Peter Hook on the legacy of Florian Schneider
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Thanks for that, Linus.
Yep, Florian and Kraftwerk really were something else.I didn't know they actually really did do concerts at one time in the 1970s without appearing on stage, they just used their mannequins.I know some parts of their old videos and a lot of their imagery was the mannequins or robot versions of themselves but i didn't know they actually really did whole concerts with the dummies.Or has Hooky made that bit up??......
They of course always used their robot doubles for The Robots when they did that song as the encore right up to recent times and even saw it myself at a couple of their gigs in 1991 but i thought that was the only times they did that.
It’s weird, but Hooky was actually talking about this only yesterday on his live chat. Someone asked what was the best band he saw at the Free Trade Hall that wasn’t the Sex Pistols.
His answer was Kraftwerk and he said then that theydidn’t appear on stage. I have to be honest and say that I thought that seemed a little strange. I wondered if he may have misremembered.
Anyway, RIP Florian. A true legend in music.
Fotz wrote: i didn't know they actually really did whole concerts with the dummies.Or has Hooky made that bit up??
That's not true.
At some point after 1978 they started bring the dummies out for an encore of The Robots (one song), but whole concerts? Never happened.
50poundnote wrote:
Fotz wrote: i didn't know they actually really did whole concerts with the dummies.Or has Hooky made that bit up??
That's not true.
At some point after 1978 they started bring the dummies out for an encore of The Robots (one song), but whole concerts? Never happened.
Thanks. Yeah I did wonder if it was more nonsense from Hooky but wasn’t sure.
The hilarious thing about New Order is they always namecheck legends like Kraftwerk, Iggy Pop and Moroder and then they spend four years to come up with Liar and Chemical. I never listen to Kraftwerk. It's more fun to compute the man-machine model robots on the Mitternacht Autobahn Trans-Europe Express.
Ralfbot kind of confirms in this great interview from the BBC Culture Show from some years back that yes, it is and was only the one track The Robots that the band's robots appeared on stage for.I remember watching this interview at the time but had long forgotten all about it.It's ace. Go to 1.30 for the bit about the robots performing on stage.
And of course while we're here, this famous old Tomorrow's World clip that we've all seen before but worth it again for Florian's bizarre, strange but hilarious smile to camera at 2.11 .RIP Florian.
Tim Burgess will be hosting a specially extended listening party tonight from 6pm to 8pm for Kraftwerk's Computer World album (my fave album of theirs). "No tweets, no guests, no insights.Just a shared listening experience in memory of Florian Schneider"
Computer World listening party
Ooh, BBC 6Music playing the Trans Europe Express album in full right now on Shaun Keaveney show.Europe Endless at moment - beautiful.
The KW mannequin tour is a joke. I know it's the NME but do they not fact check anything Hook says? The weirdo should be on Talk Shite radio.
Also, could he not have paid his respects to Florian without having a dig at Bernard.
tapebias wrote: The KW mannequin tour is a joke. I know it's the NME but do they not fact check anything Hook says? The weirdo should be on Talk Shite radio.
Also, could he not have paid his respects to Florian without having a dig at Bernard.
I thought that myself
ALways has to have a little dig
And i've heard them say in the past it was ian that first introduced them to Kraftwerk....but to me every interview i read by him its 'ian this,ian that' like he was ALWAYS the driving force.....never seems to give bernard any credit whatsoever
It gets very boring
It's an improvement over the years of 'Twatto' and shoehorning in how bad he thiks Gillian is. I like this version of Hooky much more anyway.
Here's another interview from Hooky that mentions Florian and the anniversary of Ian's death: https://consequenceofsound.net/2020/05/interview-peter-hook/
Also, just when you think Hooky's toned down the vitriol towards the new New Order, he double downs and rips them again.
I don't know about Florian, but I've heard that Wolfgang and Karl I got the short end of the stick with Kraftwerk - sort of similar to Hooky and New Order. You'd think this would probably prompt Hooky to realize "oh shit, we're about to hit the twilight of our years. I should probably apologize for what I've said towards Barney and Gillian," but nope. He calls his Light the more passionate version of JD/NO music. As much as I enjoyed seeing Hooky performing the older songs, New Order just blows him out of the water with their production and performance.
Michael Monkhouse wrote: The hilarious thing about New Order is they always namecheck legends like Kraftwerk, Iggy Pop and Moroder and then they spend four years to come up with Liar and Chemical. I never listen to Kraftwerk. It's more fun to compute the man-machine model robots on the Mitternacht Autobahn Trans-Europe Express.
Be fair MM one of the greatest songs ever is your silent face, and I am sure you agree
Wax wrote:
I don't know about Florian, but I've heard that Wolfgang and Karl I got the short end of the stick with Kraftwerk
There's certainly been talk in recent years, mainly by Hütter I think, that Bartos and Flur weren't 'Kraftwerk'.
Yes. They. Were.
Been a big fan for many years. Kraftwerk were Ralf and Florian and Karl and Wolfgang. No question.
Got into Kraftwerk in the early 80s through discovering their Man Machine and Computer World albums.Saw them live for the first time in 1991 at Birmingham Hummingbird.One of the things that just struck me at that gig was with the way they were so heavily seriously dressed; they wore black shoes, black trousers and black shirts in a time of early 90s rave culture madness.They were just so , don't know, like they were wiser beyond compare in their understanding and innovation of electronic music.That gig in 1991 they just brushed off the current chaos and madness of rave culture and the electronic music of the time ,like they started it all but had been so far ahead of electronic music and dance culture they treated all they surveyed with a wry German smile.Only music that comes close to matching their sense of electronic detail and sense of space between the beats and a sense of something beyond and transcendent is Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works 85-92 album.
