An Introduction to Krautrock / Amon Düül II Pt II
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We're rolling. Okay. So, so it, uh, it'd be, no, I'm not ready. I'm not ready. So, so it be, so it, so we start, so it begins. So it begins. So it begins. Ladies and gentlemen, no dogs in space. The show is beginning. I know. I know a lot of podcasts can do 10 minutes of, you know,

banter in the beginning of stuff but i've got let's just start i got none not that they can do it they choose to do it i don't think they can help but doing it but here at no dogs in space we get right to the fucking business welcome to the show i'm marcus parks i'm carolina hidalgo let's get on to amundul 2 part 2

So when we last left Amundul 2 in September of 1968, they'd split off from the music commune for reasons both practical and ideological. As Chris Carr put it, there were three revolutions happening at this time, musical, sexual, and political. The Amundul commune, he said, were originally a part of the musical revolution. But as the community grew, the politics began to take over and the original creative spirit was getting submerged.

He went on to say that the last straw was when it was, quote unquote, decided that everyone in the commune was a musician, including the children, irrespective of the results. That always happens when your little brother has to be included in stuff. Yeah.

No, you hand them the controller that's not plugged in and you pretend like they're a part of it. You don't give them a guitar. The bongo drummers are not plugged in. But they're still very loud. I know. But this was irrespective of the results. Children, anyone, doesn't matter. Everyone's got to be in it.

Eventually, some of the serious musicians in the commune essentially decided that they wanted to be in a band of talented musicians more than they wanted to live by strict dictates. Because as keyboard player Falk Yu Ragnar put it, the group was always running at the speed of its slowest member. In Amund Dool's case, the slowest member was probably the toddler who had to be repeatedly saved from falling off the stage during commune shows. They're like, I played with Klaus Dinger. Yeah.

And I have to deal with this toddler. Sorry, toddler. You were just slowing us down. And so four of the commune's serious musicians split from the Amundul commune and became Amundul II.

Those four musicians, however, soon became five when drummer Pete Leopold ran away from the Hansa studio sessions after the leader of Commune One stole his girlfriend, as we covered at the end of the last episode. Allegedly, that's what we're guessing. The problem was that the newly formed Amandul 2 already had a drummer, Dieter Surface.

But instead of firing Dieter or turning away Peter, Amundul too decided that since their music already had a sort of tribal hangover from their time in the commune, what with the unreasonable amount of bongo players, they would keep both drummers and double their drum power.

In addition, Amandou 2 added a member who had been on the periphery of the Amandou commune for years, a man who would eventually become one of the driving creative forces of the group. His name was John Vinesero. Yes, John Vinesero. I finally learned how to say it today. He's the rock.

Rock and roll guy of the groove because he's been playing guitar since he was 14 years old, back when he was like in the Mercy Beat Sound. He was in a band called the Mercy Gents, you know, kind of like Beatles-ish kind of thing. Yeah. But when he got a little older, he started getting more into the Mothers of Invention, Frank Zappa, that whole alternative lifestyle. Very judgmental. Yes.

What? What? No, no. It's supposed to be about love, baby. He was a little too smart for his own good. Zappa was a little too judgmental for his own good. Perhaps. But you know what? I like his style. God love him. I still like his style. And John Vanziril, he loved his style, too, which led to him sneaking out of his boarding school to visit the Amundul commune in Munich. Back when there was no Amundul 1 or 2, it was just Amundul.

You see, John's the youngest member of the group. He knew them from being friends or I think he might have been roommates with Falk Yu's younger brother. They all went to boarding school together, right? Yeah. But by the time John Bynes Zero was about 18, 19, he decided to hell with school and he moved in with the commune. And he also brought a lot of cool kids

kick-ass riffs to the Amandul 2 repertoire as we will see. And even he actually continues the legacy of Amandul 2. I think he still runs the official Amandul 2 website and he does interviews still to this day. And apparently he looks like Larry David now that he's an older man. And a bit of a

crabby one, by the way. He's very crabby. And the thing is about reading his interviews, you can see the evolution of his crabbyness over the years. But a fantastic musician nonetheless. Absolutely. And back in 1969, John Vanzero was a blonde, good looking rock and roller who didn't say much, but he could play, which is why the band especially needed him for what's about to come next.

Now, the band's two-drummer approach, along with the addition of John Vine Zero, soon made Amandoul 2 one of the most innovative, vicious, and hypnotic live bands in Munich. This reputation was earned through a six-month weekly residency in the cellar of a venue called the PN Club.

Driven by the pounding rhythm of two drummers, Amadou 2's steaming basement gigs became legendary even in their own time. So packed with anywhere between 500 and 600 people each week that the audience could hardly move or even dance. But with the success of these shows, a goal had been achieved.

See, when it came to blindly groping around for an identity all their own, the German kids began after World War II by playing free jazz. Then when the 60s came, they moved on to aping the beat and R&B groups from America and the UK. Yeah, because they were listening to Radio Luxembourg and all that, you know, British Forces radio, that kind of stuff. We'll watch Hedwig and the Angry Inch. It'll explain everything. But now there was a band that was doing something new and entirely different.

Sure.

Now that's admittedly weird, the whole performance is. That odd music inevitably drew an odd crowd, and that crowd began to physically contribute to the overall ambience of weirdness that filled the room each night. Case in point was a bald Russian fan named Anatole, who would dance in front of the stage in a way that guitarist Chris Carr classified with a blanket term of extreme. All

Although the extreme example Chris gave was not necessarily what I'd call dancing. What was it called? Sexual performance. Okay. All right. As the story goes, Chris once saw Anatole the Russian at the front of the stage with a naked old woman shoving a Vaseline covered finger in and out of the old lady's butt to the rhythm of the music while ringing a little bell. Wow.

Wow. OK, that's a nice detail. Is it his finger? Yes. No, it is definitely his finger. It's not a dismembered finger that he found. Yeah. OK, got it. OK, well, you know, it's all consensual and it's you're right.

Russian dancing, I guess, is what we're going to call it. We're going to call it that. Audience participation aside, the PN Club shows brought Amandul 2 to the attention of both the record industry and other musicians who wanted to join this strange new German experience.

Yes, they added another member who wasn't German. So, I mean, because they wanted to be international, but German, but not remember that they're full of contradictions. Yes. So they added a British bassist named Dave Anderson to the roster. Right. He met Amandul too at the PN Club while he was roading for a British band called Kippington Lodge. I believe Nick Lowe was in that.

Oh. Yes. Kippington Lodge had a summer residency in Munich, I think maybe in the PN Club too. But when the British band went back home, Dave Anderson stayed and became Amandul 2's bassist for a couple of years at least. He played on the first two albums, the best albums, I think, in my opinion. But then Dave Anderson, apparently they fell into some sort of problems. And in 1971, he left to join another legendary psychedelic band, Hawkwind. Wow.

Dave Anderson lasted one album with Hawkwind. And who replaced Dave Anderson? In Hawkwind? Lemmy? Lemmy Kilmeister. Yes! And then the following year, that's when Stephen Morris from Joy Division saw them live with his family, who got dressed like they were going to church. Listen to the Joy Division series for that story. And where we also play Master of the Universe because it's

Because it's the best song from the album. I'm sorry. You had to hear it twice. OK, so back to Amundul 2 at the PN Club and all that business. Another musician who'd hang at the PN Club was an older gentleman named Olaf Kubler. And when I say older, I mean 33 years old. I know when you say older gentleman, you make him sound like a pedophile. No, no.

No, this is not a guy in a robe and a cigar. And I don't know. But no, I mean, sunglasses. Yeah. He's older than them. OK, he's like at least 10 years older. Remember, compared to Amundul 2, who were about 21 to 26 years old at this time.

