Baggage Reclaim

Baggage Reclaim Has Moved

Sat, 09 Apr 2011 22:27:23 GMT

Baggage Reclaim continues regularly HERE

Moving House

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 10:47:44 GMT

Apologies if you've had problems accessing this blog lately. LiveJournal has been subject to ongoing cyber attacks and has proven itself to be unstable and extremely vulnerable. No-one's admitting anything, but the future is not looking good, even for those like me who still pay for the service.

Consequently I am moving over to bagrec.blogspot.com.

Please join me there.

Thank you to all the people who have read this blog over the last seven years and 2890 (!) posts.

Wrong Moves (Part One)

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 19:57:15 GMT

Back when Julian Cope wrote that nice article about me, which ended with horror "He'd turned into Edwyn Collins!"*, I promised I'd write about what went wrong with my music and how I got better. That was never going to be an easy post to write, but after some thought I'm gritting my teeth and getting down to it.

Pretty much from 1980 onwards I've regretted leaving Drop, just at a point when everything seemed to be going right. We had a growing listenership, celebrity endorsement, were being played on the radio and even had a vague promise of a release on "Pipeline Product", Larry Ottoway's label that had previously released the Basczax single.

So what went wrong? Well, in a word, me. I went wrong. In the summer of 1979, when I was 18, I had a kind of breakdown - everything got to be too much, and I ended up in hospital. It wasn't pretty. I know this sounds like I'm over-egging this tale, but I do remember lying in a bed in Hemlington Hospital listening to a track ("Burning The Evidence" I think) being played on Radio Cleveland on a Saturday morning and realising that I couldn't do Drop anymore.

After I got out, I went to the Rock Garden the night The Piranhas played and got drunk for the first time and I joined Tick Tick on bass (an instrument I've never been a natural player of) enjoying for the first time playing a truly collaborative role in songwriting.
At the time I'd become a bit frustrated with writing all the Drop material - in the blindness of self-obsession I was unaware of what sympathetic and wonderful musicians I had in Drop, and the fact that I was able to...er..bend them to my will with no complaints, is something that few composers experience. I was in fact very lucky.**

So for a year or so I was with Tick Tick, which was a bit of gang - and very democratic, everybody wrote lyrics and had a hand in composing. It was great fun... and the five piece version with Paul Fowler on drums really rocked.

After that I decided I wanted my own vehicle again, and I formed "Halcyon Days" with Paul D Brazill and Ronnie Burke (later mutating into "Oceans 11") . But somewhere along the line I'd lost my mojo. Times had moved on from the initial excitement of post-punk, we'd had the New Romantics, and Goth (still unnamed at the time) was in the ascendent. I unwisely started wearing make-up, whilst I wanted the band to be somewhere between The Fall and the kind of classic songwriting that Vic Godard was espousing at the time, oh yeah, and Orange Juice. Trouble is, to do that kind of thing you actually need to be quite good - and I just wasn't. Whatever had driven me in Drop had gone, the songs were weak, the melodies cliched. I was lost, disorientated and slowly sinking. Even drafting in the extraordinarily gifted Peter Ord on second guitar and keyboards and composing and arranging duties didn't help- I was clearly not going to be the post-punk Cole Porter. I can't say I can blame Julian for hating what I was doing by then, I was floundering badly, and my songs were largely rubbish.

So that band drifted away (although we remained friends) and I didn't do anything at all for a year or so, until I finally found the answer - Suicide. The New York minimalist duo, Suicide, that is. I got together a minimalist backing tape made using a cheap casio, started writing some new, unsentimental songs, and started doing solo gigs under the name of The Euphoria Case. Eventually I got some musicians to help me - my then girlfriend Helen Walker on keyboard, a girl called Dionne (formerly of Darlo band Bendy Sticks) on bass, and Ronnie Burke on drums. We managed to get one lousy review in Sounds (of this gig) before we suddenly upped the game by dragging in Ste Weatherall, Martyn Simpson (both bass at different times), Gary Phillips (keys) and Mark Spybey (second drums and voice) and erm..losing the girls, to become a mighty double drummer post-punk multi-headed psychedelic neo-funk monster. Elektra were interested, we had radio play, we even made a video on Super 8 (Warren Smith? - where are you?) and a classy demo tape. I split up the band in the summer of '85. It's a shame, I think Julian might have liked The Euphoria Case.

