I’m going to see Damo Suzuki at Mono in Glasgow tomorrow night with a group of married straight male friends. It made us ponder how much listening to CAN music is a bit of a solitary affair, in that we can only really do it when our wives aren’t present.
Which made us wonder, do any women actually like CAN?
Which made we wonder, what other music seems to be the sole domain of men?
I’m slightly worried that I’m actually sexist for even asking this.
Anyway, looking forward to the gig, and I’ll try and review it for here. I haven’t a clue what he’s going to look like or sound like or anything.
minibreakfast says
I know a woman who likes Can.
Hope this helps.
Edit: I’ve never heard a note by them, but from what little I’ve read (mostly on here probably) they strike me as a band that a) you have to go out of your way to hear, i.e. never on the radio, and b) have a certain cache, in that they are seen as ‘cool’ to like. Perhaps this appeals to males significantly more than females. I dunno.
Locust says
I’ve never heard them either, and the reason why I’ve never looked their music up on YouTube or Spotify (or in record shops back in the day) is that the men who talk or write about them never make their music sound at all exciting. Which is probably due to the coolness factor; “Ah, yes – Can…(nodding knowingly, scratches beard)…did you know that (inserts obscure Can fact of very limited interest)…I prefer the (first/third/seventh album/demo/bootleg) of course”. They never say anything useful about the music and why it’s so fantastic and why you just have to listen to it. Perhaps they are afraid that some other Can fan will ridicule their explanation and tell them that they obviously don’t GET IT! 😉
Anyway, they make it seem very dull, like some massive homework for a Masters degree. I don’t like homework, but I do like some very odd and challenging music – you just have to make it sound interesting and fun enough to give it a go!
So: why is Can fantastic and why would I love it if I listened to it (despite being a guurl)?
The Good Doctor says
It’s all about when they slip into the motorik groove – I just like the relentless chug they get into. No Mahavishnu noodling or tempo changes they just lock in – It’s dance music.
They could sort of do cosmic disco too, This got in the UK charts
minibreakfast says
Just remembered I bought that single in a chazza a few months ago.
Must listen to it…
Alias says
I have this ‘Record Of The Week’ email exchange with a few friends. It was on one of these that I heard my first and only Can song. They had definitely been listening to James Brown.
yorkio says
I once got a very excited text from a friend informing me that Damo Suzuki was at that very moment sitting in her kitchen drinking a cup of tea. (A friend of ours was playing drums for him at the time and had brought him round for a cuppa.) So, yes, some women definitely do like Can.
moseleymoles says
Seems LCD Soundsystem got it wrong and should have been ‘Damo Suzuki’s sitting in my house, my house. The drum kit is in the garage’.
The Good Doctor says
Yes trust me Some Women like Can, you just haven’t met any. I have. Hopefully you will meet some tomorrow night. Enjoy the gig.
What music is the sole domain of men? No idea but I have no desire to hear it. I suspect some of the more bloke-centric Afterworders would love such a thing.
Neela says
What music is the sole domain of men?
Nickelback. No woman has taste that terrible.
The Good Doctor says
P.S. the final line-up of The Fall are backing Damo in Salford on Saturday May 12.
dai says
What about your gay male friends?
Arthur Cowslip says
I have none.
Neela says
They just like Rufus Wainwright, nothing else. Fact, people.
SteveT says
Nah they like The Scissor sisters too.
Stephen-toy says
Yes. I was introduced to CAN by a best friend who bought me Tago Mago as a birthday present, she is indeed female. There is a good chance she will be at that gig tomorrow.
Arthur Cowslip says
This thread is quite illuminating actually. Not the male/female thing, which I think was a red herring, but the idea that Can are perhaps only an image thing, a faux-intellectual badge of coolness.
There’s some truth in that, I think. It would be dishonest to deny it. (Not that I have a problem with that – image, and the idea of buying into a select tribe based on image, is a big part of pop music, isn’t it?)
But with Can I think there’s more. If there truly has been no great writing to convince people that their best music (once you whittle down the pretentious noodly stuff) is funky and life affirming, then that’s a shame.
To me their signature tune is Vitamin C. I’ve never really heard a rhythm like that before or since. It’s effortlessly funky, but also with a jazz-like precision – like a very talented octopus he’s all over the drum kit. ‘Jazz’ is maybe the wrong word, and a trigger of avoidance to some. I don’t mean light, brushy, shimmering jazz (there’s hardly any cymbals, for a start) – it’s kind of tribal sounding, with the push-and-pull focusing on the stuttering kicks and toms.
