Radio Drone (Visible)

Here I am, in southern France, laid up with a nasty viral fever thing. Haven't touched my saz in days, but have at least been working my way through Inge's jazz and reggae CD collections. I've also worked out how to set up something a bit like streaming online radio - really very simple. I just had to create an M3U file (in this case all seven-and-a-half Children of the Drone compilations) which anyone can download, then open in their favoured media player, set to shuffle. Here it is:

Radio Drone
10+ hours of choice Dronings. Well easy. I just need to work out how to embed an MP3 player in webpages. Endless possibilities for creating M3U files from all the music I've put up on archive.org.

France

I've arrived at Inge between Toulouse and Monléon-Magnoac, in the foothills of the French Pyrenees. We had a little modal saz/mandolin jam last night (I was tired and had had a bit more wine than intended, so nothing hugely memorable, but fun). Marie, from her new band Youshka, is living in a yurt nearby, plays, fiddle, trombone, flutes, etc. While Inge was off teaching music, she and I attempted some three-time bourrées from Auvergne, where she's from - it took me a while to tune in to the rhythms (they sound elaborate, but are deceptively simple)...some worked better than others, but I'm here for a while, so there's time to work on these.


Shakespeare & Company bookshop
I had a memorable day in Paris with Banana Tom en route - Oscar Wilde's grave, psychogeographic drifting, Tibetan food and the Notre Dame. We ended up in the upstairs study of the now-legendary Shakespeare & Company bookshop on the Left Bank, me playing my saz for quite a while, as one of the young writers-in-residence was curious to hear what it sounded like. Didn't hear a single accordion all day - while sitting in what appeared to be a typical Parisian café, they put on a George Michael album!

The previous night, waiting for the coach out of Canterbury I ended up down at the Orange Street Music Club having a drink with my Buddhist poet friend Tim. We witnessed a very imaginative singer-songwriter (on guitar and then piano) with a great voice, sometimes lifting into a Thom Yorke-like falsetto. There were about four people in the audience on average (much coming and going), which seemed criminal - at one point Tim and I were the audience, and felt a bit guilty about talking - but it was a Monday night, and the gig was apparently unannounced. I made my apologies to one of his friends as I slipped off ot the bus station (I think the singer's name was Richard something - good stuff, anyway).

Sam's 40th in Avalon

Stevie P was DJ'ing at Sam's 40th birthday party at her new place on Tor View Avenue in Glastonbury - a lovely clear night, with a fire, lots of peaceful people, a few of us dancing to the finest roots and dub reggae, afrobeat, hiphop, etc. on the improvised dancefloor in her sloping garden. "I need reggae like I need sunshine," proclaimed a blissed-out woman in a big white furry hat, and I knew exactly what she meant. I've been missing that bass lately, only having access to tiny speakers most of the time these days.

I gave Sam a compilation CD I'd made of Ethiopian groove music, and soon discovered that she and Stevie are already deep into the Ethiopiques series which I recently discovered. I had a good chat with Ingrid who's now got all her photos from the Dongas travelling days (and many more) up on a website, just finished her Forest Schools training, and is instrumental in the Transition Town Glastonbury Gardening Action Group. Lots of people brought instruments, but Stevie's selection was so good that no one got 'round to playing them (I vaguely recall hearing Stevie himself playing a bit of ukelele as I was drifting off to sleep on the floor in the front room). The next morning was a lovely, chilled time in the kitchen. Stevie and I played some acoustic guitar and saz, the most I've enjoyed playing music in a long time (unrecorded, of course). There were a few new pieces he's been working on, also a couple of dance tunes we improvised around - a mazurka and a laride that Green Angels (of which he and Sam are half) play. He also played me a recording of a remix he's done of a rough mix of a tune from the forthcoming GA album (being produced by Matt Spacegoat at Pondlife), which involves that classic Johnny Osbourne sample "He will surely turn the tide..." as used by Scientist on arguably the greatest dub album ever (the ridiculously titled Scientist Rids the World of the Evil Curse of the Vampires). Stevie had to speed it up to get it in time, so it's ended up with a Kanye West gangsta flavour, as well as having lots of comical dub sound effects and general maximality - great stuff...

