Ellington in '58

I got my dad this DVD for his birthday, the Duke Ellington Orchestra live at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam in 1958, watched it with him and Mum last night:

I'm starting to realise that as he recedes into the past and is regarded less as an entertainer and more as a composer, Ellington may well come to be regarded as the greatest of American composers (of any kind of music). Who else might end up in that list, I wondered as I watched... Gershwin and Copland perhaps, Mingus certainly, also Riley, Reich, Moondog, Beefheart, Zappa...maybe even Marshall Jefferson, Derrick May and J. Dilla in time.

There's a fabulous (but barely listenable) bootleg of the Soft Machine trio lineup playing the same hall ten years later. I've listened to that a lot, so it's good to now be able to picture them there. That's several steps removed from Ellington's sound, but perhaps not as far as you might think — if you check out the last number in this video, it's pretty unhinged for its time. Robert Wyatt has always spoken highly of the Ellington Orchestra, and I could hear why, watching this.

new Soundcloud project

Over the years I've uploade literally hundreds of hours of recorded music my saz and I have been involved in to archive.org. It varies greatly in terms of musical proficiency, sound quality and general listenability, so I can't really expect people to wade through it looking for the good stuff. Instead, I've just created a personal Soundcloud account, and intend to upload a new piece at the beginning of each week for the foreseeable future. This'll cover 1994-present, including stuff done with Inge as Ail Fionn, stuff recorded with the Dongas Tribe, with Children of the Drone, Orbis Tertius?, Random Article, guesting with various other people, collaborations under the "A Tiny Window" umbrella and solo recordings.

The first selection is from early on, jamming on a simple theme with Inge on mandolin, recorded in Sint-Niklaas, Belgium in early November 1995 after spending some time in the French Pyrenees. We were still quite new to our instruments (and to recording) at this point, but I like the feeling of this one. This was transcribed from a cassette tape, so the sound quality has deteriorated somewhat from the original (wherever that is now):

There is a facility to "follow" people on Soundcloud (if you have your own account), but I'll also be embedding each new upload to this blog. These embeddable widgets are still pretty unreliable in my experience (or maybe I just need a new computer), but you can also find my upload stream here.

2013!

There seems to be a bit of a buzz about the new Primal Scream album More Light. I'm not sure about the album as a whole, but the opening track has them going all Hawkwind on us, with some spot-on lyrics and a tune I can't get out of my head...

Daevid in the woods

secret woodland location near Canterbury
Friday 3rd May 2013

The first gig of the 2013 season in our little woodland amphitheatre was something of a coup. Following on from the extended interview I did with Daevid Allen for the final episode of Canterbury Soundwaves, he got in touch earlier in the year to say there was "a gaping hole in his schedule" between certain dates and wondered if I had any suggestions for gigs. Not really expecting anything, I put forward the idea that he might come and play an acoustic set in the woods. I couldn't offer more than travel expenses, food, drink and a cosy atmosphere, but he seemed delighted with that. "Count me in matey!" said the enthusiastic text message.

It took some organising, but well worth it. It was a perfectly still warm evening, clear sky, beautiful sunset, forest floor carpeted in wood anemones with a lot of bluebells also starting to come through. About seventy people turned up to enjoy this one, a mix of current Canterbury music scene types, old friends of mine, Daevid's Kentish connections, and some Smugglers crew from Deal. Nice to bring all these different scenes together in such a setting. A lot of people brought food and drink to share, so there was a communal feast as well as a free gig. My old friend Sarah took a donations bucket around and people were pretty generous, covering most of the expenses. It's only now that I realise that this is exactly how the "Floating Anarchy" tour worked when Daevid and Gilli were touring backed up by Here & Now as Planet Gong in '77. This might explain why Daevid was so cheerful and enthusiastic about playing a small gig for no fee. This was Floating Anarchy in action, without it even trying to be.

There was a bit of a last minute panic when his friend Jonny Greene (he who runs the Gong Appreciation Society from Glastonbury) let it be known that his car had seriously broken down — Jonny was going to be driving him down from Richmond. I was contacting all sorts of people trying to work something out the day before, but then late that night got a message from Daevid saying that he'd sorted it out. He'd been playing a gig that night with Chris Cutler (he of Henry Cow, etc.) and Yumi Hara Calkwell (who worked with Hugh Hopper not long before he died as the duo HUMI). They're calling themselves "You, Me and Us", kind of a continuation of Brainville (Allen-Hopper-Pyle, then Allen-Hopper-Cutler after Pip Pyle died). Chris and Yumi are also part of a new project called Artaud Beats with former Cow-members Geoff Leigh and John Greaves.

Getting a lift back to Richmond with Yumi, Daevid mentioned his dilemna, and she offered to drive him down and bring her keyboard along. It then occured to him that current Gong flute/sax player Ian East is a Canterbury native, so while in the midst of setting up the space I got a call from Ian asking very humbly and politely if it would be OK to turn up with his family. I recalled to him my delight at seeing him with flute and bells starting the second set of Gong's last Brighton appearance last November, looking like he'd been in Gong for many lifetimes, and told him that of course they were welcome.

So just after sunset we were treated to a unique combination of Daevid, Yumi and Ian playing a one-hour set that looked like this:

"The Company of Poets" (Daevid reading a hilarious poem by Lucy English)
"Unriddle Me This Then" (Daevid reading a bardic poem of his own with gliss guitar)
"Garden Song" (song from a Daevid solo album with Ian East on flute)
"Shipbuilding" (their second performance, with Yumi Hara Calkwell on keyboard and backing vocals — they'd decided to play it "for the workers" at a gig on Mayday)
"Who's Afraid? (Brainville song with Yumi Hara Calkwell on keyboards and Ian East on tenor sax)
"Underneath the YumYum Tree" (poem sung to Hugh Hopper's "Dedicated to You But You Weren't Listening", with Yumi Hara Calkwell on keyboards)
"Hope For Happiness" (a radical reworking of the Soft Machine song, with Yumi Hara Calkwell on keyboards and vocals, Ian East on tenor sax)

This was the only gig we've done at the amphitheatre with a PA, probably a one-off — Daevid wanted to play gliss guitar, so a power supply was needed (I used a small generator kept 100m away behind a strawbale wall). The unfailingly cheerful and reliable local soundman John Evans agreed to bring a small PA and handle the mix, which worked out brilliantly in the end. (The night before he'd been doing sound for local heros Syd Arthur playing to 3000 people in London through a huge rig.)

