Entropy Is All

Photograph by Thierry Bal of Musarc performing The White Noisery

The gateless gate opens
To reveal no sound
Except the hum of life

These are our eons
Cast all around us
We are blind to them

I hear the sound of surf
Sweeping all mind away
But there is great unity

Let’s all move in time
Above the morass
We call human life

Inspired by The White Noisery (2012) by Jennifer Walshe

This poem was composed for the Musarc Winter Konsert 2023: We Are Participating.
There was a Shared Reader and Writing Project for members of the choir and this was my final input after several discussions and Zoom calls. The poem was incorporated into a psalm “The night is cold and the radio seems to be on”, which was written by members of the choir and performed with the audience.

Information about the Musarc Concert
Information about Jennifer Walshe
“Without a doubt, hers is the most original compositional voice to emerge in Ireland in the last 20 years.” Michael Dervan, The Irish Times

Walking on the Ceiling

I read the book above in 1976, after I had taken LSD aka acid for the first time. It was a profound, yet relatively short lived experience. The book itself is an entertaining, if over the top read. Let’s not forget Timothy Leary was a well educated university lecturer with a Ph.D, he knew how to write, lecture and entertain. The Politics of Ecstasy was first published in 1966 in the USA and would become the foundational story of the late 60s hippie drug culture. It was first published in England in 1970, and I read it with a pinch of American salt, I already knew exaggeration when I saw it, yet it had an authority and intellectual chutzpah which was invigorating. I was already well aware of the profoundly spiritual and dangerous properties of this drug, having quizzed the few people I knew who had taken it, they had my admiration at the time. I had done my my homework, but nothing could prepare me for the reality. I believe it was on this first trip that I discovered how disorientating it could be, since I was at a concert in Pathfoot, Stirling University. Feeling spaced out, I realised I should be lying down and relaxing, so I departed early. As I was leaving through a long, large corridor I discovered I could rotate the whole corridor until I was walking on the ceiling. This was a great feeling until I start thinking too much about it and realised that this might not be a good idea since the corridor was not under my full control, it seemed to to have a mind of its own and I did not wish to fall to the floor – hey where is the floor, what is a floor, I thought gravity was supposed to exist, apparently now it does not… Most of Leary’s musings are based on The Tibetan Book of The Dead, and that should tell you before venturing any further that we are in dangerous territory. This territory was politely called a “bad trip”, yet it could destroy lives. We all knew what had happened to Syd Barrett, the former lead singer of Pink Floyd. For a good example of the foggy synaesthesia brought on by LSD, listen to his 1969 album The Madcap Laughs.

The “shit hit the fan” on my second trip a few years later, when I was back at Stirling. That night I kept notes of this profound experience, which do not make much sense now, but do provide a few pointers which I will attempt to interpret and explain:

No.1 : Everything was melancholy and industrial because we were probably listening to Escalator over the Hill by Carla Bley, not the best choice in the circumstances, but I liked it. It is also possible we were listening to Physical Graffiti by Led Zeppelin, in particularly the tracks In The Light and Kashmir. These notes begin when we had retreated to my little room and I was choosing the music. There was a lot of chaos in the next door flat (of which more later) and I had determined to have a spiritual experience by listening to cool music lying on my bed.

No.2 & 3 : These were my flatmates, also tripping – everyone was, and no doubt we were arranging ourselves in my tiny bedroom, with most people lying on the floor, finding cushions and trying to get comfortable.

No.4 : Any minor interruption seemed freighted with meaning back then.

No.5 : No doubt this was me playing the album Big Fun by Miles Davis, released in 1974, an electronic jazz album with an Eastern drone vibe, and probably the track Great Expectations which goes on for 27 minutes.

No.6 : Fweejum is a made up word that has stayed with me. I was attempting to express the noise a a large vehicle or other object makes sweeping past you, think of it as the imaginary noise that time makes when it is moving very fast, with a doppler effect. Pronounce it without enunciating the letters and you might be getting close to the sense of dropping through the floor, through time and space at great velocity.

No.7 : My flatmates were probably getting fed up with the music and had decided to use the experience to make some unconsciously inspirational art. I have no idea really, it could easily be an imagined drawing in the great dome of starscape enveloping us. Pretty sure I wasn’t physically drawing.

No.8 : Here we are in proper meaningless drug addled territory, there seem to be an infinity or maybe just 166 rabbit holes, blind alleyways or dark caves to plunge into. They multiply as you examine them and it is easy to get confused, you might choose the wrong one. At least it wasn’t 666.

No.9 : By this time I am probably listening to Go Ahead John, the third side of Big Fun and featuring the jazz rock guitarist John McLaughlin. On acid anything visualised tends to mutate and expand, yet seem real.

That was the sensible part of the evening. Beforehand an older and I thought wiser friend, also on drugs, had been violently sick. I looked on dispassionately at the fabulous technicolour mess, containing a wonderful mass of imaginary writhing creatures, just grateful I hadn’t experienced the nausea of feeling the soft organs of my body decide to leave home. Never mix drink and serious drugs I thought selfishly to myself. Meanwhile next door my fellow students were in full on LSD party drinking mode, which soon turned sour. Among our number was a garrulous French student, who spoke perfectly good English. As the evening progressed she was picked on and her every utterance became a source of great hilarity, purely due to her French accent. At an early point I had tried to intervene, to no avail, which was probably when I sloped off to my bedroom to listen to music. At dawn, many hours later, I returned, and she had been reduced to a gibbering wreck, who could no longer speak in any language, completely incoherent. She was truly in a state, yet the barbs continued and I felt powerless by this time to intervene. The behaviour of my fellow students, despite being on drugs, had been appalling. After several days she did recover the power of speech, but I believe she left Stirling and went back to France.

By this time I was trying to look after myself, sleep seemed impossible, life extended emptily, all desire had gone leaving yawning emptiness. That next day I attempted to behave normally and attended a lecture. I was beyond caring, nothing went in and it appeared nothing ever would. I had heard about flashbacks, when you regress to a drug induced stupor, and I was in fear of a slowly repeating chaos. Had I ruined my life? Would this go on forever? Of course not, after 36 hours with no sleep I was simply at my wits end and exhausted. Still it would take a good few days before I re-assembled my life, and determined to slowly clear up my mental state.

The fact that drugs were everywhere at Stirling can be clearly seen in the covers of The Student Handbook for the years 1975-1977. In addition drugs were openly traded in the Students Union, Alangrange, while the University itself hit the headlines in 1976 when a student broke his leg while “attempting to fly” from a third floor window. The young man broke his leg, and in court claimed he was high on LSD. A few months later, to my horror, there he was in our kitchen high on LSD. I did not think this was a good idea as we were on the top floor. I also vividly remember talking down a minor member of the Royal Family who had taken too many mushrooms. I was a bit annoyed since I had to buy him lunch and midday seemed to be the wrong time to take drugs. He had probably been up all night, I guess. Closer to home my flatmate, who was a big burly motor-biker from Dundee, decided to decorate his room with black bin-bags, which covered every surface – walls, floor and ceiling, and I nicknamed his room the black hole of Calcutta. What started off as a bit of fun soon descended into something more serious, he refused to leave this room and I presume he was taking lots of drugs. A form of psychosis crept in, he didn’t listen to any of us and stopped attending lectures. Suddenly he became obsessed with saving frogs. It was spring and the frogs were migrating across a road from the large lake at the centre of the University. There were literally thousands of frogs and it seemed inevitable a few would be killed on this quiet road. I was concerned enough to try and help my flatmate save some of these frogs, but I soon realised it was a pointless exercise, and that this formerly robust human being was being brought low by a serious mental illness. He disappeared at the end of term, never to return.

After promising myself that my LSD days were over, I believe I did take it once again, but it was a much milder experience, I am glad to say, and have little memory of it. I was lucky, and never did experience a bad trip, but I could easily see how that could happen if taken in the wrong circumstances and without due respect to the dangers. Later in life I did try ecstasy and MDMA briefly at festivals, pleasant but nothing compared to the mind curdling power of the acid trips mentioned above. I had lost the desire to lose control in this way, although I still knew a few people who ended up in hospital due to imbibing so called soft drugs. I certainly do not regret taking LSD, it was a remarkable lesson in the powers of the mind and how sanity can be paper thin. However, much to my disappointment, this experience was no spiritual shortcut. I did not arrive in Nirvana, but maybe discovered there are other ways to get there.

If you want to hear the real atmosphere of these times and the liturgical, obsessive nature of the promotion of LSD listen to Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out by Dr. Timothy Leary, a motion picture soundtrack album made by Mercury in 1967.
Here is a taster from a track called The Trip: Root Chakra:
“…Drift single celled in soft tissue swamp, sink gently into dark fertile marsh, drift beyond the body, float to the centre (I’m Drowning!) float beyond life and death, down soft ladders of memory.”

Musical Biographies

Mezz Mezzrow in his office, New York, 1949

I greatly enjoy reading musical biographies, they are usually informative and take you closer to the music. A really good one let’s you hear the voice of the composer, through quotes and interviews. They are are also quite surprising and strange, all these people are different and defined, usually working in a very specific and often quite mannered way. My favourite author at the moment has to be John F. Szwed, an American anthropology professor who really knows and loves music. His defining work is Space is the Place : The Lives and Times of Sun Ra, which explores of the life of Herman Blount (Sun Ra), despite his many attempts to conceal his real-life origins. The amount of research is staggering, yet Professor Szwed does not lose sight of the invented character Sun Ra became, revelling in both the fantasy life and unique music that was created by the Sun Ra Arkestra. He quotes, pays respect and provides a personal exegesis of the crazy life led by this man, always understanding when he can. In the other books I have read by him, Billie Holiday: The Musician and the Myth and So What: The Life of Miles Davis, he uses the latest biographical information to update the standard stories with many insights, never pandering to the accepted formula, while always accenting the musical development.

Many biographers simply tell the life story, they seem to forget the musical history. We all know that music can be difficult to write about, but the critical faculty appears to vacate many a biography. Hey, tell me why something – an album – is good and why we should love it, that is surely part of any good musical biography. I will mention here just 2 books which were really appalling: View from the Exterior by Alan Clayson about Serge Gainsbourg, so badly written and patronising I threw it across the room in anger. Then there is Hey Hi Hello by Annie Nightingale, a lovely DJ, who seemed to lack a sub-editor, never mind a fact checker, writing a cobbled together self-serving mess.

So maybe here I should tell you about a good English biography of Serge Gainsbourg, A Fistful Of Gitanes by Sylvie Simmons. She is herself a real music writer and part time musician, but her masterwork is surely I’m Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen. This great biography appears to have been written with the full participation of the subject, featuring many interviews, but does not seem cloying or hagiographic. It appears definitive, details all the music, all the scandal, that is all that I want. The same could be said for Different Every Time by Marcus O’Dair, the authorised biography of Robert Wyatt, and I also greatly enjoyed All Gates Open: The Story of Can by Rob Young and Irmin Schmidt. To mention a classic, Revolution in the Head: The Beatles Records and the Sixties by Ian MacDonald is fabulous, especially the “Introduction: Fabled Foursome, Disappearing Decade”, but it’s hardly a biography as such. Naturally I loved Bill Frisell, Beautiful Dreamer by Philip Watson, but it is a huge and detailed tome, so first you you have to know and love the music. In terms of general music books, two stand out, The Rest Is Noise – Listening to the 20th Century (2007) by Alex Ross and Improvisation – Its Nature and Practice in Music (1980, revised 1992) by Derek Bailey. For an interesting overview of popular music try Let’s Do It and Yeah Yeah Yeah by Bob Stanley. If you’re a fan of Soul music then the trilogy of Detroit 67, Memphis 68, Harlem 69 by Stuart Cosgrove are a fascinating read. For a more literary, poetic approach I recommend Coming Through Slaughter by Michael Ondaatje, an imagined life of Buddy Bolden in 1905 New Orleans.

