Can Pt IV
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Okay, we are finally at Cannes Part 4. God damn it, we're here. The band that is next to the replacements, the hardest to Google. God, it's been a fucking challenge. So you know what? I'm kind of glad we're at the final chapter.

I am glad we're here too. Welcome to No Dogs in Space, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Marcus Parks. I'm Carolina Hidalgo. And below me is Georgie Hidalgo-Parks. Our cute little corgi Jack Russell mix. Are you ready for Can Part 4, Georgie? It's important that we say that she's in the room because that's the whole point of Can and the whole point of recording is to make sure that you know what's going on in the room at all times. So if you hear a shake...

It's me, Marcus, or Georgie. One of the three of us. There you go. Let's do it. Okay, so when we last left Cannes, they were just finishing up their first UK tour in 1972 where they played mostly colleges because it was more their demographic. Yeah. Right? Yeah, they're not playing pubs. No, no, no, no. They need someone with a more open experimental mind and the time and energy to waste it on.

And I don't mean wasted, but college kids have more time to try stuff out. Spend it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're a bit more frivolous with your time in college. Before the realities of life catch up to you. Yes. Okay, so the UK tour was a success, even if some people couldn't get their heads around all this experimental jamming that Ken would do on the shows. Because remember, they never had a set list or a plan prepared for the show. They just take in the atmosphere and start playing or eating chicken on stage. Whatever it was that worked for them or not.

It was a risk that they were always willing to take. And Andrew Lauder, he was a United Artists record executive for the UK back then. He said, Watching Cannes is like watching a married couple who knew each other so well they'd finish each other's sentences. Audiences were either transfixed or bewildered or probably both. You should check out his book. It's very, very good. Okay, so...

They were there in the UK to promote their latest album, Tagomago, which they kind of did. Sure. I mean, because remember, they're just jamming. They're a jazz odyssey. So they'll be like, hey, here's that popular song Spoon. And then it takes 15 minutes of jamming to work up to 15 seconds of a Spoon riff. And then they go, there it is, Spoon. And then later everyone's like, hey, I want to hear Spoon. You heard it.

heard it. Okay. You hear me go dirt, dirt, dirt, dirt, dirt. That was spoon. What do you want? Minute 45. You didn't hear that. Anyway, this is not exactly David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust tour that was actually happening at the same time in England. That's crazy. You could see Ken and David Bowie in the same week in 1972.

It's nuts. It's incredible. But once Cannes got back from England, they played at the Berlin Pop Festival and they debuted their latest single that had just been released in Germany, a little ditty called Vitamin C. ♪

You're losing, you're losing, you're losing. Hey, yeah. You're losing, you're losing, you're losing, you're losing. Yeah.

Yes. Now, Vitamin C is the song where every element of can truly comes together. It's basically when the can organism stands upright and starts using tools. Oh, like the Space Odyssey. You're doing the monkey ape thing. Yeah, yeah. This is the monkey ape thing. Yeah, where they throw the bone and it turns into the obelisk. And then it's the baby. And then it's fucking, hey!

Nice! The song is sparse, an exercise in listening where every member plays exactly what they need to and nothing more. For example, even though Michael Corolli was obviously capable of Stooges-level madness as heard on songs like Mother Sky, his part on Vitamin C is ingeniously limited to faint palm-muted notes way back in the mix that swell into furiously strummed chords during the chorus.

The song is carried, however, by Holger Chuke's cleverly simple bass line that gets progressively more urgent as the song continues. While Jackie Liebesite turns in what is possibly one of the most inventive and catchy drum beats ever. A career-defining performance that partially came to define Can itself. It is their biggest song. Yeah, it's absolutely their biggest song. And his drum beat, I mean, it's up there with Apache when it comes to like, oh, I know that drum beat.

But tying it all together is Damo Suzuki, whose delivery of purely Dadaist lyrics comes across as a dire message from an alien civilization that you don't quite understand. It's like, I'm losing my vitamin C? What does that mean? Is that bad? That sounds really fucking bad. Oh, God, what's going to happen when all my fucking vitamin C is gone? Remember, Damo was visited by a UFO in Odawa, Japan. He was. So we don't know what happened to him.

But then, as you're asking yourself whether or not you're ever going to get an answer to your question, keyboardist Ermin Schmidt has his shining moment in Cannes. His swirl of unnerving carnival carousel organ that eventually gets lost in a sea of oscillation tells you that whether you understood the message or not, the transmission is over.

That's great. I don't know what's going on and I love it. Yeah. I love it. Oscillation. Yeah. And you know, Ken did later put this in a soundtrack of a TV movie that they were commissioned to do and it worked beautifully. And maybe that's why this song, Vitamin C, is in so many soundtracks today. Like,

like inherent vice. I believe Johnny Greenwood had a thing or two to say about that. Yeah, I think so. I mean, inherent vice, that's how I heard vitamin C for the first time. That's how I was introduced to Cannes. I was watching the movie at like the Magnolia Theater in New York City and the movie opens with vitamin C and I'm just sitting there going like,

oh my God, I have to know what this song is. And then the movie's three hours long. You have to run home, get to your computer. And as soon as I got home, I found out, holy shit. And I, and I bought Ega Bamiyasi immediately. That's amazing. It's also been in other movies. Sorry, I was going to go down a list, but we can just make it really quick. Like Sofia Coppola's movie, a,

Pedro Almodovar, you know, he's really good. And that TV show, The Get Down. Okay. Anyway, so the point is, is that Vitamin C is probably not just a very good song, but it works in soundtracks. It really does. Well, it's just, it's that, it's such a signifier of like, this is cool. Yes. Like what you're experiencing right now is very cool. Well, Ermin says like it's highly concentrated, like Vitamin C, I guess, and concise, but it's still very lighthearted. Yeah.

Now since Vitamin C was a single, Cannes needed a B-side, so they quickly recorded yet another classic that builds on the jazz-influenced guitar part Michael Carolli played on Vitamin C. In fact, I'd say this session marks an evolution for Michael Carolli, a moment in which he sheds his psychedelic skin and becomes something different altogether.

But when the rest of the band joins in, I'm So Green, the B-side, becomes a casual, almost jaunty strolling song as if Cannes was visiting Sesame Street for the day. Oh, cool. That would be great. It would be amazing. Oh, it's all so tough in my heart, I'm too cheap to speak. So I slide into my hole, smile and face like. Those lights be coming from me. Those lights making holes.

Why do so many Krautreich guitar lines sound like spiders? Spiders? Like the animal? I don't know what they are. The arachnid? The arachnid, yeah. Yeah, to me, that little riff, it just sounds like a spider. I hear it like when I listen to Amadou 2, I hear nothing but spiders. Huh.

Okay. I think we've talked about this before, and I think my answer was also, huh. So I'm not sure what to make of this. Musings. Well, no, that's great. I love your musings. I do. It's great. So as we said in the last episode, the guys from Cannes had since moved on from Castle Norvignage to this abandoned movie theater in the town of...