And that's kind of how it was back then. Remember, don't trust anyone over 30. Sure. So Olaf Kubler was a well-known jazz musician who knew Chris Carer and Dieter Surface from when they used to play at a jazz club called Damasil before Amandul even was a thing. Right. So Olaf already knew these guys. And he was also a session musician. He played saxophone. So he knew his way around a recording studio, which proved to be very helpful because Olaf noticed Amandul too getting quite a

following at the PN club. So he figured we need to get you guys a record deal pronto. So Olaf recorded a demo with Amundul too. And with that demo, Olaf got them signed to United Artists with the condition that Olaf would assume the responsibility of financing the record and it

If it was good enough, then United Artists would take them on. Jeez. Yes, it was quite a gamble. And so it was all up to Olaf to organize all this. And remember, he's 10 years older than everyone. He has it together enough to get everyone to sign contracts, which wasn't easy. And to organize them into a recording studio also worked.

Not easy. No. OK, it's like kind of like a mother dog trying to pull all her puppies in one basket, except these are stoned mustachioed

Individuals that are also used to the commune life. And it's like, you know, like, does time exist, man? It is one of those things where like they would all meet for like a show or a recording and they're like, you know, we're missing three of you. And they're like, really? Oh, yeah, you're right. Well, can we just do it? No. Oh, shit. Like that kind of thing. They didn't realize they all needed to come. Time doesn't exist, but...

Oh, there you go. Yes, that was Olaf, unfortunately, tearing his hair out the whole time. So because remember the band, they were tripping on acid when they heard about the deal with United Artists. John Vine Zero, the newest guitarist, he was tripping so hard at a record store with drummer Peter Leopold. John said that the walls in the record store building were collapsing, which freaks him out.

freaked him out. So he's like, let's just go back home. Let's go home to the commune in Hershing. And when John and Peter got to their Hershing home, it was a villa by the lake. John saw the house was made of flowers. So there must be something good in here. Let's go inside. And then he stepped inside the house flower thing. And there was Olaf with the paperwork and saying, you guys got a record deal. And he's like, I knew it. The flower's

told me so. And from what I read from the United Artists side, an executive named Andrew Lauder said upon hearing Amandou's record first, his first thought was, what the hell is this? Oh, fuck it. Let's just release it. We don't have enough stuff coming out of Germany anyway. It's kind of how the woman in Legally Blonde got into Harvard. So anyway, I'm just trying

to make it easy for all of us to understand. Is this the second time that you've used Legally Blonde to explain how a band gets signed? I've only seen that movie once and I remember everything about it. Now, as we mentioned last episode, Amandul 1 had already been signed to Metronome Records following the Essence Song Festival. Amandul 1, to make it absolutely clear, were the people still in the original commune.

Soon after being signed, Amundul 1 had taken over Hansa Studios and recorded 10 hours of material, 41 minutes of which were lifted out and sweetened up as much as could be considering how most of the people in the room didn't know how to play their instruments. But just after Amundul 2 entered the studio to record their debut in 1969, Amundul 1 released those 41 minutes as their mess of a debut album, Psychedelic Underground.

It's a cool title. It's a very cool title. You know, I don't hate it. I don't. It's about being on acid while being on acid. I mean, just fix your subwoofer and then you're fine. It's great. That song is called In Garden Sandoza. Yeah. Right. In the Garden of Sandoza. It's named after Sandoz, the pharmaceutical company in Switzerland where LSD was first made, where Albert Hoffman had that fateful bicycle trip. And it's a

It's an homage. Yeah, and it's an homage, yeah. And we only played about 30 seconds of that because it's pretty much just that for 7 minutes and 48 seconds. But it's worth it. It's good. The album is definitely worth listening to, if anything, as an artifact of the times. And Psychedelic Underground isn't really the best example of krautrock, but this album is considered by some to be the first krautrock album, or at least...

krautrock adjacent album and it does inadvertently display some of the methods that would later define the movement specifically as you just heard amandou one leaned heavily in some tracks on the idea of repetition which would become a cornerstone of far more talented bands like can and noy

But on the other hand, I think repetition and this is me coming from a musician, an amateur musician's perspective. I think repetition was mostly used in psychedelic underground because of the limited talents of the majority of the members. Well, yeah, that's what I heard, too. I heard that they kept going on and on because they didn't know where to go next. Like the whole where do we go now? Like Axl Rose, where do we go now? Where do we go now? There is a reason for repetition. We're trying to figure out where to go.

Where do we go now? But by the time Amadoul 1's Psychedelic Underground was released to surprisingly good reviews in Germany, Amadoul 2 were already recording their debut album, the mysterious psychedelic masterpiece Phallus Day, a.k.a. God's Cock. ♪♪

Now, as you can immediately hear, there is a big difference between Amundul 1 and Amundul 2. Although both bands took the same amount of time to record their debut albums, both Psychedelic Underground and Phallus Day were recorded in just two days.

Now, Amadol 2 came into the studio with most of their songs fully formed, which they owed to their weekly gigs at the PN Club. Yes, they were very well rehearsed. But by that same note, what became the title track to their debut record was improvised when they played it live every single time. And they brought that same approach to the studio. The result was admittedly shaky, with plenty of moments where members play in different keys or fall off the rhythm.

But the moments of brilliance that shine through make Phallus Day worth the challenge. ♪♪♪

I love this album. I totally do. You know, John Vinesiro, he said of this album, not to grumble, but we didn't have the best instruments and we didn't give a fuck. We didn't want to be polished or sometimes it sounds so weird. So what are you going to do about it? That is a real quote. That is a quote. Yeah, but you got to do it in the German, like, so what do you want to do about it? Which is cool. And I love that little tinkering. That's a vibraphone.

I believe that Christian Burchard, I believe that's how you say his name from embryo, did the little tinkering and stuff. So that was really cool. Yeah. And I will say, as opposed to Psychedelic Underground, Amadou El-Wun's record, Phallus Day was not recorded on acid at all.

At all. No. No. They actually, like, Amandol 2 famously only recorded one album on acid. And isn't it their worst? Carnival in Babylon? We're not even going to play it. They don't even like it. No, it's a terrible album. Now, that song...

which ran an entire side of the LP at 20 minutes and 49 seconds. And by the way, I started that clip at 18 minutes and 25 seconds. That was played live with no overdubs. So if someone had a massive goof at minute 17, the whole thing had to be started over from the beginning. As I said, though, it's best to keep in mind when you're listening to it that

that they let a lot of the little goof slide. It's an experience, man. It very much is. That, however, does not take away from the power and, more importantly, the imagination of the album Falesté as a whole, particularly when you get to the track where they actually let Renata Knapp sing lyrics as opposed to the ethereal, atmospheric vocals that she utilizes on all but one song on the album.

Hitting an overall vibe that sits somewhere between Jefferson Airplane and a World War II flashback, the song Henrietta Krotenschwanz is about a woman named Henrietta who dies during the song in a horrific car crash in which the steering wheel slowly crushes her chest. The wheel and the attached steering column gives her chest the appearance of a Krotenschwanz, or in English, a frog's tail.

Frogs don't have tails. Dad bowl. Oh, God. Sorry. No, it's important. This song's great. This song's amazing. It's actually kind of short for Amandou 2 standards. It's very short. It's just a hair over two minutes. Yeah, I think it was the last thing they recorded for this album. And it's very, like you said, like it's...

It's got this thing to it. I think Renata said that she used to sing in a church choir when she was around like 14 years old. And when she took the melody of the song from her first soprano song and did something with it, which is this amazing song, which is like, I see Lady Germany in this song. You know how France has a Lady France in that painting? Yeah. Right. The Dome Franc. Right. That one. Yes. This is Lady Germany's song. Der München Deutsche.