Why I split up the band I can't quite remember, although me being a bit of a prick was probably one reason. Another was that I'd been accepted on a 4 year Teacher Training course in London, and I was clearly not going to take the band with me. So that was that. There was a brief epilogue where the Euphoria Case continued as a guitar, keyboard duo of me and Gary Phillips - we recorded an amazing four track demo nicknamed "State Gruff" on the Middlesbrough Music Collective portastudio and then I was off, never to play in Teesside again until a couple of weeks ago.

In London I was to repeat these musical kamikaze missions more than once, but I'll save that for a future post...Once again I'd like to thank all the musicians that worked with me, especially those who are still talking to me. You know who you are....

Notes
* The end of Julian's story evidently confused a few people, some on Edwyn Collins' message board took it literally - that Edwyn's real name was Richard Sanderson and he was actually from Middlesbrough not Glasgow! Edwyn replied "I have no idea what he's on about. I think it's not complimentary!". No it wasn't Edwyn.

** After I left Drop, they all blossomed as composers, Chris Oberon writing a whole new set's worth, and Neil and Andy writing lyrics and new tunes. I was holding them back! We intend to re-incorporate some of these songs into future Drop sets.

More Photos of Drop 2011

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 13:14:09 GMT

Drop at the Georgian Theatre , Stockton, 26th March 2011. All photos by Alan Morley.

1979 and all that

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 08:47:26 GMT

There's a superb blog post by former Basczax front man and FootPump collaborator Alan Savage, detailing the time his band recorded for the iconic Fast Product label, and the period immediately preceding when Basczax were by far the most "happening" band on Teesside.

He writes about the season of Friday nights at the Teessider pub that Basczax played at the time, which were amazingly exciting times. I was a regular, and Drop played a couple of times (I remember the first word Sav said to me was "snap" as he spotted my cheap Kay Strat Copy). I even got together with my first girlfriend at a Basczax Teessider gig...so good times, yes.

Basczax in 1979 - Sav far left

It reminds me how 1979 was an amazing period in music, there seemed to be new sounds, and new directions emerging at a breakneck pace. I had a new badge and new favourite band every week. Basczax were probably one of them.

Read it.

Music Questionnaires No 16 - Monster Bobby

Mon, 04 Apr 2011 20:33:49 GMT

I guess I've known Monster Bobby for about 10 years, since he kindly asked me to play some songs at the "Totally Bored" club he was helping to run at the time, and we've kept in touch ever since. I've always found him never less than utterly charming and I've always admired his total love of pop music and the way it works, whilst clearly keeping interests in music some may consider a bit more "cerebral". He talks about his music in the replies, so I'll just point out that as well as being something of a mover and shaker and active collaborator in music, he also produces two rather fine and engaging blogs - The Bomb Party and Little other.

Who are you?

Well, on my birth certificate it says Robert William Barry, however most people have called me Bobby for as long as I can remember. But then, Bobby Barry is obviously far too ridiculous a name to do anything vaguely professional under, so about ten years ago, I started adopting the even more ridiculous moniker of Monster Bobby for most of my musical projects.

Where are you based?

Paris, these days, however I grew up in Brighton and lived in London for the best part of ten years before moving here.

What instruments do you play?

Guitar, mostly, although I also have a small collection of old Casio keyboards. I've been both a percussionist and an electronics/weird noises type person in bands before.

What is your current musical project?

Well, there's a few... First and foremost, there's The Pipettes, the pop group I started about seven and a half years ago that has now released two albums and many singles. In The Pipettes, I play guitar and a sort of electronic harp/guitar thing called a Q-Chord, and occasional I trigger samples. Everyone in the band writes the songs.

Then there's the solo thing I do, Monster Bobby, which is generally me with an acoustic guitar and a sampler, singing songs with occasionally quite obstreperous electronic noises behind them.

Last year, I started a project in London called A Little Orchestra, which is a sort of loose collective of instrumentalists, generally orchestral instrumentalists, performing a mixture of 20th century minimalist/avant-garde works, film scores, pop songs, and our own compositions.

