Mr. Clean, Birds Fly may aid your quest.

In other news, I'm thinking about heading to The World Jones Made. I'm ready to get some Dick back into my life. I hope that makes you happy.

Robert at Joe's Pub

2008-10-29T18:22:00.000-07:00

A Loyal Boxer-- "John in D.C." -- was in the same room with me at Joe's Pub for Robert's shows last month. I haven't posted in quite some time and when he let me know he was there I felt obligated to share a couple of hazy memories from the show. I bought the tix for both shows the day they were scheduled and made a reservation for the table in front of the stage.

The 7:30 show was alright. Robert described the 9:30 show as one of the best of his career. I must agree. At both shows, the highlight (for me) was the cover of Grant's "Quiet Heart" -- It was such a fitting tribute to a fallen friend. The song sent chills down my spine.

The whole night was a very cozy affair. John took up Robert on is invitation and met the band at a local bar. I however, stumbled home, high on JJ-180 and basking in the glow of a wonderful show. Wondering what Grant was thinking, looking gazing down with his vast intelligence.

Cheers to Go-Betweens/Forster fans (and Loyal Boxers) everywhere! Shoegazers of the world untie!

And John in D.C., why can't you find the vinyl? Is it no longer available?

PKD and Politics: The Simulacra

2008-05-18T12:35:00.000-07:00

In The Simulacra, PKD takes on politics. The setting is the future political entity of The United States of Europe and America (USEA). In this future, the true leader is not the President, but the First Lady. Of course, she's a robot (or as PKD would have it, a simulacra). Every four years, the people of the USEA vote in a new husband for her, who becomes the President.

The Simulacra, once again, displays PKD's preternatural gift for describing the future accurately, especially the effect of television on the powers that be. However, in The Simulacra, the people can literally somewhat control what politicians will do or say by turning the knobs on their television sets. If enough of the people press certain buttons on their TVs then the politician will do what they command.

The Simulacra is a wonderful metaphor for what is actually going on these days, and a nice prism through which to look at the current political situation.

The Cleaners From Venus

2008-05-13T14:26:00.001-07:00

Recently loyal Boxer Apedog tuned me into Martin Newell. I was digging his pop manoeuvres and decided to do a little digging. I came across Martin's 80s band, The Cleaners From Venus. These dudes were super rad. They produced all their music themselves on cassette and they would send it out to all their fans; just like my heroes: My Friend George, Oceano Da Cruz and Price Pearlman.

Quite obviously, the coolest thing about The Cleaners is that they chose a totally PKD'd out band name, which is why they get to be our guests today on Dick in a Box.

Click the title of this post for some fine grade cleaning action.

Younger Than Yesterday

2008-05-07T07:58:00.000-07:00

I really regret having to leave A Maze of Death as it is one of my favorites. But all things must pass, or must they? The PKD work that I think is most linked with A Maze of Death in PKD's oeuvre is Counter Clock World, as it too deals with the themes of mortality and theology. I also link it with A Maze of Death because it is one of my favorites in the PKD realm.

I've been reading my beat up 1974 Berkley edition of the book. The pages are falling out, but it held together for one more read. I thought I'd share the back cover blurb with you because it neatly encapsulates the oddball nature of the book.

"THE DEAD GROW YOUNG

Now that the Hobart Phase was in effect, Officer Joseph Tinbane wasn't surprised when he heard a voice speaking to him from beneath the ground.

It wasn't that he was going out of his mind. Not at all. It was just one of the 'old-born,' giving notification that it was ready to be dug up.

You see, the year is 1998 and things have changed quite a bit. Time has reversed its flow: the dead come back to life, and people grow younger instead of older."

Neat premise, and PKD pulls it off to grand effect. The book is completely hilarious. When people light up their smokes, they light "butts" and start "blowing smoke into" them. The cig reforms and they put it back into its pack. When people greet each other they say "goodbye" and when they part, they say "hello." And when people get back to the time of birth, they jump back into a host womb. The mother has to carry the regressing baby for nine months and then has to copulate with a man to return the seed to him. The book never really tells us why the Hobart Phase came about, but who cares about that.

One unique feature of the novel is that there is never a moment where the reader questions what is real, and in this way it is quite distinct among PKD's works because it never has that "what the hell is going on" moment.

