Gjerstad/Nilssen-Love/Stephens + LOL

Paal Nilssen-Love and Frode Gjerstad are touring England with Nick Stephens (Circulasione Totale Orchestra bass man). Lol Coxhill is joining (or playing solo?)on two of the concerts! Tour dates stolen from Nilssen-Love's site.

Frode Gjerstad/Paal Nilssen-Love/Nick Stephens
Rumours at Cross Kings, London, UK (9 December)

Frode Gjerstad/Paal Nilssen-Love/Nick Stephens
Oxford Improvisors, Oxford, UK (10 December)

Frode Gjerstad/Paal Nilssen-Love/Nick Stephens
Blue Coat, Liverpool, UK (11 December)

Frode Gjerstad/Paal Nilssen-Love/Nick Stephens
Cafe OTO, London, UK plus Lol Coxhill (15 December)

Frode Gjerstad/Paal Nilssen-Love/Nick Stephens
The Lamp Tavern, Birmingham, UK plus Lol Cochill (16 December)

Fire Room

Fire Room is Ken Vandermark,Paal Nilssen-Love and Lasse Marhaug. "Broken Music" (Atavistic) came this spring, and I guess I just have to get it!

Les Miniatures

Musicophilia post a sampler with artists like John Cale, Robert Wyatt, Kevin Ayers and Heny Cow. This is in a series called "Les Miniatures", and I cant see (I may be a bit slow) if it's only originals, some remixes or if they have been out on vinyl earlier as "Le Tour du Monde". More research needed, but it will have to be later.

White Denim

According to Uncut White Denim wants to cooperate with John Cale and Robert Wyatt. John Cale should fit in just fine, but they better offer Robert some space if he's invited. But this is a band with good taste, that's for sure!

Andrew D'Angelo Trio

Bergen Jazzforum invited us all to a free concert Wednesday, with Andrew D'Angelo Trio, being Andrew D’Angelo(sax), Trevor Dunn (el-bass) and Jim Black (drums). This was hard swinging, great jazz, with rock elements (Black's muscles may be the reason for that). I started thinking of Back Door there, for some moments!
D'Angelo has also made records with Norwegian MoHa! guys Anders Hana and Morten Olsen as Morthana, but the newest album from them is in the name of Andrew D'Angelo Trio, since the Japanese record company wanted it that way. I hope I got that one right, but they only had one of those CDs left, and some other guy grabbed that one. Me, I spent almost the same amount of money I guess on a pint of dark, strong Christmas beer.

Rough Trade 30

Rough Trade turns 30, and Jeffrey Lewis has made a fantastic tribute video (viaDrowned in Sound). The wonderful Robert Wyatt singles of the 80s were on Rough Trade of course, and Wyatt is mentioned in Lewis' history lesson, and also two other artists whose albums Wyatt was on: Scritti Politti and Raincoats.

Live at Le Bataclan

Another Soft Machine recording (audience tape) is available at Elastic Rock: Live at Le Bataclan, Paris, June 25, 1969 (ER160).

Mike Ratledge – Lowery Organ, Piano
Hugh Hopper – Bass
Robert Wyatt – Drums, Vocals

1. Drum intro (0:15)
2. Moon In June (intro) (0:42)
3. Facelift (5:27)
4. Moon In June (proper) (13:57)
5. Clarence In Wonderland (2:58)
6. Mousetrap (6:49)
7. Noisette ( 0:34)
8. Backwards (2:27)
9. Mousetrap reprise (0:40)
10. Hibou Anemone and Bear (4:42)
11. Improv (2:42)
12. Esther's Nosejob (14:49)

Maize Davis?

Skarbø/Høyer/Hegre
Originally uploaded by svennevenn

Readers of this blog may have noticed that I'm more fond of small concerts, than huge arena shows. It's nothing like I want to be alone with the band, but I love the concerts they play in Bergen these days, in cafes and shops.
Lately I've been to three concerts in a shop called Robot, with 10-20 listeners. Øyvind Skarbø (dr) and Ola Høyer (b) have invited three different friends to join in a trio, to improvise. The two first ones out were Eirik Hegdal (sax) and Eugene Guribye (electronics and stuff) and yesterday noisemaker John Hegre (Noxagt, Jazkamer, Kaptein Kaliber etc) was joining on guitar and sticks. Nice!
Skarbø mainly played cymbals, pistaches and maize seeds, and the floor was in need of some serious cleaning afterwards. The man with the corn?

emusic

I am one of those guys who like to fill my house up with records and books, but have been shopping a bit on iTunes. I see some bloggers get their music at emusic and i think this looks interesting (and cheaper than iTunes). I don't like the subscription bit, but I might OK that if it's a good shop. If some of you readers would like to share your experience with emusic, please do.
I did my usual Robert Wyatt test in emusic, and found a tribute called "Robert Wyatt" on "Ralph Sounds" by Ralph Carney (Akron Cracker Records, 1997). Haven't heard that one before (as far as I remember, that is).

