1. Wednesday November 25th. Lost Robots play in their lower-key semi-acoustic incarnation at Oliver's Music Bar, Greenwich, alongside some very interesting other artists. Details here.

2. Friday November 27th - Scaledown. In a duo with Paul May, and with Lost Robots.
(click for enlargement)

Please note- I've managed to wangle my way into two combos for this evening, although I doubt I'll be paid twice.

3. Saturday November 28th - Tale of What! Lewisham Arthouse, in a trio with Paul May and Martin Hackett


Be nice to see any of you at any of these, as I'll probably have to stay in for month to pay for this excess!

Quite a lot of interesting things happening at the moment-

Mark Spybey, Steve Dinsdale and myself have finished recording an album (probably a vinyl LP) under the name "Pata-Particles". It's a wayward, multi-styled, fairly far-out beast, that even includes me playing the most skronky guitar I've done since the early 90s.

My EP "Three Ings" is about to be released by Fat Ghost. It's three new-ish songs with lyrics, tunes and entirely acoustic instrumentation. I'm very pleased with them.

I have contributed vocals to two tracks by the experimental folk/noise outfit "The Earliest Humans" for an album to be released in the new year.

There are serious hints that some Drop material from 1979 may be getting a welcome physical release. At which point the free MP3 bonanza in the previous post will probably be discontinued - so if lo-fi post-punk is your bag, fill your boots.

And I have two gigs coming up - on Friday 27th of November I'll be playing an improv duo with the extraordinary drummer Paul May at Scaledown - I'll be doing my squeezebox/electronics schtick.

And the following evening I have another improv gig, practically on my own doorstep at Lewisham Arthouse, this time with Thorn Gas (with Martin Hackett and, in place of Paul Hood, er Paul May again!) Details of that gig below.

More info on all to follow - but it's good news, I haven't been this busy musically for about 8 years!

To celebrate its 30th Anniversary, I have decided to make available the "legendary" cassette "Definitive" by my band of the time, Drop. Copies of this cassette have been circulating for many years, Radio Cleveland played bits of it over the airwaves, Julian Cope raved about it and unsuccessfully tried to get us signed to Zoo records, and Mark Hammonds probably still has a copy wrapped in cotton wool in his loft.

Drop coelesced out of my first punk band, The Silencers, and by the end of 1978, the steady line-up was-

Richard Sanderson - Vocals/Guitar
Neil Jones- Keyboards
Chris Oberon - Bass
Andy Kiss - Drums



We played our first gig at The Wellington in Middlesbrough (alongside Basczax, The Barbarians and others) where, scared to death, we rushed through a 17 song set in as many minutes. We played about 6 more gigs, at various places including the Teessider and Marton Sixth Form College, before I left, after going a bit loopy, late in the summer of 1979.

I still feel a strong affection for these songs - all written when I was aged 16 to 18, when I didn't drink, and seemed to be in a fury of creativity. The influences are pretty obvious, and tend to come from what I was listening to on John Peel at the time, Joy Division, The Fall and particularly Wire are all pretty evident.

These recordings are not exactly hi-fi, they were recorded at my parents house on a mono cassette recorder. We were schoolkids, so going into a studio was pretty much out of the question, and portastudios were still a few years off. But the mix of instruments and voice is pretty good, and I've heard a lot worse quality bootlegs.

We recorded this tape to try to get more gigs, and it didn't succeed in that, but Larry Ottaway of BBC Radio Cleveland was very enthusiastic about it, and a single on his "Pipeline Product" imprint was mooted. Julian Cope, who I'd met at Middlesbrough Rock Garden on the same day I left school, was also terrifically positive about it - comparing it to (amongst other things) The Seeds and Soft Machine, neither of whom I'd actually heard at the time, and pushed a reluctant Zoo records to sign us. They didn't.

After I left (eventually to join Tick Tick as bassist, preferring a more collaborative role) the band Drop continued without me, with Chris Oberon taking over the front man duties, and they recorded a single, before changing their name to "Colour Nine".

So here is the entire "Definitive" cassette. Although all recorded on the same day, the songs range in age from 1977 ("Sinking") to just before the recording was made (the giving-the-game-away "New Direction") For those of you who use iPods and iTunes, I've transcribed the lyrics which you can now view. To my 49 year old self they range from the excruciatingly embarrassing to the liveable-with, but they're there and I wrote them.

Be 16 again.