[click on images to enlarge — thanks to Claire H and Yumi for the photos]

     

     

When I took Daevid up the Dane John Mound last autumn, I recorded him reading "Unriddle Me This Then", proclaiming it out over the city, with a problematic level of wind on my microphone. When moving the files off my Zoom H2 recorder, that one just wasn't there, as if the wind had just blown it away. So my Canterbury Soundwaves interview (the extended final episode) had to include a substitute version recorded in NYC with Nicoletta Stephanz. But now I have a recording of him reading it in Canterbury....

   

On that same day out, I recorded him singing "Under the YumYum Tree" in the back of his friend Adrian's car as we drove around Sturry looking for the old Soft Machine house (he explained it was about a tragically lost-it Canterbury girl who'd stayed with him in Australia). You can hear that on Canterbury Soundwaves Episode 28.

Yumi's vocals on "Hope For Happiness" were pretty strident and intense, and I know of at least one purist Soft Machine fan who didn't approve of her treatment of the song. But other people really liked the unexpectedness and intensity of it. I didn't even know that she sang. There were the obvious references to Yoko Ono, but I as far as crazy Japanese-European prog collisions go I'd suggest Acid Mothers Gong or some of Damo Suzuki's vocals on Can's Tago Mago. I'd given a bit of historical background in my quick introduction, mentioning that the Soft Machine started rehearsing in the summer of '66 in a house only a couple of miles to the east of where we were, but I don't think Daevid realised was that Brian Hopper wrote that song in the mid 60s while living at a house less than a mile away in the other direction.

Yumi filmed and recorded the set, and Joel from Syd Arthur also recorded on a very expensive looking microphone, so some of this may surface on my Canterbury Sans Frontierès podcast in due course. There are already a couple of bits of video up on YouTube.

When I'd asked Leonie Evans if she wanted to come and play for this event she immediately cancelled a paying jazz gig in London so she could! I didn't know, but her dad Matt is an old Gong/Hillage freak, even plays in a band called "The Octave Doctors" — he'd brought her up on that music, she reckons she was listening to Gong in the womb! As expected she played a stunningly beautiful set to a hushed, delighted audience. There was one old Rae song from Era, the new Rae song called "Foreign Lands" where she got us all singing a repeated wordless backing riff, some other songs she'd written plus some of those wondefully obscure 20s and 30s songs she digs up and that seem as if they were written for her. She asked for requests at one point, so we got to hear "Stardust" (Bruno from ZFY's request), "Up A Lazy River" (my request, having had her recently recorded version of it stuck in my head for weeks). She encored with an old song called "Humming to Myself" (originally by the Harlem somethings, I think she said).

Liam Magill and Raven Bush from Syd Arthur were who I'd originally hoped to get alongside Daevid for this gig, but they'd already committed to playing in Maidstone that evening, hence my decision to ask Leonie. But then they found out that it was a fairly early set they were to play, so we hatched a plan for a late-night electro-acoustic set. Liam had told me that they've been listening to a lot of Terry Riley, were spending hours up at their South London studio jamming with analogue synths, and had read about the all-night performances Riley used to do in the redwood groves of Northern California. So inspired by that, they started off with Liam on heavily processed acoustic guitar and Raven producing soundscapes with the Prophet '08 that they've been using with Syd. Liam then switched to electronics (manipulating his impressive effects rack) and they took us on a sonic journey which, despite its electronic origins, felt completely appropriate for the space we were in. They then eased back onto acoustic instruments (guitar and violin) and played us out with a raga piece they'd learned note-for-note from The Rough Guide to Ravi Shankar!

It wasn't hard to talk them into doing an encore. John set Liam up with a microphone and they did a new Syd Arthur song-in-development called "Step Backwards", another Liam-penned instant classic I had running through my mind the whole next day.

Their set was over far too soon, but then we got to switch off the generator and PA and linger by the fire for hours and enjoy each other's company while listening to the nightingales sing in the nearby pear orchard. (In fact the nightingales had been audible during quieter parts of the evening, including Leonie's rendition of "Stardust" which includes the line "The nightingale tells his fairy tale of paradise where roses grew".) Daevid and Yumi stuck around to enjoy all of this, and to eat, drink and chat with people. Rather than Daevid Allen putting in an appearance as some kind of "legend", it felt much more like he was just part of the local music scene, playing a set like everyone else does, then hanging around and enjoying the event. No one, including me, knew what to expect, but I was heartened that rather than some kind of attempt at playing a definitive Daevid Allen set, we got to see him cheerfully doing the stuff he happens to be doing in early May 2013, with the people that happen to be around at the time. Rather than momentous, it just felt really normal.

At one point I found myself on a strawbale beside him, trancing out to Liam and Raven's magic/music, and I reached over to add a few more birch logs to the central fire that was dying down a bit. He leaned over and whispered "Thanks for keeping the fire going, Matthew". Even if he only intended the literal level of meaning, it was nice to hear that from the man himself.

Reptile Palace Orchestra, Irene's Garden, Yid Vicious and a karaoke machine

11th May 2013
Central Waters Brewery, Amherst, Wisconsin

A few days after arriving here, my two favourite Wisconsin bands played a gig together. In a brewery. I was expecting it to be in some kind of venue attached to a brewery, but no, it was really in the brewery, giant stainless steel tanks full of various craft beers filling up most of the space, along with all the associated equipment, the bands tucked away in a corner. This was a great social occasion too, most of the people I know 'round here came out for this.

