A living piece of rock heritage comes to Kings Heath tonight when Damo Suzuki, one-time vocalist with 1970s cult band Can, performs at the Hare & Hounds.

Suzuki, whose brief initial career spanned three of the German band's most influential albums, is performing a set with Birmingham's own avant-rockers The Courtesy Group in the "turn-up-and-go" format he has favoured since emerging from more than 20 years of retirement.

Along with Faust, Amon Duul, Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk, Can represent an era when German musicians seized the initiative in pushing rock music in new directions. Though popular interest in so-called "Krautrock" was relatively shortlived, with hindsight it can be seen to have had a far-reaching influence on British and American music.

Damo Suzuki's contribution to this era came about by chance. The Japanese singer was appearing in the musical Hair when members of the band came across him busking in the street. They had a gig that night and no singer, so they signed him up on the spot.

Courtesy Group founder and vocalist Al Hutchins explains: "I did an interview with him for Mojo magazine about how he had first got involved with Can back in 1970. When he left Can he was about 23 and had just got married.

"After that he did customer service jobs for over 20 years and didn't do any music at all. In the two or three years he was with them a lot of the essential Can tracks were recorded. I think their best albums are those with Suzuki, from Tago Mago to Future Days.

"What fascinates people who are into Can is that two members of the band studied under Stockhausen and Suzuki was the missing piece, having not come from a music-educated background. He's always said he only knows one chord.

"His singing is a kind of scatting style where you think 'am I hearing lyrics or not?'.

"Can were influenced by the Velvet Underground and they were a massive influence on all sorts of people, even if they don't realise it. It's essentially groove-based music, perhaps closer to a lot of ambient music than straight rock'n'roll."

Suzuki finally emerged from retirement six or seven years ago.

"He's doing a never-ending world tour, whereby he goes round the world and has a different backing band in each town, with no rehearsal. You can see from his website that he's doing this most of the time, so it's not a hobby."

The prospect of bringing Suzuki back to Birmingham 30 years after he last performed here as a member of Can was impossible to resist.

"I touted it round all the Birmingham promoters. Everyone was interested in going to the gig but none of them wanted to put money on the table, so I decided we would promote it ourselves.

"I'm going to meet him at the station and we'll go straight to the sound check.

"We're going to do our normal stuff, just a short set, and there'll be DJs playing Krautrock - Can and Faust and stuff like that.

"There's a licence until 12 and depending on what Suzuki wants to do we'll play for an hour, maybe 90 minutes, and he'll conduct it in some shape or form. We've got some guest musicians including Pete Hammond, the drummer from the Birmingham band the Au Pairs, and we'll be having a get-together beforehand but not a rehearsal as such."

Although the name Can may not mean much to some younger giggoers, Birmingham still has its share of serious devotees.

"They can't quite believe this is happening," says Al Hutchins. "It's like saying Prince is playing the Hare & Hounds on Monday."

n Damo Suzuki and The Courtesy Group, plus guests, play the Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath High Street, tonight from 8pm.