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BOOK REVIEW! FAUST --- STRETCH OUT TIME 1970-1975 BY ANDY WILSON 

This was "originally published in 2006" and exactly by who I don't know, so I really can't tell you just who exactly put out this Faust history other than this must be one of a million of those "vanity books" that people pay to get thrusted on a public who may or may not know or care about these things in the first place. Whatever, I don't think any of the big deal book publishers would give a flying fanabla about Faust, and I'm also positive that even most of the "fringier" ones could have cared less...but eh, there's a book on 'em out and about and if you're a fan and follower of this group then it might be worth the time and energy to rush out and snatch a copy given the lack of true O-mind stimulation there is in this universe of ours.

Author Andy Wilson does a better than I would have expected job of laying out the whowhatwhenwherewhys and hows of Faustdom, naturally splattered with his usual personal insights and hipster quotes that seem in place because hey, remember how Lester Bangs would preface his articles with choice bits from William Burroughs and Henry Miller? And thankfully the writing's detailed beyond belief, filling in all of those weirdo gaps that left some krautsters scratching their beans for years while tossing at us some even newer mysteries that numbsters like myself never conjured up in our ape-like brains.  Of course the author's own insights and conclusions you may or probably won't care about get popped into the prose, but if you don't like it go and write your own book and see how people like it! they probably won't, and I should know!

Maybe too much time is spent on the Frank Zappa angle and not on more, er, punkier pursuits (though the kraut/punk continuum is clearly established i a way that would satisfy anyone who listened to these Germanic sounds altered through an early-seventies Eddie Flowers perspective) and sometimes the writing can go off on a tangent you might not cozy up to, but if you're satisfied enough with my own wanderings you'll probably enjoy Wilson's own sidesteps in order to relay just what makes Faust so bigtime in the world of kraut. 

Anyhow...a must for all of you out there who used to scour the import bins of the mid/late seventies (and later on Jade Hubertz catalogs)  wishing you had all of the money to afford those foreign luxuries that at times were displayed in record shops alongside bongs, and I really do mean it.