Can (band)

Can ("The Can" until 1970) was an experimental rock music / Psychedelic music / Art rock / krautrock group founded in Germany in 1968. They found little success in conventional terms, but they were one of the major Krautrock bands, an "anarchist community" who have had a great influence on modern rock and electronic music.

(1968-1979) Band years

Can formed in Cologne in 1968 as "Inner Space", comprising bass guitarist Holger Czukay, keyboard player Irmin Schmidt (both music teachers who had studied under Karlheinz Stockhausen), guitarist Michael Karoli (a pupil of Czukay), and jazz drummer Jaki Liebezeit, along with original member David Johnson.

Related Topics:
Cologne - 1968 - Holger Czukay - Irmin Schmidt - Karlheinz Stockhausen - Michael Karoli - Jazz - Jaki Liebezeit

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In the fall of 1968, they had enlisted an imaginitive and highly rythmic (if abrasive in tone) American vocalist, Malcolm Mooney. He added intensity to the band's music, which sounded something like a combination of Velvet Underground, James Brown, and Pink Floyd among other things. As with those influences, repetition was stressed on bass and drums, particularly on the 20-minute "Yoo Doo Right," which had been edited down from a six hour improvisation. This song had been covered in abbreviated form by The Geraldine Fibbers, Thin White Rope and others).

Related Topics:
Malcolm Mooney - Velvet Underground - James Brown - Pink Floyd - Covered - The Geraldine Fibbers - Thin White Rope

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Mooney returned to America soon afterwards and was replaced by gentler stylist Damo Suzuki, a Japanese traveller found busking outside a cafe. The band's first record with Suzuki was Soundtracks (1970), in which his multi-lingual vocal style (somewhat influenced by Yoko Ono) added character to a set of relatively straightforward pop songs. Also included were two songs by Mooney including an unexpected foray into melodic jazz, "She Brings the Rain".

Related Topics:
Damo Suzuki - Busking - Soundtracks - Yoko Ono

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The next few years saw them release their most acclaimed works, which arguably did as much to define the Krautrock genre as those of any other group. While their earlier records mostly stuck to traditional song structures, on their mid-career albums the band reverted to an extremely fluid improvisational style. Tago Mago (1971) is a groundbreaking, influential and deeply unconventional record, based on intensely rhythmic jazz-inspired drumming, improvised guitar and keyboard soloing (frequently intertwining each other), tape edits, and Suzuki's idiosyncratic vocalisms. The rhythm section's work on Tago Mago has been especially praised: One critic writes that much of the album is based on "long improvisations built around hypnotic rhythm patterns" http://www.trouserpress.com/entry.php?a=can; another writes that "'Halleluwah' finds them "pounding out a monster trance/funk beat" http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:4x65mpb39f6o~T1.

Related Topics:
Krautrock - Tago Mago - Rhythm section - Improvisation - Hypnotic - Rhythm - Pattern - Trance - Funk

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Tago Mago was followed by Ege Bamyasi (1972), a more accessible but still avant-garde record which featured the catchy "Vitamin C" and the Top 40 German hit "Spoon". Next was Future Days (1973), an early example of ambient music, though there was also the quasi-pop song "Moonshake". The names of these albums represent the band members' interest in world music referring to other cultures' languages and traditions.

Related Topics:
Tago Mago - Ege Bamyasi - Future Days - Ambient music - World music

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Suzuki left in 1973 to become a Jehovah's Witness, and the vocals were taken over by Karoli and Schmidt. Arguably the music suffered when Suzuki departed; both were competent singers, but neither Karoli nor Schmidt was a particularly memorable vocalist, especially when compared to Mooney's demented energy or Suzuki's freewheeling charm. In live performance, though, the music grew in intensity without a vocal center, and the band maintained their ability to collectively improvise with or without central themes for hours at a time, resulting in a rather great body of performances.

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Can released Soon Over Babaluma in 1974 before signing to Virgin Records the following year. Throughout the albums Landed (1975), Flow Motion (1976), Saw Delight (1977) and Out of Reach (1978), Can moved towards a somewhat more conventional style; the disco single "I Want More" from Flow Motion became, in the UK, their only hit record.

Related Topics:
Soon Over Babaluma - Virgin Records - Landed

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In 1977 Can added former Traffic bassist Roscoe Gee and percussionist Reebop Kwaku Baah to the existing personnel,

Related Topics:
Traffic - Roscoe Gee - Reebop Kwaku Baah

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pushing Holger Czukay, who is now perhaps the best-known ex-member, to the fringes of the group's activity, playing only the shortwave radio. Czukay left in late 1977 and did not appear at all on the albums Out Of Reach (1978) or Can (1979). The band quietly disbanded at the end of the 1970s, but has reformed on a few occasions since.

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