Customer Reviews

Kraftwerk: I Was a Robot

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In this second edition of I Was A Robot, and the first English translation from the German language first edition, Wolfgang Flür reflects on his life as an artist, a citizen of the world, and most important, as a human. His experiences as a member of the world's most significant and influential electronic band provide the first illumination from within the secretive and often inhuman Kraftwerk machine.

From the early years as a child in the Rhine region of Germany, across the globe as designer and musician for Kraftwerk's concert tours during their most celebrated period, to post-Kraftwerk artistic endeavors, Flür engages the reader on a colorful journey rife with anecdotes, observations and experiences. Flür's warm and personal style brings encounters of life, passion, musicianship, and betrayal vividly to life. Flür reveals his deepest and most personal thoughts in the printed page in a way that entices and never offends, and with imagery bordering on the cinematic.

It is a remarkable accomplishment for this first time author, and even more impressive considering the translation from Flür's native German manuscript.

Flür's accounts of his life with Kraftwerk add new dimension to the legacy of the band. The book does not shatter the mythology surrounding them, but celebrates it in ways only an insider could ever observe. When Flür's initial accounts of his life with Kraftwerk were published, current band members swiftly served Flür with various injunctions to cease publication. Accounts of the legal actions against him fill a newly added second section of this book, along with letters from readers of the first edition and fans of Flür's new musical project Yamo. Given Flür's innocuous and reverent recollections of his Kraftwerk years, these seemingly unjustified legal actions speak volumes more about the current Kraftwerk members than anyone need ever print.

Fans of Kraftwerk or Yamo and electronic or pop music in general should find this to be a must read. But artists of all types and citizens of the world should learn a lesson from Flür and always remember that public image can never be valued over human existence. For this lesson, and the joy brought to this reader, I would recommend this as the highest form of Self Improvement book.

Unfortunately this book is not what I had expected, which was an honest account of the highs and lows of being a member of the ground-breaking quartet called Kraftwerk. It is more like the diary of a teenager who is miffed at his parents.

While there are some interesting passages about the members and the mechanics of Kraftwerk, those are awash in a sea of irrelevant passages about everything from global politics to Flur's speculations on the sex lives of conjoined twins. Two entire chapters chronicle a dream Flur once had.

Flur also seems to see his lack of success after Kraftwerk as a vast conspiracy of some kind. While there was indeed plenty of legal wrangling going on, to take it to the level Flur suggests veers disturbingly close to paranoia.

I was interested in a book about Kraftwerk and its members. What I received was a litany of grievances, tales of sexual conduct (and misconduct - one of Flur's conquests was apparently thirteen years old) and oddball musings.

"I Was A Robot" is more like a blog than a book. At least with a blog you can say you got what you paid for.

I've been a fan of Kraftwerk for decades now, and part of the allure of the band was always the mystery that surrounded them. Their consistency with putting forth a mannequin-like appearance and robotic rhythms told such a great story on its own. Wolfgang Flur was a member of the quartet during their most exciting and creative period, so his I looked forward to hearing his story.

What I got was a child-like biography, poorly written and revealing in all the wrong ways. He talked little of the equipment and the song-writing procedure, however he was extremely open with information on his love-history and even (I swear this is true) bodily fluids. His narration comes off like a crybaby who in hindsight, thought he deserved more. To be truthful, Flur rarely wrote songs, handed the creative mantle to other members and contributed little aside from filling the 4th Kraftwerk suit and making sure the drum machines fired on time.

This book is less about Kraftwerk and more about Wolfgang Flur. His story *should* be exciting, but it falls flat. Although this book contains some personal photos of Kraftwerk's most interesting period, the text contributes little to the Kraftwerk story.

In case one is not aware, Kraftwerk have been one of the most influential bands in the past 30 years. Every form of music created since the end of the Vietnam War that is decidedly different from "traditional rock and roll" was affected by if not created by this most Fab Vier from the "land of poets and thinkers." I dare say they were more revolutionary than the more notorius Sex Pistols. Contrary to the opinions of some, Kraftwerk didn't actually kill rock and roll as the genre was perceived to be dying as early as 1972, if not earlier; rather they created a blueprint for a new kind of sound which would prevail should the demise of rock and roll actually occur.
Ralf Huetter and Florian Schneider are commonly viewed as the creative nucleus of Kraftwerk as John Lennon and Paul McCartney were to the Beatles or Lou Reed and John Cale were to the (early) Velvet Underground
No slight intended to Huetter and Schneider, but it is Wolgang Fluer, along with another former bandmate, Karl Bartos, who contributed much of the "soul" if you will, to Kraftwerk's sound and added an anchor of accessibility to what could have been an insufferably dry, sterile, sonic environment. Reading Fluer's book, while comparing the Classic Kraftwerk era (Autobahn to Electric Cafe) to the post Fluer/Bartos Mix and Expo, as well as to the early, hard to obtain, "traffic cone" albums, one is left with an appreciation for the contributions for these so-called "lesser" members of Kraftwerk.

