taking sides: can vs neu

There you go.

This is true.

However, looked at from a slightly different angle:

(1972) Ege Bamyasi vs. Neu! - Can win by a short lead
(1973) Future Days vs. Neu! 2 - Can just sneak it?
(1975) Landed vs. Neu! '75 - Neu! win by miles and miles and bloody miles

Monster Movie vs Neu - NEU win
Tago Mago vs Neu 2 - Can win
Ege Bam Yasi vs Neu 75 - NEU with an easy win

However, looked at from a slightly different angle:

(1972) Ege Bamyasi vs. Neu! - Again NEU win
(1973) Future Days vs. Neu! 2 - Ah! Easy win for Can (my fave Can album you see)
(1975) Landed vs. Neu! '75, butbut surely this should be Soon over Babaluma vs NEU 75, which would be a tie into overtime w/ endless penalty shootout. ;)

Soon Over Babaluma was 1974 - and personally I still reckon it's a victory for Neu! '75; albeit with a massively reduced lead compared with it's victory over Landed.

The correct answer, however, is still very clearly Faust.

mine are (in no order):
- "track 2" of faust tapes (although mine has no tracks. lame!)
- horn-driven fucking beautiful part on "no harm"
- vocal section of "meadow meal", especially when they say "meadow meal"
- that amazing louder-than-anything-else wooby noise on "jennifer" - synth? bass?
- when the jangly guitar comes in on "its a rainy day..."

"Dope for all the bad times!"

I like Can more than Neu, certainly. Though I listened to the first Neu! record last night when I was studying. I listen to Can more frequently; I think they're the more consistent band. With Neu!, I might want to listen to say half of an album at a time, whereas Can's albums cohere. This may not be as true when you get to Neu75 though; but with the first album, say, I wouldn't want to listen to the softer/ambient tracks when I'm out walking around (when I would like to be listening to the motorik stuff.) Tago Mago is somewhat of an exception, but it's conveniently split and length enough sothat I don't feel cheated if I skip "Aumgn" and "Peking-O."

Faust is great.

A big strike against Can for being such hippie scum though. I prefer Neu!, even though Can may be the better band.

Can, if only because jaki leibezeit is the best drummer of all time, no contest, ever, and if you disagree, i will cut you.

Neu! were influenced by contemporary classical music? That's news to me. Hold, Can were "hippies" and Faust weren't?!?!!? More like the other way round, if anything.

Tough one but after a lot of head scratching the only way I've found to boil it down to just 5 is:
- The Wumme Years
- Faust IV
- You Know FaUSt
- Ravvivando
- Derbe Repect, Alder

Maybe not directly, but Rother & Dinger were in Krafwerk for a short while weren't they, and Stockhausen was an influence on them. Maybe you can hear a Stockhausen influence on Neu!2

(conceptually the found-radio stuff points back to hymnen obv)

terry riley wz much more important as an enabler

i'm going to go with can, although i'm painfully aware i haven't heard enough can - or neu! for that matter - to make an informed judgement. to be brutally frank, neither band blew me away as much as i'd hoped. i'm not afraid to admit i think i prefer them as influences ... neu! on OMD, can on SXXV, PiL, you name it.

riley pioneered the combination of improvisation with tape loops, plus also wz workin in germany - i think w.the fluxus krew - in 67-68

I don't know an awful lot about Stockhausen but he did do tape collage and looping type stuff didn't he, so although Can don't sound much like Stockhausen there's probably a process influence.

"process influence" yes ok, but only if you allow the "influence" to be very selective (not to say arbitrary): ie stockhausen doesn't approve of four-beat type rhythm or repetition, so this aspect of his thinking clearly didn't take

krautrock is a particuarly good overall genre for taking a long hard look at how lazily the term "influence" is used actually

ie does the connection come by
i. being a pupil of
ii. being a pupil of and reacting against the teaching
iii. listening to radio
iv. listening to radio and reacting against culturual imperialism
v. listening to records
vi. hearing/seeing someone play
vii. just reading about someone and thinking their "concept" sounds cool (w/o hearin the effects)
viii. being on the "same scene" as ppl
ix. being bored or disgusted by an icon, a scene, a counterculture
x. loving the effect of a practice but knowing it's unrepeatable or untransferrable, and working out how to replicate the effect by (apparently) unrelated means
etc

dada not only that, i had to wait until the tour de france was over on TV before we could start talking!

that's my problem w.the word "influence" really jonathan: it elides the bit where you pursue parts of someone else's project with the bit where you react against someone else's project, ie it fails to make the most important distinction

i have no prob w.your post after the "ie", but before we see that sticking w.the word "influence" requires you to be more and more vague and general and handwaving

my solution: USE OTHER WORDS PLZ!! (ie drop the word "influence" from the critical discourse and say exactly what you were going to say, but w/o it = result = instant clarity!)

I like Can better than Neu!, if yer sticking to motorik, but I like Popol Vuh, Amon Duul2 and Ash Ra Tempel better if yr doing "classic" "krautrock".

I will not take sides on this...oh alright then, Can. Just on the basis that there is *more* of Can. I can find nothing wrong with anything Can or Neu ever did. It's music as it should be made...pioneering, experimental, beautiful or ugly as needed.

it is mainly lame rock-hackery that has made me super-allergic to it: when i got home last night i turned on the tv and there were the libertines and some nme clowns discussing them and the words "influential" and "kick up the arse for the music business" flowed like rancid wine and earwig honey bleugh

This is better than anything I could have imagined!!