Reptile Palace Orchestra played first, my friend Maggie even more in her element as vocalist than when I first saw them last year, excellent use of French horn, Biff the violinist/guitarist (in leopard-print fez) is just phenomenal (he's also Robert Fripp's Stateside guitar technician), their setlist incorporating elements of Eastern European folk tunes, klezmer, calypso, dub, lounge, 80s New Wave, rock and unclassifiable weirdness. For a while I was thinking how similar they were to some British festival bands (that typical 'mestizo' mashup of styles which has emerged in recent times), but as their set progressed, it became apparent that they're something else again. Perhaps only Madison, Wisconsin could have given rise to something like this.

Last year I got asked to play saz on a couple of tracks on the album Irene's Garden were working on. I'd almost forgotten about this, having wondered a few times during the last twelve months whether it had ever been completed. It has: Interplanetary Love Songs was there on the merchandise table along with the tye-die T-shirts, etc.. Jeff the guitarist presented me with a copy, and I was suprised to see that I'm listed in the band line-up (rather than in the small print). That was a nice surprise. Several members of the band asked me if I'd brought my saz along. I hadn't (would have seemed presumptious, and their songs have far too many chord changes to play unrehearsed). But when they started with "Fog's Plateau" — one I recorded with them — I rather wished I had. The band has yet another drummer, a UWSP jazz student, considerably younger not just than the original members of the band, but than the band itself (I first saw them in '87 when living here). Only slightly older, bassist Jennilee is now super-confident after a couple of years with the band. I joked with Jenny (one of the originals) that the band could eventually evolve into become some kind of central Wisconsin musical dynasty, with her, sister Sarah and keyboardist/songwriter Wheatie becoming 'ancestral band members' centuries after they've gone! It was a long set, and I was still a bit jet-lagged, so I wasn't able to fully take it all in, but caught most of the set before I started to fade.

After getting a lift back to town with John and Molly we ended up at Guu's to check out some DJs from Chicago, one a friend of John. A much younger and more rowdy crowd was stomping to a mix of hiphop and electro. Dr. Dre's beats from 2001 sounded surprisingly mighty coming out of a decent set of speakers all these years later, and the kids seemed to love it...

* * *

A week later I got a chance to see Maggie singing guest vocals with the Yid Vicious Klezmer Ensemble from Madison. Despite the rather dubious name, they're the real thing. Greg (clarinet) and Kia (French horn and accordion) from RPO are also in this band, along with supremely confident players of fiddle, sax/bass clarinet, acoustic guitar, drums and tuba. The gig was in the now defunct Stevens Point synagogue (the Jewish community here having dwindled to the point that it was no longer viable to keep it open) which is now kept as a museum. Maggie's dad is one of the curators and she thought it would be a good way to get people into the place (like myself, everyone I know had been past the building countless times but never actually been in it). This was an excellent opportunity to be able to share a musical event with my mum and dad. They were largely unfamiliar with klezmer and completely blown away by the band. It was presented in a sort of cultural/educational format, with band members explaining different aspects of the history of the music between tunes, but in an appropriately light-hearted and irreverent way. They ended with a "KlezMex" tune originating in Denton, Texas with mariachi elements, called "El Zopilote Mojado" ("The Wet Buzzard") — they've apparently invented a cocktail with the same name!

Just before going along to that, Pete Fee and I headed out to the O'Donnell farmhouse to see our old friend James and his family. He and Shelly got married at the Winter solstice (to coincide with the end of the Mayan Bak'tun and supposed 'end of the world') and she's due to give birth to a baby girl the day I fly out of here. There happened to be a kind of extended O'Donnell family reunion, with a whole entourage of cousins, etc. up from Chicago. They're all descended from Chicago Irish immigrants, and it was fascinating to watch the goings-on. Rather than just standing around eating and drinking, the whole thing revolved around a karaoke setup in the garage. People were scattered in a loose crescent facing the 'stage', eating, drinking, laughing — a genuinely happy extended family scene. Everyone was having a go singing, and it was striking how much vocal talent this family has. Most popular were Sinatra-style crooning numbers and Irish traditional songs (although we got some Beatles and 70s cheese too). I missed James singing his standard "Wichita Lineman" (Glen Campbell's "existential country" song from 1968), but Peter got up and belted out "Fly Me to the Moon" and "If I Were a Rich Man" to enthusiasic applause before we had to head back into town for the klezmer. But what really got me about this scene was how close it was to the Irish "screagha"(?) tradition where people take turns singing songs in a social setting...James mentioned that his old father might even get up and sing, that he had "his song" that he always sang, in fact everyone in the family back in the old days would have had "their" song (presumably even the shy ones and the less capable singers). And yes, Mr. O'Donnell got up, sang a Sinatra number (and even got into doing all the moves), then an Irish song about fighting off an impudent fellow in London with a shillelagh, oldest son John with a wonderful drunken smile singing along and gesticulating wildly towards the seated family members. "Let that be a lesson to ye!" he went around shouting at everyone good-naturedly. The Irish accents were flawless, and the genes are still pretty intact, so a lot of Irish-looking faces about — we could have been up in Donegal.

the entropic piano in the woods

Littlehall Pinetum, Canterbury

Sunday 5th May, 2013

A beautiful day. After playing a little bit of music (and fascinatedly watching ants) with Leonie Evans, who'd stuck around after the Friday evening gig with Daevid Allen, I accompanied her down to the bus station, then wandered over to Wincheap for a quick game of Go, then back up to the Pinetum for the initial phase of a new Sondryfolk-sponsored project involving a decaying piano.

