Amon Duul

One person bangs a drum and one other moans a lot. Quite liked that one...

The AD1 stuff I've heard ("Disaster" and some other one the title of which I forget) sounded like some lame hippie jam session that some one recorded using a cheap tape m/c pushed under the drum kit. Pretty horrible.

German jam stuff I like = ash ra tempel "join inn" and "Schwingungen" and the first 2 cosmic jokers albums.

I also didn't really care for Tanz der Lemminge very much (sold it soon afterwards), though like their other main releases. Tanz sounded kind of aimless to me, from what I remember. Maybe I should give it another shot, though.

I'm nowhere near as impressed by Amon Düül I. I have Paradieswärts Düül and Psychedelic Underground and am not too keen on them. Paradieswärts Düül has some good stuff but too many of their songs sound like badly recorded outtakes to me.

but I don't like much else by amon duul I, and I like many many things from across all the amon duul II records, first three especially, drawing the final line at viva la trance.

I don't know guys, this is a little scary. I'm not sure why I can get with a 60 minute AMT drone session but a little crazy violin solo frightens the shit out of me. Maybe this music is too errrr, human for me.

I think I prefer the Can stuff that sounds like the Happy Mondays.

Or the Can stuff that sounds like pavement.

I'm not sure I like this.

I like the diversity of the vocals - the full gamut from maelovelent goblin to pissed-off tree elf.

So...the rest of it wasn't improvised, then?

i guess if you're a certain type of bass player, you live to do stuff like this

is he even paying attention to the ret of the band?

are they all playing their parts in separate rooms or something?

I'm not allowed to skip to the next track.

I bumped an older thread to ask this, but it was apparently on the noize board, so I wanted to try again here where more people are likely to see it.

Is the Amon Duul UK version of the group worth checking out at all? My local FYE has three of their albums that I have picked up multiple times and contemplated buying before putting them down in favor of something a little less risky. I love AD II and have quite a few of their records, but is AD UK really as maligned as they seem? Any worthwhile moments?

Well, the JCope "Krautrocksampler" book has a "beware of" notice regarding the UK version.

I don't know what they sound like, but who knows maybe you'd like them, the only way of knowing is trying.

I like at least two of their songs, "Marcus Leid" and "Olaf" (which had another title as well). There's a best-of CD ("Airs On A Shoestring") that includes both, I'd recommend checking it out first.

re: Amon Duul II vocals - who was the male voice who was used a lot on Phallus Dei? As in: "They broke my magic stick!" That guy was awesome!

also, I haven't heard much outside the first 3 albums, did they ever make anything close to "Archangel's Thunderbird"? it's so above and beyond everything else I've heard from them

(xp) Could be Shrat?

I've tried, believe me, but I've never got what's so great about "Archangel's Thunderbird".

Yeah, it's good but it's not like it's miles better than anything else they did.

to me it's the Zeppelin-style riffing that puts it over the top for me - thats kinda what I mean by "above and beyond". it rocks out and actually resembles a coherant song like nothing else I've heard from them (at least, in a short piece)

What I like about Archangels Thunderbird:

- awesome drumming
- quirky avant-Steppenwolf riff playing over and over again
- ...except for when it's not and hallucinatory synths slither into the gap
- also strange noodlings from another guitar randomly fading in and out of the margins of the song
- she-elf Renate, who through her vox & lyrics single-throatedly transforms what is basically acid casualty fuzz-garage into sublime prog
- the majestic ending

Hmmmm, can't think of anything else they did that resembles it, maybe try listening to another band!

yeah Drugs pretty much nailed it

even if they don't have other songs like it, I still dig the band - the last 10 minutes of "Phallus Dei" are amazing, as is most of Yeti

Tanz der Lemminge has become one of my favorite albums of the 70s

No Renate (or hardly any), no credibility (or hardly any)

anyways I heard Wolf City is more trad space-rock; I've listened to it a bit but not enough to give you a detailed rundown. Besides the big three, that's the one that seems to get the most recommendations so I would nab that frogbs...

yeah but its brilliant xp

I think most of them are worthwhile - apart from "Hijack"

Amon Duul II - "Archangels Thunderbird"

ooo yeah I remember hearing Wolf City a while back and digging it

Phellus Dei (the song) saves the album from being annoying imo.

Kannan is good too.

worth hearing, listenable and nice & early.

http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=433554

Amon Duul II

Blow Up Club

Munich, Germany

1969 (Exact date of performance unknown)

AUD B

Disc 1

01 Improv (35:38)
02 Kanaan (5:39)

Disc 2

01 Phallus Dei (24:46)
02 Luzifer's Ghilom (10:14)
03 Improv (24:59)

TT - 101:19

Renate Knaup - Vocals
Chris Karrer - Lead Guitar, Violin, Vocals
John Weinzierl - Lead Guitar, Vocals
Dave Anderson - Bass Guitar
Falk Rogner - Keyboards
Peter Leopold - Drums
Christian "Shrat" Thierfeld - Percussion

I don't know if this has been discussed already and there are too many Duul threads to sort through, but I wound up finding this via a roundabout course that started with Wikipedia's page about metal umlauts... From an interview with John Weinzerl:

And where did the name Amon Duul 2 come from?

"We didn't want to have an anglophonic name, because in those days everybody was called Rattles, or Beatles, or some other english name," explained John Weinzierl. "We didn't wanna have a German name either, that's why we went into a long period of finding an appropriate name. At some point the band had a different name with every other concert that was played. Finally it was AMON DUUL. Amon referres to the Egypt sun god Amon-Re. Duul (with the "Umlaut" dots, that your computer can't print out) comes from a Canadian group's album called Tanjet, that we used to listen to a lot. On this album there was a self-constructed mythology with a part called Dyyl. This eventually was transformed into Duul and the Umlauts gave it this slight German touch. Since then many groups started having fantasy names, or even using Umlaut dots like in Motorhead. Understand? (of course you have to imagine the Umlaut dots, cause your computer can't...) And I shall never answer this question any more now."

This completely blows my mind because I'm 99.9% sure he's referring to the Ceyleib People album (one of my favorite psych obscurities), which has a fair amount of "Dyl" appearing in song titles and it's own bizarre mythology...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mTfMij5638

Could definitely see them listening to it.

Yeah Dyl is from that lp, he talks about it in an interview I read somewhere else. trying to think where. I think it puts the chronology in the book out a bit since it means that the first gig they played which I think he refers to as being in '66 was too early for them to have that name. So wonder if it was under a different name or if he has his timing wrong?

I read Stubbs refer to a book on the band called Tanz Der Lemminge by Ingeborg Schober and wondered why I hadn't heard of it. Looks like it came out in German in 1994. Shame since i don't speak or read German. Wouldn't mind reading it otherwise.