OFF: Test, übrigens ist leider Klaus Dinger tot :(

[Keith Henderson]

Bernhard...Dein Test ist angeblich bestanden, oder?

OK...two days ago, I read in the Schwaebische Zeitung
that Neu! and La Düsseldorf (co)founder Klaus Dinger
had died on March 21 of heart failure.  Of course, he
and Michael Rother (the other principle member of
Neu!) played for a year or so with Kraftwerk (on drums
and guitar, respectively), before splintering off on
their own.  Presumably (?), this decision on their
part left Ralf and Florian with the idea that we
should just forget all these other instruments and
just play synthesizers, four people in one row across
the stage, rather than find a new guitarist and
drummer.

But not only was the first Neu! album a truly
brilliant piece of work that seemingly invented
several differents subgenres of electronic-oriented
music, incl. ambient and industrial.  But it also IIRC
has a strong Hawkwind connection as I think the UK
vinyl version included liner notes that were written
by none other than Dave Brock.  I've never seen a copy
of this record...is there anyplace online that has a
scan of it, or at least shows what the text says?  I'd
like to read it now.

Also, it has been argued that the HW song Opa-Loka was
a kind of tribute to 'motorik' music (that was
probably no better represented than that by Neu! -
despite the fame of Kraftwerk and Can being larger). 
And Simon King (he wrote it, didn't he?) and Klaus
Dinger (and Jaki Liebezeit, the best of all motorik
drummers IMHO) were both of the same ilk.  Blanga is
really just a different form of motorik music, ie the
same sorts of beats and rhythms.  Only the electronics
are used completely differently and blanga is a lot
more thundery with heavy guitars and bass.

K Dinger's younger brother Thomas (who played with him
in La Düsseldorf at least) already died a few years
ago, so the Dingers haven't been lucky in life.  Klaus
was supposedly, uh, "difficult" but I never met him or
even saw him on stage, so who am I to judge the
character of someone I've never met face to face.  We
won't speak ill of the dead here...especially since he
was a critical factor in creating some of my favorite
all-time music.  I'm not sure why the announcement of
his death only got out to the larger public roughly
two weeks late...the article I read didn't say
anything about that.

Anyway...Klaus Dinger (1946-2008) RIP.

So many krautrock heroes are leaving this planet too
soon.  :(

Grakkl



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