BEST CAN ALBUM! (POLL Closes 4th May)

Damn, thanking him for the killer tunes. Such a talent

rip big guy, there's nothing to say about his time in can other than that it was perfect

hero. all time. re the tweet above where he shook everyone's hand in the venue. he did the same one time i heard him.

got Future Days on now, insane this album is 50 years old, could've been recorded yesterday

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrgVuGHb-fo

Future Days sounds like it was recorded tomorrow.

Maybe that's why they call it "Future Days"

RIP legend. Last night I was sipping whiskey in one of those “hi fi listening” bars in mexico city and the dj played Future Days on vinyl in its entirety. I was so happy listening to it and hadn’t heard the news about Damo passing. Now the music selection makes sense.

RIP, I saw him in the late 90s playing with a band including Michael Karoli and Mani Neumeier, probably the closest I was ever getting to a Can reunion! Never did see him again but it was good to know he was out there on his eternal tour. Someone I was talking to who'd played with him said he preferred it if his backing bands didn't try to sound like Can, although I guess that's precisely what most of them did.

When Damo Suzuki was going to be deported, Stockhausen wrote to the Cologne authorities... without which no Tago Mago. pic.twitter.com/XnEoBq8jkv

— Liam Cagney (@LiamCagney) April 19, 2018

Dear god, that 'love of regulations' quip. Black humor doesn't begin to describe THAT.

Karlheinz otm

Yesterday afternoon I cranked Ege Bamyasi and the run from “Sing Swan Song” to “Soup” was breathtaking, five guys one mind, a delicate and brutally powerful balance. Damo was like some spirit guide lighting the way.

youth from killing joke wrote something about Damo's passing on his social accounts - he said if he ever gets stuck in a producing session, he just has to listen to Can for 5 minutes (or 20!) and then the way forward becomes clear

this definitely rings true from my (collaborative) jamming/songwriting experiences - often someone will suggest a particular Can song which might have a clue, and then after that all possibilities feel like they are on the table - the solution might not be audibly influenced by Can (although it might be) but there is something about their vibe that helps you think outside conventional rock/pop constraints

he spent a fair bit of time here in Australia & I'm glad I got to see him on his first tour play with local group The Holy Soul (they also did some shows subsequently with Gareth from The Drones/TFS, probably regret missing these in retrospect!)

I know there are a lot of negative things you can say about Kanye, but while drawing influence and referencing Can is definitely one of the cooler things you can do, reinterpreting the lyrics of Sing Swan Song to say "drunk and hot girls" is really annoying.

after that all possibilities feel like they are on the table

it's amazing how many people I know or have met that have played with him

I never actually saw him live which I now regret quite a lot

I never met Damo Suzuki but I think I was a the WFMU record fair where he was backed by the guys from Cul De Sac.

I did however meet Malcom Mooney. It was a really interesting night. Bryan, who runs the brooklyn techno parties Bunker, used to live in this big loft with his then fiance Seze in brooklyn. I think it was Seze's idea to get a bunch of people together for dinner one night and invited my wife and I, her (Seze's) mother, her mother's partner, Guy who was an old Feelies fan/associate or something, and also Rick Brown of Blinding Headache, V-Effect, Timber, Fish and Roses, Run On, 75 Dollar Bill and 1000 other great things, whom I had met when I wanted to reissue V-Effect, and Malcom Mooney. Rick's partner Sue Garner showed up as well.

And that's the whole story more or less. Just dinner and hanging out with those people for an evening. Malcom was very sweet and charming.

I was offered the chance to release a single by Ava Mendoza and Malcolm Mooney. I said no because I don't do vinyl, but if there had been an CD's worth of material I would definitely have considered it.

trying to figure out what club i saw him in (Tokyo 06), found this extensive list.. https://www.damosuzuki.com/live/ !

Nice Malcolm Mooney story.

I never saw Damo live, let alone meet him, but I did once speak to Jaki Liebezeit and shake his hand. That's good enough for me.