Right. I have no idea. I think I said, I just, I think I just said the little girl German. Perfect. I don't know. It's been a long time. On March 28th, Universal Pictures, Blumhouse and the director of The Shallows invite you to their new horror movie, The Woman in the Yard. In the morning, she appears. By noon, she gets closer. When night falls, she takes you. Who is this woman? Where did she come from? What does she want?

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Now, as opposed to other psychedelic groups at the time, Amandul 2 obviously took a far darker approach in both their music and their lyrics, quite possibly owing to the fact that they were still being haunted, even subconsciously, by the horrible things that had happened in their country just a couple of decades earlier. For example, listen to an excerpt from this song, Dim Gutten Schonen Waren.

Afterwards, I'll tell you what's being sung and why it was sung in such a psychotic fashion. He sang, We danced ring rows together and sang a beautiful song. The little one started screaming for her mother.

I gently pierced her with my cock. Jesus.

I mean, this is a far cry from anything anyone was doing anywhere in the world in rock music. It was certainly a departure from the fucking white rabbits of Jefferson Airplane. This was Pink Floyd by way of serial killer Peter Curtin. But shock wasn't the point of Phallus Day. This is just who these people were. They wanted to sing about dark themes and they wanted to make dark music. So that's exactly what they did.

And when you go back and listen to Dim Gutten, Schönen Waren again, listen to Dave Anderson's bass part in that song. It's fucking exquisite.

Despite its horrific lyrical content, Phallus Day sold well enough to show record companies that there was a fair amount of people who wanted to hear something different from German rock other than awkward facsimiles of British and American groups. I'm looking at you, the Lords. Amandul 2's small success, however, came at just the right time, because pretty soon after the release of Phallus Day, the band found itself very suddenly in need

Of a new home. Of course. Of course it did. They always do. Yeah. They can't clean for shit. Okay. So first, Amundul 2's first album, Fallows Day, comes out in 1969, right? And by early 1970, they are kicked out of their lakeside villa in Hershing for being disgusting. Yes. Because they were never organized enough to pay for garbage pickup, so the garbage just piled up right outside the house. You had to use a blowtorch to light up the stove because, of course, the power was cut off. And there were rats everywhere.

Everywhere. In the kitchen, under the house, everywhere. One of the Amundul 2 members even tried pouring gasoline under the house and lighting it on fire with a match to chase the rats out. But it turned into a tsunami of hundreds of rats rushing out from under the house, their fur on

fire and running straight to the band. That was a bad idea. Remember, rats can be vermin, but rats can also be our friend. Rats can be friends. I apologize right now to all of our rat people out there. I know we got a lot of you. Rats can be wonderful people, but Jesus Christ, that image is terrifying. They're not people. But if you have a house disgusting enough that rats boldly take up space, then you better befriend those rats. That's all I'm saying. OK, yeah, we'll end the situation. So

So, Amandool 2 at the leap. As John Vine Zero put it, we either had to clean the kitchen or move, so we moved. Remember, these people grew up in boarding school. Most of them, except Renata, most of them grew up privileged. Yeah. So, they probably didn't learn about the harsh realities of, you know, adult life, adulting. Go clean up after yourself. Yes. Call a...

Pay your bills. Call the garbage company. Yes. Keeping up with a chore wheel. Finally signing up for health insurance after risking it for a few years. Hey, we've all been there. All done it. But eventually, if you're going to be a commune, you got to get some shit together, which is very difficult. I know. Yeah. But luckily, Amundul 2's connections got them a better place to live. They actually moved. They failed up.

Because remember Commune One? Remember Rainer Langens? He stole Peter Leopold's girlfriend, supposedly that supermodel it girl, Ushi Ubemeyer. You know, she played on Amandul One's album, Maracas. Yeah. OK, we all know.

So Rainer and Ushi, they left Commune One when Commune One dissolved, basically in late 1969. And Rainer and Ushi decided, fuck politics. Our friends are turning into left wing terrorists and it's weird. We're going to start an art commune, a pop media creative collective, and we're going to call it the Highlanders.

The high fish commune. And they did it with a few others who luckily had the means because remember, a lot of these young people are coming for money. So they were able to move into this giant and beautiful Gothic estate manor that was built in the 12th century, about 45 minutes outside of Munich. This place was called Kramersk.

Kronwinkel. And this place is a big part of Amandou 2's lore. It's where they make their best album. One of the most iconic psychedelic albums of all time, Yeti. And Kronwinkel is also kind of weirdly cursed with what some people call the Munich incident, which involved Rainer Langens, Uschi Uwe Mayer, and Peter Green from Fleetwood Mac. Hit it. I got a black magic woman. I got a black magic woman. Yes, I got a black magic woman.

Don't turn your back on me, baby. Don't turn your back on me, baby. Don't turn your back on me, baby. You're messing around with your tricks. Turn your back on me, baby. Cause you might just break all my magic space.

Great song. By the way, it's Reiner. I was corrected during the break. That's okay. That's okay. It's fine. It's totally fine. We have a huge list of German pronunciations that we asked our assistant Kelsey Netzer. Thank you so much. Thank you, Kelsey. For helping us figure this shit out because, you know, I'm romance language girl. Yeah. Okay. So anyway.

Peter Green, you know, from Fleetwood Mac. Yeah. He wrote that song in... The founder of Fleetwood Mac, by the way. Yeah, yeah. I was going to say that. Okay. He wrote that song in 1968 when he was in Fleetwood Mac. Okay, I guess I wasn't going to say it.

But it's important. This is before Lindsey Buckingham, before Stevie Nicks, before the Americans came in. This is back when Fleetwood Mac fucking rocked. Right. Wow. OK. They did. OK. Yeah. Those first couple albums. But when Peter Green was in the band, Fleetwood Mac was fucking sick. I didn't know this about you. You took a stand so boldly like that. I like it. It turns me on anyway. Thank you.

But when Peter Green left Fleetwood Mac soon after this Munich incident, it was because of personality clashes with his bandmates and artistic differences and then being tired from endless touring. But the guys in Fleetwood Mac insist Peter Green left Fleetwood.

because of the Munich incident of 1970. So very quickly, Fleetwood Mac, who are British, by the way, I did not know that. I really did not know that. The Americans joined later. Yes, they are super British. They were on tour in Europe. And when they landed in Munich, Reiner Langens and Uschi Übermeyer were there at the airport to greet the band.

Well, really to greet Peter Green in particular. They were huge fans and they wanted to invite him to their mansion in Cronwinkle for an after party, you know, after the gig. Yeah. So Peter Green shows up to Cronwinkle with his road manager, Dennis, after the show. And as soon as they walk in, they take some acid. Dennis, he still insists that they were drugged by drinking a glass of wine laced with LSD. But Peter says he was offered a tab of acid and he just

Kind of like tuned in, turned on and dropped out. Yeah. Just had a great time. And he was down to get psychedelic with these weird ass Germans. Complete strangers, by the way, to him. But he didn't care. He spent the whole night in the basement of Kronwinkel jamming to psychedelic music with these Germans. And according to Peter Green, it was crazy.

Great. The whole night was great. He said, that's the most spiritual music I've ever recorded in my life, which means there's a tape. And no, I can't find it. I cannot find it. Apparently he gave it to his widow and no one knows. No one knows where it is. Well, I know from experience, like David,

making music when you're on drugs and recording music when you're on drugs. You think it's the coolest thing that you've ever fucking recorded. And then you go back and listen to it and you have no idea why you thought it was any good in the first place. It's about the fucking moment, man. Actually, according to one of his biographies, someone did say they heard it and they said it's scary at times. So you're probably right. So Peter Green, he left the band. He found it. You see, I knew I was going

I knew I was going to say it. He left the band he founded, Fleetwood Mac, only six weeks after the Munich incident. And he went home to England to start his own artist commune, which didn't materialize, unfortunately. But he was still down to make psychedelic music. He didn't want to make any more commercial music. He wanted to get experimental, which is what he did when he tried to go solo. But from what the rest of Fleetwood Mac said, that party at Kronwinkel in Munich changed Peter for the worse.

