American PTA Seeks Ban on 1970s Porn Music Composer
Dec 26, 2006, 12:01
Klaus Harmony (file photo).
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - Angry American parents of high school, and some middle-school, students hope to take a 10-million-name petition to the United States Congress in an attempt to ban a music-download website which sells the music of the iconic German porn composer, Klaus Harmony.
Since the musician's death in 1984, his son, Helmut, and colleague, Jan Sink, have sought to gain control of Harmony's music catalog in order to release it in a series of volumes entitled Oeuvre.
The chief objection raised by UCPA, the body bringing the petition, concerns the use of brainwave synchronisation technology, which simulates sexual arousal, in the mastering process.
"We are not so naive as to attempt a ban on pornography," said UCPA spokesperson, Rhonda Kennedy. "Yet we cannot stand by and watch a generation of children be perverted by this European brainwashing—it is a step too far."
Jan Sink of Netherlands-based HarmonSink records and Judd Music Publishing defended the use of brainwave synchronisation in the music.
"This is harmless—totally cool. Yeah, we want to enhance what is already very sexy music, but Klaus would not have seen anything wrong with this. The brainwave software is being tested on pigeons and is showing great results."
Sink refuted the accusation that the brainwave algorithms embedded in the MP3s planned for sale from the Klaus Harmony website would cause harm to young people: "The Funkematik Systems brainwave module is an add-on plug in for web browsers. This has to be downloaded to get the sexy feelings and can be turned off once it has been installed. We don't want to make bad feeling with anyone," he added.
Klaus Harmony, dubbed "The Mozart of Porn" by one critic, created music which accompanied the films of Friedrich Wohlfäht, a director who considered himself an exponent of the German Erotik Expressionist movement. His seventies movies, Die Sins Des Apostles and The Ladies Man, are thought by certain critics to be classics.
Rhonda Kennedy, however, does not agree: "What can be considered classic about pornography, I fail to see. Jimmy Stewart films are classics, not this filth."
Interestingly, German music professor Walter Samuel, who has written several academic papers on the music of Klaus Harmony, also takes issue with the addition of brainwave patterns to the recordings.
"This technology did not exist in the 1960s and '70s," he said. "Klaus Harmony used only his creative resources to complement Wohlfäht's movies with his soundtracks. I feel most strongly that this is not in correspondence with the music of the times."
Jan Sink (file photo).
Jan Sink is unapologetic, however: "We hold Herr Samuel in high esteem, but I'm sure he is not correct about this. I know Klaus would have used this if it had existed. He loved the inventions of Jerrick Vander and was always looking out for new gadgets. We hope we can persuade everyone, including Americans, to join us in the appreciation of Klaus' music. He was a genius."
Although the music of Klaus Harmony already appears on the music pages of MySpace, the response of Congress is likely to have an influence on any US edition of the Klaus Harmony website, due for launch in early 2007. The ruling is not expected to be of consequence in Europe, which has already approved the use of brainwave technology.
"European children are not our concern," remarked Rhonda Kennedy.
.jpg)