Ice music

Terje Isungset (ice) and Lena Nymark (vocal) was filmed during an ice concert at St Pancras Room at Kings Place London, earlier this month. Isungset did four concerts with different people (i believe), and I don´t know who the two other freezing persons on this video are.

The Kinks

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I have hardly mentioned The Kinks in this blog, so to make up I post a couple of videos (one resembling a Monty Python sketch) and help spread the news of a lot of old boys Christmas wish: "Picture Book", the first Kinks box (out 8 December). Info and titles at Pitchfork. Even if i like The Kinks, 130 songs on 6 CDs is a bit much for me (I'll stick to my "best of" album), but I hope all you other old boys get your nice present for Christmas.

Nilssen-Love/Marhaug/Ratkje

You may shorten the time to the All Ears festival 2009, by watching a recording of All Ears All Scars at the Bergen Nattjazz festival earlier this year. Musicians: Paal Nilssen-Love, Lasse Marhaug and Maja Ratkje. The sound on the recording is not at all like it was during the concert, but it's still a nice video.

Listened to and liked

Arild Andersen, Paolo Vinaccia, Tommy Smith: "Live at Belleville" (ECM 2008). Bass, drums and saxophone, that's good enough.

Lars Andreas Haug Quintet: "Fabatune" (Curling Legs, 2008).
Swinging baroque jazz with a twist. Tuba rules.

Susanna Karolina Wallumrød: "Flower of evil" (Rune, 2008).
Cover songs by Lou Reed, Thin Lizzy, Roy Harper, Nico, Sandy Denny and more. Even metal and a dark Nico is turned into something beautiful. I don't mind. Guest: Bonnie "Prince" Billy.

Ole-Henrik Moe: "Ciaccona.3 persephone perceptions" (Rune, 2008). To say that i "like" this one, might be pushing it quite a bit, but it is some impressive extreme sport for solo violin.
Violin: Kari Rønnekleiv.

Individualism Was A Mistake

Caroline Dubois, Claudia Fancello and Jacob Wren have created a theater piece called "Hospitality 3: Individualism Was A Mistake". It was performed in Toronto earlier this week, and even if this blog seldom focuses on theater, we just have to mentioned this one. In Globe And Mail (21 November) we may read that the actors tell stories while they are playing records, and "For example, Wren talks about Robert Wyatt, the drummer of the British rock band Soft Machine, who became both a paraplegic and a Communist after falling out of a second-storey window".

Winter sounds

A Personal Miscellany visited one of Terje Isungset's ice concerts during Scene Norway, at the London Jazz Festival. If you check Isungsets home page, you will also find the program for the Ice Music Festival 2009 (9-11 January), and info on the new album with ice music he will release during the festival. Stay cool.

Hot Chip and Wyatt 15 December

Several sites now tell (see Clash) that Hot Chip will let people download the new EP, where they work with Robert Wyatt, for free from their official web page 15 December. Wyatt works on "Made In The Dark' 'Whistle For Will' and 'We're Looking For A Lot Of Love'.

Marianne Faithfull

Marianne Faithfull's new album is a collection af covers. "Easy Come Easy Go" (Naive 2008) may be bought as a single CD or a double CD (and DVD). She sings Dolly Parton, Traffic, Eno, Smokey Robinson, Merle Haggard (and others) and brings along people like Hal Willmer (prod), Mark Ribot and Joey Baron in the band. Guest vocalists are (among others!) Keith Richards, Nick Cave, Jarvis Cocker and the usual suspects Antony, Rufus Wainwright, the McGarrigle sisters and Teddy Thompson. Marianne Faithfull's voice is just beautiful, and the album is great. A lot of the songs were recorded live in the studio, on the first take. Way to go. On the video she sings Eno's "How many worlds".

Wyatt vinyl

It was good to see the "new" Robert Wyatt LPs in a good record store in Bergen, fresh and fine. I bought my copies of "Rock Bottom" and "Ruth is Stranger than Richard" used, back in the 70s, so they look a bit tired even if I treated them well. Alfies covers are great, but the "Ruth is Stranger" cover is not 100% like the original, is it? It's like the Hannibal CD-edition from 1998 with more of the color blue.
"Theatre Royal Drury Lane" comes as a Double LP, but no fold out cover. Great package, with good, heavy vinyl.

