Biography
As a teenager, Suzuki spent the late 1960s wandering around Europe, often busking.
When Malcolm Mooney left Can after recording their first album Monster Movie, Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit encountered Suzuki busking in Munich, Germany whilst the two were sitting outside at a street café, they invited him to join the group. And he did, performing with them that evening.
Suzuki was with Can from 1970 to 1973, recording a number of well-regarded albums such as Tago Mago, Future Days and Ege Bamyasi. Suzuki's first vocal performance with Can was "Don't Turn the Light On, Leave Me Alone" from Soundtracks His freeform, often improvised lyrics, sung in no particular language gelled with Can's rolling, psychedelic sound.
Suzuki converted to the Jehovah's Witness faith when he married his German girlfriend, who was also a Jehovah's Witness, after the release of the album Future Days, and retired from music in 1974.
He returned to music in 1983, and currently leads what is known as Damo Suzuki's Network - as he tours, he performs live improvisational music with various local musicians (so-called "Sound Carriers" ) from around the world, thus building up a 'network' of musicians with whom he collaborates. As far as more recent recorded material is concerned, Damo is featured on Canadian underground hip hop producer Sixtoo's album, Chewing on Glass & Other Miracle Cures (Ninja Tune, 2004).
Among the musicians in his live shows have been Michael Karoli and Jaki Liebezeit of Can, Mani Neumeier of Guru Guru, Dustin Donaldson of I Am Spoonbender, Cul De Sac, Passierzettel, The Early Years, The Bees, Do Make Say Think, Broken Social Scene, Airiel, Acid Mothers Temple, The Holy Soul, Steve Dinsdale, The Sandells, Tay Zonday, the Omar Rodriguez-Lopez Quintet (with whom he has recorded the 2007 EP Please Heat This Eventually), The Skull Defekts, AIDS Wolf, Radio Massacre International, Edmondo Ammendola and Dave Williams of Augie March, Gordon J Watson & Simon Doling of Terminal Cheesecake, Jonny Williams, Stephen McBean from Black Mountain, Helena Espvall of Espers, The Prestidigitators, Gary Jeff of God, Calamalka, Karl Asa of J>A>W>, Hamish Black, tynder, Neočekivana Sila Koja Se Iznenada Pojavljuje i Rešava Stvar, The Dream Machine All-Stars, AK/DK, Ann Shenton of Add N to (X) and many, many others.
Suzuki has been recognised by name by at least two different bands. The Fall's 1985 album This Nation's Saving Grace features a song "I Am Damo Suzuki," inspired by and dedicated to the singer. The rock band The Mooney Suzuki takes its name from Damo Suzuki and Can's earlier vocalist Malcolm Mooney.
Read more about this topic: Damo Suzuki
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“There never was a good biography of a good novelist. There couldn’t be. He is too many people, if he’s any good.”
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“In how few words, for instance, the Greeks would have told the story of Abelard and Heloise, making but a sentence of our classical dictionary.... We moderns, on the other hand, collect only the raw materials of biography and history, “memoirs to serve for a history,” which is but materials to serve for a mythology.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)