Another interesting area is the ghost written biography, you are never quite sure who you are listening to, although they can be entertaining. Certainly Life by Keith Richards was better than expected, you can hear his voice and his love of the music. Also quite readable, if formulaic, are the Bruce Springsteen and Pete Townshend autobiographies. My own favourites include Morrissey (arch and selective), Tracey Thorn (honest and now local), Tony Visconti (Bolan and Bowie) and Cosey Fanni Tutti (proper artist). I also enjoyed Words Without Music by Philip Glass, a stranger journey than you might have imagined. Special mention should be given to Chronicles Volume 1 by Bob Dylan, fabulous chapters in a life, but not the whole story, so we await Volume 2, ha ha. For a truly eclectic and well written blog about music try The Blue Moment by Richard Williams, he knows everyone and is always interesting.

Alright, the greatest ever music biography has to be Really the Blues written by Mezz Mezzrow and Bernard Wolfe in 1946. This is the best because it is easily the first and written in a unique hip argot. It breaks all the rules since it is evidently ghost written and grossly exaggerated, by an average accompanist to the great Sidney Bechet. Nevertheless it contains all the musical fervour, the drugs and the polemic (re race) a funky biography requires. To realise this book was published in 1946 was a revelation, it predates On the Road by Jack Kerouac by more than 10 years, and is counter-cultural before the term existed. Eat your heart out Bukowski, and of course Tom Waits loves it. Even now this pre-beat book is forthright and hip, there is nothing new under the sun, folks.

The Magnificent Robodevco Disaster

In 1982, at the instigation of Patrick D. Martin, I became the photographic co-ordinator for Robodevco. This later became The Roboshow, where a prototype multimedia computer controlled a forty-three screen, three dimensional sound experience. It was hosted by ‘Q’, a virtual robot at a large warehouse off Torriano Avenue in Kentish Town, London, 1985. It proved to be a “a completely new screen sensation”.

Before the Roboshow there was the Technocab, the most enjoyable part of the whole experience. This was a blacked out London taxi cab containing a Trinitron TV and a BBC computer. Due to the size of the huge cathode ray tube monitor it was a one person experience with binaural headphones, like a solo cinema. The cab would start up as if going on a journey, often dry ice was involved, sometimes we rocked the cab to simulate movement. A taste of what you would see (2 mins in) is contained in the following video, the Roboshow Electronic Press Kit. This low-res video features my stills animated with Bob Lawrie of Blink Productions, as well as the triggered micrographics of Richard Brown.

On the strength of this intense experience nearly a million pounds was raised to fund the Roboshow experience, which was intended to be franchised. A prototype multi screen cinema was constructed and the images would fly around the space in a truly fresh and disorienting manner, after being introduced by Q, a TV robot. Out on location Q was sometimes an American football style roller skater with a video boombox, who featured in the video shot by Charlie Arnold.

The Roboshow garnered a lot of good press, being featured in The Observer, The Face and New Scientist. This description of the show was published in the Evening Standard, January 1987:

“We went into a room that seemed smaller than it actually was because the 20 chairs on the raised platform were pointing towards 50 TV screens that ran around the front and side walls. There was one big screen in the middle.
The lights dimmed.
A rollerskater zoomed straight across our line of vision from left to right with an accompanying sound effect that seemed almost three dimensional. The show had begun– and for the next seven minutes images flickered, jumped, danced and propelled themselves across the screens. Sometimes it was the same picture. Sometimes it would break up so you were seeing the same thing from divers angles on different screens.
It is an experience 50 times as intense as watching regular TV because of the interplay between the screens and the meganess of the sound system.”

These are some of the quotes from the Robodevco Press Pack, which demonstrate why Roboshow garnered so much attention:

“Totally wild … any explanation would fail. to do justice to this experience”
Bruce Dessau, City Limits, Aug 21 ’86.

“The next medium to take over where Cinema left off’
Televisual, Nov ’86.

“Q makes Max Headroom look about as wacky as Sooty”
Direction, Oct ’86.

“Superb -look forward to seeing it in Piccadilly Circus”
Juliet Rix (BBC Newsnight).

“The technical possibilities are extremely exciting”
Roma Felstein (Broadcast).

“Very impressive”
Barry Fox (New Scientist).

“The most important development in Entertainment since they got rid of the Proscenium Arch”
Anthony Horowitz.

This is my photograph of the actual prototype Roboshow in Kentish Town. It was intended to expand the show and run it at Paul Raymond’s Revuebar Boulevard Theatre in Walkers Court Soho, London. Unfortunately this never happened.

It is important to remember that all this was happening before the advent of the internet, digital cameras, HD video or flat screen monitors. In fact analogue video was equivalent to 720×576 pixels at best, that is 625 (576 visible) interleaved scan lines in a 4×3 format. At the time Video 8 with it’s small form factor was the most exciting camera development, but most video was filmed on large and heavy U-matic cameras. Nevertheless The Daily Mirror observed that “the revolution starts here… Shock the music industry and change the world of video”. For an in depth explanation of all this technology the article in The Games Machine magazine, dated August 1987, reveals the many participants and innovations involved:

As well as the visuals, audio was an integral part of the experience. A holographic cassette was produced with music by Phil Nicholas, a Fairlight programmer, later to work with The Willesden Dodgers, Stock Aitken Waterman and Def Leppard, among many others.

Here is a promo pic of Patrick Martin, Phil Nicholas and Marcus Kirby taken at Robodevco headquarters:

By 1985 I was fortunately working for New Musical Express and so mostly avoided the machinations involved when new directors and accountants were appointed to Robodevco. The freelance crew (who made the Roboshow) were encouraged to sign contracts to make them rich when the project succeeded, yet were to become liable for large debts as bank guarantors without real equity. Thankfully I did not sign up. Ultimately, after the failure to produce an actual show, this led to arguments about the structure of the project and ultimate dissolution of the company. The directors became XYLO and took the technical assets which opened at a disco called Zhivagos in Darlington in 1988. RIP.
Meanwhile Patrick regrouped and formed Psychovision with a new Technocab, but this time in a Dodge van. I went to the grand unveiling at Chelsea Harbour, but disastrously the new van was not yet finished. Shamefully the many punters were told it had broken down on the Westway. Eventually the Dodge Technocab aka Psychomobile did surface at Covent Garden:

There was some mitigation for the previous disasters when in 1992 Psychovision created a 5 screen show for the Victoria & Albert Sporting Glory Exhibition which was later screened as part of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. In 2011 Justin Kirby made Roboshow Reboot, a website to document this story, but it has long since disappeared. Here is a brief 44 second clip of my submission for this. It sure all was groundbreaking fun while it lasted…

To conclude here is the full interview Richard Brown made for Roboshow Reboot at the Rewire 2011 conference, which sums up the whole story very well:


Prepare yourself for a horrible shock

Or Why I punched the Wardrobe

In 1985 I photographed Robert Smith of The Cure at his record company offices in Marylebone, London for Sounds. He was a sweetie, and all seemed to go well. However, for the first time ever (for me at least) the photos were taken “on approval”. This procedure was totally antithetical to the way I worked and to what I believed being a photographer was. However the photos were intended for the front cover, so I thought fine, no problem. It did mean I had to hurry more than usual and to make a presentation box. In order to protect the fragile original Hasselblad transparencies I mounted them in expensive glass 2.25” slide mounts. There was no time to make costly duplicate medium format transparencies. The black and white prints were proofs and not the intended final master prints.

Yes it was horrible

Well I guess the story can be told now. To keep it simple this is what happened – he destroyed the photographs he liked. That is THE WRONG ONES. When I say destroyed I mean he smashed the glass of the slide mounts and then proceeded to cut up the unique and original transparencies into tiny shards. I received in return a box of broken glass and slivers of cut-up film. Since the photographs were for the front cover, these were the best ones, the colour transparencies. Sounds magazine was not interested in shreds of film for their cover at the time. Nor did the magazine, record company and PR organisation wish to make their pop star appear really stupid, so there was a big hush-up.

Robert himself was horrified…

I was remarkably angry and punched a wardrobe much too hard. I could see which way the wind was blowing in the celebrity industry and soon changed my style from portrait to commercial studio photography of inanimate objects. At the end of the day a perfunctory sum was paid in recompense, months later. To me that was not the point at all, I had missed doing the cover photo and everybody seemed to think it was somehow my fault. I guess it’s all down to the pecking order, but no-one has the right to destroy someone else’s original work.

Cropping suggestions from Robert

In those pre-digital days there were no scanners or any easy way to use the shards of film I was left with. Now 37 years later I have relaxed enough to open up this can of worms and follow Robert’s advice. Yes here is the cut-up he suggested making all those years ago. It might be “art on purpose” but it’s certainly not a Sounds cover.

Yes I was using a filter for that edge effect

Albums of the Year 2021

Due to popular request I am listing my albums of the year, that is the ones I have listened to extensively. This is an eclectic list, starting with new albums and then drifting off into reissues or older albums re-discovered. I hope you find something of interest.

001_PromisesFloating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra: Promises
A truly contemporary chill out album combining electronica, masterful sax playing and gorgeous orchestration. You can hear the six decades of jazz history in the playing of 80 year old Mr Sanders, so relaxed yet so authoritative, I would have liked even more. A unique and wonderful combination of talents, the beauty makes you want to swoon.

002_Vulture Prince

Arooj Aftab: Vulture Prince
Another slow burner from this Brooklyn-based Pakistani composer and singer. At times reminiscent of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the singing is peaceful and plangent. There is a an overlying senses of sadness, but it is not cloying or without movement. Many of the lyrics are based on the Ghazal, an Arabic poetic form steeped in loss and longing. A ghazal may be understood as a poetic expression of both the pain of loss or separation and the beauty of love in spite of that pain, says Wikipedia.

003_Afrique Victime

Mdou Moctar: Afrique Victime
Burning guitar, as if Hendrix had joined Tinawaren. This is a powerful album to be played loud, packed full of galloping riffs from the Azawagh desert of northern Niger. I had the pleasure of seeing him a few years ago at Cafe Oto, you can see the pics here. 

004_Ding Dong. You're Dead.

Hedvig Mollestad Trio: Ding Dong. You’re Dead.
The discovery of the year and the gig of the year. Instrumental Rock-Jazz combining the Goth sensibilities of her Norway home and intense guitar shredding. She manages to sound totally original, with a huge vocabulary of psychedelic and jazz riffs, constant excitement. She plays with a huge sense of élan, yet never forgets the atmospherics. This is a proper power trio with bassist Ellen Brekken and drummer Ivar Loe Bjørnstad together in HM3 since 2011. Wow, what a night, as you can see here.

005_Coral Island

The Coral: Coral Island
A delightful album using spoken word and pop songs to take you on a journey to Coral Island, a seaside resort with ballroom, funfair. pier and a werewolf. The charming story songs seem like a throwback to more melodic times. Of course it all reminds me of my home town Southport, not surprising since they are from Hoylake, just across the Mersey on the Wirral Peninsula.

006_Sour

Olivia Rodrigo: Sour
It’s the popular choice! If you’ve had enough Fiona Apple, Taylor Swift or even Lana del Ray then try this. Yup the kids have been lapping this up and I enjoy the yearning, the swift changes of pace and the vocal gymnastics. Proper pop entertainment from California.

007_Raise The Roof

Robert Plant & Alison Krauss: Raise The Roof
Perhaps not as strong as their classic Raising Sand from 2007, the chemistry is still unique. It is strange to think that the bombastic vocalist of Led Zeppelin has become such a sensitive singer, and paired with the golden tonsils of Alison Krauss, the contrast is often very moving. The odd mixture of country, rockabilly and blues is very relaxing.

008_Nordub

Sly & Robbie meet Nils Petter Molvær: Nordub
Well this was released in 2018, but I’m still playing it regularly. It is included here in memoriam to Robbie Shakespeare, who sadly died in December 2021. They were a unique rhythm section, playing on many reggae classics as well as with Serge Gainsbourg, Grace Jones and Bob Dylan to name but three. To find out more about Nils, see my blog.

009_Voices

Max Richter: Voices
A unique album setting readings of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights to music. It is both ghostly and moving and flows along beautifully. As the voices and instruments intermingle a genuine aural landscape is constructed, without being cloying or didactic. In 2021 Max released an instrumental reworking of this album called Voices 2, but I prefer the original – with the voices!