1. Instro 1.35
2. Burning The Evidence 4.23
3. Get The Point 1.09
4. Diamond 1.45
5. Frozen Film 2.48
6. New Direction 2.50
7. Nothing Changes (long version) 1.18
8. No Rock 3.23
9. French Windows 3.29
10. Sinking 3.22
11. Nothing to Nowhere 1.32
12. I Want to Watch 1.27
13. Making The Connection 2.11
14. In The Background 1.07
15. Running Out of Time 3.13
16.Move Me 3.12
17.The New Education 1.15
18.Talking To Myself 1.33
19. Instrumental With Fade 1.32
20. I Wanna Be Your Dog 5.10
22. Radio Cleveland Feature 6.16

All songs composed and (c) Richard Sanderson, except "I Wanna Be Your Dog" by The Stooges, and Instro, which was a group composition

Special thanks to Neil, Chris and Andy - I know I wasn't always easy to work with, but your dedication and musicality carried me along. I would love to hear from you again. Thanks also to the other, less permanent members of Drop 1978-79 - Genevieve Pink, Stewart Rickard, Mark Sanderson and Mark Spybey.

Well, somebody's got to do it.

Actually I think I look quite cool, in a geeky sort of way...

(photo taken by Kev Hopper at last Wednesday's "Thorn Gas" gig)

It's become another annual event on here to record the two minute silence at the Cenotaph on Rememberance Sunday - or rather the ambience of the Sanderson household at that time. (inspired by Jonty Semper's "Kenotaphion" project)

Here is this year's silence (MP3)

Last year's is here.

The Bagrec Annual Blackheath Fireworks Post.

This was the second year running that we missed the ginormous fireworks display in Blackheath - it's still a little overwhelming for 2 and 3 year olds...

However we were able to watch it, with a confusing 5 second sound delay from the window of our new loft extension, which has a lovely view over the parks to Blackheath - and the show wasn't half bad - it featured a new (to me) firework design which resembled an opening daisy.

And being from this distance we were spared any "accompanying" music (a real bete noire of mine) other than the glorious (if out of sync) music of the fireworks themselves.

I have another gig with "Thorn Gas" the improv trio consisting of Paul Hood (turntables), Martin Hackett (synthesizer) and myself (squeezebox thru electronics). The last one I publicised actually resulted in one paying customer, so maybe I can repeat that feat by announcing a performance this Wednesday at Klinker South (The Ivy in Nunhead). Also on is the improv duo of Blurt's Dave Aylward with Tom Scott performing as "Rabbit" and some bloke who apparently works with with hotwired "Furby" toys...

Details here...

I've become a bit obsessed by this song recently-



It's called "Timer" and it's by Laura Nyro, and I've known it for years but recently I've become completely fascinated by it, as its strangeness, rather than wearing off through familiarity has increased.

On first hearing it sounds like what it basically is - a Brill Building style 60's pop song with pretensions. But on repeated listenings the oddness becomes more apparent- where, for example is the chorus? In fact the song seems to be lots of different choruses stuck together, and then...what the hell's it about?

On first hearing I thought the title was just an abbreviation of the American expression "Ol' Timer", but after much listening I've become convinced it's a song about the nature of time itself. It's about the fractured nature of time and memory (a "jigsaw") and ageing ("I belong to timer, he changed my face") and nostalgia ("I could walk through those doors to a pleasureground"). And if these lyrical clues weren't enough then there's the song itself which goes through umpteen different time signatures in less than 3 and a half minutes. Complexity pop indeed.

I recently heard an interview with the author David Peace in which he talked about his habit of copying out by hand chunks of books he admired in an effort to work out how the author had written it - an admirable practice I think, and one I'm tempted to try with "Timer" as I still can't get to the bottom of this song. I still find the song utterly fascinating, and occasionally a bit irritating - the intro for example, with it's slightly hysterical rushing (missed out of a later live version interestingly) and her own multitracked harmonies, much revered by her fans, but which I find distracting, Nyro sounded so much better with others providing the harmonies (such as Labelle on the sublime "Gonna Take a Miracle"), and, well I could do without the reference to God too.

But these are minor quibbles about a song of such glorious optimism, and wonderful orchestration - the rolling piano and those chimes, man. A wise and wonderful song about time, written by a woman who was aged just 20 when it was recorded in 1968, and yet was almost exactly two fifths of the way through her life too. Just more levels of time-related irony there...

And yet I'm told Laura Nyro's cat was called "Timer".

The puzzle continues...



