All Talks of Life: Metropolis Conversations

Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor kicks off the Conversations on Friday night by forensically examining Prince’s ‘Muse To The Pharaoh’. Song, chat, song, chat – this is how Taylor and renowned Paisley Park authority Matt Thorne discuss their mutual obession with the late icon.

Thorne’s 2012 book about Prince – which bore an endorsement from Taylor – was one of the oustanding music titles of recent years, and the two offer a fascinating insight into the singer’s astonishing career. Both have a detailed knowledge of the outer fringes of the Prince canon, and among the highlights is a discussion of lesser-known cut ‘Ex’s Face’, admired by Taylor for its atmospheric quality. The duo round out the talk by comparing the respective legacies of the final albums by Prince and David Bowie.

Kraftwerk legend Wolfgang Flür enters the Red Bull stage wearing a full black suit and a very Metropolis-esque glittery music pin. His humour shines: “Did you know we liked discotheques and girls?” he laughs. Flür slyly mentions Florian Schneider, the Kraftwerk founder who he ran into recently in a Dusseldorf brewery after 30 years of them studiously avoiding each other. The two looked at each other and marvelled, “How did we become so fat?!”

Moving on to Saturday night, one of the highlights is the discussion with renowned electronic producer Paul Kalkbrenner. A particularly hot topic is Kalkbrenner’s 2008 film Berlin Calling, which the superstar DJ is hesitant to discuss. People still want to know, “Is it autobiographical?” Kalkbrenner claims it’s only partly based on himself in real-life. Would he act again? Well, he proudly announces he has an eighteen-month old daughter and already has the best job – especially when playing for half a million people. The larger the crowd, the less stressful: “It’s like a little music studio on stage.”

The conversational highlight of Saturday night arrives when Stuart Clark of this parish chats with Chic drummer Ralph Rolle. Before a mass singalong version of ‘Let’s Dance’, Rolle shares his “Oh shit!” moment, which occurred during the Grammys where he was performing alongside his boss, Nile Rodgers, as part of Lady Gaga’s David Bowie tribute. Unable to hear the click track he was supposed to be following, he looked around at the other band members, who were oblivious to his plight. In that moment, he notes, “I wouldn’t have minded dying.”

Karl Hyde ends the evening chat by reading from his book I Am Dogboy: The Underworld Diaries. Images from his everyday life appear on a TV screen as he reads his surrealist prose: “Dog boy was me – he would walk the city streets and see boys scavenging the streets in packs… we were dogs with our tongues out.” Hyde’s flair for writing matches his celebrated musical ability, making for the perfect end to the evening.