November 17, 2005

Thursday You Need Love

A band as great as Trio shouldn’t have their legacy tarnished by Volkswagon commercials, or obscured by cover versions, no matter how heartfelt. Why don’t more people know about this group? There must be something about a German accent that still rubs der Volk the wrong way.

I usually dislike Trouser Press, but they didn’t get it half wrong this time. I love the way Trio was able to embrace both sarcastic defeatism and sickly sweet sentimentality, especially in tender numbers like “Out in the Streets.” (Speaking of which, I don’t know the story behind those two weird digital-like “skips” you’ll hear - it must be an original mastering defect, because the song’s the same in every format I’ve heard… Perhaps one of you knows the answer.)

Then there’s “Broken Hearts (For You and Me)” which steers the cold melancholy of a regular pop love song along the edge of absurdity, building into that brilliant “aii-yii-yii-yii” vocal finale. In retrospect, Trio seemed really influential in terms of their oddball application of the principles of minimalism to rock/pop. Meaning: ahead of their time. For example, until the electronica boom, I can’t recall any similar rock use of the Casio VL-Tone; the Fall’s “The Man Whose Head Expanded” comes to mind, but that’s it - and that’s about as opposite to Trio’s stripped-down Teutonic soul as you can get.

Here’s a very illuminating section from an excellent Wikipedia entry about the band:
“…Trio preferred the name Neue Deutsche FrÃ¶hlichkeit, which means ‘New German Cheerfulness’, to describe their music. At that time, as now, popular songs were based on extremely simple structures that were simply polished. Trio’s main principle was to remove almost all the polish from their songs, and to use the simplest practical structures (most of their songs were three-chord songs). For this reason, many of their songs are restricted to drums, guitar, vocals, and just one or maybe two other instruments, if any at all. Bass was used very infrequently until their later songs, and live shows often saw Remmler playing some simple preprogrammed chords on his small Casio keyboard while Behrens played his drums single-handedly eating an apple. This simplicity was not simply due to an inability to sing or play well; Remmler’s later solo career shows that he was capable of much more complicated music, and Kralle has demonstrated considerable ability as a guitarist in other ventures. Rather, their songs were bare-boned to show how bare the bones actually are.”

If you’re curious, there’s no real best-of collection; any of their records are a solid mix of good & great. Go ahead and buy the counterfeit reissue of their s/t American debut (actually just an unrelated retrospective with the same cover slapped on it). Or try this.

Then drink a bunch of coffee and turn it up loud.

Trio - “Sunday You Need Love Monday Be Alone”

Trio - “Broken Hearts (For You and Me)”

Trio - “Anna - Letmeinletmeout”

Trio - “Out in the Streets”

Rick at 9:11 pm

4 CommentsÈ

oh how i hated cheerfulness as i scuttled from basement to rooftop and back again. but today it seems so perfectly subversive. and one must practice cheerful brand of subversion in a town such as GroÃŸenkneten!

Comment by wi11iam13 Ñ November 18, 2005 @ 4:23 am
This ain’t no shit man. Thank you. Anyone who could not love, “Sunday … ” certianly does not deserve to.

Comment by Tom Bone Ñ December 1, 2005 @ 11:15 pm
I have /no idea/ how I ended up on this blog, but I caught the Trio story and thought I’d throw in my two cents.

This is the Trio CD you want: http://tinyurl.com/bb4xr.

This is the Trio CD you want but can’t afford b/c it wasn’t ever released in the US (Deluxe reissue of their first LP): http://tinyurl.com/7z6mw

I’ve got the Deluxe CD set, had a friend pick up a copy in Germany. It is the shit. But then, I bought most of their vinyl back in the day in the US before it disappeared. Trio were a sadly underrecognized band.

The Live im Fruhjahr CD is also killer, but hard to find: http://tinyurl.com/8ykae.

Kralle’s first band, Cravinkel, but out a dandy druggy/psychedelic LP, too. Go find it.

Comment by Matching Mole Ñ December 2, 2005 @ 2:01 pm
Yes!! I love it when people know more than me. Thanks, Mole.

Comment by Rick Ñ December 2, 2005 @ 4:07 pm