1990: Faust: The Faust Concerts 1

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The Sad Skinhead

Apart from all the bad times you gave me
I always felt good with you
Going places, smashing faces
what else could we do?
Apart from all the good times I gave you
you always felt bad with me
Going places, smashing faces
what else could have happened to us?

J'ai Mal Aux Dents

J'ai mal aux dents!
j'ai mal aux pieds aussi!
...
This is a man hard working song
there is... no old dream
we practiced for years my friend
to get this machine screams
noise follows questions honey
the hero is a business bunny
if it means money
this is time maybe we do it without crime
because you are crying and i don't listen
because you are dying and i just whistle
that thing so anonymously today
and echoes of my laughter burn into your seven hour turn

The problem is not only pain
if time could be part of machine
you could pack it, see it's clean
you could roll the end to start
tomorrow skip my plastic heart
beating for a spacey blues
and you could hear it without shoes

It's been a nice (historic) role
first call the name and then the code
first call the code and then the name
i think it's still a funny game

ROCK OFF!!!

Here we go sisters, here we go man
your home made connections
i do what i can
your tranquilliser body touch is very nice because
and i don't need you
makes you wait for the master because
i don't need you
and you sit on your chair with your distant care
this mind blowing freak
makes my mind very sick
and the seasons grow without your be active or die blow
say A.M. man, say A.M. woman's role
see the mind control is perfect
and you still have your daddy's smile
fences on the floor are not there
because you can't hide
you get your children, you get your car
what do you think how old you are
what do you think what people need
it's not that plastic, let it bleed
it's not that plastic honey don't
because you understand you won't
see your generation with their
  TV on standby

ROLL OUT!!!
j'ai mal aux pieds aussi!
...
Schempal Buddah
ship on a better sea!

It's A Rainy Day (Sunshine Girl)

It's a rainy day, sunshine girl
it's a rainy day, sunshine baby

Rien

C'est rien de Faust....

Faust Concerts 1 / 2

Faust's first concert in the UK for nearly 20 years took place at London's Marquee in 1992. Some of the show is on the second volume of these limited edition CD releases, and it's an accurate documentation of their tentative approach that night. A snatch of taped saxes, a bit of talking, some clanking metal - they were in no hurry to make an impact. When the set got underway, the stops were occasionally pulled out for a jackhammer onslaught which brought a new slant to musique concrète and drove those who were expecting a wide-screen version of 'Krautrock' back to the bar.

The CD is fascinating, although the band often wander into frustratingly vague territories with their skeletal improvisations. But Faust always were the most wilfully idiosyncratic of the early 70's German rock groups and here they sound as out of time as ever, happy to bring a drum, a pile of scrap metal, a guitar or two and a bank of malfunctioning homemade keyboards along to make their sound. Stadtluft leads from a vocal mantra into a motorik riff with Johann (sic) Irmler's keyboards adding clouds of noise. Jean-Hervé Péron leaves the best until last, carving up his stage backdrops with a chainsaw. Nothing new nowadays, perhaps, but they did it first and it still sounds great. (The downside to all this is that the CD's are only available as expensive imports and this one sounds like an average bootleg recording.)

Volume One documents the group's first reunion gig at the Prinzebar, Hamburg in 1990, and is better recorded, the sound more physical and the playing more concentrated, with recognisable sounds from their back catalogue. As on Volume Two, Irmler is ultra-low profile, inaudible for long periods and then popping up to play, for example, a long taped segment from Goréki's "Third Symphony" over an improvisation. That may be a statement of sorts but it sounds too easy. A lot of what's produced here sounds like rough sketches; but even now no one scribbles them quite like Faust.