Everything that happens

I have mentioned this record earlier too, but let me just remind you that the CD version of David Byrne and Brian Eno's "Everything that happens will happen today" (Todomundo 2008) is in all good record shops. You get a nice cover, a nice booklet and lots of nice music. It seems like David Byrne suggested lyrics to Eno's music, and they took it from there. If "My life in the bush of ghost" was a bit spooky, this one is cozy (no offense meant!). Robert Wyatt is doing a "framed drum solo" on "Strange Overtones".

Playlist: Robert Wyatt

Robert Wyatt is interviewed in today's The Guardian , on musical favorites. He mentions Louis Armstrong, Schönberg, Britten, Randy Crawford and Stevie Wonder, and here comes "The Internationale" again too. A bit of red flag waving there, at the end of the interview.

Chris Corsano

Norwegian drummer Øyvind Skarbø has his own Jazz Forum. Saturday evening at Landmark in Bergen we got the post rock/indie band Blokk 5, and poetry to music by Swedish guys Fredrik Nyberg and Lars Carlsson in Monomono! Poetry and jazz, or poetry and acoustic guitar may not be the most exciting stuff, but how about poetry and noise? Quite nice! And the guys were on their knees all through their set. Way to read!
The main artist was drummer Chris Corsano. He gave us a great solo set, using sticks, bows, electronics and "stuff" (a taste). Drum solo on a Saturday night, it can't get any better, can it?
And once again, I stumbled home late with a new tattoo. Oh no!

Songs they never play on the radio

James Young's fine book "Nico. Songs they never play on the radio" is being republished. James Young was Nico's keyboard player in the last part of her career, and the book focuses on the period 1982-1988 (when Nico died). This is no standard A-Z rock biography then, but more like a warm (!)story about being on tour with a junkie. John Cale, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and John Cooper Clarke and more show up, and what a tiresome trip it must have been.
As far as I can see, the book will be published by two different companies, Fortune Teller Press (20 November) and Overlook Press 30 December.
I have mentioned this book earlier in the blog too.
For a library person like myself, the first sentence of the first chapter is something of a reminder: "Libraries are where you go when you're afraid of your dreams"!

Shleep is coming

In an advertisement for Domino (read in Uncut) they claim that the double vinyl reissue of "Shleep" (out 17 November) will have a "full side of exclusive material". According to Amazon the tunes are:
"Te Recuerdo Amanda"
"Yolanda"
"When Access Was A Noun"
"Fridge"
"Salt/Ivy"
"Signed Curtain (Plus Cornet)"
"September In The Rain"
"I Wonder How Your Breathe Can Last".
The same songs seem to be on the single CD too. A bit more info on the Domino site would help.

Signed Robert Wyatt CDs

Phil Manzanera's web shop offers signed Robert Wyatt CDs. These are not the new Domino editions, but so what? Most of the money from these sales will end up in Robert's pockets. You may buy signed Phil Manzanera albums too, or how about Roxy Music and Quiet Sun CDs signed by the same man? Try "Diamond Head" with Robert Wyatt in Spanish on "Frontera". (Via StrongComet).

Autumn melancholia

Erik Flaa's debut album "Still that bird is singing" is out now. Here he sings duet with Susanna Wallumrød on "Final Hour", and you may listen to this fine tune on MySpace. Flaa participated in Norwegian Idol too!
Autumn melancholia is seeping out from CD players and computers these days. Erik Flaa and Susanna today, Rockettothesky yesterday and let us just look to Sweden while we are at it, and invite Stina Nordenstam in too. I just have to start to listen more to her stuff!

Rockettothesky

You should check out Rockettothesky's album "Medea" (Trustme 2008). As far as I'm able to read on the dark cover, Rockettothesky (Jenny Val) is doing most of the stuff herself. It's pop, it's a bit gloomy, and sometimes very quiet. Music to play loud, while you are sitting in your best chair, having a cup of tea and staring out into the darkness, perhaps. Here is a video to the song "Grizzly Man".A bit, eh, grizzly?

Mitch Mitchell July 9, 1947 – November 12, 2008

June Tabor: Strange Affair

June Tabor, one of the finest singers, covers Richard Thompson, one of the best song smiths ever. Sad and beautiful it is, with Martin Simpson on guitar. Perhaps you want to give someone a gift?

Street art auction, bergen

Some of the street art that will be auctioned this Sunday, to raise money for street papers, were shown in Bergen yesterday. I caught some of them, and you'll find them in my Flickr set. Read more here if you want to bid.