Over the top of that you get a mad wee Japanese guy shouting nonsense lyrics, and the band themselves wisely keep it minimal to avoid overshadowing that mighty, mighty rhythm. It’s the rhythm I love and that I find infectious.
There’s a softer side to Can as well, which comes out in songs like Future Days and Gomorrah. The incessant rhythm is still there, but it’s muted, and just supplements nicely the hypnotic, ambient feel. Songs like these are not unlike that kind of art pop stuff that Eno and Bowie dabbled in back in the mid 70s.
But Vitamin C is the one. Give it a go if you’ve never heard it. Possibly my favourite drum performance of all time. Jaki Leibezit, by the way – just realised I haven’t mentioned the drummer’a name.
duco01 says
“what other music seems to be the sole domain of men?”
Well, I suppose the obvious and rather predictable answer here is ‘free jazz’.
For some reasons, most women’s record collections are not exactly crammed with albums by Archie Shepp, Cecil Taylor. Peter Brötzmann, Anthony Braxton, Ornette Coleman, Pharoah Sanders Borbetomagus, Albert Ayler and late-period John Coltrane. I know that when I put on “Spiritual Unity”, Mrs duco01 will normally say something like “Usch … det här är inte kul.”
retropath2 says
I’m somewhere between Loki and Art. Homework is maybe a good analogy, in the same way you suddenly “get”, years later, Thomas Hardy, having had him thrown at you at school. Much is still impenetrable stodge, but, actually via Vitamin C, my gateway after hearing it on a soundtrack, I could see some light. I think Jaki was one of the drummers of the 20th/21st century.
Ladies: what do you think?
Probably a few gents who think this is their sold-out commercial dross, mind…..
Arthur Cowslip says
I didn’t realise Vitamin C was their commercial side! I suppose it is, when you compare it to stuff like Augmn….
bang em in bingham says
I put the edited version of “Augmn” on a tape for my then girlfriend way back when. She is now my wife of thirty years and counting. I think the statement about Can is for males only, is a wee bit typical of that “girls dont like this blah blah blah” syndrome. It probably just a rubbish theory really. Its just part of that, things men talk about in pubs like trainspotters, gubbins. It has always been and will always be so. Women coudnt really give a crap about that, they just listen without prejudice or preconception, hear a piece of music, either like it or dont like it, dont even think of analyzing it, and simply move on.
Locust says
Hey, I’ve heard that song before…but I didn’t know it was by Can, because I heard it in a (very good) Swedish version (with Swedish lyrics) by Mattias Alkberg! His version is called Serotonin:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3qMQZ-68q8
Liking this and “I Want More” above, I may investigate further… 🙂
Neela says
How about Ege Bamyasi and Tago Mago to start with? The latter is way out there. And lovely. Well, they both are.
Locust says
I’ll have a listen when I have the time and money. Not a fan of Spotify (are they even on Spotify?)
When I was young I’d listen to lots of old, but the ones I missed at the time are mostly likely to stay unheard, as I find that the older I get, the more I want to listen to new music! Given the choice of spending my money on a brand new album by a new, young band/artist or a “classic” album by some old “legend”, I’ll go for the new every time. Some old albums are of course cheaper than new ones, but a lot of them are of the remastered/added content kind, making them silly expensive. And almost always disappointing… 😀
(Bad Afterworder! Go stand in the corner!)
RubyBlue says
I heard Vitamin C aged about 18 and it changed my muscial landscape. Enter (predictably) Neu, and so on.
So yes, women can like Can.
[GENERALISATION ALERT] I suspect more men than women are interested in the technical virtuosity of musicians; I have an appreciation of this of course but no real deep interest or knowledge and have no interest in picking apart playing, or instruments, or orchestration etc.
Arthur Cowslip says
Yes! ‘Changed my musical landscape’ … that’s it exactly, same here. It got me addicted to drums and rhythm.
I heard it about 91/92, when I was 19. My friend had heard Mark E Smith talking about them on Radio 1 and we tracked down the Ege Bam Yasi album. I remember thinking Vitamin C sounded so modern and striking, not like the noodly 70s prog I was expecting.
Other Can songs that I think are in the same vein (funky, exciting, sunshine songs):
Connection
I’m So Green
Mushroom
RubyBlue says
Yes, that’s it- they weren’t what I expected, at all. At the same time, at the same club I think, I heard ‘Alone Again Or’ and I was off. (Totally different, of course, but I went off at another musical tangent. And another. And….)
