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- WHAT'S RATTLIN' ?
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:: The Weekly
Digest for Canterbury Music
Addicts ::
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Issue #
18
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Wednesday, August 28th,
1996
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From: bigbang@alpes-net.fr (A. Leroy)
Subject: Canterbury FAQ
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 1996 17:08:40 +0000
Hi all,
I think it would be interesting to put together a
Canterbury FAQ (for
the uninitiated, it means "Frequently Asked Questions").
Here are a
few suggestions from yours truly, some with my own
answers.
PLEASE HELP ME TO COMPLETE IT !
Some of the questions are fact-based, some others are more
subjective
and require your opinions. I hope to use the results of
the 'Rotters Club'
poll from Calyx as well, as a lot of interesting comments
were submitted.
Just leave me some time to work on it.
1) Whatever happened to... ?
Clive Brooks : After leaving Egg, Brooks worked with the
Groundhogs, which
he joined and left several times. You'd have to ask Dave
Stewart what he's
doing now, but I think I have a clue : on Pink Floyd's
"Division Bell" album
from 1994, Nick Mason's drum technician is one Clive
Brooks... Is this the
same guy ? Could be...
Mont Campbell : Mont has finished recording on his
first-ever solo album,
which could be released before the end of the year. This
will be Mont's
return to the music scene, exactly 20 years after his
departure from
National Health.
Marc Charig, Jeff Clyne, Nick Evans, Phil Lee, Trevor
Tomkins : These
musicians are all involved in the London jazz scene
John Marshall : One of the few Canterbury-related
musicians to have been
widely accepted on the European jazz scene. He currently
plays in John
Surman's group.
Steve Miller : Phil's brother, a jazz piano player, still
plays from time
to time, in a trio featuring Lol Coxhill and Eddie
Prevost. He was of
course in Delivery (1966-71, 1972-73) and Caravan
(1971-72).
Brian Hopper : After the Wilde Flowers, Brian formed his
own band, Zobe,
but has quit playing music since the early 70's. He did,
however, write the
liner notes to the recent Wilde Flowers CD, released by
Voiceprint.
Karl Jenkins and Mike Ratledge : Since the late 70's, both
have been
involved in advertisement music under the collective name
Adiemus.
Apparently, Ratledge recently called it a day and has come
back to his
first passion : writing books.
Bill MacCormick : See previous issues of WR.
Dave MacRae : See previous issues of WR. (hopefully, I've
got an interview
coming up).
Neil Murray : One of the most in-demand session players
nowadays. Since
leaving National Health in 1978, he has played with
heavy-metal bands such
as Whitesnake, Black Sabbath, Gary Moore Band, and more
recently with
ex-Queen guitarist Brian May. Most of the times he's
associated with
drummer Cozy Powell.
... others ?
2) What does 'Canterbury' mean ?
Canterbury is the name of the English town where Robert
Wyatt, Richard
Sinclair, Kevin Ayers, David Sinclair and Hugh Hopper
spent their school
years. Nowadays, only Richard Sinclair and Hugh Hopper
still live there,
although the other original members of Caravan live not
too far.
3) What does the name 'Matching Mole' mean ?
It's a play on words derived from the French translation
of 'Soft Machine' : 'La Machine Molle'.
4) Why was 'Hatfield and the North' called 'Hatfield and
the North' ?
The name was inspired by the first road side on the M1
motorway going North
from London. The idea originated from Mike Patto, who was
going to use it for his own band, but when he settled for Dick and
the Firemen, he passed it on.
5) Do all the 'Canterbury' bands really come from
Canterbury ?
No. The only bands to have their roots in Canterbury were
Caravan and the
Soft Machine. Most of the other musicians involved in the
Canterbury scene
were from London.
6) What makes 'Canterbury' music different to other styles
of music ?
7) Early Soft Machine and Gong are great, the rest is crap
8) Robert Wyatt always sings out of tune
9) What is typically 'British' in Canterbury bands ?
10) Did 'Canterbury' music ever achieve commercial success
?
11) Where the hell do you see any common point in the
music of Gong, Soft
Machine and National Health ?!?
12) Is Magma a 'Canterbury' band ? Is Ozric Tentacles a
'Canterbury' band ?
(etc.)
13) Who were the 'legendary' Wilde Flowers ?
14) Why did the 'Canterbury School' drive Peter Frame
insane ?
As some of you may know, Peter Frame was the man who drew
those incredible
'Rock Family Trees' in the 70's (he still does some from
time to time,
apparently). One of these was featured in the Soft Machine
compilation
triple-LP, "Triple Echo". Entitled 'Soft Machinery', this
impressive piece
of work is surely the most complicated one Frame has ever
had to drawn. And
luckily for him, he drew it in 1977 !
