Altri aneddoti su Pip Pyle.

Questo a proposito del nome "Pip" e del suo effetto su alcune persone in Francia, dove Pyle viveva e lavorava da tempo:

"When he first came to Paris and was looking for gigs for his then band, he would call up various agencies and give his name to be met with raucous laughter. He subsequently learned that "Pip" (pronounced "peep" in French) sounds the same as "pipe" which is slang for, well, a certain oral pleasure unconnected with tobacco. He decided it would be wiser to use another name and, more to the point, pretend to be the band's manager as he thought it would easier to get gigs if the agencies thought they had a real manager. He chose the name of his ex-Hatfield roadie Nick Levitt and was very surprised to get the same raucous laughter. In French, "Nick Levitt" would sound like "neekle veet" or "nique-les vite" which means "fuck 'em quickly!"

Ecco quel che accadde a Tokyo quando Pip, uscendo a bere per conto proprio, incrociò un bar dal nome a lui assai familiare... Lo racconta sul suo blog il chitarrista Jakko Jakszyk:

"Having fallen out with his other band members, not for the first time, Pip heads off to get drunk on his own. He finds a strange collection of really small bars in a nearby district of Tokyo. He starts in one and walks the down the small streets to the next. Eventually he sees one in the distance that has neon sign out side that says ‘Pip’s Bar’. Obviously he makes a bee line for the place. He tells the proprietor that ‘This is my bar’ the owner, no doubt no stranger to drunks, humours him, but remains wary. Pip continues to call it ‘His bar’ to the continuing annoyance of the landlord. Eventually Pip gets his passport out and says ‘That’s me, my names Pip.’ To his astonishment the bar owner looks at the picture and asks ‘You Pip Pyle? You Pip Pyle!’ His face begins to light up. Pip rather warily says ‘Err yes.’ The owner, unable to believe what’s happened says, with increasing excitement ‘this is your bar; I name it after you’ and proceeds to bring out various pieces of Hatfield and the North memorabilia. I asked Pip what happened next. He told me he had absolutely no idea. The next thing he remembers was waking up in his hotel room at about 4 the following afternoon naked but for his trousers round his ankles."

Ancora dal blog di Jakko, ecco a proposito della telefonata con cui Dave Stewart gli annuncia la morte di Pip:

"August 28th. The phone rings again. It’s Dave Stewart, who I’ve been trying to track down for the past week. I can tell immediately that something is not quite right. Just from the way he says ‘Jakko, it’s Dave’.This is followed by ‘I’ve got some really bad news’. My mind raced and then, like some car crash, every thing seemed to turn into slow motion.‘Pip died last night’. In the vast distance of the slow motion silence that followed, my head started to think that there was surely some other Pip that Dave and I knew. A former road crew member or engineer that we liked, but hadn’t seen in a while. But there was no other Pip. We only knew one. Involuntarily I let out a weird noise made from an intake of breath and disbelief. I was stunned. I couldn’t take this in.‘When, how, why?’ Dave said that the Hatfields had played a show in Holland on Saturday and that on Sunday they said their goodbyes and Pip made his way back to Paris. For some inexplicable reason Pip got a hotel room at the Gare de Nord instead of going to his nearby home. It appeared he had some kind of haemorrhage in the night and choked on the blood.

I can’t believe that the phone won’t ring and Pip will be on the line. Trying to persuade me to do something I don’t want to do or go somewhere I don’t want to go. I can’t believe I can’t e-mail him about some nonsense I’ve just read. Or that we wont get drunk and laugh like idiot’s anymore. If you never met Pip you’ll not know how full of life he was. He burst into a room, started chatting it up and then invited it out for a drink.

