Kraftwerk: A band for old people?

A young person questions GRAHAM REID.

So at the Big Day Out this year, Kraftwerk is the band for old people, huh?

Oh, absolutely. You can keep your rowdy rockers, hands-in-the-air DJs and the new garage rock movement. Brunhilde and her friends from the organic shop are only going because of Kraftwerk.

I used to think Kraftwerk was some kind of cheese, but my uncle said they were Germans who did this weird repetitive music. So who are they?

In a sentence? They are a German electronic-techno-art concept group who had a hit single in 75 with the electro-minimalist Autobahn - which ran a full 17 minutes on the album. Or maybe it was 20. It was very long anyway. But really, really hypnotic, honest. And good.

Sure, I believe you. But, in 75? You mean they had a hit the same year Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters turned six and Dion of the D4 probably wasn't even born?

Umm, yeah. But hang on, they influenced a lot of people because they did interesting stuff with synthesisers.

Oh, like Gary Numan and Tubeway Army. I really loved that thing of theirs, my mum had it on an 80s greatest hits.

Yeah, I suppose Kraftwerk have to take the blame for Are Friends Electric. But they really were much more interesting than that. They influenced Joy Division and New Order too, and Ultravox.

Who?

Well, you can look them up, they were really good post-punk British bands and New Order rocked the Big Day Out last year. Even though they were old guys they were still okay, and Kraftwerk should be much the same.

Uh-huh. So how did these geeky, science teacher-looking guys influence all these people?

Well, they did this kind of robotic industrial rock-pop which was really catchy, sort like a celebration of motorways and industry, but with a real pop sensibility. They weren't called "the Beach Boys from Dusseldorf" for nothing, you know.

I've heard of Dusseldorf but who are the Beach Boys?

No matter. But what you need to know is Kraftwerk actually rock - but not in the usual drums'n'guitars or turntable-skipping way. They play synthesisers and their robotic beat influenced disco as well.

What, like Donna Summer and that stuff my dad liked when he was a kid?

Exactly. Her classic I Feel Love owes heaps to Kraftwerk. And so do a whole bunch of DJs like Derrick May, who used to boast he brought Kraftwerk's Trans-Europe Express hit to the Bronx. Afrika Bambaataa was a huge fan and Quincy Jones, who produced Michael Jackson's Thriller album, said he was influenced by Kraftwerk's electro-funk when making that album.

Derrick May? Wow. So they are Germans, but funky?

Yeah, I know that sounds weird, but it's actually true. I guess, however, that when cheap technology came along - and them being meticulous Germans who wanted to spend years in a studio - the world just went right past them in the late 80s. They split up for a while, I think.

So I can get why people who remember them might like them, but why should my friends Chantelle, Maddison and Josh care when basically they are just a bunch of old German guys making a kind of music that New Order did much better?

Because they are a bunch of German old guys, actually. You can name-drop the classical composer Stockhausen because a couple of them studied under him, you can talk down the nonsense of the fascist imagery on the album covers (it's actually Russian constructivist on their debut album The Man-Machine), and if you want to impress your English teacher you can dismiss the David Bowie-Brian Eno albums Heroes and Low as being shallow copies of Kraftwerk.

They aren't, but that's not important. Your teacher was probably too young for Kraftwerk anyway. Better than that though, Kraftwerk are kinda fun in a jerky-arms, strutting-to-the-beat way. You can just enjoy them without caring too much about anything else.

So they aren't political despite what they look and sound like?

Absolutely not. Except in that very Germanic sense where you can have the uniforms, the image, the Futurist manifesto of man-and-machine, and the military-industrial backdrop of their music - but still be non-political. I guess it's German irony. They are so non-political that one-time member Wolfgang Flur wrote in his autobiography of the "dreadful mass stupidity and repulsive military fanaticism of a generation submissive to orders". I mean, that's really non-political, right?

Oh, sure. But they are German and uniformed and humourless-looking. My friend Brandelle says her uncle Jason reckons they sound like the computer Hal from that weird 2001 movie.

Well, I guess.

But hey, talking of movies - that was them in The Big Lebowski, huh? The red-shirted German nihilists that got whacked with the bowling ball? That was funny and they were kinda dicky.

Well, actually it wasn't them, but pretty close. Those nihilists were supposedly a German electronic group called Autobahn, and the album cover you briefly see neatly mimics Kraftwerk's The Man-Machine cover. So it was a pretty good parody of them. But let's scotch the rumour that the Chemical Brothers played those German nihilists. Although Flea from the Chili Peppers was one apparently.

You mean Flea from the Chili Peppers who played the Big Day Out alongside the Chemical Brothers two years ago?

Yeah, eerie huh?

Oh, yeah. A very Germanic irony I guess.

* Kraftwerk play the the Boiler Room at 7.45pm.

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