Robot no show

Kraftwerk fans were left disappointed when a former band member failed to turn up to the first-ever academic conference on the German techno pioneers. Fans and professors including Stephen Mallinder from Cabaret Voltaire read papers and discussed the Dusseldorf act’s merits at the snappily titled Industrielle Volksmusik For The Twenty-First Century: Kraftwerk And The Birth Of Electronic Music In Germany over two days at Aston University in Birmingham. However, keynote speaker and former Kraftwerk mainstay Wolfgang Flur was a no-show. “He did not turn up,” said Aston University’s Uwe Schutte, who put the event together. “It’s disappointing, but that’s what you expect from Kraftwerk.”