Kraftwerk

I believe I remember where I was when I heard Kraftwerk for the first time. I was a freshman in High School listening to a transistor radio on our driveway, the year was 1975 and the song, Autobahn was playing, it was late at night and it was this long song that was really dreamy, nothing really like it to compare. I knew it was German but I never heard anything like it…

Skip forward to the early 80’s and I had some more exposure to their music in dance clubs. I was immersed in punk rock and it was a much different type of music yet my yearning for a much more melodic type of sound brought me more in touch with the sound of Computer Love and its commercial success. Home computers were expensive and the Internet was not even a thing to the public let alone knowing about this type of connectivity. 

Kraftwerks music was now commercially available and I had their music on cassette. Always in my case of music cassettes, and always in rotation mixed with my favorite band DEVO.

Skip forward again in time to the mid late 80’s My front line desire of music still formulating and already I had embraced the New Wave of music. Bands like Depeche Mode and Duran Duran providing a much more flowing and melodic sounds but still the crunching throbbing music that flowed together endlessly into the night at dark underground clubs, Kraftwerk rhythms always in the mix. 

I had always wanted to see them play live but access to their concerts was limited to world tour engagements in venues that were expensive and not convenient to me. Festivals were just becoming a thing and I attended the first year tour of Lalapalooza. The year was 1991 and we took our VW Bus to San Diego, much cooler there than July in Phoenix. I was a huge fan of the group Janes Addiction that mixed harder edge sounds of punk rock yet I was still a fan of the staccato ebb and flow of nightclub music. Kraftwerk still always in the mix of my music favorites but always missing the chance to see them.

My first wife’s friend Michael was probably their biggest fan. I remember listening to his DAT tape cartridges, bootleg sourced Kraftwerk shows and the new format of Compact Disc was just becoming commercially available. The clean sound of Kraftwerk turned up as loudly as the speakers could handle, late at night, this was the type of music that I wanted, desired and enjoyed best.

2003 brought the album Tour de France and again just falling in love all over with their music, I listened on road trips, at home cranked up on my stereo. Kraftwerk transcended music in a much different way than my favorites. My lifelong love of the Beatles or the favorite of my youth, the Clash and later, Jane’s Addiction. I’m sure that Kraftwerk was probably in the collections of the band members, like your favorite rapper’s favorite rapper, MF Doom was probably listened to Kraftwerk, they are that cool and known by all that made music. 

It’s pretty well accepted that Kraftwerk developed and rode the express train that techno is. Predating the tribal beats of rap and certainly the favorites of uber, tres cool Berlin era of David Bowie, Kraftwerk epitomized the drive that melodic flowing pulsed nightclub music genre that is timeless. Not disco but the soundtrack of partying late until morning disco tech and house music, cleaner than rave, different, straight edge yet dreamy.

Finally my chance came and I immediately bought my ticket. They were coming to Phoenix! But could it really be them? Kraftwerk at the Orpheum? Was it a tribute band? Probably the coolest pace imaginable to see them? A literal old school theater, perfect acoustics and small, every seat a great view and old, an ornate venue perfect for my first and probably the last chance at seeing them.

I took the light rail into downtown listening to the train-oriented theme song of Trans Europe Express. I exited the rail walking the short way down my namesake road, Adams Street to the Orpheum. The line to the front door and stop for security, there is my old friend from my teenage years, Michael Cornelius, walking up to him we fist bump, “Wouldn’t miss it for the world…” both of us smiling and not because we saw each other but we were seeing Kraftwerk. On a side note, my friend was part of the early formula of punk rock in America. A guitarist in the band Jody Fosters Army, we used to skate together, and I had forgotten that I turned him on to snowboarding way back when. He is truly an OG in the music scheme of things here in America and even internationally known as a participant in that genre, he is just one of the coolest musicians I know, when Johnny Rotten of Public Image Ltd came to play, Michal’s band opened up for them. Yup, fist bump even back then.

Inside the Orpheum I found my seat, I was early and no music was playing on the house system so I played Trans Europe Express on the iPhone.. Sitting, I checked my storage and readied myself to record. The capacity of my iPhone is one terabyte and my entire music library is on it as well as the photos and video of three prior phones on it as well. I am still good for storage. 

I had brought my binoculars even though I could still make out facial expressions of the band when they were lit by white light of their multimedia show. It’s 1a right now, the house is quiet and I can actually hear the distant train in Tempe blowing its horn and again I’m brought to the song as I write this on my iPad, Trans Europe Express plays in my head, I’ll be asleep in just a few minutes after I wrap this up.

Looking through the lens of the binoculars at  Ralf Hütter, how old is he? G~d damn is he 79 years old? I am 64 years old as I write this and he is halfway across the globe on a world tour. I am so happy to be here in his presence, listening. For two hours they played their catalog literally rocking the house, pegging the VU meter. I was in music heaven, everything perfect, by far the epitome of my music life, no other band will ever be able to impress me the way that this band of Germans did.