All language subtitles for Conny Plank The Potential of Noise_English Sub

[electronic music playing]

[slot machines beeping]

♪

With this, uh, noise,

I can try to find

if it's possible
to make music out of it.

Um...

It's like the beginning
of music.

Uh, when a human being
listened into the woods,

and listened to
noises of animals,

and other noises,

um, there are noises that
human being doesn't like,

and other noises he likes.

And, um...

those he likes,
he picks up and turns,

converts into music.

So, any noise has
the potential to be music

if it's liked by
a human being.

[projector whirring]

[electronic music playing]

That's me, Stephan,
as a boy.

I grew up in the countryside, half an hour outside of Cologne, Germany.

In 1973, my parents, Christa Fast and Conny Plank,

turned an old farm into
a state-of-the-art
recording studio.

I spent my childhood between
mixing desk and manure.

Our farm was always
chock-full of musicians.

Like playmates for a few weeks,

until some new crazy guys
moved in.

The music they recorded is the soundtrack of my youth,

and my father,
the conductor.

And the songs,
the albums they recorded,

have become part of
music history.

[rock music playing]

[Stephan] Cool.

To many, my dad was
a genius producer
and sound engineer.

They say he has
influenced them greatly.

I missed out on
much of that.

My father died in 1987,
when I was 13 years old.

There are a lot of
questions unanswered.

Many things I never got
the chance to discuss
with him.

Conny is a blur
in my memory,

a phantom.

I want to shed light
on the man,

his passion and influence
on modern music.

By talking to his friends,

I hope to find out
more about him.

[instrumental rock music
playing]

♪

♪

The first person I meet
is Michael Rother.

He knows me since
I was born.

He collaborated with my father on many albums.

From Kraftwerk to Neu!,
to Harmonia,

and his solo works.

[Rother speaking German]

[Rother continues in German]

[Stephan] The strange-sounding records by these pioneers

did neither find
a large audience,

nor critical reception
in Germany.

But according to legend,

were the talk of the town
in England.

[indistinct chatter]

[electronic music playing]

[Stubbs] Germany was in ruins.

There was almost like this culturally orphaned generation.

And throughout
the '50s and '60s,

although there'd been this
kind of regeneration,

material regeneration
in Germany,

there hadn't been a kind of
spiritual and cultural
regeneration.

That was down
to the artist.

And in all various art forms,

there's this idea
of going back to year zero,

tabula rasa, begin again.

And there was this
handful of musicians

who had that spirit.

They said, like,
"Let us reinvent rock music."

Let's just do something that's
kind of German

in origin, West German
in origin.

Rather than just constantly
taking groups like The Rattles
or whatever,

just borrowing from
The Beatles,

or aping American blues music.

Let's do something
of our own.

We're German,
we're innovators.

And I think Conny Plank was
a real believer in that.

[rock music playing]

[Rother speaking German]

[rock music playing]

[Rother continues in German]

[rock music playing]

[Rother continues in German]

[techno rock music playing]

♪

[Stephan] Conny was the second of five children,

growing up in Kaiserslautern
in post-war Germany.

His father was a music teacher and organ player in the local Catholic church.

According to his siblings,

the relationship between
father and son

was a rocky one.

But both were passionate
about music.

For Conny, it was the jazz
played by the American
troop entertainment

that fascinated him.

After learning the trade
of an electrician,

he became a sound engineer
at the local radio station.

That's when music became
the center of his world.

[man speaking German]

[audience clapping]

[Hirschmann speaking German]

[Stephan speaking German]

[Hirschmann speaking German]

[slow electronic music playing]

[Hirschmann continues in German]

["I'm Going Mad" playing]

[Meine speaking German]

["I'm Going Mad" playing]

♪ Walking through the desert

♪ You know what it's about

♪ It's really from the church Too foreign ♪

♪ That was never there

[Meine speaking German]

[all laughing]

[Meine continues in German]

[Meine]
That's a little bit too much.

[Schenker speaking German]

[Stubbs] He talked a lot about the word "authenticity".

There had to be something
valid there.

This can't just be somebody
who's just a kind of,

you know, commercial
opportunist or whatever.

Somebody that does...

That is making music
out of a kind of

compulsion, a need
to make music.

You know, they have
something valid to say,

and they'll say whatever.

They'll go out to
the forest and say it.

They're not simply sort of
trying to make it as pop stars.

So, I think that was
important to him.

Um, and I think
that perhaps...

And I think perhaps
the idea of innovation,

people who are
open to innovation,

open to the possibilities
of the studio.