A little help here? Weiler Schvist. That's right. And this old abandoned movie theater, this is a huge space so they could spread out more and evolve their sound. And space is a big thing here. It is key to Cannes right now in every way. But even though they were doing well, you know, getting recognition, being financially stable and able to grow creatively in the way they want, there was still some tension with these guys. Sure. Mostly

because they had a responsibility to the record label. Remember Siggy Locke, head of United Artists? He asked them for a new album and gave them a deadline of June 1972. When was this deadline given?

I don't know. Sometime before June 1972. Can I get an echo? June 1972. And I'm not sure if it was June 1st, but let's say it was June 1st. Just to make it really scary, right? Rent. Okay, so Cannes, they had been touring England until the middle of May. And since then, they've worked in the studio every day, but only finished three songs for the album that was due June 1st.

First 1972. But Ken had entered a place of self-doubt. Sometimes it happens when you score a hit song or maybe they just weren't confident with the material they were working on, which is probably why the night before the deadline, they only had three songs, more

or less finished. Oh, God. They had Pinch, a really cool rocking song. Yeah. One More Night, another chill song with a great beat. And this song that Damo actually came up with the idea for, he started singing some words or humming them and the guys took his lead and bam, there it was. Sing Swan Song. Love this fucking song. ... ... ...

She gave her shit like a birthday, since, since one song. She gave her kill hand to him for me just to drown him off. She said he happy game but happy day is wrong.

Yeah, that weird little sound here, it's an instrument called a flexitone. And we got one. Well, I actually, I used to have one of these when I was in, you know, many bands. I carried it from band to band and annoy the shit out of every band on the way. Yeah. This is what it sounds like. Georgie's hiding. I love a flexitone. No, it's cool. It sounds cool, but I can see how it's annoying. Yeah.

Yeah, I tried to put it into any song and every song that I could, and it never made it into any song ever because I'm not Jackie Levisite. Okay. I couldn't figure it out. So we're still at the night before the deadline to deliver a whole album, remember? And there's only three songs that Ken wrote, but unfortunately they are not 20 minutes each. So they need to fill up this record. And Ken, they weren't going to use their singles. They were like...

People already bought these songs on the singles. Why buy them again? But now we need them. We need these singles now. But since they were out of time, they decided, okay, the singles go on the record too. Let's see. Spoon, that was a good one. And then Vitamin C, people like that. And it's B-side. I'm so green. Just throw it all on there. Okay, now we only have 10 minutes of the record to fill. So let's hook up our instruments. Holger, press record. And let's just play.

Play something. Anything. And I know this is saying a lot, but this is the most spontaneous song in the history of Cannes because they played it all in real time until the 10 minutes were up. They did a few quick edits and slapped it on the record. Done. Cut. Print. That's a wrap. Here it is. It's called...

And you know what? That's not bad. No, it's not. It's pretty good. Considering how they had to fill 10 minutes of tape on the spot, that's not bad. But

That's just the first section of soup. Within five minutes, the song detonates in the sort of sonic explosion that's usually saved for Cannes live shows. These moments, called godzillas by the band, would build up using Jackie's rhythmic energy. They completely melt down into pure pandemonium, which, depending on your taste, could either be accidental genius or pure masturbation. There can be both. Ha ha ha ha ha.

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And so on and so forth for five minutes. That is totally your assignment with the double margins made the night before. And I like it. I respect it more. I like the fact that I know how these songs get made and I think that's why I enjoy them more. Yeah. But as soon as those 10 minutes were up and the LP was filled, Damo and Ermin went right back to their chess board like the fucking nerds that they were. Yeah, they did piss off Holger and Michael a lot because they kept playing chess and they're like, guys, it's time to play. It's like, OK, your move. Everyone just

put the board in the bathroom because I don't trust anyone and then they would go and play like it was part of the tension it was part of the tension I mean they had two weeks what it sounds like two weeks to finish this fucking record and Ermin and Damos and they're just playing chess the whole fucking time but no matter how it was finished can turned in their fourth album on the day of the deadline and for both the album artwork and the name the band again came upon them completely by chance and

Just like Jackie had come up with the name Tagomago after seeing a street sign in Barcelona that said Tagomago, Ermin Schmidt was walking past a shop selling Turkish food and saw a can of okra in the window display. Specifically, it was Aegean okra, which in Turkish translates to Ege Bömyesei.

That's the best I can do on Turkish. But the most incredible part about the can was that the name of the company that canned the okra was Can, which in Turkish translates to mean life and is pronounced Can.

So the band just took a fucking photo of a can of okra and gave their fourth album, which everyone anglicizes to Iga Bamiyasi, one of the most iconic album covers of the 70s. Yes. Ermin even sent a letter to the company Life or Chan. Yes. The canned...

the ones who canned these okra beans, right? His letter was very German though because he wrote it in English. He's like, we are a rock group. Our name is Can and we will use a photograph of your product on our record sleeve. You notice he's not even asking. That's good promotion for you in Germany. So can we get 50 cans of Iggy Bamiyassi for free?

That was seriously his question. He sent in this letter really excited for this like Warholian idea that he had about having all these cans everywhere for when the album comes out. But just a few weeks later, he got a letter from the company, actually from the lawyer of the company saying, don't use our name. In fact, lose our address and never mention Iggy Bagnasi again. And the guys were like, yeah, that's not going to happen.

But they never heard from that Turkish company again. They didn't. I mean, not only that, like, I think the company said you can't even use the name can. Yeah.

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Now, Eagle of Myossi was the first Cannes album to get an American release. But while it didn't make much of an immediate impact, we did find exactly one review of the album from a short-lived national music magazine called Zoo World that operated out of Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

The writer's take on Iga Bamiyasi was that it sounded like an import from a similar but wholly alien planet instead of just from another country. You said that too! I did say that too! But in all, the review was positive. They called the album a strange amalgam of the most intense pop chaos ever pressed on vinyl. But...

But the reviewer mostly focused on what he believed to be the genius of the filler song Soup, which proves my earlier statement that judgment on Cannes' noise is all in the ears of the beholder. Yes, it's also in the ears of the audience that are about to behold Cannes' next European tour in 1973.

You see, they had to wait a bit after Iggy Bamiyasi was released because Michael Carolli collapsed and suffered a perforated ulcer. I know it's nasty, but it's something about it being tense in the studio. Could it be stress or that hash that they would smoke all the time? Probably both. It's a pie chart of things that probably happened. But you know what? Michael was back on his feet again. He's only 25 years old. Yeah. So it's remarkable how he can get this like.

also done in like a month he bounces back yes and the band went back to the uk they hung out with their british friends again damo and lemmy from hawkwind are tight so so was holger and brian eno i think they were roommates at one point later on or at least holger thinks so i mean i just can't imagine that like that room like that fucking that blind at the bar of damo suzuki lemmy kilmeister brian eno and holger chuke like the four of them at a bar

Yes. And it happened all the time. Reading tarot cards, chilling out. So the guys in Cannes also got to meet new unexpected fans of their music. Like when they played Glasgow, Scotland, there were these huge biker type dudes who stormed the stage during the show. And Ehrman, he actually described these guys as real Vikings. Yeah.