Wolfgang Flür's memoir of his musical career, most notably with Kraftwerk, is for the most part and engaging and worthwhile read for fans of Kraftwerk and electronic music. Flür looks at Kraftwerk as both an insider and an outsider; on the one hand he was a member of the band during all the prime years, and on the other it seems that founders Ralf and Florian kept Flür at arm's length. Flür does note various innovations he brought to the band (for example, he claims to have invented their electronic drum kit), but is also very forthcoming about his second-class status within the band. Apart from a late chapter in which Conny Plank's widow essentially accuses Kraftwerk of robbing Plank of credit and reward for co-producing the Autobahn album, Flür does not hesitate to credit Ralf and Florian as the creative center behind the band.

Mind you, the book is not without its shortcomings. The book at times seems to be written in as stream of consciousness reminiscence, switching focus from one paragraph to another. Frivolous details abound, and while many of them illustrate Flür's character endearingly, some of them can be taxing (the worst being his accounting of an early childhood masturbation incident). As others suggest, a more thorough editing could have helped.

Also, frankly, as the book veers more towards Flür's later project Yamo, it begins to sound more and more like an advertisement for his CDs. He is clearly very pleased to be making his own music, but his narrative suffers from his giddy self-promotion. I actually skipped over much of the last third of the book. I suppose if I manage to track down some Yamo and like it, I might go back and read these bits more carefully, but until then I can do without.

Nevertheless, I can't really understand the more dismissive reviews of the book. Flür was with the band for some 14 years, during the most famous albums. He may not recount every synth setting, or have been party to a lot of the creative work. I can forgive him his sillier sides and the occasional axe grinding. All in all, Flür gives a very nice, honest and readable personal account of what it was to be in a very revolutionary and unusual 70s-80s band. I'd love to read Ralf and Florians' accounts, should they ever be published, but until then this is all we have and I suspect Flür's accounting may be a little more fun.

Wolfgang Flur was a founding member and long-time percussionist for Kraftwerk. Surprisingly - as he writes in I Was A Robot - within the myriad of contracts, he was not an "official" band member in the group started by Ralf Hutter and Florian Schneider-Esleben.

Flur takes the reader through his years with the seminal electronic group, his very strong feelings on how others were mistreated professionally or written entirely out of the band's history and the optimism generated through a variety of projects in the post-Kraftwerk years.

There has been a mysterious cloak of aura - perhaps as metallic as the outer shell of ASIMO, without the programmed human characteristics - surrounding the band almost from its inception. It has increased over the many years of being pathfinders in electronic music, the sporadic tours and recording in anonymity within the confines of their own studio.

Flur's contractual status with the band came back to haunt him personally and professionally after he left the group. There are several quite bizarre moments chronicled by Flur when attempts were apparently concocted by his former bandmates to squelch his public appearances and writings concerning the group.

Flur invented the "Electro-schlagzeug," drum controllers with six metal pads that was played with metal drum sticks. It was a bridge to the analog era - the merging of pop music with electronics - that is taken for granted today.

I Was A Robot will remain an important first-person account of the band at its height of creativity and experimentation.

I'm a big Kraftwerk fan. The band is famous for being very tight with personal info. So I was very curious to read the "tell-all" by ex-drummer Wolfgang Flur. First you have to accept that everything in the book is from his own point of view. That said it has some facinating insights to what goes on inside Kling Klang studios. It also has some hilarious backstage pics. Wolfgang definitely feels like Ralph Hutter screwed him over and that the rest of the band defers (maybe cowers) to his authority. Wolfgang definitely comes off a little bit like a drama queen but I think most of what he writes is true. I recommend this book to any Kraftwerk fans looking inside info. There certainly isn't much else like this book available.

Flur presents the human side of Kraftwerk and it is not as prestine as one would have thought. Greed, bickering, people filled with self importance and pride line the pages of this very one sided autobiography. The writing style also presents several problems. It is very dry and he jumps all over the place with random dates seemingly. I find that he probably should have had a sterner editor that should have told him to organize the book a bit better since one does feel lost at times and some of the chapters talk about like absolutely nothing which is a "no no" for an author (like when he speculates about conjoned twins). Even so it is an ok autobiography that could have been much better.

I have already placed a review of this book at brit site www.amazon.co.uk but in brief: maybe just one third of the book is interesting, the rest consists of page after page of advertising for Time pie album, Herr Flür's barroque writting style and quite ill feelings against Kraftwerk's founding members because he never felt like "one of the pack" in his own non-objective view. If you are interested, check the english site for the reviews, there are not too many, but they are poignant.