Secret Garden Party

I spent last weekend up in Cambridgeshire at the (rather wonderful) Secret Garden Party - a festival that's been going a few years now, not predominantly a music festival, just the best party I've ever been to, I think.

I was invited up to do my "freestyle performance mathematical lecturing" thing as Prof. Raphael Appleblossom, my eccentric, lab-coat-clad alter-ego (they have a "Science Area", and I was nominally part of that). That was excellent fun, met a lot of very interesting, very kind people in the process, strummed a bit on my saz while between 'customers' (there wasn't much chance for that, though).

From the afternoon until late at night, the site was a bit loud to play unamplified acoustic music, so I didn't really bother to try (apart from a bit of a fireside jam the first night with Pok and others in the Bloodstone Arts's "Feast of Fools" area, but it was a struggle to even hear myself). By the end of the festival I'd worked out how to handle this - get up early enough to catch the quiet morning time and entertain all the spaced-out party people who've been up all night. So Sunday morning was spend wandering around with Ewan, the sax player from Planetman and the Internationalz (we'd played together earlier in the summer backing up a gig by I Jah Mo) - he was playing clarinet, and dressed in a full-body zebra suit (including zebra face paint) and a gold-fringed riff. We mostly played French dance tunes, as well as some more Eastern stuff (including a brave attempt at a Turkish tune). He vanished, and I joined forces with Justin, one the percussionists from the same East London crew.

Other musical highlights of those few days, in no particular order:

• MC Xander - hyper-talented beatboxing MC/singer/guitarist who, using a Loop Station and two mics, manages to build mighty dance tracks in real time, with layered voice alone, gets the crowd jumping, then proceeds to spit pure fire over his own beats!! Go and see him if you possibly can.
  
  
• The Resonators - not the defunct Avalonian ska band some of my friends were once in, but a Brighton-based reggae band - three women singers harmonising beautifully full horn section, super-solid rhythm section, and SUCH an uplifting vibe...one for the reggae purists.
  
  
• Ratfinks - Devon-based multidimensional ska band which features Gabe (a.k.a. 'Powers of Ten'), the MC/singer who scratches his own vocals in real time with some kind of digital turntable simulator - I once saw him at Exeter's North Bridge Inn with Max Crackery, the experimental trombonist. They put on a thoroughly entertaining show, including an audience participation number called "Animal Kingdom", wherein Gabe invites audience to shout out names of favourite animals, which he then assigns to various band members to musically interpret (we got one of two keyboard players interpreting an otter, the other a dolphin - after jokingly suggesting the drummer attempt that one - and the trombonist interpreting a goose...drunken audience member: "That's not a f***in' goose!" -> tromboinist: "Yes it f***in' is!" (laughter). I got talking to some of them on Sunday morning, and there are all sorts of Exeter connections - they're friends of James S from Children of the Drone. Being such a large group, they're keeping it as a summer project.
  
  
• The Wobbly Squadron - a young, energetic and funky (but not inappropriately funky) spacerock band - really good fun. Nods to Hawkwind with the labcoats, facepaint and daft headgear, a sax player who doubles on EWI, etc.
  
  
• The Mordekkers (of course) - I got to see most of both of their sets. The first had a livelier crowd, since the big fire display had kicked off just before their second one, but both were excellent, as usual.
  
  
• an unknown DJ playing out on the pagoda by the lake, who deserved a medal (can't really remember much, but it was just the whole vibe he created - a bit of afrobeat, funk, "Once in a Lifetime", "Werewolves of London" - Jackie Wilson's "Your Love Keeps Taking Me Higher" was an ecstatic moment - dancing with a couple of hundred smiling strangers, mostly in mad costumes, in the sunshine, by a lake, electric blue damselflies everywhere.
  

Polish COTD writeup

It looks like a Polish blogger has been writing about Children of the Drone:

My Name Is Elvis 2008-04-15
There are even a couple of comments (the title of one which suggests a less-than-favourable reaction!) Unfortunately, BabelFish doesn't do Polish to English translation yet, so if you can help with a rough translation, please get in touch. Thanks.

