Loading ...Krautrocksampler
By Evan ~ October 31st, 2006. Filed under: collector scum.
It’s Halloween now, and I’m sitting at work eating all the candy that people keep refusing. The clientele here is what we young, hip cats like to refer to as, “old farts.” Z had the brilliant idea last night that I should come to work wearing black clothing and covered in postage stamps, or “blackmail.” After first thinking the idea to be brilliant, I realized that having to explain to people what I was would be a chore. Oh, and also, I work in the ghetto. I don’t want anyone to overhear me saying “I’m blackmail!” and take it the wrong way. I’m not racist.
I’ve spent my entire shift dinking around on my iPod trying to conserve some space, and reading a new book. What book, you ask? Well…
Back in the great, distant era of erm…the mid-’90s, there was a chap by the name of Julian Cope (ex-Teardrop Explodes/music-writer geek), who decided he wanted to chronicle the history of the Krautorck genre. So, he wrote an excellent book, called Krautrocksampler, in which he not only tells readers exactly when and wear he bought all these much-sought-after-now-sadly out-of-print LPs, but paints a great picture of West Germany in the ’60s and ’70s. When he’s not waxing (his bikini) poetic, he recounts crazy stories, and draws very cool connections between projects and personalities. Cope even proclaims that Klaus Dinger “directly influenced David Bowie to take his Low direction” and “had a direct effect on the Sex Pistols, via Johnny Rotten”. Thassalotta influence!
Unfortunately, the book–much like oft-drooled-over records of the era–is out of print. But the version Ian sent me to read today has survived and been passed-down between generations (okay, not passed-down between generations, but e-mailed between friends) in a sort-of post-Soviet technological samizdat! And, since I clearly have no idea what a copyright is, I’m going to allow you all to download the PDF files of the book directly from me. If that doesn’t leave me wide-open for a lawsuit, I don’t know what does! But hey, if you want to spend $174.95 for a copy of this book, be my guest! NOTE: IF YOU ARE JULIAN COPE (OR REPRESENT JULIAN COPE, OR PUBLISHED THIS BOOK) AND YOU WOULD LIKE THIS INFORMATION REMOVED, PLEASE CONTACT ME DIRECTLY, AND I WILL SWIFTLY AND GLADLY COMPLY (and, consequently, deprive literally TENS of fanboys from learning more about the bands they love).
Krautrocksampler Part 1
Krautrocksampler Part 2
October 4th, 2008 at 1:33 am
Thank you for this! I wish I had over $200 for the real thing, but until they reissue the book, I am more than happy with an electronic version. Again, much thanks from a music dork.
December 14th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
Thanks alot!!!!
December 23rd, 2008 at 5:34 pm
i just found this. i love you!
February 12th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
[...] and Bernd Withuser. In his quintessential tome on the German progressive/psychedelic music scene Krautrocksampler, Julian Cope writes of Lord Krishna Von [...]
February 26th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
Have loved Kraftwerk for years and recently discovered cluster, harmonia etc and wanted to find out more about these bands, the period when they were recording but cannot afford £180 for a copy of the Krautrocksampler. So from a music junkie thank you.
April 10th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
So I read your Beware Of The Blog entry about this on my RSS reader, went to download the files, and found that they’d been removed, as had your entry. Fortunately, it was archived on my RSS reader, so I came to your blog, and lo and behold, the files here still work! So hey, thanks for your well-intentioned attempt to share with Beware Of The Blog readers. I would never have been able to grab this stuff otherwise. Thank you so much.
July 14th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
You sir, are a genius of the highest order. Much like the chap above, I wish I could afford to splash out on the real deal as it were (or read German, and get the rather cheap German edition), but this will more than suffice for now!
A thousand times: thank you!
October 27th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
Danke!
November 4th, 2009 at 10:27 pm
[...] commonly linked under the heading of “Krautrock”. Whereas Julian Cope’s epic tome Krautrocksampler gave us biographical accounts of German bands both big and small, this documentary featured many of [...]
November 15th, 2009 at 10:27 am
muchissimas gracias!
November 16th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
thanks
November 17th, 2009 at 4:28 am
Mit tiefer Dankbarkeit!
January 26th, 2010 at 12:04 pm
Cheers!
February 14th, 2010 at 4:44 pm
Thank you very much for posting this! I have bought all of The Archdrude Of Wessex’s other books, they are all in print and well worth buying. (The megalithic guides are particularly beautiful, the autobio 2 in 1 edition is hilarious and harrowing, and Japrocksampler is a better read than a listen, truth be told.) Pity this KRSampler isn’t in reprints or available as an official bootleg on his incredible Head Heritage site, but I can understand his reasoning; it did it’s job for the time, and turned people onto what was then a pretty obscure branch of the music tree.
Looking forward to squinting and clicking my way through this after years of longing (not to many used copies floating about here in Canada)… All the best!
P.S.: My favourite krautrock stuff has always been the more ambient Cluster stuff, the 2 albums with Eno being truly beautiful sonic gems. The Kraftwerk catalogue is an endless source of inspiration and sonic joy, too. Julian’s very krautrock inspired Jehovahkill album is also an utter classic. Cheers.