010_Journeys In Modern Jazz_ Britain (1965-1972)

Journeys In Modern Jazz: Britain (1965-1972)
Yes they are still making Jazz compilations in 2021, and this one is very well put together and sounds remarkably contemporary. Several of the tracks would be very hard to source and it’s great to hear them fresh and remastered. Strangely we thought that British jazz lived in the shadow of the real guys in the US of A, this album gives the lie to that, being both funky and adventurous. Big rediscoveries were Don Rendell and Ian Carr, and especially the great closing track by Michael Gibbs. Heavy!

011_Man On The Street_ East Orange Tape Ð Feb_Mar 1961

Bob Dylan: Man On The Street
This is a weird one, being a 10 CD package which I presume is a bootleg, or perhaps it is out of copyright. Still it is available on Amazon right now for a mere £22. All these CD’s contain the radio broadcasts, home recordings and live concerts from 1961 to 1965, famous to any bootleg collector. Thus you get the contents of the first ever bootleg, Great White Wonder, as well as his 1961 Carnegie Hall gig and the 1965 BBC recordings. They sure sound better than the versions I have heard over the years and contain many unreleased tracks and hilarious interludes.

012_Black Gold_ The Very Best Of Rotary Connection

Black Gold: The Very Best Of Rotary Connection
This was my soul epiphany of 2021. Of course I knew ‘I Am The Black Gold Of The Sun’ from many raves, but was not aware just how crazy this band was. I thought they were lightweight and not funky enough, but I was coming from the wrong direction. They were a truly psychedelic choral soul band, with an amazing arranger in Charles Stepney and a world class singer in Minnie Ripperton. During the years 1967 to 1971 they took soul music and made it epic with massed choirs and orchestras, covering rock classics from Hendrix, Cream and The Band. They deserve their own church.

013_Holst_ Choral Works

Gustav Holst: Choral Works
A recent discovery recorded in 1984 and composed 1908-1912. It was a great solace during the lockdown when singing was outlawed. Most of it is a predominantly female choir with the harpist Osian Ellis and it is very dynamic. My reference point was the work of David Axelrod and albums like Earth Rot, although this is much more ethereal. The singing itself is very rhythmical and builds to powerful climaxes, very satisfying and quite strange.

014_IMG_7996

The Lost Jockey: Professor Slack EP
Another result of lockdown was the digitising of some rare vinyl albums from my vast collection. This 10″ EP was my favourite, recorded in 1982. The Lost Jockey were the British answer to the systems music of Philip Glass and Steve Reich. However they seemed to be much funnier, poppier and funkier to me, and I held out great hopes for them. I was so keen on them I even wrote an article about them (unpublished). Still this EP, full of restlessness despite the pulsing, was as good as it got. Their solitary full album was a disappointment, although several members went on to have very interesting careers with Man Jumping, The Shout and on the ZTT label.

015_Passionoia 1Black Box Recorder: Life Is Unfair
Totally missed this group 20 years ago, although I was aware of Luke Haines, but found him a bit arch. Yet with the addition of Sarah Nixey on sensual and domineering vocals it all seems to work, the irony of the lyrics arrows straight home. They really are the funniest English group ever, the black humour skewering school, motorways, sundays and, in their only hit, the facts of life. This is the 4CD box set of all their albums with a free poster.

 ~

Mina Mazzini – The Italian Diva

Discovery of a great singer

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Well I’ve never had a favourite Italian singer before, and I don’t speak Italian, but I have been swept away by the power and expressive voice of Mina Mazzini. Unknown in the UK, but apparently the premier diva of Italy, this may be an easy choice if you are Italian, since she has had a career lasting over 50 years. During this time she has made an incredible 77 albums.

Early in her career, which started a as rock ’n’ roll singer, she had No.1 hits in Germany and Japan, as well as in Italy of course . During these times she was known as “Queen of the Screamers”, but later developed into a fully rounded romantic singer, incorporating Brazilian and Jazz influences. Her career reminds me of the French singer and composer Léo Ferré, who progressed from French chanson to rock and finally neo-classical influenced poesie, never losing his unique energy.

She retired from live performance in 1978, yet has continued to make albums annually, as well as becoming a journalist in 2000. The immense variety of her output and playful manipulation of her image can be clearly see on her discography page. She appears here with a blonde beard, as Mona Lisa, a male bodybuilder, an athlete and and an alien, queen of all styles.

mina-salome-1981

She was recently brought to my attention by Sophia Loren on Desert Island Discs, singing Oggi Sono Io, this performance, building from a whisper to a scream, had immediately reminded me of the aforementioned favourite Léo Ferré. Previously I had briefly heard her work with Ennio Morricone on the 1966 track Se Telefonando, widely regarded as her best song. I had enjoyed this, but regarded it as a bit overblown in the manner of Bonnie Tyler, but I now return to it with renewed appreciation.

Her power and natural ability is revealed in this 2001 video, where she sings live in the studio with a sympathetic and dynamic band, opening with the magnificent Oggi Sono Io. “Whooah” she says at the end, quite rightly.

* Sorry, original high res video removed, just the track now:

Track of the Year 2020

My Wanderings In The Weary Land by The Waterboys

Good Luck, Seeker

This is an unlikely choice, and the idea that the pseudo Irish folk band The Waterboys would be a 2020 favourite was derided, even laughed at, by several of my contemporaries. Nevertheless Mike Scott and his cronies have metamorphosed into a soul rock band, with electronic backing. They are both hilarious and sincere, in a way that maybe Morrissey used to be.

The actual track is a rock stomper that you can actually dance to. The music is credited to Jim Keltner, the great American session drummer, although whether he actually plays is unknown, it does sound a bit processed. The other music credit is to Anthony Thistlethwaite, a long time accompanist of The Waterboys, presumably he plays the violin. Still it is the lyrics and singing of Mike Scott which animates this bulldozing epic, like a whole life in song. The coda is a proper rock guitar freakout, the like of which is rarely heard these days, but advances in a most satisfying manner after the emotions of the verses.

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Yes there is a whole life in this song, ecstatic, searching and moving. The moment when he exclaims “And I Ran” makes you want to run alongside, imagining your own experiences through the vagaries of existence. It resolves, after many adventures, at “love’s fortress”, truly a A Long Days Journey Into Night. Yet he manages to emerge into the “small damp dawn”. Such a joy to hear the height of unbridled emotion, instead of some tinkly, mousy, half-formed musings so common these days. His optimism is infectious, he will keep running and never become “one of them!”

This song is track 9 or track 2 side 2 of the album Good Luck, Seeker. The album itself is a slightly mixed bag, starting with the Van Morrison inspired The Soul Singer. It traverses through some electro-folk and then the psychedelic Dennis Hopper and Freak Street. However it is side 2, track 8 onwards, which comprises a suite of spiritual songs taking us on a true journey. Some are delivered as poetry rather than sung, which appears to have upset some fans. Yet I find the balance between the rock bombast and dreamy romanticism works perfectly, the songs reflecting off each other, building a plangent vista. We slowly move into a spiritual realm, arriving bizarrely at The Society of The Inner Light at Steeles Road in London. The album finishes with the calming Land of Sunset, but before that there is a kind of reprise of Weary Land. The short Everchanging boldly proclaims “a new vista of fresh probabilities”. Still moving indeed, and all highly energising.

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My Wanderings In The Weary Land – the official audio on You Tube

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Idiot Dancing : A Personal History

“I move not without thy knowledge”
Epictetus (c. 50-135 AD)

From The Town and Country Club, Kentish Town 1985

From The Town and Country Club, Kentish Town 1985. ©Douglas Cape Z360

How do you dance when you are 14? How do you even know what to do, without looking stupid? My solution was to copy the girls, they all seemed so self assured as they shuffled mellifluously. I was in the Church Hall of St James Church, Birkdale, Southport. It was at least dark, which helped my embarrassment, since this was before the arrival of the flashing disco lights. It was my first experience of a discotheque and the song was the hit of the day, Sugar Sugar by the Archies. This classic of bubblegum pop had a moronic and repeating rhythm, which seemed to make dancing easy. I was already aware it lacked the danger of say The Rolling Stones or even the funk of Tamla, but this was after all a church disco, and even the suggestion of kissing a girl seemed quite outré, in the building which had been my Sunday School. Well I had broken the spell, and managed to dance in public, although no-one could see me, all for the better. The narrow horizons of the Church Hall disco would soon spread out into the brand new world of the discotheque, which would later become the de facto night out. It never failed to amaze me that I was listening to the most orgasmic song ever, Je t’aime by Serge Gainsbourg, while next door the the vicar would be sermonising against all this sexual behaviour among young people. Down the disco was the only place I could hear this song, since I did not have a record player and it was banned by the BBC.

Of course Je t’aime was not much good for dancing, it was the smooching song played at the end of the night. The real staple of dancing was Motown, in fact Tamla Motown Chartbusters Volume 3 was practically a disco in it’s own right and used as such for house parties on a Dansette. The girls laid down their handbags and jackets and danced in a circle around them, a little club it was often difficult to break into. As a guy there was always a question, could you dance on your own? Sometimes the boys would form their own little circles, but they did not last long, after all you were supposed to be picking up girls. At some places it was OK to dance with a guy, but often you felt obliged to ask a girl for a dance, even though you might not fancy them at all. It was not deemed gay as such to dance with a guy, since that usage of the word did not yet exist for us, nor in reality did the concept. The insult was to be called a “homo”, but most people didn’t bother with that, they knew you just wanted to have some fun and enjoy the music.

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The world of church hall discos expanded into sports clubs and eventually schools. Once you got in, sports clubs were cool since you could buy under age alcoholic drinks with no questions asked, while obviously at the church hall disco the staple drink was Cola. Some school discos were more like snogging contests, the dancing used as a polite introduction. Couples would then be seated all along the walls, french kissing for hours, forgetting the perfunctory disco. Dancing at the time was pretty basic and followed the sedate formula seen on Ready, Steady, Go and then Top of the Pops. Being a good dancer appeared to involve fancy footwork, as if we were all auditioning to be Irish dancers. Yep a few steps forward, a few back, what we would now call Dad Dancing. Occasionally for a rock song there would be a bit more animation from the guys, involving leaning over and shaking the head to and fro. If you were lucky a bit of jumping might be acceptable.

This was the situation at my first school disco, where I finally experienced proper rock music and managed to dance to it. The excitement was palpable when any of the following records were played: Summertime Blues by The Who, Paranoid by Black Sabbath and Black Night by Deep Purple. We felt we were experiencing the dawn of a new age, the search was on for “heavy” music, which was at the cutting edge of our adolescent experiences. This music belonged to us, our parents could not comprehend it. Near the end of that sweaty night, the lights suddenly came on, a Stanley knife had been found on the floor. There was often an undercurrent of violence at these dance venues, which you could put down to peer groups, nascent gangs or just the basic enmity between different schools. I avoided all this macho posturing as much as I could, but you had to be aware of when the trouble might start. My school did not hold another disco.

Another key dancing experience was at a Caravan Park in Woolacombe, Devon. For the first time I went on holiday with friends and not parents. As part of the provided entertainments there was a nightly disco, designed for families and bar regulars. The most popular song was Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep by Middle of the Road, need one say more. However during the evening there was usually a Rock interlude, and then the 5 of us would take over the dancefloor, trying to outdo each other. There were no girls to dance with and we didn’t care, this was a celebration of youth culture and showing off. Hardly anybody else wanted to dance to these songs anyway, but we loved In My Own Time by Family, Devils Answer by Atomic Rooster and Won’t Get Fooled Again by The Who. After a few days we knew every word and electric chord and were jumping all over the place, fuelled by the local cider. I spent some time perfecting my split leg jumps to the power chords of Pete Townshend, it wasn’t easy to do that on time. The locals managed to put up with us, maybe we were deemed part of the entertainment. Of course, being under age, we couldn’t dance anywhere else.