And, you know,
music was gonna be kinda
slightly future-proof.

It's not just gonna
be dated.

[Roedelius speaking German]

[Stephan speaking German]

[Roedelius speaking German]

[surreal electronic music
playing]

[Roedelius speaking German]

[Miller] You know, I was buying a lot of records

Early Kraftwerk, Cluster,
and the Neu! albums.

And I noticed that
the same guy

had been involved in
the production.

The records all sounded
really unusual.

Very different, very...

kind of experimental,
but in a very musical way.

Uh, and then...

So, I don't think he
had a sound,

but I think that was
what was great.

The bands sounded
like the bands,

but the approach,
you could feel his...

You could feel his input,
his aesthetic.

[surreal electronic music
playing]

[Stubbs] I think this is the wonderful thing about Conny Plank,

that he didn't have this kind of signature style.

He was very selfless.

He wants to, sort of,
personally step aside.

But what he did do...
He was a tremendous enabler.

He helped them...

He was almost like a kind of
a window or prism or something,

in which he could enable
whatever the band's
vision was.

Whether it was Cluster,
whether it was Neu!,

whether it was
early Kraftwerk,

whether it was D.A.F.
later on.

He enabled them to, kind of,
realize their vision,

and realize it as clearly
and as fully as possible.

Which is why the music
they produced always sounds
like it was made yesterday,

or even
the day after tomorrow.

It's interesting

Kraftwerk's own attitude
to all their work
pre-Autobahn.

I think they would like to
think that Autobahnwas
their first ever moment.

They were like robots
trundling off the, kind of,
conveyor belt in a factory,

born the moment that
the ignition turns on
the track "Autobahn".

They don't seem at all
interested in people knowing
too much about their early work,

in their very beginning,
as they are just like
some typical Krautrock

with lots of things going on, lots of members.

Tom-toms, and
Florian Schneider
with the flute,

which then disappears.

But there is,
at the same time,

this emerging clarity
in their music,

and this emerging,
sort of, minimalism,

which gradually is
the kind of electronic pulse

in the drum machine
that is really coming
to the surface

as all these other elements
melt away.

Conny Plank must have really
helped them, enabled them
with his vision.

Helped them to, kind of,
bring out the essence of
what they're really about.

Although he's not involved in those later records,

I think that he has a kind of very sort of quiet,

Perhaps unacknowledged
instrumental role

in Kraftwerk developing
their vision.

[Miller]
There was an ethic about
those German records.

The ones by Conny,
and also the ones that
weren't by Conny.

But that whole feeling,
the atmosphere at the time,

was kind of like
punk rock, really.

I mean, it was a bunch
of hippies,

in the sense that
they had long hair,

and took a lot of
LSD or whatever,

and smoked
a lot of weed.

But, um...

But it had an attitude

that I think carried over
into punk rock.

And if you talk about...

To people like John Lydon,
especially,

you know, he wanted to
join Can, when
the Sex Pistols, you know...

They were into the...

A lot of the guys in punk rock were into the Krautrock thing

much more than
the English thing.

I mean, at that time,
there was hardly any

American or British bands
I was listening to.

I was pretty much only
listening to German music.

So, I was kind of obsessed.

[Krautrock music playing]

[man singing in German]

♪

[Conny speaking German
over video]

[Miller] I got a call
from Robert,

from Deutsch
Amerikanische Freundschaft,

saying Conny Plank wants
to produce, uh, our album.

I said, "Very funny.
He's never gonna,"
you know...

I mean, how are we ever
going to do that?

I mean,
this mythological figure.

How, you know, who...

You know... And he said,
"No, no, he really
wants yo do it."

I said, "Okay."

And I had no money, obviously,
which was the first problem.

I said, "So, how are we...

How are we gonna be
able to do it?" You know.

He said, "Don't worry.
Conny said he can do it
in three days."

And, um...

So, I said, "Well, okay.
Let's go. Let's do it."

[switch flicks]

[electronic music playing]

[exhales]

[speaking German]

[Stephan speaking German]

Mmm-hmm.

[Miller] I flew over
to Cologne,

was picked up at the airport
by Christa, very kind always.

Um...

Went to the studio,
with the band already there.

And they were arguing amongst
themselves a lot, okay?

And discussing a lot.

And, uh, I said to Conny...

Well, you know,

I was getting nervous,
'cause it's like, I've never
made an album before.

I was sitting next to
my hero producer.

And my band were not even
in the studio.

