::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
::
::
::
- WHAT'S RATTLIN' ?
-
::
:: The Weekly
Digest for Canterbury Music
Addicts ::
::
Issue #
4
::
::
Thurdsay, May 23rd,
1996
::
::
::
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Tony Brower <tonyb@interport.net>
Subject: Hatfield CD
Date: Sat, 18 May 1996 10:37:29 -0400 (EDT)
to the guy who was looking for a Hatfield CD.......
point your web browser to:
https://www.cdconnection.com/bin/webquery/w9PJUwNY3BgR?artist=HATFIELD+%26+THE+NORTH
cos they're all there.
I was looking for apretty obscure album, All of Us, by
Nirvana (the original
one) and I found and bought it from cdconnection.
Took about 4 days (to
East Coast USA) and about $18. I was very
happy. It wouldn't suprise me if
they had most of the Canturbury sound albums.
Good luck
Tony Brower (ex of Zingale
http://prog.ari.net/prog/GEPR/z.html#ZINGALE)
[Another reader of WR, Robert Smith, recommends you try
"Pastel Blue".
Check them out at http://www.demon.co.uk/pastel/index.html
- A.L.]
__________________
Ars Longa Vita Shorta
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: potts@stats.ox.ac.uk (Henry Potts)
Subject: The many Dave Stewarts
Date: Sat, 18 May 96 15:46:55 BST
In issue #3:
>Does anyone know who plays the brilliant keyboard solo
on Earth Rise off
>Steve Hillage`s `Open' album? Apparently, he had both
Dave Stewarts' guesting
>on the album which is pretty bizarre. For all I know,
the two Daves took
>it turns to play each solo bit. Just to add to the
confusion, Steve
>Hillage >is also credited in dabbling with the
ivories!
To clarify the potential confusion over Dave Stewart, Dave
Stewart and Dave
Stewart: the main DS on _Open_ is a guitarist; I don't
know whether DS the
keyboard player of Hatfield etc. appears on _Open_, but he
has, of course,
worked extensively with Hillage in the past (Khan,
Arzachel etc.); neither
is the DS of the Eurythmics; nor is either the DS who
drums for Fish. Fish
(ex-Marillion) should also not be confused with Chris 'the
fish' Squire of
Yes, who released a solo album _Fish Out of Water_, itself
not to be
confused with Lucky Scars' _Fish Out of Water_ album (with
Wyatt as guest
vocalist) or Hillage's _Fish Rising_. Nor should Steve
Hillage be confused
with Steve Hackett (although both have worked with Tony
Banks) or Steve
Howe (who replaced Peter Banks in Yes). Simple really :)
As to who did the keyboard solo, could it have been
Miquette Giraudy?
[Actually, OUR Dave Stewart was indeed guesting on the
album. I don't think
either Hillage or Giraudy were good enough keyboardists to
play solos. I
seem to remember a review of a 1979 gig where
Jean-Philippe Rykiel and Dave
Stewart both appeared onstage with Hillage - A.L.]
Henry
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~some0280/index.html
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: neato@pipeline.com
Subject: Gong 1978
Date: Sat, 18 May 1996 11:35:35 -0400
>[It seems sure this didn't involved any members of the
'classic' lineup
>of Gong apart from Daevid and Gilli. Can anyone give
the exact line-up ?
>Was it New York Gong under the name of Gong, or a
special line-up such
>as the one with Yochk'o Seffer and Chris Cutler
mentioned earlier in this
>issue ? - A.L.]
As per my earlier post, when Daevid Allen relocated to NY,
he had already
been long gone from the "classic" Gong UK line-up (with
the exception of the
77 hippodrome show)...when in NYC he hooked up with the
fledging band-
MATERIAL (Cliff Cultreri; Michael Beinhorn; Bill Laswell;
Fred Maher).