Shortly after this the music scene was hit by T.Rextasy, all the girls seemed to love Marc Bolan. For a time T.Rex seemed to be all there was to dance to, and I did quite like Get It On and Hot Love. However it all seemed a bit retro and vapid, lacking in funk. At the time the Charts were a battleground, we all had our favourites, which helped define our personalities. At 6pm on a Sunday there was the Top 30 Chart Show on Radio 1, which was listened to in both horror and amazement, depending on who got to Number 1. Bizarrely it was followed by Sing Something Simple, as if to calm us all down. Over on television there was Top of the Pops on the following Thursday, where T.Rex had made their name with Marc wearing glitter and make-up. My most vivid memory of watching the show was the day my father declared the end of British civilisation while watching Sweet. Maybe he had missed the wondrous transgressions of David Bowie. Slowly TOTP seemed to become even more of a marketing exercise, with the real music appearing on Old Grey Whistle Test, where the groups actually played their own instruments, although there was less dancing on view.

Mati Klarwein - Santana Annunciation

Santana Annunciation by Mati Klarwein – Cover of Santana Abraxas

And then came my Latin revolution. At the time I did not even realise I was listening to Latin music, it was all Rock to me of a particularly funky variety, with beautiful guitar playing. I am talking about Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen by Santana. I already knew and liked the original Fleetwood Mac version, but this was the song that started a new dancing style, my hips took on a life of their own. The break as they segue into Gypsy Queen and the tempo slowly increases was like a magic potion to me. I could certainly dance to this on my own, in fact usually had to, since I was behaving like some kind of whirling dervish. The first time was in Southport Rugby Club, surrounded by muscle men. Vague sense of danger, but I was kindly regarded as some kind of hippy loon. Only rarely was this record played in discos at the time, so you had to make the most of it. I believe I certainly made the most of it a few years later at a disco bar in Biarritz and upset the locals. Out of the blue I was punched to the dancefloor and received a good kicking, dancing can be a dangerous business. With shouts of pédé ringing in my ears, I hightailed it out of there, to be met with much tea and sympathy. I am still dancing to Latin music, but a bit more aware that the dancing style should match the situation.

Now all this is not exactly Idiot Dancing, that was yet to come. However I wrote the phrase “Bring Back Idiot Dancing” on my work folder around this time. I was already feeling I had missed the Sixties, that the craziness I had witnessed in the film Woodstock had disappeared and we were stuck in a kind of anodyne normalcy, behaviour could only go so far. I was proved wrong, yet by this time I had been to some exceptional rock concerts by The Who, The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin, but these were not dance events, there was no raving. At concerts you had to go right to the back to dance, you couldn’t dance properly in a packed, seated venue, let alone stand up. Of course at a good concert, you all jumped out of your chairs for the last song or encore and shimmied about, but you cannot call that proper dancing. Later at non-seated venues like Pathfoot at Stirling University I began to experience the mass psychosis and craziness that a thousand people raving together could bring on.

So now, for the time being, Rock became predominant. Everything else seemed lightweight, if not uncool. I was schooled by Darrell Jay’s Progressive Music Show at the Dixieland Showbar on Southport Pier, a huge ballroom. Here we preened to Rebel, Rebel by David Bowie, but eschewed the southern rock of Lynyrd Skynyrd. Can you dance to Be Bop Deluxe? Only with difficulty I found out. Meanwhile at Stirling University there was a free disco every night in the most amazing Student’s Union, The Grange. There was a bar, then some seats and tables alongside the DJ booth. In the middle of this large room there was a dancefloor, and then at the back, raised up and in the dark, sat all the dope dealers. Here the beer was 9d a pint or about £1 today (it was subsidised) and dope cookies were available on Tuesdays. So yes dancing nearly every night to all forms of rock known to man in 1973, as well as a fair bit of soul and then some plain weird stuff. The dancefloor was only about 5 metres wide and could become absolutely rammed, but anything went there. I learned how to dance in a confined space and still enjoy myself. I befriended the DJ’s to find out how they chose their music, but they were not very informative. Still in my second year I became the DJ Convenor for Stirling and managed the discos at Pathfoot, which would open a few days a week after the Grange closed at 10pm. We had 2 turntables, but usually no microphone. People could bellow in your ear for requests. The must play record was Alright Now by Free, not forgetting Brown Sugar by The Rolling Stones and Layla by Derek and the Dominos. I would try to slip in the heaviest song I knew, The Nile Song by Pink Floyd. However this was only available on the Relics album, side 2 track 4, and was very difficult to cue up in the darkness, so I often gave up. Also I would attempt to slip in a few tracks which I wanted to dance to, although vacating the DJ turntables was frowned upon. Silence was a sin. We danced to my selection of the hits, which I had a budget to choose and purchase every week.

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Around this time I met Eric (and his pet rat), who was a big Northern Soul fan. Wow he could dance and in a totally new way, gliding around like a cool well oiled machine, none of that stomping and angular histrionics found in the student rock fan. I then discovered that people liked what they knew, and inserting a Northern Soul section into my playlist did not go down well with a writhing mass of drunken students at Pathfoot. This was old soul music and not regarded as cool, though on the other hand they loved It’s Better To Have (And Don’t Need) by Don Covay and demanded Superstition by Stevie Wonder. Not to be put off, I found some smooth leather soled shoes, which could allow you to swish around a wooden dancefloor, with your feet never leaving the ground. All the action became contained in the hips, incredibly fast and smooth. This was my home made version of the style used at Wigan Casino (without the dips), which I succeeded in trying out at the disco behind the Scarisbrick Hotel in Southport. However I soon found out this style did not work for Rock or on carpets, and I never plucked up the courage to go to Wigan Casino itself. There was also a high risk of ending up on your arse, if you got over excited.

Talking of gliding around, I did learn to waltz while working in France and it was wonderful. Well it was just one night, and the elderly teachers at the Lycée where I was working took me on board and taught some basic steps. Of course I was never leading, but by the end of the evening I was floating round the room, aided by some glasses of Crémant. It was never as good again. Everyone in France appeared to have gone to dance school, it was all Le Roc (a form of swing and jive dancing), there was no freeform or solo dancing. Eventually I approximated a clumsy form of this, using my waltz steps, but felt constrained and I constantly went off-piste, which did not go down well. What happened to the Rock revolution I wondered, it was like dancing in the 50s. I did not want to remember steps but to express myself. It felt like being one of the regimented souls on the original Come Dancing, which I despised. There was one fantastic night in Paris at a small sweaty club watching the crazy rock group Au Bonheur des Dames (like Sha Na Na meet Bonzo Dog Band) perform Oh Les Filles, the crowd intermingling and dancing like people possessed for the whole set, no sign of Le Roc, but plenty of hand holding, hip swinging, clapping and shouting. Magnifique!

Then came Punk, I cut my hair and loved the spirit, but you could hardly call it dance music, more like a mosh pit of anger and idiocy. You can only pogo up and down in one kinda way. As mosh pits go, Grannies in Cardiff with Stiff Little Fingers was pretty intense.  Ian Curtis of Joy Division was certainly a mesmerising performer to watch, which I did at The Nashville Rooms in Kensington, but there were only a few tracks such as Transmission which I wanted to dance to. Soul music was the guilty pleasure of my Punk years. This was reinforced by going to see John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, which I secretly loved and introduced me to K.C. and the Sunshine Band, but it was regarded as deeply unhip by my punk counterparts. The Disco wars had started and never the twain shall meet. That did not stop me from buying a Chic 12” on the same day as a 7” single by the Clash. I can fairly say that Shame by Evelyn ‘Champagne’ King  is one heck of a record, but I might not have proclaimed that back in the day. I had missed the early records of Michael Jackson, but when I first heard Billie Jean it was electrifying. Down the empty disco I had no-one to dance with, so I ended up dancing with a pillar. Since then I have regularly used pillars as dancing partners, you can hang onto them or swing round, push away or nudge up to them. At a squeeze, walls can also provide a platform to bounce off or get close to, I love dancing with walls. If needs must, you understand.

There is a certain unwritten etiquette involved when you dance in public. Firstly you have to choose your space carefully, a favourite of mine was the gap in front of the speakers. If it’s too busy there try and carve out a space on the edge or in the shadows, which allows you to manoeuvre into a better position. Try not to come between couples or break into groups, unless invited. Once there, at least make an effort to synchronise your movements in some way or another, a lot of good dance moves are learnt by copying others. Lots of eye contact, respect all around and make clear your intentions. Sometimes I would dance with other people, at other times just on my own to get lost in the music. If there’s a pack of wild dancers down the front, head in and join them, it’s a communal activity after all, and give everyone the space they need as you interweave. Watch out for and avoid the flailing drunks, just move on if you feel uncomfortable. The worst mistake is standing on other people’s toes, always apologise. My biggest bugbear is people just standing there, not properly dancing, like some kind of bollard taking up valuable dancefoor space. Participate in those good times!

Kanda Bongo Man at Africa Centre 1986. ©Douglas Cape Z360

Kanda Bongo Man at Africa Centre 1986. ©Douglas Cape Z360

Falling out of love with the bombastic nature of Rock, it was African music that came to the rescue. The first real soukous music I heard was by Franco & T.P.O.K. Jazz, but it was his countryman Kanda Bango Man who I got to see and fell in love with. He appeared at WOMAD in the I.C.A, and the Africa Centre in Covent Garden, no seats there and room to dance. Nearly every song was an exhortation to dance, by the dynamic frontman. The revelation was the interweaving of the guitar line by Diblo Dibala, the very fluidity of his playing encouraging you to nearly ignore the rhythm and simply follow his swaying melodies raining down on you like an excited waterfall. Wikipedia says of Kanda Bongo Man “His form of soukous gave birth to the kwassa kwassa dance rhythm where the hips move back and forth while the hands move to follow the hips.” Reggae was also becoming popular, but that required a very laid back shuffle after a few blunts, not quite my animated style. Much more to my taste was Papa’s got a brand new Pigbag, an anarchic mix of tribal rhythms, James Brown bassline and funky jazz. I then tried Sol Y Sombra , a world music club in Charlotte Street, London, but it was all a bit fey and earnest dance wise, for me at least. The search was on.

Heaven. That was what proved me wrong. Heaven was a Cathedral of Dance, and probably still is. This is a gay club underneath the Arches at Charing Cross, London. The entrance is down an intimidating tunnel and to gain admittance you had to demonstrate you were gay, in which I falsely succeeded. Once inside there was a luxurious bar area and then the most cavernous dance hall I had ever seen. Not only that, the sound system was poundingly 3D loud, my bones were vibrating, while the lighting spread the length of the entire hall scanning and pulsating in time to the hi-energy music. The place was full of men, only men, frugging as if their life depended on the music, amazing dancers of all types. They carried on regardless all night, showing off their moves in a splendid array of S&M costumes. It was all bit much for little me, if not intimidating, but upstairs there was a chill-out bar with occasional live music where I could relax. This apparently was a superclub, I had never seen the like of it, dancing had arrived and was simply massive. All that came later (House, Raves, EDM) pales into insignificance with this first revelation, I have never been in a more amazing dance venue. I went back many times, saw friends performing upstairs, New Order downstairs, and my best man was the star of the first gay play performed there. I was also called out by a good gay friend for going there when I wasn’t gay, I didn’t care. Nevertheless I did not always feel at ease dancing there, it was all a bit motorik after a while, plus I was me on my own usually and felt a bit exposed, had to keep moving around, it was a predatory place. I was not part of the club, just a visitor. I remember going to The Fridge in Brixton and seeing Leigh Bowery, but he was a fashion icon rather than a dancer, plus I just wasn’t in the mood for dancing that night. Still, if you wanted to dance, gay clubs were the place to be in the early 80s.

Jesus at Great British Music Festival, Olympia1976.

Jesus at Great British Music Festival, Olympia 1976.

