After Eight. Neu. 1975. Brain.

 Germany in the twentieth century was the site of Nazism, the Berlin Wall, and Baader Meinhof terrorist attacks. It is fixed in my imagination, like the States and Great Britain, as a locus of extreme behavior and therefore difficult to imagine as a place without punk rock antecedents. Barbed wire and the Stasi. Arbeit Macht Frei. And, as an old English philosopher once reminded us, “cheap dialogue. Cheap essential scenery.” Compared to the miscreant youth who helped to inaugurate America’s nascent punk scene, most of whom were charmed with the cultivated sexy allure of street delinquency and glamor, the German stars behind krautrock were endowed instead with intellectual charisma, the ascetic glow of visionaries freshly emerged from their  sequestered cells after rigorous study and impassioned syllogistic debate. The last track of Neu’s legendary first three records, After Eight is equal parts New York Dolls outtake and Universtät dialectic. It signifies so strongly because of its outtake, throwaway quality; instead of Klaus Dinger’s buried vocal, you half expect to hear a jubilant chorus of “Someone’s in the kitchen with Dinah!” It’s no surprise that Neu’s final record influenced the mid-seventies wave of British punk. It sounds not so much a challenge to the established recording industry as it does a vibrant and flippant dismissal of it. 


June 21 021

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