Has your heartbeat been rock-steady ever since?

i wanted to see damo in '19 but he couldn't get a us visa :( really wish karlheinz stockhausen hadn't died...

Malcolm Mooney poem about Damo: https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=906404777596192&set=a.565994238303916

trying to figure out what club i saw him in (Tokyo 06), found this extensive list.. https://www.damosuzuki.com/live/ !

17 years later wondering why on earth i didn't go to this where he was backed by a bunch of xpressway/corpus hermiticum types. a portion of it got released by galbraith on his label, but have never seen a copy.

rip damo!

what Galbraith release? he is my very fave of that whole scene, set looks fantastic

Damo in Dunedin

^^^ https://www.discogs.com/release/1561919-Damo-Suzuki-Damo-In-Dunedin

50 copies! time to fire up soulseek.

only available from Volcanic Tongue

grggggrrrrr

My mate Dave used to book the bands for the Dewsbury Socialist Club and he was the one who organised both of the Damo gigs. IIRC, he charged £500 plus meals and somewhere to stay for the night for him and his partner. Dave also provided the backing band, made up of him and assorted others, who just played continuous, seemingly random stuff and Damo improvised with his vocals. Don't think they rehearsed anything with Damo beforehand. Twas a bit different to watching your average local band.

I had no idea he had played a couple of gigs up the road from me.

I was invited to play in a Damo show in 2019. Or rather to join The Damo Suzuki Network. He sends out a 6 page booklet explaining his concepts of improvised music. It was explicitly stated that the band could not rehearse beforehand and could not play anything pre-arranged.

Also he wrote “negativity, witchcraft, occult magic, violence, religious symbols or any form of political endorsement or propaganda will NOT be tolerated”

Yeah, Damo talked a little bit about these types of shows in this interview from a few years back:

AD: Before you play with the musicians, these sound carriers, before you hit the stage do you give them any kid of direction or idea? “I want to do this tonight. I want this kind of feel?” Or do you just walk onstage and start playing?

Damo Suzuki: No. Because this is already information—playing any kind of music will result in information. Everybody has such elements and space to go: 360-degree angles, anywhere you can go. I just talk to the people maybe 15 minutes before we go on the stage. However we start is important. How we stop is not that important. The end comes, somehow, naturally. But how we start is actually quite important. That’s why nobody has music charts and nobody gets nervous. Because to make improvisations is not everybody’s cup of tea, not everyone is keen on it. I have to make them comfortable. That’s why for 15 minutes before we go on, just to talk about a good oyster in the world, or something like this. And we talk about how we start. Each time is so different but maybe now I feel like not everybody…because I also feel like audience gets into it, very slowly, and not “rush.” Because it’s not natural. I like to get together with nature and also the show itself, must begin with a natural beginning.

So like last time, I said to them, “Think of minutes in your head. And pick a number between one through nine, and which minute you like, you keep in your head.” And someone says, “I have a two!” and I say, “Good, then you go on the stage and go first!” (Laughs). But for me, it doesn’t matter which kind of music or instrument they are playing. Because it’s all instant music. Anything just happens. So if there’s a note that’s an “accident,” those are the most beautiful things, you try to match the accident, you try to do something new; you try to get into the time. And you are much more freer, and you are much more concentrated, and at this moment everyone’s going to begin onstage to try and communicate, then after, we come together with the mistake we made. So in Miami it will be different; well, it must be different. Because I played in England, and now in the USA, I must make some different thing. I don’t like to think about so much things, by myself, because today it’s all-better to do it like this. So I don’t “try to create.” Because it’s not my lifestyle.

He sends out a 6 page booklet explaining his concepts of improvised music

I was actually in the Network for a show, and he did not do this. It was stipulated that we shouldn't rehearse anything for the show, though, that much is correct, but that seems like common sense for an improv show.

I posted up a small tribute on fb and haven't really had the energy to think of something else to say here about him, but man, he will be missed.

I could post the booklet here if anyone is interested

Yes please - would be interested to see if we accidentally broke any rules!