The piano in question had been donated to the collective just before the Autumnal Jamboree in autumn 2011, and had been sitting around (indoors) taking up space since, with no clear future. But Sophie, Elise and I came up with a plan over breakfast last time I was down in Bristol. What we were originally calling "The Entropic Piano" was to be a project involving Canterbury pianist Sam Bailey improvising on the instrument, having been placed outdoors, each month for a full year. The idea is that the piano becomes increasingly detuned and unplayable, challenging Sam to find innovative ways to explore its sonic possibilities. Over the last year or so I've been witnessing his performances during Free Range events, and his approach to the piano has moved noticeably towards unconventional playing (involving preparing the strings with blu-tack, knitting needles, playing them with EBows, etc.).

The aim is for all twelve performances to be photographed and recorded, and filmed when possible, all of this material eventually being collaged into some kind of final document. It's possible that the final performance in May 2014 (which coincides with the next SoundsNew festival) could involve an in situ audience, the complete destruction of the piano and/or video projections involving elements of the previous eleven events.

First we had to move the piano to the selected location. CCCU filmmaker Ben Rowley, who'd offered to come up and film the first performance, let it be known that he'd like to film the piano-moving too. He turned up with a clockwork Bolex film camera, plus two photographer friends (one digital, one analogue). Dave, Libby, Piers and I did our best to shift the piano as gracefully as possible using an old four-wheel trolley (it had been tuned a few days earlier, the piano tuner somewhat bemused by the whole concept, but assuring us on completion that the old thing was as in tune as it was ever likely to be). There was a slapstick element to this, shades of Laurel and Hardy, quite funny to think that this might end up as part of a 'serious' art film. But we successfully got the piano into place, and Sam, amidst a riot of early evening birdsong, played thus...

Then it was off down to the Jolly Sailor, a pub in Northgate, to catch a set from Syd Arthur. This was part of the City Sound Project, billed as "Canterbury's first inner-city music festival". It involved gigs in venues (mostly pubs) around town all weekend, but as it was a bank holiday Sunday, and the event was organised by (and seemingly aimed at) the city's large student population, alcohol seemed to be a bigger part of what was going on that music. When I got down there the boys were lingering in their van across the road — "absolute carnage in their!" they warned me, as drunk young people wandered up and down the street. Also, the entire festival was ticket with wristbands, so I decided it was most sensible to just make myself comfortable (having even brought a cushion) on the pavement at the end of St. Radigunds Street and listen from there. Liam's girlfriend Jen spotted me shortly before they started, produced a spare wristband in case I wanted to go in, and then offered to get me a blanket from the van, as it was a surprisingly chilly evening for May. So I found myself sitting on the pavement wrapped in a blanked, perfectly happy...but then realised that everyone assumed I was homeless and begging! A couple of people offered cigarettes and change, so I politely explained that I wasn't homeless, just happily sitting on the pavement wrapped in a blanket waiting to hear an excellent band that they should really check out! I ended up having a really memorable, spontaneous chat with a kind-hearted student (and then his girlfriend, who he introduced me to) about homelessness, interesting to be on the other side of that for once.

I also realised I was sitting midpoint between the Jolly Sailor and 5 St. Radigunds Street, famously occupied in the late 60's by UKC students Spirogyra and Steve Hillage (as well as Sondryfolk Laurie's mum Angie a few years later).

Time was limited, so they kicked off their set with "Ode to the Summer" and "Edge of the Earth" (the two songs from their recent double A-side single promoting the On An On album), then a couple of new ones, including "Thousand Miles", the first few bars of which just send my heart soaring, such a beautiful melody, and a kind of crystalisation of everything they've done to date. They finished with "Pulse", an old favourite, and as I had a wristband I couldn't resist... bundled up my blanket, dived headlong into the drunken mayhem, threaded my way to the front and bathed in the sound. The jam section in that song allows them to really express their heavy-psych tendencies (but overlaid on a fleet-footed dance groove) — possibly the best example of that I've heard yet from them, I'm glad I made the effort to get in there.

Bunkonian Folkways

Sir Robert Bunkum up in Grimsby, having learned that I was about to head off to the USA for a while, has been emailing me YouTube links under the "Bunkonian Folkways" heading, e.g.:

"actually here at bunkum house we're much more into classic americana at the moment - like so:"

"more traditional american folk music to clog up your inbox:"

"'many young musicians today are reappropriating traditional folk forms, but adapting them for the blah blah go on a bit here...'
from Musickology, vol 3 chapter 2 - ltj bunkum (bunkum university press, private ed.):"

[Black Fag are a Black Flag tribute band, here performing a cover of the Black Flag song "Six Pack".]

These clips, together with the Thomas Pynchon novel Inherent Vice, have been helping me make the transition into American culture — three cheers for Sir Robert!

Little Bulb's Orpheus

Saturday April 27th 2013
Battersea Arts Centre

So I finally got to see what Miriam's been working on for the last year or so... Some of her old UKC drama student friends have been doing very well since they created the Little Bulb Theatre company, and they recruited her for their latest show (to sing, play violin and act) which was created as part of an extenced residency at BAC. It's a reworking of the myth of Orpheus and Euridyce (a.k.a. Orpheus in the Underworld), set in 1930s Paris with an Orpheus character inspired by Django Reinhardt. The whole thing is done in a kind of Parisian music hall/cabaret/silent film mode, a lot of music, a lot of humour, wildly inventive and joyful. Miriam's one of a trio of women (violin, accordion, double bass) who act as a kind of Greek chorus (crossed with the Andrews Sisters) as well as Fates, Furies, and other roles.

Django-Orpheus is played by Dominic Conway, who I met in a meadow one midsummer a few years ago in the form of Puck...now he's Orpheus! He's been practicing a lot, clearly, has become a phenomenal guitarist. Like the rest of the cast (apart from cabaret hostess/chanteuse/Euridicye) he doesn't speak an entire word throughout, but communicates volumes nonverbally.

