Going round in circles

[slinger]

Slinger, you will probably love 'Sounds Like This' and the Roundhouse live album.

[Fretless]

Ha!

There was one shop I had forgotten about. Rock Serwis in Poland (I used them a few years back), they still have copies of the hard-to-find Nektar 'A Tab in the Ocean' in the Deluxe 2CD Remastered format. At a good price. Shipping costs are reasonable too.

Yay!

https://www.rockserwis.pl

[CN211276]

Getting hold of that 'Live Kraut' compilation a while back, featuring a whole parade of 70's Krautrock groups in full, raw power has sparked off my latest round of manic collection fury. German rock bands.

Running through the Eloy catalogue again got me seeing their music with a fresh view and took me back to another old favourite, Nektar. They were (are) a bunch of English musicians who operated from Germany - many thought they were a German band - and who had a brief shot at fame in America.

I heard some of their LP's back in the 80's and two of those stuck with me; the psychedelic 'A Tab in the Ocean' and the circus-based joyride 'Down to Earth'. Both of which still regularly get played. But there is more, much more, the album that almost broke them through to the big-time in the US was a conceptual epic called 'Remember the Future'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3YcB28lq1E



With 2 side-long tracks this LP sounds like Supertramp jamming with the Grateful Dead. Catchy songs interspersed with soaring guitar workouts in one euphoric whole. I've had this on CD for a while but never really got around to listening to it properly before - now I can't stop playing it. Stunning.

Nektar took a slightly more commercial turn later on but still made fine-crafted and enjoyable albums, although not the 'prog' they were associated with. In the 2000's they have reformed with much of the original line-up and returned to their roots with albums like 'Evolution' proving they can still make great music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OY7GmwXjzOo

Check out above the hugely energetic 'Sunday Night Live at the London Roundhouse', It'll blow your socks off!




Next on the list: Grobschnitt.

Playing this now and think it is quite good. I might have heard of them years and years ago with them slipping my mind. The early 70s were the golden years for rock and there is so much out there.

[Fretless]

I've got the Roundhouse album on at the moment and it is a stirring combination of Deep Purple's powerhouse grooving and Pink Floydian space-rock delicacy

Love it.

[Hannes-Gregor]

When I buy music I look around at discogs.com. It's a database where seller around the world could offer their stuff. You find nearly everything and you can sort the results by currency, country to be shipped from (to avoid horrible shipping costs) and condition of the items. Didn't have a bad experience till now. But I only chose LPs in the condition VG+ or better.

[Fretless]

I have never tried that via Discogs. Might be worth a look.

Good tip Hannes.

[Fretless]

Ah well.

Rock Serwis couldn't get hold of those Nektar CD's. But they have immediately returned my payment.

Very efficient.

[Hannes-Gregor]

I have never tried that via Discogs. Might be worth a look.

Good tip Hannes.

Try it. But like on ebay read the comments to the seller. A lot of 'not as described' should take you to another one.

[slinger]

It's worth doing a search for Nektar on YouTube. There's some interesting stuff there, including an Old Grey Whistle Test appearance and a couple of full concerts from 2003 and 2005.

[CN211276]

I have been kicking myself in amazement as to why I never got around to listening properly to the music of Grobschnitt before now. Every album is a source of pleasant surprises - not least because the band never stood still and constantly shifted their goal-posts in search of new musical challenges.

And the Inner Audiophile is deeply impressed by the astonishing quality of the current series of reissues, all lovingly remastered by renowned engineer/producer Eroc in the period 2012-15. Eroc was a founder member of the band, their drummer and chief madcap. Quality of recordings and pioneering sonic techniques were always a Grobschnitt trademark and it ahows!

Yes they were huge in Germany, in a similar way to Genesis in the UK - and the two bands ran fairly parallel developments in order to survive as the 70's turned into the 80's. Prog was dead, singles took over and new technology meant new sounds. Grobschnitt also shifted from English lyrics to singing in their native German - which tends to reduce your international audience. But concentrating on your own home market maintains a solid and faithful fan-base which is very important to most artists.

Going back to the days when I first excountered Grobschnitt - German language texts were somewhat off-putting and the huge shifts in style within one album ('Illegal') were just too much for me to handle then. Older, wiser(?) and certainly more patient now, I take more time to follow what the artist/group is doing, where are they going, what motivated them? Also my years in Holland have shifted my perspective to a pan-European view along with a smattering of German which allows me to follow (a bit) what this band were doing in their later works.

1972 Grobschnitt (style: early Santana)
1974 Ballermann (quirky with superb extended Prog pieces)
1975 Jumbo (english) (style: early Genesis)
1976 Jumbo (deutsch)
1977 Rockpommels Land (amazing Yes-like concept album)
1978 Solar Music Live (powerful instrumental jamming, atmospheric)
1979 Merry-Go-Round (great songs, terrific recording)
1980 Volle Molle - Live (okay/patchy - some good tracks)
1981 Illegal (very varied stylistically)
1982 Razzia (German lyrics, experimental, more electronic, impressive)
1984 Kinder und Narren (German concept album, 80's synth-rock)
1985 Sonnentanz - Live (tight and powerful concert album)
1987 Fantasten (shorter poppier songs - style: Thomas Dolby)

My recommendations to begin a discovery of this extraordinary and unique band would be to start with the exquisitely accessible 'Merry-Go-Round' and the superior Yes-style trappings of 'Rockpommel's Land'.
Happy Listening.


Edit - STILL absurdly cheap at Dodax UK!