Also, in Counter Clock, we find a moment where PKD may have been influenced by pop culture rather than the other way around. The book was written in 1967, the year of the Byrds seminal classic Younger Than Yesterday, which has a cover of Dylan's 1964 classic, "My Back Pages." The Byrds version of "My Back Pages" is bar none my favorite song of all time. I have listened to it my whole life, from the coasts of California to the rooftops of New York City.

"I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now."

The Byrds were rocking all over California at this time, and I'd wager PKD was influenced by this classic version, just check out the cover of the LP, totally PKD'd out.

You can enter the Hobart Phase yourself by clicking on the title of this post.

The Mandolin Player

2008-05-05T08:11:00.000-07:00

Maze of Death deals with the vagaries of getting old, and in that sense it's quite appealing to us nostalgic types.

One of my favorite scenes occurs near the beginning of the book where Ben Tallchief contemplates getting old...

"Forty-two. His age had astounded him for years, and each time he had sat so astounded, trying to figure out what had become of the young, slim man in his twenties, a whole additional year slipped by and had to be recorded, a continually growing sum which he could not reconcile with his self-image. He still saw himself, in his mind's eye, as youthful, and when he caught sight of himself in photographs he usually collapsed. For example, he shaved now with an electric razor, unwilling to gaze at himself in his bathroom mirror."

There is a sadness that is captured in this passage, that I think .knowdice captures in his famous early-2001 photograph, The Mandolin Player. Thanks again .knowdice, for letting us display your work here in the Box.

Anyway, I think I may get an electric razor myself one of these days.

Gleaming The Maze

2008-04-24T17:36:00.000-07:00

Here at Dick in a Box we love to examine how PKD has influenced current entertainment. Nowhere is PKD plundering more apparent than in the 1997 Canadian film The Cube, which draws heavily from A Maze of Death.

As in Maze, The Cube deals with a group of individuals who find themselves in a foreign place (in the film's case, a vast cube filled with trap chambers). In both, the characters have no idea why they are there. The characters in both works are put through an existential test, and murder ensues. As in Maze, The Cube deals with what is real, how people deal with adversity, humankind's murderous impulses, and our capacity for self-delusion.

It's hard to imagine that The Cube's writers were not influenced by this PKD masterpiece. Indeed, on the planet where the colonists find themselves in A Maze of Death, Seth Morley and his companions have continual encounters with a vast building. Morley describes the building as "[g]ray and large, it reared up at the limit of his vision. A cube, almost." Seems they lifted their concept straight from the book.

While the characters in The Cube are trapped in a hulking metal building, the Maze of Death characters are trapped on a forbidding planet. Or are they?

This is not to say that the film does not have artistic/entertainment value in its own right. It's actually pretty rad. I just find it amusing that it displays another instance of blatant PKD lifting.

How I Rose From the Dead in My Spare Time and So Can You!

2008-04-22T18:50:00.001-07:00

Maze of Death deals with a group of 14 people who have been brought to a planet called Delmak-O. They are supposed to colonize it, but things go awry. More on that later though.

The colonists share a religion that PKD made up for the novel. The religion's holy book is called How I Rose From the Dead in My Spare Time and So Can You! It's kind of like a 22nd Century Self-Help book that became a religion. It's written by the "great 21st Century Communist Theologian" Egon Spectowsky. One of the ideas attributed to Spectowsky is the ideas that "people are prisoners of [their] own preconceptions and expectations . . . And that one of the conditions of the Curse is to remain mired in the quasi-reality of those proclivities. Without ever seeing reality as it actually is."

(1) This excerpt of Spectowsky's philosophy is heavily indebted to Gnosticism, and (2) this quote captures the meta-themes of most of PKD's work. This is one of the reasons why Maze of Death is such an interesting read for all true Boxers of the universe.

Finally, I'd like to point out the .knowdice photo on this page. I believe it was taken somewhere in Northern Europe at the turn of the century. I feel like it evokes many of the same feelings as this 1977 Bantam Maze of Death cover.

Mortality, Theology and a Man Named .knowdice

2008-04-21T19:06:00.000-07:00

I was planning on abandoning PKD's more fantastical works for the more mundane pastures of his plain fiction for a while, but I couldn't do it; not with all of my recent references to Maze of Death which is easily one of my top ten favorite PKD novels. Maze of Death deals with mortality and theology on the planet Delmak-O. In it, PKD creates his own religion, kind of like Scientology, but it is (1) much cooler and (2) takes itself way less seriously.

