Can – Live In Stuttgart 1975

recorded on friday, halloween 1975 in the Gustav-Siegle-Haus, Leonhardsplatz 28, Stuttgart.

The other reviewers hit the nail on the head here that this is post-Damo period and most Can fans know what they will get. There is acknowledgment of this set being very self-indulgent, but the sound is good and the musicianship is good. I'll weigh in and say that it is indeed self-indulgent, but there is nothing rewarding here. Pointless, meandering, dead jamming. Musicianship without substance gives you nothing. I am personally the biggest fan of the Mooney era, with Delay and Monster Movie. The Damo era was novelty, somewhat odd, and a bit too gimmicky, but at least compelling. Here, the music is straight up limp. For good improvisation, please, for the love of all living things, go listen to great free jazz improvisers of the same time period.

OK, the sound is LOTS better than I first thought when playing it ONCE in a pair of cheap, wireless headphones 2 months ago. So for all those who like self-indulgent jazz rock* that never ends (like Guru Guru have sounded the past 20 odd years...), why not go straight to the source, Guru Guru Groove Band - The Birth Of Krautrock 1969 (now THAT'S some Canned Heat...)? *) I prefer Kraan...

Can were great 1968-78 (I didn't hear them until I was 15-16 circa '77), after which Holger Czukay was the go-to-guy, even if I bought all the ex members LPs via mail order from Spoon in Germany. And when I bought the hit album Brian Eno - David Byrne - My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts 40 years ago, I was surprised how influenced it was of the 2 years older Holger Czukay - Movies. Can you dig it?

J?rg, still Sweden

Gives a good impression of a can gig during that era. Sound is fine for an audience recording. Best moments are when every member supports the rhythm, incl. M. Karoli. Music gets worse when he starts his fuzzy solos, too much of them here. All in all a very mixed bag.

I think most of us Can fans knew what we were going to get since the year is 1975, post Damo, and lazily rolls along at that mid tempo dub pace they were doing. I’m not surprised nor disappointed. What I like is that the sound quality is excellent and since I’m a diehard devotee I’m happy to have it.

Not impressed with this at all. The band had lost the vibe at this point. The interminable noodling guitar of Karoli is extremely irritating. Some of the rest of it has hints of the old Can... but the magic of the early years was in the edit when a lot of the self-indulgent jamming was pared down by the genius Czukay.

Disappointment. I listened heavily to Can circa 1977-89 (and then bought all the solo albums and various releases from Spoon), and all I have to say about this release is that the poor sounding, 4-track, 80-minute bootleg 'Stuttgart 75' is identical to this recording, although with 10 mins. missing . The tracks on the bootleg are 'Improvisation' 19:36, 'Bel Air' 13:30, 'Dizzy Dizzy' 11:33 and 'Pinch / Improvisation'34:11'. Get it for free online...he who searches shall find. This is for completists only.

/J?rg, Schweden

Firstly, for something that wasn't professionally recorded - and in fact was probably recorded on a cassette, albeit with decent microphones - the sound quality is both excellent and consistent. Kudos both to Andrew Hall for the original recording and to Andreas Torkler and Dieter Denzer for the mastering. I figure the slightly odd 70/20 minutes split between the CDs makes sense by allowing the longest possible portion of the concert to be played in one go but splitting Drei into 3 sections on LP is a strange choice.

First impressions of the music are a bit of a mixed bag. Eins is very pleasant if quite low-key for much of its length and takes a while to get going but hits a purple patch in its last three minutes or so. Zwei and Drei are really excellent pretty much throughout, majoring in themes from Bel Air and Quantum Physics respectively, although anyone expecting the outer space vibe of the latter will be somewhat startled by the very different use to which its theme is put here. Vier is the least interesting track to me with an uninspiring chord progression and finally Funf brings the concert to an end in a lively and at times quite avant garde style. Another observation, perhaps emblematic of how different Can were live and in the studio, is that I've yet to notice any hint of what was then their most recent album, Landed.

Overall a very worthwhile release (the two most essential tracks amount to more than half of the runtime) and I hope that the rest of the series will keep up the quality sound-wise while not getting too samey in terms of vibe and date.

Sorry about your problems with the download, guys. I ordered my copy via Bandcamp and I just got the 24/96 FLACs (NOICE!). The physical edish will probably be shipped to me after Memorial Day...

So what's the actual songs played on this? Just curious.