- This was the band that backed up Allen on his US
dates...at the time they
were billed as Gong, but when the recordings started being
released it was
changed to NY Gong...the Zu manifestivals, being day long
affairs with lots
of other musicians performing, led to people like Cutler
and Seffer
sitting in...in addition there own groups were featured
-Basically the whole thing was a Giorgio Gomelsky
shot...from his days
with the Yardbirds through Byg-period Gong, he was always
a sharp operator...
no doubt impressing Material (who were import record
freaks, centered around
an import shop known as Pantasia) with his credentials and
at the same time
supplying Allen with a band .
[Note : Gomelsky was of course very involved with early
Magma, as well as
the Yardbirds and Gong - A.L.]
- Gilli took part in the first few show but then
split...i'm pretty sure
personally as well as musically hope this clears it up a
bit !
cheers
neato@pipeline.com
[BTW, "neato", what's your real name ?]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: neato@pipeline.com
Subject: Compendium
Date: Sat, 18 May 1996 11:44:01 -0400
Steve Feigenbaum wrote :
>... Hopper Tunity Box will be released in the next
year or so on a
>new label he's setting up. We'll see.
"Hopper Tunity Box" was originally released on vinyl by a
small Norwegian
label known as Compendium...I corresponded with them at
the time (1977),
and they were a dedicated bunch who were interested in the
music and the
development of the artist (including royalties)...they
released the Henry
Cow concerts as their first lp, as well as (the recently
released by One
Way cd) Hopper/Dean/Tippett/Gallivan..
In addition, Intercontinental Express (featuring Elton
Dean) and Mirage
(featuring guitarist Brian Godding) -all in all a nice
little label
cheers
neato@pipeline.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: CuneiWay@aol.com
Subject: Zu Festival tapes - 1978
Date: Sun, 19 May 1996 14:29:32 -0400
Lisa Shannon (hello Lisa!) writes:
> Speaking of Gong, as many people did in #2, has
anyone ever mentioned
> anything being released from the recordings that were
made at the NYC Zu
> festival in 1978? (Perhaps Steve F. might
know-- I think I remember him
> being there, though that was so long ago.... I
know the Muffins were
> there). It was Gong only with Yochko Seffer on
sax, Chris Cutler on
> drums... turned into a predawn jam that the police
pulled the plug on,
> but then they continued to play on whatever they
could without electricity,
> with photographers' lamps illuminating the stage.
> Any info would be greatly appreciated.
Yeah, I was there as part of The Muffins entourage.
The "fake" Hillage at the show btw was Cliff Coultari
(sp), of Material.
Chris Cutler was indeed the drummer for part of the show
(as Mr. Brian
Damage).
Supposedly, the entire show was taped (although not very
well I was later
told). In typical Georgio Gomelsky fashion it was to be
the 1st release on
his new "Zu"! label - an "amazing" 3 lp set.
Later it was announced as a double lp set.
A couple years later as a single lp of truly "the best of
the best".
The running joke with my pals was that it would eventually
see light of day
as a one sided flexi-disc single....!
Michael Bloom, also a member of this list, may have more
insight into what
happened to the tapes, etc etc etc., but my memory is that
(1) as I said, it
was not very well recorded & (2) the actual
performances by Daevid & company,
despite the big fun of actually seeing them perform, were
not really very
good.
Steve F.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: bigbang@alpes-net.fr
Subject: Corrections
Date: Mon, 20 May 1996 20:15:14 +0400
In WR#3 I quote parts of a message sent to me by Mark
Hewins (of Soft
Heap/Going Going/Hopper-Hewins/Mashu fame). Mark asked me
to rectify a
few points :
1) I spoke of Mark as "the man behind the Musart website".
This is not
strictly correct : "If anything it's my wife (Von)
who's responsible as
she donates the webspace to all the Musicians free. And
Matt who does the
coding. I just answer and forward the mail...".