In conjunction with my reading and blogging of Maze, I will be featuring the work of noted Seattle artist/photographer .knowdice. No other artist out there today better captures elements of joie de vivre, mortality and theology in their works. The photo above (The Fist of Rallie) happens to capture the essence of a drunken Dane, another recurring theme here at Dick in a Box.

Most importantly, I think PKD would really dig .knowdice's work. I hope you do too.

Price Pearlman Comes Out (of Retirement!)

2008-04-20T17:32:00.001-07:00

NEWS FLASH***

Rumor has it that legendary singer/songwriter (and PKD scholar) Price Pearlman has come out of retirement and is writing songs again.

The last we heard of Price live, he played a one off gig in Copenhagen, Denmark in February of 2005, attended by many drunk Danes who have no recollection of the event.

Prior to that he was gigging around Northern Brooklyn in a folk duo with Chava M., called Ex-Roommates.

His last LP, Sunset Knoll, was released to little fanfare a over a year ago, and he hasn't been heard from since.

Stay tuned for more Price Pearlman news!

To Everything There Is a Season

2008-04-20T15:51:00.000-07:00

It's Spring again so I've pulled out my favorite Spring LP (as the soundtrack to my Spring cleaning), The Go-Betweens' Liberty Belle and The Black Diamond Express.

There's actually a Go-Betweens album for every season. In the Summer, it's always 16 Lover's Lane. In the Fall I'm drawn to Spring Hill Fair, and in the Winter, at least recently, I've truly enjoyed Oceans Apart.

Whatever the season though, a good Go-Betweens record can cure any ill.

Grant McLennan and Precognition

2008-04-19T19:19:00.000-07:00

In today's edition of The Sydney Morning Herald, John Birmingham writes about Grant McLennan's final song, "Demon Days." He writes, "[w]hen experienced unknowingly, when listened to without knowledge of what befell McLennan shortly after he penned it, "Demon Days" is a starkly beautiful but spare, somewhat bleak, ballad. When you listen to the song with awareness of McLennan's passing, however, it reveals itself as something altogether different, a precognition of mortality. "The fingers of fate/ stretch out and take us to a night/ but something's not right/ something's gone wrong."

Now I think I heard Robert Forster say somewhere that Grant wrote the lyric up to "the fingers of fate" and then Robert finished the rest up, but either way, the song, its emotion and sense of weight, as well as many of Grant's last songs, certainly reflect precognition on his part.

PKD was well versed in precognition himself. Indeed, a pre-cog shows up in just about every one of his novels. A pre-cog, in the Dickian sense, is one who can see likely versions of the future before they actually occur. The story of Grant's passing, and the "precognition of mortality" you can hear in his final songs, would have made a fine story for PKD to weave.

I like to think Grant and Philip are hanging out together in the cosmos, bouncing clever ideas off each other, and generally just knowing what's going down.

PKD's Sister & Sonic Youth

2008-04-18T19:45:00.000-07:00

PKD not only influenced a generation of film, prime time television, and Saturday Morning Cartoons, he also influenced some pretty sweet music. Most notably Sonic Youth's album Sister, which they named in honor of PKD's twin sister, Jane Charlotte, who died shortly after her birth. The death of his twin sister was a major influence on PKD's outlook on life, and consequently, on his writing.

Other obvious themes in PKD's novels include schizophrenia, dream imagery and science. All of these crop up in Sonic Youth's LP. PKD's influence on Sonic Youth has been well documented; most notably in Alec Foege's Confusion is Next: The Sonic Youth Story. Indeed, prolly my favorite song on Sister is opener "Schizophrenia." The song is like Martian Time Slip set to music...

"My future is static

It's already had it

I could tuck you in

And we could talk about it

I had a dream

And it split the scene

But I got a hunch

It's coming back to me

Schizophrenia."

Anyway, a gander through Martian Time Slip and Sister are a worthwhile endeavor.

In a Soldier's Stance, I Aimed my Hand at The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach

2008-04-16T17:14:00.000-07:00

Before diving into Martian Time Slip I was full of grand illusions that I would be able to analyze it "through the analytical lenses of mental illness, totalitarian governments, and Genocide." Boy was I wrong. This book is just too damn weird. I think it is definitely one of the most fragmented of Dick's 60s novels, so fragmented that it made me feel schizophrenic at times.