Peter was never the same after taking LSD that night. And since then, he had a really bad drug habit, which led to rehab, psychiatric institutions, and at one point being diagnosed schizophrenic. He was mentally ill for the rest of his life. It was the end of the game for Peter. Yeah, I mean, well, you know, if you are at risk for schizophrenia, stay away from acid.

If you have any schizophrenia in your family, stay away from acid. Hell, stay away from weed because it can really kick off like certain episodes. It can kick off the fucking mental illness if it's laying dormant. So be careful out there. It could happen. I mean, we still don't know what the brain does. Yeah. But just in case. Maybe. Yeah. Maybe you should. And Peter Green did put out a psychedelic album, Acid.

after he left Fleetwood Mac. His first album after that was a psychedelic album and it was kind of an attempt to recapture that moment.

And it's OK. It's like I think if you're really, really into psychedelic music, you appreciate it a little bit more. But as a casual listener, it sounds like someone trying to recapture a psychedelic moment. Yeah, I think Pitchfork gave it a D. I felt really bad for Peter Green for that. You even read Pitchfork. They rate by number. OK, I looked at the Wikipedia page. That would be a 3.2. OK, I don't know who it was. OK, just go on the Wikipedia page. All right. I don't know. I made up a thing. OK, I'll never.

I'll never lie to you again. Anyway, it was the end of the game for Peter. Yeah. Also, you talk like you don't read Pitchfork, which is a good thing.

Thank you. OK, so but this led to a lot of speculation of what happened that fateful night in March of 1970 in Cronwinkel. Some think the high fish commune, remember Reiner and Ushi, that they were a cult that tried to take Peter's essence and money, particularly. Others think the LSD messed up his mind permanently.

And some just think the Kronwinkel is haunted by the ghosts of the elderly who lived there before the commune because it was once a nursing home. Oh, God. I know. So that's all weird. But this worked out great for Amundul 2 because the Kronwinkel was rented out to them real cheap. And Amundul 2 were like, oh, it's got a rock and roll curse to it. Elderly ghost at these prices. Who gives a shit? Yeti. Yes. I think the band

moved in just a few weeks or maybe a couple months after the Munich incident because the place was perfect. It was a three-story mansion with 26 rooms and 26 cats, by the way. Cats everywhere. No more rats. And no more setting rats on fire, guys. Thank God. Plus, the Kronwinkel had a huge rehearsal room. No neighbors to bother them and all the time in the world to make, in my opinion, their best stuff. Oh, yeah.

Now, after the band moved into Kronwinkel 12, drummer Dieter Surface left the group and moved to Berlin, where it was rumored that he was going to ill-advisedly start a group called Amundul 3. Yeah.

I'm so glad he did it. Oh, God. But the subtraction of one member from the group only helped to focus Amundul 2 on their next album, a groundbreaking double LP that Lester Bangs called one of the finest recordings of psychedelic music in all of human history.

Continuing in the same dark, world music-tinged tone as Ballast Day, Amundul 2's follow-up took the concept of the band to the next level, combining their own mystical instincts with heavy rock, heavy as fuck, to make a record that sounds like the good part of a bad acid trip. That record is Yeti. Shut down my silver

The priest came and kissed her, you saw what really mattered.

Now that was a song written in a haunted former nursing home that was probably full of Nazis. What a... Brand new sentence. Brand new sentence. Recorded in four days, as opposed to Phallus Days 2, Yeti has, in the years since, become one of Krautrock's most influential albums, inspiring everyone from Slayer to King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, in addition to everything

every stoner metal band in existence. Hey, Galloping Coroners from Hungary, giving them a huge shout out. Check them out. They're amazing. They're fucking great. Besides the instrumentation, though, Yeti's lyrics are incredibly metal, and they go far beyond stepping into the skin of a murderous pedophile. On the album's opener, Burning Sister, Amadou 2 tells of the execution of the narrator's sister.

They brought my sister to trial, cutting her face from her smile on the holy waterfront. The people stand there waiting to see her blonde hair lighted, to see her blood drip on the floor. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh

Yes. We've been blasting this from our backyard for the past month. And it's been great. Our next door neighbors who we love, they're fantastic people. But their Taylor Swift was just like, we had to fight with this album. And I'm glad we did.

We put up a good fight with that. We really did. But when it comes to influential tracks, there are none on Yeti that have had more of an impact than a song that was tacked on at the end simply to fill a side on one of the LPs after the band decided in the studio to record a double album.

Now, since Ballast Day had been recorded on such a shoestring budget, the band was excited to have a little more money on their next record because that meant they could use one of them fancy new 16-track recorders. But after Amandul 2 recorded all their prepared material, the engineer told the band that he hadn't recorded anything on the 16-track recorder because he didn't need 16 tracks to get the job done because that's how good I am.

And so after getting extremely angry at the particularly German arrogance of this engineer, Amundul 2 decided to hell with it. Let's record 40 more minutes of improvised material just so we can use the 16 track recorder. Ha! Just created more work for everyone. Man, you must be a podcast named No Dogs in Space. You want to work for us?

This, however, created a new problem. They now needed five more minutes of material to truly make it a double LP. So the band took a rip that guitarist John Vine Zero had been humming throughout the Yeti sessions and they ADI-ed it, as the band put it, and then dualized it. Okay.

Falk Rogner then wrote the lyrics and gave them to Renata Knaup to sing. Renata then took the instrumental track that had already been recorded and listened to it dozens upon dozens of times until she found a melody. After finding it, she entered the studio and told the band, I've got it. I want to sing it now immediately. Yes. And after everything was set up for recording, Renata sang in one take. Yes. Oh, my God. Sorry. And she nailed it.

Archangel's Thunderbird. This is awesome! Where I am to never open up. Take the Archangel's Thunderbird.

And it's a fucking tasty krautrock beat. You're going to be hearing that beat a lot over the next few episodes. Absolutely. So Renata, she said the guys in Amundul 2 lost their fucking minds when she nailed that in one take. And this to her was a personal triumph because she had to fight so much for her place in this group. But with that song and also it becoming their next single and their biggest song even today, it's Amundul's

Two's most recognizable song. The Breeders did a great cover of it because I'm sure Kim Deal is a Renata fan like all of us are. Yeah, I love her. Renata, she's quoted as saying, it's not easy to live with six men all the time. Heavy guys who don't really know how to talk to women. I mean, look at the stuff we make. You know, when Renata, she started. It's true.

It's true. It's very true. Yeah. I'm glad she she's very honest. Yes, she is. She's really fun. She's a wonderful interview. Yes. Yeah. And when Renata started singing with Amandul, remember, she was only 19. And she said back then she was very shy, very sensitive and afraid of everything. But she wanted it bad enough to be a lead singer in a band. So she just worked on her self-confidence and just fucking did it.

because what you said earlier that she was only doing the oohs and ahs, that was just because she wanted to be a part of it. So she used her voice as an instrument. She really didn't know where to go with this. But after playing and living with Amandul 2 and by the time they're recording Archangel's Thunderbird, she's like, fuck it. I'm going to be a singer, the lead singer. No falsetto singing. I'm going to sing powerful right from the stomach. And she did. It was awesome. Except she was fired for the next album. But then she came back.

And she's back, baby. And she did all the reunion shows. And I will wear a T-shirt with her face on it. Yeah. Anytime. Yeah. She's an incredible singer. Incredible. Now, perhaps just as iconic as the songs from Yeti was the album cover, which depicts a sort of hippie grim reaper dourly about to scythe something out of existence amidst a psychedelic haze that looks like a fog of blood.

