Tag Archives: Neu!

AH, VIENNA

Vienna, the 1980 LP by UK synth-pop art rockers Ultravox, kicked off the second phase of their career.  Original frontman John Foxx had departed in 1979 after three albums and an unsuccessful foray into the American market. But keyboard player Billie Currie—who had worked with Midge Ure in Visage—convinced Midge to join Ultravox and revitalise […]

73 FROM ’73 | AN INTRODUCTION

From the time I first extracted the more than three hundred 1973 albums in the VC collection I knew that 73 FROM ’73 would be a challenging project. And that was before I’d even researched the holes in the stash. No New York Dolls! Betty Davis overlooked! Where’s Aerosmith? Oh, the shame. Then I mulled […]

1972 COUNTDOWN: #4 — #3

4  NEU! — NEU! ‘Hallogallo’ fades in with a repeated guitar dot over a strange percussive clack. It insinuates itself into the room and your consciousness, an hypnotic groove, repetitive yet captivating. Welcome to the strange and wonderful world of Neu! The beginning of the Neu! story is part of the early Kraftwerk story. Michael Rother and Klaus Dinger […]

LAB REPORT

There are only so many times you can say g’day to a workplace acquaintance before you find yourself talking about music. This well known fact was supported by extensive laboratory research at the second-last university I worked for.  One morning, queuing at the best caffeine source on campus, I struck up a conversation with a […]

TEN FROM 77 – 2 / ELECTRONIC – 1

It seemed a fine idea to whip up a list of favourite 1977 releases; a straightforward, accessible and hopefully entertaining article. Things started well enough, with the first post of rock-pop albums eliciting plenty of commentary as people compared their own choices to the Vinyl Connection offering. But there was such variety in the VC […]

THE NEU! GROOVE [PART 2]

Last week Vinyl Connection introduced the self-titled debut album by the highly influential German band Neu!. The story continues… * For an unknown band releasing a first album, Neu! achieved significant success. It helped that highly respected and influential radio disc jockey John Peel was a big fan, resulting in solid sales in Great Britain […]

HELLO HALLOGALLO! [PART 1]

I cannot remember the date, but I recall the exact location where I took delivery of Julian Cope’s slim but influential paperback Krautrocksampler in Autumn 1996. There was a palpable thrill in opening the mail box near the front door at Langentalstraße 6 and finding a small parcel addressed to me. Not to Herr Schmidt […]