Monday, January 29, 2007

Did you know that Faust means Fist?

I figured with the passing of Uwe Nettelbeck on Jan. 17th, it was only appropriate to begin my series of krautrock-based entries with the band he created; Faust.

The first song I ever heard from the band was the absurdly jaunty "Picnic on a Frozen River" from Faust So Far and I will readily admit to heavily using the song on many mixtapes. Another one of my favorites, from their self-titled album, was "I've Got My Car and My TV." which I was able to find a live performance clip of from 2005.



Faust formed in 1971. According to what I could dig up on wikipedia, they were also one of the first bands to sign to Richard Branson's Virgin Records (for those of you unfamiliar with Richard Branson, maybe you will remember his reality show called The Rebel Billionaire?). Although they are often noted as being one of the preeminent influences in the genre known as krautrock, they weren't commercial successes like Can or Kraftwerk. The band broke up after Virgin refused to release their fifth album and for some time after that, no one knew where the band was, or what they were doing. There are some documented instances of members performing together in the 80's, but it wasn't until 1990 that some of the members began touring and performing together recurrently. As you can see from the above clip, the band is still performing at various festivals in Europe.

I would kill to get my hands on some of Faust's original releases. Yes, having the music on pure, pressed vinyl, even with it's hissing and popping from age, would be amazing, but mostly, I would love to see the artwork in it's original state. The first album (Faust) was pressed on clear vinyl, inserted in a clear sleeve that had a silk-screened x-ray of a human fist. The second album (Faust So Far) had illustrations for each song included within the sleeve (I think Pearl Jam did something like this for one of their albums. Ha.)

Obviously, I don't know as much about Faust as I would like to know. Thank god, for wikipedia helping me fill in the gaps where my knowledge failed. Still, over the years, I have had more and more time to fall in love with their music and in time I'll learn more.

Here's one last clip of the band in concert during the 70's. Unfortunately, it's in German and I am not fluent in the language, but you take what you can get on youtube, sometimes;



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