Amon Duul Play Phallus Dei (shouldn’t that be “plays” since Duul is grammatically a single unit?) is a newly-released DVD of the band in 1968 playing the epic side-long track from their first album. Additionally, the cameraman was none other than future-directorial giant Wim Wenders in one of his first film gigs. Sounds like a rock-film homerun all around, right?
Unfortunately…wrong.

The audio portion of the DVD is stunning. It’s a well-played version of “Phallus Dei”, so well-played that at times, I was sure I was listening to the album track.

Nope, the problems with this DVD stem from the video portion. Now, we’re all aware that in the pre-MTV late sixties, syncing-up multiple camera angles of a musical performance was prohibitively expensive for all but the biggest studios. This is basically an art film, so the concert footage is single camera and single angle (shot, I suppose, by Wenders). But the footage is well-shot, the band is animated and interesting, the colors are very groovy and who wouldn’t want to gaze at the stunningly gorgeous Renate Knaup-Krotenschwanz. Even during parts of the song when she has little to do and she looks bored, she exudes a sexy stoned charisma (her album cover shots do not do her justice, my friends).
Besides, when you go to a show, your eye-brain-ears only give you a single angle anyhow (unless you’re a schizophrenic or something). If the producers had left it at that, this would be an enjoyable film concert experience. But they didn’t.
Throughout the movie, there are juxtapositions of grainy, scratchy, underexposed stock footage of sunrises and the German countryside. During the first part of the film, these are minimally intrusive. But they increase in frequency and duration until they literally take over. We hardly even get to SEE the band for the final ten minutes or so. Nope, instead we are “treated” to a single long, slow, panning shot of a shadowy tree, probably shot from a car window. And this shot continues for seven or eight excruciatingly boring minutes. Meanwhile you hear the band blasting through the final couple of movements of “Phallus Dei” featuring Chris Karrer’s unhinged vocals and demonic sawing violin. It’s probably quite an astounding sight… but we’ll never know because we’re watching a fucking car drive slooooowly past a goddamn tree! It’s the most frustrating music video ever!

I am a big fan of the early Amon Duul 2 lineups, and I’d love to be able to unhesitatingly recommend this DVD, but I really can’t. Unless you are a seriously hardcore fan of the band, or a fan of static shots of bare trees and sunrises, you should pass on this.

————————————————

One more thing: what’s up with the revisionist tendency of Krautrock bands towards their discographies? Can tried to erase the “Out Of Reach” album from their official history. Kraftwerk publically distances themselves from their first three albums and refuses to officially reissue them. The reformed Faust has deleted the Peron-era “Rien” and “You Know Faust” from their catalogue. And now, on this DVD’s “Album History” (the only Extra Feature on this disc), Amon Duul has omitted the (admittedly wretched) “Hijack” LP. Was it an oversight… or something more?