Kling Klang klarify Kraftwerk klash

Last week, Kling Klang;s management responded to Kraftwerk's attempts to ban their name. This week, Kling Klang's management have had to issue a statement detailing their charges' disquiet at the statement they issued on their behalf last week:

“They have decided to issue this statement as they felt that some members from their management failed completely to represent correctly their ideas about the entire matter. And blaming them for a misrepresentation that sprung from an ill informed employee is not right.”

The band continue:

“In Cologne on Sunday 6th April the UK band Kling Klang were issued with a document by representatives of Messrs. Ralf Hutter & Florian Schneider of the German band Kraftwerk. The document is an order to cease and desist using the name "Kling Klang" as the name of the group. Since Messrs. Hutter & Schneider own the single-word trademark "Klingklang" (the name of Kraftwerk's studio, and publishing/merchandising companies), they feel that use of the two-word term "Kling Klang" as a band name is an infringement of their trademark rights.

“The UK band Kling Klang arrived at the name by way of an onomatopoeic reference to a guitar improvisation of binary structure, and were under the impression that "klang" is a German word for sound, with "kling klang" meaning "bell-sound" (similar to "ding dong" in English). The term appears to be in popular usage in more than one language, including Swedish, and the band in no way thought they would be infringing upon the trademark rights of Messrs. Hutter and Schneider in utilizing this term as a name for the group.

“Kling Klang holds Kraftwerk in the highest esteem as musicians and hope to resolve this matter quickly and amicably.”

Lets hope everyone involved has signed this one, otherwise they're going to have to do another clarification in another seven days.