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Can

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Can: Unlimited Edition

Review by Kris Needs, ZigZag, July 1976

THIS IS ONE for hardened Can-atics, being basically a collection of snippets which haven't made it onto past Can albums. ...

Audio interviews

Can's Malcolm Mooney (1980)

Interview by Archie Patterson, Eurock, 1980

Can's first singer Malcolm Mooney talks about joining Can, the writing and recording process, gigging with Stockhausen, and the decline of his mental health and ultimate breakdown.

File format: mp3; file size: 56.1mb, interview length: 1h 01' 40" sound quality: ***

Can (1997)

Interview by Andy Gill, Rock's Backpages audio, Spring 1997

In order of their first replies, Michael Karoli, Irmin Schmidt and Holger Czukay revisit the early days of Can: the first time they played together; how they shared everything; their homemade studios; how they met; drummer Jaki Liebezeit and the rituals of repetition; the group's social environment; the importance of original American frontman Malcolm Mooney, and meeting his successor Damo Suzuki; the latter's unforgettable first gig with the band. Oh, and Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats... (Please note that there are approximately 10 minutes of annoying tape hiss from about 29 minutes in to about 38 mins.)

File format: mp3; file size: 69.5mb, interview length: 1h 12' 26" sound quality: ***½

Can's Irmin Schmidt (2003)

Interview by Andy Gill, Rock's Backpages, 2003

The Can keyboard player on the recording of Future Days: The mood of the band at the time; the difference between singers Malcolm Mooney and Damo Suzuki; recording ‘Bel Air Suite’, and the meaning of the cover artwork, the I-Ching hexagram for Ting (The Cauldron).

File format: mp3; file size: 13mb, interview length: 13' 31" sound quality: * (phoner)

List of articles in the library

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Can: The Making of Tago Mago

Retrospective and Interview by Max Bell, Classic Rock, April 2011

SUMMER 1971. The five members of Can are huddled around a bottle of wine and a stereo suitcase Revox A77 tape recorder, listening to the ...

Holger Czukay: Ode to normailty

Interview by Mick Sinclair, Sounds, 17 April 1982

Mick Sinclair in spontaneous discussion with HOLGER CZUKAY ...

Can: Monster Movie/Soundtracks/Tago Mago/Ege Bamyasi

Review by Mike Barnes, bbc.co.uk, Winter 2005

Can's forays into rock music were ego-free, expressionistic and pared down to the bone... ...

Can Solo Projects: Barbican, London

Live Review by David Stubbs, New Musical Express, 30 October 1999

KRAUTROCKERS CAN'S influence on modem music has been more profound perhaps even than Kraftwerk's. Way back in 1973, with 'Moonshake' they were making prototype techno, ...

Can: Tago Mago – 40th Anniversary Edition

Review by Luke Turner, bbc.co.uk, November 2011

The blueprint for much of the leftfield music of the past 40 years. ...

Krautrock

Retrospective and Interview by John Doran, Record Collector, January 2009

In the early 1970s a revolution in sound occurred that was as influential in its own way as the birth of rock'n'roll or reggae. John ...

Can: Future Days (United Artists UAS 29505, £2.25)

Review by Ray Fox-Cumming, Disc, 16 February 1974

DESPITE THE title, which invites trouble, there's nothing futuristic about this album. It attempts nothing that hasn't already been done, often to death, before. Future ...

Can: Imagine 20 bulls and cows going up a hill...

Interview by Chris Salewicz, New Musical Express, 30 November 1974

...or learn guitar the avant garde way! MICHAEL KAROLI of Can, talking to CHRIS SALEWICZ ...

Ulrich Adelt: Krautrock: German Music In The Seventies (University of Michigan Press)

Book Review by Rob Young, The Wire, April 2017

AS ULRICH ADELT points out in his introduction to this sweeping survey of German music, there have been relatively few books on krautrock, even fewer ...

Can: Monster Movie/Tago Mago/Ege Bamyasi/Soundtracks

Review by Frances Morgan, Plan B, September 2004

MY MEMORIES aren't sepia-tinted; they're midnight-blue and smile-white, fleet-footed but with ash on my toes and holes in my tights where I kicked off my ...

The Concise NME Guide To Electronic Music & Synthesised Sound

Guide by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 5 January 1980

"Progress in the physical and mechanical sciences determines a progress in art." — Carlos Chavez, 1957 ...

Can: Truth at 33 rpm

Book Excerpt by Rob Young, 'All Gates Open: The Story of Can' (Faber), May 2018

ONE OF THE many resonances of Can's name is the canister housing reels of celluloid film, a precious container protecting that most flammable and crumply ...

