OFF: More on Amon D üül II

[Doug Pearson]

First of all, is anyone interested in trading their CD of 'Dance of the
Lemmings' or 'Yeti' or the Utopia (ADII spin-off) album for my copy of the
20-track 'Made In Germany'?  Or anything else good, before I exercise
Amoeba's "return-anything-you-didn't-like-within-a-week-for-85%-of-the-
original-price" policy on it?

On Fri, 25 Jan 2002 20:53:06 -0500, K Henderson <henderson.120 at OSU.EDU>
wrote:
>Hi Folks ... I thought I'd ask this question to whomever has the
>Repertoire CD reissue of Phallus Dei.
>
>The bonus tracks are...
>"Freak Out Requiem I"
>"Freak Out Requiem II"
>"Freak Out Requiem III"
>"Cymbals In The End"
>
>So how are these things?  I gather the first three are rather
>non-structured?  Is this all with Dave Anderson - I'm presuming?

To further confuse things, some discs have 4 "Freak Out Requiem"s and some
have 3, but the only difference is whether the first (7 minutes) is split
into two sections (#'s 1 & 2), or left as one track with a few seconds of
silence in the middle; they both contain the same music.  One of the "Freak
Out Requiem"s and "Cymbals in the End" are both less than a minute, so they
can be ignored.  However, those "Freak Out Requiem"s of length are very
good, hot melodic jams.  Less "non-structured" than the weirder stuff
on 'Yeti' or 'Dance of the Lemmings', to be certain.  Worth it to me, but I
love 'Phallus Dei' and 'Yeti'.

>Might some of this material be the source of certain snippets of music that
>I heard (but didn't recognize) on those Japanese retro-pastische things
>that I have (Kobe and Eternal Flashback)???
>Or is this all-different stuff from anything I've heard elsewhere?

I haven't heard those, so I couldn't say.  The "Freak Out Requiem"s sound
like 'Phallus Dei'/'Yeti'-era outtakes to me ...

>And I played my Made in Germany copy again last night...why is this album
>so disrespected?!

Because it's mostly awful?  I bought a copy yesterday, and that was my
impression after the first listen.  There were some good bits, but they
were few and far between, and many of them were buried (i.e. cool phase-
shifted guitar solos that you can't hear 'cause of the DAMN ORCHESTRA!).

>I'm not sure that many people have ever heard it in the 70
>minute format that it was intended to be...that single-LP crap that the US
>label pulled was criminal!

Well, they could have culled a single LP from it that would have been
better than 'Hijack'.  Maybe even 'Vive La Trance'.  Maybe.  I will agree
that they could have done MUCH better than the released single LP version.

>Now, Alan Davey felt he just had to learn to play bass when hearing
>'Time We Left'...for me, if I was ever to be inspired to pick up a
>guitar and try to learn to play it (hopeless!), it would be almost
>entirely to try to reproduce Karrer's sound on La Kraut(Pal)oma -
>that's just goosebump material.

Yes, that's one of the good moments (and 6 minutes of good moments, no
less!).

>Oh, and 5.5.55* is
>another guitar masterpiece...don't know who plays that
>stream-of-consciousness soloing there (I always imagined it was Weinzierl
>(he co-wrote it with Tischer), but I never know who's who!) but it too is
>stunning work and again comes in for a landing just as the chorus is set to
>go...I love that stuff.

Another good one, but it's way too short.

>So...I think people just have the opinion that MiG was a overly pretentious
>mess (a valid personal criticism)...but if anyone thinks it lacks the
>original stylish madness of earlier works, or is somehow too poppy, they
>just ain't listening!  Save the Abba track, the vocal tracks on there are
>hardly standard compositions!  And there's heaps of crazy electronics and
>synthesizers all over the place.  It's a damn *weird* album, and nothing
>like what was shortly to come with Zauner's influence.  So I hope people
>don't pass on it simply because this is what they've been told.

It IS a weird album (and I usually like weird albums), mostly because all
the extremely varied elements that are thrown into it just don't work with
each other.  The negative ones go on for too long (like the orchestral
overture), and most of the positive ones are either too short, or buried
under the negative ones.  If I want to hear an orchestra & electronics
duet, I'll listen to Stockhausen or Xenaxis.

>Well, that's enough ridiculous campaigning for just one album from me...I
>suppose part of my love for this work is that this was the first ADII album
>that really got me going on them (even though it was the second one I got,
>following Phallus Dei oddly enough - it being the first of the classic
>period and MiG being the last)...and that was the crappy version!

Hmm ... it was the EXACT opposite for me ... I first bought the US MiG, and
thought it truly sucked.  I next got 'Carnival In Babylon', which I thought
was a whole lot better, but it still didn't do much for me.  THEN, I
got 'Phallus Dei', which thoroughly blew me away and turned me into a fan.
I've subsequently come to like 'Carnival In Babylon' a whole lot (it's
their most "folk"/acoustic-oriented album, and I love psychedelic folk
rock), but not 'Made In Germany'.

>Anyway, before I wasn't really putting down Yeti that much (it is a great
>album after all), I'm just wondering why everybody focusses on just two or
>three albums of theirs and totally ignore all the others.  Carnival in
>Babylon ain't too shabby either.  It's HiJack that really suffered...and
>even there, there are some nice moments.
>
>My rankings would go...
>
>0. Lemmingmania (the four single tracks are great, but this is a comp. and
>doesn't fully count - but taken at face value, it wins)

Essential if you're not going to get all of the first five albums.  Not
essential if you are ...

>1. Wolf City (no second guessing here)

This isn't MY favorite ADII album (I prefer the first two, and probably
also 'Carnival in Babylon'), but I still like it an awful lot.  It
definitely does present the best hybridization of their earlier freakouts
and later pop-oriented elements.  The varied elements on this album work
together *perfectly*, in complete contrast to MiG.  It probably would be
the best introduction for folks not into 20+-minute freakouts.

>2. Made in Germany (70min rock opera version)

Disagree.  Very strongly.  I'd probably put it at "8" (better
than 'Hijack', which is really bad IMO).

>3. Dance of the Lemmings
>3. Yeti (tie)
>   (Disc one of DotL paired with Disc one of Yeti would move to No. 1)

I like 'Yeti' more, but I don't share Julian Cope's (strongly negative)
opinion of 'Dance of the Lemmings' AT ALL.

>4. Carnival in Babylon
>   Made in Germany (single LP) would go here
>   Live in London would go about here
>5. Utopia (virtually ADII)
>6. Phallus Dei

I'd consider all the albums down to here (except the live one and, of
course, 'Made In Germany') to be the essential ADII canon, even though I
might quibble over the order.  The first five albums and the Utopia album
are all great.

>   BBC Live would go about here
>7. Vive la Trance
>8. Pyragony X
>9. Vortex
>9. HiJack (tie)
>   Nada Moonshine # belongs here to, but won't officially include it
>11. Only Human
>12. Almost Alive

... and I'd avoid all of these (and MiG).

>ObCD: Kraan - Andy Nogger (EMI reissue) Just in the mail today! Great!

Oh man, on New Years Day, the guy we were staying with woke us up at 8AM
(we passed out at around 3.30AM) blasting Kraan (no idea which album).
That still stands as my most miserable experience of 2002 so far ...

    -Doug
     jasret at mindspring.com