Trivia / Can

• Black Sheep Hit: The band's 1976 hit "I Want More", which sounds more like a late Roxy Music song than Can.
• Channel Hop: After the sale of United Artists Records to EMI in 1979, the band holds the rights to their own material using their label Spoon Records, distributed by Mute Records.
• Creator Breakdown: Malcolm Mooney suffered one in 1969, fixating on audience members at a Can gig going upstairs to see an art exhibit and downstairs to see Can. He began running around in circles, hysterically screaming "Upstairs, downstairs!" for two hours, after which point he collapsed from exhaustion. He left the band after that.
• Creator Couple: Irmin Schmidt's wife Hildegard has been the band's manager and the head of their label Spoon Records since The '70s.
• The Pete Best: American flautist David C. Johnson was one of the original members, but left over Creative Differences as he was more interested in making avant-garde music than being in a rock band. He left while they were recording Delay 1968 and doesn't appear on the album, though he can be heard on a handful of early soundtrack cuts.
• Referenced by...:
  • Parappa The Rapper sampled the intro to "Turtles Have Short Legs" for the driving lesson rap with Instructor Mooselini.
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: JoJolion features the character Damo Tamaki, who's named after both lead vocalist Damo Suzuki and the band itself^note His last name, 田最, can be read as both "Tamaki" and "Kan". Also, his ability, Vitamin C, is named after the Can song of the same name.
• The Shelf of Music Languishment: Delay 1968 is so-called because it was recorded in 1968 and would have been their debut (going by the title Welcome to Thy Pnoom) had it not been for the fact that no label had been willing to release it. Parts of it ended up on bootlegs, but it wasn't released in its entirety until 1981.
• Throw It In!: Their albums were created from jams and edited down into coherent songs.
• Troubled Production: The band struggled to get Ege Bamyasi completed because Irmin Schmidt and Damo Suzuki couldn't stop playing chess.
• What Could Have Been:
  • After Damo Suzuki left, doomed folk singer Tim Hardin was considered as a replacement, even playing one gig with them in 1975. Hardin's heroin addiction would have made it unlikely that he would be able to stay with the band in any case.
  • John Lydon offered his services as vocalist after The Sex Pistols split up, not knowing that Can had already decided to call it a day themselves. The Can LP hadn't even been released at this point, and the split wasn't public knowledge, so it took a while to convince him it was true. Lydon would end up forming his own avant-garde outfit in the form of Public Image Ltd..
• Working Title: Delay 1968 was originally put together under the title Welcome to Thy Pnoom.
• Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: The band's songs were worked up from jams in the studio and edited down later. Damo Suzuki would make up lyrics on the spot.

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