I start to cry, which sets Dave off. I tell Dave that I thought Pip was one of those guys that would go on for ever, like Keith Richard. Dave reminds me that Pip had lived about 100 lives to everyone else one. A little later Doug Boyle also calls in tears. My thoughts, and the rest of the day, are filled with the loss and the memories. On one of the last occasions I saw Pip, I drove up to see him at his old house near Bishops Stortford, where we used to rehearse with Dave back in the early 80’s. His new wife, some 20 odd years his junior, had left him. He was in England with his young son of about 3 years old. No doubt distressed by the absence of his mother, he was very clingy and hated it when Pip left the room without him. I just can’t get that bloody image out of my head."

http://www.jakko.com/blog/blog.htm

Jonny di GAS (Gong Appreciation Society) scrive su Pip Pyle:

Terribly sad news, Pip Pyle died in a Paris hotel at 2.00am on the morning of 28th August. He had stopped off while returning from a Hatfield & the North gig in the Netherlands by train.
We all loved Pip, everybody did. A big spirit, a big heart and a big musician. No-one who ever toured with him or counted him among their friends will ever forget the sheer joie de vivre with which he launched himself at life, and which so often sucked you along as well, I know they will all be devastated. As one of the Gongmaison musicians told me through the tears when I broke the news to him, "I had some of the best times of my life with Pip." He was at the centre and the heartbeat of so many bands and worked with so many musicians, it's like some mighty oak has fallen.
Although Pip's appearance at the Unconvention was never formalised between us (I kept putting off speaking to him because we didn't have the budget to do justice to what the Hatfields deserve), a Gong gathering without him being there was absolutely inconceivable. He was the outstanding mainstay of the 25th Birthday Party concerts in 1994, playing with nearly every band, hours of top-class drumming each day. No doubt, knowing the stature and nature of the man, he would have become central to the Melkweg event as well. Like all of us Pip had some real up and downs in his life, the past few years had seen joy of the birth of his son and the difficulty of a very serious major back operation, but throughout it all he remained just Pip, a great musician to his fingertips, always straight with you and always genuinely a brother. It is impossible to overstate just how much he will be missed. Love to all he leaves behind.
Tributes are being posted in the Forum in the Planet Gong section, that was mine. Jonny

http://www.planetgong.co.uk/

E così scrive Daevid Allen:
Ahhh Pip! Yes our old mate came back to Paris from a top gig & died in his girlfriend's arms. A heroic way to go but please.... better not to go just yet! He was a totally original drum warrior & golden jester, very much loved by all of us. His contribution to the Gong band & so many of my projects was without parallel. I loved him like the true brother he was. His unfinished music & inspiring physical courage, honesty & outrageous escapades will be HUGELY missed. I'm still laughing at those mad moments through the tears. Feeling deeply particularly for old pal Pam & son Sam & for all his familiars & allies. We all send him huge THANKS!!!" - daevid

Hugh Hopper: "Pip could be in turn irritating as shit and then a totally lovable teddy bear. I have experienced some of the best music of my life with him, and at other times he has been such a pain in the ass that I never wanted to see him again. Like Elton Dean, he went out as he lived - doing what he wanted, the silly bugger. I won't say Rest in Peace, because I can't imagine Pip resting in peace anywhere for more than a few minutes. He's steaming away up there with Elton and Alan Gowen. "

Dave Stewart (con Barbara Gaskin): "Barbara and I are still reeling from the shock, but these messages are a consolation. Pip had a big character, big heart and big talent, and his departure leaves an equally big, unfillable vacancy. Goodbye to a dear old friend."

Patrice Meyer: "From 94 to 2003 we've been having a regular trio practice, Elton, Pip and myself in Pip's attic at Chennevières. We reached sometimes that point of fusion which occurs when three improvisers stimulate each other to incandescence, you musicians know what I'm talking about. In these moments, none of us would ever want to be in any other place. When Elton left, Pip and I played our souls out for our missing mate. When Pip left, I stood in front of an empty drummer seat. May this house be forever haunted with all the great music that has been resounding between its walls, my band is gone."

Downtown Music Gallery diffonde questa nota:
SAD NEWS for CANTERBURY FANS WORLDWIDE ... THE PASSING OF PIP PYLE, DRUMMER EXTRAORDINAIRE for HATFIELD & THE NORTH, PIP PYLE'S EQUIP OUT, NATIONAL HEALTH, IN CAHOOTS, & THE ORIGINAL GONG!
We in New York, and so many, many others around the world, are devastated by the loss of Pip Pyle. Only recently, many lucky United-Statesians had the good fortune to see Hatfield & The North perform here. At the NYC Bowery Poetry gig, Pip looked - and played! - the picture of health, and in truly great spirits, taking good care of himself after his recent back operation and especially happy at the birth of his son.His death occurred this past Monday after checking into a Parisian hotel following a train ride from the most recent Hatfield gig in Amsterdam.Coming so soon after the taking of Elton Dean, a fellow Legend in Canterbury Music, also before his time (Pip was only 56, Elton was 61) marks 2006 an especially black year. He WILL be missed. WE already do miss him. - BLG & MannyLunch

