Krautrock is a fairly well known and influential category of music. It’s especially renowned in the rock music world. It’s also been one of my favorites for many years.

Originally known as “Kosmische Muzik” (“Cosmic Music”), Krautrock is a rather affectionate moniker for a genre of music that surfaced in West Germany in the late 1960s into the early 1970s and was immensely popular throughout that decade. Krautrock has influenced the music of many musicians of later decades, including names that might surprise some people —contemporary, mainstream artists, such as Donna Summers and Madonna with their styles of electronic dance music.

Krautrock is primarily synth-based and experimental but always with a great groove. The German electronic band Kraftwerk’s track “Trans-Europe Express” and the album of the same title greatly influenced rock, hip-hop and pop of subsequent decades.

The English have always been quite adept at taking something, borrowing (i.e. appropriating) something, and making it something else of it, whether it be influences from Europe or North America , Africa and beyond. They’ve always been great at this, stretching way back to The Beatles. David Bowie was no exception to this trend but I happen to think his was accomplished in the best and most creative of ways. Bowie had a very long and brilliant career as an artist, musician and style trendsetter — someone who was always on the cutting edge of things. He made an album with Brian Eno in 1977 called “Heroes,” which for most musicians was a cornerstone defining for future artists how a recording studio could be an instrument.

For example, the song “V2 Schneider” is the first track on the album and very heavily influenced by the surroundings where the studio where the record was recorded — Hansa Studio 2 in West Berlin, which was located just 500 yards from the Berlin Wall — and the Krautrock movement.

V-2 Schneider - David Bowie - Heroes (1977)

This next song by Brian Eno influenced me enormously and many other musicians. I don’t know anybody who has ever not liked his work. Through a series of coincidences, I had the opportunity to work with Brian briefly in the studio — a great experience — and found out that he has a very good sense of humor. Along with his excellent sense of humor he’s also, of course, a brilliant musician. “Fickle Sun - I’m Set Free” is a reworking of a Lou Reed song, which was included on The Velvet Underground’s third studio album, “The Velvet Underground,” which was released in March 1969.

Fickle Sun (iii) I’m Set Free (Remastered 2023) - Brian Eno - The Ship (2016)

The extent of Krautrock’s influence extended to well established groups of the time, such as Pink Floyd. Roger Waters made a demo called “Roger’s Demo, The Machine Song.” It’s interesting to hear the electronic influence. The band had recently gotten their hands on a VCS3, a portable, modular analog synthesizer. It’s a fascinating instrument that was first introduced in 1969. If you ever see the 1972 Pink Floyd documentary, “Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii,” there’s a studio scene where Roger and David Gilmour are toying with that instrument. Today, this instrument is extremely prized and is worth upward of $50,000, if you can find one.

As a teenager I started thinking about pursuing music as a possible career, which was quite unimaginable at the time for a young person growing up in a small town in northern Ontario but still in the minds of many young people in the 1970s. I was at a friend’s house and one of his siblings had an album that struck me. The band didn’t look like the rock musicians I was used to seeing and hearing. It was the German band Kraftwerk and I was absolutely astounded by their sound. Having grown up listening to guitar-rock music, this music was strange to me. It had no guitars. It was all electronic instruments and repetitive, hypnotic rhythms. Their music sounded both really bizarre yet incredibly cool and futuristic. That record was Kraftwerk’s first album called “Autobahn” and I was forever hooked.

There’s too much to say about Kraftwerk’s influence on artists of the time stretching all the way to today and too many artists to mention here who have been impacted by their avant-garde, experimental and electronic style. The enduring popularity of Kraftwerk has been proven once again in the band’s 2026 Multimedia Tour, which is traveling to Asia, North America, the UK and Ireland, packing halls and earning enthusiastic reviews. Meanwhile, other bands that emerged during the fertile Krautrock period, such as Can (which was formed in 1968, two years before Kraftwerk), Neu!, Faust and Tangerine Dream — to name just a few — continue to have timeless appeal and to exert their powerful, unique musical imprint in new and intriguing ways.

Krautrock (2006 digital remaster) - Faust - Faust IV (Deluxe Edition) (1973)

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Jim Northrup, Ojibwe, was from the Fond du Lac Reservation in north central Minnesota. He wore many hats. He was a poet, author, columnist, playwright, performer, political commentator and humorist of much note not only in and around his home territory in Minnesota but also well known nationally and internationally for his wit and wisdom. Jim wrote several books, published a boatload of columns for such publications as The Circle, a monthly newspaper published in Minneapolis, and News from Indian Country, the oldest independent, privately-owned monthly newspaper published by journalist Paul DeMain (Ojibwe/Oneida) near Hayward, Wisconsin, now defunct.

Jim’s words and performances touched a lot of people as they related to his experiences both as a U.S. Marine during the Vietnam War and also living a traditional Ojibwe lifestyle. His thoughts were expressed in a manner that was deeply moving with a good dash of Native humor woven in. Most of all, he was a storyteller par excellence.

Jim died of lung cancer on August 1, 2016. He was 73. He was straightforward, matter-of-fact, when asked about death. He didn’t fear death and I believe thought of it as just another part of his journey through the universe.

This poem, which I read on my former overnight radio program, summed up life and death for me in a way that was simple, direct, extremely thought-provoking, and profound.

I read somewhere that before Jim passed away, he was realistic and humorous, as always, even when talking about his impending death. He had even composed a few epitaphs for his gravestone. I especially liked the one: “See, I told you it wasn’t the flu!”

End of the Beginning

Someone said we begin to die
the minute we’re born.
Death is a part of life.
Who knows why the Creator
thins the herd.
Another old saying says
we must all be prepared
to give up those we love
or die first.
Take time to mourn.
Take time to remember.
Everything happens in cycles.
The pain you feel was once
balanced by someone’s joy
when that baby was born.
The loss you feel today
will be replaced by good
long-lasting memories.
Is there a message here? Yeah,
treat others like this
is your last day above ground.

https://www.mixcloud.com/RadioKingston/jim-northrup-the-end-of-the-beginning-poem-live-overnights-wmalcolm-burn/

Google Jim and find out about his books, poetry and other writings. I especially recommend his 2011 book, Anishinaabe Syndicated: A View from the Rez, which is a compilation of his popular column, Fond du Lac Follies, published between 1989 through 2001. But all of his books are worth reading.

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