And one of these gigantic Vikings locked eyes with Ehrman and walked straight up to him and gave him the biggest bear hug ever as a gratitude for the music that made this huge guy so happy. And Ehrman ended up with a couple of broken ribs and his glasses probably bent and broken, but he was grateful nonetheless. Of course. And another biker guy. There are a lot of these biker guys. Yeah. It happens. You guys have it too. When you guys go to the Netherlands and stuff, they just enjoy.

Wait, a lot of art. Absolutely. And that's the thing is this is also a time period when like rock and roll and bikers like shit can go wrong really fast. Yes. But one of them, one of these big biker guys, he actually said that his stutter was cured from watching Cannes show in Bristol, England. But then it did come back a few days later. But there was still something special and magical about that. Of course. But again, Cannes, especially Cannes Live, is not for everyone.

Ian McDonald from NME, New Musical Express, he said the guys were untogether. You couldn't hear or understand Damo's vocals. Well, yeah, duh. And the sound was, quote, bad. And Michael Carolli's guitar playing was, quote, inept. Then Ian made a Hitler joke.

Yeah, I know. Come on. You could do better. He could do better than that. He does get better than that. He does get better than that. Although that was very, very, very common when anyone was writing about Crock-Crock at the time. It was. Yeah, it was very. It was even hack a little back by then, though. Nice to see Adolf Hitler on vibes, though. Jesus Christ. I don't know.

But don't worry, he redeems himself. He writes a great book on the Beatles. You should check it out. Yeah, I mean, well, I mean, it's also a little better than the other, I think the Lester Banks article about Kraftwerk, like the Germans are coming when they actually had like pictures from Nuremberg in the fucking article. Oh, God. It was, yeah, they...

They thought it was very funny. Everyone at the time thought it was very funny. Okay. Okay. So after a long tour that included Paris and several cities in Germany, the guys in Cannes were ready to take a break. That means going on vacation, or what the Europeans like to call going on holiday, which means six weeks off...

Or six months off, you lucky bastards. I know. That's the thing. What we're about to talk about, like these sound, it sounds like the gallivanting of, you know, a bunch of fucking like rich kids. They're not. This is just how Europeans fucking live. And that's how we don't live. Well, they're very close to a lot of other countries. Exactly. So it's not. Yeah. So it may sound like hoity-toity rich people, but no, they're just, just.

It's just how they get to live. Yes. And a lot of times it's just going by boat, hitchhiking. That's what they all do. Holger 2K, he went to Southeast Asia. Well, I mean, not hitchhiking. I think he took a boat. While Damo, he went back to Japan to visit his family for the first time in six years. He even brought his new wife with him. Yes, Damo Gakushin.

Hey! Hey, Mazel Tov! Mazel Tov!

Very much so. The French locals. All of them. Every single one of them. Including taxi drivers. So kind and generous. Look at my face. I see it's very serious and sincere. Now, Michael Carolli, he went somewhere he really loved. He went to the Portuguese coast and spent his time there soaking up the sun, a la Sheryl Crow, and having drinks by the bar on the beach. He just had an ulcer, but he's 25. He can do this.

And it was there that Michael was inspired to make a new kind of ambient type music. While Michael was standing at the cliffs near the sounds of the sea, listening to the waves and the fluttering of the wind with the sand and all that stuff and everything, he made sure to make a mental note or mental tape recorder note for a song that would appear on Cannes' next album, Bel Air. ♪

♪♪ ♪♪

When it's coming, it's winning and having fun.

So this is a headphones-on song. Yes. Okay, so Michael said he found an echo machine to make the sounds of the cliff like he remembered them on holiday. And he even got Ermin to make that sound of the wind or make the wind sound like Michael was right there on the sandy beaches of Portugal. It's all, it's very cool. Yeah, and it's a huge departure, but...

It's also considered one of Cannes' greatest achievements. It's influential in ways that reverberate to this day. I mean, listen to that, and it reaches so many different corners. Listen to that and compare it to, like, the Minecraft soundtrack. It's damn similar, and that's just the first minute of the song. But concerning those minutes, Bel-Air is yet another 20-minute song that takes up a whole side of the album. You see, now we only have to write, like, four songs. Ha!

That really helps us a lot. Beginning with Michael Corolli's sonic interpretation of his vacation spot, Bel-Air is one of Cannes' greatest journeys, a near-symphonic piece made up of movements that go through various stages of relaxation and beauty in the first ten minutes. But as the song progresses, it morphs into something closer to Amandou 2's disturbing masterpiece, Phallus Day.

God's cock. Every time. Bel-Air is like a dream that starts at the best pool party in the world, but turns into a nightmare where you're walking from room to room in a house you don't know, while something terrifying yet unknown follows close behind. This is 12 minutes after that last clip you just heard. ... ...

♪♪

Oh, fuck. I got out of the pool to use the bathroom and now I don't know where I am. At least you got out of the pool to use the bathroom. I don't know if you remember that one time we had that party at the Airbnb we rented that weekend. Yep. And everyone, everyone from LPN was there and we were passing out Pacificos all night and I was the only one that used the bathroom. Me and you both. Yes. The two of us were the only ones that got out of that pool and like...

Five hours. Luckily, it was a rental. Sorry, I just outed literally everyone from LPN. Jackie, Holden, Henry. Oh my God, it was everyone. Natalie, everyone was there. Everyone, Amber. But despite the dark place that Bel Air reaches, the rest of the album was far closer to the scene Michael Carolli crafted for the beginning of the song. This

This would be the final album that completes the trifecta of Cannes' most revered releases, Future Days. And here is one of the album's most popular tracks and one of Cannes' most popular songs. Carolina's one of their most favorite songs. Moonshake. Moonshake.

It's groovy. Yeah, it's groovy. I mean, it's 1973 through and through. It's a romper. It's loungy. It's so cool that it was used in the background of a Kettle One commercial about chic Europeans who just sort of do their own thing, you know? You're just drinking vodka from water bottles and right before their shift. Ha ha ha!

Yeah, that kind of cool. Very cool. But this vibe isn't surprising, considering how the idea of the song started with the band trying to replicate the sound of a motorboat plugging along the River Rhine. And those sorts of interpretations of everyday sounds informed a lot of what Cannes did with Future Days.

See, the summer of 1973, when Cannes recorded this album, it was an absolutely beautiful summer, idyllic even. So Cannes left the door to their studio wide open throughout the Future Days sessions, since...

