Pitchfork

[Posted Friday, September 19th, 2003 06:00:00 Pitchfork Central Time]

The birth mother of all art-rock bands, Can, is celebrating the October 13th release of a double DVD, according to the Can/Spoon Records website. Get out your psychotropics, because the new DVD includes both a new film by director Peter Pryzgodda (who, if you need pedigree, edited most of Wim Wenders' films) entitled Can Notes, as well as the classic Can Documentary . But that's not all-- the double set also includes footage from Can's free 1972 live performance in Cologne, Germany. The cherries on this Can sundae include a complete discography with tracklistings and release dates, a short film made by Brian Eno to mark Can's Echo Award for lifetime achievement, footage from the Echo Awards ceremony itself, an audio CD of Can solo recordings, new interviews with the band at the CAN Studio, and a weblink to an exclusive Can site where photos and interviews can be downloaded and printed out, all included in the package. Shit, baby.

If you don't know, Can was the brilliantly inventive, always challenging, ever lineup-changing German-based rock group that disbanded in 1977; of course, this short history glosses over the massive impact Can had on generations of psychedelically-minded groups that have followed. Have you listened to This Nation's Saving Grace lately? Or Zaireeka? Seen the Black Eyes recently? I think a little bit of Can can be discerned in all of the aforementioned ventures.

And if you are lucky (?) enough to live in Minneapolis or Seattle, you can attend a screening of the new DVD between September 26th-29th, at the Sound Unseen film festival in Minneapolis and the Experience Music Project in Seattle. So go there and do that, then. The power of Krautrock compels you.