Saz in Dub

I'm not putting this up on archive.org 'cos it's me playing saz over other people's dub tracks, but I think it's probably OK to make it available. This was recorded with Alan selecting in Motueka, 2006, at the Fresh FM studio (one track is me playing live with a sound system at the nearby Riverside Community).

individual tracks          m3u stream

Orbis in Coleford/Supersonic Festival

Orbis Tertius? (Henry and Keith Drone plus me) played a little festival out near Coleford last Saturday. A couple of years we played there as part of Pulse, the year before that as part of a Children of the Drone configuration. This was the best yet - really enjoyed our set. It was particularly excellent to be joined at the last minute by Jim Invisible on low whistle, melodica and xylophone. He'd never played with us before (had heard a few live recordings online months ago, but that's all), but immediately slotted in, added a lot of much-needed colour to the sound and generally pushed things forward immensely. A lot of other good music was played from the same little stage before and after we played (Spin 2, a young heavy-rock band called Playhawk, a couple of Tibetan exiles singing traditional songs, a beautiful-voiced singer-songwriter called Ella, and a kicking Crediton-area ska band called Skarper).

There was also a hugely enjoyable fireside session later that evening involving us, Jim, members of Spin 2 and John (guitar, voice) and Francesca (fiddle) whose field hosted the event - a couple of jazz standards involving an excellent clarinetist who appeared and then disappeared, John singing "I Can See Clearly Now", "St. James Infirmary" and "Hey Joe", Jim singing a few less-obvious Beatles' numbers ("I've Just Seen a Face", "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away", "Mother Nature's Son", Chris from Spin 2 coming out with some punky/new-wave songs ("Bank Robber", "Love Cats", "Echo Beach") as well as some strummy Velvet Underground/Jonathon Richman type songs I didn't recognise). There was a beautiful almost-clear sky, moon, etc. and Tibetan prayer flags flapping in a mild breeze, a huge bonfire - just perfect - we were still going strong at 2:30a.m...

Listen Here
The next day, I was off to the final day of the Supersonic festival in Birmingham (stopping off at Belas Knap long barrow in Gloucestershire en route - orchids, wildflowers, skylarks and a bit of a jam up on the barrow). This is a very urban festival (held in an arts centre called The Custard Factory - a renovated custard factory, not surprisingly) featuring a lot of HEAVY music. My eardrums were assaulted by Einstellung (a couple of members of Godflesh involved there), Orthodox ("sludge doom" from Spain), Parts and Labor (melodic hardcore from Brooklyn), the impossibly heavy Gravetemple (minus Julian Cope) and Kikuri (a couple of "Japanese noise giants" according to the programme - one was Merzbow, sitting placidly working on a pair of laplops, the other was one Keiji Haino thrashing away on a guitar and theremin-like device, howling into the mic...I think this was the most utterly insane musical performance I've ever witnessed). Best of the lot were Earth, the Seattle drone/doom band - heavy, slow, ponderous, with really imaginative use of a 70's style electric piano and trombone. Last.FM's relational database decided some time ago that people who like them might like Children of the Drone, so I'd been looking forward to hearing what they sounded like. Excellent stuff.

Also of note was a live score performed to a screening of the original Nosferatu (a couple of members of Pram involved in that) and Brian Duffy of the Modified Toy Orchestra who both gave a very entertaining talk on circuit bending, his overall philosophy of creativity, etc. and performed as half of the "ZX Spectrum Orchestra" - pushing the limits of what can be done sonically with the notoriously pathetic early home computer. The ZXSO set included a cover of The Normal's "TVOD", partly because the voice synthesiser interface can only handle numbers, letters and commands like "ENTER", "SPACE", "MOVE", etc. With a bit of imagination (and the fact that the "1" sounds a bit like "want", they had put together the voice-synthesised lyrics

"I-1-2/
U-1-2/
I-1-U-2/
[MOVE]/
I-1-2/
U-1-2/
I-1-U-2/
[MOVE]/
D-I-S-C-O/
D-I-S-C-O"!

Excellent use of early computer graphics on their display screens too, free "Geek Pride" T-shirts thrown into the audience (featuring a block-y up-arrow symbol ("To the power of" in BASIC programming language)) and drumbeats jacked from a software cassette found in a charity shop - some kind of early music software based around Wham!'s chart hits! Brilliant stuff. They were followed by an obscure Krautrock trio called Harmonia. I'd not heard of them (they were only together for three years, but comprised members of Neu! and Cluster). They'd embraced the latest technology, so we got three late-middle-aged German men pottering about with laptops (and the occasional bit of guitar), but it was rather entrancing (I didn't quite get the "crystalline wash of guitar and synth that sounds like it's reflected and refracted through the walls of a dozen glass cathedrals" that the Drowned in Sound reviewer described, but it was an uplifting end to a rather sonically-challenging day).

Sister Rosetta Tharpe!

Medicine for the soul - stop your web-browsing and watch this now!