2) I wrote Musart was the first Canterbury website ever on
the Net. Well,
after saying Calyx was the first one (how pretentious I
am, sometimes),
here's another mistake of mine. Mark rectifies this :
"Malcolm Humes (and
others) had pages up before US, not I. I am very careful
when it comes to
sharing credit with other people who deserve it; this is
MOST important to
me". [I of course agree and advise you to check out
CALYX's extensive
"Contacts & Links" page - A.L.]
3) How stupid I am (again !) - Soft Heap rehearsed not in
London, but in
Paris of course (but recently indeed). As most of you will
know, Pip Pyle
and John Greaves both live in France, Elton Dean
part-time, only Mark
actually has to travel from London to rehearse.
Conclusion : I still have a lot to learn. Please forgive
me for being
stupid sometimes.
A. Leroy
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: neato@pipeline.com
Subject: kevin ayers
Date: Tue, 21 May 1996 17:58:02 -0400
New from Ultramarine (the band who used Robert Wyatt so
well on their
"United Kingdoms" recording) have returned with a six song
CD called
"Hymn - Remixes"... The hymn in question being the great
Kevin Ayers song
remixed six times...the final version featuring Kevin
himself singing...
with a nice little solo by Lol Coxhill... Jimmy Hastings
is on clarinet as
well... Ayers' vocal is doubletracked much like his
classic recordings...
the liner notes are just the lyrics of the song...a nice
homage to a
deserving artist
cheers
neato@pipeline.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: DrOrb@aol.com
Subject: (none)
Date: Wed, 22 May 1996 01:32:32 -0400
Hello to all!
This newsletter is long overdue! I have been a Canterbury
fan for longer than
I care to remember .... Started when I bought the first
Hatfield disc on a
recommendation from Michael Bloom (writing in the Boston
Phoenix) in 197?.
Highlight was seeing National Health play in Boston with
Allen Gowen and
having Richard Sinclair stay at my house on one of his
solo tours (great guy
etc etc).
My 2 cents: Camel is definitely Cbury (at the very least
their early stuff,
and when Richard was with them, though he has made it
clear that he was
basically a "gun for hire").
[It even seems he didn't really feel inspired by the
context of this band.
He was apparently at odds with the spirit of Camel,
especially from a
lyrical point of view. I think both parties went their own
ways for the
best (eventually) - Camel's "Dust And Dreams" and
Richard's "R.S.V.P." - A.L.]
I do have the BBC sessions book. If desired, I can
summarize the Cbury
related entries. The most drool-invoking entries for me
are the Gilgamesh
sessions....
26/9/74: One End More, Arriving Twice, Lady and Friend,
Notwithstanding.
3/11/75: Jamo, Island of Rhodes.
Personnel for both sessions: Gowen, Phil Lee, Jeff Clyne,
Michael Travis.
[A bit surprising : According to the information I have,
Steve Cook was
Gilgamesh's bass player in 1974, and Neil Murray returned
in early 1975.
The A. Gowen bio on National Health's "D.S. Al Coda" even
states that
Peter Lemer was second keyboard player in Gilgamesh in
1974... Jeff Clyne
only guested, as did Amanda Parsons, for the album
sessions. Could there be
a mistake in the session sheets ? - A.L.]
I am told that Alan Gowen's widow has the tapes of these
sessions. It would
be fantastic if we could get these to see the light of
day... I am told that
she is married to Rick Biddulph. Anyone have any ideas?
[I think it depends more on the BBC than on Celia - if
anyone is in contact
with her, additional info would be 'welcomme'. This said,
the fact that
Gilgamesh once broadcast on the BBC doesn't mean that the
tapes have been
kept safely in their vaults since then. I've read stories
of many tapes of
more historical significance being lost forever... - A.L.]
Looking forward to hearing from fellow Cbury addicts....
[Please send the other info you have from the BBC book !
Thanks - A.L.]
