Stephan Plank: The Potential of Noise
This week’s MTF Podcast delves into the memories of film maker Stephan Plank, who grew up around Kraftwerk, Neu, Ultravox, Devo, Eurythmics and more, as they recorded their classic albums in his father’s studio. He’s interviewed by MTF founder Michela Magas after the Swedish premiere screening of his documentary The Potential of Noise at #MTF Stockholm.
AI Transcription
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
musicians, studio, father, film, stefan, recording, tech fest, music, connie, talk, houdini, plank, mixing desk, bands, interview, noise, mtf, daniel miller, producer, artist
SPEAKERS
Conny Plank, Stephan Plank, Andrew Dubber, Michela Magas
Andrew Dubber
Hi, I’m Andrew Dubber, Director of Music Tech Fest and welcome to this week’s MTF podcast. What you’re about to hear is a conversation between MTF Labs founder and creative director Michela Magas, and German filmmaker Stephan Plank. He’s the director of the potential of noise, a really wonderful documentary film about his late father, the legendary record producer Conny Plank, who worked on seminal albums by bands like Ultravox, Neu!, Eurythmics, Kraftwerk, Scorpions, DAF and lots more. Stephan came to Music Tech Fest for the Swedish premiere of his film, which we screened in the decommissioned underground nuclear reactor Hall at kth Royal Institute of Technology where we hosted MTF Labs, and also to spend time with the MTF community, of which he quickly became part. Michela Magas with Stephan Plank, hope you enjoy.
Michela Magas
We’ve been very lucky this week, to be able to premiere some fantastic new works that have never been shown in Sweden. And since for a whole week, we’ve been occupying the underground nuclear reactor, which you’ve probably heard about. We were also able to use this space with a 90 artists and scientists and technologists who were developing new kinds of things that resulted in this performance that some of you earlier today. We were also able to premiere a movie about absolutely seminal music producer, I can say categorically that Music Tech Fest would not have happened without this person. German music producer who had created the sound for the likes of Devo, Ultravox, Eurythmics, a whole bunch of people, for those of you who are my age or there abouts, you would know that this was absolutely crucial stuff. And we were so lucky that we had the producer son sort of producers called Conny Plank, and the producer son, Stephan Plank, came to introduce the movie. He’s the filmmaker who produced the movie, so an artist in his own right, and an artist with a very, very unique experience of growing up with his father and this musicians. So I’m very, very happy to welcome to the stage Stephan Plank.
Stephan Plank
As a starting point, since some of you might not have seen the film, I just show you the first couple of seconds, which made me do the film,
Conny Plank
a noise, I can try to find if it’s possible to make music out of it. It’s like the beginning of music. When a human being listened to it into the woods, and listened to noises of animals, and other noises. There are noises the human being doesn’t like, and other noises he likes. And those he likes he picks up and turns converting into music. So any noise has the potential to be music, if it’s liked by a human being.
Michela Magas
So, Stephan, I don’t know if you’ve been able to hear it. It’s a little bit on the quiet side. So Stephan, maybe you can tell us a little bit more about what we just saw.
Stephan Plank
So my father was in Japan and went into a Pachinko Hall. And he was amazed by the sound of a Pachinko Hall, which is a extract quite extraordinary noise. And he was in he is one of the pioneers of sampling and using sounds to make music. And he found this noise and was attempting to make music out of it. Because in his words, it’s like any noise has the potential to be music if it’s liked by a human being. And I think this is quite an It’s an extraordinary sentence to put out there. And I think it’s quite interesting for Music Tech Fest because This is what we’re doing now constantly with music.
Michela Magas
Absolutely. But he wasn’t, he was a real pioneer. Because basically he influenced the sound of Kraftwerk. And he was doing noir, he was doing what we call crowd rock. And the way that he was doing it in those days was not sort of it was before, we were able to do it automatically, or we were able to record things and loop them back. So tell us a little bit how it was the sort of the methods that he was using to generate?
Stephan Plank
Well, I was a small boy when this happened. And there were times when I was not allowed in the studio because they were doing band tape loops. And there were tape machines, and the tape would be running through the studio and microphone stands. And there would be turning on the other side. And for four year old boy, this is very interesting. And you would love to touch it. But obviously was thrown out of the studio because I was taught this is the place where the big boys play. And but I quite vividly remember when my father got a hold of the first emulator, which is one of the first sampling machines. And he was so in love with this on now I can play it on the piano. It’s amazing.
Michela Magas
So you are not allowed in there. There is a there’s a particular personal story attached to this, I guess. This was his main love and main interest. And he was obviously getting a great deal out of this process and out of interacting with this incredible musicians. And sometimes somehow you were always at the periphery. And you actually lost him very, very early in life. How did you? How did this what sort of effect this have on you?
