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Kraftwerk’s Florian Schneider remembered – a personal reflection on a music pioneer

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By on Opinion

Kraftwerk at Liverpool Philharmonic

As the world mourns the death of Florian Schneider, Getintothis’ Banjo reflects on the legacy of a man who changed the music landscape well ahead of his time.

Kraftwerk were silent pioneers.

Not for them the noisy big bang of a Sex Pistols or a Led Zeppelin, there’s was more influence by stealth.

But noisy or not, in many ways, Kraftwerk are the most influential band the world has ever seen.

Their futuristic soundscapes were so beyond our expectations and so technologically advanced that they were featured on Tomorrow’s World, a geeky 70’s program that looked at innovation so cutting edge it merited discussion on prime time TV.

On Tomorrow’s World, Kraftwerk were shown hitting shiny metal pads with what looked like knitting needles while Florian Schneider turned knobs on a control panel. The commentary told us that “last year, they removed the last recognisable instrument; a violin” before delving into hyperbole with “Next year Kraftwerk hope to eliminate the keyboards altogether, and build jackets with electronic lapels that can be played by touch“.

As this last sentence struck home, Schneider looks up from his knob twiddling and smiles a huge cheesy grin straight into the camera, looking more like an insurance salesman than the future of music.

This was about as far away from rock ‘n’ roll as it was possible to get.

To be honest, there was a touch of Kraftwerk being a novelty in this reportage, a sense of them being almost ridiculed. But Kraftwerk were to have the last laugh.

In the early 80s, a friend of mine was heavily into Kraftwerk. At the time I was still stoking the embers of punk and feeling that any band who didn’t create monstrous walls of noise were pretty much done. And, to make things worse, Kraftwerk looked so fucking square!

Given the lack of anyone else to ask, he pestered me to go to see them at Liverpool’s Royal Court. I refused repeatedly, until he said he would pay for my ticket and buy the drinks. Suddenly it was too good to turn down.

When they were due on stage, I thought their set looked incredible. Huge banks of keyboards and control desks and four huge screens above them. It felt like I had seen the command deck of a spaceship.

I thought I was in for an incredible experience, electronic lapels or no.

But their music didn’t hit home and the screens just showed endless loops of motorway journeys or train tracks, mostly in black and white.

This, of course, was part of the point, the repetition was a huge part of their ouvre.

I liked their Computer World album well enough, but this just wasn’t for me at the time.

The trouble was that Kraftwerk were so far ahead of the curve that those of us, like me, who were not able to keep up, simply lost sight of them.They didn’t chime with my punk conscience at the time.

The fault here was entirely down to me – I simply wasn’t ready for Kraftwerk‘s vision of the future.

Kraftwerk – a buyer’s guide to the band that shaped modern music

Nowadays, I adore them. I have managed to find a recording of the Royal Court show and it sounds amazing. Looking back, I kick myself for not appreciating it more at the time, but it took me years to catch up with what they were doing.

In the late 80s and early 90s I was completely caught up in the dance music boom and all the innovators of this scene took huge amounts of influence from Kraftwerk and how they worked.

Finally, it seemed like the whole world caught up with them. Although it took some of us a while.

Their influence is made even more clear by the selection of posts we mined from Twitter in just a few moments. The band inspired so much and there is a lot of music we listen to today that owes a massive debt to Kraftwerk.

 

https://twitter.com/hollyherndon/status/1258070725488979970

 

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