Then it hit me that the book's brilliance lies in the fact that it cannot be analyzed; it lies in the fact that Dick blurs the line between the "schizophrenic" and the sane, by making readers feel mentally deranged, despite the fact that they perceive themselves as mentally fit on most days. PKD shows us that schizophrenia is not black and white, there are levels of it that even the sanest of us can pass in and out of. Anyway, I gave up on the whole analysis approach to this book. It made me long for simple pleasures like Harry Potter.

However, as a former teacher, I was fascinated by PKD's "Public School" on Mars. Here, the students are taught by the requisite "simulacra," robot teachers who are created to be historic figures (see We Can Build You) such as Mark Twain. Do we get a glimpse here of PKD's views on teachers and public education? Protaganist Jack Bohlen feels "repelled by the teaching machines [because] the entire Public School was geared to the task which went contrary to his grain: the school was there not to inform or educate, but to mold, and along severely limited lines. It bent its pupils to it; perpetuation of culture was its goal." This is a very 60s view of education that kind of annoys me in its lack of depth and texture. But, like I said, I'm biased

Anyway, this book was so tripped out it has sent me careening (by necessity) into PKDs Non-Science-Fiction works. So I'll be taking up with a Crap Artist for some more mundane thrills in the coming days.

From Ghost Town

2008-04-14T17:30:00.000-07:00

Hygge Alert!

So my vinyl copy of Robert Forster's new LP "The Evangelist" arrived today from Germany from the wonderfully rapid Tuition Records.

For the occasion I went out and purchased a 2005 Agostina Pieri Rosso Di Montalcino. Those wine lovers out there will know what I'm talking about. T'was a special occasion indeed. I lit up some votives, placed on my Koss head phones and listened as if at an altar.

For any naysayer out there, this album is a classic. Over at the Go-Betweens site I hear complaints about "Let Your Light in, Babe" 'cause it sounds too much like other Forster songs. Forget all you have heard! The song is brilliant, especially in the full bodied analog sound. Other analog highlights are "Did She Overtake You" and "It Ain't Easy."

For all my loyal Boxers out there, please buy this album and support the most brilliant and humane artist among us today. And if you are a vinyl lover like me, you will not be disappointed by Tuition's product. It simply jumps off the needle into your heart.

One comment. Many have complained about the cover art. Again, they have probably imbibed to much JJ-180. It looks amazing. My only complaint would be that the lettering on the vinyl version displays some "pixilation." However, since I don't even really know how to spell that word, I don't think it really matters.

Suicide: Martian Time Slip and Material Issue

2008-04-12T06:10:00.000-07:00

In a recent post I was complaining that the LOA should include Clans of the Alphane Moon rather than Now Wait For Last Year in its new PKD volume coming out this summer. I based this contention on the fact that we had enough PKD drug books already, we needed some more of his books that dealt with mental illness. Well, I forgot that the new volume will contain Martian Time Slip, which even more than Clans, deals with schizophrenia and its effects. It also deals, along with his seminal treatise on the subject Maze of Death, with suicide.

My first encounter with suicide came through my favorite band in high school (and still one of my favorites today) Material Issue. I used to go watch these guys at 1st Ave in my younger days and there was not a band in the U.S. that had more pure pop energy. I would dance and sweat and sing along. International Pop Overthrow was one of the first tapes I ever bought, and I'd play it constantly in my first car, a white with brown stripes '84 Nissan Pulsar. Now my car didn't talk, but it loved Material Issue. You may remember their debut for it's semi-hit "Valerie Loves Me." Then came Destination Universe in 1992 and it had some of the sweetest songs I'd ever heard, including one of my favorite teenage love songs of all time, "Everything." Some Hair Metal band covered it a couple of years ago, and I still don't know what I think about that. Other completely starry eye'd songs from this album that still give me goose bumps are "Don't You Think I Know" and "Next Big Thing." My Senior year was dominated by Freak City Soundtrack. Crazy manic energy. My car and I really dug that one.

However, in June of 1996, Material Issue's lead singer Jim Ellison committed suicide. It was truly a devastating day for me, as I felt like part of my youth went with him.

However, we still have the man's music, and that we can always enjoy. Just me now, as the Pulsar is long gone. Click on the title of this post for my car's favorite Material Issue song.