Finally, I just invented this game called Wav Tennis, whereby any two musicians or non-musicians volley sound files back and forth over the internet, gradually building up tracks through the semi-random accumulation of exchanged noises. You can find more details of the rules to Wav Tennis on my Little Other blog. I am currently engaged in a couple of games of that, and always up for starting new sets. Hopefully, one day, everyone will be playing Wav Tennis!

Name a record that had a big impact on you in your youth

The first album that I remember really loving and being a bit obsessed by: Bad by Michael Jackson
The first album that I bought with my own money and that really felt like 'my music' : Killers by Iron Maiden

What was the last music you bought?

A thing on RER called Baku: Symphony of Sirens, which is a double cd compilation of recordings and reconstructions of music/poetry/sound art from Russia in the immediate post-revolutionary period.

List three records by artists we all should hear:

Ahem.. Earth vs The PIpettes by The Pipettes, Gaps by Monster Bobby and We Are The Pipettes by The Pipettes... No, but seriously... Something by Os Mutantes, something by Art Bears or Henry Cow, and something by Disco Inferno, although right now I'm not sure which particular records. Just get everything they ever did.

Describe a live performance that had a big effect on you:

Two things towards the beginning of last year - Cosi Fan Tutte at the Royal Opera House, and Billy Budd at Opera Bastille - have left me obsessed with the possibilities of sung drama.

Your favourite live venue:

I think pretty well all the live music venues I have ever loved are now either closed down or refurbished beyond recognition.

What’s the strangest place you have performed live?

The Pipettes once played a gig in a hair salon in Berlin that was sort of like something out of an Armistead Maupin book. That was quite strange.

Tell me about a great experience as a performer.

You know that thing that happens sometimes when everyone in the band plays the wrong thing - but you all play the wrong thing together, and it ends up sounding/feeling much better than the right thing ever could've done.

Is improvisation important to you?

I get very jealous of musicians who are very comfortable improvisers because I have a sort of crippling fear of being on a stage and not knowing what I'm supposed to be doing. And I find small stages in front of small amounts of people much scarier than big stages in front of large amounts of people, and therefore no stage at all in front of four or five people can be absolutely terrifying. Having said that, over the years, I've always found ways and means of bringing forms of group improvisation into my life, although rarely in public. The Pipettes have always spent a lot of time improvising in rehearsals, often in styles that one would not expect from a band like The Pipettes; and A Little Orchestra play quite a lot of stuff that is improvisatory but structured in some (possibly quite meagre) way, such as by a piece of text. I briefly had a project with a guy who makes sort of noise music and super 8 films who calls himself Eaten By Children, and that was all based around improvisation, largely with no-input mixing boards and fx. We made some pretty nice recordings which sadly still haven't been released, but I hope they will be one day. All these things were definitely, as you say, important to me, and some of my favourite live gigs by other people have been improvised or at least contained improvised elements, but right now, at least, it isn't really something I do in public.

Name three heroes/heroines:

I'd like to split this question into two halves because I can't think of three people that I'm willing to unambiguously call "Heroes" with a big capital H. So, on the one hand, there are people who might better be called "Anti-Heroes": people where the absolute amazingness of certain aspects of their work/life has sort of been overshadowed by the utter wretched sordidness of certain other aspects of their work/life, in which category I might put, Richard Wagner, Michael Jackson and Phil Spector. On the other hand, there are people who are perhaps less reprehensible, but also somehow less heroic with a big capital H, and yet somehow they've maybe done a bunch of stuff that I really think, gee, I wish I could say that I'd done that. I'd like to call this category, less "Heroes" than "Pretty Cool Guys" and I would include there people like, Laurie Anderson, Bill Drummond, Delia Derbyshire, Raymond Scott, and Glenn Gould.

Favourite city?

That's sort of a tricky one, in a way. Probably six months ago I would have said London without really thinking about it, but now I'm living in Paris and I'm really much happier here than I ever was in London. Then, at the same time, I have a certain resistance to naming Paris as my, like, "favourite city in the world" much as I find it a very pleasant place to spend my time. There are also a number of cities that I haven't spent that much time in but I've been enormously impressed with while there, and have always felt like I'd like to spend much more time there: Copenhagen, Bologna, Osaka, Hamburg, and Berlin, in particular. Probably my favourite city would have to be some imaginary city, like Ledom in Theodore Sturgeon's novel Venus Plus X, or something like that.