The Grand Hall at BAC is an old Victorian theatre that includes an electro-pneumatic pipe organ (unique, created by Robert Hope-Jones) which was restored for the occasion and used to great effect in the second half, when Orpheus descends into the Underworld to petition Hades. The sub-bass on that instrument is awe inspiring, and it was played to great effect by company pianist Charles. The remaining two members of the cast played clarinet (that was company director Alex) and drums, completing a fantastic band. The music included gypsy jazz (naturally), opera (some Monteverdi), chanson, really intense trio harmony singing, organ fugues and otherwise unclassifiable original compositions. I'm no theatre critic, but just looking at it as a musical performance with extensive theatrical elements, it was a hell of a gig! And the playfulness infusing it made me think of The Incredible String Band, had they attempted to perform a Greek myth (if you've seen Be Glad For the Song Has No Ending or happened to see their experimental opera U, you'll know what I mean.

The audience seemed to love every moment of it, and the theatre critics are impressed too — see these reviews in The Guardian, Telegraph and Observer.

Having already done two shows that day, after a short break the band reappeared in the bar (also done up in 30's Parisian style) to play an hour-long gig! Such amazing energy they've got. I had to run for the last train after three numbers so unfortunately missed Miriam duetting on "All of Me" with her mum (professional jazz singer Rachel Gould). That was the first time they'd ever sung together like this (accompanied by just Dom on guitar). Alex, having stepped into the audience, apparently claimed that it was like witnessing the end of a Hollywood film!

The backblog

Very little time for blogging these days, so a few things I should note down before they fade from memory. This blog acts as kind of external memory device, I've realised (I was reminded by it that I had a brief jam with Rupert Sheldrake's son Cosmo at a festival a few years ago, for example). My brain seems to have reached some kind of saturation/plateau so it's quite useful to externalise like this.

There have been a few situations where I ended up having a bit of a jam or a session but couldn't quite find the right moment to switch on my Zoom H2 recorder (which usually accompanies me if I have my saz with me).

• There was a very cosy evening at Stella's near Lewes with Melski, Matt Spacegoat and I improvising with harp, recorders, saz, bouzouki and percussion, and Stella's partner Colin reciting his beautiful Rumi-inspired love poetry — the first time Stella and Melski had seen each other in many years, so a special evening that, a bit of a mini-Spacegoats reunion.
• Sven and Katrijn came over to visit for a week from Gent, so Sven and I played some saz/percussion and saz/guitar jams (ended up talking more than playing though, not seeing enough of each other and needing to catch up).
• One evening during that week Ed Stevens (part of the walking/folksinging crew with friend Will and occasionally brother Ginge) came over with his partner Emma and their baby Aelfrida (named after his granny!) I met Emma years ago through Glastonbury friends, enjoyed one of the most perfect music sessions I've been part of in her van the very rainy summer solstice of 2008. They brought instruments and we had a little session, various folk tunes and songs with saz, whistles, fiddle, etc. Ed knows a set of words to the Cornish tune "Ryb on Afon" I learned down there in the late 90s, and has also put together a maxed-out version of "John Barleycorn" with all the verses from all the different versions he could find.

Live music has been a bit slow too (lack of venues in Canterbury being one factor), but there have been a few good nights in recent weeks. One was had down in Walmer (on the edge of Deal, down on the coast) seeing Famous James & The Monsters at a friendly pub called The Green Berry. Matt had come down to work on the book again, and needed a night out after being cooped up mixing albums in Sussex. The Monsters played a blinder, Matt was most impressed and also got to see Phil from Cocos Lovers (whose second album he co-produced). We ended up at a party at Wonky Warren's place (an old school) taking turns DJing on a couple of decks (and with a peculiar mix of vinyl) and playing table tennis.

On the weekend of 23—24th March there was a "Fruits of Spring" mini-festival out at Woolton Farm near Bekesbourne (family farm of Sam from the Furthur collective) — "A two day celebration to mark the start of the new fruit season." I couldn't get out there for the Saturday, but cycled out on Sunday, got to check out Tom Langley's art studio space (in one of the farm buildings), hear Liam's stories of playing at South By Southwest in Austin, Texas with Syd Arthur a few days earlier, catch up with Kirby (all Furthur crew) who was demonstrating wood carving and selling his work. There were bands playing, food, drink, craft stalls, etc. all in a beautiful mediaeval timber-framed barn. But it was FREEZING. It had been snowing the day before, and very nearly did that day. It felt remarkably un-spring-like. The apple pressing, grafting, pruning and planting demonstrations didn't seem to be happening, instead people were clutching cups of warm spiced cider and expressing mututal despair at the weather, trying their best to be festive. I missed Hellfire Orchestra, unfortunately, but got to see sets from Ladies of the Lake (Nicola and Natasha from Cocos with friend Jo, harmonising as beautifully as ever), Cocos Lovers (playing their new album in its entirety, minus the superb "secret" track, the almost-krautrock "Song For Jack") and the Poggy Hatton Band.

There were two magnificent Lapis Lazuli gigs, the first with new bass player Toby Allen. On 29th March they supported Nuru Kane upstairs at The Anchor in Wingham, playing three long pieces, including "the tango one" (Phil on accordion) and a new one called "Abracadaver". Glancing at a copy of the little flyer that was scattered about the place with their forthcoming tour dates, I notice that a throwaway line of my blogging had been quoted as an endorsement of the band!

I missed the last train back to Canterbury by a few minutes(ended up using the "information point" on the platform of Adisham station to have this fact confirmed by someone in Mumbai, who I then engaged in slightly awkward conversation). Fortunately, I'd been invited to a party in Adisham by some anthropology students who share a house there and who've come along to several Sondryfolk events. So I cycled to the address I'd been given, went round the back, was just about to walk in when I noticed a group of serious looking Middle Eastern-looking people in the kitchen. Was this the right place? I suddenly became unsure and decided to lurk in the shadows in the back garden until the party entourage made it back from Wingham. I spent what felt like hours sitting surprisingly contentedly in the night air watching the mysterious comings and goings through the kitchen window. What was going on? Who were these people? Eventually the cold overrode my awkwardness and I went to knock on the back door to check that this was indeed Alex and Oli's house. It was. They were a group of Iranian friends preparing a feast for some kind of Iranian cultural festival. I sat quietly in the corner reading until eventually some familiar faces drifted into the house, and the Iranians drifted upstairs.

