My older (and only) brother, Matthew, had been in the Air Force for two years (since he was eighteen years old). He had overheard some of his friend's techno music and was intrigued. His friend made him a tape, which I still have. On the tape were a selection of Kraftwerk songs off of Computer World and Electric Cafe -- their last album. Matthew really dug them and because he was so much older than me, I was open to anything he was interested in. On the way to church, we would be driving along -- Matt, Dawn, and I -- singing along "I'm the operator with my pocket calculator." (I know...it's a pretty pathetic picture). Also, "Musique non stop, techno pop."

My brother also did an amazing thing -- he went out and actually bought one of their albums! This is amazing, because my brother's only bought a hand-full of albums in his lifetime -- mostly Enya, Queen, or Classical music. I am forgetting that he did belong to a CD club for awhile and bought a lot of CDs (mostly female singers like Madonna, Paula Abdule, Sinead O'Connor -- you have to remember this was the early 90s and late 80s).

Matthew bought their first album, Radio-Activity, which I still feel is one of their best albums (if not Computerworld). Radio-Activity is just so pure and pioneer-sounding for techno music. They really set the standards for electronic music -- house, techno, and ambient. Chemical Brothers sample Kraftwerk twice on their album, , on two separate tracks. Also, they've influenced many important and signfigant rock bands: David Bowie, Devo, The Cars, Garbage, Nine Inch Nails, and Ramms+ein.

After fifteen years without touring, Kraftwerk kicked off their world tour in San Francisco, Sunday night of June 7th 1998 and I was there to see them make history. They'll be at the Free Tibet Concert back east, so I'm interested to hear how that goes.