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April 30, 2008
Retrohump: Debunking Can Theories With More Can
Can - "Mother Sky"
(live on West German television, 1970)
Last week's bit of glorious Can footage presented a compelling alternate reality in which clean cut young Japanese street busker Damo Suzuki was eventually corrupted by the evil long-haired German jazzniks that became his band mates. This clip, culled from the same reliably avant West German television network but broadcast two years earlier, shoots it all to hell. I guess Damo had just gotten a new shirt and a haircut for"Vitamin C" day, because "Mother Sky" features the monastic hermit/homeless vet look that we all know and love. He looks like the ghost in a J-horror flick. If you see black water mysteriously oozing from a bass amp, do not investigate!
As with most vintage clips of un-telegenic krautrock from the vaults, the clip is mainly enjoyable for the befuddled reaction of the teenagers gathered in its audience. It looks like they were given free tickets to Das Dancepalast!, and entered fresh-faced and excited, only to have all the joy of life beaten from them by the cruel warlords on stage. Nodding off and sitting on the ground chain-smoking can be noted in the advanced ennui cases. The best of all is the girl who sits beside the speaker lighting some sort of antique opium pipe. Only she, getting casually blitzed on national television, has the necessary detached nihilism to really belong in the bleak rhythm's midst.
Below is the full fifteen minute version of the song's studio version, which I admire greatly in parts, but have perhaps never listened to in its entirety. For the chic opium smokers among you...
Posted by Jeff Klingman at April 30, 2008 07:50 AM
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