Rob Bennett
Rochester, NY
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
X-POP3-Rcpt: bigbang@alpes
From: Jeffrey Melton <Jeffrey_Melton@hysoft.com>
Subject: National Health bios circa 03/78.
Date: Wed, 22 May 1996 11:04:42 -0400
As was requested, I thought I'd post a copy of the
BIOGRAPHY I received
with my promotional copy of the first National
Health album. This is from
the defunct label VISA Records in NJ, a subsidiary
for Passport Records.
NATIONAL HEALTH
---------------
Some ancient history and reputedly interesting background
information.
PIP PYLE (born 4/4/50 in Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire)
Pip is the drummer of the group. Like all drummers, he has
a blonde wife and
three children, but despite this still has to contend with
the attentions of
legions of foreign lovelies (many of whom seem quite
prepared to travel
thousands of kilomoters to the hut or wooden shack where
Pip's latest group
happen to be playing). What these young things perhaps do
not realize is that
Pip is a deeply dedicated musician. Do not be misled by
the smashed
crockery on stage, the waving of arms around the head
heralding the
imminent end of a
number.
Pip has been playing drums and biscuit tins since he was
five. Largely
self-taught, though he took a few lessons from jazz
drummer, Buzz Greene, his
first group was Delivery with Phil Miller. (Phil and Pip
actually went to
kindergarten together, though readers may find this a
little difficult to
credit). Later he joined Gong and lived in France for a
while; on returning
to England, Pip joined a short-lived group with Roy
Babbington and Gary Boyle
backing singer Paul Jones, then another group he doesn't
want you to know
about. In 1973 he helped to form the almost legendary
Hatfield and the North
with Richard Sinclair and Phil Miller. On Hatfield's
demise, he started
Weightwatchers with Elton Dean and Keith Tippett, a band
which occasionaly
plays concerts. Finally in 1977 he was asked to join
National Health.
[The band Pip "doesn't want you to know about" is probably
Chicken Shack,
but that was actually between Delivery and Gong. Pip was
in the Paul Jones
group during the first half of 1972, before the
reformation of Delivery
that led to Hatfield and the North - A.L.]
PHIL MILLER (Guitarist, born 22.1.49, Isle of Wight)
When asked to supply interesting autobiographical details,
Phil produces lists
of other musicians he has played with over the years, a
sure sign of a loyal
group member. It's possibly for this reason also that
journalists have always
tended to describe his playing in terms of restraint, lack
of ego,
tastefulness, etc. This hardly does it justice. The other
chaps is National
Health remain convinced Phil's ambition is to hypnotise
the audience into a
state of utter submission by means of a system of complex
and often terrifying
facial grimaces that he has perfected.
Phil's musical career began with Delivery, with his
brother, Steve (piano),
Pip (drums), Roy Babbington (bass), and Lox Coxhill
(saxes). In 1970,
Delivery split, and after a lull Phil was invited to
join Matching Mole by
ex-Soft Machine drummer Robert Wyatt. Included were
(initially) Dave Sinclair
(organ) and later, Dave McRae (piano), two excellent
keyboard players. This
band stayed together until 1972 when Robert became
tired of being on the
road. Next, Phil began a strong musical relationship with
bassist/vocalist
Richard Sinclair which led to the formation of Hatfield
and the North;
finally he joined National Health in 1976 and is now
writing music for the
band to play.
NEIL MURRAY (Bass)
Neil is the tallest fellow in the group. If this itself is
insufficient
evidence of his moral and intellectual superiority over
the others, Neil
would like to modestly point out that he is also a fully
qualified graphic
designer. An imposing figure as he stalks across the
stage, enragedly
swinging his bass guitar at anything unfortunate enough to
get in his way,
Murray is also capable of great delicacy in his playing.
Undeterred by this,
however, he is the proud holder of the Land Bass Volume
record, awarded him
by a panel of judges at Sierck-les-Bains festival in
France this year for
his fuzz bass solo in Dave Stewart's number 'The
Collapso'.