There is no doubt who was the greatest idiot dancer. It was Jesus aka William Jellet, who really was an idiot, or at least severely misguided. Some of his quotes include “I never wanted to be Jesus, but I realised I was”; “Music has been used by God to open up people to find their true spiritual selves.”; “I’m completely free of the forces man has created, which stop him from being himself”; “If you want to know the truth, listen to Jimi Hendrix”. From the late sixties onwards and for many decades he would be the first man standing at a gig, his long blond hair waving over his kaftan (if he was wearing clothes that day), freaking out to the music in a sepulchral manner. He appears in several films of the period, including Cream’s last 1968 performance at The Albert Hall, The Stones in the Park in 1969 and the 1971 Glastonbury Fayre. One acquaintance said he told her that he loved Isadora Duncan and admired her for her free dance form, and that it was his bounden duty to dance. I first saw him at the Reading Festival in 1974 and forever after he would crop up at a huge variety of venues, even at punk gigs, although his preference appeared to be for the hippy era bands. He was often greeted with an ironic cheer when he stood up to start dancing, sometimes with maracas or bongos, and he was a regular at The Marquee in Wardour Street. For me he was an inspiration, the first man standing and you always felt he was behaving out of a sense of admiration for, and surrender to, the music. There is an excellent article about his life and crazy times by J.P. Robinson at Medium, from which these quotes are taken. There was also Stacia Blake, who danced with Hawkwind, but I think you would have to call her a professional, I presume she was paid. The same goes for Bez with Happy Mondays, a few decades later. Another public figure who I saw dancing like a dervish was Gareth Sager of Rip, Rig and Panic. This stands out since we were at an Ornette Coleman gig in the Victoria Theatre, Pimlico. Usually no-one dances at free jazz gigs, although this time there were two drummers and a pounding bassline from the album Dancing in your Head. It was a lesson that you could really dance to anything.

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I may not be a trained dancer, but I did follow some movement courses. For nearly a year I had to move like an Orangutang every morning at 10am. This was part of theatre training at the Sherman Theatre, Cardiff, where I also learned some basic tumbles and acrobatics. These classes have stayed with me and certainly influenced my dancing. I also met my first professional dancers there, truly dedicated and fit people, even if they were always getting injured. They used to rehearse to the great roots album The Path by Ralph MacDonald, a percussionist influenced by both Trinidad and New York. It was at this time that Mike Bradwell of Hull Truck Theatre impressed me by saying his actors never went to the gym, but down the disco instead. Indeed, the BBC has stated that dancing is one of the best ways to reverse the ageing process. Years later I spent a good few years studying Tai Chi, I took those dexterous hand movements and incorporated them into my style, to  the extent that I now dance a much speeded up version of that art form, with a bit of clapping included. I also worked with some professional dancers in theatrical and alternative productions. Again their work ethic was second to none, but they were useless down the disco, maybe it was too much like work. I saw Ballet Rambert in in 1976 doing proper modern dance, loved them. Later the seminal Michael Clark with The Fall at Sadlers Wells showed me how disparate art forms could work together, while my modern dance favourites were The Featherstonehaughs. The greatest dancer I ever saw was Louise Lecavalier of La La La Human Steps performing Human Sex in 1985 at The Town and Country Club, Kentish Town, London. Incredibly physical and acrobatic to a pounding, fractured live rock soundtrack. A thousand barrel rolls, a thousand swoops and swings, this was a work of unfettered abandon. Closer to home my flatmate was in Zoo, the hip TOTP follow up to Pan’s People, now he could dance and do the dips, great fun! My dance style is the culmination of all these influences, I hope.

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The Working Party 1992. ©Douglas Cape Z360

It is important to remember why I was going out to these clubs. As opposed to most of my friends, I was not trying to pick anyone up, get drunk or score drugs, though that may have happened. If there was no dancing, or I just stood watching, the evening was a disappointment. Many a time at a party I retreated into a corner and started dancing with myself. There would be no dancing if I didn’t like the music, I was strict about that, but as you have seen I would dance to nearly anything. Sometimes though I just wasn’t inspired, you had to feel the music begin to pulse through you, get ready for take-off, then make your move. At other times the music was so funky I just had to start the dancing, get the party started. Dancing is like a virus, someone has to get infected. These were often the best moments, you had to find your style for that moment, be totally engaged, prove the validity of the music. And of course one was on show, so you did your best in the circumstances. Too much flailing or being too fast would put off the other dancers, this had to measured, you were aiming for mass participation. I often failed.

There are many ways to dance to songs and sometimes it is the very words which become the expressive root. I was in a small back street bar in Antiparos, Greece called The Doors. As the night progressed tables were cleared and the tiny floor became a writhing mess of bodies, with people also perched on the bar and chairs, shaking along to the music. As expressed by the name, this was a rock venue, and unexpectedly the highpoint was Hurricane by Bob Dylan. This is not a dance song, but a story song, and the words became the source of the movement. I knew every word and proceeded to act them out, howling the key lines along with Bob. A similar experience happened with Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen at The Boogaloo on Archway Road in London. The very intonations of the words can provide the rhythm for dance. It is your choice what aspect of a song to dance to, usually it is the percussion, sometimes the bassline. If a song feels a bit slow pick out the tambourine or congas, they are often at double tempo. The problem with a lot of electronic dance music it that it mandates the rhythm, you are locked in with no real variation for minutes on end, I soon get bored. Dancing should be dynamic, not formulaic.

This is a description of my behaviour at a jazz venue, Cafe Oto for example. I am sitting down because that’s what you do. I still can’t believe how static people are listening to live music. I know some people don’t like to dance, in particularly many of my musician friends, yet I get a strong physical reaction necessitating movement. The music plays, light rhythm, singer songwriter on electric guitar with cool amplified foot beat. The audience sit there like Easter Island statues, kinda riveted and not moving. Out of the corner of my eye I see a lady holding a glass. There is one finger tapping it. I am a mess of subdued kinetic movement. Right now my head is sharply flicking maybe five degrees every few seconds, mainly to the left. My arse is constantly shifting weight in time to the music, the muscles there causing a rolling motion in my torso. The shoulders too are rolling, moving back and forth about one to two centimetres. Legs currently stationary, being careful with a bottle under the chair. All quite contained. I look around again, no one is moving. A few minutes later I have shifted position and my legs are at about 90 bpm, bouncing on the toes. My head has calmed down. No one else is moving. Are we listening to the same music? Why am I the only person moving?

Earth, Wind & Fire

Maybe after that I should provide a little list of my own great dance experiences, although you have to imagine them since talking about dancing is even worse than trying to describe music. OK, dancing barefoot on hessian mats to the Ace Records soul extravaganza (featuring Jimmy McCracklin), feet a mass of blisters the following day and I could hardly walk. Dancing calypso with a Prime Minister, Maurice Bishop of Grenada, cruelly assassinated a few years later. On La Isla Bonita with squaddies in Belize, quite competitive. In China dancing solo in a an empty venue the size of Camden Palace with a 16 piece band – just to show them how it’s done.  Down Philip Sallon’s Mud Club, in various London venues, all of a haze now. Standing on the chairs at the Royal Festival Hall as the crowd erupts over Khaled, all night. The Tropicana Beach Club, off Drury Lane, non stop samba party, and what a great dance club! Freaking out to The Hives at the back of The Roundhouse. The bass speakers at Cargo in Hackney going right through me, giving me palpitations. Bukky Leo at Passing Clouds in Dalston, packed full of Fela Kuti rhythms. The Big Chill and Womad festivals, too many events to remember. Most recently at a Disco Soul night in Hornsey Town Hall, for maybe the last time. Lots of kudos from the young people that evening. Many a time I have been asked what drugs I am on, or whether I have some to sell. The answer is always “Nothing. I am high on the music, Thank You”.

When I say Idiot dancing, I am referring to a totally freeform type of movement in response to the music. It can be of any style, but energised with a sense of wildness, even danger. I love kinetic performers, reacting to their music. The best recent example is Samuel T. Herring of Future Islands dancing to Seasons (Waiting On You), as seen on the Jools Holland TV programme. I dashed out and bought the record, trying to incorporate some of his moves into my own style. Another revelation was Beyoncé on her first solo hit Crazy In Love, that performance turned her into a star, every word actuated with movement. Certain records instantly make me want to dance, for many years the best was Boogie Wonderland by Earth, Wind and Fire, at other times Finally by Ce Ce Peniston or Too Blind To See It by Kym Sims. A certain record can just click into place, it consumes you, you forget yourself and life can’t get better. This has happened dancing to Step It Up by the Stereo MC’s, My Baby Just Cares for Me by Nina Simone and You Get What You Give by New Radicals. You have to get involved to get the feeling, the unexpected are often the best, trust the DJ and follow his lead. “Enjoy this trip and it is a trip” said S-Express on one of the craziest and most stupid dance records ever, a glorious meaningless wind-up. It has all calmed down a bit these days, so to conclude on an elegiac note here is a quote from the album Record – Nine euphoric feminist bangers from Tracey Thorn – or so says the sticker.

 Dancefloor by Tracey Thorn (2018)

 Play me Good Times, Shame
Golden Years, let the music play
It’s where i’d like to be
Is on a dancefloor with some drinks inside of me
Oh it’s where i’d like to be

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The Memories that Music Brings

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Ear Worms and All That..

So I read back in 1976 that it was the madeleines that brought back the memories. As a young man I could understand that, even though I had fewer memories to draw on. The book after all was called À la recherche du temps perdu by Marcel Proust, and the personal romanticism was endearing. Yes the 1920s, and so it seemed all time, were defined by the depth and power of that novel. This was the place that structured and held our memories, through the pages of a book we could visit and imagine the lives of others and our relationship to them, even use them as ciphers for own lives and feelings. This was a romantic notion which has not fully stood the test of time and the vicissitudes of experience. I now regard novels as a form of emotional manipulation, I can see the scaffolding, the agenda to influence our behaviour, playing with our emotional involvement for the benefit of ‘the story”. However this was relatively anodyne compared with my music problem, as we shall see.

I was not prepared for the way that music has locked itself into my brain and made me behave like some automaton, like a Pavlov’s dog who salivates with the correct stimulation. This is more direct and visceral than a novel, it seems to lie at a deeper more primal level, hence I have even less control over it. All the major events of my life have their soundtrack, after all I grew up at a time when music became the predominant cultural, outlaw influence. For my parents there was a relief at just escaping the ravages of war, and for them cinema had been the revolution, the cultural signpost to a better life. But by the late 60s the cultural signifier was something my parents could not understand – Rock Music.

Incomprehensible to them, it has now become a cultural norm. This music that then seemed so outlandish, hidden in corners, has through acclimatisation and advertising, been made into the ultimate capitalist’s dream. You can sell the same stuff again and again, through vinyl records, cassettes, cd’s, the box set and now Spotify. Rock Music won that cultural war. Punk, the ultimate fuck off music, now sounds like tinny pop. (Fuck off, the ultimate insult, is now printed in the Guardian and repeated regularly on TV, so has also lost the power). Perhaps as a result I love free jazz, the final bastion of fuck off music, but don’t really want to listen to it at home, you need the atmosphere, the thrilling moment of improvisation.

But back to my problem, certain songs trigger emotions I can’t control, even though I despise them. As a kid I loved The Beatles, then for 20 years I could not bear them and never listened to them. In the 90s I had kids and suddenly The Beatles were catnip, they could not lose and they still can’t. Somehow every word, every strum, every bit of enthusiasm had become part of me, I even do a passable imitation of Ringo (talking not drumming). I feel forced to resist their jolly banality, yet somehow they always win, I am in too deep to betray them. All you need is love they sing, with just enough knowing, enough edge. Imagine… all the  sounds they made were unconsciously baked within me and now I am stuck with it – I just can’t get you out of my head, as the song so accurately says. And there is the point, life has become a series of hummed song titles, signifying nothing. Personally, I believe the rot set in with Queen, the first content free, yet highly competent rock band. They had nothing to say, but you could certainly hum along.

In fact this phenomenon was given a name in the 80s (when pop music transitioned from rebel to mainstream), the earworm. This has now become a medical condition related to OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), and can be severely distressing. For some these involuntary musical imagery attacks can last several days. There is no known cure, apart from chewing gum (a distraction activity). I do not suffer personally from this form of distress, but am certainly prey to earworms, often expressing themselves as a constant and unconscious humming. This is often more annoying for those around me, since I am hardly aware I am doing it. In general earworms are transitory, may well be pleasant, and experienced by most people at some time. It appears to be the case that the more music you listen to, the more likely you will be subject to earworms. In our current streaming media age we are all vulnerable, indeed that appears to be the intention.

