Wolfgang Flür

In which Wolfgang Flur joins a beat group - The Beathovens (oh dear), then The Spirit of Sound, and then Kraftwerk, mainly because he thought Michael Rother, his bandmate in The Spirit of Sound was in it - but he'd left. And so for the next 16 years Flur becomes a "musical worker" - building his own electronic instrumentation, his description of which is possibly the most interesting part of the book, living with Karl Bartos and Kraftwerk collaborator Emil Schult, hanging around the Kling Klang Studio, and playing live - a lot; Kraftwerk played live a lot more often in their early years than I thought.

And what else? Well, Wolfgang eats a lot of ice cream and cake, likes driving nice cars (although Ralf and Florian's are more expensive, and flashier), enjoys himself with groupies, rather pathetically meets the love of his life in Budapest, then loses her phone number, likes Hungary and Japan, doesn't like India or Poland, tries to take up cycling but gives it up after a crash, and tells tour anecdotes, some amusing, some not so much

I understand why he does this - he wants to show that underneath the robotic image, they were just a bunch of lads really, not much different to any other band. Fair enough, but the groupie stuff is a bit "Ewww". What we don't hear about much is the music. How did Kraftwerk become so prescient about the future of music, and the future generally? in 1981, when Computer World was released, computing and especially home computing was very specialist. Electric Cafe, their 1987 release may not be their best record but it does predict the Internet. How did this happen? We don't learn. You feel that perhaps Wolfgang doesn't know, perhaps the majority of the creativity did come from Ralf and Florian, and they didn't bother sharing the concept with the workers. But anyway, about the music he is mainly silent which is a shame

This is the extended version of the book; as with many extended versions it doesn't work. There is an overly long dream sequence which really just wastes trees. There is also some discussion of the lawsuits that have plagued the book since its original attempted publication at the beginning of the century. Wolfgang feigns bemusement as to why Ralf and Florian wanted the book suppressed - well, Wolfgang, I would suggest its probably driven by a few factors - such as the groupies, the suggestion you didn't get paid fairly, and the fact that you claim to have invented instruments that they have patented. There are some claims in the extended version which should bring on a new flurry of lawsuits too - although the description of the now 70 year old Ralf, performing in a "spiderman costume" is pretty funny

So overall, nowhere near as good as it could of been. And its either badly translated (although I didn't see a translator credit, so maybe not) or written in not very good English. But most of all, far too many sour grapes… (més)

Wolfgang Flur was in Kraftwerk during their most successful time, but it didn't last and here he has the opportunity to tell us why. Although not in tremendous detail because there were law suits flying.

So what we are left with is a insight into Wolfgang's life, who he liked and who he loved. There's quite a bit of who he loved but that's life. There are stories of Kraftwerk on tour, he does know how to tell a story, he's quite chatty which is nice. Towards the end though he drifts into pure fantasy and that's where I give up, he is also keen to do some self promotion for his musical projects.

I'm a Kraftwerk fan so I'm keen to hear anything I don't know and there's not much out there. As for Kraftwerk they carry on without him and still tour but for new music....we wait.… (més)

The autobiography of Wolfgang Flür and how Kraftwerk failed to make use of this uniquely creative and gifted and all-around wonderful individual.

For claiming to have left Kraftwerk behind and moved on, Wolfgang talks of very little else, and for someone claiming not to be bitter he is surprisingly fierce, gets upset over the silliest things, takes hearsay as proof and doesn't check sources, referring instead to his "pixel-perfect" memory. Apparently there are some dead pixels in it -- his grasp of years and numbers is slightly worse than J.K. Rowling's. A year more or less wouldn't matter, if the big points he is trying to make hadn't depended on his chronology, which is significantly at odds with actual history. A couple of examples:

* Wolfgang makes a big point of hearing The Who's "My Generation" at the age of 16. In reality, he was 18 when it was released -- a non-trivial age difference, especially given where and when he heard it.

* Wolfgang is very offended by the poster campaign for The Mix. How can his former bandmates be so insensitive? Have they no shame, to portray themselves as robots with artificial arms, when there is a civil war going on in Bosnia where children are getting their arms blown off for real? However, when the single "The Robots" and the album The Mix were released (by which time the press photos of the robots had circulated for several months already), the war in former Yugoslavia hadn't even started in the first place and wouldn't spread to Bosnia for nearly another year.

I don't claim to find Ralf and Florian very sympathetic after some of their actions over the past few years, but Wolfgang doesn't really make a good impression here, as a person or as a writer. The book is rather badly written (or maybe just badly translated), scarcely proofread, full of contradictions and factual mistakes; still, in all its bonkerosity, it is interesting for the serious Kraftwerk fan, as long as you don't take it as Truth.… (més)