As it turns out, the cover has a story all its own that is appropriately grim and indeed steeped in death. The man depicted on the cover of Yeti was one of the original members of the Amundul commune, a guy named Wolfgang Krischke, who also worked as Amundul 2's live sound guy. Tragically, Wolfgang had fallen in love with a girl from a respectable family, so-called respectable, but her parents had forbidden the relationship because Wolfgang was a longhair.

Now, as we'll get to here in a second, being along here in Germany at this point in their history meant that you could possibly be a bona fide terrorist. Yes, we've been hinting at this for the last episode of that half. But Wolfgang, like all the rest in the Amundel commune, was nothing like the revolutionaries in Germany who tried to use bombs and guns to solve disagreements. Wolfgang was a romantic, so he retreated to his parents' house in the middle of winter and dropped acid to deal with his heartbreak.

Soon, Wolfgang found himself wandering out to the woods, and that's where he fell asleep and died of exposure. And when they found him, his body was frozen stiff, half eaten by wild animals. Two months later, Wolfgang Krischke's image was on the cover of Yeti, standing in for the classic German figure of Der Schnitte, aka the

the harvester who weeps the lives of German folk young and old and has had song sung of his deadly duty since the 17th century. Is ein Schnitter heiß, der tut Quart vom großen Gott. Ist er das Messer, es schneit schon viel, wenn es ein Schneiden, wir müssen's nur leiden.

is

Falk Yu Ragnar, who designed the Yeti cover and I think all the Amandul 2 album covers, he said he wanted to put Krishka on the cover of Yeti to pay tribute to his friend, but also because Krishka always had a hard time finding his place within the group. I mean, Krishka, he was part of Amandul 1. He sided with the commune during the split and played on the Psychedelic Underground album. I think he did drums and piano, but Krishka was also buddies with everyone in Amandul 2.

But he was also that friend who was always around, but never quite in it. You know that friend, the one in your friend group that you've known for like 10 years, but really don't know much about them? Yeah. So Falk Ragnar made sure to give Krishka a good place in the band's lore. He's now part of their logo.

And that album cover has been called one of the most iconic album covers of all time. Easily. It's the cover of Julian Cope's Krautrock sampler. And when you think of Krautrock, you think of the Yeti cover. Wolfgang Krischke has a place in experimental rock and roll history, and I'm happy for that. I am too. I mean, Krischke, I mean, Wolfgang Krischke, I mean, he's one of the most

metal people in existence. Like that is one of the most metal images in all of music history. I have a T-shirt of it. Yeah. Now, Yeti was released to rave reviews internationally. One French review basically called them the aggressive Pink Floyd, while Lester Bangs, writing in UK's Melody Maker, stated that Amendoul 2 was the first German group whose music can be regarded as a contribution to international pop culture.

Now, Amadou 2 wanted to contribute to international pop culture. It was actually one of their main goals. But despite Amadou 2's efforts to make an international record, this is a large contradiction. Yeti is decidedly Teutonic.

Even singing in English, Renate Naup sounds like a pagan German Valkyrie of old. In addition, the first four songs are actually a movement that harkens back to Germany's classical music history. And the lyrics have all the elements of Germany's dark folk tradition, because after all, Grimm's Fairy Tales is German.

Improbably though, considering how so many people in Germany were so deeply ensconced in American and British culture and music, Yeti found an audience. Soon after its release, Amandoul 2 were quite suddenly the biggest underground band in their country.

Their popularity was such that Amandul 2 was one of the first German bands to be featured on a Saturday afternoon German television show called Beat Club. They appeared in 1970. I think Beat Club started in 1967. 1968 at the latest. Now, as you can probably tell from its name, Beat Club focused on Anglo-American pop and rock acts. They have an amazing

Amazing YouTube channel, but it's mostly American and British bands. Weren't the monks on there? Yeah. Yeah, the monks were absolutely on there. Yeah, the monks did two appearances on there, like Hendrix is on there. Black Sabbath does an incredible version of Paranoid on there. But Amandou 2 delivered it Deutsche Hard during their appearance and performing a six-minute long fan-favorite track called Between the Eyes.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

So cool. You know, the cool thing about doing this experimental music series is that it really prevents like the whole situation of like sitting with a buddy of yours and putting on a record. And, you know, it's an experimental record and there's some parts that are really cool. It prevents us from having to be like, wait, wait, wait. You just wait till this part. This is the part that you just got to wait. This is the really cool part. Oh, there's the really cool part right there. We just play the cool part. Yeah.

That would be easier. You guys can go see, you know, hear it for yourself the whole time. Yeah. Hear the whole thing for yourself if you want. Yeah, because seriously, experimental records are meant to be enjoyed either alone or in silence with another person. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. NetCredit is here to say yes to a personal loan or line of credit when other lenders say no. Apply in minutes and get a decision as soon as the same day. Loans offered by NetCredit are lending partner banks and serviced by NetCredit. Applications subject to review and approval. Learn more at netcredit.com slash partner. NetCredit. Credit to the people.

On March 28th, Universal Pictures, Blumhouse, and the director of The Shallows invite you to their new horror movie, The Woman in the Yard. In the morning, she appears. By noon, she gets closer. When night falls, she takes you. Who is this woman? Where did she come from? What does she want? And most importantly, when will she leave? Don't let her in. And don't miss The Woman in the Yard, only in theaters March 28th.

Now, if you are a long-haired American or British act, you could pop in and play a quick beat club spot, maybe do a small tour, and be on your way back to your own country where, at worst, a diner might refuse to serve you because you look like a hippie.

In Germany, though, if you looked like Amandul 2 and you were German, you could very well find yourself branded as a bona fide terrorist, even if you were just in it to make groovy, dark music. Yeah, I mean, Amandul 2, they were profiled a time or two. There was this one time in 1971 where Amandul 2 were, they were in their van coming back from a show and then suddenly they heard police sirens like, oh, wait, wait, the police, the German police sirens are...

which is not as, it's not very much cops, you know, but whatever. They hear that they were pulled over and a bunch of cops surrounded their van with machine guns. They're just yelling, get out of the car. Well, you know, everyone get out of the car while everyone, including Chris Carr, just, just shoot their arms right up. And Chris yelling, I am reaching into my pocket to get my papers slowly. That kind of thing. Like, okay. Okay. And,

Eventually, after the police checked him out and the band got the okay to leave, Chris Carer, he asked him, like, why did you pull us over? And the cop said, we're pulling over any unwashed cars that are on the road late at night because it could be Vater Meinhof. Yes. Okay, so first of all, you're telling me my car is dirty. Yeah.

And second of all, this is funny because from what I know from reading Bader Meinhof and watching the movie, Bader Meinhof only stole really nice washed cars. Very, very nice. Mercedes, BMWs, you know. Alfa Romeos. An occasional Renault, but...

But not a hippie van. No. So, you know, again, the cops were on the wrong trail for a long time. Clueless. All right. So and also, by the way, watch the Bader Meinhof complex. It's intense, but explains exactly what we're about to say. And it's an incredible movie. Yes, it is. It's very European. Let's just put it that way.

So who are the Baader-Meinhof group? Well, I'm going to give you a quick rundown in hopefully two minutes. Here we go. OK, so remember Reiner Langen? Yeah, Commune One. Yes. He and another Commune One member, Fritz Teffel, were arrested and charged with incitement to arson because they passed out leaflets glorifying a fire in a department store in Brussels that left several hundred people dead. It was very tragic. Jesus.

Yes, that fire in Brussels was a demonstration against the Vietnam War. And according to the press at that fire, a man ran into the flames shouting, I want to die for Vietnam. Fuck. So, okay.

printed out leaflets saying Brussels becomes Hanoi and burn warehouse burn. Like saying, hey, finally, we figured out a way to get people's attention on the genocide in Vietnam. They thought they were doing something good, right? Because remember, K1, they're anti-capitalist. The department store selling goods was evil to them. It's a whole, you're so caught up with these material goods, you can't even notice the oppression of others around the world like Hanoi.