Being Present

One cannot truly plan ahead for the day, the moment, life, though we try - one can only establish
precedents, develop methods, learn techniques, (or at the worst, habits,) all of which inform our reactions to
each second.
Sometimes, we get comfortable when no new task or stimulus has come our way in a while - actions become
automated, predictions become projected fact and we cease to be reacting. This is when we are no longer
present in each moment of life. We fall prey to ignorance through inattention in thinking we are
precognisant of everything.
In ignoring each second for its uniqueness, we are not experiencing it - moments fly by in bulk,
indistinguishable from one another - and when our consciousness is such, we are not living our life.
Be comfortable, be honest, be a particle of matter vibrating in tandem with and out of reaction to the
millions of other particles around you.
This is important both on stage and always.

“Plan and system is not asked.
Fresh, organic energy is best to create positive energy and share with audience. “
- Damo Suzuki

sound carrying

Sound carrying is a technique to keep art in line with unretouched, unfalsified life.
The Sound Carrier Network is made of hundreds of individual musicians who create “spontaneous magic”
together that is an entirely organic response to the present moment, unaffected by forethought or planning.
This spontaneous reaction to the moment goes so far as to have the guitarist play bass, or have a musician
pass off their instrument to an audience member that “feels right.”
Use your time Sound Carrying to feel completely free of identity, ego, or preconception.
You are the bending string of individual experience, to channel a passing moment of reality through your
being, into the sound wave, out across the room, into the web of all matter, off the back wall of the venue
and back through your monitor - to grasp the new moment, to escort it also to freedom.
The music needs you to be honest and nothing more.
Input: awareness; output: meditation.
“I’m really pleased to all sound carriers who like to join to create very special moment, their act to join is
already a positive ef ort, so nothing go wrong way. “
- Damo Suzuki

instant composing

The shows are completely improvised, through what Damo has deemed instant composing. It’s subtly
different from what we have come to know as improv, where players develop cues, techniques, and
portfolios of jams to provide the framework for a set.
Instant composing is a philosophy more than a technique - forget techniques for now; they will keep you
pacing around the room where you learned them - it is an interesting and beautiful method of creating
evolving music more similar to life.
Though you can try to plan, there are events transpiring around you all the time that you cannot dictate but
must simply react to... you can not plot out life. Once music has been composed it is no longer a fluid
expression of life, as it operates with assumption and will ignore the moment, the present, the situation.
Damo will give abstract guidance like - "the start of the show reminds you of the movie where you are
running from tiger" or "now we imagine we are earthworms in too dry soil,” and “channeling the bad vibe
from the server who was rude to bassist at coffee shop into a 10 minute opening war-chant-style song that
leads into an ode to the way it feels to stretch on a warm sunny morning.”

It is best if Sound Carriers don’t meet up before and practice for this event - I like things happen “by
accident” and this moment is most personality,
original and natural. “
- Damo Suzuki

4

joining the network

Damo Suzuki is an improvisational performer who performs with a rotating cast of international musicians.
This is called "Damo Suzuki's Network". No performance is rehearsed or premeditated. Damo will be
meeting most of his U.S. band members, which he refers to as Sound Carriers, for the very first time. He
holds a brief meeting with his band prior to the show and the rest is magic.
• Are you completely comfortable with collaborating, live, with numerous additional musicians in an
improv fashion with no rehearsal?
Welcome to Damo Suzuki's Network, a network that spans decades and the globe. Made up of local "sound
carriers" in each city that will be collaborating, sometimes for the first time ever even meeting, entirely
improv, the Network exists to create a "spark of magic" with the chemistry created by spur of the moment.
You are now a member of a Network made of thousands of musicians from hundreds of countries on every
continent.

