guten Tag, Saul!
It's really hard to say exactly what kind of music and who
influenced us..a pretty hard task!!! I'll try it, though I never
considered who our "parents" are.
There was our jazz and free-jazz phase in '67-'69 (with some interruptions as there were for Zappa and Jimi Hendrix). We listened mostly to American Jazz (Archie Shepp, Pharoah Sanders, Miles Davis, Coltrane, McLaughlin etc..). Then suddenly ('69/'70) it was changing very extremely to ...hard rock. We played non-professional in clubs and smaller halls. '71 we started professionaly with KRAAN. We all left home..we "dropped out", stopped studies, school - you know. We lived in Berlin for some time to 'prepare' KRAAN.
We played a lot of oriental things mixed with jazz and the rock. Our first gig in May 71 was a great success for us - so we kept on. Nevertheless it was a hard time for the first two years. We did nothing except music. Now we have Walter (Holzbauer) he does the rest. Since we met him we have more - and only now - gigs to live (with some women and children here in Wintrup). But if you play 3 years in Germany you'd like to leave it for a while...let's hope to get new inspirations in Holland this next week.
I'm glad that you enjoy our writings, 'cause just in the pieces you mentioned, I wrote a lot of music and all the words. "Jack Steam was "invented" before we were KRAAN. I thought it would be a good name for a band but we chose "KRAAN". So I wrote a text and...forgot it until now. Here he is! With the "Wintrup" words I just described the scene here, our daily blues. The other songs express my/our problem of being n and out of the big machine...it's our never ending odyssey. Isn't it?
I never heard the music of DADA - I think I'll visit my record dealer...and Mahavishnu Orch., I think they influence(d) - like once did Coltrane or Hendrix - a whole generation of musicians. And above all, musicians who are "opened" for all impulses.I think we are too. So I might say they did. Just a bit - but they did. You too.
Hope to see you once
yours, Hellmut
discography