Vietnam. Yeah. And that's a crazy thing, man, is that like Vietnam, the Vietnam protests in America are given a lot of credit. The Vietnam protests in Europe were fucking insane. They were metal and not not in the best way. No. But in court, Rainer and Fritz, they were cleared of the charges of, you know, incitement to arson because they insisted it's a joke.

It's a joke. It's satire. We were just having fun with it. We're situationists. It's what we do. We get into situations. Never hang out with a situationist. You'll end up in court. So a week after Rainer and Fritz were found not guilty of inciting arson, K1 got a couple of visitors who announced, oh, we're actually going to set a couple of department stores on fire, like for

For real. Who's with us? No one raised their hand. Yeah. But those two visitors were 25-year-old Andreas Botter and 28-year-old Gudrun Enslund, the German Bonnie and Clyde. Yes. At least at that time. Andreas Botter, he looked like a...

You know, they were hip and young, cool. He looked like a young Joaquin Phoenix. Yeah. He had that going on. And Gudrun had like a Nico look about her. She was really cute, too. They were both hot. Yes. That's the crazy thing about it. And very hip. You know, they're super cool. Lots of lots of people that time looked at them like very Bonnie and Clyde. They were behind them. I think Joe Strummer from The Clash wore like a Bader Meinhof or RAF like T-shirt. Like it just felt cool to rebel against the establishment. Yeah.

But Reiner, he called them desperados. Yes. Because it is not cool. Well, we're going to get into it. Let's get into it. It gets really deadly. Okay. So Andres Bader and Gudrun Ensslin, they were bent on a revolution in West Germany after the murder of 26-year-old Benno Onasorg. That, you know, we talked about in the last episode. Yeah. Gudrun... Cop shot him in the back of the head. Yes. Yes.

Gudrun Ensslin, who was seen sobbing and losing her mind over the Benno murder, declared this fascist state means to kill us all. You can't argue with the people who made Auschwitz. They have weapons and we don't. We must arm ourselves. And them being the West German government, which was run by a conservative majority at the time. That was in 1967.

Less than a year later, on April 2nd, 1968, Andreas and Gudrun, along with two others, snuck into two department stores in Frankfurt and placed two bombs with a time fuse, which set them off at midnight. The bombs went off, but luckily no one was hurt. It's very Fight Club of them.

Yes. Oh, yes. This is actually very fight club. Yeah. The very next morning, Andres and Gudrun were arrested. And at their arson trial, they argued that they did it in protest against people's indifference to the murder of the Vietnamese. Yeah. Their whole thing was like, look at you. You're getting so upset about the burning of some clothes. How's about the burning of the children? Exactly. So they were sentenced to three years in prison. Yeah. But 14 months later,

They were temporarily paroled under an amnesty law for political prisoners, pending appeal, of course. Well, when that appeal came just a few months later, Gudrun and Andreas were ordered to go back to prison and serve the rest of their sentence. But they didn't. Instead, they went underground. And now this is where I believe Amundul 2, unfortunately, comes in.

So in the early part of 1970, by Carolina's best guess, she did some great detective work on this one. Andreas Bader and Gudrun Inslen, arguably the most dangerous members of the Bader-Meinhof group, because the Bader-Meinhof group by this point is growing. It's not just two people. No, no, it becomes, it grows. There's three generations of it. We'll get into it. Yeah. Andreas and Gudrun were on their way back to Germany from Italy. They were still on the run from the law, so they needed somewhere friendly to crash.

Now, this is back in the days when Amundul 2 were at the Hershing commune. This is before Kronwinkel. Now, Hershing wasn't as politically intense as the commune they left, but it was still a part of a network of communes. And that network was continually exploited by members of the Baader-Meinhof group when they were evading the police.

Now, this story has been told a number of ways by a number of Amundul 2 members, but basically Amundul 2 returned to Hershing after an exhausting tour. But when Renata Knaup went to her room to go to sleep, she found that a couple she didn't know was occupying her bed.

Bernada, of course, reacted aggressively, screaming, who the fuck is in my bed? Who the fuck do you think you are? Get the fuck out now. Love her. Eventually, the two strangers were forced downstairs and everyone went to sleep for the night.

The next morning, though, the band woke up to discover that the two strangers were Andreas Bader and Gudrun Ensslin, the most wanted terrorists in Germany. And that's the thing, is that when we say that they're the Bonnie and Clyde in Germany, we don't just mean like they're two people who commit crimes. These are very, very dangerous people. And the difference between them and Bonnie and Clyde is that they're highly intelligent. Bonnie and Clyde are very, very dangerous people.

Bonnie and Clyde were fucking morons. And according to Chris Carr, there at Hershing, both of them were heavily armed. Now, thankfully, though, the worst that happened that day was that Andreas Botter accidentally drove his stolen Mercedes into a nearby lake and had to be pulled out by the band. Which is adorable that they were like, OK, you know what I'm saying?

Here, just take my arm. Take my arm. Fucking idiots. Then before leaving, Andreas Botter stole two pairs of new pants from Peter Leopold, which Peter is still mad about to this day. He's like, quote me on this. Please put it in the book. He's like, in front of them were black velvet pants. Those were not easy to get in those days. Yes. And soon after that, Andreas and Gudrun went to Berlin to stay with Ulrike Meinhof. She

She was a columnist and editor for Concrete, a left wing political magazine. She wrote articles like Hitler and you was a prominent voice in the German student protest movement at the time. But then when Andreas Bader was arrested at a traffic stop and sent to prison, Ulrike Meinhof decided to join them by helping Gudrun and others protest.

break Andreas out of prison on May 14th, 1970. That was the day that the RAF was born. The Red Army Faction, also known as the Baader-Meinhof Group. And they were very popular, especially with the students and the activists, but not so much of Amundul too. Okay?

Remember? They kicked them out when they saw him, right? Because Amundul 2, we're not about that life. Yeah. That's what they always say. Yeah. And the Badermannhoff group is all about violent action. Right.

And it's like arguing is no longer possible. You can't argue with the people who made Auschwitz. So we're going to achieve our political means through deadly violence. Yes. And Amundul too, again, we're like, let's just make music instead. Just grab a bongo. You know, we're not doing this. How about like, you know, we kick them out. But how are we supposed to know that one of our roadies...

was apparently an RAF member, they found out. So, okay, actually it was the roadie's girlfriend that was an RAF member. The roadie was just in love, supposedly. You see, the roadie's dad was a hunter and he had an arsenal of hunting weapons, which the roadie stole from his dad's collection and gave it to his girlfriend to give to the Red Army faction so that they could pull off a string of robberies by gunpoint to finance their operation.

Bank robberies. Yes, which they did actually during that time with the June 2nd movement or 2 June movement, another terrorist group, right? So when the roadie figured out that the police were able to trace the guns back to

to him he ran to Amundul 2's house and said I'm in big trouble man I'm fucked up bro I'm fucked up that was it that was it seriously it's like a boogie night scene but and I'm a fucking idiot yes

Where is Philip Seymour Offit? Okay. And this time, at this time, they've moved out of Hershing and now they're in Cronwinkel, right? In the big manor estate, the elderly nursing home ghost place with Peter Preen in it. Okay. And Renata...

When she heard about, you know, when the roadie came over crying and everything, Renata said, OK, this is obviously pretty serious. And let's just go to bed. And in the morning, we'll go to the police and hash it out with them. I mean, OK, that part won't be easy, but we're going to try. Yeah. But right before dawn, the cops caught wind that the roadie was at

Crownwinkle, the Amundul 2 house. They're like, hi, we knew it was you. And like a SWAT team, two dozen cops armed with machine guns raided the whole mansion yelling, everyone get up and get out. Spread your legs. We're here for that dumb shit. Love struck roadie. He's coming with us.