In 1989, one of the members of the Japanese progressive
rock band Soft Weed
Factor (sic) drew a much large family tree - very
interesting, although
lacking Frame's sense of aesthetics and being written in
Japanese, except
for the musicians' names and album titles. I think a few
copies of the tree
are still available from Facelift.
15) Why did these musicians form so many bands ? To earn
more money ? Because a given combination of musos never could get
along together more than six months ?
Certainly not to earn more money - or they would have
really been stupid.
One explanation is maybe that keeping a band together when
you're not
commercially successful is much harder than when you're
selling lots of
records. Another one is that when musicians with very
strong personalities
work together, they don't necessarily share the same views
on what the
music should or shouldn't be. There's also the possibility
that one
musician may want to assemble a particular combination of
musicians because
he feels it would fit his musical ideas.
16) When did Soft Machine end ?
This is a tough question. Some will say it ended as soon
as 1968 when Kevin
Ayers left, or 1971 when Robert Wyatt left. Actually, Soft
Machine could
have changed names with every album. Their creative
process was an
evergoing one, and although one can disagree on the
musical direction that
was eventually followed, Soft Machine always moved
forward. Anyway... What
was the original question ? Oh, yeah, when did Soft
Machine end ? It ceased
to exist as a band in 1977, soon after the series of gigs
in Paris that
were documented by the "Alive And Well" album. Its last
official recording
was "Land Of Cockayne", released in 1981, but apart from
Karl Jenkins and
John Marshall, the featured musicians (Allan Holdsworth,
Jack Bruce, Ray
Warleigh...) could only be considered as guests. The last
time the name Soft Machine was ever used, however, was in 1984,
when a line-up of Jenkins, Marshall, John Etheridge, Steve Cooke
and Dave MacRae played a series of gigs in London.
If you have any questions and/or answers to submit, please
do !
Aymeric
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From: Julian Christou <jchristo@eso.org>
Subject: Bootlegs ...
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 1996 14:01:43 +0200
Hi All
Well, here I am on the other side of the pond a third of
the way around the
world! (Well 8 hours anyway). Good to still get WR and
find out what's
happening. So what exactly is happening with the Dutch
Canterbury shows. Could
someone (Aymeric perhaps) please post an up-to-date
schedule. I'm now in
Munich and hopefully will be able to get up there unless
there some musicians
heading this way!
[The schedule is basically : on sept 21st, gigs by Richard
Sinclair and his
band, Hugh Hopper's Franglodutch Band and Stips, the new
band fronted by ex-
Supersister leader Robert Jan Stips; on sunday sept 22nd,
'Canterbury break-
fast' (!) and various special performances, plus some sort
of record fair.
Anyone living not too far from Holland is advised to come
- this should be
great. I hope I can make it - A.L.]
There was the mention of a Soft Machine boot or two from
the Jenkins period in
the latest WR. I'm definitely interested in finding access
to some of these or
at least of seeing a listing of what Soft (or other
Canterbury) boots exist.
In the last years there's been a wonderful set of
previously boot only
releases officially for us Canterbury fans including
"Live At The Paradiso" (from 1969)
"BBC In Concert" (I & II) (from 1971-72)
"Live In France" (from 1972)
Others out there, if they're good quality (?), I'm sure
would find a good
audience amongst us. Obviously the record companies
involved - Voiceprint -
Windsong & One Way knew that there was a market. So
waht else is there out
there guys? I have a boot called "Old Machine" recorded in
Koeln (it says) by
the Hopper/Ratledge/Wyatt/Dean ensemble circa "Fourth" -
probably just before
the "In Concert Vol. I"). A great show but marred by poor
recording.
While we collectors like to get our grubby little hands on
everything, it
would be nice to persuade the companies to do official
releases - remixed to
the standards of today's technology. So let's see if we
can get the list
together.
Also, Any chance of the early SM singles (as on "Triple
Echo" making it to
CD)?
Julian
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From: duplanet@global2000.net (David Greenberger)
Subject: Hampton Grease Band reissue
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 1996 10:47:33 -0400
>The marque on the Hampton Grease Band CD reissue is
Shotput/Columbia,
>so even if it doesn't regularly appear in our local
shopping malls, it
>will have the benefit of major label distribution.
The Shotput label distributed by Song (which Hampton
Grease Band and a
new Glenn Phillips are on). Shotput is a label started by
the producer
Brendan O'Brien (Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, etc). He
has two
Sony-distributed labels, the other being for more
pop-oriented releases
(and largely produced by him). He's from Atlanta (played
wioth and produced
Swimming Pool Qs and a number of other Georgia bands),
went to LA and
produced for Rick Rubin's label, then came back to Atlanta
to settle and
work there.
