(KrautRock) Virus - Remember Live (GOD 095) 1973, Germany - 1973, FLAC (tracks)

Originating from Bielefeld in Northern Germany, the roots of Virus go back to the early-1960's, with Bernd Hohmann in the school band The Moonbirds, later joining up with Man's World, a rock 'n' soul band, who gradually transmuted into Virus circa 1970. Another Virus root starts in 1966, with Wolfgang Rieke of the award winning Percy & The Gaolbirds. All the founding members were experienced talents and well-known musicians of the Westphalia region.

Virus were justly one of the most legendary of Krautrock bands, notably in that their debut took the Pink Floyd type of space-rock sound onto new uncharted realms. REVELATION was aptly titled, being full of invention and surprises within long tracks that sported extensive guitar work-outs, swirling organ, free-riffing and lots of interactive musical interplay, no less so that on the very free adaptation of "Paint it Black" and a most astonishing diversion on a "Saucerful Of Secrets" theme! But, like Gila or Tangerine Dream, Virus were by no means plagiarists, what they did was to venture beyond such influences and come up with a style all of their own, resulting in a powerful cosmic excursion that's largely instrumental and full of surprises. Certainly an album of revelations!

But, scarcely a month on from recording REVELATION, two-thirds of the band: Reinhold Spiegelfeld, Bernd Hohmann and Werner Monka had split-off forming the hard-rock psychedelic band Weed.

For many years the line-up on THOUGHTS remained a mystery, as no such details were credited on the sleeve, although the front cover showed six people. Recent documentation from Garden of Delights credits the band as: Wolfgang Rieke (drums) and Dieter Krahe (keyboards) remaining from the previous line-up, joined by: Jurgen Schafer (vocals, bass), Werner Vogt (vocals, bass), Bernd Rosner (guitar) and Axel Nieling (additional drums, percussion). The female vocals happened to be by a guest, a friend of Conny Plank's, who may or may not have been the rumoured Elga Blask. The person on the cover in furs and chintzy glasses is said to be Wolfgang Rieke! No wonder THOUGHTS was in such a different style to the debut, and with two very different lead vocalists songwriting was more a key factor of the music. A more hard-rock and blues focus meant a step towards more song oriented Frumpy, but with a wild psychedelic edge, and lyrics about drugs and paranoia, much closer to Pilz label-mates Dies Irae. The same line-up (with slightly altered instrumentation) were also featured on the HEAVY CHRISTMAS album, with two sizzling numbers that were nothing less than extraordinary.

We always wondered what happened to Virus after THOUGHTS, a question that was answered with REMEMBER documenting a WDR radio concert from April 1973.

Surprisingly most of the THOUGHTS line-up was still intact, except they had new guitarist Reinhard Ifflander, and the addition of a winds player, taking the music to a jazzier, slightly soul-spiced rock fusion. Less original, yet still rather good, the Frumpy edge is even more notable, with elements of Vanilla Fudge, CBS brass-rock acts, Emergency and Creative Rock all creeping in to the blend. With only one known track "King Heroin" from THOUGHTS, the rest amounted to an unpublished new album worth of material.

Failing to find a contract for this new material the band eventually folded in spring 1974. Shortly before that, however, Micky Stickdorn had joined on drums. He and Werner Vogt continued together with Jurgen Kochbeck's new band Skyline.

EAC extraction logfile from 13. June 2007, 19:13 for CD
Virus / Remember (Live)

Used drive : PLEXTOR DVDR PX-755A Adapter: 4 ID: 1
Read mode : Secure with NO C2, accurate stream, disable cache
Read offset correction : 30
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No

Used output format : D:\Program Files\EAC\Exact Audio Copy\flac.exe (User Defined Encoder)
320 kBit/s
Additional command line options : -V -8 -T "artist=%a" -T "title=%t" -T "album=%g" -T "date=%y" -T "tracknumber=%n" -T "genre=%m" %s

Other options :
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Installed external ASPI interface

Track 1
Filename D:\1 - Music + Stuff\01 - Everybody Knows That Iґve Got That Feeling.wav

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Peak level 99.7 %
Track quality 99.9 %
Test CRC D71A870A
Copy CRC D71A870A
Copy OK

Track 2
Filename D:\1 - Music + Stuff\02 - This Is No Anarcy.wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:02.00

Peak level 99.7 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC BCEAC900
Copy CRC BCEAC900
Copy OK

Track 3
Filename D:\1 - Music + Stuff\03 - Remember.wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:02.00

Peak level 99.7 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 3F98E8FF
Copy CRC 3F98E8FF
Copy OK

Track 4
Filename D:\1 - Music + Stuff\04 - Rock n Roll.wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:02.00

Peak level 99.7 %
Track quality 99.9 %
Test CRC AEDFC2B8
Copy CRC AEDFC2B8
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Track 5
Filename D:\1 - Music + Stuff\05 - In Any Way.wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:02.00

Peak level 99.7 %
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Test CRC 2A0159D8
Copy CRC 2A0159D8
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Track 6
Filename D:\1 - Music + Stuff\06 - Settle Down.wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:02.00

Peak level 99.7 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 58DB95CB
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Track 7
Filename D:\1 - Music + Stuff\07 - Living In The Country.wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:02.00

Peak level 99.7 %
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Test CRC ED76DBC7
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Track 8
Filename D:\1 - Music + Stuff\08 - King Heroin.wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:02.00

Peak level 99.7 %
Track quality 99.9 %
Test CRC C6BDD290
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Track 9
Filename D:\1 - Music + Stuff\09 - Woods Fun.wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:02.00

Peak level 99.7 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 65961552
Copy CRC 65961552
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No errors occured

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