Neil originally played drums in a group at school with
Peter Blegvad and
Anthony Moore, later of Slapp Happy, switching to bass at
the age of 17,
he joined Alan Gowen's group, Gilgamesh. At this time,
Gilgamesh played
several concerts with Hatfield and the North, bringing
together Alan Gowen
and Dave Stewart in a friendship that led to the formation
of National
Health, but soon afterwards left to record and tour in the
USA with the rock
group, Hanson. Returning to London in 1974, he toured with
Cozy Powell's
Hammer and then joined Colosseum II for a year; finally he
replaced Mont
Campbell in National Health in 1976.
DAVE STEWART (Organ, born 30.12.50 in Waterloo, London)
Dave would like to take this opportunity of pointing out
his lack of
involvement in the alleged "Canterbury Scene". It is with
some vehemence
that he draws the readers attention to his birthplace, the
grimy center of a
bustling metropolis a million miles removed from the leafy
greenery of
distant Kent. He is unable to deny, however, his
participation in Hatfield
and the North with hard-core Canterbury veteran Richard
Sinclair.
Dave's name has become synonymous with rather odd music
(viz 'Lumps' from
"The Rotter's Club") and he would like to point out to his
trillions of
fans that it is the world that is odd, not him. It is Dave
you will see at
the National Health concerts cheerfully chatting to an
audience between
numbers (often in languages he has little or no basic
grasp). Though nowhere
near as advanced as Phil Miller in the manipulation of the
facial muscles,
Dave has his own peculiar stage act which has endeared him
to audiences in
many lands. Assuming an expression of slack-jawed vacuity
he will punctuate
his haphazardly emphatic playing with an occasional benign
grin and
imperceptable shoulder movements. This sight, often
accompanied by the
spotlights flashing off his spectacles, has plunged many a
National Health
fan into a strange unaccountable reverie and may well
explain in some small
measure the group's popularity.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: bigbang@alpes-net.fr (Aymeric Leroy)
Subject: Canterbury Discography
Date: Thu, 23 May 1996 09:33:22 +0200
You can now check out the initial version of CALYX's
Canterbury Disco-
graphy, at :
http://www.alpes-net.fr/~bigbang/cantdisco.html
Thanks to all the subscribers who contributed information,
notably H.W.
Neff and Julian Christou. Corrections, additions, etc. are
welcome.
I will be absent between May 25th and June 3rd.
Keep sending your contributions, though !!!
Expect issue #5 around June 4th.
A.L.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Eric Rutten <Eric.Rutten@irisa.fr>
Subject: Kevin Ayers, Ultramarine and Robert Wyatt
Date: Thu, 23 May 1996 11:57:51 +0200
First of all, this mailing list is really impressive: so
much information,
so well informed, it's nearly too much for somebody who
got used to a quite
scarce input flow of information concerning those subjects
... Thanks a lot
for starting this! In the following I try to bring a
little piece of info
to the debate ...
About Kevin Ayers, I recently acquired a CD single by
Ultramarine featuring a
cover version of the song "Hymn" (dating back from the
early 70's, what
album was it on?). The music of Ultramarine is a kind of
boppy half-acoustic
technoid thing (a bit hard to describe; if you hate techno
don't go away too
fast, because it is just as much techno as the Penguin
Orchestra is
alternative rock, but well, still, ... ah). My only
problem is the vocalist:
he sings too high, and with a bit too much pathos, but I
got us to it, and
now I quite like it ...
And then, another CD "single" has come out with the
remixes of Hymn (5 or 6
of them), all of them more or less technoid, but the last
one is actually
a re-recording with Kevin Ayers singing, Lol Coxhill
playing sax, and a few
other old musicians.
Also worthy to know about Ultramarine is that on their
previous CDs
(especially "United Kingdoms"), Wyatt sings on some songs,
or is sampled
from Soft Machine time (on "Every Man and Woman is a
Star").