[There was a very good article on the Hampton Grease Band,
based on inter-
views with ex-members, in a 1992 issue of the excellent
psych/prog fanzine
Ptolemaic Terrascope - A.L.]
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From: Michael Bloom <MHB@MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Wow! Our heroes respond!
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 96 10:24:46 EDT
>> Bill MacCormick joined Random Hold, a group I
never liked very much
>>(they bored me to tears when they opened for Peter
Gabriel circa "Games
>>Without Frontiers").
>
>[Bill MacCormick comments :]
>Shame 'bout that. I rather liked it myself
:-) though it's true to say
>that the demos we produced ourselves before signing
for Polydor and after
>we were dropped are much better than the album we did
release. Amazingly
>I found the band mentioned in a newsgroup only last
month. Bizarre.
Please tell Bill MacCormick that it's nothing personal, I
just thought
Random Hold was the least interesting band he was ever
involved with--
which, given the rest of his pedigree was Quiet Sun,
Matching Mole, and
801, should hardly be surprising.
Not that I remember it much, but I thought the keyboards
were used as
special effects generators kinda like the Cars or some
such new wave
skinny tie aggregation, and David Rhodes mainly played
choppy chords.
It was probably fun to play at the time, but self-limiting
melodically.
And they say *prog* hasn't aged well...
One could say that Matching Mole played choppily too (e.g.
"Marchides"),
but they had the Canterbury sense of humor. Random Hold
exuded this dour
1984-ish demeanor, on record and especially live. I
remember I was seized
with the urge to shout out "Mummy was an asteroid" when I
saw them open
for Peter Gabriel-- so, Bill, if you remember something
weird and stupid
that happened in Boston, that was me :-)
[Bill has subscribed to the list, so he should be reading
this... time to
lowen the level of criticism, eh ? :)) In a similar vein,
does anyone
remember reading, in Dave Stewart's National Health
biography, about NH
fans requesting "Paracelsus" at Bruford gigs in 1979 ? -
A.L.]
Charles Hayward did two LPs and a 12" with This Heat, and
one LP and two
12"s with Camberwell Now, all of them amazing. (Consumer
information: all
of the Camberwell Now material got squeezed onto one very
cost-effective
CD by RecRec Zurich. This Heat's LPs are available with no
extra tracks
at all, and there's another CD called "Repeat", which I
haven't heard--
my understanding is, it consists of dub mixes.) What's
this stuff like?
Did I say "dour"? Hayward sounds like it's just barely
within his power
to get up in the morning and confront the horrors the
capitalist system
has thoughtfully prepared for us all-- except when he gets
behind the
drums, he's galvanized. "Deceit" is a terrifying album.
Since the demise of Camberwell Now, he's made at least
three solo CDs--
I have one, "Survive the Gesture", it's aesthetically of a
piece but he
doesn't have the skills of some of his erstwhile
bandmates. And it's
still dour. It doesn't use the same components or timbres
or anything,
but it reminds me very strongly of Japanese gagaku music,
that stuffily
formal, reedy, astringent court music form. He's also
played on at least
the first Les Batteries album-- although Guigou and Rick
Brown came and
played Boston without him, and I think there's a second
record he's not
on. He has played on other projects-- I think he drummed
for Fred Frith's
Keep the Dog for a while, and he's certainly playing on
Heiner Goebbels'
"The Man in the Elevator".
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From: bigbang@alpes-net.fr (A. Leroy)
Subject: Caravan re-issue
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 1996 17:58:51 +0000
Hi,
Just received the new GFT mail-order catalog. It mentions
the reissue of
Caravan's first album (from 1968) as being re-scheduled to
september.
At last ! I'll be able to throw away that awful
xxxxxth-generation tape
made from a crap vinyl repressing...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Bomnueter@t-online.de (Ulrich Bomnueter)
Subject: Better By Far
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 96 21:18 MET DST
>[I've never heard of "Better By Far" being available
on CD - and
>apparently the CD reissue of "Caravan" from 1968 that
I was told about
>has yet to appear. If anyone knows more, please write
! - A.L.]
I have seen "Better by far" on CD at Virgin Megastore in
Paris last weekend.
As to me it must still be there, as I hadn't enough money
to buy it :(
As to Marc Hollander:
After Aksak Maboul he did some records with members of
Tuxedomoon (after
they had moved to Belgium). He also contributed to some
records of Minimal
Compact and Foreign Affair. He did play with Colin Newman,
Fred Frith (on
"Gravity") and Zazou/Bikaye.
The most recent thing that I know of him is his
contribution to/production
of the first two albums of Bel Canto (which actually made
me buy them).