They captured children next door jumping into the pool, birds chirping, and the sounds of Volkswagens driving down the road, all of which can be heard on the quiet moments of the album. This technique came as a direct influence of avant-garde composer John Cage. Yes, John Cage. We have talked about him in the Velvet Underground series. He is a super avant-garde composer. He is the capitalist.

of avant-garde composers. He really is. If you've heard of any avant-garde composer, you've heard of John Cage. Exactly. His work is very tied into his philosophy of the freedom that music can be anything as long as there's a point to it. And if there isn't, well, maybe that's the point. I know. Read his book, Silence. I've been reading it. Of course, I've been napping constantly

and getting up and reading it again, but it is very good. Yeah. So John Cage, he was a pioneer in experimenting with what you can do with the idea of music or sounds or noise. What is it? The sounds of ice cubes in a bathtub with flowers and a pressure cooker? That's John Cage's piece, Water Music. It's on Spotify.

John Cage's idea of the freedom to make music anything or anything music is part of what inspired Ehrman to make Cannes a reality. Ehrman loved the freedom of no rules, unless you make the rules. But then again, you don't have to follow them. Whatever gives you the freedom to make art, use it or don't. I don't care. That's the whole point of it. It's great. John Cage is also famous for his piece 433 that he wrote in 1952. Now, 433 means the amount of time it's, you know, the song takes. It's three movements.

And according to John Cage's instructions, it can be played with any instrument or combination of instruments. And when I say played, I mean not played at all. The instruments don't matter, but the silence does. OK, and we talked about this. It is all about it's like an exercise in listening. Yeah. That means you don't play anything. Yeah. So a ton of artists. We just found this out recently. A ton of artists and bands have actually covered 433. Yeah.

A box set was released in 2019 by Mute Records. By the way, love Mute Records. I love Daniel Miller. Mute, you're one of my favorites. And this song, 433, is covered by bands like New Order, Depeche Mode, Liars, Erasure, artists like Jan Tiersen and Ermin Schmidt, too. He's one of my favorites. Actually, his is really good. So let's play a clip of Ermin Schmidt's cover of 433. And then I want to play just a little bit of the Liars. Sure, of course.

I like it. Yeah. And that's how Ermin Schmidt interpreted 433. Let's hear how Liars interpreted 433. God, I love this one. OK. Because I'm just well, I'm also just a fucking massive Liars fan, but it's so... I love Liars. I love Liars. Right? Right?

I like that. I love it. It's recognizably liars. Like if you were to ask me to guess, it's like, who's doing this 433? I'd be like, that sounds like liars. I'm going to request it at their next show. 433!

They only play the last album. That's their whole rule. Okay. So as far as this box set from Mute Records, of all the covers of 433, you can order them in a CD or vinyl set. And I'm just saying this. I actually bought it for $15 on Mute. So we're not.

We're just saying this because we like it. Yeah. So you can or you can also listen to the whole thing on Spotify. It's like four discs. It's all there. It's called Stum 433, S-T-U-M-M 433. But if you buy them from Mute Records, the profits are split between the British Tinnitus Association, which is very nice, and Music Minds Matter, which is about mental health and using music as a therapeutic way. I really appreciate that, actually. Yeah, that's incredible. The BTA. Good for them. Yeah.

Now, back to the early 60s, John Cage... Avant-garde music is all just a big fucking joke. It is. What? You finally got it. You finally... Just put a toilet, right, on an exhibit, and that's it. Yeah. With reliable connectivity, enhanced cybersecurity, and advanced fiber solutions, Comcast Business helps turn today's small businesses into engines of modern business.

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OK, so now back to the early 60s. John Cage also experimented with contact microphones. He would put them in his piano or on furniture to augment the sounds of not just the music being played, but the environment around it. Remember, John Cale did that with his viola and so did Tony Conrad with his instruments.

You see, that's key. Using the accidental or unintentional sounds of the environment as part of your music. Yeah. Ermin Schmidt, who's known John Cage since the late 50s and has even played with him once or twice, he remembers a time he saw John Cage and David Tudor do a concert in Cologne where Cage had a contact mic on his throat. So whenever he'd take a sip of water, the noise of the gurgling would be heard loudly by everyone in that room. And I know that's grossing out people like just thinking about it. Yeah.

There's a scene in the movie Naked Gun that explains what I'm trying to describe by pipping in a urinal. But that was on a contact mic. That was more of an open air mic. But imagine a contact mic that only feeds off the vibrations of the sound. Just put it on Leslie Nielsen's junk. Or inside the urinal. And I was going to play a clip of that, but I thought like that's too joking even for Cannes.

Okay. And it's that kind of thinking that inspired Ermin Schmidt. So one day in the studio, Domo was sitting on a beanbag chair because this is the 70s, baby. Yeah. And he had a microphone in his hand. And when he sat down, everyone could hear the rustling of the beanbag, you know, the little beads or the little plastic

bits of whatever. Exactly. So Ermin said, Damo, put that mic further into the beanbag. So Damo put the microphone between his legs, grazing his taint, and then proceeded to move his butt to get this noise. The ch-ch-ch-ch-ch. This atmospheric noise set the basis for the title track to Future Days. The track called Future Days. And that's Damo blowing bubbles. Not like the...

Oh, but bong. It's different. It's blowing. It's not sucking. Marcus, you have quite an ear. I know what a bong sounds like. You could see John Cage's influence in the whole idea of can. The way they jam and compose together. It's a very Cage-ian idea. And how they made Future Days, keeping the door open and letting the birds join in, using the space and anyone or anything in it as part of the song. That is can. It is. It is.

Now, speaking of space, once the song Future Days starts to really get going, it feels like the soundtrack of a man inside a spaceship. Now we're going to different kind of space. Outer space! But this is not the terror of space oddity. Instead, this song's exotica beat harkens back to a 1950s version of space when spacecraft happily puttered to the moon and back.

As guitarist Michael Carolli put it, he merged the idea of a Jules Verne-type 19th century spaceship with the Silver Surfer, the comic book character, whose power cosmic lifted Carolli into outer space. Future Days was the result. You had to have me.

This is a very relaxed record. Yeah. From, let's say, a song like Alm. Yes. Ehrman called Future Days harmonic and Holger said it was their most symphonic of all of Cannes records. And he said it reached number one in Argentina at one point. Oh, I wonder why there was somebody in Argentina that had a taste for the German music. I know, right? Yeah.

That took me a minute. It took me a minute, too. I don't think he was making a joke, but, I mean, goddammit, yeah. There was a bit of a community already in Argentina. And, of course, Michael Carolli was really happy with it because this is the album Future Days where he had the most influence. He was able to incorporate his own inspired sounds and make it...

And even though Michael was much younger, remember, he's like 25 at the time and the rest are in their mid 30s, except for Domo. Michael, he didn't feel like a junior or champ or a buddy of the group. You know, each person had a right to their opinion when it came to the music they made. That's a rule in Cannes. Everyone's opinion counts equally and you can say whatever you want to. And Jackie Levis said it was shit. Mm hmm.