A couple of favourite books?
At the moment, probably Dr Faustus by Thomas Mann, and The Stars, My Destination by Alfred Bester.

A couple of favourite films
?
Recently I decided that the five best films ever made are Modern Times, City Lights, The Kid, The Gold Rush, and Buster Keaton's Sherlock Jr, and that anyone who says otherwise is just wrong.

A favourite website?
ubu.com or thestomachroom.com

What makes you laugh?

Marx Brothers films, Steve Martin stand-up records, any sitcom starring Leonard Rossiter, people walking into lamp posts, dogs that can say 'sausages', root vegetables shaped like genitalia, that sort of thing.

Is there a pop song you feel sentimental about, and can you name it?

Far too many to mention.

Thanks Bobby
The Music Questionnaires are an ongoing series

The Mighty Wah Wah/ Gareth and Dave

Sun, 03 Apr 2011 21:59:09 GMT

I just got back from a Foulkestone practice with Jude, (post-punk arrangements of English traditional ballads).
I think I'm starting to like the wah-wah/fuzz combination on my guitar a little too much.

Thanks to Davey B for drawing my attention to this ongoing discussion. You might want to mention that Drop is an operating combo again, with original 1979 line-up.

Message to Gareth and Dave - yes, I'm reading it, and I'm very well thank you! Be nice to see you again some time.

Forthcoming Appearances

Sat, 02 Apr 2011 15:53:26 GMT

Thursday 14th April - South East London Folklore Society, as part of "a celebration of all things May Day" "Rediscovering Urban Rituals" (RUR) show their film on their Jack-in-the-Green procession with the Fowlers Troop with a live musical re-enactment. Come watch footage of a Jack-in-the-Green in its natural environment
I shall be joining the RUR band on amplified melodeon.
At The Old Kings Head, Borough High St. Admission £2.50/£1.50

Saturday 23rd April - Dancing and playing with Blackheath Morris Men for St George's Day, at The Summerfield Tavern, from 7ish. Admission free.

Monday 25th April (Easter Monday Bank Holiday) - Dancing with Blackheath Morris Men, as part of our annual "Easter Chair Lifting" ritual. Around Greenwich, various locations from Noon. See Blackheath Morris website for more details.

Sunday 1st May - Accompanying the Deptford Jack In The Green around Greenwich in Fowlers Troop, as part of May Day celebrations. Details to be announced. Playing melodeon.

Saturday 7th Barn Dance with Mixed Porter English Country Dance Band. "Barn Dance with live music from "Mixed Porter". Admission by ticket only. Tickets £8 (£4 for "young 'uns") available from Denise Pritchard on 020 8852 8463. Ticket includes ploughman's supper. Tea & Coffee will also be available." Parish Chrurch of St Andrew the Apostle, Catford.

Sunday 15th May Dancing with Blackheath Morris as part of the Brighton Day of Dance.

19th to 21st August Dancing and playing with Blackheath Morris Men at the Saddleworth Rushcart Festival

Wednesday 21st September Improvising duo of Paul May (percussion) and Richard Sanderson (melodeon and amplification) perform at FlimFlam, Ryan's Bar, Stoke Newington.

Teesside Gig Review

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 20:02:46 GMT

Nice review of the Teesside gig by old mate Geoff Spence (one time Tick Tick vocalist and drum machine operative), with some nice photos, on his blog.

I should also credit Geoff for the video of "Burning The Evidence" on an earlier post...

Music Questionnaires No 15 - Jude Cowan

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 12:29:07 GMT

Jude Cowan is an artist who resists categorisation. As a singer/songwriter her work ranges from ukelele accompanied neo music hall like Doodlebug Alley to Hammond organ backed arrangements of William Blake, via electronic improvisation. On top of this she is poet (most recent book, the extraordinary "For The Messengers") and a unique blogger at judecowan.blogspot.com/ where many entries are vivid pages from her sketchbook...

Who are you?

Jude Cowan

Where are you based?

London

What instruments do you play?

Voice, keyboard, uke / guitar, many others naively

What is your current musical project?

