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Quote by Michael Rother

“As a conscientious objector I did my community service in 1971 in a psychiatric hospital and a friend there, who also was a guitar player, invited me one day to join him recording film music with a band named Kraftwerk which I didn't know at the time. I came along and jammed at this session together with Ralf Hütter and a drummer (I believe his name was Charly Weiß). Florian Schneider and Klaus Dinger were present as listeners and everybody liked the spontaneous music we did together.”

Quote by Michael Rother

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Michael Rother
Michael Rother

Michael Rother, born on September 2, 1950, is a German musician known for his unique electronic music style, particularly for his contributions to the Krautrock genre. more

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“NEU!'s music will always ("für immer") be a part of me and I absolutely stand to what we've created. Of course I have changed since and I judge my contributions to NEU!'s music of the 70's in a historical context. They were both a description of my feelings back then as well as an expression of my musical abilities and limitations. It would be a mistake to ignore the time factor and it would be an artistic shortcoming to pick up on the old concept without doing any changes. There is no way this is going to happen anyway.”

“The main reason for the break was a combination of travel and going back to university, which drew me into theatre more than music. I did stuff on acoustic guitar when I was traveling, filed it away and made notes, without it being musical notation. Just taped the odd thing, did a sketch, stuck it on a cassette. I thought at some point, I'll go back to it. Some of it I did use in '84-'85 when I started working in the Free Theatre in Christchurch. So it might seem like I had given up after the Pin Group, but I just went into a different avenue.”

“I was also thinking that I only had a certain amount of time to make music and to spend it in that city. And everybody else... you know the story 'Oh, New York it's such a great place, but it's so expensive to live here and there's so much to do.' You go there for inspiration and you end up getting a job to pay bills. I thought I must fight that at all costs.”

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