And the roadie, he did. And Amundul too just started brewing coffee after that. Really, they're just like, never again. Never again. That's what I said to Chris. This is the last time. That was a stressful morning. We're not about that life. We're not about that life. Bongo's not bombs. Yes, there you go. Thank you. Another bumper sticker. Although when we were watching that BBC documentary last night about the bottom line hop, there was an actual bumper sticker that said, I do not belong to the...

Bader-Meinhof group, I guess, so they don't get pulled over. And you know what? Amundul, too, had good reason to be pissed off about that. Due to the Bader-Meinhof group's actions, over two dozen people were killed throughout this whole period, which included German police officers, American soldiers and big time executives like leading bankers and industrialists.

I know at least one of them, I believe, did have a Nazi past. Yeah, he was an SS member who had used forced labor in Eastern Europe in the company that he was the CEO of when the Baader-Meinhof group kidnapped him, held him for a month and then murdered him. But yet.

A lot of innocent people went down in the midst of this, right? Because these plans were executed by way of bombings, kidnappings, hostage taking. I mean, the Baader-Meinhof group were a big time urban guerrilla group and they didn't disband until 1998. Yeah. And funny enough, because of all this terrorism, the German police received a huge budget and in turn that made their police force one of the most modern state of the art

police forces in the world. You fucked up. All right.

That's what always happens. It always happens. You get into left wing politics because you don't agree with the status quo. Great. But then you get radicalized into terrorism and then you lose all credibility. Yeah. Not only do you ruin your own cause, but you allow young people, students, long hairs, hippies, whatever, to become a target in a more tightened police state because of your goddamn terrorism. Get your head out of your ass and realize you're not special. Just get people to vote or run for office yourself. You fucking idiot. Yeah.

I don't know who I'm talking to. Hopefully we're talking to somebody that's making a bomb right now. Just putting the bomb away. Now, following the release of Yeti, the Kronwinkel 12 commune began showing all the signs of decay that the Hershing commune had shown before collapsing because nobody had learned any lessons whatsoever in the interim.

Additionally, since Amendool 2 were now popular, there were a lot of quote-unquote friends hanging around the castle that nobody in the band knew, and the members of Amendool 2 weren't hanging out and playing together as a natural part of their day anymore. As Jon Vinezio put it, the original Amendool idea was being lost.

The band became more dependent on individual ideas the less their living situation was a true communal experience. In the words of drummer Peter Leopold, and I fucking love this quote, you can't create chaos retroactively.

And since the band lost their common chaotic musical ground, no other Amandul 2 album has the power of Faliste or Yeti. Albums thereafter were written separately by separate members, half-and-half affairs that were slowly floating into more conventional rock territory.

Yeah, that's because what like their next album, John Vine Zero and Chris Carra, they divided the record in half. Literally, like John wrote one side, Chris wrote the other, and then they played on each other's songs. And after Tanzer Lemming, which was their third album, Amandul 2 became a rock band instead of an art performance group that they once were. Peter Leopold said the performance group part was a big part of the magic of Amandul 2. But to some people in or around Amandul 2, that magic was gone. Yeah.

But as it goes with a band like Amandul 2, what eventually pressured them into getting more and more commercial was more tragic and painful death. Yeah, I mean, that sounds almost like Bader Meinhardt. But no, that's not what happened. Accidental death. It was on tour.

John Vinesero, he said, we were on the road for about 15 years and there were times when the gigs were bad or dangerously wrong. The ratio was eight out of 10 gigs were bad, but two were fantastic. But one particular gig in March of 1971 was particularly tragic. Yeah.

Amundul 2, they were in Cologne playing a gig at the KEKS discotheque when suddenly the venue itself caught fire. It's not clear how it started, but the whole place went up in flames and the place was immediately evacuated. But unfortunately, four people died in that fire. It's horrible. But luckily, all the members of Amundul 2 made it out OK. But unfortunately, their equipment didn't. So

So they lost all their instruments in the fire. Uh, but remember the four people dying, that's worse. That's much worse. Far worse. Far worse. Right now we have to focus on the loss of the equipment because that's what the show is about. We have to focus on the loss of like the guitar that made Yeti sound awesome. Right. Uh,

And also the band, they didn't insure any of their instruments. Actually, most of the equipment was only partially paid for. So the band had to resort to accepting a loan from their record label. And since their records weren't selling very well, I mean, they had released three albums and two singles by then, they had to continue touring until their debt was paid off. And then they could start making a living. I mean, someone in the band remarked,

We're worse off now than when we started four years ago. And we're fighting all the time. Everyone just keeps to themselves. Like you said before, everyone's just separate. Everyone's rooms, their doors are shut. There's not much of a community anymore. It's now like having a job. Yeah. No, it's very much like having a job and a big debt that you got to pay off.

Now, since the commune was not in any way self-sufficient, the band decided to split up their last communal experiment. After a silent car ride back from a gig in Berlin, everyone took their bags and just headed off in different directions. And they never lived together again.

Worst of all, though, to pay off their debts, Amandol II found themselves in a position where experimentation was no longer a luxury they could afford. So their subsequent records were far more conventional, even though they'd already started heading in a more prog rock direction by the time they recorded their follow-up to Yeti. Tons der Lemminge, it's alright. It's very proggy. If you like prog, you'll love it. And acoustic guitars, go for it.

Regardless, though, while purposefully making relatively more commercial rock was a direct contradiction of Amundul 2's original purpose of creative experimentation, some of those more commercial albums are still pretty fucking sick. Yeah, they really are. There's some good shit there. Listen to this song. It's called Green Bubble Raincoated Man. It's fucking great. ♪ Red give me an action ♪ ♪ Don't bother about my reaction ♪

I'd say relatively commercial. It's definitely all relative.

I mean, it's not songs about like murderous pedophiles anymore, but it's still, you know, it's still Amandul 2. Yes, absolutely. And this is from their album Wolf City, their fifth album, Amandul 2. They went on to make eight, I think maybe nine more albums and a live album and several singles and of course, solo projects from different members. Renata sang with

Popol Vuh at one point in 1975, which this is all quite impressive for what they originally set out to do. Or according to Falk Rognar, he said they wanted to create a blank slate with new sound structures to put the listener in touch with the universal sound and make them forget about their mundane habits.

But unfortunately, the realities of life caught up to Amandul too. It wasn't sustainable to live in a communal lifestyle without conflicts and money problems, contracts, organizing tours, and basically running a business, the business we call show. Yes. The band fell into contradictions time and time again. But you know what?

it still worked. Sure, like they didn't change the world, but they lived as how they wanted, even if it was just for a time. And they left behind a legacy for the rest of us to enjoy and learn from even 50 years later. And these albums, particularly Fella's Day and Yeti, they are the reason why it was worth doing it in the first place. Because remember, experimenting and creating music or any kind of art really is always worth doing. Goddamn right.

Now, back before Amadou 2 sort of fizzled out with an ill-advised attempt to break through to the American market with a record called Made in Germany that their manager cheekily wanted to call Olaf and his swinging Nazis. I think he told it to a boardroom full of American executives and their cigarettes fell out of their mouths. The band did have a brush with true respectability.

In 1971, Amundal II won the German equivalent of an Oscar, an award called the Lola, for a soundtrack they did for a film called San Domingo about a wealthy young man who joins a rock music hippie commune and fakes a kidnapping to extort money from his parents after a cute girl convinces him to. Here's a taste of that award-winning soundtrack. It's pretty fucking cool. Very ambient. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. I'm sorry. Am I on mic? No, it's great. It's fine. It's fine. I love it. It's very Lynchian. Okay. It puts me in the mind of like David Lynch soundtracks. I wouldn't be surprised if Lynch possibly saw San Domingo and took some inspiration from it. Probably not, but maybe. Maybe.

