Questions/Answers 2

Questions/Answers is a series of articles aiming to nail down some facts on all those Kraftwerk myths that are forever repeated by the media...
From Aktivität 9 - August 1997

The band work daily in their Kling-Klang studio, eight hours a day, from 8.00am till 4.00pm.

It is impossible to say exactly how often the band do indeed frequent their studio, but from what is known it seems that the hours tend more to be late afternoon until the early hours of the following morning and it seems unlikely that the schedule is maintained with a daily, workmanlike efficiency, bearing in mind that the band members also enjoy lengthy cycling trips in neighbouring countries.

Kraftwerk have composed the Soundtrack for Fassbinder's film 'Berlin Alexanderplatz'.

Kraftwerk's music was indeed used in this film, but it was taken from earlier LPs and was not especially composed.

The bands 'Radio-Activity' album is available in both English and German language editions.

No, though this was written in the book 'Man, Machine and Music'. The 'Radio-Activity'/'Radioaktivität' album actually features a mixture of both German and English on most of the tracks with vocals, so there is only the one edition.

They played live concerts also in 1983 and 1987 (as credited in some encyclopaedias).

Kraftwerk did indeed plan to tour in both 1983 and 1987 but no concerts actually took place.

In 1983 the tour was intended to promote the 'Technopop' LP that the band planned to release then. A few dates in England were even announced and published by the music press, but these concerts were cancelled.

In late '86/early '87, in interviews with the media in various countries, Ralf Hütter mentioned that the band would play live in 1987, to promote the 'Electric Cafe' album. Again, no concerts actually went ahead.

They toured the USA, Canada and Japan in late 1991 or early 1992.

American and Canadian tours were announced for the latter months of 1991 and tickets went on sale. The concerts were however later cancelled, leaving many Kraftwerk fans who had bought such tickets disappointed. No clear reason was ever given for the cancellation and the dates have never been rescheduled.

Similarly, any planned dates for Japan did not take place.

'The Mix' was also to include two other tracks, 'Neon Lights' and 'The Man Machine'.

Ralf Hütter mentioned at a press conference in Sweden that these tracks were also recorded for inclusion on 'The Mix' but not included. The band's 1993 and (to date only) 1997 live concerts included the updated version of 'The Man Machine', but as yet it remains unreleased officially on record, along with other 'updated' live renditions such as 'Numbers', 'Computer World', 'Tour De France' and 'The Model'.

Ralf Hütter plays keyboards on a track called 'Drac's Back' by a band called Red Lipstique.

No. This was mistakenly printed in an early issue of Aktivität fanzine, but it appears to be false. However, Ralf Hütter was pictured alongside two of the band members of Red Lipstique in a UK music paper's gossip-column pages in early 1982. Perhaps the original confusion of the fanzine item's contributor stemmed from this.