Thought you'd like to know ...
Eric
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Eric
Rutten
|
e-mail: rutten@irisa.fr
IRISA / INRIA, projet EP-ATR | phone:+33 99 84 72
33, fax:+33 99 84 71 71
Campus de
Beaulieu
|
telex:UNIRISA 950 473F
F-35042 RENNES cedex - FRANCE |
http://www.irisa.fr/EXTERNE/projet/ep-atr
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Michael Bloom <MHB@MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
Subject: New York Gong memoirs
Date: Thu, 23 May 96 15:35:14 EDT
In the summer of 1978 I got a phone call from Giorgio
Gomelsky, the legendary
producer. He'd read something I wrote in an alternative
weekly paper called
the Boston Phoenix, and liked my attitude toward
progressive rock. He'd just been paid a fair chunk of royalty
money for some Yardbirds recordings, and he
was moving to New York City to check out the innovations
of the No Wave scene.
He also had an idea for bringing the European musicians
he'd produced to the
attention of the American record buying public. He invited
me to come visit
him in New York and talk about his ideas.
He was living at first in a pretty swank apartment,
somewhere in the west 20s
if memory serves. It was on the ground floor, and the
living room had these
delightful French windows overlooking a tiny garden, which
I remember because
my first encounter with Daevid Allen was watching him
enter this apartment by
climbing in them. He wore a long green robe, and his white
hair was still
pixie-length. (He cut it for New York Gong.) I don't
remember everything we
talked about, but I'm pretty sure I asked about gliss
guitar, and Daevid said
only three people in the world could do it properly:
himself, Hillage, and
Christian Boule. I think the subject of the Gong reunion
concert came up (the
one documented as Gong Est Mort, Vive Gong) and how pissed
Virgin was that they didn't have the rights to it. This pleased
Gomelsky, who was sort of an anarchist, especially toward the
corporate world-- he proudly characterized
his convincing A&M to release Magma as ripping them
off.
Gomelsky was planning this extravaganza that would put
prog rock on the map
in America, the Zu Manifestival. The big names were to be
bands he'd
produced - Gong and Magma. There were other people
mentioned, I don't even
remember who, although I do remember Gomelsky was the guy
who turned me on to Univers Zero and Etron Fou Leloublan. In
return, I turned him on to the Muffins, who ended up performing at
the Manifestival.
I think his ultimate goal was that some American major
label would agree to
finance and distribute a vanity label for him, which would
start with a big splash-- a three record live set from the
festival-- and then let him produce the rest of Magma's projected
nine volumes of Theusz Hamtaahk and whatever Daevid wanted to do,
plus some New York stuff. He was also really excited about this
book, "Bruits," by Jacques Attali (French minister of culture at
the time),the premise of which was that big changes in the sound
environment of a society portended changes in how it functioned.
Gomelsky believed that, if we could make progressive rock a
favorite music of America, we would help usher in a utopia. I
guess if you hang out with Daevid enough, you learn to dream
extravagant dreams-- although I suppose I believed it too. So he
really wanted to get this book translated, published, and
distributed. (Subsequently it was, not by him. I think the English
title is "Noise.")
He moved out of the apartment and rented a building he
dubbed Zu House; I think it was on 23rd Street. (Neighborhoods in
Manhattan can change quite precipitously. This building was maybe
six blocks from the other apartment, but where the old
neighborhood was classy residential, the new area was light
industrial, suitable for artsy bohemian enterprises-- there was a
Nuyorican dance and theatre company next door, if I remember
right.)
People started coming around to Zu House, especially
musicians. I introduced
Michael Beinhorn, at the time a 15 year old kid desperate
to get his hands on
a synthesizer (he soon bought a Micromoog from Joe
Gallivan), and he in turn
brought his friend Fred Maher, an aspiring drummer.