They were in the farmhouse,

arguing, or discussing,
or whatever they fucking did,
you know.

He said, "Don't worry,
don't worry. It'll be fine.
Don't worry, don't worry."

Day two, I said to Conny,

"I'm getting
a little bit worried."

He said, "Are you sure?"
He said, "Yeah, I'll go
and talk to them.

Don't worry, they're just
having a chat about
how they want to do it."

So, nothing really happened
in the first two days
or the three days recording.

[speaking German]

[speaking German]

[speaking German]

You know, I was
freaking out inside.

Hopefully not too obviously
on the outside.

And Conny said, "Oh,
I think they're
ready to start now."

[speaking German]

I must have been
so annoying.

I mean, he must have really...
I was really bugging him,

'cause I was saying
stuff like...

'Cause he was getting
these sounds,

and he was plugging things
in here,

and plugging things
in there.

I said, "What are you doing?"
"I don't know," he said.

"I don't really know.
I'm just making, you know,
seeing what happens.

And I'm making..."
Kind of like a cook
putting in ingredients

without reading the label,
you know.

[speaking German]

[Krautrock song playing]

[singing in German]

[song continues over speakers]

[song stops]

[speaking German]

[metal squeaking]

["Der Mussolini" playing]

[Stephan speaking German]

[Gorl speaking German]

["Der Mussolini" playing]

[singing in German]

♪

[Gorl speaking German]

["Der Mussolini" playing]

[Gabi singing in German]

[Coleman] Fuck. I love you.

Come to me.

[laughing]

Oh, goodness gracious.

Come and sit down.

That song "Der Mussolini"
made us really want to
work with your father.

Everywhere you went
in Germany,

you'd hear... [scatting]

And it was the first song
I ever heard

that I really loved
with the German language.

To sum him up, I think,

politically, he was
a revolutionary.

And musically, he was
absolutely a revolutionary.

Uh, 'cause he did... Before all
the technology and sampling,

he was doing it all.

Like, I remember
this one time,

we did this song,
"Birds of a Feather".

And, uh, he got the chorus,

and he got voices of, uh,
the Nuremberg Rally.

[mimics crowd shouting]

And he managed to get

these voices in the chorus.

♪ Birds of a feather

♪ Flock together, oh

And he managed to get
the voices of...

From the Third Reich
of this Nuremberg Rally

to be these backing vocals
by triggering it.

And I remember him
turning it right up
as we're hearing this thing.

We were all laughing
our heads off.

He liked this kind of extreme experience and stuff.

["Birds of a Feather" playing]

♪ Birds of a feather

♪ Flock together, oh

I remember
these political rallies

that he included in those,

which were perhaps,
you know, kind of...

[mock gasps] to some people.

-But--
-He loved to scare people.

Yeah, but to us,
they were noises.

And he explained about
the use in those rallies

of the microphone

-and how they would distort.
-The flask.

Yeah, and how they would make
the little man appear very big.

And I was like, "Oh, yeah."

And he said it was
like Motown.

This is all, you know...

It's like Motown.
I go, "Yeah, Motown."

I love Motown.

As a kid, you see,
I grew up on Motown.

And I go, "Yeah,
it's like Motown."

The microphone distorts.,
makes it exciting.

♪ And we go doot

["Doot-Doot" playing]

♪ Doot doot

♪ Look at them fall
Flicker and fade... ♪

[Hyde] It meant a lot to us.

Rick and I became fascinated by
the sound of language.

The sound of other tongues.

And we started to include that
in all Underworld.

He would get us to experiment.

I remember
he taught the drummer
how to drum differently.

He taught him about space.

About how to not drum.

How to kind of
miss beats out.

["Doot-Doot" continues]

♪ Doot

♪ Doot doot

[Hyde] I think that what
he did do is liberate us
from our thinking.

♪ Doot

♪ Doot doot

[Hyde] We did a version
of "Doot-Doot".

It was kind of gentler.

Sequencing kind of vibe.

And so...

And so, he, um...

He, uh... He asked if we, um...

He asked if we did anything
in terms of...

[stutters] If we took
anything to change
our consciousness.

And all I did was drink
at that time.

And that wasn't
gonna be very good.

So, he introduced something
to my partner,

and then we started to make
the recording.

He got us both
playing on the PPG,

playing these
poly-rhythmic pieces

and just locking on.

And we had that ability
in those days

to just lock on to
each other's orbit.

And then he got one of
the other guys, Alfie, to...

I think it was...
They used one of those
voice boxes.

And they put the synth through
this voice box.