In case you want more detailed information please e-mail
me directly.
bye
bommel
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From: r.pyatt1@genie.com
Subject: rock bottom
Date: Sat, 24 Aug 96 04:45:00 GMT
Hi all!
Re: where to get "Rock Bottom":
I have seen it in NYC at a store called Other Music. They
are located in
Greenwich Village at 15 E. 4th Street, NY, NY 10003.
The phone is 212.477.8150
They have a very good selection of things Canterbury: I
upgraded my National
Health to CD there. Gilgamesh, Hatfield & The North,
Soft Machine (incl.
"Jet Propelled" !), Matching Mole and of course, solo
Wyatt. I haven't seen
any Camel or Caravan, but I keep bugging them about it so
maybe soon ?
(I think I'll pick-up something for my birthday there.
Soft Heap maybe?)
BTW: anyone know of shows coming to NYC?
Back soon,
Rudy
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From: bigbang@alpes-net.fr (A. Leroy)
Subject: In Cahoots/Pip Pyle news
Date: Sun, 25 Aug 1996 11:14:13 +0000
I visited the "Newest Canterbury News" section of the
Musart site today
(very interesting reading indeed), and read a couple of
news on interest :
- A new In Cahoots recording was finished in July. The
core of the line-up
is reportedly still Phil Miller, Elton Dean, Fred T. Baker
and Pip Pyle,
but I'm not sure whether Jim Dvorak and/or Peter Lemer are
in.
- Pip Pyle has at last finished his solo album (5 years in
the making), with
the help of Dave Stewart. Guests include Phil Miller,
Didier Malherbe, Dave
Stewart, Richard Sinclair, John Greaves etc. as well as
some of Pip's French
musical friends. It is not known whether Pip has found a
label willing to
release this album.
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From: veman@ix.netcom.com(Victor Manning)
Newsgroups: rec.music.progressive
Subject: GONG Tour USA - Autumn '96
Date: 27 Aug 1996 07:51:49 GMT
Well Pixies, the word is out that there will be a short
Gong tour in
Canada, the US East Coast, with a possible venture in to
the SouthEast
and the Southwest (That means YOU Texans!!!). Once again
it would be
helpful to respond from your area, especially if you got
missed on the
last tour in March. The current tour list is below. Its
still tentative
in some cases, so Gong Heads in the area would do very
well to call the
venues and express your enthusiasm about the show.
The last tour was a spectacular success for the band,
probably beyond
anybody's expectations. Shawn Ahearn and Michael Clare are
to be
commended for their efforts and commitment to spreading
the Gong
vibration in the United States. Thanks for a great show!
OK Here's the Tour List. Get the word out to your fellow
pixies, the
Teapot's coming to town.
Gong in October
*-tentative
*9-30 Washington DC
10-10 Club Soda, Montreal
10-11/12 Le Dauteuile, Quebec City
*10-14 Phoenix Underground, Toronto
10-15 Mama Kins, Boston
10-16 Tramps, NYC
10-17 Club Bene, Sayerville, NJ
10-18, Club Washington, DC
(more to follow through 10/27 or so)
Look for this list to be modified over the next couple of
weeks. As I
understand the rumours behind the news, there is a 2-week
window
available for the band to perform here (apparently the
first two weeks
of October). They are looking to focus on the East Coast
and hopefully
cover some territory in the South during this tour,
hopefully to return
in Spring'97 to hit the West Coast again. Here's to
hoping.
Also I am happy to announce the imminent release of
"Shapeshifter +"
(previously released in Europe but not available in the
U.S. !). to
be released October 10th on the Viceroy label.
Good Afternoon
VeMan
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From: bigbang@alpes-net.fr (A. Leroy)
Subject: Christian Boule/Tim Blake
Date: Wed, 28 Aug 1996 13:53:31 +0000
I've just had a call from Christian Boule (former Steve
Hillage Band guitarist), who is currently in French Brittany for a
few days' holiday. He'll be visiting Tim Blake there so I should
soon have fresh news. He told me Tim was in the process of
recording his new solo album. Christian was doubtful whether Tim
was still involved in Gong. There was apparently a conflict (on
financial matters?) before the Japanese tour of last Spring.
Boule himself has completed a new release (produced by Tim
Blake), but has yet been unsuccessful in finding a deal. Although
the music will be song-based and much less 'progressive' than his
first two albums, he promises it has some of his trademark
'hillagian' guitar leads. I plan to meet Christian in September
and will keep you informed.
Christian also tells me that Musea has just bought the
rights to both his Polydor albums, "Photo-Musik" (1978) and
"Non-Fiction" (1979). But it may take some time before a CD
reissue appears.
Aymeric
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END OF ISSUE #18
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