Having to get back to Canterbury, I got a lift as far as Dorking with Sam's friend Katie. She seemed familiar when we met during the party, and I realised in the morning that she'd been playing wooden flute during a far-out session I ended up in in the Pachamama chai tipi one weird and wonderful night at this year's Big Green Gathering. We talked a lot about French and Breton dance music, but it soon turned out that she's also got some major funk and hiphop connections. Her boyfriend Seorais is half of the Border Crossing production crew, who's new album "Freedom of Speech" features, among others, Jehst and Ricky Ranking. She'd recently had to drive Jehst and the crew up to a pirate radio station in Essex for a session - interesting to hear about the UK hiphop scene from the inside, having been following it for so long. We listened to one of Seorais's mixtapes, an excellent 70's funk selection, mostly, as we sped down the A303 past Stonehenge. She's got him interested in folk/hiphop fusion, and so I mentioned the Organic Beat Cooperative thing which Stef and I have been working on (but mostly talking about) the last few years. This might lead somewhere - we shall see.

Orbis at Picture House

Four Orbis Tertius? performances in a week, and the last one was definitely the best - upstairs in the bar at Exeter's Picture House cinema (they've been having music on Thursday nights for a while now). We only had about 45 minutes, so there was a certain urgency which lifted the music. We were meant to go on last, but Henry's really not into hanging around waiting to play (understandably), so we arranged to go on first instead. This turned out to work very well and we ended up with a much larger audience that way. Tanja from the Picture House, who also plays bass in local indie band Victoria 13, handled the sound for us (very well) and the set was quite well received.

Unfortunately the MiniDisc player got unplugged before it had finished shutting down properly, so the recording I made is only accessible via data recovery - it was such a good one that I might have to send it to my contact in Sweden (who's recovered a few classic COTD sessions which would otherwise have been lost, for a fraction of the professional data recovery cost). I'll upload the recording to archive.org if it does end up getting recovered.

We were followed by the extraordinary Kimwei (who turns out to have been Vicky's daughter Claudia's guitar teacher for a while) - not your average singer-songwriter - she plays a really imaginative style of percussive guitar, has an amazing sense of rhythm and writes very unusual material - check this video:

Hex Inversion Hour at St. Mary Arches

A really interesting Children of the Drone session at St. Mary Arches church last night. James Turner's been keeping the monthly church session going, and we've had to relocate from St. Stephens due to renovation work.


St. Mary Arches church, Exeter
James T - keyboard, percussion, submerged gong, slide whistle
Keith - electric guitar
John - acoustic guitar, mandolin, percussion, vocals, slide whistle
James S - "DynaMike", circuit-bent keyboard, voice, electronic processing
Ben - "Acitest" self-constructed circuit-bent hex-inverter device
me - saz, balalaika, percussion, slide whistle, humming

All very textural, no drums, no bass, not much melody at all. Great fun!

Listen Here
[And for those of you who got the oblique Fall reference, you must check this! Thanks to Sir Robert Bunkum for picking this one up.]

OT? at the North Bridge Inn (again)

A not-particularly-inspired Orbis Tertius? performance last night, to the usual tiny audience. We seemed a bit sluggish and out-of-sync to me, but it seemed quite well received in any case. Ben Goldstone (a.k.a. George Lazenbleep) was there, and we had a good chat about his Phoenix Arts 'digital media bursary' circuit-bending work and forthcoming trip to Georgia (former USSR, not USA) during the set-break. Also Nigel from Future Sound of Exeter. Both supportive in their comments. Ben might come along to tonight's COTD session at St. Mary Arches (the monthly St. Stephens session has moved, due to renovation work), with some newly built non-intuitive electronic noisemaking devices.