Tahir W says
About ten years ago I met a young woman, about half my age, in a bar who was an enthusiastic Can fan. She was the only person I’ve ever met in a bar who wanted to talk about Can and one of the very few people I have met who already knew about them. She was seemingly surprised at this older guy being into Can. Truth is, I’d been a fan since the mid 1970s. And they are still my most enduringly favourite group. A bunch of highly trained musicians who played stuff nothing at all like prog. All women should be able to dig that.
moseleymoles says
Daughter moles is digging Can, as she devours the entire rock canon. Not only digging Can but going with Ms Moles to see King Crimson in the autumn, another band that are perhaps seen as attracting a predominantly male following. She may be an outlier.
Arthur Cowslip says
Oh my gosh – for a brief second there I misread that as “predatory” male following. A very different prospect….
fentonsteve says
Similarly, are there any ladies who like Stereolab? Or is Mrs F alone in hating them?
The Good Doctor says
The GF tolerates them – French Disko or Cybele’s Reverie passes on the car stereo. That said, I’ve met their former lead singer (and very nice she was too) I presume she liked them at one time.
aardvarknever says
Apropos of this thread Irmin Schmidt of Can was on Radcliffe and McConie last week:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09y2fkh (about 01:32 in)
BBC Blurb: “Mark and Stuart are joined by Irmin Schmidt of avant-garde rock band Can and author Rob Young. The pair are releasing ‘All Gates Open: The Story Of Can’ – a biography of the experimental and influential Krautrock band that formed in late sixties Cologne, Germany.”
Which left me with the itch to pursue Can a bit further.
fatima Xberg says
“…avant garde rock band…” Do people (or the BBC, at least) realize that Can were in fact quite successful in Germany? In the seventies they were on TV on almost a monthly basis, they had chart hits, they had posters in the teen magazines, and they provided the soundtracks for some of the most favourite prime time TV shows. They were even on the same record label as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones (and Mud) at the time!
Arthur Cowslip says
They had posters in teen magazines???????? Wow.
Arthur Cowslip says
I suppose Michael Karoli was a bit of a hunk. Maybe they kept holger and irmin in the background, out of focus.
fatima Xberg says
You really should see Irmin’s outrageous leather coats. And Holger’s hip-hugging (and garishly textured) trousers. There’s a rumor that those pants were responsible for the apparently useful German phrase “Your choice in trousers is quite adventurous” that you can still find in some travel guides.
duco01 says
Not only was Michael Karoli a bit of a hunk, but his sister and his girlfriend ended up on the notorious front cover of Roxy Music’s “Country Life”. Good-lookingness all round!
Neela says
Holger’s moustache is a thing of legend and should grace as many posters as possible.
SteveT says
There is a simple calculation in my house as to whether my wife will like the music I am playing. If it has a tune, Has lyrics that can be heard and is not too noisy then chances are my wife may like it . That may sound sexist but is not the case – put simply my wife likes music less than I do and invests less time in it. It is therefore entirely logical that she will spend less time on stuff that requires repeat plays before you get it.
On the other hand I like flowers and plants but know less about then than she does which is her hobby
I do know women who might like Can but not many.
LightsOut says
I have no anecdotes involving women and Can. However, I went to a Michael Rother (ex-Neu!) gig back in February and have never seen such a female-light crowd. In a sold out 700-capacity venue I saw 3 women. There may have been more non-blokes out of my field of vision, but the overall impression was of a wurst-fest.
Tiggerlion says
The only people I’ve ever *met* who like CAN are on this site. In real life, I’m all alone.
retropath2 says
Indeed, such is real life I fear……..
Vincent says
I have two good female friends who are massive VdgG and peter Hammill fans, and back in the day, found that if they liked either, women generally liked Captain Beefheart more than Frank Zappa, which i think is because of the clear r’n’b roots of the Cap’n and the arch cleverness of Zappa. My wife is mostly indifferent to the music, I like seeing all rock and jazz as lesser forms or irrelevant compared to classical (you want music snobs, meet classical fans is my sad experience – amazingly supercilious about rock forms). I am sure there are classical fans who are more generous, and in every way she’s a kind, decent woman who i don’t deserve. I think she was faced with either David Cassidy or Stackwaddy at school, and was not temperamentally suited to either, and hairy prog was to weird for her conventional family. When we formed a relationship, music was pretty irreverent to us, which is rare in the genesis of a relationship, I suspect.
fitterstoke says
Back in the day, there was a correspondent on this very site who went by the name Vandergirl: QED.
Arthur Cowslip says
Just on my bus home after the Damo gig and I’m buzzing. What a show! Review to follow in the next couple of days. The man’s a star. AND I got a photo with him like the krautrock groupie I am.
Tiggerlion says
I’m looking forward to it. Especially the photo!