Can: Rainbow Theatre, London

Live Review by Martin Hayman, Sounds, 24 February 1973

CAN IS not a band which lends itself easily to review. At the Rainbow on Sunday night they drew a nearly capacity audience, which in ...

Can: The Lost Tapes

Review by Wyndham Wallace, bbc.co.uk, June 2012

Can do: quintessential krautrock rescued from the archives. ...

Can: Rainbow Theatre, London

Live Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 24 February 1973

THE STAGE WAS filled with manic, shadowy figures: three guitarists, two drummers, two singers, and a saxophonist. Through the barrage of noise, one could distinguish ...

Undercurrents #7: Fables of the Deconstruction

Retrospective by Edwin Pouncey, The Wire, July 1999

In the latest in our series uncovering the hidden wiring of 20th century music, Edwin Pouncey shows how rock 'n' roll's face was changed forever ...

Can: Ege Bamyasi (United Artists UA LA 063-F)

Review by Howard Wuelfing, Zoo World, 13 September 1973

AH! FINALLY another platter full of stuff to sear the audial nerves clean of all the CS&N/America/Eagles slush that's been fed to them almost without ...

Can: Future Days (United Artists)

Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 26 January 1974

I'VE HAD MY paltry reservations about Can in the past, but their previous album, Ege Bamyasi, allayed most of them and this, the group's fourth ...

Can: Paladium, Cologne, Germany

Live Review by Don Watson, The Wire, May 1999

DURING THEIR heyday in the mid-70s, Can put great emphasis on the subjugation of the individual to the sound of the group. At their best ...

Can Box: Book By Hildegard Schmidt & Wolf Kampmann (Medium Music Books PBK £16.99)

Book Review by Biba Kopf, The Wire, March 1999

IN ITS COMPLETE form, Can Box will contain a live double CD and a video concert, alongside the generically named Book. Amazingly, the live recording ...

Can: Communism, Anarchism, Nihilism

Interview by Martin Hayman, Sounds, 24 February 1973

CAN: A GROUP defined by their very lack of an image? A Few heavy theories have been batted to and fro about the formidable space-rock ...

Can: Saw Delight (Virgin V2079) **

Review by Giovanni Dadomo, Sounds, 4 June 1977

SOMETIMES it's nice to get phone-calls, sometimes it isn't. Know what I mean? ...

Can: Tago Mago (United Artists)

Review by Michael Watts, Melody Maker, 29 January 1972

AS DUNCAN Fallowell says in his sleevenotes, Can could not be anything but German. ...

Can: New Victoria Theatre, London

Live Review by Karl Dallas, Melody Maker, 11 December 1976

VIEWED IN isolation, Can's recent singles seem like some kind of sell-out. What, after all, is a "serious" German rock band, whose members include former ...

Burnin' Red Ivanhoe, Can, Amon Düül et al: Is It Euro-Rock Next?

Overview by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 13 June 1970

Richard Williams takes a Common Market-minded guess at a future trend in pop... ...

Conny Plank: The Soundtrack Of Our Youth

Profile by David Stubbs, The Quietus, 13 February 2013

As Gronland release a four-disc box set of the music of Conny Plank, David Stubbs remembers the "midwife of Krautrock"... ...

Can: Future Days

Review and Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, March 2003

IT SPEAKS volumes for Can's protean, constantly-changing sound that fans, indeed the band members themselves, rarely agree which is their best album. ...

Can: Art Terrorism! Sensory Derangement! Holistic Vomiting! Available Weekends…

Retrospective and Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, April 1997

CAN ALWAYS added to more than the sum of their experience and influences. When the group made the seminal Monster Movie in 1968, three of ...

Can: Limited Edition

Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 14 September 1974

Can in Curio City ...

Can Can... And They Will

Interview by James Johnson, New Musical Express, 5 February 1972

OF ALL the heavy German bands Can are perhaps the most interesting and could prove the most influential. Next month they tour Britain and, judging ...

Can: Ve Give Ze Orders Here

Interview by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 16 February 1974

NICK KENT slinks unobtrusively into the back-room for something a little stronger ...

The Can: Monster Movie (United Artists)

Review by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 30 May 1970

THINGS ARE certainly beginning to happen in Germany. ...

Can: Out Of Reach

Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 15 July 1978

Reach Out, We'll Be There (Ha, Ha – Fooled You) ...

Krautrock: Germany Calling #2

Overview by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 16 December 1972

BOMB BLASTS AND THE BEAT: PART TWO OF IAN MACDONALD'S DEFINITIVE SURVEY OF GERMAN ROCK ...

Krautrock: Germany Calling

Overview by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 9 December 1972

TIME WAS WHEN a sudden loud crash around West Germany was probably just an other F-One-Eleven. These days it's more likely to be the local ...