Maybe he might have. Now, back in those days, the underground music scene was heavily tied to the underground German film scene that featured such visionaries as Wim Wenders, Rainer Fassbender, and of course, Werner Herzog.

These guys needed unconventional music to match their unconventional films. And the Kratrock bands of the time fit the bill perfectly. Famously, Werner Herzog would use the band Popol Vuh in some of his best non-documentary films. Movies like Aguirre, Wrath of God. Saw that the other night. It's fucking incredible. The 1979 version of Nosferatu and, of course, Fitzcarraldo.

But according to members of Amundul 2, who may or may not be telling the entire truth, considering how, as I just said, Pop LaVue worked with Werner Herzog, the soundtrack work dried up when one of the other early Krautrock bands undercut everyone else by charging half the fee.

This band ended up doing so many soundtracks that in 1970, they released a compilation of all their contributions and simply called it Soundtracks. Here's one of those songs by none other than Can. Can.

Why don't you dedicate to follow chicks so stupid Saturday afternoon?

And that is where we'll pick back up next week to continue our series in the world of experimental German music with Cam. I can't wait. I can't wait. This is amazing. We're getting into it. We're finally rolling with the hits. And in a couple of weeks...

Well, hopefully we'll have Ken out soon and we'll, you know, we'll let you know all about that. But first, let's promote our live show. Yeah, that's coming up. Not just ours, the whole last podcast network beach blanket bingo show at the Balboa in San Diego, California on October 20th.

2023, because you're wondering all your favorite shows are going to be there, including us. You can get tickets or you can find tickets at Last Podcast Network dot com. That's right. It's so cool. And also, I don't know why I'm doing this, but go to a flaming lip show. You need to go. I mean, we're not you know, they're not paying us to say this, but it is fantastic. We went and we saw them in L.A. at the YouTube theater and it was just so amazing.

So, so good. Thank you to Tommy McKenzie and everyone. Everyone there was fantastic. They just put on one of the most amazing shows I've seen this year. Right now, they're on tour playing the entirety of Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, which is one of the most

important records to me of my entire fucking life. The live show that they do with Yoshimi is absolutely incredible. They actually have giant robots. Yes. Huge pink robots. And then after they do Yoshimi, they come out and play like an hour, hour and a half of just more Flamin' Love stuff. They play songs that you love. They play deep cuts. It's an incredible show. The visuals are incredible. Wayne Coyne is, of course, like, you know, you want to follow him to the ends of the earth, but he won't let you.

Because he doesn't want you to follow him. He wants you to follow the fucking message, man. Jesus, man. It's so good. Yeah, man. My love of the lips has been rekindled a thousandfold. So yeah, definitely go check out the Flamin' Lips on tour right now if they're coming anywhere near you.

Absolutely. And we got T-shirts. Thanks, Tommy. Thank you. Thank you so much. You're awesome. We got T-shirts for sale for, you know, No Dogs in Space T-shirts of women's and men's sizes on LastPodcastMerch.com. That's right. We're on Instagram as NoDogsPod.

I'm there as Carolina Danger Hidalgo. You're Marcus Parks. Yes. And we have playlists of our songs of every episode. So for this episode, you can find a playlist on YouTube. Just search No Dogs in Space. We have our own YouTube thing there and also on Spotify. I think we got to search Marcus Parks.

I think by this time you can just search No Dogs in Space playlist and you'll be able to find a playlist for every episode that we've ever put out. I think we're up to like 55 now, if you can fucking believe that. And we're also going to be having playlists of songs that we mentioned on our live stream that we're going to be doing every other Monday at 7 p.m. PST starting after Labor Day.

Yes, that will be on Twitch and on YouTube. So please check that out. If you want to see our faces. Yes. If you want to see our faces, then absolutely check that out. And so I got to read the sources. Yeah. Okay, here we go. This is going to take about a minute. In case anyone's interested in the sources of what it took for this, pretty much this entire two years.

two part series. We got Tanzerlemming book by Ingeborg Schober. It's in German, unfortunately. So, I mean, I had to Google translate and then get our associate producer, Patrick Fisher, to help me out with figuring that all out. And then, of course, Times and Sounds, Germany's Journey from Jazz and Pop to Krautrock and Beyond by John Reitz. And then Future Days, Krautrock and the Birth of a Revolutionary New Music by David Stubbs.

The Cambridge Companion book to Krautrock, edited by Uwe Schutte. Eurorock, European rock and the second culture by Archie Patterson. And then we saw a couple of documentaries, the BBC documentary Krautrock, The Rebirth of Germany, directed by Benjamin Whaley.

And then this other documentary, Crout Rock 2, Romantic Warriors 4, a progressive music saga by Adele Schmidt and Jose Cigarro Holder. That's actually really good. They have a lot of Renata in there. Very cool. And also don't forget about the BBC4 documentary on Badr Meinhof that we watched. Yes, In Love With Terror, directed by Ben Lewis. Don't watch it if you don't want to see a whole bunch of dead pigs. Yeah.

Oh, my God. That part was weird, but I understand the analogy. And then as far as more history stuff, Peter Green. I read the biography that the founder of Fleetwood Mac by Martin Selman's pretty interesting stuff there. And I think they just reissued it last year. Also, more history side from freedom fighters to terrorists, women and political violence by Paige Whaley, eager and bother. Meinhof, the inside story of the RAF by Stefan Aust.

It's actually reads really well. It's a book by someone who knew Ulrike Meinhof and he wrote for a concrete. So he was like he knew them and he was actually kind of part of the story. It's insane. And it's also based on the movie The Badr Meinhof Complex directed by Uli Edel that we watched. It's just fantastic. Again, highly recommend. Yes, definitely. And then tons of others.

you know, stuff online, articles, interviews found on The Wire, Mojo and Uncut Magazine, Krautrock and Progrock, message forums and message boards. I am standing on the shoulders of giant fans. Thank you, fans. And the blog by Reiner Langhans, a memoir he posted online. Just Google his name with a blog with the word blog and you'll find it. It is in German, though. And big thank you to Emily Vota for outlining the Cambridge Companion chapters and the Future Days chapter on Amundol 2. And a huge, gigantic,

Thank you to Patrick Fisher, research assistant and now associate producer of the Krautrock series, because he is indispensable. Absolutely. No, no, no. He's given us an edge. So thank you. And thank you to Kelsey Netzer for helping us out along the way as well. Of course. And I'd say, like, go and watch the Bader Meinhof complex. Go and watch the film, because I think it'll give you a nice idea as we go through this whole Krautrock series as to what's happening in the background.

of every single band that we're about to talk about. Like what's just, what's going on in Germany at the time? It is a really good introduction to everything. Yeah, it is. It's actually what we started with when we got, when we did our semester of German experimental music. So,

And of course, if you have a band, if you play music yourself, if you just fucking make noise, send us an email at nodogsinspace at gmail.com. Send us a link to your stuff. Send us your band camp, your Spotify, your YouTube, your whatever. We'll listen to it. And if we dig it, we'll play it at the end of an

episode. Thanks to everybody who's been sending us stuff. We get so much shit. We're working through it little by little. Y'all are fucking amazing. But today's band is from Providence, Rhode Island. They're called Sullest. That's spelled S-U-L-L-E-S-T. The song is called All My Shit at TJ's. It's off their EP Fashionable Male. You can check them out on Spotify and at S-U-L-L-E-S-T dot bandcamp dot com. This band's fucking great. It's good punk. Good old fashioned punk rap. Yes.

All right. Goodbye, everybody. We'll see you next time with Can. Thank you. Goodbye. This show is made possible by listeners like you. Thanks to our ad sponsors. You can support our shows by supporting them. For more shows like the one you just listened to, go to lastpodcastnetwork.com.

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