I spent the party sitting in a big comfortable armchair on the threshold of sleep, a succession of Canterbury friends coming over to chat. Eventually Nuru Kane and the band turned up and started playing a spontaneous acoustic set in the front room, almost at my feet! I was too sleepy to really take it in, and then it suddenly ended when the Iranian contingent upstairs politely requested that the noise levels be kept down. I was the first one up in the morning, tidied the house, washed up, and then got the first train home with Cécile (the French student whose voice is the basis for the ident-sample for my new Canterbury Sans Frontierès podcast, recorded spontaneously in that very garden on my Zoom H2 when Paul Clifford and I played an open mic session in the front room there last year).

On 18th April they played once more, this time at The Ballroom supported by Herne Bay's The Fruit Group? This was the first time I've seen TFG? properly, but I recalled seeing my friend Claire (and no one else) dancing to them at the tiny Caravan Stage at Smugglers Festival last year as I walked past on some forgotten mission... "I like this band," she said, somewhere in between apologetically and defiantly (as if the subtext were "even if no one else does"), and that coloured my pre-conceptions of them in a favourable way. They're a trio specialising in Velvet-y/minimalist/motorik-type grooves... friends more familiar with them were all commenting on how rapidly they're evolving, bringing in the krautrock influences, etc. This was the first date of LL's UK mini-tour, and a joyful and supportive local crowd were treated to "Abracadaver", "Big Bird", "High Hopes" plus an encore of the old favourite (and relatively short, i.e. ten-minute) "Incessant Creakings of Invisible Gallows". No accordion, but you can't have everything.

Thursday nights after Free Range sessions I've been dropping into The Canterbury Tales (pub) to listen to the weekly Irish folk sessions. Aidan, Ben and Andy from Arlet are usually down there, so it's more interesting than your averages Irish session. I've not sat in on one of these with my saz, it's been too many years since I've played Irish music beyond the occasional tune, and a saz would be barely audible in a noisy pub anyway. So I've taken to showing up with a shaky egg which cuts through the noise and can actually contribute to the rhythmic component of the music more than you might think. One evening an Irishwoman in glittery silver dress, shoes, jewellery, etc. came in, unaware of the existence of the session — it was her 70th birthday (hard to believe) and she'd been across the road at the Marlowe Theatre watching a stage version of The Full Monty with an entourage of young nieces, etc.. Rather drunk, but endearingly and almost elegantly so, she cheerfully took over the session, sang "Danny Boy", chatted with all the musicicans, requested various tunes and songs, etc. and was clearly having the time of her life.

The Last Bookshop

Owen Hewson (Arlet, Zoo For You) was recently in touch to tell me about a film soundtrack he's composed:

"It's a sweet short film about the last bookshop in Britain and a chance encounter between a young boy and an ageing shop owner, set in a kind-of-dystopian future where books have vanished as more of our day-to-day lives have moved onto touch screens. Basically it's the creators Richard and Dan's love letter to those irresistible but financially precarious second hand bookshops which seem to be sinking along with the beautiful countryside pubs. The film itself was shot on location at various South Eastern independent bookshops around Kent and London."

Most of Arlet (Owen, Aidan, Rosie and Thom) recorded the soundtrack. It was done in an afternoon (out at ZFY Barney Pidgeon's place south of Canterbury — Owen provides some background about the filmmakers and the creative process on the Arlet blog here. You'd never guess that he's never done any writing like this before. It's a gorgeous soundtrack, and another chance to hear Arlet-like sounds in a new context.

Last free Free Range for a while

25th April 2013
Veg Box Cafe, Canterbury

The very last Free Range event of the season is actually next week, but that's a £40 "edible sound" happening involving a celebrity chef, local forager and specially composed music to accompany the food. I won't be at that one. But last night's event was great — more films from Ben Rowley and Andy Birtwistle (colleagues of organiser Sam Bailey from Christchurch. It was billed as "Public Information Night" and involved existing films presented with musical accompaniment as well as specially made films (also with scored music). There were quite a few musicians involved - Robert Stillman and some of the Christchurch music students' Scratch Orchestra. Most memorable was an old (late-40's?) Post Office film about the production of London telephone directories. Sam hammered out urgent piano lines to accompany the images of printing presses, etc. while pages were torn out of phone books and circulated to the audience so everyone could join Mr. Birtwistle in reading them aloud, which gradually crescendoed to a marvellous cacophony.

The week before (April 18th) centred on the poetry of Kelvin Corcoran. He read some of his work, and then we got musical interpretations of other pieces. Liam Magill from Syd Arthur had set lines from Corcoran's Apokriatika to music, played acoustic guitar and sung beautifully (the poetry draws heavily on ancient Greek imagery, so lyrics about stopping in Corinth, orange groves, etc. were quite in keeping with the sort of the Liam tends to sing about. Jack Hues presented some song settings of Corcorcan's poems after that, but I had to run and so missed them.

Two weeks before (April 11th) was meant to be local sax legend Tony Coe (he played the original sax line for the original Pink Panther theme (!) as well as playing with Caravan, Richard Sinclair, Nucleus, Derek Bailey, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie adn on John Martyn's Solid Air). Unfortunately he was unwell (he's now 79) so had to cancel, and we got instead some music from Sam (piano), Tom Jackson (bass clarinet) and Jack Hues (guitar, voice). Jack (who teaches songwriting) sang a few songs he's been experimenting with, and the trio unravelled them admirably into exploratory musical spaces: David Crosby's "Almost Cut My Hair", a Little Feat song (not the sort of thing you expect to hear at Free Range) and Robert Wyatt's "Sea Song". I'm not sure what I think about other people singing the "Sea Song", it's so personal. But the arrangement they came up with (involving piano-and-whalelike-bass-clarinet freakout:

Three weeks before (April 4th) was Robert Mitchell, a (two-handed) pianist played some impressive one-handed works he's written for left hand. He's left-handed, incidentally. We learned a few interesting facts about left-handedness too.