two pints of lager and a packet of crisps (oh, and some musicians)
Hopefully the Thursday night gig at the Picture House will be a bit more lively. Here's a recording of most of the session:

Listen Here
Keith brought along some photocopies from a new book somehow linked to WFMU (freeform radio, NYC, arguably the world's best radio station) including a cartoon of the levitation of The Pentagon, just over 40 years ago (21 October '67) - we have a piece (in a 5 rhythm) called "Levitating the Pentagon", which goes back to something I used to play with Inge over a decade ago. Phil from Wrights and Sites mentioned the Manchester Psychogeographic Association (now the Materialist Psychogeographic Affiliation)'s attempted levitation of a shopping centre in Manchester shortly before the IRA blew it up, which led me to recall my participation in the attempted levitation of the Parliament in 1994 (anti-Criminal Justice Bill protest). I've even got this photo Inge took. [Incidentally, having just looked up that Manchester bombing, I realise that this was the day Stella Spacegoat was leaving Manchester on a train down to Glastonbury for a gig at the Assembly Rooms - the day Inge and I met her...she heard the blast just as she was about to leave...]

Exeter Open Studios

I played a couple of sessions with Orbis Tertius? this weekend, in both cases we were "installed" in an art exhibition as part of the Exeter Open Studios project. On Friday night it was at Henry's house, where his wife Lucy was exhibiting her raku work, and her friend Jenny was exhibiting her ceramics. On Saturday afternoon it was 'round at Veronica Gosling's remarkable Gallery 36 on Denmark Street (she's a long-time supporter of COTD, and one of her series of prints supplied the textual content to the "During the Night" track on our Compilation 5).


Gosling Automatic Toast Machine
Ali, Chris and Iggy from Spin 2 stopped by on the Friday, and really (particularly Chris) listened to what we were doing, which made it seem worthwhile. One of Ali and Chris's kids was even dancing, which is an OT? first! Quite a few people stopped to listen on the Saturday, too. This might boost the (probably tiny) audience sizes at our gigs this Tuesday (North Bridge Inn) and Thursday (Picture House). But, to be honest, I think what we do - very far removed from 'entertainment' - works better in this kind of 'take-it-or-leave-it' 'installation' context than in the traditional form of 'band playing gig'.

Veronica took some photos, refreshingly not digital - she's going to pass on copies eventually and they may make their way up here eventually.

near-perfect Samhain

Dave built one of his fire sculptures from an upturned rootplate, and we were visited by (among others) Anton, with whom I jammed at the autumn equinox, his jamming partner Síon (Welsh guitar/flute player and long-time Whitstable connection) and friend Martin. They brought a battery amp along so I could plug my saz in an be properly heard, which was a real treat. The last time I played with Síon was Noel's 50th birthday party, 11 or 12 years ago, when he, Inge and I played "All Along the Watchtower" together on a makeshift stage in a front room in Whitstable (shortly before Richard Sinclair played an acoustic set).

It was a perfect, still, mild, starlit night with food, drink and general good things all 'round. We played our way through a whole range of covers (I have a vague memory of Nick Drake's "Place to Be" and Bowie's "Andy Warhol" among them) as well as some of Anton's songs. It was one of those occasions where my fingers seemed to know exactly what to do, effortless. I made numerous attempts to set up my MiniDisc recorder and record some of this, but batteries kept expiring, nothing would work - the ancestors weren't having it (I should have known better).

Anton and Síon have a new-ish band together called "Soup" - they were playing at that recent party where I saw Toby "King Size Slim" Barelli (Anton's 10th wedding anniversary, as it happened). Their bass player, Jim, from Ashford, also plays banjo and banjolin, a bit of a folkie - he was telling me about the Friday night at this year's Cropredy Festival - something a bit special (had I known in advance, I probably would have gone...):


[You can find footage of individual songs here, although I suspect these might get pulled eventually. Surely this was being 'properly' filmed for DVD release?]