So now that pop music is endemic in our culture, I can be caught out and manipulated by just hearing a few bars in a shop, on an advert or East Enders. Memories come flooding back, like some kind of mind control. They slowly devalue the original, often romantic, memory, leaving me bereft, as if my privacy has been invaded. In a sense it has been, since the songs now have a different, twisted agenda – to manipulate my emotions or simply to sell me something. Certain events in my life are so keyed into a song, that the song has become the physical representation of them, to the detriment of the actual event. In particularly some girlfriends in my past life stand before me as soon as I hear “their song”, that has somehow come to represent them. I am no longer in control of this process, I feel abused. Once upon a time these songs were outside the culture, personal and secret, now they are just part of the machine we have lost control of. Unbelievably there was once a thrill to hear pop music in a shop like Biba, since the only other place to regularly hear it was on pirate radio. Now we are just surrounded, the muzak is universal, turning rebellion into money.

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 Earworm Songs, an abridged personal list

  • Can’t Buy Me Love : The Beatles
  • All you need is Love : The Beatles
  • Instant Karma! : John Lennon
  • Gimme Some Truth : John Lennon
  • All Right Now : Free
  • In The Year 2525 : Zager and Evans
  • Suzanne : Leonard Cohen
  • Sweet Jane : Velvet Undergound
  • (White Man) In Hammersmith Palais : The Clash
  • Into the Valley : The Skids
  • Ever Fallen In Love : Buzzcocks
  • We Will Rock You : Queen (A Top 20 Earworm)
  • A Love Supreme : Will Downing
  • Too Blind To See It : Kym Sims
  • Can’t Get You Out of My Head : Kylie Minogue
  • Swords of a Thousand Men : Ten Pole Tudor (Current TV Ad)

The Top 20 Earworms
Wikipedia on Earworms
Stuck Song Syndrome

Bargain Pro Cameras

FX Lenses on DX Cameras

Article featured in Nikon Rumors June 15th 2019
Comments included:
– That’s a very good article. If a D5xxx works for you, that’s great. 
– This is a good article for enthusiasts to read and feel confident they are justified in buying and enjoying a DX system.

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I am often asked for camera recommendations and my standard reply is the Nikon D5500. The later D5600 is basically the same camera with Snapbridge (an app for phones), which I never use. To make this into a “Pro“ camera I suggest attaching some some full frame FX lenses, which will give you startling sharpness, very little vignetting and no corner fuzziness. You are just using the best part of the lens, which is basically over-engineered for usage on DX crop sensor cameras. Take a look at nearly all MTF charts and you are avoiding the wavy (not as sharp) part of the graph on the right hand side, which is the edge of the sensor.

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Here is the Nikon MTF Chart for their AF-S Nikkor 50mm f/1.8G full frame lens.
On a DX camera you are only using the lens up to the vertical dotted line.

A note about terminology. 
A DX or APS-C camera is a so called crop sensor camera, meaning the the sensor is 1.5x smaller than a full frame FX camera. The sensor in a full frame camera is 24x36mm, the same as classic 35mm film. Thus on a crop DX camera the standard 50mm lens becomes a 75mm lens (50×1.5=75), a short telephoto. DX lenses cannot normally be used on full frame FX cameras, the image does not cover the whole sensor. On a DX camera a standard lens would be a 35mm, giving roughly the same angle of view as a 50mm lens on full frame. The Nikon 18-55mm DX kit lens is equivalent to a 27-82mm full frame lens.
The sensor in the D5500 is 24.2 mega-pixels, which is the same resolution as many full frame cameras such as the Nikon Z6 or D750 and the Sony A7.

Starsha Lee at Flaxon Ptootch

Starsha Lee at Flaxon Ptootch, Kentish Town
AF-S NIKKOR 50mm f/1.8G – 1/250sec, f2.0, ISO3200

My favourite lens combination in this regard is the AF-S Nikkor 50mm f/1.8G. You might think a full frame lens would be too big on a DX camera, but it fits perfectly in the hand and weighs less (185g) than the 35mm DX f1.8 lens (200g), specifically made for crop sensor cameras. Best of all it does not look like a telephoto lens, has well recessed glass and focuses down to to 0.45m, very good for a 75mm lens. It is no wonder Nikon do not make a DX 50mm lens, it would be pointless to try and improve on this. In crowded social situations this focal length is ideal for picking out faces in the melee, and is several centimetres shorter than the kit zoom lens which is only f5.6 at 50mm. Indoors with average room lighting that will never be fast enough even at ISO 3200, and of course you lose the the 3D effect of an f1.8 lens.

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Spizz Energi at iKlektik, Lambeth
AF-S NIKKOR 85mm f/1.8G – 1/250sec, f2.0, ISO3200

At events when I am a bit further away I use the AF-S Nikkor 85mm f/1.8G, which becomes a very fast 130mm lens on DX. This extremely sharp lens sits well on the D5500 and only weighs 350g. Another FX lens I have used extensively is the tiny Fisheye Nikkor 16mm f2.8, which requires manual focusing, but does give a unique picture angle of over 100 degrees. For general travel and video usage the AF-S Nikkor 24-120mm f/4G VR lens is much heavier, but still quite manageable and becomes a powerful 36-180 lens without any FX corner fuzziness.

John Landor Music in Motion

John Landor Music in Motion at Conway Hall, Holborn
AF-S NIKKOR 24-120mm f/4G – 1/125sec, f4.0, ISO3200

To put all this in perspective the D5500 is a remarkably light camera (470g) with an excellent grip. While lacking a few bells and whistles, in particularly a discrete aperture dial, you soon get used to this and I have yet to find something the camera can’t do once you are familiar with the menus. The touch screen is also remarkably useful and can be used to set focus. It competes well with mirrorless cameras, being smaller and much lighter than a Nikon Z6 or Sony A7, and while the Fujifilm X-T30 may be a little smaller it does not have a proper grip and is at least twice the price. I prefer to handhold my camera and do not use a strap, which inevitably gets in the way and makes shooting less flexible. If you really want a light camera choose a Nikon D3500 which only weighs 365g, the lightest DSLR ever. It is the same basic design as the D5500 with the same sensor, but has only 11 AF points, as opposed to 39 on the D5500. I would not recommend it for video since it has no flip out screen or headphone/microphone port. It does represent excellent value, the results for stills should be as good as cameras costing four times as much.

Irene Serra

Irene Serra at Royal Festival Hall, Waterloo
AF-S VR NIKKOR 70-200mm f/2.8G – 1/200sec, f2.8, ISO2500

So to conclude my bargain camera would be a Nikon D5500 with 18-55 kit lens, currently available for £450. If you never use video and want to save more money try a Nikon D3500 with kit lens, about £315. The kit lens is usually heavily subsidised, you might as well purchase it since it is the only way to get a cheap wide angle on DX cameras, and they perform well enough these days. Next stop is the 50mm lens, which you can find for £150, or less second hand. If buying older lenses remember only the post 2000 G or E lenses with no aperture ring will autofocus on these cameras.

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All pictures were taken as Raw files and processed in Adobe Lightroom.
Here are some more examples of full frame lenses on the D5500:

Trevor Watts, Peter Knight, Veryan Weston at Cafe Oto

Trevor Watts at Cafe Oto, Dalston
AF-S NIKKOR 85mm f/1.8G – 1/2sec, f4.0, ISO200

John Landor Bach Recital

John Landor Bach Recital at St Martin-in-the-Fields, Charing Cross
AF-S NIKKOR 24-120mm f/4G – 1/125sec, f4.0, ISO3200

Iain Sinclair

Iain Sinclair at Cafe Oto, Dalston
AF-S NIKKOR 85mm f/1.8G – 1/200sec, f2.0, ISO3200

Marc Ribot at Cafe Oto

Marc Ribot at Cafe Oto, Dalston
AF-S NIKKOR 85mm f/1.8G – 1/160sec, f1.8, ISO3200

Starsha Lee at Flaxon Ptootch

Starsha Lee at Flaxon Ptootch, Kentish Town
AF Fisheye-Nikkor 16mm f2.8D – 1/125sec, f2.8, ISO3200

The Gulps Guitar

The Gulps at Flaxon Ptootch, Kentish Town
AF-S NIKKOR 50mm f/1.8G – 1/200sec, f2.0, ISO3200

All Photographs ©Douglas Cape z360.com

 

There Wasn’t Another One

The Jimi Hendrix Experience ‎– Voodoo Chile EP

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In October 1970, at the age of 15, I bought my first 45rpm single, Voodoo Chile by Jimi Hendrix. It was exceptional in many different ways. Firstly it only cost six shillings – from 1971 onwards post decimalisation that would be 30p. A normal single cost 10 shillings in those days which represented at least 2 weeks of pocket money. In addition this was an EP (Extended Play) single with three tracks, lasting over 12 minutes. It was cheap because it was regarded as a tribute single, using old tracks recorded in 1966 and 1968. Jimi Hendrix had died the previous month aged 27 in Notting Hill, London, after an overdose of sleeping pills. This single was his only UK Chart No 1.

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I had suffered a frustrating few years because my father had refused to buy a record player. He did have an amazing Truvox reel to reel tape recorder, but I was not supposed to touch it. I did play with it of course, but when he was out. Still one day, after I had saved up just enough money, I insisted, saying all my friends had a record player. I had ended up buying records just to play on their record players, it felt ridiculous. We went to a tiny back street lean-to where we purchased the necessary second hand bits to make our own record player, I could not afford a Dansette. We bought a sturdy 1950s portable player with a bakelite tonearm and proceeded to make our own balsa wood headshell for a ceramic cartridge. This high output piezoelectric cartridge meant we could use a cheap amplifier without pre-amp, and quickly destroy records with the heavy tonearm. However, with the addition of another speaker, it was stereo, so better and in fact much louder than a mono Dansette. I also painted it electric blue, so it looked both ridiculous and cool, and I used it for many years.

Electric Ladyland _ The Making Of Electric Ladyland

Back to Jimi and the exceptional single. Voodoo Chile was recorded in Electric Ladyland Studios in New York, with the classic Experience line up, Noel Redding on bass and Mitch Mitchell on drums. The day before Jimi had recorded the 15 minute jam version found on the double Electric Ladyland album with Jack Casady on bass and Stevie Winwood on organ. On the album, where both versions appeared, the shorter single version was named Voodoo Chile (Slight Return). The song was based on an old recording from the 1930s, Catfish Blues by Robert Petway, which had also been recorded by John Lee Hooker in the late 40s. The Experience had even played the Muddy Waters version of Catfish Blues live earlier in their career, and there you can already hear the roots of Voodoo Chile. However come 1968, Hendrix was at the peak of his powers, and he had completely rewritten the lyrics and honed the arrangement to make the dynamic blockbuster that we know today. In one sense the song became a poetic description of his own dynamic and visceral playing, his guitar is indeed chopping down mountains and then picking up grains of sand. In this five minutes there is nearly every guitar trope known to man, frottage followed by talking wah-wah descending into huge searing power chords in the first 40 seconds, then a phased solo swoops across the speakers taking us up into space. There are huge dynamics in every move he makes, he is too quick to be bombastic, the music veers between solo, chords and glissandi in an epic tour de force. Jimi is indeed demonstrating, via his guitar, that he is the voodoo child.

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While his guitar could do plenty of talking, here his vocal prowess is a match with it. The casual belief in his own boasting is delivered with complete authority and an infectious enthusiasm. Whispering asides, even apologies, are made before he ascends into the next world, screaming with dramatic urgency “Don’t be late”. The bare lyrics, while suggesting he has god like powers, also contain genuine concern, with lines from a love song worried that he will “take up all your sweet time”. Still before long he is an alien again, there is another world out there, the counterculture, and out there he’s a voodoo child. Noel Redding claims the song was basically improvised live since they were being filmed at the time, which may well explain the unique dynamism.