Reuters Improvisations - improvised works on Reuters Television News stories (I'm an archivist for RTV)
Foulkestone, a duo with Richard Sanderson
The Boilermakers, a duo with Matt Armstrong

Name a record that had a big impact on you in your youth
Exodus by Bob Marley
Vltava by Smetana
The Wombles by Mark Batt

What was the last music you bought?

The Big I Am's new CD, 'Collecting Skies' on Folkwit
The Big I Am are friends of mine and I like to buy music to support friends and fellow musicians. The last CD I bought not by a friend or at a launch but just because I wanted it was 'Spoils' by Alasdair Roberts on Drag City. That was a while ago now.

List three records by artists we all should hear:

The Ethiopiques records (Swinging Addis - Number 8)
The 5000 Spirits or the Layers of the Onion (Incredible String Band)
The Instant Monty Python CD Collection

Describe a live performance that had a big effect on you:

Baaba Maal when he came over first and played the Hackney Empire in the very late 1980s.

Your favourite live venue:

I like performing at odd events rather than set up clubs. But a good sound is nice.
For smaller, intimate venues I have enjoyed playing at The Gallery Cafe recently as it has a nice stage backdrop and I like the split stage at the 12 Bar, with the audience above and below you - and I like singing with the choir in rather lovely churches - I enjoyed doing the Monteverde Vespers in the Holy Redeemer church in Exmouth Market as it has such an immersive reverb.

What’s the strangest place you have performed live?

I used to sing saluang music in Sumatra Barat. The audience would pay 500 rupiah a song. The local musicians would take me and we would tour the villages around Bukittinggi. Best time was after Ramadan as there were lots of celebrations, bad month for gigs, Ramadan, not the culturally done thing. Anyway it wasn't really strange I guess, but it was to me, not being from there.

Tell me about a great experience as a performer.

I enjoyed singing and writing on Ray Davies's songwriting course in Sheepwash, Devon - we did a nice performance of a musical we wrote in a couple of days based on Thelma and Louise. I like the immediacy of writing then performing straight away.

Is improvisation important to you?

Yes, my current project 'Reuters Improvisations' is very improv based. As is my other duo, The Boilermakers, with Matt Armstrong which is based more on Eastern European traditions and other world musics, all brought in to a folk and funk mix

Name three heroes/heroines:

Rumer Godden
V S Naipaul
D H Lawrence

Favourite city?

London - absolutely my favourite city of all time

A couple of favourite books?
A House for Mr Biswas - V S Naipaul
Kingfishers catch Fire - Rumer Godden
Women in Love - D H Lawrence

A couple of favourite films?
The General - Buster Keaton
Way Out West - Laurel and Hardy
Watership Down (1978)
Pathfinder (1987)

A favourite website?

An illustration blog I like -
theanimalarium.blogspot.co which has brilliant illustrations/design using animals from all around the world

What makes you laugh?
Performing live

Is there a pop song you feel sentimental about, and can you name it?
Exodus - I remember standing on the lawn in front of my house in Bolton, the front lawn, a strange piece of ground with its raised camber and hearing the music drift over the air while I thought about Ladybridge and the big world out there

Thanks Jude

Music Questionnaire No 14 - Alan Savage

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 19:26:15 GMT

I've known Alan Savage, or "Sav", since the late 70s when I was in a post-punk band called Drop and he was in a more successful post punk band called Basczax, he's always been an explorative and intuitive musician, whilst always keeping the basic grounding in pop music that I never had. Here's what he says about himself-
"I drifted into teaching and to my surprise find I like it as it is never boring. I was born June 1959. I am tall – 6 foot 2. My father was an ICI process worker, I grew up on a council estate in Middlesbrough. I lack the sports gene and am an avid reader and writer. I love to sing and play, it makes me feel (mighty) real."

Who are you?

Alan Savage

Where are you based?

Manila, the Philippines

What instruments do you play?

Guitar, Bass, Piano (badly)

What is your current musical project?

Dada Guitars. Trying to make an EP a month.

Name a record that had a big impact on you in your youth

Hot Love by T.Rex

What was the last CD you bought?

Kanye West: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

List three records by artists we all should hear:

Velvet Underground: first album, Aretha Franklin ‘Lady Soul’, Debussy: Preludes

Describe a live performance that had a big effect on you:

Gang of Four, Rock Garden, 1979.

Your favourite live venue:

Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London.

