German Oak (1972 / 198?)
---Aug 2005
One can imagine a wood paneled, smoky basement bar, deep in the labyrinths of Dusseldorf with half empty silver platters of wienerschnitzel and potato pancakes, old copies of Mein Kampf laying about, a semi-destroyed photograph of the worst mustachioed man in history hanging crooked on the wall over the beer steins lined up over the mantlepiece... the bartender still trying desperately to look fit in his brown suit.
Completely stoned out of their frickin' minds, German Oak blast away non-stop on fuzz guitar, bass and drums with introductions from none other than the Fuhrer himself. Only with Guru Guru circa 1970 do we get this kind of zonked sound out of Germany, yet they were already accomplished jazz musicians trying to create psychedelic free rock. With German Oak, you get the real deal of earnestness mixed with incompetence, one of the only truly pent-up anger releases of World War II you'll ever get from the mother country. I had expected there would be more albums like this from Germany, but they were not to be found. Rather the Cold War represented the required tension, as best exemplified by the Berlin based Ash Ra Tempel on their first couple of brain scorching albums.
The album is dedicated to their parents "who had a bad time during the war". Seriously? How understated is that?
---10/27/26
And that was the last time I heard German Oak. Time for a revisit and enter into UMR. What I didn't mention above is that the CD front loads the bonus tracks, which is where you hear Hitler's insanity speeches. One can understand why this album isn't overly popular. It is simply guitar based jamming, though they do still add a melody in there every once in a while. It's the imagery, sound, amateurism, era, and enthusiasm that makes the album work. It's not necessarily accomplished Krautrock, as noted in my initial review, but rather a unique slice of German rock history. Take it for what it is, not for what it isn't.
According to many sources, this album was not released in 1972, but later in the 70s or even the 80s. I believe that to be true. When I started receiving my first mail order lists in the late 1980s, German Oak was readily available. Always expensive (too much for me at the time), but copies were around back then. That would be typical of a later pressing.
Though the CD label is notorious for pirate editions, this isn't one of them. Band member Manfred Uhr was responsible for its release.
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Please see Spyros' remarks in the Comment section, which clears up the situation more.
Ownership: 1990 Witch & Warlock (CD). Booklet with some history notes. Numbered edition (mine is #536). Acquired in 1991.
1991; 8//05; 10/27/26 (review)
Previously owned: Nibelungenlied
10/28/26 (new entry)
Hello Tom, I'm glad that I'm finding you well. German Oak's guitar player Wolfgang Czaika gave an interview as part of the remastered reissue package released via Now-Again Records. He sets the full story of the band straight and clarifies things about the recording location and what happened to the speeches and other controversial elements surrounding the release. According to him, the original 1972 album was privately released in Düsseldorf as a cassette version, and did not feature the speeches; it was an atmospheric, anti-war instrumental record created as an artistic reaction against the older generation. However, the band's manager and organist, Manfred 'Warlock' Uhr, independently released a vinyl version of the recording as "Bunker" label in September 1980 and was privately selling them to collectors. Another fact is that, Uhr intentionally sped up the band's original tape recordings to fit the tracks onto the LP duration. In the early 90s, he compiled improvised rehearsal tapes and unreleased material for the CDs released via his own Witch & Warlock Records where he spliced in Adolf Hitler's speeches and assigned inflammatory titles like "Swastika Rising" and "The Third Reich". The Now-Again Records reissue from 2017, restores the full recording as it intended to be.
ReplyDeleteSpyros
Thanks Spyros - I knew you'd have the details! Great to hear from you, my friend.
DeleteThanks my friend.
ReplyDeleteThe main point is that the band did not intended to be that way. Whatever we knew up to this point regarding these specific re-releases had nothing to do with the band's expectations, but with Manfred Uhr's self-serving initiative, who put out the releases for personal gain without the approval of the other musicians. He acted entirely on his own.
For the record, the correct LP track titles, as Wolfgang Czaika restored, are:
A1. Screaming Skeletons (was previously --> Airalert)
A2. Missile Song (was previously --> Down in the Bunker)
B1. Belle's Song (was previously --> Raid Over Dusseldorf)
B2. Nothing (was previously --> 1945 - Out of the Ashes)
"The Third Reich" 's original title is The Bear Song and "Swastika Rising" is Python Versus Tiger.
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Spyros