eine Konferenz

In my teens, I discovered Kraftwerk via David 'Kid' Jensen's radio show, which was on Radio 1 from 8pm to 10pm. It was undoubtedly cooler to listen to John Peel but I liked David Jensen's friendliness and he played plenty of music that I liked. I don't think he played a lot by Kraftwerk but it didn't take much to get me hooked. 

My passion for Kraftwerk was a pretty solitary experience. In fact, the only time I remember listening to the band in company during my teenage years was when I took a tape of 'Autobahn' on a family holiday to the Lake District. Periodically, my family would relent and let me play the full twenty-two and a half minutes in the car. It was a long time before I really came to appreciate this.

Of course, there was no Web back them, so all I knew about the band was what I could glean from the record sleeves and the occasional music press article. And, very rarely, in those pre-YouTube days, I'd see them in action on video.

When I arrived a university, I found a couple of friends who liked the band and who even enjoyed listening to 'Electric Café' with me, which was released during our first year in Liverpool. But it wasn't until 1991, the first time they'd toured in 10 years, and I saw them play live that I found myself with a whole mass of people all of whom were wildly enthusiastic about Kraftwerk.

Today, though, I found myself in a room with 175 other properly die-hard fans, as I attended the first Kraftwerk Conference. It was announced a few weeks ago and tickets were only £20 for the two days, so I'd snapped one up without hesitation. (I did ask on a Facebook music group if anyone fancied coming along but, well, no.)

It was a pretty interesting day, actually, more so than you might expect but then again, if you don't like Kraftwerk, it probably would have driven you nuts with boredom. There were a couple of speakers I'd heard of - Stephen Mallinder from Cabaret Voltaire and the journalist David Stubbs - and sessions with titles like 'Europe Endless: Geopolitical Retro-futurism?' and 'We Are the Robots! On the Cultural-Historical Origins of the Man-Machine'.

So far so good. However, there was one entry on the schedule that made me feel a bit anxious: 'Kraftwerk Disco @ The Electric Café (Aston's Students Union Hall)'. Despite my reservations, I knew from the moment that I saw it that I'd end up going, and so I did. Rusty Egan was DJing and he came over and chatted at the bar for a bit, and then I decided I was probably ready to go home. But I knew I was going to feel like I'd let myself down if I didn't dance at the Kraftwerk disco. Just then, 'Radioactivity' started to play so I shrugged off my coat and jacket, and went onto the dancefloor. That was followed by 'Metropolis' and then 'The Model'. That was enough for me and I grabbed my coat.

When I got back to the hotel, I recognised a couple of guys from the conference, so I went over and chatted to them. One of them, Chris, didn't seem to be enjoying the conference that much (I think he wanted them to focus more on the music) but the other one, Klaus, who'd travelled across from Berlin, seemed to be enjoying it as much as me. In the end we sat up into the small hours; it was more conversation about Kraftwerk than I've had at any other time in my life!