Sunday, March 10, 2019

the spirit of Lindsay Cooper descends on central Canterbury...

Thursday 7th March 2019
Garage Coffee, Canterbury

One of the highlights of my life thus far. The day began with Josh Magill (Syd Arthur's drummer) and I driving up to London to collect Yumi and her gear, then on to Recommended Records HQ near Croydon to collect Chris Cutler and his drums. Back in the CT there was then the mission of collecting a PA (kindly provided by Will who does Crash of Moons Club sound) and liaising with Neil from Lapis Lazuli who'd offered to do the mixing (he did a magnificent job!). Then last minute panic getting the slideshow/projector setup to work (I was projecting images from Lindsay's life and work, carefully gleaned from the massive online LC Digital Archive at Cornell University)...thanks to Ole for the amazing technical help with that. Everything worked perfectly, the band looked like they were enjoying themselves hugely, not a squeak of feedback nor a single request for monitor adjustments despite the vast amount of instruments, mics and amps involved, and the slideshow added a really nice personal touch for the (probably majority of the) audience members who knew nothing about the woman behind the music.

At the end of the first set (News From Babel songs), Yumi looked up at the slideshow — which included some scans of hand-written scores with Lindsay's doodles and coffee stains — and suddenly initiated a group improvisation in the Henry Cow tradition, using the visuals as a kind of evolving score (some bits of actual written music, plus "lyrics" sung from press clippings, etc.). The second set of mostly Henry Cow material took things up a notch further, a "joyous art-rock explosion" as someone described it. Free Range organiser Sam Bailey, like me, felt like something else was present in the room beside the musicians and the audience. It was one of those gigs.

There was a particularly touching moment during "Iceland", which Cutler doesn't play on, when he was watching the slideshow, and this childhood picture of Lindsay in front of her house in suburban Hornsey (North London) in the late 50s appeared on the screen. He unselfconsciously did a little wave to the picture of his friend and collaborator. Aww.

Additional thanks go to Sam Bailey for allowing me to curate this, Luke and co. at Garage Coffee for being so chilled about their space being severely rearranged, Megan and Dan for logistical support and furniture moving and Luke from Lapis Lazuli for saving the day when we suddenly realised their was no bass amp.

Josh and I transported their stuff up to Cafe Oto for the next night's gig (International Women's Day), the closest I'll ever get to being a roadie for Henry Cow! That gig included an extra set featuring an exquisite improvisation from The Watts (Yumi, Cutler and Hodgkinson), and solo performances from Chlöe Herrington (bassoon and electronics), Atsuko Kamura (voice and loops) and Mitsuru Nasuno (bass and effects)...wonderful stuff. After that, things went a bit wrong, technically, which meant the band were having more of a struggle, enjoying themselves less. Plus the audience were a lot more "London" and of a uniform age, so the atmosphere didn't come close to the one the night before. But I had room to move around at the back and found myself sort of twitch/dancing to Henry Cow music, completely blissed out, in the afterglow of the Free Range gig (which had been too crammed full of audience to move).

Talking to Mitsuru afterwards I learned that playing in Canterbury had been a lifelong dream of his, and that the previous night's event was "a dream come true". That made me happy. We swapped contacts and he's looking forward to providing a Japanese R.I.O. guest mix for a future episode of Canterbury Sans Frontierès, further validating the name of the podcast.

I picked up a copy of a VÄLVE EP (one of Chlöe's projects) before leaving, which led to a fascinating conversation with a stranger on the Tube a few minutes late — he spotted the cover and asked if it was from Bangladesh (resembles the Bangladeshi flag) which led to a lovely, spontaneous conversation in which I told him about the gig and he told me about Bangladeshi culture, politics and pop music, before helping me find the right place to change at Shadwell DLR station. On to Jamboree in Limehouse, to catch the aftermath of a Whiskey Moonface gig (there'd unexpectedly been some trouble with a drunken audience member and security) and meet up with Garance Louis of the Mitochondries. Back at the Sanford housing coop where she now lives (somewhere I've heard about for years) she showed me some clips of her extraordinary new theatrical electropop project Chewy She...

posted by Matthew Watkins at 2:17 PM

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