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The other side of the EP starts with Hey Joe, recorded in 1966 during the early sessions for his first album Are You Experienced. I was later to purchase this album in WH Smith for just £1, since it was re-released in a budget ‘backtrack’ series in a plain brown sleeve. My bakelite record player was soon to wear out the grooves on that one. The origins of the song Hey Joe are hazy, it was credited to an obscure Californian folk singer in 1962, known as Billy Roberts, but there are several other antecedents. However the version which inspired Jimi was undoubtedly by the West Coast band Love, since Jimi and the lead singer of Love, Arthur Lee, had recorded together the previous year in LA. Chas Chandler, former bass player for the Animals, saw Jimi performing the song in New York’s Cafe Wha?, and it became the first single when Chas brought Jimi over to England and signed him to Track Records. This single set the template for the Jimi Hendrix Experience, already you can hear the unique guitar style in his solo, while his conversational singing breaks into anguish as the song builds to it’s climax. It reached number 6 in the UK charts. No surprise that it is featured on his memorial single, this was the first hit record.

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And finally the apocalypse. Huge urgency drives Jimi’s version of the Bob Dylan song All Along the Watchtower. It has been named as the greatest cover version of all time. Despite appearing on Electric Ladyland, it was recorded at Olympic Studios in London with guests Brian Jones and Dave Mason, and Jimi himself played bass after a dispute with Noel Redding. The original song, which featured on Bob Dylan’s acoustic John Wesley Harding album, could not sound more different. There is still a sense of urgency in Dylan’s version, but the instrumentation is sparse with a plaintive harmonica, all the drama comes from the vocal line, as befits a folk album recorded in Nashville. Jimi had long been a fan of Dylan’s, and covered several of his songs in concert, the terse yet convoluted lyrics seemed to suit his own singing style. Here though, Jimi makes the song his own to the extent that Dylan has said “when I sing it, I always feel it’s a tribute to him in some kind of way.” The reason being that Dylan now sings the Hendrix arrangement, as heard on his 1974 live album with The Band, Before the Flood.

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The religious based imagery of the song, suggested by the Book of Isiah, does indeed summon up an archaic, end of days atmosphere. The stinging guitar lines suggest the horsemen of the apocalypse, the movement is palpable, horses are galloping through a slashing, distant storm. Dylan claims he wrote the song in reverse, we never seem to know whether we are fleeing confusion or bringing chaos to the gates of the watchtower. Only at the end of the song do we realise that the two horsemen must be the joker and the thief. Nevertheless the sense of desperation is ever present, the hour is getting late, the whirling howling guitar suggesting cataclysm is upon us. It is at once a comment on the failing vision of the counterculture, as it faded into drug addiction and Vietnam war protest, and simultaneously a call to arms for the outsiders, the jokers and the thieves. It was Hendrix who transformed this song from an elegy into a song of protest, welcoming the future conflagration of corrupt establishment values, defined by the gradually building guitar line ending in a blistering shower of repeated high notes. Now the music matches and reinforces the lyrical intentions of the song.

Are You Experienced _ The Making Of

When Jimi Hendrix died I had been saddened, but thought there would be another great guitar player along in a minute, there seemed to be plenty around. In vain I waited, maybe Jeff Beck would take up the mantle, or perhaps Robin Trower. Buddy Guy, Albert Collins and Albert King took on some of his stylings (or vice versa), but they were playing firmly in the Blues tradition. Much later I discovered Bill Frisell, whose work with Naked City and Power Tools seemed to echo some of Jimi’s more esoteric musical concerns. There was one reason that nobody sounds quite like Jimi, he played right-handed guitars that were turned upside down and restrung for left-hand playing. Nobody would be crazy enough to do that nowadays. In addition, he was right place right time for the new Vox-Wah pedal and associated phasing effects, the electric guitar had come of age. The best Jimi guitar impersonator was undoubtedly Stevie Ray Vaughn, who recorded an 11 minute version of Voodoo Chile, which while played with great power and elan, is simply a remake. Finally I did see a great live version of Voodoo Chile, unexpectedly played by Vini Reilly, guitarist for Morrissey and Factory Records, but of course he couldn’t sing, which would explain why he made instrumental records. There is no-one since Hendrix who has managed to make such a unique synthesis of blues, rock, funk and space music in the way that he did. Despite his foreshortened career, after fifty years he stands alone, a revolutionary artist just as powerful as Picasso, Beckett or Beethoven.

Electric Ladyland 13 The Jimi Hendrix Experience

Jimi Hendrix 
Born November 27 1942 in Seattle, Washington, USA
Died September 18 1970 in Kensington, London, UK

Mitch Mitchell
Born 9 July 1946 in Ealing, Middlesex, UK
Died 12 November 2008 in Portland, Oregon, USA

Noel Redding
Born 25 December 1945 in Folkestone, Kent, UK
Died 11 May 2003 in Clonakilty, County Cork, Ireland

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 Update 10 June 2020

This article was extensively quoted in the Guardian Readers Favourite UK No 1s

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20 Years of Nils Petter Molvær

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1998 July 6th Jazz Cafe, London

Nils Petter Molvær – Trumpet
Eivind Aarset – Guitar
Audun Erlien – Bass
Rune Arnesen – Drums
Per Lindvall – Drums
DJ Stangefruit – Vinyl
Sven Persson – Sound Design

It all started with a strange rumour, ECM, the chamber jazz label, had signed a hot new Norwegian trumpeter in the Miles Davis mould. He was playing electric gigs with two drummers and a DJ, unheard of for this staid acoustic label. The electric Miles from the early 70s was my signature music, so this definitely merited investigation. I headed to the Jazz Cafe for the first ever UK gig by Nils Petter Molvær.

In the sweaty dark confines of the club the first thing to hit was the rhythmic volume, totally unlike any other ECM experience.This was modern soundscape taking Miles into the house – he’d been there with work like Jack Johnson and Bitches Brew, but nobody had really picked up the baton, until now. The twin drummers laid down a loud, steady, intoxicating rhythm, scrabbled scratching overlaid it, a lone muted trumpet rose above it all. There was plangency pouring over a rich stew of funk, reaching an apotheosis with Khmer which took us further East into a killer dystopian beat; total surrender.

After this first ecstatic gig, as we left, ECM gave away a promo EP called Khmer : The Remixes. I played it to death. I still play it now. It is a Desert Island Disc.

As they said “For the first time ever ECM enter the world of remixes” – it was to be their best try, only to go downhill from there, but at least they had the guts to try properly. They were not founded to be an on-trend label, nor should they be. Nevertheless the respect that Nils Petter Molvær is held in by ECM and their Producer Manfred Eicher can be demonstrated by the inclusion of nearly their whole first album Khmer on the ECM retrospective Selected Signs Vol. VI, A Cultural Archeology. Nils only stayed with ECM for one more album, Solid Ether, but the template had been set.

The next time I saw him was in 2002 at The O2 Academy in Islington, then operating as a replacement Marquee Club. He played a blistering house jazz set, climaxing with the semi-rave anthem Nebulizer. In between the frenzy there were moments of solo beauty, like Little Indian. Several tracks from this great gig appeared on his live album Streamer. A slew of remix albums followed and when I saw him at Cargo in 2004, this appeared to have mellowed his slimmed down band. They played a more nuanced and atmospheric set, despite being in a club venue.

Streamer 2

As Nils finally distanced himself from Khmer, he collaborated with many different artists including Jah Wobble and Bill Laswell on Radioaxiom : A Dub Transmission, a subject we will return to. In 2010 he played with a dystopian metal trio at Queen Elizabeth Hall, with dry ice and black cut-out projections. Once again he was forceful and lyrical, wrestling with guitarist Stian Westerhus and drummer Audun Kleive, providing a warning to the world. During his residency at Kings Place in 2013 he appeared to be more involved in the spirit of collaboration, rarely stretching his somewhat ambient playing, happy to take a back seat. The highpoint was a series of live improvisations to Buster Keaton films.

In 2016 he made another great album, Bouyancy, with Geir Sundstøl on pedal steel guitar which beautifully matched his own sliding, muted style of playing. The concert at Ronnie Scott’s, framed by large nautical bells, took us into a magical aquatic seascape. Often submerged, we surfaced at intervals as we flowed with the current taking us to different climates, both hot and cold.

Back at the Jazz Cafe in 2018 and back to the beats, now with serious air conditioning.  Sly and Robbie need no introduction, most people are probably here because of them, but Nils holds the centre and soon captivates as he emotes over the pounding dub rhythms. They have just recorded an album together, Nordub, and I am already thinking they should have held their fire until after the tour, since this live gig is a power level above that excellent work. We can hardly see Sly in his shades behind a huge black and silver drum kit, as masterful reggae rhythms shuffle and slide around us. Robbie is seated, looking happy with a brand new white Fender bass, so confident he often plays right hand only, rock steady. Later he comes to the fore, intoning sparse resonant dub lyrics. On the far left is Eivind Aaarset with a panoply of pedals and FX, as he was 20 years ago, sending out shards of noise, climaxing as the rhythm rivers. At the centre of the storm Nils does his looping laptop tricks, sings into his trumpet bell and plays into his large ribbon microphone with points of trumpet scintillation. The music flows and curbs, slowly building with all of rock, jazz and reggae in the mix, we are immersed, overcome.

Like the first concert, we climax before the end. There is a great variation on the encore scenario with Robbie Shakespeare – he leaves the stage while we sing his dub chant back at him. The band return as we chant and proceed to tell us musically why they are one of the most powerful and exotic bands in the world. They say nothing.

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2018 July 24th Jazz Cafe, London

Nils Petter Molvær – Trumpet
Eivind Aarset – Guitar
Robbie Shakespeare – Bass
Sly Dunbar – Drums
Vladislav Delay – Electronics

 

R.I.P. New Musical Express

Morrissey NME 1985

This cover shoot in 1985 was the apotheosis of my burgeoning photographic career. From the early 70s I read the New Musical Express religiously every week and even completed the crossword. Meanwhile The Smiths had become my favourite indie group, so the combination was everything I had ever wished for, this was as good as it got.

Commissioned by Tony Stewart the deputy editor (who I later unfortunately followed to the ailing Sounds) I drove the journalist Danny Kelly up to The Hacienda in Manchester where the shoot took place. I had done a fair amount of preparation, constructing a halo from a fluorescent ring lamp and preparing some gory make-up. I had no assistant and did all the set-up and prosthetics myself. Morrissey was as sweet as pie and liked the idea of the stigmata. He only balked when I wanted to use the actual club for some background shots, saying that he’d already been photographed there. Still it all went very well, but I wasn’t allowed to attend his interview with Danny and spent several hours hanging around the gothic Midland Hotel.

The shot chosen for the cover was not my favourite, but I guess it fitted their layout best. They did use a classic black and white shot with the interview, later featured on the cover of Morrissey: Fandom, Representations and Identities.

Morrissey Book

Back in the 70s the New Musical Express was a wide church, encompassing all contemporary music including folk, jazz and even modern classical. I discovered Philip Glass, Jan Garbarek and the Art Ensemble of Chicago in their pages. They would feature campaigning articles about Red Wedge and occasional specials such as a Youth Suicide issue. The writing was varied, iconoclastic and opinionated, notable favourites being Richard Williams, Barney Hoskyns, Ian Penman, Nick Kent, Tony Parsons and even Charles Shaar Murray. By turns humorous and political the NME became the voice of alternative youth, there was no-one else with their finger on the pulse. In addition they produced a series of budget cassettes starting with C81, which championed their diverse musical influences.

The NME slowly headed into a dead end street of their own making, forgetting their history and the wilder shores of music practice. The writing lost all ambition and pretension, there was only so much you could say about guitar bands amid the narrow confines of Britpop. In the 70s you read the NME to discover new music and new attitudes, not to catch up on the gossip in the Sun’s Bizarre column. The world still needs a daring and authoritative music magazine, there is The Wire, but what do they know about pop music?
R.I.P. NME ‡

 

Can’t Leave London : The Jazz Clubs

I am writing this In Memoriam to Jazz at The Oxford, my local jazz club in Kentish Town, London. It happened on a Monday (when nothing happens) upstairs at a local pub for 12 years and was like having Ronnie Scott’s just down the road, but much cheaper, more relaxed and more personal. It was run by George Crowley, an excellent saxophonist in his own right, often playing with the guests and of course when the guests couldn’t make it.