What’s the strangest place you have performed live?

Oh I can’t think of anywhere particularly strange. In a classroom maybe to a class of Year 12 students who asked me to play one of my songs.

Tell me about a great experience as a performer.

Playing every week at the Teessider when I was in Basczax. I lived for that Friday night and remember the gig when we got the Flowers (Fast Records) to play with us. A magic night.

Is improvisation important to you?

Yes. It’s good to leave the parachute at home sometimes.

Name three heroes/heroines:

David Bowie (musical) J.G.Ballard (literature) Rosa Parks (for refusing to stand up on that bus for nasty white people – an action that sparked a revolution)

Favourite city?

Bangkok.

A couple of favourite books?

I would have to say ‘A Clockwork Orange’ Anthony Burgess, and ‘Les Enfants Terrible’ Jean Cocteau – two books that made me feel my mind expanded when I was fifteen/sixteen.

A couple of favourite films?

Very hard one this. But at a push: Cabaret and Shrek.

A favourite website?

Guardian Online

What makes you laugh?

Steve Coogan as Alan Partridge. That was the last time I laughed so much I cried.

Is there a pop song you feel sentimental about, and can you name it?

Theme tune from the 1968 children's programme 'White Horses'. I'm not sure why it reaches me still.

Thanks Sav

The Music Questionnaires are an ongoing series.

Guitar Guitar Guitar

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 19:38:32 GMT

Playing the Drop gig in Stockton meant I had to get used to playing an electric guitar again. Oddly enough, considering it was the first instrument I learnt to play for myself, it's not really an instrument I've had much interest in playing free improv on, partly because there are a lot of free improvising guitarists around.

However I did record this just before I set off for Teesside, using the Fender Mustang played through a cannon looping contraption built with Audiomulch... think of it as an oddity-
"Quaggy River Stomp"

Should you want to you can download it as an MP3 from here.

The wonderfully named Quaggy River flows through the park at the bottom of my road (eventually joining The Ravensbourne, and eventually the Thames - this recording includes an overdub of a recording I made of the river - as a jet flew overhead.

23 Hours Over Teesside

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 09:30:37 GMT

I arrived at Middlesbrough Railway Station (a place so full of sentimental memories of departures and arrivals that I never like to linger long) and was picked up by my Dad in his car. This in itself was a novelty as my Dad never drove when I lived in Teesside, then back home for lunch with Mum and Dad, before being dropped off at Andy Kiss's house, where Neil Jones was already unloading his car (he'd driven up with his wife and daughters). Chris Oberon was already there, complete with large printed-out set-lists. Ever prepared.

Andy's front room has been turned into a low-volume rehearsal room, with an electronic drum kit and various practice amps. We had a couple of hours to run through the set a (including new songs), which we did, singing without mics, ironing out any problems as we went. I sang the songs whilst looking out of the window at an ice-cream van supplying the children of Saltersgill.

Then it was off to the venue in two cars- passing the site (now a drive-thru MacDonalds or something) of the Teessider pub, where we four last played together in the summer of 1979.

The Georgian Theatre was great - a really beautiful PA, a very helpful sound-guy (unusual enough) and the promoters bent over backwards to help us feel welcome. Subway Sect were just finishing their soundcheck, and were happy to let us use their amps. I changed the setting on Kevin Younger's guitar amp to "Metal".

A quick walk into Stockton for chips, passing the Subway Sect on the way - the riverfront looks so beautiful now, hardly recognisable, but the high-street, like many in Teesside is suffering badly...

Doors opened, and in came the late 70s... Ste Weatherall, Gary Widdowfield, Geoff Spence, Mark Sanderson, Mark Hammonds, Paul Wanless, Stevie Hewitt, all in terrific form. It really was extraordinary how 32 years just slipped away. Gary McGee was there too, and I reminded him of an incident 32 years ago when he burnt my testicles with a cigarette at a party - now best forgotten to be honest- he apologised.

