True Stories, A Film By David Byrne: The Complete Soundtrack

Es war einmal ein Film: True Stories von 1986, gedreht unter der Regie von Talking-Heads-Mastermind David Byrne. Der präsentiert uns eine skurrile Rundfahrt durch Smalltown America am Beispiel des imaginären Städtchens Virgil, Texas -- seine Mall, seine Bewohner, ihre Macken, ihre Unterhaltungsvorlieben.

Ich habe den Film seinerzeit auf Tele 5 in einer deutsch synchronisierten Fassung gesehen und fand ihn witzlos. Allerdings gab es dazu auch die Filmmusik, gespielt von den Talking Heads, und dieses Album gehörte mit seiner merkwürdigen Melodien- und gelegentlichen Walzerseligkeit schon bald zu meinen Heads-Favoriten. Ich mag die Scheibe noch immer.

Vor einem halben Jahr habe ich den Film zufällig als Netflix-DVD entdeckt und ihn erstmalig in der unsynchronisierten Originalfassung gesehen. Erst da ist mir bewusst geworden, wie verdammt gut dieser Film eigentlich war, wie scharf Byrne beobachtet, ohne jemals böse oder zynisch zu sein (das wäre leicht), was für eine melancholisch-absurde Komik dieser Film stellenweise besitzt, und wie wunderbar die Videoclips in den Film passen, die sich Jonathan Demme mit seinem Kunstköpfchen zur Talking-Heads-Musik hat einfallen lassen.

Und jetzt gibt es den ganzen Soundtrack des Films.

Und erst jetzt ist mir so ganz klargeworden, wie gut zum Teil diese Filmmusik war, nicht zuletzt auch die Originale, die nicht von der Stimme Byrnes geprägt sind. Erstaunliche Überraschungen kann man da erleben -- z.B., dass im Titeltrack keine Geringere als Meredith Monk mitgewirkt hat (die 1986 ebenso wie David Byrne offenkundig ihren Philip Glass zum Frühstück genossen hatte), oder das Kronos Quartet in der "Dinner Music". Abenteuerlich die "Mall Music", gespielt von einem Carl Finch auf einem Hobbykeyboard (dem Sound nach wohl ein Yamaha-Gerät). Ein Titel wie "Wild Wild Life", gespielt auf einer Pedal Steel Guitar, gewinnt eine völlig neue Dimension, und auch der "Dream Operator", gespielt auf Gläsern, entwickelt einen unwiderstehlichen Charme.

Dazu kommen einige Talking-Heads-Songs in deren unveränderter Originalfassung, eine Reihe von Songs, die von anderen Originalinterpreten dargeboten werden und bislang auf keiner Platte zu finden waren. Sehr hörenswert zum Teil auch die Talking-Heads-Songs, die auf diesem Album mit den Interpreten zu hören sind, die im Film singen.

Was soll man sagen? Ein verblüffend gutes, hoch unterhaltsames Scheibchen. Hätte ich nicht erwartet.

(Zuerst veröffentlicht in manafonistas.de)

Conny Plank -- The Potential Of Noise

This is the English-language version of a music docu by Reto Caduff, Ziska Riemann and Stephan Plank, finished in 2017. It is now on its way through selected U.S. movie theaters and festivals.

For Conny Plank, as the film shows at the beginning, every kind of noise had the potential to become music. Conny Plank, needless to tell, was one of Germany's most important sound engineers and record producers during the 1970s and 1980s. He passed away in 1987 at the age of only 47. Only in parts this film is a portrait of Conny Plank. It is also a film of a son in search for traces of his father -- a father who was never really present although he always was at home, and who sadly passed away from cancer when the son was only 13.

For sure it's not easy to be the junior of a father who was seen as a legend already in his active years, who worked in his studio around the clock, was busy all the time and didn't seem to care about his son as much as he probably had wished he could. Some of the interviewees, like Annette Humpe or Holger Czukay, go especially into this, which sometimes spread a veil of sadness over the film.

Now, 20 years after his father's passing, Stephan Plank in Germany, Great Britain, France, the U.S. and Italy visits some of the musicians his father produced. Stephan Plank leads interviews with his father's mentor Wolfgang Hirschmann (who modestly declines this role) or Daniel Miller of Mute Records as well as some of the musicians he met as a kid when he was playing around in the studio or around the house: Michael Rother, Hans-Joachim Roedelius, Robert Görl of DAF, David A. Stewart of Eurythmics, Midge Ure of Ultravox, Les Rita Mitsouko, Gianna Nannini, Devo, hip-hop duo Whodini and many others. Besides this, some snippets from radio or TV interviews with Conny are shown.

Some names one would have expected are missing, especially Brian Eno, as well as somebody of Kraftwerk. Some of the interviews are not very effective or show productions of "minor" records -- like Annette Humpe who talks about the production of the first album she did with her sister Inga (Humpe & Humpe), which is a nice record that somehow drowned, but no word about the second Ideal album which for my taste was much more important.

But of course the most recordings done at Conny's Studio haven't been filmed or documented otherwise, so there's nothing that could be shown. However, between all this there's space enough for personal keepsakes -- home videos, old photos, record covers, posters et cetera. It becomes also clear very soon that without Conny's wife Christa Fast the whole studio business would have been impossible.

The studio itself seemed to be surprisingly small, cramped and very dark, and I would really like to know why he needed no less than 56 channels on his mixing console. Not mentioned in the film is that many of Conny's early productions were made in several studios; especially at Star Studio and Windrose-Dumont-Time in Hamburg where Conny lived at that time. He opened his own studio in Wolperath not before 1974.

The Potential Of Noise is worth seeing, but don't expect any sensational news or deeper psychological insights. The DVD cover shown above isn't the current one anymore. The name Conny Plank has been brought more to the foregound now and the name Kraftwerk is gone. Whatever the reasons may be.

(Trailer, German language) 

(This post has been published first in manafonistas.de.)

Wolfgang Schlüter 1933-2018

One of the great ones on vibraphone and marimba has left us. Rest in peace and thank you for the music.

NDR radio has an obituary here (German language)