That's an actual quote. That song, Future Days, is shit. It's too symphonic. I thought we were trying to keep it simple, but now we have these stitched together long form movements that go through inexplicable variations instead of one monotonous rhythm pattern. That's what I thought we were talking about. I don't know. This feels like an angry slumber party. I thought we were going to do it a different way. And now we're doing it to symphonic. All right.

I'm going to call my mom. I thought that Jennifer was supposed to bring the Twister, and then she didn't, and now we're playing Pictionary, and this is the slumber party that I signed up for. Jackie never gets invited to these things. And Jackie was even more mad. It's not just Future Days, the track, just the whole album. He's like, Bel Air, what is that? Just a bunch of samples from electronic boxes constructed all together to make the sounds of the sea? Yeah.

Like, this is a landlocked country, Jackie. I don't care. It's too artificial and it's getting too complicated. And if we keep going this way, the music will die. Yeah. And then Jackie reaches for a music magazine, NME, New Musical Express, actually. He's like, let's see what Ian McDonald has to say about this crap. Oh,

Look, it says Bel Air is the most impressive thing Ken has ever recorded. Future Days is sheer good music and it's perfectly easy for anyone with a pair of ears attached to their heads to get into and thoroughly enjoy. Forget the Krat Rock tag. Forget how you're supposed to react. Just get this record.

And Jackie, I think, shut up for the rest of the day. I think that I'm going to go out back and I'm just going to play with my flexitone for a little while. No one come bother me. Just let him go outside. Just let him go outside. Now, like Jackie, Damo wasn't too impressed with Future Days back in 1973. For him, it was missing the freak out moments of early Cannes, too tame by far. But Damo's opinion may have been influenced by the fact that he'd already started pulling away from the band. So, he was like,

Spirituality had begun creeping into Damo's life, and while he first found answers in psychedelics, he started finding a truth that spoke more to his soul when he just sat down and read the Bible. Now, the other members of CAN all say that this newfound spiritual path was influenced by his wife, Gita, who was a Jehovah's Witness, and Damo himself had also become a Jehovah's Witness. But

But Damo finally cleared up this rumor in his autobiography. Now, he wrote that his wife actually wasn't as religious as she's been made out to be over the years. And it was actually his mother-in-law who really got him into the Bible.

Still happened. But besides that, Damo just didn't like being famous in Germany because he was the most recognizable member of the group. He was constantly being bothered for autographs, and he found that being a pop star just made him uncomfortable. Yeah. So in October 1973, just a month after Future Days was released, he

And Damo was in the vocal booth getting ready for a TV segment that they were going to do on Cannes when he realized he was bored and unhappy. And to be fair, he'd been sitting there alone for hours waiting for them to finish setting up. So he was really in his thoughts for a while.

And that was the moment that he realized he didn't want to be a part of this anymore. So he shouted something about not wanting to be here. Then he stuffed the microphone in his pocket and stormed out of the studio. He was done with Can for good. Was it his microphone? Yes, it actually was. It actually was. All right. And later on, Damo said that he did like Future Days a lot. It was very good musically for him, but it was easy to quit.

from Cannes after that because he felt satisfied with the music he contributed, but he wanted to begin a new life. I mean, this is, he's a wanderer. Yeah. I mean, it's surprising that he stayed for as long as he did. Yeah. I mean, this is just a stop in his life. Yeah. Three and a half albums is still pretty fucking good for a guy who never stood still for more than three months. A couple years. A couple years at most. Yes.

Now, it had never been easy for Cannes to find a vocalist. But now that Damo was gone, Cannes once again needed someone like Damo or Malcolm Mooney who could both balance madness and discipline in their own distinctive ways. As Cannes half seriously put it, the only guy that could fill Malcolm and Damo's shoes was someone like Captain Beefheart, who was unfortunately otherwise engaged at the time being Captain Beefheart.

Fear they be serious.

In the sky turned white in the middle of the night. In the sky turned white in the middle of the night. And the big floppy boots started down into the ground. In the sky turned white in the middle of the night.

And the red violin took the boat for to do the hoot-do-ho-down. And the red violin took the boat for to do the hoot-do-ho-down. Ha! Mama jumped in

To the funk.

Man, can you imagine him fronting Gab? That'd be great. And he'd just be narrating the whole thing. Yeah, it would have been incredible. And so after Damo, the band continued with Michael Corolli singing some of the tracks on their next album, Soon Over Babaluma. But that didn't really work either. They were soon after released from United Artists in November of 1974. So Hildegard got the band a new deal at Virgin Records with Richard Branson.

But with a new label came new expectations to deliver, and more singers were tried to no avail. After a brief stint with a Malaysian singer named Taiga Rajraja Ratnam, who was unable to capture the Damo magic, Cannes auditioned a singer named Michael Cousins, a.k.a. Magic Mike. And this is where Cannes takes a very weird turn into a racy, racy type. No, I'm kidding. He's actually, like, I think they called him Magic Michael.

But then later they shortened it to Magic Mike. And now we're all thinking about the movie we all saw 10 years ago. Now, with Magic Mike as the front man, Cannes had begun playing a lively little four on the floor track during live shows that had a number of working titles that all revolved around the word goose, like goose egg or goosey goosey. That's because Magic Mike was doing nursery rhymes.

I think at one point he was just out of ideas and he was just like, Humpty Dumpty. Well, it's like Malcolm Mooney improvising. Mary, Mary, so contrary. Yes. Sometimes you just got to go with what you know. Yep. It was another wild departure for a band that had tried on damn near every style short of recording a country album, a song almost reminiscent of T-Rex songs like Jeepers.

Here it is in a live recording during the brief period that Magic Mike fronted the band. ♪

♪♪

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

So

If you told me that was Cannes, I'd say, fuck you. No, I would say that's Magic Mike, a burlesque show. By the time the band entered the studio to record this track in mid-1976, Magic Mike had been booed off the stage enough times where the band had to accept that he wasn't the right man for the job.

So when it came time to record this new song, Can figured that they should sing it. All of them. Yeah. And after their sound man contributed the title and lyrics, Can slowed down Goosey Goosey and made a fucking disco song called I Want More. I Want More.

Thank you.

So Jackie has said it was not our intention to jump on the disco train. It just happened. Yep. It's 1976. I don't think you can avoid it. You know, it's just everywhere. And the thing is, I Want More is a hit. It's their biggest hit. And it's a hit in the UK charts for 10 weeks in the summer of 1976. That's crazy. It even

peaked at number 26 at the end of August. Why? Because they were invited to play or mime or whatever at the top of the Pops. One of their most popular music, like British shows that they would do performances at. And they all went except they couldn't find Michael Carolli because he was on safari in Kenya. So they just got another guy. They just put a dude in there because you don't sing on top of the Pops. A guy

Who does he? Yeah, well, I mean, he was just kind of standing there playing with it like an Afro. Just this white British dude just pretending to fit in. And watch it on YouTube. Top of the Pops, Can, I Want More, Live, or something like that. It's really fun. It's great. No, that's the thing is that this song technically makes Can a one-hit wonder in the UK. Yes, it actually does.

