Jane - Live At Home (1976)

 (German 1970 - 1992)

Jane was among the most commercially successful groups in Germany in the seventies. The band was founded in 1970. After their appearance at the Little Woodstock Festival, Hannover in June 1971, a recording contract with Brain Metronome was secured. With vocalist Bernd Pulst they recorded Together in Star Studio, Hamburg in late 1971 with Konrad Plank. This was an impressive debut with a dominant guitar and organ style. Of most interest were the extended tracks "Spain" (11:53), "Hangman" (9:58) and "Daytime" (8:05). It is tempting to compare Jane's characteristic slow, classical influenced heavy rock arrangements to the music of groups like Vanilla Fudge, Iron Butterfly or early Deep Purple. Jane had developed these elements into a polished 1971 'progressive sound'. Indeed their patented rock sound wouldn't change too much during their long career. Some would say their music is far too predictable, easy-going and pompous. Label manager Gunter Korber produced Jane's first four albums.

For many people, the low-point of Together had been the turgid vocals of Bernd Pulst. He quit Jane in April 1972 and reduced the group to a quartet. Just before Here We Are, recorded at Windrose Studios, Hamburg, Charly Maucher fell ill and was replaced by Wolfgang Krantz. This was another great album, featuring both long instrumental work-outs and some good shorter songs. The highlight was definitely the nearly instrumental opening track "Redskin" (8:54), which comprised slow heavy rock with guitar and organ reminiscent of Pink Floyd. The four tracks on side two revealed the rawer and heavier side of Jane. Quite a few people quote this album as their favourite by Jane. Although this music was dismissed by the reviewers, the commercial response was great. Jane, Eloy, Novalis and others enjoyed long lasting and/or increasing success with their accessible records. Merely a month after the recordings of Here We Are were finished, Nadolny quit to form his own band Lady. Maucher thus returned to Jane again and for a short while their characteristic organ sound was abandoned.

On Jane III Hess and Krantz fought twin guitar battles instead, resulting in a more ordinary heavy rock sound. This album (recorded at Conny's Studio in February 1974) also opened with an excellent long and mainly instrumental track: "Comin' Again" (9:40). In general it was a highly enjoyable album. More changes in personnel followed in the Summer of 1974: Maucher and Krantz quit Jane to form Harlis. Their replacements were Martin Hesse and Gotfried Janko (previously the leader of Dull Knife). Janko brought back the organ sound for the album Lady (recorded at Conny's studio during November 1974 and January 1975), but also brought in some rather misplaced gospel-soul vocals. One felt that this album was an attempt to continue their increasing success with easy-going heavy pop. Luckily enough former organist Werner Nadolny soon replaced Janko again.

The concept album Fire, Water, Earth & Air was a more rewarding album than its predecessor. It was their first self-produced one, recorded in dummy-head stereo at Plank's studio in November 1975. Synthesizers were now introduced, resulting in a typical late seventies symphonic sound. For a large tour in March 1976, Nadolny had quit again. This time the replacement was a better choice than in the case of Janko: Manfred Wieczorke, previously of Eloy. His first recording with Jane was a double live album: Live At Home (1976). It was recorded in their hometown of Hannover in August. As with most other live albums, it was mostly of interest for fans and quite superfluous for others.

The stunning " Live At Home" double live LP comes complete with a cover of a Martian landscape snapped by the Viking Mars lander. Released in early 1977 and broadcast nationally in it's entirety in on WDR Radio in January of that year, "Live At Home" went gold in their native Germany and helped them break the international markets in both North America as well as Japan and South America.

The great success of Live At Home immediately improved the group's bargaining position with their record company, Brain. Based on their rapidly increasing record sales, the musicians negotiated a clearly improved contract, investing the money in their own Jane studio in 1978, where they went on to record further albums.

This post consists of FLACs ripped from my Import Vinyl pressing which is as clean and perfect as the day I bought it back in the late 70's. Jane was my first introduction to Krautrock, thanks to a small Import Record shop located in an L shaped arcade running between Little Flinder's Lane and Swanston St, Melbourne CBD  (thanks to Peter for identifying the shop - Pipe Records).

I absolutely loved the album covers and labels associated with these German imports, and quickly progressed onto bands such as Eloy, Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Can, Grobschnitt, Thirsty Moon and Kraan to name but a few.

My only difficulty was trying to finance these purchases, as these imports were almost 50% dearer than locally released music and therefore I had to choose wisely. Thankfully the guy behind the counter was happy to play any requests (try before ya buy) and it was then that I heard "Hangman" for the first time. I was blown away by the amazing keyboard and guitar sounds that Jane produced - and it was live !  Hope you enjoy this album as much as I did (and still do). Of course, full album artwork for both vinyl and CD are also included along with label scans.

Tracklist

A1  All My Friends  5:00

A2  Lady  3:40

A3  Rest Of My Life  4:36

A4  Expectation  5:40

B1  River  3:38

B2  Out In The Rain  6:21

B3  Hangman  12:14

C1 Fire, Water, Earth & Air  4:05

C2  Another Way  5:33

C3  Daytime  9:56

C4  Hightime For Crusaders  4:52

D1  Windows  19:28

Personnel:

KLAUS HESS guitar, vocals 

MANFRED WIECZORKE keyboards, vocals

MARTIN HESSE bass, vocals

PETER PANKA drums, vocals

Jane Live Link (462Mb) New Link 31/12/2023