There doesn't seem to be a clear indication of when this was filmed - early-to-mid-60's I'd guess. Many thanks to Pok for bringing Sister Rosetta to my attention (an auto mechanic in his neighbourhood mentioned her, just after he'd read about her in Joe Boyd's White Bicycles)

Pentangle again - Brighton

I spent a couple of days in Brighton last week helping Pok set up a MySpace profile (after much anti-Murdoch deliberation), and archiving more old solo and Spacegoats recordings (now all linked from the sidebar of his blog.

The night I arrived, Pentangle were playing the third date of their tour at the Dome Theatre (part of the Brighton Pavilion). Pok and Aurelie had tickets, and faced with the prospect of an evening back at their house in front of a computer, I decided to fork out for one myself (it hadn't quite sold out). And I didn't regret it! Although they played the same set (understandably, after so much time apart), they'd loosened up a bit since the first night in London...the "Bruton Town" was even further out.

Stella spotted me during the set break, having just been singing along with "Cruel Sister" - she knows all 27 (or whatever) verses. She described herself as "quietly ecstatic", and was happily surprised to see me there. Moments later, she spotted fellow ex-Spacegoat Pok leaning over the balcony above me. This led to a musical picnic on the beach near Hove a couple of evenings later where we sung/played all the old favourites (Dylan, Donovan, Leonard Cohen, Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell), Pok tried out some new songs, etc. Stella sang some of her new-ish songs (some I recorded with her last year), and one I'd not heard before called "Hello". One of the highlights of that evening was a mad, extended "Hurdy-Gurdy Man", including the missing extra verse written by George Harrison (typically, this was taught to Pok by a stranger at the centre of the Mizmaze on St. Catherine's Hill). Another was Pok and Stella singing "Morning Dew". Best of all, though, was Pok launching into the Incredible String Band's seemingly impossible-to-play epic "Three is a Green Crown", Stella and I wailing along with the impossible-to-sing vocals, and me managing to follow Pok's guitar with relatively successful saz parts. I don't think anyone else there knew the song, most had already gone and everyone was packing up at the time, so it was like we were clearing the beach with our outrageously weird music. "You're all nutters!" laughed someone as the blankets beneath us were removed. In the end it was just the three of us, laughing extensively as the light faded and the waves crashed in.

This then led me to remember an idea I'd proposed to Pok and Dave Goodman at Dave's studio about 12 years ago - an ISB tribute album called The Hangman's Beautiful Granddaughter, consisting of different people covering one of the tracks from their classic The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter. At the time, it wasn't really plausible, due to the amount of time/effort/organisation/money involved in something like that. But in 2008, it could be an Open-Source-licensed, free download kind-of-thing, very little effort to organise as an online project. I think Pok should record "Three is a The Green Crown" and Stella "The Water Song". I'll write more about this eventually and inform the various ISB forums to see if I can get any interest.

Here are a couple of early Floyd clips Pok switched me on to while I was there - both are versions of "Astronomy Domine" - one with Syd and one without

Evan Parker in Whitstable

This was part of the Whitstable Bienalle arts festival - Tuesday July 1st at St. Peters Church on Sydenham Street. The festival is a visual arts thing, but this musical event was included as it was being filmed as well as recorded. There were also little sketchbooks and pencils provided for the audience, then collected at the end, presumably to be integrated into some art piece.

EP played soprano sax, warmly explaining before he began that what he plays isn't everyone's cup of tea, that we were free to sneak off quietly if it wasn't ours. He started with one of his extended circular breathing improvisations. I was immediately blown away by this man's abilities. I'd seen him before with Spring Heeled Jack in Exeter a few years ago, but there was so much going on that night, his playing didn't really register fully with me. This time, with just him playing, I experienced the precision of his music - the only thing I can think to compare it to is birdsong (something highly complex, like a skylark). Because EP's the kind of person you read about a lot in The Wire, I was half-expecting that kind of noise-assault dissonant kind of improvisation, but in fact what he does is overwhelming in its beauty.

He played a number of short pieces in weird time signatures, more circular breathing, stuff which involved multiple voicings (if that's how you'd describe it - he's somehow able to make it seem like there's more than one instrument being played). The encore consisted of a warped-out medley of Thelonious Monk tunes (I wouldn't have known if he hadn't have said) and then another circular breathing workout. I'm guessing that he was exploiting/exploring the acoustic properties of that particular church - it would be hard to imagine otherwise.


Evan Parker in another Anglican church (in Guelph, Ontario)
The church wasn't full, but there was a healthy turnout of Whitstable arty types. They were cheering for more after the encore, but he explained that even if his brain could generate more music, his lower lip had had it.