And then, with this tube,

he was stood in the middle
of the studio,

whirling it around his head.

He had two microphones
up in the ceiling,

and it made this kind of,
you know, swirling sound.

You know, your father always
had these visions of sound

that we related to.

["Doot-Doot" playing]

♪ And we go doot

♪ Doot doot

[Hyde] This beautiful, gentle,

trippy kind of sound
that he would do,

repeating on a loop,
repeating on a loop.

Which was Kraftwerk,
repeating on a loop.

You know, repetitive music,

which was funk, you know,
through Kraftwerk.

Through what your father
was doing,

and others here in Germany.

And then, on to acid house.

It was direct lineage.

[electronic music playing]

♪

♪

[siren wailing]

Do you remember how much
you liked chocolate Kaba?

[Stephan] Yes.

-You remember that?
-Yes.

Do you remember
the guy in Devo that said,

"Hey, Kaba is kaka"?

-[laughs]
-"Kaba is kaka."

And you said, "No!

My Kaba is not kaka!"

And started stomping around.

Yes, I remember.

And made me laugh.

[Stephan laughs]

[Casale] Originally, we were
supposed to do the record
with David Bowie.

And David Bowie
was, uh, preoccupied.

So he said,
"Why don't you do it
with Brian Eno?"

So, we met Brian in New York
in December of 1977.

And had a really great time
speaking with him.

And then David had planned to
do it with Conny in Germany,

and so Brian...

of course, said yes,
because David and Brian
had worked together.

And the next thing we know,

we were scheduling
a trip to Germany.

We had no idea where
we were going,

or what it would be like.

We didn't know it was
so far outside of Cologne.

["Mongoloid" playing]

♪ Mongoloid
He was a mongoloid... ♪

What happened with "Mongoloid", with him and Brian,

uh, deciding on what to do
with the snare.

'Cause when they heard
the pattern,

the drum pattern...

The drum pattern
was a mutation...

of something that American,

or marching bands
in college use

to work up the crowd.

Like...
[mimicking drum beat]

It's the...
[mimics drum beat]

They created something that

completely changed the song,

and completely focused
the beat in a new way,

and made the song special.

Made it what it was.

["Mongoloid" continues]

♪ Mongoloid, mongoloid

♪ His friends were unaware

♪ Mongoloid
He was a mongoloid ♪

♪ Nobody even cared

Conny liked the industrial,
brutal, aggressive approach.

Brian not so much,

'cause Brian wanted to
distill that.

He wanted to make it
more palatable.

He kept adding things
and making suggestions.

He added vocals,
he played synthesizer tracks

to make it more pretty,

more melodic.

And of course we were like,
"We don't want melody.

we're anti-melody."

And Conny understood that.

["Mongoloid" continues]

♪ Mongoloid
He was a mongoloid ♪

[car engine starts]

[Stewart] It's really weird, 'cause I always think

that there's these
parts of the world

that are like, um,
lightning rods.

Like Kingston, Jamaica,
you know.

Havana, Cuba.

There's like a place
in Liverpool,

places where, shit,
the fucking music that came
out of these...

Like, this little place.

It's insane, right?

But then Wolperath is, like,
on this tiny, tiny...

I mean, Liverpool is
a big city, and, you know...

Havana, Cuba, and Kingston...

And then you got Wolperath,
it's about this micro dot,
right?

And all this stuff came.

["Never Gonna Cry Again"
playing]

♪ I'll shed more tears for you Than the ocean ♪

♪ The ocean

♪ I didn't wanna let you know

♪ I didn't wanna
Take your time ♪

I didn't wanna
Bring you down ♪

♪ I didn't want
To hang around you ♪

♪ Around you

[Stewart] Yeah, he was
involved in making
timeless music, really.

Capturing, um, the essence
of something,

and putting it into
a context.

And the context is
the world of sound.

["Vienna" playing]

♪ Freezing breath
On the window pane ♪

♪ Lying and waiting

[Ure] Conny was
so different from

previous producers
that I'd worked with,

because he spoke
and he thought in sound.

He thought about sound
all the time.

We were playing a very
rough idea of "Vienna".

And as we played
the song through for Conny,

and he sat in the studio
and he listened to it,

and, uh, we sat and talked about

what this song
should and could be.

And we talked about it
in musical terms.

But Conny answered us
in sound terms.

He said, "What I see,
what I imagine

is an old man
sitting in an empty ballroom

behind a piano.

And he has played
the same tune

for 40 years.

And he's tired."

And we went in the studio
and recorded that.