There's a good quality full-length version of "Timer" on Last FM, here

Despite the weather, Blackheath Morris Men are dancing in Greenwich this afternoon, meeting at the Mitre at 2.30pm. We'll be outside Greenwich Picturehouse before the showing of "Morris - A Film With Bells On" at 4pm.
Details of the film are here

"A heartwarming feature-length comedy about an avant-garde Morris Dancer, Derecq Twist, and his fight to modernise Morris Dancing."

bagrec is taking a short holiday.
Back soon!

I didn't know



we were young

My two year old daughter decided to walk back after dropping off my son at nursery, wearing sunglasses (even though it's cloudy) with her hands thrust deep into her pockets and a sulky expression. I had a sudden vision of the punky teenager she'll be in 12 years time.

And I loved her for it.

I wish I had a photo of the two of us actually, especially as I'm sporting spiky sticky up hair at the moment.

When I met up with my old friend Mark Spybey, and my cousin and friend Mark Sanderson, I wanted to establish how we started making music together, because it's actually a rather unusual thing for friends to start doing. I made some notes, and then wrote this down whilst waiting for the count at the Lewisham East Labour Party Selection Hustings (I'm sure people thought I was a journalist) now transcribed from reams of spidery writing

Mark Sanderson and Mark Spybey were in the same class at primary school in Redcar. Being about 5 months older than Mark Sanderson (here-in referred to as "Sandy") I'd known Sandy forever. I got to know Spybey when we were all about 11 years old. We came together through a shared love of science fiction and Gerry Anderson programmes, and we all played together in Zetland Park, Redcar.



Some time when we were about 12 we all became interested in music - some of this came from playing with tape recorders- reel-to-reels which were owned by both Sandy and I's fathers - messing around with speeds and sound effects to make mock radio programmes. Sandy remembers me recording my eye (?) whilst I remember first experimenting with tape loops. We were also listening to highlights from my Dad's record collection, which in amongst the usual budget classical there lurked John Cage and BBC Radiophonic workshop LPS. Sandy's Dad had a John Barry LP which we were all hugely impressed by, and Spybey's older brother John's "rock" record collection included the regular prog classics but also oddities like Tangerine Dream's "Phaedra".

Around this time I'd discovered the music of Hawkwind (after an article in Science Fiction Monthly about SF in rock) which brought together several interests - science fiction, weird noises and rock music. We, as friends, moved from listening (and miming) to music, to wanting to make it - and "Space Rock" was our destination. "Solaris" (named by me after the Tarkovsky film) was born.

Spybey progressed from playing his parent's armchair to playing Sandy's Dad's Boys Brigade snaredrum (this was last seen in Sandy's Dad's garden being used to "force" rhubarb, although curiously a member of Blackheath Morris has an identical one, which I will photograph). Mark Sanderson took up the guitar, and I played the piano.

Of course none of us could actually play. We all found strategies for getting around this obstacle- I got round this by hitting clusters on the piano with my fist whilst keeping the sustain pedel permanently down (a sound nicked from Rick Wright's work on Floyd's "A Saucerful of Secrets" that at times sounds like a very feeble Cecil Taylor impersonator) Sandy took a radical aproach to the guitar, by playing mainly with a slide and employing a furious strumming technique. Many years later I realised his style was remarkably similar to that of Sonny Sharrock, the seminal free jazz guitarist.

Spybey played the one drum we had with brushes, producing cyclical patterns (again influenced by Floyd) which gave the otherwise meterless music a strong rhythmic undertow.

We recorded "albums" in 1974 ("Encapsulated Insanity") and 1975 ("Siralos") when we would have been aged around 13 and 14. An "album" was effectively a cassette that had got to the stage where it was filled up with songs, jams and improvisations. Beautiful, intricate covers were then made for them using collage techniques we'd all suddenly become very enthusiastic about - all gate-folds and fold-outs as was the prog fashion of the times.



Other instruments began to be used - tin whistles (which I endeavoured to play in the style of my hero, Nik Turner of Hawkwind), the old reel-to-reel was employed to produce feedback, and my cousin bought a Stylophone - the closest thing to the beloved synthesizer that we could get. Sandy maintains that I once walked into an electronics shop in Middlesbrough, pointed to the tuning knob on the back of the Stylophone and asked "Can I get a more variable one of those?"

The band expanded a couple of times - Neil Jones (later to join me in Drop) added a more dexterous version of the thump and crash piano style I'd developed, and at one point we had a vocalist in the lugubrious form of the mysterious Lou Reed sound-alike, Rob Walker, a school-friend of mine from round the corner who also owned a reed organ.