Now, with the money Can made from I Want More, they continued to evolve, but not necessarily in a positive way. Instead of following the creativity, Can began to follow the technology. They bought a 16-track mixing board to keep up with the times, lest they become old hippies stuck in their ways, left behind by German contemporaries like Kraftwerk. But ultimately, multitracking is what killed Can.

See where before the entire band would record together for hours at a time, instant composing. So Holger could cut and paste the results. The band was now often coming in separately to record their individual parts. Yeah. And Michael actually said it was beneficial to him because when he had to sing, he couldn't sing and play guitar at the same time. So it worked for some of them. And we also I have to be you have to be totally honest, like Michael Corolli in those the classic can albums. It's a lot of fucking mistakes.

There actually are. But that's part of the flavor of the sauce. Yeah, just like almond oil too. Like there's a lot of mistakes in Falistay. Yes, there are actually. They didn't even tune their instruments. But now that they're coming in individually, Holger and Jackie would maybe record the backing track. Then Ermin or Michael would come in later to record keyboards or guitar. But the point is that they were doing it by themselves.

And since these members could come in on their own, they could play their parts over and over again until they were satisfied instead of going with takes that weren't perfect but were still magical. As a result, the music became overworked and the spontaneous magic of Cannes was lost. Yeah, sometimes you can overthink things, right? Oh, yeah. So Holger

At this point, he became uncertain with his role with the band, because if the machine can do it for you, what is he going to do? Yeah, he was the genius. And now the genius is in that machine. And even more conflict was created when Holger decided to try to introduce shortwave radio or Morse code and other noises instead of vocals, because he's like, I got the idea of no one wants to do vocals. We're just going to do this weird shit and we're going to see what happens spontaneously. Right. Yes. But no one was going for it.

Holger felt isolated and he noticed that he just didn't fit in with the band anymore. Like no one was talking to him. Erman did say that Holger suffered the most because he was picked on. He was criticized a lot by the other members in Cannes. Because remember, Holger was responsible for the recording technology. If something broke or didn't work, it's Holger's fault.

But he had to keep up his bass playing. But then again, Jackie thought his bass playing sucked now that he finally learned how to play it right. It's the punk paradox. Yeah. Jackie was like, I loved it when Holger had no idea how to play bass. It was original.

It was really cool. And then now he's like everyone else. Yeah, it's the Peter Hook thing. It's like the reason why Joy Division's bass parts are so incredibly inventive is because Peter Hook didn't know how to play bass. Exactly. And he's completely tone deaf. This is great. Okay, so Ehrman admits decades later that Holger's idea about samples instead of vocals might have worked. It was actually a typical can idea, but they had already drifted too far apart at this point.

And after that, Holger knew his time with the band was over. So he left in 1977. And in his opinion, Ken made the mistake of aiming too high and losing sight of the foundation of their music. The commercial aspect became too important and his ideas just didn't fit in with Ken anymore. And the thing is, Ken actually started out by not fitting in.

in together. Yeah. Which was part of what made them can. Ehrman even said, we weren't like most groups who started out as friends or schoolmates. We came from different points of view to hyper-focus on one sound. Actually, I'm not.

I've always been amazed that we were able to form Cannes at all. And as far as their creative collaborations, after 10 years of working intensely together, Jackie compares it to a piece of rubber or a rubber band or I would say a hair scrunchie. If you stretch it too long over time, it becomes floppy. And with Cannes, once a rubber band was stretched to the max too many times and their sense of togetherness was lost, the rest of the band went their own separate ways at the end of 1978.

Now, while Cannes was in the process of breaking up, not everyone knew that they were winding things down. So in 1978, Ermin Schmidt got a phone call at 3 a.m. from none other than John Lydon, a.k.a. Johnny Rotten. And I did the math. It was 2 a.m. in England and 3 a.m. in Germany. So either way, it was really late. See, as far as we can tell, this call came just after Lydon had quit as the lead singer of the Sex Pistols.

He'd been a massive fan of Kan going back to Tago Mago, and since he knew that Kan had never really settled on a vocalist since Damo left, Leiden figured it wouldn't hurt to ask if Kan might be willing to give him a shot as the frontman. But despite Leiden being one of the most famous singers in Europe at that time, Erman regretfully had to inform him that Kan were already in the process of breaking up, so his services would unfortunately not be needed.

And so, from what we can tell, it seems like John Lydon's next move was to assemble the legendary post-punk group Public Image Limited, who released their debut album in December of that same year. And I think this sounds a bit like Cannes. And it's a tall, wide, and up, you only see me part of the crowd. Don't you see the public in me?

So John Lydon wasn't the only person who desperately wanted to sing with Cannes. Mark E. Smith, the founder, lead singer and principal lyricist of the band The Fall, really wanted to sing with Cannes, too. Even if it was just once, maybe like for a minute, anything. And Mark, he actually didn't believe Ehrman would get over those several phone calls when Ehrman said, Cannes, we're not we're not playing live gigs anymore. Please stop calling. Mark was insistent. He even later told Ehrman, Cannes saved my life. Ehrman,

You saved my fucking life. I even bought Soon over at Babaluna. And Ermin even said, like, it wasn't a bad album. Whatever. Whatever, Ermin. God, he can't help but be an asshole. So no dice for Mark. But that's okay. Mark finally got to immortalize one of his favorite vocalists in a song by The Fall called I Am Damo Suzuki. Generous. She profiles. Witness. Stand. And love me.

Mark to play Drums Come in Bring your drums Come in Fly With your drums Get to the shark Into class Eat more Cuts in that paper bag Goes off into the haze Got no time for western lesson Oh, it's a gig

Nice. It's got a little, oh yeah, feel to it, right? Oh yeah. And there's all these different, like, it's just full of references to Cannes. Like there's a line, it's like, who is Mr. Stockhausen? You know, like stuff like that. Like Marky Smith knew his shit. And no, that wasn't like two songs played at the same time. That's just the fall. So, you know, when Damo first heard that song, I am Damo Suzuki, his first thought was that there must have been another Damo Suzuki that was better known than him. And wow, that guy gets a song. Yeah.

Cool. He's like, wow. And as we said, Ken is super influential and there's so many bands and artists who love them and their music. Some of them might sound a little like a Ken song or many of them don't sound like Ken at all. No. Like John Cage's effect on Ken themselves.

There's a huge list of artists who name check can or sample them, covered them, played with them, has been roommates with them. There's a long list. Besides John Lydon and Mark E. Smith, there's Jeff Barrow from Portishead, Radiohead. Of course, Johnny Greenwood put vitamin C in the movie Inherent Vice. The Flaming Lips, Buzzcocks, Mark Bolin, Hawkwind, Brian Eno, Talk Talk, Mars Volta, All Roads Lead to Cannes, Stereolab, Deathcatch.

