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Reader Benjamin Sumner, a “Rock Snob from birth and Katrina victim” who has relocated to Denver, writes in to take issue not with us but with Kraftwerk’s Ralf Hutter, whose summertime Mojo interview we mentioned in this item from August. In the interview, Hutter expressed disdain for the term “Krautrock” on the grounds that, in Germany, he claims, sauerkraut “simply doesn’t exist.”

“I would like to point out,” writes the indignant Benjamin, “that the term first infiltrated our consciousness via the track ‘Krautrock’ from the LP IV by [the German band] Faust. Granted, the track was recorded in Essex, UK, but certainly, Faust were the real Teutonic deal. I am willing to allow that perhaps Irmler, Péron & co. were being humorous, merely commenting on some critcal attempt to band such unrelated groups as Amon Duul II and Neu! into one convenient pigeonhole.”

Amen, Ben! You tell Ralf where to stick his folding bicycle!