Gomelsky found this bass
player who'd been doing some work with an ethnic dance
troupe, and who claimed
to have been playing with Ornette Coleman; this was Bill
Laswell. They started
rehearsing in the Zu basement, trying to learn Art Bears
tunes and evolving
their concept of urban funk with mutant excrescences. When
Daevid came back to
start rehearsing, they became his New York Gong band,
accompanying him not only at the Manifestival but on his 1979
American tour. Somewhere along the line, they started recording as
Material, but they were New York Gong first. (For a while they
were calling themselves Zu Band. They went through several guitar
players; the guy who did most of the Gong activity was one Cliff
Cultreri, subsequently an exec with Relativity Records, working
with guitar "heroes" from Joe Satriani to Adrian Legg.)
The last time I saw Beinhorn, I was hanging out at Zu
House, pontificating about Philip Glass's new album Einstein on
the Beach. I said it was the end product of minimalism, because it
was so encyclopedic, it included somewhere within itself every
technique that could be compositionally valuable in that medium,
so nobody would ever have anything more to say. He endured my
diatribe looking more and more aghast, and when I finally ran out
of steam, he cried, "But there's so much left to restrict!"
Nowadays he produces bands like Soundgarden and Red Hot Chili
Peppers.
Fred Frith appeared at one point, bringing the news that
Henry Cow decided to
break up. They were still planning to spend the rest of
the year playing live,
and were trying to come perform in Cuba. Fred seemed to
distrust Gomelsky, but
he agreed to play at the Manifestival. Chris Cutler
eventually showed up too,
but at first had this paranoid fear that he'd get in some
sort of trouble with
Immigration if he played; fortunately he got over it. He's
fascinating to watch; he appears to keep time with the flailing of
his arms, which only occasionally bring the sticks in contact with
the drums. He could have replaced Keith Moon.
If I remember right, the festival took place in November
of 1978. Musicians
were camped out on the various floors of Zu House, which
was already smelling
foul from the excreta of the two dogs Gomelsky had
acquired and installed on
the second floor, who nobody seemed to walk. I was
assigned the task of going
to some address further downtown and picking up the stage
sets, vague abstract
cityscapes, despite that I had neither a driver's licence,
nor much skill at
driving a standard shift, which the available van was.
The festival itself was a big sprawling mess, but
fascinating. There were a whole slew of no wave type bands-- I
remember one band who included the singer and pyrotechnic
guitarist from the CBGB band Manster, very impressive, and an
avant garde composer named John Rehberger whose piece used two
notes, played on different instruments in different octaves (so
much left to restrict, indeed!). I also remember a band called
Blinding Headache, totally self-taught but trying to grapple with
Beefhearty sprung rhythms, whose bass player, Tina Curran, also
appeared on stage with New York Gong in costume as part of an ad
hoc pixie auxiliary, several adults and children traipsing about
in green outfits. She later married Fred Frith, who moved to New
York in about 1980, played and recorded with Material, the Golden
Palominos, Curlew, Eugene Chadbourne, and a whole slew of other
downtown improvisers, formed Massacre with Bill Laswell and Fred
Maher, made the Cheap at Half the Price album on a four-track Teac
in his kitchen, etc. etc. etc.
Fred's set consisted of some of his improvisational
activity that came to be
called "guitars on the table," and then a set of Peter
Blegvad's songs, with
Blegvad, Cutler, and Muffins bassist Billy Swan. They did
"Strayed" from the
Desperate Straights album (which Fred had played on
originally), a version of
"Actual Frenzy," a cute song about drunken hallucinations,
and something else
I've forgotten.
Gomelsky wanted the Manifestival to be as much an
educational event (or should
I say propaganda forum?) as a musical one. He decreed a
panel discussion that
would allow the musicians-- Daevid and the very articulate
and opinionated
Chris Cutler-- to exchange views with representatives of
the rock press, and
he convinced Robert Christgau to sit still for this.