And we came
into the control room,

and he played us back
a recording.

And that was the sound

that he'd created
on the piano.

This sad, slow,

tired, piano piece.

But that's how he thought.

We didn't think that.

He thought that.

♪

Having worked with him,
it does change how you
approach making music.

After the success ofVienna,

we decided to come to
your house for three months

and live in the studio,

and create and record
the entire album.

We turned up at Conny's place with no ideas.

We had no songs.
We had nothing.

But we decided that
the environment was right

for us to be
incredibly adventurous,

and start creating something
from scratch.

Now, we wouldn't have
tried that

with anybody else
other than Connie.

We wouldn't have done it

anywhere else other than
Conny's studio.

♪ ...to me

♪ Oh, Vienna

With Conny, you know,
he could have had
a thing written on his hat

saying, "There are no rules."

Right? That was the thing.

Whereas before that,

if you sat at the back,

and there was an engineer
and a producer,

you weren't allowed to
go near, or touch the desk.

And anything you suggested,

they would be,
"No, you can't do that
because the levels will be..."

Whereas Conny would go...
[mimics distortion]

Who cares?
Distort the whole channel.

Uh...

And so,
I applied the "no rules"
to the Sweet Dreamsalbum,

which we don't care.
It's electronic and it has
a trumpet playing.

You know what I mean?

And, uh, an experiment.

["Sweet Dreams [Are Made
of This]" playing]

[Annie singing]
♪ I've traveled the world
And the seven seas ♪

[audience singing]
♪ Everybody's lookin'
For something ♪

♪ Sweet dreams
Are made of this ♪

♪ And I say Hold your head up Keep your head up, movin' on ♪

♪ Hold your head up
Movin' on ♪

♪ Keep your head up
Come on, come on ♪

♪ Hold your head up
Movin' on ♪

♪ Keep your head up
Movin' on ♪

♪ Hold your head up
Movin' on ♪

♪ Keep your head up

[crowd cheering]

Hello, this is Christa.

[laughs] I'm wonderful.

-Yeah.
-[man speaking indistinctly
over phone]

Yeah, we made it
to the hotel.

Yes.

Yes, he's in my room.
You want to speak to him?

Uh, we're in...

Conny... 438.

-[Conny] Yes.
-Yes.

[laughs] That's me.

Okay, okay. Great. Bye.

[speaking German]

See you in a minute.

Oh, yeah.
It probably is. Yeah.

[laughter]

[indistinct chatter]

[Ure]
You know, I remember
being there when, uh,

Dave and Annie,
Eurythmics, were there,

and, kind of, living
in the house.

And we were living in
the bed and breakfast,

the pub around the corner,
the bar,

you know,
in the next village,
and whatever.

It was just this
constant chaos,

and Christa was the glue

that held the whole
thing together.

[Hirschmann speaking German]

[bluesy instrumental music
playing]

[Stephan] Only handful
of pictures from
my family exist.

That's why
I treasure these photos
and the stories they tell.

The studio might have been
a special environment
to grow up in as a child.

To me, it was the most
normal thing in the world.

Plus, my dad wasn't
constantly on the road,
like the other fathers.

But it doesn't render
him more present.

And he had all the other
people in the house

to take care of
and record their music.

True. There are only
a few family photos,

but I have large
stock of records.

Memories pressed
in vinyl.

Bass parts, melodies,
and song fragments

that have nested
in my brain,

which trigger memories

the moment I hear them.

♪

[Stephan speaking German]

[speaking German]

[Stephan speaking German]

[Stephan] Okay.

[Czukay speaking German]

[Stephan speaking German]

[speaking German]

[Terstappen laughs]

[speaking German]

[surreal instrumental music
playing]

[speaking German]

[Stephan speaking German]

[Annette speaking German]

[speaking German]

[Lola speaking German]

[car indicator clicking]

[Stini speaking German]

[Stephan speaking German]

[Lola speaking German]

[Stephan speaking German]

[Lola speaking German]

[slow electronic music playing]

[Gianna] I was in Milano.
I live in Milano.

And I have two records.

One from D.A.F
and one from Ultravox.

When I got a manager,
a new manager,

he told me, "You know who
can be a good producer
for you?

Conny Plank."

So, that's why
we met one day.

And we have
our first meeting,
I will never forget.

It was to enter a fairy tale.

Because me, I was
born in the country,
you know.

And the studio was
in the country.

Before the studio,
Milano, we are all in
the middle of the city,

all the traffic.

There's no noise.
Only horses, cats,

plants, trees.