In the weeks before that there was another Dada night (pretty faithful 'performances' of Tristan Tzara Dada manifestos, etc.), very entertaining (it's not exactly shocking a century on, but then what is?), and an extraordinary event involving artist Tim Long and his "Drawing Machine". This was basically an easel-like thing with embedded contact mics. He taped sheets of paper onto it, then drew (with pencil, charcoal, etc.) or painted, triggering impulses which sound artist Matt Wright was receiving via his laptop setup and using as the basis for crazy soundscapes. The motion of the pencil/charcoal/brush generated rhythms, textures, samples... The artwork-in-progress was being filmed and projected onto the ceiling, and at a certain point, the artist would stop, the sound would stop, he'd take the paper off the easel and show us the (often surprisingly well developed) work which had been informed by the sound it was creating. Here are some clips:

Canterbury Sans Frontières: Episode 2

The moon is full, so time for another one of these:

Canterbury Sans Frontières: Episode 2

This time the middle hour of the three hour podcast is given over to Neil Sullivan of current local maximalist prog sextet Lapis Lazuli who's presented an excellent guest mix. Also, Hatfield and the North recycled in a 21st century underground hiphop context, Dorothy Ashby's Afro-jazz harpistry, '81 polyrhythmic King Crimson, wobbly analogue electronica from Boards of Canada, some Mahavishnu Orchestra, Sun Ra, Eno, etc. along with the usual Robert Wyatt, Kevin Ayers, Gong...

(The download link wasn't working for some of you last episode, but I think I've now removed that problem.)

Good Friday message from Rahsaan Roland Kirk...

jams with Miriam, January—February 2013

Pretty rough saz/violin/voice/percussion jams, but still worth preserving, to my mind. Looking forward to more of this when Miriam's finished her theatre stint up in Battersea:

Listen Here

new podcast: Canterbury Sans Frontières

Today sees the launch of my new podcast, Canterbury Sans Frontières. As with Canterbury Soundwaves, a new three-hour episode will be released with each full moon.

I decided to wind down Canterbury Soundwaves so that I didn't end up (i) repeating myself, (ii) scraping the bottom of the Canterbury barrel, or (iii) becoming increasingly tangential.

This new podcast broadens the musical remit, so it'll be about one-third 'Canterbury sound', together with progressive/psychedelic/experimental music from the Canterbury of today, the remainder being a mix of music from various times and places which I feel to be in a similar spirit of creative adventurousness. I'll be doing a lot less talking, and the programme will be less expository – so no interviews, barely-listenable bootlegs, etc.

I also plan to include guest one-hour mixes from various musicians from the current music scene in Canterbury (Episode 2 will feature a mix from Neil Sullivan from Lapis Lazuli). This episode, however, is dedicated to Kevin Ayers who passed away less than two weeks after the final episode of Canterbury Soundwaves went out, so there's an hour of his finest work embedded in the middle of the programme:

Canterbury Sans Frontières: Episode 1

Enjoy!

p.s. Those of you who use social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter: any help spreading the word about this series would be greatly appreciated...thanks!

more from Arlet

Arlet have recently been up at Wicker Studios in Southeast London with Joel and Raven from Syd Arthur, working on their debut album. I know a lot of people around here are looking forward to that. In the meantime, they've posted a few new videos. The remix is by Seth Deuchar, drummer from Canterbury's The Boot Lagoon, currently studying electronic music at The Guildhall in London:

"pure audiovisual joy"

This was recommended by Owen Hewson (saxophonist in Zoo For You and clarinetist in Arlet). "Absolutely mindblowing. Pure audiovisual joy.", as he rightly observed.

The soundtrack is minimalist composer Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians, which I hadn't heard for a while.

Choros from Michael Langan on Vimeo.

Famous James on Herne Bay front

Saturday 23rd February 2013
Famous James and the Monsters
The Divers Arms, Herne Bay

This was (singer/guitarist) Jamie's birthday, so I couldn't miss it. Phil Holmes kindly gave me a lift out there and back (the return journey interpolating an extraordinary conversation about Finnegans Wake, ancient Egypt, etymology, the curse of Ham and current global power elites!) It was a freezing night out on the Herne Bay seafront. I almost never go to Herne Bay, but it felt particularly relevant to be there as it was the birthplace of Kevin Ayers who'd departed this Earthly plane a few days earlier.

The Monsters have been working away for a while now and have accrued significant body of memorable songs. Excellent harmony singing from Ashley and Jamie. Brilliant drumming from Josh Magill — these would be great songs with any drummer, but he takes the music to another level. Tom (who only took up the bass when he joined this band) is now playing a five-string, obviously taking his bass playing seriously! And Phil Self from Cocos Lovers is back in the lineup on mandolin, filling out the rhythm section (I had a quick chat with him afterwards and got an update on the third Cocos album which is currently in production).

It was a noisy pub gig on a Saturday night, but they rose to the occasion, being the kind of band that can do that. Everyone was stomping to "Discotheque" at the end, but it was a slower, more delicate song that really did it for me ("Turn to Stone"? Definintely "stone" in the title...)

Here they were in another noisy pub (Caseys, Canterbury) last spring, with a slightly larger lineup:

Incidentally, The Divers Arms gets mentioned by Richard Sinclair in the lyrics of the (almost) title track of the classic-era Caravan quartet's rather dubious 1982 reunion album Back to Front:

"Here in Herne bay / In the Divers Arms you'll find them all on display.
Even traffic wardens drink there — hip hip hooray! Back to front Herne Bay."