The demise of Solaris, was brought about, oddly enough, by a desire to be more musically proficient, Mark (and I for a while) joined up with some local kids with real instruments, some ability and a Wishbone Ash fixation, before Sandy and I got together again with Neil Jones to form "Sky" or "The Earth Ensemble" which riffed on a Third Ear Band /Macbeth obsession of mine and stuck to a similar instrumentation to Solaris, before becoming the punk group "The Silencers", later "Genny (pronounced "Jenny") and the Silencers" then "Strange People", then "Drop" where, for a while all the old Solarians were re-united. Our imagination and ambition coupled with a lack of technical ability and dirt-cheap instruments ensured we finally fell in perfectly with the punk zeitgeist. At last.

Soundfiles (MP3)
Return To Chaos Part 4 (1975 - from "Siralos")
Protoplasmic Ocean (1974 - from "Encapsulated Insanity")
Thunder Part 2 (1974 - from "Encapsulated Insanity")


Solaris, Redcar 2009 -

Mark Spybey, Richard Sanderson and Mark Sanderson (photo - Steve Dinsdale)

I am completely exhausted.

Terrific weekend though.

We were lucky enough to be invited to a terrific wedding here-



That's my daughter in the foreground, I'd taken her for a bit of time out, as both kids found the experience a little overwhelming. They didn't half like the train, the animals and the cake though. I found the event extremely touching and very wonderful.

Then today was the Blackheath Morris End of Season Tour-

Here you can see Geva and I trying to whisk away roadworks with our hankies. And me, afterwards, looking as exhausted as I feel...

I've finally finished recording and mixing this with Clive Pearman-



Three new songs! With words and tunes and everything!

Lost Robots will be performing live at Recluse tomorrow (Thursday) night. Recluse is at The Flea Pit, 49 Columbia Road, London, E2 7RG.

Also performing are Alex Monk and Oscar Lomas and the marvellous Alan Tomlinson Trio (Alan Tomlinson - trombone, Phil Marks - drums, Dave Tucker - guitar)

There's a weird connection in that three of Lost Robots used to be in the Fall cover band "The Hideous Replicas" and Dave Tucker used to play clarinet with The Fall.

Lost Robots have elected to play acoustically for this event - the line up probably being, Mark Braby - voice, percussion and things, Andy Coules - bass, Clive Pearman - banjo and Richard Sanderson - squeezebox, clarinet and small instruments. We will be improvising.

Also promised are DJ sets from Hybernation and visuals from FBox Records.

Admission is a recession busting £3.

In the meantime, Lost Robot's last performance - a remarkably restrained improvisation at Scaledown is now available as a download. 14 mins for a mere 69p.

Some people don't like this kind of thing....


...some people are daft.

Last weekend, the morris team I joined 5 years ago, Blackheath Morris Men celebrated 40 years of existence. Despite the best efforts of morris historians there's still a fair amount of the history of the team which become obscured by time, but the best estimates place the formation of the team at Goldsmith's College around 1969. For a while the team was known as the "Foot and Death Men" and the early days had an "alternative" reputation that saw them doing benefit gigs for squatters and playing alongside Hawkwind. 40 years later the team is still going,and whilst we're all too old to be that anarchic, there are still some lingering elements of non-conformity. This, for me, is part of the appeal of this bunch of blokes.

So we had a big bash over the weekend gathering (with 16 morris team friends, some 250 odd people) at The Old Elthamian's Sports Club in Chislehurst on Friday night, with much folk tune playing and nattering, and drinking. Then after a chilly night's camping, we flooded into town on Routemasters and took over the Borough/Bankside area and danced, and nattered and drank, before going back to Chislehurst for a feast and a ceilidh, another chilly night and finally finishing up at The Bull's Head for a final round of dancing and....well you get the picture.

There's a nice report of the Sunday blast on Francis Sedgemore's excellent blog.

And here are some pictures I took (I was rather busy running around organising people or washing up, so I didn't take that many)





More here

By the way, can anyone spot Gordon Brown in the audience in the top photograph? (you may need to click on it to enlarge it, but he is there...)

Walking from the campsite to the Bull's head in Chislehurst for the final part of the Blackheath Morris 40th Anniversary Celebrations, I took a wrong turning somewhere. Whilst this was a bit of pain, I did come across this bonfire in a field which resulted in these two slightly eerie photographs-

(click on them to enlarge)