Oh, yeah.

See, after spending a couple of years, and this is a direct quote, a couple of years in really intense communication with plants. Sometimes you have to do that. Sometimes Holger returned to his roots, so to speak. Going back to the cut and paste tape editing techniques that were no longer being used by the time Cannes ended, Holger proved himself to be the funny one in Cannes, or at least the strange one.

by recording a slew of highly underrated and innovative albums that were heavy on sampling. I fucking love Holger 2K's fucking movies. The Austin is Rot. They're fucking amazing. They're very good. Holger's playfulness resulted in a sort of surrealist pop that was best exemplified in an almost flirty little disco, not disco number released in 1979. And I got to admit that outside of probably like Turtles Have Short Legs,

I've probably listened to this song more than any song can ever released. Let's get cool in the pool. This is great. This is really great. Let's get hot on the dancing spot. Hot. Oh, is it hot? Then let's get cool.

In the pool, oh let's get cool. Then let's get cool. In the pool, oh let's get cool. Cool together. Cool together. As I expect to know.

And that's Holger using all of those techniques that he wanted to use way back in Cannes. And they're fucking incredible. The shortwave, the fucking the opera that he samples later, the French horn like he he was right. He was fucking right. It did work for him. It did work beautifully for him. And as for Damo, after he left Cannes, he stayed in Cologne for a few months. I think he was waiting to maybe hear from them, but he said he didn't even get a call.

So Damo left Cologne for Dusseldorf with his wife Gitta and had two sons. He spent the next few decades working in a hotel as a night porter, then in construction, then finally in a Japanese company in Germany still, where he worked in the management department. Damo went into management? Yes. I mean, he stayed in Germany. That's not surprising.

But yes, well, he had two sons. He had a family. Yeah. Right. And although he'd go back and visit, he'd never move back to Japan again. He even said himself, I don't think I'm Japanese. I'm some kind of German who speaks Japanese very well. So later in the 80s, Dama was diagnosed with colon cancer and had to endure several surgeries. And it didn't help that he refused a blood transfusion due to his religious beliefs, which made his diagnosis worse with only a 20 percent chance of survival.

Thank you. Mm-hmm.

And later, Damo started the Damo Suzuki Network and a very well-known never-ending tour where he'd play with local musicians in stops all over the world. He played in over 40 countries and in places as remote as the Himalayas. But then after 10 years of fighting his returning colon cancer, Damo Suzuki passed away on February 9th, 2024 in his home in Cologne. RIP to a legend. Of course.

Now, Malcolm Mooney is alive. Yes. He's alive. Malcolm left Cannes and Germany in late 1969. And after spending time recovering from his mental and physical health issues, he went back to school and received his BFA from Boston University School of Fine Arts and later his MFA from California State University. Malcolm did loosely keep in touch with Cannes, especially when they reunited in 1986 to release their one-off Cannes original members reunion album, Right Time, which is a fun time. Yeah. It's the right time.

It's the nighttime. Yes. And Malcolm also released three albums with the 10th Planet, calling the collaboration Malcolm Mooney and the 10th Planet. But later in 2019, he started a new project called The 11th Planets, which included Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley, among others. That's incredible. Yeah. Yeah. And Malcolm, he's taught in universities. He's continued his artwork. He's to date. He's had over 40 exhibitions at museums.

galleries, colleges, and he's still performing music and making art to this day. And Malcolm, he actually did meet Damo Suzuki at one point in the late 80s. I saw a clip of that in the Cannes DVD. Get it? It's a little awkward and Damo looks a lot shorter when you see them together. Damo's tiny.

Yes. And Malcolm and Damo, they became friends. And when Damo passed away this past February, Malcolm eulogized him in a poem. Days have gone by. Can this be? A member has to say farewell, but joins other brothers in the sky. No need to cry. So Damo, rest in power.

And I mean, there's more to that poem. It's really beautiful. Check out MalcolmMooney.com for that poem and his fantastic artwork. It is phenomenal. I'd love to have a Mooney original. Yes, me too. If it's affordable, I will totally buy one.

Now, concerning the man that could easily be considered Cannes' founding member, Ermin Schmidt, he also released a number of solo albums and an opera while composing over 40 film and TV scores in between. He was very highly sought out. Yes. But really, Ermin's greatest endowment to the future is preserving the legacy of Cannes, although one could say that the credit for that should mostly be given to his wife Hildegard, their daughter Sandra, and her husband John O'Podmore.

See, way back in 1979, Hildegard decided to bypass the entire record industry by founding a label called Spoon Records to handle the future release of all material by Cannes. Once again, they bet on themselves, and almost 50 years later, Spoon Records is still releasing Cannes' music.

Just two months ago, Spoon, in conjunction with Mute Records, Hi, Daniel Miller. they released a live recording from their archives, the fifth such release of a Cannes live show in the last three years. These releases are incredible documents of Cannes at their best, and we're all the richer for having access to tracks like this one from 1977. ♪

But perhaps Ermin Schmidt's most important contribution to the legacy of Cannes was the band's biography, All Gates Open. Which we used. Yep. Which, to Ermin's best recollection, finally told the full story of one of the 20th century's most important bands. I really wish he got some of the dates right, but he did get the stories right. And I thank you, Ermin, so much for that.

Like Carolina mentioned earlier when she was talking about John Cage, Cannes wasn't ever trying to sound like Cage, just like they were never trying to sound like Karlheinz Stockhausen, Steve Reich, or Terry Riley. Instead, they were inspired by these artists, not by what they did, but why they did it.

Yeah.

an organism. And really, those words put together may be the best way to describe Cannes' music. It is a magical organism conjured into the world through a ritual of the band's own making. It's an ambitious thing. It's an example of what can be accomplished.

And it's a goal to strive towards for all of us. Yes. Yes. And this kind of ambition usually comes from a unique individual, someone who's different, maybe nerdy, but someone who has something original to offer. It could be a young piano player who outed his Nazi teachers and got expelled for it. Nazi teachers fuck off. Yes.

Exactly. Ermin Schmidt nevertheless continued with his belief of changing the status quo in Germany and started a band that's equally German, but with none of the Nazi past. Sure. Yeah. Which is important. Or it could be someone like Holger 2K, an electronics nerd whose passion was to make music entertaining and creative, but most importantly, fun.