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Crocodile playing at The Oxford, Kentish Town

While it started off as often too full of student alumni, it only cost £5 and every so often someone of the calibre of Shabaka Hutchings would turn up. Great nights included someone transporting a full size Hammond organ up the stairs, big bands such as Crocodile outnumbering the audience and of course musicians of the quality of Jeff Williams, Laura Jurd, Martyn Speake and Kit Downes. I will be missing this…on occasional Fridays some of these musicians may appear at the Con Cellar Bar aka The Constitution on the canal in Camden.

The Constitution

Blues Night at The Constitution

Meanwhile the amazing Cafe Oto in Dalston, now the UK home of Sun Ra, continues to plough its unique furrow through nearly any kind of modern music as inspired by Wire magazine. A staggering number of amazing concerts with the cream of British avant garde jazz as well as luminaries from many international genres.

Sun Ra Arkestra

Sun Ra Arkestra at Cafe Oto (in Infra Red)

The sackcloth backdrop which looks like a temporary rebuilding memento is still there as is the relaxed and concentrated vibe which draws in performers as varied as The Necks, Annette Peacock, Jimi Tenor, Marc Ribot and The Thing. There is no stage, we are one. Just so you know – I’m a Member!

Across the road is one of London’s most famous and established jazz clubs, The Vortex.

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Carol Grimes at The Vortex with Giles Perring

While presenting an excellent cross section of soul and avant garde jazz, I have always found the room a little bit too concrete and dry after it moved from its original location, a funky, wooden and crazy place in Stoke Newington Church Street, which for a few years until 2004 was definitely the best jazz venue in London. Thank you Billy Jenkins for some great nights there. Also of note is the funky Servant Jazz Quarters round the corner. Meanwhile just south of the River, an important new improvised venue opened recently called iklectik, set in hidden arty gardens in Lambeth and I would recommend discovering the Horse Party. Just don’t tell the Archbishop.

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Bill Evans Band at The Jazz Cafe 9/8/16

This article is also inspired by a recent visit to the venerable Jazz Cafe, just off Camden High Street. After becoming one of the key venues for New British Jazz in the late 80s, the tiny L shaped wine bar in Stoke Newington Green expanded to a large venue in Camden and has recently been refurbished as a full on night club, featuring jazz. The main floor is open with a restaurant of sorts on the balcony and this works well for funkier outfits, such as Bill Evans who I saw there only this week. Seen some great gigs here such as the Paul Motion Trio (see above), Nils Petter Molvaer and Pharaoh Saunders.

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Alan Wilkinson fronting Ya Basta at Flim Flam, Ryans Bar

Talking of L shaped rooms the L in the Flim Flam venue at Ryans Bar, again in Stoke Newington Church Street, has been removed after refurbishment. This venue is run by Alan Wilkinson, a free sax improviser of long standing and on Wednesdays presents the best of improvised music with an eclectic lineup of the famous and crazy in nearly equal measures.

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Charles Hayward does his half hour snare drum roll

For more varied musical fare there is the Fiddlers Elbow just outside the Camden Market tourist trap area, presenting live music every night. The main pub room is kinda pentagonal, with a dance floor.

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Purdy at the 606 Club

A mention for a few others such as the 606 in Chelsea, allegedly a members supper club, but which presents British jazz and soul in an atmospheric candle-lit cellar. In Soho there is Pizza Express and of course the famous Ronnie Scott’s, both also a bit supper club these days. Ronnie’s does attract some outstanding acts, often American, due to being established over 50 years ago by a very funny and excellent saxophone player. Great nights here have included Art Pepper, Airto, Stacey Kent and of course Nina Simone. Also recommended in Central London is the celebrated 100 Club in Oxford Street, still surviving after many years. Vividly remember gurning at Slim Gaillard here for a couple of hours and grooving to the late Tommy Chase Quartet.

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Blues Spiders at Ain’t Nothin But..

A good standby in town is the Ain’t Nothin But Blues Bar in Kingly Street, which does what it says on the tin 7 nights a week. Further East is the Village Underground, a cavernous venue under huge railway arches for Shoreditch hipsters who don’t like sitting down. Primarily a dance/pop venue it occasionally features jazz acts such as Snarky Puppy. The nearby Rich Mix in Bethnal Green has a more varied World music programme, but I am pleased to see James Blood Ulmer is appearing there soon, last seen at Cafe Oto.

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Alex Ward, Shabaka Hutchings, Steve Noble at Boat -Ting

Finally a big favourite is Boat-Ting, allegedly London’s hottest new music and poetry club, although after 14 years it’s not that new. Hosted by livewire Sybil Madrigal it regularly features NEW – with Britains best drummer, Steve Noble, powerhouse double bassist John Edwards and the virtuoso guitarist Alex Ward. Best of all this is a jazz club on a boat on the Thames, feel the waves like nowhere else..Bar-and-Co

So where else in the world could I stand 3 feet away from a world class musician on a regular basis? Answers on a postcard, maybe from New York.

Nearly all these places are dirty, cheap, relaxed, and half full some of the time.
You can find some more proper pics of some of these places at Z360 Live Music

Cafe Oto, Dalston

The Vortex, Dalston

Jazz Cafe, Camden

The iklektik, Lambeth

Flim Flam, Ryans Bar Stoke Newington

100 Club, 100 Oxford Street

Boat-Ting, Embankment The Thames

R.I.P. The Bull and Gate, Kentish Town. The Spitz, Spitalfields. The 12 Bar Club, Tin Pan Alley Denmark Street. The Red Rose, Finsbury Park. The Adelaide, Belsize Park. The Mean Fiddler, Harlesden. The original Marquee, Wardour Street Soho. The Moonlight aka Klooks Kleek, West Hampstead.

And don’t forget The Klinker wherever it is…

Update February 2019
Jazz is now back on upstairs at The Oxford, Kentish Town. George Crowley is no longer running the evening, but he was featured there recently and it was a great pleasure to see him destroying the “standard” he was requested to play.

Soul Diva 2015

I am not American, Black, or a Woman, but I could not fail to be moved by this inspired performance of Aretha Franklin. She was singing (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman by Carole King and Gerry Goffin at the 2015 Kennedy Center Honors.

Moving, because despite the trappings, it appears so spontaneous and genuinely soulful. Aretha starts off simply at the piano, belting out the chords, singing as if not a moment had passed since her original recording back in 1967. Soon she is moving off the rhythm, interpreting, comping and finally testifying, to an audience now on their feet. The 4 minutes seem like an entire concert that builds to a final operatic moment, with the audience in thrall to a true diva.

The atmosphere is heightened by the presence of the songwriter Carole King, who appears both surprised and delighted at this unexpected performance. In the same way the presence of The President and his wife lend the proceedings a gravity and wider meaning, given that back in 1967 America was riven by racial strife, and no-one expected to see a Black President in their lifetime.
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In one sense, to say that the best vocal performance of 2015 is by a 73 year old of a 50 year old song is a sad reflection on contemporary popular music. Where are the truly memorable new songs? What happened to singing with soul, conviction and meaning? We still need more of that…

PS Original High Quality Video withdrawn, hope this one works !

In the Church of The Necks

The Necks, the Australian jazz trance trio played 4 nights at Cafe Oto November 13th to 16th 2015. Each night they played 2 continuous improvised 50 minute sets to a rapt, reverential and appreciative audience.

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The Necks at Cafe Oto © Douglas Cape z360.com

To give you some idea of the unique nature of their playing here are my interpretations for each set over the four nights:

Friday 1 – Walking by a river then nearly drowned in the waves
Friday 2 – Scratching around to find the power of Rachmaninov

Saturday 1 – Simple – Building – Hypnotic – Incantatory
Saturday 2 – Birds in an African village later viewed from a huge helicopter

Sunday 1 – The Temple becomes a huge production line that is washed away
Sunday 2 – Starts with a bang and becomes a rhythmic tourbillon

Monday 1 – Millions die when the thunder rolls in
Monday 2 – The old Steamer beaches and is torn to shreds by nanobots

The closest antecedent to their style is the classic 1969 Miles Davis album In A Silent Way which summons a similar ever unfolding rhythm which develops slowly and organically to a quasi religious moment of trumpet satori. However The Necks have taken this template (which was in fact assembled by Miles and Teo Macero from studio edits) and created a unique assemblage incorporating nearly every form of modern music using the simplest of acoustic instruments – piano, bass and drums, to create improvised symphonies. It all seems to start so simply with a repeated loop of percussive sound which slowly builds, but before long you can hear an organ in the repeating changes, there is a sheet of electronic chatter, someone is shouting in a storm, the drums are obviously on a loop, the piano is an automaton…none of which is true. You are actually hearing classical piano, elements of Gamelan, the airport music of Eno, the systems music of Reich and Glass, the trance of The Orb, the chaos of Punk, the ear worms of Pop and the repetitive beats of EDM all working to a new maxim.

25 Second Timelapse movie of The Necks

The three members of The Necks arrive without pretension. Chris Abrahams the pianist is the artist lost in his own romantic motorik world, barely looking away from the keys. Lloyd Swanton the bassist is the businessman, looking sharp centre stage and taking care of the sparse announcements. Tony Buck the drummer is the hippy muso playing polyrythmically with his ethnographic percussion set. They are all leaders.

The Necks at Cafe Oto

Ethnographic Percussion Set

On the fourth night The Necks were joined by the legendary British free saxophonist Evan Parker. Their first set was the worst of the residency with Parkers squalling circular sax dominating in a much too saxophonic kind of way. Maybe words were said, but the second set was a revelation with the piano archly echoing the long lines of the sax which became just part of the movement and flux. It was over before we knew.

The Necks at Cafe Oto

Evan Parker hiding at the back

Thank You and Good Night to The Necks…

The Necks at Cafe Oto

All photographs and video taken on an iPhone 6

Sun Ra at Cafe Oto 24/11/14

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Edited iPhone Photo of Sun Ra Arkestra at Cafe Oto

Once again the Sun Ra Arkestra led by the dynamic 90 year old Marshall Allen graced the intimate confines of Cafe Oto with their vibrant presence. This was not one of their crazy barnstorming sets, but built slowly and very lyrically to a beautiful and charming moment at the end of the first set with the whole audience, virtually unprompted, chanting “Space is the Place” as the band wandered through them to take a well deserved interval.

A good part of the unique atmosphere of this show came from the commanding musical presence of Farid Barron playing grand piano, singing and unveiling the wonders of the Roli Seaboard. During the gig I could not understand where the new spatial sounds I was hearing emanated from. Of course I knew all about the wondrous use of synths Sun Ra had himself employed, having seen him with his Arkestra at The Venue, Victoria, back in the 80s, but this was something entirely new: both dynamic and luxuriant. There was none of the slight clumsiness and didacticism of the classic electronic keyboard – in fact I could not even see one. No, there was just a beautiful grand piano with what appeared to be 2 keyboards, one of which was taking me somewhere else entirely. If you look at the lo-res photo above you can just make out the light grey stripe (3cm deep) atop the piano, this is a Roli Seaboard GRAND Limited First Edition, with 88 keys which can be stroked, pushed, squeezed and pressed. I started hearing sounds and seeing playing which seemed impossible, but ok this was Sun Ra, so expect the unexpected!

During the second set, orchestrated carefully by Marshall, we had masked dancers, some great sax and EVI (electronic valve instrument) solos, yet the singing and the keyboards seemed to take us back in time to the grace and wonder of a 1930s spaceship, rather than the overheated modern version. This was in fact being accomplished by the unique rubbery and adaptive seaboard which “reimagines the piano keyboard as a soft, continuous surface” and allows “you to sound a note and then take it on a musical journey”. I was indeed transported…

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Roli Seaboard with continuous touch

After the gig I congratulated Farid and discovered the secret (and name) of this unique keyboard. It was a prototype made locally in Dalston which he had never seen before the gig and had only one hour to rehearse with. More information was forthcoming from one of the Roli technical team who was carefully putting away the seaboard, and yes this does indeed appear to be a revolutionary instrument which they intend to be a multi purpose interface with many different applications for music, gaming, you name it!

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Meanwhile here’s the Arkestra in full infra swing at Cafe Oto in 2011 with an old synth

Sun Ra Arkestra

And an even older panorama at Cafe Oto on the actual Sun Ra website here

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