Dies ist kein Roboter (Florian Schneider)

When I was around fourteen or fifteen years old, Monday to Thursday, I'd have my dinner, do my homework and, just before eight o'clock, I'd bike the half mile up to Darren Lodge's house. There, we'd play poker for matchsticks and listen to David 'Kid' Jensen. 

Sure the cool kids stayed up later and listened to John Peel but Jensen was the man for us. His easy, affable manner set him apart from the other Radio One DJs but the reason we really loved him was for the music he played. It was through him that I discovered some of my favourite bands; Simple Minds, Japan, and, of course, Kraftwerk. 

'The Model', the first song I heard by the band, was originally released as a b-side in the summer of 1981, in the middle of the year that synth pop (as it's now known) established itself in charts: 'Soft Cell's 'Tainted Love'; The Human League's 'Love Action'; Depeche Mode's 'New Life'; OMD's 'Joan of Arc; and many more.

In those days, pre-Web, where one had to scratch around for any information about bands, I initially had no idea that Kraftwerk was anything other than a one hit wonder but once I found out they'd released several albums, I bought them all. The sublime and consistently brilliant combination of their music and artwork took hold of me and never let go: forty years later, they remain my favourite band. 

And gradually I found out more about them. The names of the members of the band, who did what, about their Düsseldorf studio. Their secretive nature was both frustrating and enticing, as were the rumours about them. Was it true that the phone in their studio had its ringer disabled and that if he had an interview or meeting scheduled, Ralf Hütter would simply pick up the phone at the appointed time? No one knew!

Today, the news broke that Florian Schneider, one of the band's founder members, had passed away a few days ago. I was always torn over who was my favourite 'werker. Ralf was definitely cooler but there was something more knowing and ironic about Schneider: there always seemed to be a half-smile on his face. 

It was certainly Schneider who took the band down a more experimental route sonically. In their early days it was he who bought the electronic units to process the sound of his flute and Hütter has described him as a "sound fetishist". Apart from that, it's hard to determine who was responsible for what within the band. 

What is certain is that between them they found a path for themselves as German artists that managed to culturally skip forty years from the 30s to the 70s. And with only a nod to Gilbert and George and, possibly, 'Jetsex' by Tonto's Expanding Headband, they managed to produce from thin air an aesthetic that would increasingly influence music for the next forty years and beyond. 

I reckon that emotionally Schneider left Kraftwerk after 2003's "Tour de France', although he toured with them until 2006. He formally left a couple of years later. But for me, he will always be part of the band not least because Kraftwerk, for me, is their work from 1974 to 1981* and he is completely integral to that. 

Rest in peace, you extraordinary man.

*I love 'Electric Café', their album from 1986 but let's not complicate matters.

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-9.5 kgs
Reading: 'Underland' by Robert Macfarlane