Amon Düül

I confess that I know very little about this band and what I've heard of their music varies considerably - in other words I don't like all of it .... but read on .... some of it is excellent.

Amon Düül started out as a classic 70's Krautrock band - for me this is a relatively unknown period so I won't comment on it. Maybe I'm missing out.

During the 80s one of the original members teamed up with Dave Anderson (formerly on bass for Hawkwind). Andy Gilham, the Amon Düül historian, refers to this iteration of the band as Amon Düül UK, although they published 4 albums under the names of both Amon Düül and Amon Düül II . I have all of these albums and can offer the following opinion:

• Die Lösung - is a must-have for all Bob Calvert fans. The vocals are superb, the lyrics are excellent and the music really rocks. Tony TS McPhee (Groundhogs) plus Ed and Joey Ozric all contribute. In my opinion this is the best of Calvert's non HW material.
• Meetings with Menmachines Unremarkable Heroes of the Past - excellent soft rock. This is a lot more like Die Lösung but with Julie Wareing (who sounds a little like Hawkwind's later temporary chanteuse Bridget Wishart) on vocals rather than Calvert (and no fab Ozric guitar for that matter). Again, it's very good and well worth checking out.
• Hawk Meets Penguin - I like this album a lot, although it's rather unconventional. Essentially 2 tracks:
  • track 1 (12 mins) is what I in my ignorance would describe as jazz rock with space whisper-like vocals from Julie Wareing for about half its length, then launches into an excellent song with no words
  • track 2 (23 mins) can only be described as a collection of noises made by various instruments including keyboards, synths, indeterminate percussion items, lots of bells, weird chanting, bass, etc.
    
• Fool Moon - According to a recent post by Marc Sperhauk on the Yahoo! Hawkwind list, Bob Calvert sings in German on one track. I have to confess that when I first bought this album I skipped through the tracks and decided I didn't like it - it's been in my archived record box ever since.

I tried to replace my vinyl with CD copies of these from Demi Monde (Dave Anderson's own label) without success, and eventually managed to find them on Amazon of all places.

Links

Best place on the net for info on Amon Düül: www.andygilham.com/amonduul2/ad2.htm

Demi monde: www.demimonde.co.uk/main.htm

Sound files

Both around 1 min long and thus around 1Mb so will take a while to download but worth it if you want to find out what Amon Duul sounded like ....

If you only have a dialup modem, don't forget to right click then Save Target As .... to get the files. If you've got a broadband connection and have a player installed, you should be able to play them directly from here by left clicking on them.

• Adrenaline Rush - from the stunning Die Losung album with Bob Calvert on vocals and Ed Ozric guesting on guitar for this number.
• Pioneer - from Meetings with Menmachines - to give you a feel for Amon Duul with girlie vocals.