Miami Vice: PKD's Influence on the 4th Season, and a Lost Roxy Music Gem

2008-04-06T14:26:00.000-07:00

Little do people know, PKD had a profound impact on Miami Vice's 4th season. Now this show was already completely rad; amazing music and hip clothes, but the 4th season took things to a whole new level. Most critics argue that this is where the series jumped the shark, however this is completely wrong. This is the season where PKD beamed down from above.

Take for example the episode "The Big Thaw," in which a Rastafarian reggae singer was preserved in a cryogenic sleep chamber; lifted directly from PKD's classic Ubik. Then there was the famous "Missing Hours" episode featuring James Brown as an alien leader trying to abduct Trudy, which drew upon a whole host of PKD themes. Perhaps most influenced by PKD was the episode "Mirror Image," where Crockett got amnesia and began perceiving himself not as a member of the vice squad working undercover, but as his drug dealer alter-ego, becoming a hit-man in the process. This narrative was taken verbatim from A Scanner Darkly, and re-figured for 80s prime-time television. These themes and narratives make season 4 the place to be when it comes to Miami Vice.

However, I value Miami Vice the most for its music. The best use of music was in season 2, when the show used Roxy Music's hidden gem "Lover." This is my favorite Roxy Music song EVER. Sadly, it was hidden away as a b-side to "Same Old Scene" and many people are not aware of its existence. A great tragedy. However, it was resurrected by Miami Vice and placed on the 2nd season's completely sweet soundtrack, where it felt right at home. Check it out by clicking on the title of this post and let me know if you agree.

AI -- Artificial Intelligence/American Idol

2008-04-04T17:29:00.000-07:00

You're prolly thinking, "what the f*ck, is this an American Idol blog?" It's not. However, I do have to recap the Dolly Parton show that was highly anticipated by many Boxers out there. As we expected, the performances were a load of crap for the most part. I think I was most disappointed by Brook White's take on "Jolene" which had me covering my eyes and moaning. I really wanted her to go home this week. Shucks.

Most of the other performances were pretty bad, although I was kind of down with David Archuleta's "Smokey Mountain Memories."

The Wednesday show itself, as a narrative, was straight out of a PKD novel; totally schizophrenic. With Ryan Seacrest's utterly banal April Fool's Day joke at the outset about Simon appearing on Moment of Truth, to the Clark Brothers performance (totally wacky and stupid), even down to Dolly's performance, which I thought was way too over the top in terms of arrangement given her voice. I would have preferred her and a guitar and maybe some dude with a banjo. Or maybe a duet with Bo Bice.

Speaking of schizophrenia, we're moving on to Martian Time Slip. I'm reading and analyzing it through the analytical lenses of mental illness, totalitarian governments, and Genocide. it's gonna be a trip so stay tuned.

The Struggle Itself is Enough to Fill a Man's Heart

2008-03-30T15:14:00.000-07:00

In anticipation of the 2nd Library of America (LOA) PKD volume, I've been reading the books that will be included. I've made my way through Flow My Tears, Scanner Darkly, Dr. Bloodmoney, and just today finished up Now Wait For Last Year (stay tuned for Martian Time Slip). I've said it before and I'll say it again that I would have preferred The Penultimate Truth or maybe even Clans of The Alphane Moon been included rather than Last Year.

I don't argue this to denigrate Last Year as I think it is certainly one of PKD's greatest achievements. I just see it as a little too derivative of The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch and Ubik, both of which were contained in the first LOA volume. As in those fine novels, we have a drug (JJ-180) that transports the user through time. You go either forward, or backward, or side-ways, always to some parallel universe. I kind of think of these three, as well as Flow My Tears, as PKD's most Alice in Wonderland-ish novels. This is why I think Clans may have been a better choice, because it more thoroughly explores PKD's ideas on mental illness. At this point, at least in terms of LOA, we certainly have been exposed to enough of PKD's ideas about drugs.

However, Now Wait For Last Year does have special pertinence for our times in that it depicts a world in a constant war. But then, most of PKD novels do that. However, the novel also has great value as an early example of PKD exploring what Freud called the death drive, or "an urge inherent in all organic life to restore an earlier state of things"-- fancy words for suicide. In this way some of the final chapters of the book serve as a precursor to one of PKD's darkest novels; A Maze of Death, which also deals heavily with the human death instinct.

