I've just finished a sweep through all the updates that people have sent me or that I've spotted on the list, and have been left sitting in my inbox for months because I was too busy.

Good work, Soleil. I'd like to contribute with a few bits: 1) Other-Media References: "The Big Lebowsky" There's a sequence when Julianne Moore shows an LP cover which is titled «Autobahn - Nagelbett» with three guys in red shirts with black ties on the cover and says: «It's some kind of technopop and they released it in the mid-70s». The three men are the bad guys in this very funny story, some criminal nihilists with terrible German accents. The three nihilists are played by Peter Stormare, Torsten Voges and Flea (of the Red Hot Chili Peppers). BTW "Autobahn" is the name of the band while I think "Nagelbett" is German for "Bed of nails". See also http://us.imdb.com/Trivia?0118715 2) Stated influence: John Foxx John Foxx, founder member of Ultravox and brilliant solo vocalist/musician (www.metamatic.com) has mentioned several times KW as one of his musical roots. In the liner notes of his first compilation "Assembly" he makes reference to KW at least two times. 3) Covers and Remixes: David Byrne and Balanescu Quartet did perform "The Model" live. I don't know if it can be found in any record but it is available as an MP3 file (ftp.technopop.br) and I personally saw the video (very funny) on MTV some years ago. 4) Stated influence: Duran Duran There's a rumour that DD were meant to be "between Chic and Kraftwerk" - actually I located an interview with Nick Rhodes (http://www.rit.edu/~pja5362/final/history.htm) where he states that the original cross-over should have been "between Chic and the Sex Pistols". Nevertheless, it's nice to know that Simon Le Bon sang in a band with a "kraftwerkian" direction and the following quote from the same interview is very interesting: "Looking back at it now, I think really what New Romantic was about, was a style movement that came out of punk rock and glam rock. Running alongside glam rock was techno-rock, triple alburns, concept alburns, flying pigs." So, we're talking Pink Floyd. "Exactly, and Yes and all those groups; the punk movement was against all that. They were fans of T Rex, Bowie, the stylized glam rock, but nobody was that keen on ELP, it was a reaction against people who could play like virtuosos. It was more we can play three chords, stand up onstage, and everything's great. What we did was take that ethic together with the electronic music of Kraftwerk, Giorgio Moroder, and all that disco stuff as well, and mixed it in with glamrock. All that together is what resulted in the New Romantic ethics I suppose. And I think our music was greatly away from nearly everybody else, other than the punk side of it, which was there with the likes of Depeche Mode, but perhaps not so much so with some of the others." Ciao, Luca