Bristol and Exeter

Another excursion to the West Country, 17—20 February 2013

A couple of nights before heading out I found myself, through an unexpected turn of events, at Adam and Kim's place near Barham. They showed me the (intentionally) ridiculous new Delta Sleep video which the band filmed in a field across the road from The Bungalow on the New Dover Road — this was meant to be a way of promoting their eternally forthcoming EP, and it somehow went almost instantly viral (9000+ hits in 24 hours!) leading to some kind of record deal. I think Adam even said "BMG" (although I might have misheard)! He was on the verge of leaving the band, but has decided that if he's going to stay around here playing in Lapis Lazuli, he might as well be in another band as well. I also got to preview a couple of Lapis pieces they're working on, currently known as "The Alien Tune" and "Abracadaver". They're getting very ambitious, six people collectively composing some increasingly strange and wonderful music. Toby (the new bass player) is now fully integrated, and everyone's looking forward to the first gig with this lineup.

I got to Bristol on Sunday night, stayed at the new shared house Thom T's recently moved into on York Road. His housemate Ella was interested in my saz, we got talking about traditional musics, and when Brittany came up, she mentioned the Green Angels (Stevie P and Sam's Breton fusion quartet) — it turns out that she used to go out with George who played bass with them (before heading out to Barcelona to join Gadjo). She got her accordion out and we attempted a couple of simple Breton tunes in the kitchen.

The next evening I was down in Exeter jamming with John, Keith and Henry (all from Children of the Drone) at Lucy and Henry's house. I enjoyed the experience of seeing them and playing some music but didn't think the output was up to much. But Henry has since sent me his recording and I was very pleasantly surprised. Here are my edits (about 80 minutes in total):

Listen Here

The next day I was in Bristol, met up with Melski to go to a seminar given by my old neighbour and psychogeographical colleague Phil Smith (of the Wrights & Sites collective) to the Human Geography students at the university there. Thom came along, everyone ended up down the pub afterwards, and I got to meet a Sondryfolk friend, Tom Stone (who it turns out Phil supervised during his MA, and who I'll be working with on an artist-in-residency in Canterbury in late March).

From there Thom and I headed to The Louisiana for a very special gig — Syd Arthur had been touring Britain (England, Scotland and Ireland this time, but no Canterbury gig), and were on top form, supported by their friends Rae, now very much Bristol-based. Rae played an entirely new set (apart from one song off Era). Leon's now playing something in between a cello and a double bass, which he swapped with Leonie for her guitar on one song. Her singing completely blew Thom away and he immediately bought a CD — it has that kind of effect on people. It's a joy just to see them as a group of people, and then you get the wonderful music on top of that!

Syd Arthur had turned up their magnificence by another notch or two since hitting the road. There were four or five new pieces (including "Garden of Time" which I'm familiar with as an acoustic guitar thing Liam's been doing for a while), all extremely promising. Liam's guitar was more distinctive sounding than usual, "crunchier" — he explained afterwards that he's come up with a new arrangement for his arsenal of analogue effects pedals. Raven's playing the Prophet '08 quite a bit more, and his and Joel's backing vocals are becoming more confident and prominent. You can just tell that the second album is going to be mighty... I won't review the gig as such, 'cos someone's already done that very well here. But there was a real buzz in the venue — I'm so used to seeing them play to familiar audiences in Kent, so this was an interesting change of perspective...most of those present (largely quite young, with a few old heads among them) would have read about them online or in the music press.

I stayed over at Elise's new place in St. Agnes (part of Bristol I hadn't even heard of, but it's just a few streets from the old place in St. Werburghs — she and her housemates moved en masse, and they seem to have successfully moved the vibe with them). Sophie came over in the morning so we could collectively talk about Sondryfolk plans — a wonderful idea was collectively conceived as a result of trying to work out what to do with an old piano we were given (but which can't stay where it currently is). More on that soon... Sophie also told us about seeing Rupert Sheldrake at the TEDx Whitechapel event late last year. It's not music-related, but everyone should watch this video!

 

She was also very enthused by Rupert's son Cosmo who did a performance there with a Loop Station which involved samples of various species of owls! That wasn't online at the time (it's now here), but she showed us this video of him...

 

...and it gradually dawned on me that this was the same Cosmo that I'd seen performing at Small World Festival in 2010 (you can read about that here). Going back through this blog a few days later, I was reminded that I'd actually jammed with him (and a few other people) briefly — he was playing banjo...I can vaguely remember that now, but if I didn't write such a detailed blog I'd have completely lost that memory! I can remember enthusing to him that he was the first "loop artist" I'd seen who'd completely shed any hip-hop pretense (most of them stem from an extension of the beatboxing scene). I knew Rupert Sheldrake had sons called Cosmo and Merlin (great names!) but had no idea this was one of them. It all makes sense now.

On the coach back to Canterbury I got a text message from Eldad with the sad news that Kevin Ayers had passed away...

Kevin Ayers has left the building

The Web and (more surprisingly) the UK media have been awash with coverage of Kevin Ayers' recent passing (he died at home in southern France on 18th February, seemingly peacefully in his sleep). I was on my way back to Canterbury after seeing Syd Arthur and friends in Bristol when I got the news. I passed it on to Joel around the time Syd would have been getting ready to take to the stage at the Sebright Arms, playing to a sold out audience at that particularly trendy East London venue (they'd heard already, so Kevin would have been very much in mind while they played that set — I think they may have even mentioned him).

I don't think there's much I can add to what's already been said, apart from noting that with all the discussion of his character, voice, lyrical quirkiness, lifestyle, Englishness, etc., it's largely been overlooked that he was a fantastic bass player with the early Soft Machine. Live material from that era (especially the 1968 American tour when the trio were truly on fire) is sadly quite limited, but some excellent examples can be found if you search through the various episodes of Canterbury Soundwaves.

excerpts from Graham Bennett's Out-Bloody-Rageous, pp. 121 and 145

I was tempted to put together an extra episode of the podcast as a tribute to his music (despite having announced Episode 28 to be the final one)...but, no, I've decided to stick with my original decision and instead dedicate the first episode of the forthcoming Canterbury Sans Frontières podcast to him — that should be out in late March and will be announced here.

RIP Kev and...thank you...very...much!