As in most PKD novels, Last Year deals with some deep existential questions, and as usual, the automobiles provide the answers. In my favorite scene, protagonist Eric Sweetscent is talking to the taxi-cab he's riding in...

"'If you were me, and your wife were sick, desperately so, with no hope of recovery, would you leave her? Or would you stay with her, even if you had travelled into the future and knew for an absolute certainty that the damage to her brain could never be reversed? And staying with her would mean--'

'I can see what you mean, sir," the cab broke in. "It would mean no other life for you beyond caring for her.'

'That's right,' Eric said.

'I'd stay with her,' the cab decided.

'Why?'

'Because,' the cab said, 'life is composed of reality configurations so constituted. To abandon her would be to say, I can't endure reality as such. I have to have uniquely special easier conditions.'

'I think I agree,' Eric said after a time. 'I think I will stay with her.'

'God bless you, sir,' the cab said. 'I can see that you are a good man.'"

This little excerpt allows me to bring some Albert Camus into the mix for the first time. This passage is reminiscent of his essay The Myth of Sisyphus, which explores humankind's search for meaning in the absurd. Camus illustrates this through the situation of Sisyphus, from Greek myth, who repeatedly and eternally pushed a rock up a mountain, whereupon it would roll back down so he would start all over again pushing it back up. Camus' lesson was that "[t]he struggle itself is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy." This is a theme that plays out in almost all of PKD's novels; his characters find some sort of happiness (or will to live), ultimately, in the absurdity of existence, in their struggles to understand reality; in PKD's case, multiple realities.

Whether it's included in some compilation or not, Now Wait For Last Year is a classic existentialist novel at heart, and therein lies its unique and ultimate value.

Radio Free Europe: Chromatics are Coming!

2008-03-29T16:17:00.000-07:00

This one goes out to all of my European Boxers. America's greatest band is heading to your continent; and you shouldn't miss the occasion. No band is currently making music as infused with the warm sounds of sleek machines as this one.

Here's their itinerary, be there...

April 17th -- Berlin, DE

April 18th -- Electronic Music Festival, Poznan Poland

April 19th -- Warm/Lasermagnetic Cafe, London

April 23rd -- Barfly, Brighton

April 25th -- Brussels

June 6th -- Aix En Provence

June 7th -- Paris

PKD is looking down from Albemuth and smiling when he hears these tunes. So will you. Want some Radio Free Chromatics?! Click on the title of this post.

We Can Build You!

2008-03-28T15:42:00.001-07:00

A loyal Boxer knowingly sent me this photo the other day. I say knowingly because PKD was really into old Abe Lincoln; most notably in his book We Can Build You.

I've always been fascinated by We Can Build You because it basically functions as a prequel to PKD's masterpiece Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Basically We Can Build You depicts some of the first androids that were made by the Rosen Corporation, before it started manufacturing them for off-world colonization. These first androids were not based on societal needs, rather they were built for entertainment purposes. And PKD found nothing more decidedly fascinating than Abraham Lincoln. So, along with Edwin Stanton, Lincoln is the first android built. The book, as well non-fiction historical sources, postulates that Lincoln suffered from schizophrenia. Hence, in We Can Build You the android-Lincoln is gripped by an extreme melancholy that is quite haunting. Some of the android-Lincoln's monologues are the warmest and most humane of the novel, much more so that the living, flesh and blood humans' discourse. This is a common thread in PKD's books, robots that are more "human" than humans.

Everyone's a critic, and so am I. So I'll be blunt and say that We Can Build You may not be one of PKD's most entertaining novels. But it is definitely one of his most philosophical, and a very good one to read prior to Androids if you are truly committed to PKD's vision.

Also, it has something for all you history channel buffs out there who can't get enough of Abraham Lincoln. I recommend trying to get a hold of the 1983 Daw version which has one of my favorite PKD covers, depicting the Lincoln simulacrum in a very Atari-style that was popular at the time; and Bob Pepper did it of course.

All I Want!

2008-03-26T17:21:00.000-07:00

I'd like to thank Boxer mike for turning me on to the joys of Cloudcuckooland. I never gave this one its due. But tonight I sat down, put on the LP, cracked open a tall Sapporo, and was treated to pure joy.