Then on stage, we introduced ourselves and rattled through a 19 song set in under 40 minutes. A couple of sloppy endings and missed cues, but on the whole not bad. I must have been enjoying myself as I talked to the audience a bit, and was possibly a bit cocky. We even did an encore. We also had a bloke ("Bob") doing daft, probably piss-taking dancing, demanding to be the centre of attention. Harmless enough but undeserving of further comment. I couldn't help noticing the whole band was beaming afterwards, we had enjoyed ourselves. It was an effort to settle our faces to of-the-era scowling for the post gig photograph-

Andy Kiss, Richard Sanderson, Neil Jones, Chris Oberon. Photo by Alan Morley

The Subway Sect were great - they now do a really neat version of "Stop That Girl" but it's in the more "punky" material - Ambition, Nobody's Scared, Chain Smoking that they really excel. And Vic used my guitar - I'm not sure why, his bust I guess, although maybe he remembered the interview he gave back in the day when he explained that the trebly sound of the Sect was due to their use of the Fender Mustang. I do love that guitar...

Vic Godard plays my guitar. Photo by Gary Widdowfield

The affable promoter, Steve Harland, gave me a lift home ("I don't drink, and I'm a safe driver") dropping me off at Longlands roundabout. I let myself into my Mum and Dad's house at 1.00am, banging straight into a door and probably waking them up.

My mum made a fantastic "full English" for breakfast to fortify me for the journey home- then it was back to Middlesbrough Railway Station, really missing the hour robbed from my sleep by the clocks going forward overnight. The station was still full of ghosts, and I was glad when the train started moving...

Subway Sect plus Drop - Georgian Theatre, Stockton

Fri, 25 Mar 2011 20:01:54 GMT

Nearly there.

I'm packing for a weekend up North, retracing my roots in a post-punk group. Drop, with the line-up of Richard Sanderson (guitar/vocal), Neil Jones (keyboards), Chris Oberon (bass) and Andy Kiss (drums) last performed (as far as I recall) at the now long-gone Teessider pub. 32 years later the same line-up is performing again, just up the road at the Georgian Theatre. We are supporting Vic Godard and the Subway Sect tomorrow evening (Saturday 26th March), who Rock Family Tree fans will be delighted to know, now include Mark Braby my former band-mate in Lost Robots.

I've been using this-

...my original 1979 lyric book, to help me remember the lyrics I wrote as a 17 year old.

Be lovely to see old friends.

Mundane Field recording No 1

Tue, 22 Mar 2011 16:17:37 GMT

Hanging Out The Washing recorded in my back garden, 22nd March 2011. W/birds including crows and ducks, distant workmen, a dog and several aeroplanes....

Hanging Out The Washing by Richard Sanderson

Microphoney

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 21:11:31 GMT

I've become mildly obsessed with off-kilter field recording lately. I've made a reasonably good recording of Three Halfpenny Wood (near West Wickham) complete with squarking wild parakeets. Today I tried to make a contact microphone recording of the rotary drier in the garden, with little success as there was no wind. A contact mic recording of my toaster was marginally more successful, interesting hum and crackle as it heated up. Now I'm about to try an electro-magnetic recording of my washing machine.

It's unlikely I'll produce anything as fascinating as the recordings on this wonderful netlabel though-
Impulsive Habitat...

Foulkestone - latest

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 20:35:48 GMT

We managed to squash in a recording session for Foulkestone yesterday - two songs- "Talisman Crew" is an adaptation of a (largely terrible) poem written by Jude's great, great grandfather, which Jude adapted to a swinging Scottish strathspey, which I then adapted to a kind of micro-house two-chorder ("micro-hoose" is Jude's term for it). It has a round at the end. I've always loved rounds. It also has a pleasingly retro BBC Schools Retro synth feel to it. Which was frankly the last thing i would have expected.

The other song we did was "One Cold Morning In December" a fairly saucy comic song taken from the singing of Walter Pardon, but with added ultra-sub-synth-bass and pathos. It's less disrespectful than that sounds.

We nearly have a full set of songs, and the first performance will soon be on the horizon I'm sure.

Kids' Hits

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 10:54:47 GMT

I've just made a three track CD for my children (ages 3 & 4) to play in their playroom. It contains their three favourite "pop" songs.
They are-

Dr Feelgood - Roxette

Kraftwerk - The Robots

Grandaddy - Nature Anthem

I have no worries about my children.