And I enter, and the studio
was like...

Especially the studio
was kind of magic, you know,

in the spirit.

And Conny was there.

He look like a big boy
to me.

You know, like a man,
producer, big boy.

And a lot of fun,
a lot of groove,

and whatnot,
he was moving like me.

[laughs]

We always said,
"Me and you, we are like
two little elephants,

to find the groove."

["Bello e impossibile" playing]

[Gianna singing in Italian]

[Gianna] I think
he like very much
Italian music.

I think... I hope.

I don't know,
I'm not sure to say that,

but we may find some
emotions in Conny.

Some emotions different,
you know.

Because Italian,
we are emotional.

Sometimes too much,
you know.

He wanted us all to calm down.

And I was too energetic,
melodramatic.

He said, "Cool, cool."

I learned this word "cool".

To say it to an Italian
to be cool, you know,

is very difficult.

Just to understand
what does he mean.

We don't used this word,
we don't have it,
"to be cool," you know?

The "cool" was the moment
we groove.

"Cool" I learned with Conny.

[singing in German]

I had something come over me, I didn't know why,

and I have this
immediate instinct

to... "This is the man.

My man."

Because also he criticized
me for one aspect,

but we didn't fight about it.

The cover from the album
California,America.

You have a big statue
with big vibrator
with American flag.

This is great
rock and roll provocation.

But why use America
arranged in the copy?

I never thought about that,
you know.

And Conny, he told me,
"You must find a new identity."

And this word "identity",
for me, was the starting point.

To find identity
on my vocals.

Over my sound,
European sound.

The logic of Conny about Europe, I think was, uh,

something revolutionary.

Our music is more...
It's very important.

Italian music now
is for Italy.

But opera was for
everywhere in the world.

Conny always made you work hard

in your system to be true

with the instrument,
with the voice,
with the lyrics.

Conny want to make
each different production

very personal, unique.

And me, I become unique
thank you to Conny Plank.

["Monotonie" playing]

[singing in German]

[speaking German]

[man speaking German]

[upbeat German song playing]

[man continues in German]

[speaking German]

[upbeat song playing]

♪ If you don't want
My kisses ♪

♪ Break my heart and go

♪ Just take my heart
And go ♪

[speaking German]

♪ Don't come close to me

♪ Stay where you are

♪ Wash the plastic shine
Off my vision ♪

[speaking German]

♪ Don't come close to me

♪ Stay where you are

[Annette speaking German]

♪ Nothing truly does
So please don't stay ♪

[Conny speaking German]

[speaking German]

["Marcia Baila" playing]

♪

[singing in French]

[Catherine speaking French]

At the end,
you are what you are.

And always be courageous
and feel what you feel really.

And what you like, really,

don't be too influenced by
advices around
and all that stuff.

And do it well.

[laughing]

[Catherine] And he
told also something

that we always
say again.

[Chichin] Ah, yes.

This thing about not
to be too clever.

[Chichin] He always
said that, yeah.

It's what he said to us.
"Don't be too clever."

Yeah, yeah.
Because I stress too much
for a song.

And what he said, too,

is, "Good quality of bad sound."

[Catherine laughs]

He said you can have
any song,

you know, dirty song,
but you have to catch it.

As an engineer,
he was a really good engineer.

We have the best
quality possible.

♪

[Catherine] You remember
we saw the first Whodini,

and he show us this, uh...

He made me discover the rap.

The rap. At that period...

Because he was mixing Whodini.

I said, "Why Whodini
came from New York
to work with you? Why?"

He said,
"Oh, 'cause of my delay."

["Nasty Lady" playing]

♪ Excuse me, excuse me

♪ Can I tell you a story?

♪ About this lady
That I once met ♪

♪ In the underground
Discotheque ♪

[Fletcher]
Good to see you, man.

[indistinct chatter]

-Welcome. Welcome to Atlanta.
-How you doin', man?

Come on in.

Look at you, man.

You were a little kid, man,
when we first met you.

I know you don't remember.
You were so young.

We were absolutely nobody
in the business.

Nobody knew who
we were.

-We were just guys.
-Nobody.

We barely knew.
Who... dini?

Whodini? Who is that?

It was such
an early stage for hip-hop.

Um, we needed somebody
that just understood

something that was
similar to our sounds,
you know.

And, um, somebody that
we can understand.

And, uh, Clyde mentioned
Conny Plank.

And he mentioned
his work.

Early work through Devo,
and early work
through Kraftwerk,

early work through Ultravox.