"All I Want" is such a classic album opener, a perfect pop song (I love it when the piano chimes in after the chorus). These songs, like those on Sense, are so well constructed. The melodies are quite similar in places. Sense definitely draws upon many of the same melodic themes that are evinced in "Pure." However where these two albums can be distinguished is in the production. Sense is much more lush, which is saying a lot because Cloudcuckooland is as textured as they come.

While Sense will always have the pole position in my heart, Cloudcuckooland is no joke, pure and simple. Every song on here just jumps off the vinyl. I've read elsewhere that it would have made the perfect soundtrack for a John Hughes film, and that is right on.

On a personal note, after a couple of listens (and a couple of Sapporo's) my favorite track on Cloudcuckooland is "The Nearly Man" which would have fit snugly on Pretty in Pink.

Check the album out.

Forever Changes: The Bob Pepper Debate

2008-03-25T14:36:00.000-07:00

A lot has been made of the PKD cover art work, especially that of Bob Pepper. My loyal Boxers out there have been imploring me to weigh in on the debate over the finest Bob Pepper cover art for PKD. While I love all of the Daw covers Mr. Pepper did in 1983 (especially for A Scanner Darkly and We Can Build You), my favorite cover of Pepper's and maybe in all of PKD-land, is his 1969 cover for Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? This may be Pepper's most underrated cover, possibly because his name is nowhere to be found on the art work. However, there is no mistaking this as his work, as a simple comparison with his seminal album cover artwork for Love's 1967 masterpiece, Forever Changes, will show.

The two works are very reminiscent of each other; one depicts all the faces of Love as if they were one being, the other depicts a human/android as if it were one being. Additionally, both have a psychedelic color palette; it being a tripped out time after all. Simply groovy.

Bob Pepper's art for both these works is amazing; making this a case where one can definitely judge the book/music by its cover.

A word of caution; I once tried to read Androids to the sounds of Forever Changes, and while I love the album, the music didn't really coexist well with the mood of the book and I got a tad nauseous.

Or maybe that was a Substance D flashback? Hmmm...

Sense, A Small Slice of Heaven, and a Dog Named Blue

2008-03-23T18:33:00.000-07:00

Growing up in Minneapolis, I would haunt the local record stores. One day, I was in Down in The Valley, over by Crosstown and as I was flipping through the CDs, I heard the most angelic, pop anthems playing over the store's speakers. I asked the dude behind the counter what this wonderful music was and he told me it was the Lightning Seed's Sense.

I bought the record and it has stayed with me the rest of my life. When I lost my dog Blue as a sophomore in high school, I cried and cried, listening to "A Small Slice of Heaven," 'cause that's what Blue was to me for the short time I had her.

When I was around 21 I went down to Marin County where I met my older half-brother for the first time. Guess what cassette he had in his car? Sense. We bonded over that. You've got to realize that most people've never heard the record. I've got this feeling you either love it, or you hate it. It's definitely an acquired taste. But to my ears, it is perfect pop music. I've never really gotten into their other LPs, but this one is a true, under-appreciated classic.

I'm always overjoyed when I'm looking through someone's music collection and I come across Sense. It's like you've found a musical brother, a small slice of heaven, a memory of blue. Try it sometime, and maybe you'll understand too. If you'd like to try a slice of Sense, simply click on the title of this post.

Anthropology 101: American Idol vs. Dolly Parton

2008-03-21T11:12:00.000-07:00

From an anthropological perspective, American Idol is my favorite show. While the singers display little to no creativity, and the judges usually don't communicate that much, it is truly riveting. To see these mundane personalities put in front of 30 million viewers every week is a dose of existentialism on the boob tube.

Hence, I was truly please when I learned last week that one of my favorite artists, Dolly Parton, will be one of the guest mentors on an upcoming show. All the contestants will have to perform one of her songs. While I dread some of their renditions, the show will display her truly outstanding and genuine song-writing talent to many who have yet to be blessed.

Here's a list of the ten remaining contestants, and the Dolly songs I would choose for each one.

Brooke White --"Dumb Blonde"

Carly Smithson--"Everything is Beautiful (In Its Own Way)"

Chikezie--"My Blue Tears"

David Archuleta--"Islands in the Stream"

David Cook--"I Wasted My Tears"

Jason Castro--"The Seeker"

Kristy Lee Cook--"Jolene"

Michael Johns--"Here I Am"

Ramiele Malubay--"Bargain Store"

Syesha Mercado--"Just Because I'm a Woman"