Mark Stevenson on Little Atoms

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 13:37:14 GMT

I return to the Resonance FM studios this evening with Neil Denny to interview Mark Stevenson about his book An Optimist's Tour of the Future. I haven't (cough) actually finished the book yet, but I can tell it's going to be a really entertaining episode of Little Atoms. Mark Stevenson doubles as a science writer and a stand-up comedian, so it's unlikely to be boring.

7 - 7.30pm Today, Resonance 104.4 FM

a podcast will follow in due course.

For Japan - a benefit album

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 09:43:49 GMT

Available now - a benefit album dotating all proceeds to the Red Cross relief effort following the earthquake and tsunami that have devastated Japan. It's been put together by the improvisers and composers of Improv Friday. It includes my track, "Empty Path"...

Back To My Roots

Tue, 15 Mar 2011 16:17:09 GMT

In just ten days, my old post-punk band Drop will be performing at the Georgian Theatre, Stockton on Tees, as support to Subway Sect in a concert organised by Rock Garden Revisited.

This is notable for several reasons. It's my first performance in Teesside since I left for London in the summer of '85. It's also the first time that this line up of Drop (Richard Sanderson - guitar/vocals, Neil Jones -keyboards, Chris Oberon - bass, Andy Kiss - Drums) has performed since the summer of 1979. That's....erm....32 years.

The set will mainly consist of old tracks from 1977 to 1979, but also two later songs from The Euphoria Case, played in the "Drop style" and one brand new song - "Boxes"

We're massively chuffed to be performing again - the energy and speed is still there, and we couldn't be happier to be playing with Vic Godard and Subway Sect (again), as they, along with Wire and The Fall, were a big influence on Drop (I confess that the lyrical content of "No Rock", such as there is, is largely ripped off from Vic's "Don't Split It")

So on the morning of the 26th March, I will be boarding a train to Middlesbrough with my electric guitar - it's going to feel weird. But tremendously exciting.

Drop live October 2010

Details of the gig and advance tickets (recommended) from here

Three Prongs

Tue, 15 Mar 2011 09:48:00 GMT

I'm currently working along three separate routes regarding my experimental melodeon music, with a view to releasing three albums focussing on the techniques-

1- Acoustic - this is by far the most difficult, as my deficiencies as a player are there for all to hear, it's also the hardest to record, as I'm often relying on tiny puffs of sound, which I'm recording in a not entirely silent house. For some reason it's also the most exciting. Here is an example, "Five Pebbles"-

2- Amplified - This is the set up I use for live gigs, melodeon amplified at both ends, through wah-wah, fuzz and pitch-change pedals. Avoiding unintentional feedback is continuing to be a problem, but I am slowly getting this set up to work the way I want it to. This is the set up I used for this track, Bottle City

3- Recorded and edited - this takes the melodeon furthest away from its root sounds, as I can apply effects such as time stretch, pitch-change and various filters after the initial recording. I'm mainly using Audiomulch and the phenomenal (and free) Paulstretch for this. These recordings are veering into fairly dense drone territory, and I am amassing a collection for possible netlabel release-

This is an example, Your Succession-

I'm keeping busy

Who Makes The Nazis?

Wed, 09 Mar 2011 08:36:41 GMT

Ever felt uncomfortable about those Non and Current 93 albums in your record collection? I know I have. This superb website goes some way to explaining why-
Who Makes The Nazis?

An added bonus is the title comes from a song by The Fall of course...

Improv Documentation

Sat, 05 Mar 2011 13:37:57 GMT

Most of my ongoing melodeon improvisation experiments can be found here-

Singing

Mon, 28 Feb 2011 21:44:37 GMT

I'm becoming interested in solo singing - nothing avant garde, I've no intention of moving into Phil Minton territory, just folk songs.

I'm fascinated by the rawness of solo vocal performances, such as the hundreds, possibly thousands that take up the bulk of Topic's monumental "Voice of the People" set. I actually find them quite hard to listen to en masse, I find it more wearing than say solo improv records - it's the emotions, and the imperfections of the voices that fascinate, and make it very difficult background music - it demands your attention, and can be exhausting.

So I've started having a go - this is me singing directly into the instant recording facility on Soundcloud, bad phrasing, running out of breath and all...

It's a traditional song, popularised by recordings of The Copper Family, but dating to broadsides from the mid 19th Century...

Audio Recording on Monday night --Banks of Sweet Primroses by Richard Sanderson