Calling all Tangerine Dream fans . . . and I apologize for being a buzz-kill. Edgar Froese has died, at age seventy, of an unanticipated pulmonary embolism.
I'm a fan, but not an expert, so someone else should verify that Edgar was the only continuous member of the band throughout their long career.
Tangerine Dream came to prominence with the release of Phaedra in 1974. I was already into the Kraut Rock, and I loved Phaedra big time. There was a whole big scene back in the 70's. Not only electronica, but also jazz and rock, free and otherwise, and some very good pop music too. Amon Duul put out a lot of great stuff; Guru Guru, and their side project Manni und Seine Freunde, were particularly good; Can were and maybe still are great, I'm out of the loop; Kraftwerk were very popular. There were many others.
I saw Tangerine Dream once or twice. At the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium for sure, in 1976 I think it was. As soon as the lights went down to start the show a solid cloud of smoke began forming over the audience. That was a great show. Luckily, no one shut down the show thinking that there was a fire or something. I mean, that smoke was pretty thick. I've seen that happen at other shows, but never to that extent. Maybe they thought that it was part of the special effects.
Edgar was still working, but I guess this puts the final punctuation on new Tangerine Dream projects. Too bad about the whole thing, my condolences to the family, I know that he had one. Sudden death is a terrible visitation. Good luck to all affected parties.
(After-correction-notice: First time through I had Amon Duul giving rise to Manni und Seine Freunde, when actually Manni was the drummer for Guru Guru. Bad mistake! Blame it on my youth! Amon Duul were good, but very serious; Guru Guru in general, and Manni in particular, were very playful and irreverent.)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
‘There is no death; there is just a change of our cosmic address.’
Nice thought; and as good a guess as any.
Post a Comment