Cologne, Damo Suzuki, 1970
Can
In late May 1970 Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit found Damo Suzuki, a young Japanese traveller, busking outside the Blow Up club in Munich, and asked him to sing with Can that same night. Suzuki later remembered that they wanted someone who looked like an alien. He sang on Tago Mago, Ege Bamyasi and one more album, and left in 1973. Ege Bamyasi, named after a tin of okra Liebezeit found in a Turkish grocery in Cologne, was the first album made at Inner Space, a former cinema soundproofed with seagrass mattresses. The band recorded long improvisations and cut them down afterwards, what Czukay called instant compositions. Rosko Gee and Rebop Kwaku Baah of Traffic joined in 1977. Michael Karoli died in 2001, and Liebezeit and Czukay both died in 2017.
Bombay Café