Can: Free Trade Hall, Manchester

Live Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 18 December 1976

IN ONE OF the most glorious cases of mismatching ever seen on a British stage, Can are preceded tonight by an agonisingly kitsch comedy jug-band ...

Can: Unlimited Edition

Review by Miles, New Musical Express, 11 September 1976

CAPITOL RADIO are blitzing Can's top-40 commercial rock number 'I Want More' right now; it is typical that the band would choose to issue it ...

The Can Founders: Columbiahalle, Berlin

Live Review by Richard Cook, MOJO, May 1999

Running order: Holger Czukay/Michael Karoli's Sofortkontakt/Irmin Schmidt & Kumo/Jaki Liebezeit's Club Off Chaos ...

Damo Suzuki: The Accidental Anarchist

Interview by Mike Barnes, The Wire, July 2004

Damo Suzuki is the legendary vocalist with German group Can, but he has been perfecting his unique mode of 'instant composition' all his life. Having ...

Can: Recycled Cans

Retrospective and Interview by Fred Mills, Harp, May 2006

Among the great German bands of the '60s and '70s – kosmiche avatars Amon Düül and Ash Ra Tempel, motorik pioneer Neu!, synth wunderkind Tangerine ...

Techno-Rock: Six Teutons And What Do You Get — A Programmed Sequencer And The Doppler Effect

Overview by Jeff Walker, Waxpaper, 15 September 1978

IN JAPAN, LOCAL bands copy both the look and sound of Western rockers – an imitative art form which thrives while the fans wait for ...

Can: Automation For The People

Guide by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, August 1997

A DEEP DISTANT DETONATION ECHOED by an aftershock and a seething high-frequency fallout of fire and rain. Out of this drizzle rises a robotic one-bar ...

Can: Tales of the Supernatural

Interview by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 6 December 1975

I WAS SITTING in a standard hotel bedroom the other day, chewing the fat with a citizen by the name of Irmin Schmidt. ...

Can: They Have Ways Of Making You Listen…

Profile by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 9 November 1974

ONE NIGHT IN NOVEMBER 1969 the phone rang in Irmin Schmidt's Cologne home. Schmidt got out of bed to answer it and found himself talking ...

Can Laundered

Interview by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 23 October 1976

"IRMIN Schmidt was transporting a washing machine down the stairs, and it fell on top of him." ...

A Trance In Tatters: Krautrock und Beyond

Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 27 November 1982

Can: Delay 1968 (Spoon); Holger Czukay: Canaxis (Spoon); Irmin Schmidt: Filmmusik Vol 2 (Spoon); Neu!: Black Forest Gateau (Cherry Red) ...

Hildegard Schmidt and Wolf Kampmann: Can Box: Book

Review by Rob Chapman, MOJO, February 1999

IN 1968 CAN walled themselves up in a Cologne studio and, give or take the odd defection, stayed there for the next nine years making ...

D.A.M.O. Interview

Interview by Archie Patterson, Eurock, 2002

DURING THE MONTH of October Damo Suzuki and band made a short tour of the US in support of the excellent new album Odyssey. They ...

Malcolm R. Mooney: An Interview

Interview by Archie Patterson, Eurock, 1983

WITHOUT A DOUBT Germany's Can was one of the pioneering groups of what has become known today as EuroRock. Malcolm Mooney, a black American, was ...

Holger Czukay: Strangely Strange But Oddly Normal

Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 20 February 1982

AN AMBIENT tape is burring in the background. "I made a special cassette for a new kind of radio programme," explains Holger Czukay as we ...

Irmin Schmidt: Confusion and Collaboration

Report and Interview by j. poet, Stereotype, 1999

THIRTY YEARS AGO a classically trained keyboard player and composer named Irmin Schmidt turned his back on the world of classical music and founded Can, ...

Can: New Victoria, London

Live Review by Peter Silverton, Sounds, 11 December 1976

DOWN THE stairs and into the hall... and into a time warp. With the powerful aroma of smouldering illicit substances and the subdued, attentive audience, ...

Krautrock Revisited: Life After Can and Ash Ra Tempel

Essay by Richard Gehr, Spin, 20 July 1998

EVEN BEFORE KRAFTWERK'S great mid-'70s cars, trains, and airwaves trilogy, Krautrock was largely about getting away – especially from Germany itself. The band Can in ...

Can: The Albums

Review by Rob Chapman, MOJO, August 1997

A considerable portion of the German experimentalists’ output re-released on CD and limited issue vinyl: 24 albums spanning 1968-1994, including original issues, anthologies, compilations, and ...

see also Holger Czukay

see also Irmin Schmidt

see also Damo Suzuki

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