* * * * * * * kdm

Vor zwei Jahren bekam ich mal ein Musik-Buch in die Finger und schrieb damals für die Leser des "KS Circle" spontan einen englisch-deutschen Kommentar:
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What would the reader of a book about British beat music say, if he reads about Paul-Mac Kathy or Mike Jager? (...or about "Pink Freud" with their famous hit "Honey")?
Here we have a "critical discography of Tangerine Dream". 160 pages. Of course, Klaus Schulze is mentioned because he's an ex-TD.
Don't laugh, but ...again there it is: KS is mentioned as "KLAUS SCHULTZE" (p. 154). Not in a daily newspaper that will be used the next day to cover some fish, or in a worthless teenie pop magazin, no, but in a "serious" book. By an author who even makes a fuss about his professionalism (! on page 4).
Other heavy errors, found so far: "Jubilee Edition", he states, is a 2-CD set (yes, two. In fact it were 25! CDs) on a label called "Moniker" (sic!). The discography is more often wrong than right: "Picture Music" was never on Virgin, "Blackdance" was neither on Spalax nor on Magnum. "Moondawn" was not released by "Manikin 1976", "Live" was not released by "Manikin 1980", "Electronic Meditation" was not produced by "TD" but by Klaus Freudigmann and Hans Ulrich Weigel, etc. ... The author kindly also mentions me and gives my address... wrongly, of course. Yeah, that's the book Digital Gothic, by a certain Paul Stump. Blessed are the ignoramuses.

"Ich habe großes Vertrauen in das Publikum, größeres als in Musikkritiker." (Steve Reich)

Noch mehr? Bitte:
I also had to read on p.23 a quote from the lunatic Julian Cope. It states that "the postwar West German kids all [!] learned their English from TV; they all [!] had American accents." You don't believe it? Let me repeat: "The postwar West German kids all learned their English from TV; they all had American accents." Stump does not stumble over such a silly statement, but believes it. And I stopped reading further on.
The first postwar TV programme in Western German was introduced in 1952. Only at the end of the fifties a wider population in Germany owned such a luxury apparatus, a TV. The programme was of course fully spread in German language (and still is so today).... How could "the postwar West German kids all" learn English (with an American accent) from German TV? What kind of miracle is this?! Cope! Stump! If one of you think about writing books about the Swedish culture, or the French, I can tell you here and now that Swedish TV broadcast in Swedish, and French TV is in French.
Most German kids learned English (Oxford English and not American) at school, starting at the age of 11, until they left school with 15 or later. In some parts of Germany the kids could also listen to the AFN, which is the American Forces Network, and that's American radio for the American soldiers. The same radio (besides Radio Luxembourg) that also teached BBC-bored British boys in the fifties about blues, rhythm'n'blues and rock'n'roll (Hey, Cope & Stump, learn a few things by listening to Van Morrison's "In the Days before Rock 'n' Roll" from his "Enlightenment" album from 1990). The third source for our English: When the German "economic miracle" (Wirtschaftswunder) bear fruit, it were also records. Singles first, then LPs.

Das Buch ist eine "Bonanza des Unsinns". Bücher dieser Art hinterlassen bei mir keine besonders günstige Meinung vom Wissen und von der Sorgfalt des jeweiligen Autors. Cope wie Stump sollten keine Bücher verfassen, zumal keine kulturgeschichtlichen.

"The KS Circle" no.198 will be posted tomorrow. It contains:

• Out of print?
• Look First! & Flöhe husten?
• Leserlob
• Our Music Enters the Museum ("Old Times")
• This Month' Answer to Davide
• 90% crap?
• A 'canon' of E.M.
• Warum klagen so viele...?
• An Unknown Photo
...and more

My old friend Arthur Brown has a gig on the 15th of November in Berlin's "Roadrunner Paradise"; he wrote me:
If you notice we are playing near you, please come and have a look. We are highly enjoyable. And the musicianship in this young band is of a high standard. ... It would be good to see you. Arthur"
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( "I'm too old for that shit", Lethal Weapon 1-4 :-)

Gerade in der Stadt gesehen: Ein Wohnhaus am Olivaer Platz wird renoviert und am Baugerüst findet man die groß gedruckte Ankündigung, dass hier 13 Eigentumswohnungen entstehen und im Erdgeschoss ein "Walk-In Shop". Ja, in der Tat, nicht etwa irgend ein Geschäft oder Laden, nein: ein Walk-In Shop. Man kann also den Laden, wenn er mal fertig ist, sogar betreten. In Englisch. Toll!

The film maker James L. Frachon who produces the DVDs for the coming BIG IN EUROPE boxes, has completed again a short teaser; the first of a few, he told me:

In einem lockeren, freundlichen Interview fragte die Radio-Journalistin die Popsängerin im Beamtendeutsch: "Wurde das kommuniziert innerhalb der Familie?"

...of the release date of BIG IN EUROPE.
The next release date is announced now for the 29th of November, and, yes, even if some of you make already jokes à la "...but which year?", the year is (or: should be) 2013.
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