Psychedelic Takes on Traditional Folk (videos)
Did I mention that all these bands are from Germany in the early 70s? Yes, this is another one of those posts I always do with a few youtube picks from ______ country of ______ genre during ______ era. Hopefully I'm the only one that feels my posts are becoming a stale parody of themselves. It's been about a year since I started writing for WFMU and any of the steam that I had to vent initially is pretty much exhausted - I used to get excited about writing posts that addressed both philosophy and music but I find myself having little to say anymore. Don't worry, you won't find anything controversial or worrisome here. I'll just tread water with the best music scholarship I can muster. I must sound like I'm in a bad mood. Actually, I feel great right now.
Setting the paradigm at top left, Rufus Zuphall rips through Derroll Adams' Portland Town. You'll find the band is often called Germany's Jethro Tull, but you'll also find more unpolished, rugged charm in the band's recordings. I'm on the fence on whether the drummer's performance is over the top or not. Top right is an early clip from Hölderlin, taking a very progressive approach to the folk tradition. Like I said, I don't have much to say. But it's good stuff, no?
Bottom left is the totally awesome Ougenweide. Ougenweide has been ruling my stereo recently. Just earlier tonight I enjoyed the rainstorm from my front porch while drinking a glass of wine and listening to the recently reissued All Die Weil Ich Mag. What more did I need? Bottom right is a very traditional performance from Witthuser and Westrupp. Don't know if I'd call this particular track psychedelic for the most part, but it's still totally hilarious. Other videos from this great duo are here and if you'd like some more clips to bide your time with, check out Broselmaschine, and, uh, well, that's all I got.
Holderlin were also great. Do yourself a favor and go to You Tube and search "WDR Krautrock" --- a few years ago a multi-part TV special aired in Germany on the entire German 70s rock scene, a bunch of clips are up now, not all though. I put some non-You Tube ones up here from my DVD boot a while back, I'll try to grab some more in the near future.
Posted by: BrianTurner | July 24, 2008 at 12:50 PM
Loved the Hölderlin!
Here's one of my favorite German bands, Novalis. Wrong period, but who cares?:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=i4lSKuAyZu8&feature=related
and live....
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ptj1CpBh4nQ
And some Birth Control never hurt anybody:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=y7tDhS3Hlao&feature=related
Posted by: Dale Hazelton | July 24, 2008 at 01:46 PM
Ougenweide is my new favorite band. I hope they show up on Hype Machine soon.
Posted by: ELECTRO VIENNA | July 24, 2008 at 03:11 PM
Hölderlin are still kinda limping loosely along these days -- attempted a sort of comeback last year that was spoilt when the guitar player quit just before tour -- can't say I blame him, the new stuff is pretty awful. http://www.hoelderlin.com/
Posted by: Goyim in the AM | July 24, 2008 at 03:13 PM
Also, Rufus Zuphall's drummer is totally Kevin Shea (talibam!, etc.)
Posted by: Goyim in the AM | July 24, 2008 at 03:21 PM
Do anyone else have trouble getting the videos to play through and with sound? On my machine they stop at 5 seconds and there's no sound, but the pictures look great. That's why I want to hear the sound. The sound of the pictures, you can say. Does anyone understand me?
Posted by: William | July 25, 2008 at 04:03 AM
Had the exact same problem on the main blog page, but they work for me on the comments page. Firefox?
Posted by: Goyim in the AM | July 25, 2008 at 06:56 AM
Yeah, I've been having that problem too with firefox, although the videos work fine with internet explorer. I assumed it was just something weird with my computer. I'll let Ken and Doron know about this, thanks for speaking up!
Posted by: Nash Roads | July 25, 2008 at 01:57 PM