Thursday, March 25, 2010

Why were we impressed?

When I was in high school the band Kraftwerk had a hit single called "Autobahn." All the sounds, whether musical or not, including drums, were made with synthesizers, which were new and trendy at the time (long before MIDI). I remember being SOOOOOOOOO impressed by it (and, no, I wasn't a druggy). I even went to a Kraftwerk concert in Kansas City.

I decided to listen to "Autobahn" yesterday--the long, uncut version. It was haphazard and boring. The musical parts were very simplistic and uninteresting. Then there were long stretches of just sound--like the word "Autobahn" spoken through a voice synthesizer.

Maybe I was more influenced by all the marijuana smoke going on around me than I thought.

Speaking of synthesizers, I remember the first time I saw one on t.v.--the creator of the first successful one--Robert Moog, was on the Bandstand. I was excited. I was also very excited when I saw the first MIDI keyboard in the early 1980s. I think it cost $10,000.

I am now officially unexcited about synthesized music.

Speaking of the Bandstand, "Its got a good beat and I can dance to it"....

1 comment:

Steve Hon said...

Robert,

This is really coincidental. My son is a big techno fan. We were discussing it the other day and I mentioned my old roommate from high school was a fan of a band who was a forerunner of techno called Kraftwerk. I told him about a concert that you went to with Steve Brown. If memory serves me right a Frisbee got hung up in some lighting and everybody started cheering. The band thought it was for them.

That is what got me thinking about you; so I googled you this morning. I bet our discussion about Kraftwerk was around the same day you posted this.

Send me an email sometime. I have my gmail account set to forward to my Exchange account or you can email me at shon2phoenixcompanies>net (replace the 2 with a @ and the > with a dot. I just remembered you were into cryptography so I probably didn't need to tell you that.

I think I will check and see if there is any Kraftwerk on Rhapsody to stream. I don't ever remember even listening to them. Did you have one of their records?

I haven't seen Steve Brown in 30 years or better. I think he is in Joplin or Springfield Missouri. His mom just passed away a year or so ago.

Steve Hon