Klaus Dinger

Not to be confused with Klaus Doldinger.

Klaus Dinger
Klaus Dinger in 2000. Photo by Anton Corbijn.
Background information
Born	24 March 1946(1946-03-24) Germany
Died	21 March 2008(2008-03-21) (aged 61)
Genres	krautrock proto-punk art-rock post-punk
Occupations	musician carpenter artist record label head music producer
Years active	1968-2008 (under various names)
Associated acts	Neu! La Düsseldorf La! Neu? Kraftwerk Die Engel des Herrn sub-tle. Lilac Angels Fritz Muller 1-A Düsseldorf Thomas Dinger Japandorf la-duesseldorf.de
Website	http://www.la-duesseldorf.de

Klaus Dinger (24 March 1946 – 21 March 2008) was a German musician and songwriter most famous for his contributions to the seminal krautrock outfit, Neu! He was also the guitarist and chief songwriter of new wave group La Düsseldorf and briefly the percussionist of Kraftwerk.

Pre-Neu! (1946-1971)

Klaus Dinger was born in Scherfede, Westphalia, Germany to Heinz and Renate on 24 March 1946. He was their first child.

Before he was a year old, his parents moved from the town, which had been badly damaged by an allied siege at the end of World War II, to the economic centre of the region, Düsseldorf.

In 1956 he attended Görres Gymnasium School for the first time. During his time there he was part of an a cappella choir, which he had to leave when his voice broke. He was part of the school swing band (as a drummer) despite having no prior musical experience. He left the school with a Mittlere Reife (German equivalent of leaving school at 16), later accusing the school of misinterpreting his "free mindedness" as misbehaviour.

After leaving school in 1963 Dinger began to learn carpentry from his father. He also became more interested in music, and practiced drums with spare bits of wood until he could afford a drum kit. In 1966 he formed a band with friends Norbert Körfer, Lutz Bellman and Jo Maassen: The No. The band was influenced largely by English rock acts such as The Kinks and The Rolling Stones. The band sent a demo tape to EMI but the record label never replied. He also worked in a free jazz ensemble, making what he later called "noise". During a concert in Düsseldorf with this ensemble, he spotted Florian Schneider, with whom he would later work in Kraftwerk, sitting in the audience (Dinger said that Schneider "Had a face I will never forget"). Schneider was at that time part of a free jazz ensemble called Pissoff fronted by another future collaborator Eberhard Kranemann.

In 1966 Dinger also started studying architecture at Krefeld. However, in 1968 he took 6 months leave, after experiencing LSD for the first time, in order to become more proficient as a drummer. In 1969 The No split up and he joined cover band The Smash and began touring southern Germany. During this period he realised that he could make a living as a musician alone, and never returned to his architecture studies.

In Summer 1970 Dinger received a telephone call from Ralf Hütter. Hütter was bandmates with Florian Schneider in Kraftwerk and was three-quarters of the way through recording their debut album. Their previous drummer (Andreas Hohmann) had left to join sister-group Ibliss after only two of the album's tracks had been made. Hütter and Schneider set out to find a new drummer; in the meantime they recorded a third track without the use of a drummer.

Dinger's role would be to record the drum part for the fourth and final track: "Von Himmel Hoch". Dinger recalls:

"...I recorded the drums on side 2. Ralf and Conny Plank, the producer, were very pleased with the results. Florian was away on holiday at the time and when he came back, he didn't like it at all. I recorded the same tracks again and they sounded exactly the same. Florian, however, was very pleased but that's another story, a "Ralf & Florian story"."

Having impressed both Hütter and Schneider, Dinger was installed as a permanent member of the band. The homeless drummer moved into the house of Florian's parents, Florian leaving shortly after, but Klaus was kept on as a lodger. Here he met Anita. Anita, or "Hanni", was a friend of Florian's sister (who died in 2002). Hanni would be Klaus Dinger's girlfriend for most of his time in Neu! and Kraftwerk.

After touring extensively with the band, Ralf Hütter suddenly decided that "he couldn't play anymore" and left the group.This left Schneider and Dinger without a guitarist or bass player. They toured with what Dinger called "a floating line-up" of ever changing musicians.

The line-up settled down somewhat by June 1971, and it stood as Dinger on drums, Schneider on flute and organ, Eberhard Kranemann (Florian Schneider's bandmate from Pissoff) on bass and Michael Rother on guitar, who had been poached from local band Spirits of Sound. Kranemann's talents as a bass player were not always needed and in 1972 the trio of Dinger, Schneider and Rother appeared on German TV show Beat Club.

The performance was different from the Kraftwerk style and is seen by many as a transition from that towards Neu!'s style. The track had originally been titled "Rückstoß Gondoliero", but was mis-pronounced by the television announcer as "Truckstop Gondolero" and has subsequently been known as the latter. Shortly afterwards Michael and Klaus seceded from Kraftwerk to form their own group: Neu!. Ralf Hütter returned to Kraftwerk at the request of Schneider, who was now without guitarist or drummer. Kraftwerk would continue, recording Kraftwerk 2 at around the same time as Neu!'s debut album. The lack of a drummer would force them to pioneer the use of drum machines and electric percussion, and, in 1974, they made their chart debut with Autobahn.

In June 1971 Dinger's girlfriend moved with her family (her father, a banker, was unhappy about her being with Klaus) to Norway. Here Dinger visited her in the summer of 1971. During this holiday, Dinger recorded the "watery" sounds featuring on several of his subsequent songs (Im Gluck, Lieber Honig, Gedenkenminute, Lieber Honig 1981) whilst on a rowing boat with Anita. The pair would continue to see each other irregularly, and often with long intervals between meetings, through 1971, 1972 and 1973.