Pascal Comelade

Pascal Comelades new "best of" collection "The no dancing" is out today. Here you get Comelade with Jaki Liebezeit, PJ Harvey and Robert Wyatt ("September Song"). The titles of some of the tracks may get some peoples attention. How about "Blank Invasion Of Schizophonics Bikinis"? Check out the "Russian Roulette" and "I can’t control myself" videos too. Nice!

Barbara Morgenstern

Barbara Morgenstern's CD "BM" is on the market, and Robert Wyatt is singing on the beautiful song "Camouflage". I don't know anything about Barbara Morgenstern, but "Camouflage" sounds different than her other stuff. I bought only the one song from I-Tunes, but it's possible to find it on MySpace too.

Songza

I just discovered Songza. A real Google like interface, and access to music from different sources. Only for listening and watching, not for downloading.

What More Can I Say ...

"What More Can I Say ..." is a nice collection of demos and song sketches from Kevin Ayers on Reel Recordings . Most of it is solo, and sounds like home recordings, but well known friends of Ayers like Archie Legget, Eddie Sparrow, David Bedford, Mike Oldfield and Robert Wyatt (dums on one track) are also here.
Read a good interview with Kevin Ayers on this album in a Goldmine blog.
It's not possible to buy the record from Reel Recordings yet (?), so I got mine from Voiceprint.

Scene Norway

14-22 November "we" invade London with "Scene Norway" at Kings Place. At least we export Arve Henriksen, Terje Isungset, Bugge Wesseltoft, Jan Bang, Mari Boine, Sidsel Endresen, Susanna Wallumrød, Ketil Bjørnstad, Hild Sofie Tafjord and Nils Petter Molvær and others.
Related articles here, here, here, here og here. Some of these events might get a bit frosty.

Robert Wyatt here, there and everywhere

Mojo (no. 181, December 2008) let the fans choose "How to buy Robert Wyatt". "Rock Bottom" is number one (of course), followed by "Shleep", "Ruth is Stranger Than Richard", Soft Machine ("Vol 1&2", counts as one here), "Nothing Can Stop Us", "Matching Mole", "Comicopera", "His Greatest Misses" and "Old Rottenhat". A nice shopping list, but let me just sneak "Dondestan" in around number 6,5 or something.

Uncut (no. 139, December 2008) offers the CD "The Paul Weller Jukebox" to the people, and Weller chose Robert Wyatt's "Free Will and Testament". Good to see Wyatt on CD with Little Richard and Chuck Berry!
As if this was not enough, Uncut also has an "Album by Album" guide to Kevin Ayers, with his own comments.

Check out 39. Deutsches Jazzfestival's site, where they have published lots of pictures from the festival (see Michael Mantler, Karen Mantler, John Surman, Bill Frisell, Gilad Atzmon, Robert Wyatt and others).

I wanna be good

I like Karen Mantler´s music, and i like cats too. This song is from an album called "My Cat Arnold" (ECM 1988), and if Karen Mantler has famous parents (Michael Mantler and Carla Bley), the male vocalist is named Eric Mingus. I wanna be good!

Even more of Robert Wyatt in the media

I promise not to post every single paper or blog that review the reisssues of the old Robert Wyatt albums, but just show you Geir Rakvaags piece in the Norwegian newspaper Dagsavisen (paper version 1 November 2008). They have been supporting Robert all the way, and way to go it is! The title means "Music for everybody"!

Musiknews was at the Frankfurt festival.

The blog "Muzik gezien" got lots of pictures from Frankfurt, also from "Wyatt variations".

New York Times (4 November) has a piece on the guitarist Mary Halvorsen . Let's just cite from the interview: "But in her own playing she will often introduce obstacles to fluency: a rhythmic hiccup, a mangled chord. Two of her favorite musicians are Robert Wyatt, the British prog-rocker turned jazz fabulist, and John Dieterich, who plays guitar in Deerhoof, a shrewdly ungainly indie-rock band".

Panzerpappa

Panzerpappa might be Norway's only Canterbury band. Read about the band, and take a listen on MySpace.
If you are in Oslo 15 November, you may hear them live at the club Amatøren.

Golonka Love

The Core's new double live album called "Golonka Love" (Moserobie 2008) is out for you to buy (but not on the Moserobie site still!). You get three concerts from Poland, where the band seem to have an enthusiastic audience. The newest concert is recorded in Szczecin in February 2008 with Espen Aalberg (dr), Steinar Raknes (b), Erlend Slettevoll (Rhodes) and Jørgen Mathisen (sax). This is a quite new The Core-sound to me, but it swings more than OK. The recordings from Lublin (Mars 2007) and Poznan (December 2007) with Kjetil Møster (sax) and Slettevoll on piano sound even better to my ears.On the last concert they also have a DJ playing records with the band. For some moments I was wandering who the hell was singing and playing accordion with The Core.
Great band. Great record. Play loud.
The Core have always been a great live band, and also nice guys who put live recordings on their website.