And being in New York,

we catch
a piece of everything.

I remember this and that.

Okay. He touched that?
Okay, let's do that.

And like, a month and a half later or something like that,

we were sitting in your house.

[all laughing]

I'm like, "Where the hell
are we?"

I mean, like,
ain't nobody out here.

Yo, what they
doing to us?

I'm really Brooklyn, New York.
You know what I mean?

I like it fast,
I like it coming at me.

I like it all day,
all night long.

-People everywhere--
-Concrete jungle.

Right.

You gotta remember,
we were 17-18 years old.

-So...
-Right, right.

[Fletcher] You know,
we had really never been
out of New York City.

So, it was really
our first time

just leaving our home,

and then going to
Bonn, Germany,

and being there
at the farmhouse,

and looking at the beautiful
home that he made

-out of the farmhouse.
-Oh, man!

Man, then the studio...

I was like, you know...

The way he had
everything hidden out

but open, you know?

And where the studio was,
it was fantastic.

I loved the woodgrain.

It was so warm.

That really was the most
pleasant studio we had
ever been into, man.

-Really.
-Even to this day.

We've kinda seen a lot
of great studios,
but that was...

first of all,
way ahead of its time
technologically.

The equipment that
he had in the studio...

Right. But--

Fairlight Computer, emulator...

Just, at that time,
hip-hop had never...

We had never seen it.

["Rap Machine" playing]

♪ Look out, world
Stand aside, MCs ♪

♪ 'Cause I'm a definite
Threat to society ♪

♪ My name is Ecstasy
And I'ma tell you what ♪

♪ For me to get down
You've got to get up ♪

♪ With the pep in my step
And Jalil by my side ♪

♪ I've got the ladies yellin' Ride, Whodini, ride! ♪

♪ My work ain't hard
My boss ain't mean ♪

♪ 'Cause Ecstasy's kicking
Like a rap machine ♪

♪ You know I heard this story Just the other night ♪

♪ They built a computer
That could rock a mic ♪

♪ A computer whose rap
Was always right ♪

♪ A rapper with
Built-in disco lights ♪

♪ A MC that could last
For years and years ♪

♪ A rapper that all
MCs would fear ♪

♪ I finally finished
My MC King ♪

♪ Let me introduce you all
To the rap machine ♪

♪ Right about now
On the microphone ♪

♪ It's the rap machine...

[groans]

The video was primitive,
but the concept was
way advanced.

-Yeah.
-I hated that video.

I hate the word "hate",
but I hated that video.

♪ It's the rap machine

♪ The rap machine

♪ It's the rap machine

[Hutchins] Besides the language barrier,

we're dealing with
a time when

all of this was
really primitive.

[Fletcher] I mean, we take it for granted now,

because hip-hop
is well-established.

But back then,
we had to create it.

We had to create the sound.

We had to literally
sculpture the sounds.

♪ Reprogram, reprogram
Reprogram, reprogram... ♪

He understood a lot.

Like, I had a problem...

with hearing.

I loved being where
we was at in the park.

But nobody could
record you like that.

But your father did.

He stopped me, and he was like,
"What's wrong?"

And I'm like, "I really like it
like, you know,

when we're in the parks.

You know, I can feel free."

Your father actually took it
and put speakers behind us
in the back of his studio,

and played the sound up,

and balanced the sound perfect

until I can hear it
from the back.

And didn't have to wear
headphones, so I could do it
like in the park.

It made me get emotional
for a minute,

because nobody's ever
took that time for me.

So, we thank you, man.
For your family, man.

For having such an impact
in our lives, man,

and our careers, man. Just...

Not only Conny Plank,
but Christa.

And you, when you
were little, man.

You welcomed us, too, man.

I don't know if you
remember that, man.

We had fun with you, man.

You was like our
little brother, man.

For real, man.
It was great.

[speaking indistinctly]

[laughter]

And we get to tell you
a little bit about, you know,

the impact that your dad,
your papa had in our lives
and in our careers, man.

Definitely never forget
Conny Plank.

[pleasant instrumental music
playing]

[Ure]
When we were working
together on theU-Vox album.

which was the last
album we did,

uh, Conny had bought a cornet.

Trumpet. Cornet.

And he was
practicing this thing.

And he was going
to South America.

He was going
to South America,

um, to go and do
some live things.

And he was really
excited about this,

which was fantastic.

And every so often
in the studio,

this thing would come out
and he'd be practicing,

blowing away and
playing some tunes.

Getting ready for this tour.

