RIP Florian
March 23rd, 2021I just posted the following to my fb: “In 1984 my parents bought the 11 year-old me a “how to breakdance” cassette (with how-to poster!) that I loved, although it had this one weird song that I couldn’t wrap my head around: Kraftwerk’s Tour De France. Even so, I listened to the tape over and over and over, and that song made me look up more of their work, and…mind blown. RIP Florian.” And while this is all true, it’s also…kind of not.
This morning I wanted to post something about Florian, so I started thinking about when I might have first heard Kraftwerk. I was pretty sure it was Tour De France, and I was equally sure it was on the Footloose Soundtrack. And that seems crazy, right? Footloose?? But I remember wearing out the Footloose cassette on my walkman in England in the 80’s! Don’t I? I definitely remember seeing the film, because I was so into breakdancing, that the final dance scene made a huge impression on me because it had like 5 seconds of cool breakdancing in it. And then the soundtrack was killer, right? “Let’s Hear It For The Boy”??? That song is amazing! This morning I was daydreaming doing karaoke to that song! And then, I’m *sure* Tour De France came on right after it, right?
But when I went to look at the soundtrack listing this morning, not only did it *not* have Tour De France on it, but it was full of songs I can’t imagine I was into. “Almost Paradise”?? Ugh. Sammy Hagar’s “The Girl Gets Around”??? No. Never heard that. What’s going on?
Reading up more about Tour De France and Soundtrack, it looks like Kraftwerk licensed the song to be used in the Breakin’ movie (amazing), re-named to (the better) Breakdance for the UK. Maybe I had that soundtrack? But then wikipedia goes further to explain that the band wouldn’t license the song for the soundtrack album, so a *cover version* was used, by a group called 10-Speed. First off, I want to know more about who that group is! But secondly, when I bring that cover up, yes, there is it, *that* is the version I had on the cassette!
But the Breakin’ Soundtrack is full of more tracks I have never heard. Although I remember loving that movie too! So maybe…
Well, I remember having this “learn to breakdance” cassette and poster when I was a kid living in England in the 80’s. Breakdancing really captivated me and I got way into the music, the dancing, etc. To the point where I was getting cardboard out on the sidewalk of the cul-de-sac where we lived and practicing moves. To the point where a friend and I would take our cardboard down to the Valley Gardens in the middle of town, put out a hat and breakdance for tips. Ok, that happened once. But it’s a fundamental piece of my identity somehow.
The great thing is, I still have this cassette! I dug it out and looked and the track listing. Just reading through the tracks brought them all back into my mind (except for a few which I’m excited to revisit on youtube). But no 10-Speed Tour De France. Something did catch my eye though: the version of Rockit on this cassette isn’t credited to Herbie Hancock, but to B.T. & The City Slickers?? Who?
Rockit is another track that I somehow know backwards and forwards from listening to it as a kid. I remember staying up late while we lived in England to see Herbie Hancock perform on some music awards show, and they had the robotic legs from the video and everything. Or was that just seeing the video? Hard to say.
All of which is to say that it seems there was a K-Tel practice of making cheap covers of these breakdance tracks for their cassettes and those are the versions that I know really well. It’s odd to hear the “real” versions now, and I have a lot of respect for the knock-offs. But because this is about Florian, let’s jam the real Tour De France, while I breakdance to the 10-speed version in my head. RIP to a true original.