Street art for street papers. Press release.

I received a press release from Megafon, the Bergen street paper, today. They have collected 80 pictures from 61 street artists from all over the world. 16 November they will hold an auction in bergen, and the pictures will be exhibited from 10 November. It will be possible to bid by telephone and on the net, but I'm not sure if foreigners may participate. I'll check up on that, and come back with more info, and even manage name the artists who made the two pictures in this post.
Money from the auction will be used to arrange a Street Noise concert in support of the International Network of Street Papers (INSP).
You may try for some more info from Morten Heszlein- Lossius: morten@megafon.no.

INSP: www.street-papers.org
Megafon: www.megafon.no
Bergen kunsthall: www.kunsthall.no

Added Wednesday: It will be possible to make bids from abroad too (telephone and web).

A bit of Wyatt in the papers

According to The Oxford Times Ingrid Laubrock is citing Robert Wyatt on the album "Sleepthief". Wyatt says: "I’m not interested any more in what style someone’s playing. The only thing I listen to is the voice and whether it tells me something." Read a review and see a video in the great blog Free Jazz.

I hope you still have your German dictionary at hand (at least those of you that are not too familiar with the German language), because today's lesson is trying to understand Frankfurter Allgemeine's Frankfurt festival piece.

Frankfurt Jazz

The first reports from the jazz festival in Frankfurt are coming around. One day was dedicated to Robert Wyatt's music, and even if he didn't go on stage himself, he was seated up front all evening. I'll try to look for more reports, reviews and pictures in blogs and newspapers, and post later. Now, please find your German - English (or German - other language) dictionary, and read "Pflasterstrand".

Jimmy Carl Black 1938-2008

I was just surfing the net this morning, while listening to Jon Larsen's new record "The Jimmy Carl Black Story" (Zonic Entertainment 2008), and I suddenly realized that "the indian of the group" died 31 October. Sad news indeed.
Larsen's record is a double CD, where the first one is a quite surrealistic musical travel to Mars, while Jimmy Carl Black tells his own story on CD 2. The music is OK (makes me think a bit on Jean Luc Ponty in the 70s), and Jimmy Carl Black is a good story teller, and it's quite moving to listen to it these days of course, even if it's a good old rock and roll story!
See the previous album too.

Circulasione in Finland

Circulasione Totale Orchestra played in Tampere in Finland yesterday, with this crew:
Louis Moholo-Moholo - drums
Morten J. Olsen electronics - drums
Anders Hana - el.guitar
Frode Gjerstad - sax,clarinets
Nick Stephens - acoustic bass
Paal Nilssen-Love - drums
Ingebrigt H. Flaten - acoustic bass
Børre Mølstad - tuba
Sabir Mateen - sax and clarinets
Kevin Norton - vibraphone
Bobby Bradford - cornet
Hild Sofie Tafjord - electronics
John Hegre - soundman
This is the same band as the one that played at the Molde festival this summer, except from Hild Sofie Tafjord, who stepped in for Lasse Marhaug.
Frode Gjerstad writes that Finnish television recorded the concert, and it will be offered European Countries through EBU. Great news!
Sorry to the ones who wrote me after the Molde festival and asked if I knew if anything was recorded. I messed up my e-mails and lost the addresses (and, no I don't deal in sound files). Perhaps someone out there knows more than me: Was the Circulasione concert (or other concerts) recorded for radio or CD release in Molde?

Soft Heap

Soft Heaps " Al Dente" (Reel Recordings 2008) has arrived. This is a good live recording from 1978 (The Phoenix Club, Londddon), with Hugh Hopper (b), Elton Dean (as, saxello), Alan Gowen (p, synth) and Pip Pyle (dr). The bandet existed with this crew only in 1978 (I think). It smells jazz rock, but it smells quite good, and if more people shop, more money will go directly to Hugh Hopper. Hopper is not able to work these days, since he is being treated for leukemia.

Larger parts of the profits from the November sales of Hopper-related material at MoonJune, will also go directly to Hopper.

Cutler was here!

Ivor Cutler's labels
Originally uploaded by thisisp

thisisp found traces of poet, musician and maker of stickers, Ivor Cutler!

"it is up to you
whether you read
this label - my advice
is just to ignore it."
Ivor Cutler