CAN - THE LOST TAPES (Mute Records 2012)
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Contributed by Jackie McKeown (fearless leader of the following bands: 1990s, The Mars Hotel, and The Yummy Fur, and resident of Glasgow)
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My first encounter with Can was in the late 1980s. Me and some pals made the 400 mile journey from Glasgow to London to see Neubauten play at the Astoria. Having no friends to crash with, we slept rough in the streets. The next morning we made the journey to the Rough Trade shop on the Portobello Road. It was like an Aladdin's Cave of musical treasures. It felt good blowing Thatcher's girocheques on Pussy Galore albums and the beautifully sleeved 'Yu Gung' 12". My mate took a chance on a copy of the
Cannibalism double album. Can was a name that'd been floating about since we'd ditched our Duran Duran Duran albums for the Velvet Underground. Actually, I think I was first aware of them thru a cover of 'Mushroom' on a Mary Chain single from '87. Anyway, we caught the hellish megabus back to Bonnie Scotland and sat up all night listening to this bizarre compilation over and over again.
The Malcolm Mooney-era tracks made the deepest cuts. 'Father Cannot Yell', 'Outside My Door' and 'Yoo Doo Right' seemed to pick up the baton dropped by the Velvets when Cale got booted out for being too interesting. It took us a while to fully appreciate the Damo Suzuki stuff. 'Mother Sky' fit right into our noise-fixated teen psyches but some of the other stuff seemed a bit....well......'funky'. You have to understand that, living in Glasgow in the late 80s, the only time you heard funk was via the blue-eyed-soul of Hipsway and Love & Money whom we wished upon a slow, miserable death. It wasn't till we started bombarding our bodies with drugs that the joys of Funkadelic, Yoko Ono's 'Fly' and Damo-era Can opened up to us. I think with every passing year I've come to appreciate them that little bit more. They're probably the only band I can think of where, no matter how many times you've dived in, there's always something new to be discovered from within their icy teutonic grooves and warm bubblebath glow. But I truly miss that mainline hit of hearing something like 'Oh Yeah' (my favourite) for the very first time. Well finally here's a chance to do exactly that.
Thanks to (Can keyboardist) Irmin Schmidt's wife's incessant nagging, they've finally rolled up their sleeves and set about documenting what lies at the back of the cupboard. And the fruits of this is
The Lost Tapes. A three CD set covering the band's unreleased history from 1968 - 1975. I wanted it. And I wanted it yesterday or sooner. Luckily I remembered that my good friend and all-round stand-up guy Tim B. had been pestering me to write something for Stupefaction. I immediately hit up the caustically funny but warm-hearted Zoe at Mute Records and promised to have 500 words on her desk by Monday morning if she'd send me a copy to review. It is now midnight on Tuesday and I'm due an as yet unknown but surely vile punishment for missing my deadline. Fuck it. I have the recordings and there's 400 miles between me and my sweet executioner. Anyway, this is what I wrote after listening to the whole thing three, maybe four, possibly five times over. Bear with me, this is not a review for the layman (it's not even a review, certainly not in the commercial sense). I can't be arsed knocking out a potted history of the band. If you're unfamiliar with their music or back-story, track down 'Monster Movie', 'Tago Mago', 'Ege Bam Yasi', 'Future Days', 'Delay 1968' and 'Soundtracks' then type 'Can (band) wiki' into yr browser. If yr of the herbal persuasion, call yr guy and order a man-size bag too. You'll be glad you did when the first sweet moments of 'Bel Air' or 'Halleluwah' trickle into yr wee fluffy ears. Anyway, here's me talking at you about german hippies from the future we call the 70s. (
Con't after the jump.)
