Thursday, May 10, 2018

Düsseldorf: Past is Prologue



We wanted to do this documentary months ago but didn't know where to start so finally Jennifer just ... started. This trip was life changing; we met a personal hero of ours, Kraftwerk's Wolfgang Flür, toured the formerly top secret Kling Klang Studio and even made it onto a nationwide German news program ... but more importantly we left with a coterie of new friends that we admire.

Thanks to Rudi Esch for your magnanimous donation of time and energy and loaning your mother to Marshall so that he could perfect his Rhineland dialect! All joking aside - our pal Marshall learned to speak German watching watching war films so any softer, more thoughtful tutors are welcome.

Jan Wiefels: our impetus for going. It's amazing that a person we don't know / have never met would put two tickets to a sold-out show aside for us. We came this close --> <-- to not going before you stepped in! Thorsten Schaar was our other motivator: your intriguing proposition of being in a Tour de France press junket and city tour cemented the deal.

Thanks to Memo Torfilli for making a positive 1st impression of the city and for hanging out with the odd Americans. Also your Mod Lord fashion shop is on point.

The journalists we met were all singularly awesome, no big egos or bloviators, just salt of the earth talent like Mark Roland, Andy Pietrasik, Tobias Rüther and Kevin Pocklington

Plus the colorful denizens of Düsseldorf: Fender Rhodes maestro Thilo Schölpen, edm crushinators Rob Keane (WATT!) and Daniel Fassbender, Wiebke Keane, Christina Hooper (Munich but whatever!), Frank Soentjens (Belgium but whatever!) and Wim Wenders who sadly wasn't there. Props also to Les & Hilde for meeting us and enjoying a concert by a band not named Die Toten Hosen.