“It's always nice to perform new faces, beginning of friendship?
As social life is colorful with characters, nice to have dif erent characters
in this space. “
- Damo Suzuki

arranging

Damo wants not to act as a stand-in front man for a rehearsed band, but as a composer for the moment that
is a shared moment between the crowd, the band, the physical space itself. A band's developed chemistry
might conflict with the spontaneity of the performance.
Instant composing works best with a collection of musicians from different musical projects. The Sound
Carriers may at no time perform an existing composition.
Absolutely NO CAN SONGS will be performed. Damo has toured the world as an improvisational vocal
artist and has performed with his international “Network” of “Sound Carriers" since 1983.
There can be many instrumentalists, as many fit on stage, with some even waiting off-stage for the moment
it feels "right' to take the guitar from the current carrier, or hop on the extra percussion. We suggest a
minimum of three to five sound carriers, with no max - performances seem common with up to eight on
stage.
We've heard some pretty interesting stories about off-the-cuff collaboration and it's really been allowing us
to rethink the “instrument.” On a previous tour, Damo had a guitarist play bass because he "played the
guitar like a bass anyway.” Imagine something similar to oblique strategies but live on stage, and always
evolving.

“I create time and space of the moment with ever changing
local sound carriers (musicians).
You curate local sound carriers.”
- Damo Suzuki

conclusion

Good, open, peaceful vibrations. Each show is an opportunity to nurture a really far out, one-time-only
experience that leaves a lasting impact on everyone in attendance.
Genuine, positive intention, spiritual energy and fearless spontaneity should be the key driving forces
behind each musical performance.
Damo’s specialty lies in fluid improvisational exchanges between he and his band, including (energetically)
the crowd and the venue.
Damo Suzuki hasn't toured the U.S. in over 10 years. He has recently won a battle with cancer, and his
story is inspirational and awe-inspiring, to say the very least.
The show must be billed as "Damo Suzuki's Network", or “Damo Suzuki (and/with) The Sound Carriers.”
Personal projects and names of the Sound Carriers should be mentioned in all print and online promo, but
not in the format “Damo Suzuki and Motorhead.”
Fine to say, “Damo Suzuki’s Network with Sound Carriers featuring members of Motorhead” or “Damo
Suzuki and the Sound Carriers featuring Lemmy Kilmister (Motorhead)”
If and when referencing CAN, please note “early 70’s” or “1970-1973.”
Negativity, witchcraft, occult magic, violence, religious symbols or any form of political endorsement or
propaganda will NOT be tolerated if represented/endorsed by the venue itself, the venue staff, supporting
bands, and/or the promoter. This applies to all musicians, sound carriers, and their personal interests,,
poster art, online promo, the venue design, DOS playlist music, or as a part of any promotional material
associated with this show. If this rule is not adhered to, it is possible that Damo will refuse to perform and
may result in cancellation of the event.

7

thank you!

superb!
am genuinely thinking about how this applies to my life.

I rented ENERGY: A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT DAMO SUZUKI and highly recommend it. It’s not polished but lets Damo speak for himself, and I felt I understood a lot more of his life after “that German group”. Affectionate and insightful.
One fascinating tidbit was his companion on some UK shows, mentioned only as “E-Da”, whom I assume is the E-Da who helped make Seefeel a massive dub fourpiece in 2011.

E-Da became the 4th member when the Boredoms morphed into Voredoms (w/ EYE, Yoshimi & ATR), but he had been involved with the band as far back as Super Roots 7.

Oh yeah I forgot his Boredoms origin. He was described as “a musician and taxi driver” in the doco.

He also has this weird and kinda terrible band where they project things on a huge sphere while he mucks around with percussion equipment.

That booklet is really interesting, my band supported the Network in London once, Karoli was on guitar too, he was really drunk, I passed Damo in a corridor after we played and he nodded and said 'very good'

I have a recording of Damo with 23 Skidoo and IIRC it's all just 23 Skidoo songs with Damo singing on top.

E-Da is indeed the same E-Da, and he's v v nice!

(Also if you look very hard you can just about see me as a blurry shape in that documentary - lots of pals who you can see more clearly, though)

nice! For anyone curious the film can be streamed as a 48h rental via Vimeo https://vimeo.com/ondemand/energythefilm