|>NEWland Children of Electronics + the Cold War |
"It
weren't only the cities, that were bombed
out - it was culture as well.
And culture can't be rebuilt just like that." Irmin Schmidt [CAN]
Along the social upheavals, becoming most prominent in the student's movements of the late 60's, a new generation of German artists started the reconstruction of a German cultural identity. This was, like the rebuilding of the German cities 20 years ago, a work to be done in - or rather out of ruins.
But one couldn't built something really new out of those ruins and debris - this would have been, as too many representatives, things and institutions in German than, the same old thing behind a new front.
"under the robes - the fug of 1000 years"
And this was exactly, what this generation refused radically. The (in)famous "fug of a thousand years" [a popular student's slogan at the time] had to be confronted -- with the own voice, the own expression - and that not only in slogans, but in existential forms.
"This
whole improvisation-thing of "The Grateful Dead", that playing for
hours and hours... - Free Jazz we didn't like that much either.
We were looking for new possibilities, new areas. Around 1970/71 we
got hold of the first real so-called synthesizers.
And sometimes other people went in their own different direction,
like the folks of AMON DÜÜL 2, trying to develop a style
of their own."
Klaus Schulze
Amon Düül (1+2) were among the earliest and prominent - and therefore most hated commune's in Germany - thus having to fight against all the -then common- prejudice's and problems:
"We
were in constant fights with our neighbours, because the only way
they could imagine to communicat with us was through the police.
Those we had got to know in all forms and manifestations.
We were only able to articulate fundamental criticism against the
system, because through our music, we had established a model of a
different, a counter-society. One of the proofs for that was our gig
in 1968 at the university, during the demonstrations against the enactment
of those repressive "emergency-case"-laws."
Amon Düül 2 - self-portrait of the band; 1971
The cultural destruction and the following "keep your mouth shut and put up a good clean front" attitude of great parts of the German war generations (and their allies included) - turned this refusal of those stifling rules into far more than just a fierce conflict between generations. These struggles and fights became also manifest in the musical radicalism of many groups - and particularly in their performances.