Yeah. Including his wardrobe. And his mustache. Yes. He passed away in a studio in 2017. So R.I.P. R.I.P. And that shows his dedication. The man literally died doing what he loved. On his like a regular work day, basically. And there was Jackie Liebeszeit, also R.I.P. His discipline and austerity freaked everyone out sometimes. But it was that dedication.

discipline and occasional asshole-ness that balanced the wayward form of Kan's instant composition. You also had Michael Carolli, whose guitar skills took them to a level they couldn't have achieved without him. Absolutely couldn't have. And these types of people exist everywhere in the world, but not just in Germany. I mean, they also had American vocalist Malcolm Mooney, who pushed Kan in a new direction when the band was already growing stagnant just a year in. You also had, of course, Damo Suzuki from Japan.

who pushed the band to its highest creative levels with the sheer force of its spontaneity. And when it's all put together, Cannes' best albums feel like living, breathing things. And perhaps that's why they're so important. People care for these albums and keep them alive, either with their love of listening or the inspiration they use to create more groundbreaking art, whatever that art may be.

Holger Chouquet actually put it perfectly when he said that Cannes gave younger generations an example of how to find their own identity by forgetting everything they learned before and starting like a newborn child. And with every new generation that discovers Cannes, new avenues of creativity emerge. Yes. And those avenues always come with an unstoppable motion towards future days.

And that's Can, guys. That's Can. That's Can. All in four parts. How many hours? I don't know. But I want to give some big thank yous. Can I do this real fast? Give some massive shout outs. Yes. Please. Special thanks to Patrick Fisher, our research assistant and associate producer who helped immensely with Can.

the research. I mean, he let us use his brain to translate a bunch of stuff from German to English. And a big shout out to his papa, Mr. Fisher Sr., who also helped in translating some YouTube videos. Thank you very much. Hello. Thanks to Kelsey Netzer for all her help. Very invaluable. And thanks to Emily Votov for her preliminary research. Thank you so much. And thanks to Rob. Rob Oki for editing this episode and the whole Can series. He's amazing. Thank you, Rob. And our sources. Okay, here's their list. And we

We'll put it on Instagram, NoDogsPod, if you want to check it out. Or email me at NoDogsInSpace at gmail.com and I will find the source for you. Some people ask and they're like, oh, don't worry about it. You're too busy. I'm like, I'm waiting for a response. Please, tell me what you want. Yeah. She loves to help. I do, actually. So our main source was All Gates Open, The Story of Cannes by Ermin Schmidt and Rob Young. And we also used the Cannes Box Book compiled by Hildegard Schmidt and Wolf Kappmann. It is a very, very important resource.

I Am Dama Suzuki by Dama Suzuki and Paul Woods. Really great read. Jackie Levisite, The Life, Theory, and Practice of a Master Drummer, edited by Jono Podmore. And also RIP Jackie Levisite. Absolutely. He passed away in 2017. The Can Book by Pascal Bussey and Andy Hall. That one came out in the 80s. It's not super up to date, but it's still really fun. And Future Sounds by Christoph Dahlick.

Couldn't find an English version. So thank you, Patrick, for translating that for us. And begin again, a biography of John Cage by Kenneth Silverman and the Kraut Rock Sampler PDF. Not Julian Cope, although Julian Cope, you know, thumbs up to you and everything. But this Kraut Rock Sampler is over 300 pages of interviews, articles, reviews of Kraut Rock slash Jabot's bands from Cannes to Amandoul to Kraftwerk to Noy and Faust. Check it out. If you can't find it, I will try to put it on somewhere. And of course, more dark than shark, Dr.

such an incredible resource on Brian Eno. I know we didn't talk about Brian Eno, but we almost put him in two episodes. But it also has a ton of interviews of Ken and other German and British bands that Brian Eno championed and also worked with. And of course, a ton on Brian Eno and a million other things. Go down that rabbit hole, please.

Yeah. And then there's rocksbackpages.com. We always use them. And The Road Taken with CT and Bayo, a podcast by the guys of Vampire Weekend. They had a fantastic interview with Malcolm Mooney. It's top-notch interviewing, and they just sound like great dudes. I love it. I don't think they've released anything recently, but I hope they do someday. And then the BBC documentary on minimalism, tones, dones, and arpeggios, The Magic of Minimalism, directed by Ben Whaley, presented by Charles Hazelwood. It is...

is actually very entertaining. I love this documentary. It's two parts, too. Yeah. The Can DVD by Can. Go get it. And also, we have t-shirts at Last Podcast Merch. We got three different kinds in men's and women's sizes. Check them out. Check out our Instagram on NoDogsPod and check out our live stream that is out. We're not doing all

August, unfortunately, because we will be out of town, but we will be back in September. Yeah. And of course, as you know, we're going to be doing a new kind of music. We're going to go back to punk. We're going to do punk 2.0. Yeah. We're going to return to our roots and we will be returning one day, uh, to talk about like some, like specifically like Brian, you know, uh,

And his time in a little city called Berlin. Yes, we're definitely going to get into that sometime for sure. And any questions, suggestions, nice things to say or passive aggressive things to say, please direct them to nodogsinspace at gmail.com and I or someone else will read them. Usually I. So be nice.

And of course, I also pick the band of the week every single week. If you make noise, if you have a band, if you just are some person sitting in your room making something that you think sounds cool, send it to us at nodogsinspace at gmail.com and we'll take a listen. Our band to wrap up our Can Series is Miss Lonely at

of Nashville, Tennessee. You can follow them on Instagram at Miss Lonely Band to see them live. I know they're touring around right now. You can stream them on Spotify or better yet, you can buy their music at misslonelyband.bandcamp.com. They remind me of a band that I was in back in the late 2000s, a band called The Ingenues. Very cool. But check out this song. This is one of their newest singles. It's called Frankenstein Valentine. I love it.

Enjoy, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you so much for taking this fucking journey with us. Yes, we'll be back hopefully, eventually. We'll be back soon enough. Later on, y'all. Goodbye. Learned how to hold my breath at the age of three. Didn't know if I could swim, they threw me in the sea. I sank to the bottom, blowing bubbles out my nose. Became boy in karate, chopping water with the toes. Became too happy, you swallowed our breath and sailed both ways.

♪ You show me how you feel, construction paper ♪ ♪ We dance with you to bar construction ♪ ♪ 'Cause that's by the maker of the monster ♪ ♪ 'Cause that's by the maker of the monster ♪ ♪ 'Cause that's by the maker of the monster ♪ ♪ 'Cause that's by the maker of the monster ♪ ♪ Won't you be, won't you be, won't you be, won't you be ♪ ♪ Won't you be, won't you be ♪ ♪ Ah, won't you be, won't you be ♪

Somebody said you made a monster out of me. It just took a spark, electricity. I rose from the dead, start staggering around. You said I dig you, then you shoved me underground. You can't do it like you used to do. Hold our breath and tell both of us to move. You show me how you feel, construction paper. We dance the beat of our construction paper.

Possessed by the maker of the monster Possessed by the maker of the monster Possessed by the maker of the monster Possessed by the maker of the monster Won't you be, won't you be Won't you be, won't you be Won't you be, won't you be Won't you be, won't you be Frankenstein, Frankenstein In the dark, fill their sight

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