Galerie der Entertainer 1971/11/28

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Picture from a newspaper report about Embryo, taken on the same day

In 1971, Embryo appeared on the german TV-show "Galerie der Entertainer". After a very negative report about "Faust" and their management, Embryo were presented as the positive, uncommercial example. Below you can find a few screenshots from the broadcast and a translated version of the transcript.

Moderator: An example from Bavaria shows that things can be done differently, that they have to be done differently. Hofstätt near Taufkirchen is home to the band Embryo, four young musicians who have made their way without any major management. On behalf of the Goethe-Institut, for example, they will be travelling through Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Spain and Portugal next year.

Embryo play concert for children in front of their house

Voice Over: A rural concert for little guests, garden party with the embryos. One of many, because the rock group works purposefully. Children between the ages of three and five should be encouraged to participate. Without pressure, without lessons, but not without ulterior motives. These children experience music as something feasible. As a possibility to express themselves. Free and playful. Musical incomprehension should no longer exist for these children. According to the embryos, incomprehension is very often based on ignorance. Ignorance in turn produces prejudice, and prejudice prevents any experience. At least children should be protected from this. The rock musicians hope that those who make music themselves will not let the entertainment industry put pop idols in front of their noses. The mass hysteria, the seduction of the ignorant has abdicated, for them.

Interview with Edgar Hofmann

Edgar Hofmann: In the last few years here in Munich we have played quite a lot at demonstrative events and political parades, and in the meantime this feeling has fallen asleep a bit, and people complain that the left is completely split. With our music we try to keep this spark a little bit, we play almost completely unprepared, sometimes completely chaotic, but with a very strong personal commitment, and now we try to show people that even from completely conflicting musical opinions, in the end a musical entity can still be created, that is organized and that works, and that can be a certain model for people, that things that are addressed, a certain fire that is supposed to burn in people, but has not completely disappeared, and even if it only smoulders a little bit further in the musical sense, that it is at least still there.

Embryo play in a concert hall

Interview with several embryo members

Hansi Fischer: The reason why this can happen at all, that we as embryo drive an average of 10,000 kilometers a month, that we have to keep the cars intact, what the gasoline and oil costs, repairs, taxes, insurance, telephone calls, that we arrange our own jobs, that we negotiate with people, with the student and student groups, that we make special prices for comrades and political events, and then there are commercial people again, you have to distinguish between them, pull as much as possible from their noses, that they don't keep too much for themselves, and so on and so on... And then there is the concentration on the music, on the statement of what you actually want, and the groove. The listener comes in, has bought a ticket, "oh great guys, he has long hair, and even a bald guy", and then it starts, then they get served practically only the final product.

Embryo play in a concert hall

Interview with several embryo members

Christian Burchard: So far, the groups in Germany have almost been in competition with each other. One believed that the other group would take your job and so on. But nowadays the call for solidarity has come up very often, because commerce has slowly begun to see its sales opportunities and is trying to buy up these groups. And therefore it is very important that the groups, whether they are called Embryo, Amon Düül, Xhol or Can, that they simply get together and do something about it. What to do is up to the respective tactics. But it is important that something like this exists.

Panning over the residence and the house of the band

Voice Over: Munich is their business address, they live in the countryside, in Hofstätt near Taufkirchen. Not because the embryos, completely stoned, finally want to enjoy nature, but because the rents in our cities are so high. Too high, for one of the most committed groups in this country.

Embryo play "Espagna Si, Franco No" in front of their house

Interview with Edgar Hofmann

Edgar Hofmann: When we have finished a piece and start playing the next one, then there is usually a certain space in between, a certain emptiness in us, and we usually talk to the audience, we recommend magazines, we often read political texts in front of them, and that comes from the feeling that we can't do everything alone and bring the only true thing, but that other things exist besides us, and that people still exist who do other things than we do, who write songs, make magazines, but work in a similar way as we try to do with music. We would like to refer to these people and expand the area a little bit, that people not only come home with the feeling that they have experienced music, but that they have the feeling that there is a certain scene working together here, and we are a part of this scene, and we draw attention to other people from this scene, that the whole thing is a structure, and that people can have a similar feeling afterwards, when they have dug the music, and when they go to a theater for example, where people express something similar to us with words.