Christgau knows Frith's
brother Simon, an English rock critic and sociologist. As
you probably already
know, he doesn't generally go for anything in the
progressive realm, but he
ended up quite impressed with his colleague's little
brother's set, and agreed
that maybe he was the best guitarist in the world. But the
audience thought of
him as the enemy, and tried to shout him down. (Well, he
did open with vaguely
inflammatory remarks.) I got pissed off (I was also on the
panel) and tried to
suggest that, since he was basically there to articulate
the position of the
prog-impaired great unwashed, maybe we should listen to
him and figure out
what it was about the stuff that he didn't like, to make
it more appealing
to more people, to no avail. Cutler started to rant, and
Daevid started doing calisthenics on stage as a sign of the
overwhelming futility of this exercise. The exchange of views did
happen later, over dinner, nothing very momentous. (Gilli Smyth
and Georgia Christgau discussed shopping.)
The Muffins were for my money the stars of the show. I
don't think they played
too much of the Manna/Mirage material, I think they were
already moving into the more RIO-ish modes of what was to be the
185 album (rehearsal versions of these tunes appear on the CD of
Open City): "Horsebones" was played, probably "Under Dali's Wing,"
"Boxed and Crossed," maybe "Queenside." And I'm sure they did some
improvising.
The sole representative of Magma was Yoch'ko Seffer, who
brought his new Zeuhl
group. It didn't make a big impression on me. Muffins
drummer Paul Sears was
(and still is) one of the all time great Magma partisans,
and I think he was
bitterly disappointed that Christian Vander didn't show
up.
New York Gong played a long set comprising most of the
Radio Gnome Invisible
trilogy, introduced by the relevant Camembert Electrique
material. I think the
band was Allen, Smyth, Cutler, Laswell, Cultreri, and a
saxophonist named
George Bishop; maybe Beinhorn made some Moonweed noises
too, and there
might have been another drum kit for Maher. They were
almost done when, at about 2 o'clock in the morning, the police
showed up and insisted that it was time to shut up. ("Cops at the
door," indeed!) The cops pulled the plug, and Gomelsky urged all
the drummers to come out on stage for a climactic percussion jam
on the rhythm of "The Isle of Everywhere."
There was a tape recorder running for all of this, my Teac
four track in fact,
but what was fed into it was the stage monitor mix, which
sounded like death.
Somewhere I have cassette dubs of some of the music, which
I haven't listened
to in years. I don't know who has the masters, but I doubt
they're useful. The
foregoing memoir is just about everything I remember
offhand, without playing
these tapes or rummaging through my archives.
Oh yeah, I also remember Beinhorn telling me how much fun
he had wandering
around the neighborhood with Daevid to spray bright green
Gong graffiti.
Afterwards, Daevid made the N'Existe Pas! album with
Cutler (performing under
the name Brian Damage) and Bishop, then came back in 1979
to tour America with
New York Gong, by then composed of Laswell, Beinhorn,
Maher and Cultreri. Part
of his idea then was that the spirit of Gong should
manifest in a multiplicity
of bands all at once: New York Gong, Here and Now Gong,
Pierre Moerlen's Gong,
whatever Hillage wanted to do, the meditation circle in
Mallorca, and anything
that might be going on around him in Australia. Other than
the Zu performance,
however, this was the first appearance of Gong in
America-- and the last
with a band, until the Magick Brothers toured in 1993, or
whenever it was.
Zu House remained active for a while-- I saw Peter Blegvad
and John Greaves play a set of Kew.Rhone. and related tunes there
once, with friends like Lisa Herman and Eugene Chadbourne on
hyperactive guitar. Gomelsky was later involved with a venue
called Plugg. I don't think he had any connection with Squat
Theater.
[I can't really comment on Michael's contribution - except
to say that it's exactly the kind of things I dreamed of reading
when I launched this list, so I hope you'll find it as exciting as
I did - A.L.]
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END OF ISSUE #4
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