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Glamour model turned reality TV superstar Katie ‘Jordan’ Price ridiculed seminal electronic music pioneers Kraftwerk this week in an interview with The Quietus.

“Never heard of them,” the hugely influential tastemaker admitted when played their ground breaking 70s pop hit The Model.

“This reminds me of ‘Don’t You Want Me’ by the Eurythmics. That was by the Human League? Ah, OK. It’s really like that though,” she continued. “What do I think of it? It’s boring. It’s all right,” she shuddered.

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Her near sacrilegious assessment struck an unlikely chord with the views of acid techno legend Chris Liberator who in an interview with Skrufff in 2004 admitted to being distinctly unimpressed with the acclaim routinely accorded to the Teutonic pioneers.

“Take Kraftwerk, for example; I love them, I went to see them live in the 80s, but I don’t see why they’re so massive now in terms of their influence on the electronic music scene,” the Stay Up Forever chief complained, “Or bands like Throbbing Gristle or Cabaret Voltaire- I never got into rave or techno because of those people; they weren’t the missing link for me.”

Chris Liberator (click on the picture to access Stay Up Forever

Chatting to Skrufff the same year Ed Simons from the Chemical Brothers was more reverential, after watching Kraftwerk at Brixton Academy just weeks before the duo were scheduled to headline Creamfields in the UK.

“Tom (Rowlands) and I were absolutely gob-smacked and energised by the absolute technicality of that Kraftwerk show; they way they synchronised the music with the visuals and the sheer artistry of the visuals and it definitely prompted us to have a big rethink about how we present our own show,” Ed admitted.

“A few days later we had a meeting with our visual guy and we conceived a new look and a new way of combining the visuals with the music. Our lighting man also designed a new stage set,” he said.

http://www.kraftwerk.com/

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“The truth is we don’t really know where the name came from. Years ago, Andrew was in LA working on some fucking band or some fucking project and the name came to him and he emailed it to himself. When we were talking about the label about possible logo and graphic ideas, he was using that phrase and I came in and said that’s perfect.”

Sitting in a noisy Neukoln flat in East Berlin on a sunny spring morning, Glen Brady- aka DJ Wool insists that calling their label We Collect Enemies was as much by chance as by making any grand statement.

“Andrew grew up, kind of, in Ireland, like myself and there’s a lot of begrudgery in Ireland. The plus signs on the logo reflect the fact that the more you do, the more enemies you add up.”

Though he swears a lot and speaks his mind even more, he’s friendly and self-deprecating, despite the label’s name.

“Personally I thought ‘We Collect Enemies’ sounded cool,” he continues, “And a little bit punk,” he chuckles.

The Andrew he’s referring to is Andrew Phillpott, best known right now for his role over the last ten years working as a songwriter and member of Depeche Mode. Fellow We Collect Enemies partner Daryl Bamonte also played in Depeche Mode (as well as managing the Cure for a while) while Glenn’s credentials are firmly focused on dance music.

Spending the latter half of the 90s establishing himself as one of Ireland’s biggest DJs (he played at the Chemical Brothers first gig and became the DMC mix champion of Ireland in 1998) he moved to New York in 2001 just two weeks before the World Trade Centre was destroyed. Reconnecting with old mate Dominique Keegan of Plant Music renown, the duo soon formed the Glass going on to tour the world for much of the noughties off the back off New York’s DFA inspired punk-funk phenomenon.

Relocating more recently to Berlin three or so years ago, he’s recently taken a sideways step back from the Glass, revitalizing his old DJ persona of DJ Wool and launching ‘We Collect Enemies’.

The Glass (Glenn and Dominique)

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My new remix of MOTOR’s single Death Rave is out this week in the States on Steve Aoki’s kabel Dim Mak (and on T Raumchmiere’s Shitkatapult in Europe).

More DJs are getting behind it including this bunch below:

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