Museum Piece IV

Gentleman....surely we can talk sensibly about this. Watch, as a 1971 TV debate featuring Ohr Records co-owner Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser goes horribly wrong. See the clip here.

News from the vault

Hi all. It has been a couple of weeks so time for a quick update. Having finished the chapter about E2-E4 I'm now busy working on a section about Manuel's archive of unreleased recordings: those made for fashion shows, theatre, screen and also live performances. The part of the book that I'm writing about will also include collaborations and some of the more obscure recordings in the Gottsching discography. After this I will be moving on to Ashra's Tropical Heat album and their performance in Sheffield as part of the UK Electronica Festival, 1985. Anyway: work is mad busy at the moment so must dash. Back soon! Incidentally: I very much doubt that Manuel Gottsching's vault looks anything like the one pictured above.

Answers on a postcard.....

Hi Berliners, and other blog followers too. I have a question for you: do you know anything about the location of the photograph for the above album sleeve, the Virgin Records release of New Age of Earth? Despite my best research the only information I have so far is that the picture was taken somewhere in Berlin but no one is even one hundred percent sure about this. At first I wondered whether the photo had been taken using a model..... Perhaps someone can shed some light on this? If you think you can help please do get in touch.

In other news I have finally managed to track down and watch the 1976 film Le Berceau de Cristal. As there is hardly any dialogue the Ash Ra Tempel soundtrack is much more integral to the overall mood than I could ever have imagined.

...and finally: this weekend I am all set to have another pass at the E2-E4 section of the book and I'm very much looking forward to it. Back soon.

Re-Make/Re-Model

Having spent the last 10 days off work I've had a really good opportunity to get stuck in and make some progress with my writing. Whilst the holiday has been very productive it hasn't quite worked out as I expected. A printout of the third draft persuaded me that the early sections of the book-in-progress needed considerable streamlining. I've been concerned about providing extraneous detail that will end up sending the poor reader to sleep, so I have been busy trimming back or rewriting, and to very positive effect, I think.

Fortunately the weather has been excellent so I've settled into a routine of making the necessary amendments to the paper draft during sunny days in the backyard and then changing my Word document to match with relatively short bursts at the computer. Using this method I've managed to cover a lot of ground and now I'm much happier with the first 60 pages of the work-in-progress.

This break has provided a really nice balance, the days of hard work followed by some pleasant catch-up sessions with good friends during the evenings. An eclectic playlist on my MP3 player has accompanied my days in the sun, from Manuel Gottsching (who else), a lot of music on Pete Namlook's Fax label, ex-Tangerine Dream man Johannes Schmoelling's Zoo of Tranquility through to Underworld, Supertramp and Roxy Music! Variety is the spice of life, or so they say.

Today's re-writing session found me editing a section about the Correlations album and whilst the break didn't pan out as I originally planned, the earlier sections of the book would definitely have required more attention sooner or later. This afternoon, as I sat with a big pile of paper in my hands, I thought about how much work still lies ahead but the bulk of the writing is done now. All I require is the patience to sit and re-make/re-model what I already have.