♪

♪

[Steffen speaking German]

[audience cheering]

[speaking German]

[band playing]

[upbeat song playing]

[man] Your voice is excellent.

[singing in foreign language]

[indistinct chatter]

♪

♪

[applause]

[Ure] I heard, later, that he got ill when he was there.

something you get
in tropical countries.

You know, you catch
a bit of a disease
or something.

Didn't think it was anything particularly life-threatening.

But that was all...
That was all
we kind of heard.

[trumpet playing]

[speaking German]

[speaking German]

[speaking German]

[man laughing]

[somber music playing]

[water splashing]

[Christa] This is an English
lesson in the bathtub.

Your equipment...

is very good.

[translating in German]

Your equipment is
not good enough.

[Stephan translating in German]

Your equipment is
good enough for our roads.

[Stephan translating in German]

[speaking German]

[speaking German]

-This?
-Yeah.

A certain part of
the rhythm track.

[man shouting over rhythm track]

-Yeah.
-The timing should be right.

It's between the beat
and the shout.

[shouts]

Ha!

[music playing on laptop]

So sweet.

You see, when we'd made
the Revengealbum,

Conny was gonna mix it.

But I remember in the studio,

he started to lie down
on the sofa and say
he wasn't feeling very well.

And then...
Then we would cancel.

And then, the next day
he wasn't feeling very well.

And then...

Then it was obvious that,

actually, he couldn't do it.

He was saying,
"I have to go back."

[Stephan] I am certain my dad knew exactly why he took me with him to Japan.

He knew that we had to
spend as much time
together as possible.

My dad died on a Sunday
in the winter of 1987.

♪

[somber electronic music
playing]

♪

[Stephan] Now, you're taking
the desk of Conny to London?

Yeah.

My therapist is very happy.

[Stephan laughs]

There you are.

They've gone and got
a second mortgage

on another house in Spain
or somewhere.

[Stephan laughs]

It's not a thing
to be taken lightly.

I haven't taken it lightly.

And I've still only
50% convinced myself

that it's any kind of...

um...

It's just a stupid
thing to do.

But there we are.
Stupid thing's the best.

I've worked on lots
and lots of desks.

It's completely brilliantly
thought out.

The physical dimensions
for a 56-channel desk...

Obviously it was built
for Conny. Big guy, yeah?

He could stretch probably
both arms,

and reach the end
faders. Yeah?

Maybe bar a couple of inches.

But certainly with
a slight movement there,

you can control
the whole mix.
One person can.

This desk and the studio

was in essence,
it's the hippies who fell
in love with machines.

Because the whole thing
is angled completely
correctly for natural light.

A lot of studios have
natural light.

I'm completely indifferent
to natural light in studios.

I don't care about it.
It doesn't do anything to
my body clock.

I've always thought
it was an affectation.

This is the only place
I ever came

where the natural light
really worked.

Where the passage of the sun
was used

to create a natural
kind of space.

The morning's on your left,

mid-day is
from behind you,

and the evening
is on your right.

[speaking indistinctly]

[Allen] Keep it off the ground.
Come on.

You have to be supporting
the joint down there.

-Okay.
-[Stephan] The joint.
Just grab it at the joint.

[Allen] Okay.

[Stephan speaking German]

[Lola speaking German]

[door unlocking]

-Hello. Hi.
-[woman] Hello.

[speaking German]

Wow.

[Verena speaking German]

[Stephan speaking German]

[Hutchins] So, I walked in the bathroom.

I turned on the light,
and I was like...

"This is where it's at!"

The whole bathroom is
wallpapered in platinum
and gold albums.

I'm like, "Wow!"

I'm sitting there on the john, just reading all the albums.

[laughs]

That's when we started
to know the magnitude

-of this producer
that we were working with.
-Yeah.

And we was like,
"Holy smoke!"

[speaking German]

♪

[Stephan]
It's a strange feeling

to stand at this place
where it all started.

I have come full circle.

[Stephan speaking German]

[Stephan] I heard about my dad from his friends.

and his passion for which
he ultimately gave his life.

He had the unique talent

to push artists beyond their
wildest dreams of what
they thought was possible.

To create something
unique and lasting.

Nothing is too crazy
not to try it.

Or how father used to say,

"Craziness is holy."

[Ure] I'd say that
without knowing it
at the time,

all of us, we managed
to work together,

and create something
that was utterly timeless.

That had a life beyond
the life that Conny's had,

and will have a life beyond
the life that I have.

'Cause the music we
created together

is something that will be
in the ether forever.

[rock music playing]

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