As a player of improvised music, witnessing Evan Parker in full flow was profoundly humbling. But inspiring too.

There's presumably going to be a live album or DVD or something coming out of this performance - well worth keeping an eye out for that.

Afterwards I needed to recover, so I went and sat on the beach by the Old Neptune, had a pint, wrote a letter and watched the opalescent waters of Whitstable Bay lapping the pebble beach. The bike ride home through Blean Woods was interspersed with glow-worm sightings (the first of the summer) and silent lightning flashes in the southern sky.

Pentangle

I got up to the Royal Festival Hall in London on Sunday 29th June to see the first date of the Pentangle tour (the original line-up is back together for the time being). I'd got a ticket months ago, only realised days before that the event was timed to be 40 years to the day after their famous RFH concert which makes up the live half of their Sweet Child double album.


Pentangle, about 40 years ago
The couple of hours leading up to the gig are worth recalling. I'd met up with Vicky and, sitting in St. James Park, we heard a brass band in the distance. We went to check them out - a modern sort of brass band, playing populist film-score music to people in deckchairs - not really our thing, but good to see they were there. Wandering off, we noticed a pub with the very odd name "Green Man and French Horn", so went in to have a look. There was a trio of Irish session musicians playing tunes by the door. We requested "The Mason's Apron", and they happily obliged to play it, rather well (demonstrating in the process that they really knew their stuff). Heading over the Thames on the Hungerford footbridge, we encountered a troupe of buskers playing firey music on battered accordions and trumpets (one of them was drumming with sticks, very effectively, on a plastic waterbutt). I couldn't really describe it, but something made me guess they were either from Argentina or Chile. Intense, vibrant sounds. Just beyond them, we could hear some groovy electronic beats - someone was having a free party on the tiny bit of tidal Thames-side beach under the Festival Pier - decks set up and everything, playing mellow-ish housey techno (or technoey house? sounded good, anyway). We had five minutes to join the party (it felt very free, spontaneous, international - not just some little clique, but like the whole world was welcome to rave peacefully on the shores of Father Thames), then clamber back up onto the South Band and hurry to our seats in the RFH.

Pentangle shuffled on to rapturous applause. When it had died down a bit, Jacqui McShee mumbled into the mic "Yer all mad!", and then they launched into Anne Briggs' "The Time Has Come". That, and the first half of the second song, "Light Flight", were just slightly wobbly - not a "disaster" as the Guardian's review claimed (understandably, there were some nerves involved in such a momentous occasion), but still a joy to hear them playing. From then on it was sublime. It's hard to separate out highlights, as the whole thing (two hour-long sets) was a total thrill, and I could have easily listened to another two or three hours of them playing. They're all as good, if not better, than ever, and it did seem as if time had been suspended since the early 70's, like they never stopped playing together, there was such an ease and exploratory delight in the music (it makes you wonder what they'd be like if they had kept it together for 40 years!!).


The very same Pentangle, more recently (2007 BBC Folk Awards)
A roadie brought out a sitar near the end of the first set. John Renbourn prepared to sit cross-legged on the stage ("The moment of truth!" announced Jacqui), and then they launched into a wonderful "House Carpenter" and finished the set with "Cruel Sister". The second set began with "Let No Man Steal Your Thyme" and included a trippy, jammed-out version of "Bruton Town". The latter provided a glimpse of where they could take things if they keep playing together, as well as the reason why Jerry Garcia declared them to be his favourite British band in the early 70's (in Signposts to New Space). There was "A Maid That's Deep in Love", a jazzy-interlude where Jacqui left the stage while the other four played "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat". Also, "I've Got a Feeling", it was explained, was "nicked" from Miles Davis' Kind of Blue, not from Davy Graham as they'd originally believed (he nicked it first - the melody, anyway - and Bert Jansch had written some lyrics). They encored with a crystalline "Willie o' Winsborough" and then the gospel-y sing-a-long "May the Circle Be Unbroken". It was only on that last one that Renbourn sang at all. I would have liked to have heard him sing "Lord Franklin" (but then I've seen him do that in the back of a pub in Topsham, so I can't complain).

No gimmicks, no electric instruments, just a very tasteful backdrop of slowly shifting vari-colour lighting panels, and the sort of warmth, humour and humility you'd hope/expect from these five lovely musicians. Vicky really picked up on what an amazing bass player Danny Thompson is - and he really is the glue that holds it all together.

Musically loose, free, fresh, BEAUTIFUL. They got a well-deserved standing ovation. Couldn't have hoped for more. My mind was awash with Pentangle songs for days afterwards. THANKYOU PENTANGLE!