Book: Electri_City by Rudi Esch

Finished reading the book "Electri_City" by Rudi Esch... took me a while to get through it, I've been slowly reading it since well... quite some time! "Electri_City" is about the history and birth of electronic music... where it all started and how it shaped future music including techno, electronic music and maybe even industrial, and pop. The book primarily centers around the city Dusseldorf... where Kraftwerk and other bands were birthed, like Neu!, La Dusseldorf, OMD, Propaganda... and all sort of other bands, including a very well known industrial band Die Krupps... which, one of the members (Rudi Esch) actually put together this book! It was very interesting reading it... to find out where electronic music was birthed... and how it evolved... the story is also slightly sad... even though electronic music was birthed in Dusseldorf... it seemed very bleak, and there were a lot of missteps by the bands involved. Granted they came to shape the beginnings of electronic music... but too be quite honest, the impression I got was, there actually wasn't a lot going on in the city... like, yes, very well known bands had came out of that city, but I kinda felt like it was one stumble to the next. I will say though, it was very interesting reading about the gear that these bands had been utilizing, and actually creating on their own, because what was out there, wasn't meeting their needs, so typically bands like Kraftwerk created their own instruments and pieces, or they and other bands modified commercial gear to work with other pieces of gear, so they could get the result they wanted! The book is written in interview style... Rudi Esch recorded interviews with various artists to tell the story of Dusseldorf and how electronic music came to be... then transcribed the audio into text and there you have it. You get to see the story through the eyes of each artist, that was a pioneer in the scene... and it is very conversational! I highly recommend picking up this book to read the history of electronic music, and if you read through to the end, they get into some of the key gear that was used to make the sounds and music of these pioneers! Anyway, as I said... I highly recommend this book! It's interesting to see bands that have had an influence on pop, synthpop, techno... and even industrial!!