Neu! (main career, 1971-1975)

Having broken off from Kraftwerk, Rother and Dinger quickly began the recording sessions for what would become Neu!. The band was christened "Neu!" by Dinger (Rother had been against the name, preferring a more "organic" title) and a pop-art style logo created, featuring italic capitals: NEU! Dinger recalls about Neu!'s logo:

"...it was a protest against the consumer society but also against our "colleagues" on the Krautrock scene who had totally different taste/styling if any. I was very well informed about Warhol, Pop Art, Contemporary Art. I had always been very visual in my thinking. Also, during that time, I lived in a commune and in order to get the space that we lived in, I set up an advertising agency which existed mainly on paper. Most of the people that I lived with were trying to break into advertising so I was somehow surrounded by this Neu! all the time."

The pair recorded in Star Studios in Hamburg, with the up-and-coming Krautrock producer Konrad Plank, as Dinger had with Kraftwerk. Dinger describes Conny's abilities as a "mediator" between the often disagreeing factions within the band. The band were booked in to the studio for four days in late 1971, according to Dinger, the first two days were unproductive, until Dinger brought his Japanese Banjo to the sessions, a heavily treated version of which can be heard on "Negativland", the first of the album's six tracks to be recorded.

It was during these sessions that Dinger first played his famous "motorik" beat. Motorik is a repeated 4/4 drumbeat with only occasional interruptions, perhaps best showcased on "Hallogallo". Dinger claims never to have called the beat "motorik" himself, preferring either "lange gerade" ("long straight") or "endlose gerade" ("endless straight"). He later changed the beat's "name" to the "Apache beat" to coincide with his 1985 solo album Neondian.

Neu! sold well for an underground album at the time, according to Dinger approximately 30,000 copies were sold. In order to promote the release the record label, Brain Records, organised a tour. Ex-Pissoff frontman Eberhard Kranemann was brought in to play bass, the trio recording a "practice" jam in preparation. The recording of this would later be released as Neu! '72 Live in Dusseldorf. Only some of the tour dates allotted were ever fulfilled, Rother later saying that he felt Neu! were not a touring band and that he and Dinger were at loggerheads over performance style.

"At some shows blood splashed, when Klaus hurt himself with a broken cymbal. The audience was very much impressed by this radical and ecstatic performance. I never felt the need for this kind of performance and always tried to come across with just the music. So I sat behind my few effect devices and pedals and focused on the developing music and not so much on the audience."

In summer 1972 Dinger and Rother went to Conny Plank's studios in Cologne to record a single. Dinger later said that the record company had tried to dissuade them from making it as it was not commercially viable. Nevertheless, the single Super/Neuschnee was released. The A-Side, Super, showcased the proto-punk style that Dinger would later adopt for his band La Düsseldorf.

This album was followed by two further sequels, Neu! 2 and Neu! 75, building upon the motorik style that they had established with their debut album, rewarding them with much critical success.

La Düsseldorf

Dinger's most famous, successful, and acclaimed post-Neu! act would be La Düsseldorf. They would release a string of successful albums (with sales totaling over a million) in the late 1970s and early 1980s: La Düsseldorf, Viva, and Individuellos.

La! Neu?

La! Neu? is a later project that Dinger headed. Through the mid-1990s, the group released albums on Captain Trip Records, the label that also issued the "semi-official" recordings Neu! 4 and Neu! '72 Live! (both of which were released without Rother's consent).

Death

Dinger died on 21 March 2008, three days before his 62nd birthday, of heart failure.

Discography

with Kraftwerk

• "Kraftwerk" (1970; on track 4 only)

with Neu!

• "Neu!" (1972)
• "Neu! '72 Live in Dusseldorf" (1972, released 1996)
• "Neu! 2" (1973)
• "Neu! '75" (1975)
• "Neu! 4" (1986, released 1995)

with La Düsseldorf

• "La Düsseldorf" (1976)
• "Viva" (1978)
• "Individuellos" (1980)

solo albums

• "Neondian" (1985, released as "K.D. + Rhenita Bella Dusseldorf", re-released in 2006 as "Mon Amour" by "la-duesseldorf.de")
• "Blue" (1987, released 1999 under la! Neu? name)

with Die Engel des Herrn

• "Die (b)Engel des Herrn" (1988, released in 1992)
• "Live! as Hippie Punks" (1993, re-released 1995)

with la! Neu?

• "Düsseldorf" (1996)
• "Zeeland" (1997)
• "Live in Tokyo 1996 Vol. 2" (1996, released 1999)
• "Cha Cha 2000 - Live in Tokyo 1996 vol. 1" (1996, released 1998)
• "Goldregen" (1998)
• "Year of the Tiger" (1998)
• "Live at Kunsthalle Düsseldorf" (1998, released 2001)

with la-duesseldorf.de

• "Mon Amour" (2006, re-release of "Neondian" with bonus tracks)
• "Viva Remix" (supposedly to be released in 2011, remix of La Düsseldorf's second album)
• "Japandorf" (supposedly to be released in 2011, collaboration with Japano-German band "sub-tle.")

produced by Dinger

• "I'm not afraid to say yes!" - Lilac Angels (1973)
• "Rembrandt" - Rembrandt Lensink (1997, Released as la! Neu?)
• "Bluepoint Underground in New York City" - Bluepoint Underground (1998)
• "Kraut?" - Die With Dignity (1999)

Compilations featuring exclusive tracks

• "Avantgarde History" (1972, released 2009. Compilation of unreleased material featuring occasional Neu! bass player Eberhard Kranemann, including three Neu! tracks recorded in live at a party in 1972)

External links

• cult cargo article
• News about his death