Stephan Plank
Well, to explain this, Conny’s studio was an old farmhouse. And the recording studio was actually in the way where the horses were kept. And the musicians would be playing where the pigs were kept. And the tape machines would be there where the hay was stacked. And I grew up there and my father was constantly there, but absent as well, because he was recording with these bands. And he died when I was 13 years old. So you don’t have this community conversation with your father, when you’re 13 Hey, Dad, how are you doing this? And how are you producing these bands. And in 2006, I decided when my mother died that I have to move out the studio because nobody really needs recording studios for hire anymore. And well, I found this clip, which you just saw. And this made me think and I wanted to know more about my father and his work, because there were like, two counties in my mind, there was Papa and the producer, Conny Plank. And by making this film, I made them whole again to be one person again. But
Michela Magas
it wasn’t just, well, obviously you were able to put them together again. But it wasn’t just you. It was all the musicians, they noticed you and your relationship with your father. And they were putting you back together as well, when they
Stephan Plank
Yes, it’s a it’s a weird kind of relationship I have with these musicians. Because in my mind, it’s when you’re a musician and you tell your parents that you’re going to be a musician. They’re not happy all the time when you say I got to become a rock star. And my father was the person who said Yes, okay, let’s see what Well, we’re going to go what what’s gonna happen with you, and where’s the music potential there. So in a way, these musicians community dedicated with me as a sibling, like the younger brother, which they met at the studio, and that, I think it’s quite extraordinary because at the beginning of the film, when I was planning it, I plan to not appear in the film at all. But then we shot the first interviews and I sat down with Reto Caduff, my co director. And we said, we have to put me into the film cause the musicians don’t react in the usual way. Usually, when you do an interview with a musicians, there’s lots of their image present and they have a certain way of keeping themselves and communicating their message, which is not present in this film.
Michela Magas
But there was a whole cocktail of factors that were sort of in this part. There was your mother who was very much a key figure from what I understand from the movie. There was you. I mean, you were there actually, even though you were not allowed in the studio. My my observation is and also from someone who grew up with a father who was an artist and similar kind of ways. You are there as something that they bounce against, or they react to. And I think the other musicians who came and became part of this world, Your World, Your mother’s or Father’s world, were actually absorbed in this kind of dynamic and there was something that happened in the process. Can you tell us a bit more about the musicians that visited the farm and the kinds of characters they were?
Stephan Plank
Well, it’s a rather long list, but I try the highlights. So it started with Kraftwerk, Neu, Ultravox, Devo, Eurythmics , Gianna Nannini, the Scorpions, di Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft, DAF. And um Houdini, and Houdini.
Michela Magas
I was gonna say that was quite extraordinary,wasn’t it. Yeah. So we’re gonna jump into Houdini. And they’re absolutely wonderful in the movie, the way they talk about you about you as a brother, as about that journey from New York, which had never had never left into to a farm that was outside of Cologne in the middle of basically what for them was kind of No way. It’s not really. It is it’s not. So that was that that was just that was just incredible. So it did you actually discover in interviewing them that they’re late, your relationship with them was actually a bit stronger and a bit bigger than you you had remembered? Or did you remember them that that relationship? How did you memorise that originally?
Stephan Plank
Well, talking about specifically about Houdini, which was quite an amazing interview, and quite an experience. First of all, I found them. And then I had to try to communicate with them. And I found them on all spaces on my space, they still have my space. And I wrote them an email, if they would give me an interview, and they instantly wrote back that they would would be an honour to give the son of Sir Conny Plank an interview. Right? So what I hadn’t realised, but this is was a theme through the film, that by being produced from my father, they not only got his attention, and his work as a producer, but I became some in a weird way a part of their family a part of their life. So it was amazing how they received me. I hadn’t met them for 30 years, and they would go to see you. And it felt real like family meeting.
Michela Magas
And they also talk about your father as a sort of a medium. In fact, many musicians talk about this, as though he was someone who didn’t want to impose himself onto the artists of the artists creative process, he would like he would allow them to bounce around and argue and do all these kinds of things. And they would just say he’ll be fine. How do you see this role that he had, he described
Stephan Plank
himself sometimes as a midwife. Or as a medium between the band and the tape machine. So he can convert the thoughts of them onto tape. So that there is a scene and the tape in the film, which is quite funny. Because the first album of mute records was DAF, Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft, and Daniel Miller had made a deal with my father to record it. And they had three days. And first day, they were talking and setting things up. Not recording a note. Second day, talking a little bit of fighting, a little bit more communicating, no recording at all. Daniel Miller who had got this money, I think from his mother was getting really nervous because there was no recording being done there. And the third day started and they made a long walk, talk some more, then went to the studio and recorded the whole album in one go. So for Conny, it was more important to get the musicians in the state of mind to let go then to be hands on and saying oh, you have this to play this now. This way. He said, You’re the musician, you’re going to take care of this yourselves. I’m here to make you do it and to enjoy it while you’re doing it.
Michela Magas
And he was very physical with it as well with the process when when he got engaged with the gear, he had this extraordinary setup. And he was it was kind of designed for him. He’s a big guy, right. So he was able to stretch from one side to the other, but he would get very physical with it. Do Do you feel that that has something in common with some of the approaches that some of the people that you’ve observed this week?
Stephan Plank
Yes, I think it’s quite amazing cause you’re talking about his mixing desk, which in the usual studio is like the place where the technician sits and makes a nice mix of with it. And it’s not really a collaborative tool. But Conny designed his own mixing desk. So he would be able to interact with the musicians to be part of it to react to it, what’s happening in the recording. And this was, so it was a collaborative effort. And I’ve seen quite a lot of this collaboration here. There, there are no boundaries.
Michela Magas
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it’s a massive inspiration for our crowd. And I hope you have managed to see some of the sort of like effects that this kind of influence
Stephan Plank
has had. I was reminded of one of the sentences of Conny who he used to say quite often, he always said craziness as holy.
Michela Magas
And you can definitely say that at Music Tech Fest. Well, many thanks, Stephan Plank. Big round of applause.
Stephan Plank
Thanks for having me.
Andrew Dubber
Hey, thanks for listening to the MTF podcast. Don’t forget to subscribe and of course, we would really love it if you help spread the word. Much appreciated and talk soon. Cheers.