Sono ininterrotti i messaggi di affetto, di dolore e anche di sorpresa che circolano in rete tra gli appassionati a poche ore dalla scomparsa di Pip Pyle. Se ne trova traccia nelle sezioni "guestbook" dei siti di Pyle e di Hugh Hopper, e soprattutto in What's Rattlin'?, un gruppo di discussione su Yahoo aperto un anno fa prendendo il nome proprio da un famosissimo testo scritto da Pyle. Da qui prendo quanto scrive Phil Howitt, per anni curatore della fanzine canterburyana Facelift:

"Heard the news last night - it's even more of a shock than Elton in a way. Pip oozed vitality and seemed way younger than his years.
I saw Pip perform a lot over the years in really varied roles and he really did have a unique 'voice', the style that Nick Loebner alluded to shone through every band he played with . I thought '7 Year Itch' was exceptional and a lasting testament to Pip's versatility and talent - 'Long On' and 'I'm Really OK' are poles apart but quite brilliant signature tunes in their own ways.
I reached for 'Parallel' last night, perhaps because Elton was on it too, but there are so, so many highlights. I wrote at the time that Pip was for me, the star of Gong 25, from Short Wave to Shapeshifter and his crashing, echoed drums brought down the final curtains each night. I'll particularly remember him at Glasgow Arches with Gong, hammering out staccato lines with Daevid Allen and Steffe and seeming genuinely moved by the tumultuous reception the band received.
Pip seemed thankful but genuinely bemused by adulation and our obsessive appreciation of his and other's talents: you saw this in the wry words of 'What's Rattlin' or his anarchic 'Pip Pyle nude' posting on the Musart website in the early days of the 'net. But this came through in a different way when you met him, through a genuine desire to engage with you as a human being - the last time I saw him, too many years ago now at a Brainville gig in Stoke we mainly talked football rather than music.
The interview with him which Nick Loebner alluded to ended up as a cover feature for Facelift - due to printing problems Pip's face ended up slightly squashed and with marks on it. I remember ringing him up and saying, 'I'm afraid you've got a line down your forehead'. His reply was 'Better than a line up the nose!'
I didn't know Pip well enough to know his family situation, but it did strike me that our thoughts should also be with the likes of Mark Hewins, Hugh, Phil Miller and many more who collaborated closely with both Pip and Elton, and must be reeling from this tragic news."

http://www.pippyle.com/
http://www.burningshed.com/hopper/
http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/whatsrattlin/

Sono innumerevoli gli aneddoti e gli episodi che costellano la vicenda musicale e umana di Pip Pyle, alcuni noti altri inediti, che in questi giorni vengono duffusi o riportati alla memoria. Il chitarrista Mark Hewins, come Pyle peraltro, amava tenere promemoria e diari delle varie vicissitudini di musicisti amici e colleghi, in tour o a casa. Eccone uno dai tempi di Soft Heap:

MY DISPOSABLE HEAD
Band: Soft Heap
Cast: John Greaves...under the piano
Pip Pyle...the barber
Mark Hewins...the changeling
Elton Dean...also under the piano
Various nubile women

Lille is an exciting type of place, if you like that sort of thing. It's a sprawling, rolling, industrial city in the North of France and the people are like northerners everywhere, warm and hospitable for the most part but mad if provoked. The city itself is similar to somewhere like Leeds here. Soft Heap's tour manager/driver Bridget lived there (in the beautiful Hellemmes District) and all the tours used to start or end there. It even has its own little metro,with dinky yellow carriages which whir, frighteningly unattended, up and down the city.
It was the end of tour party and a friend of the band had invited us and a number of her mates back to her parents house, which was huge. They had gone away on holiday so we all had the run of the place. With Elton, Pip, myself and John included there were about 15 people at the beginning and I remember watching the TV whilst people danced to loud music on the radio and mixed drinks in an electric food mixer - very noisy!
John and I found a playroom upstairs with toys and a piano in it and began playing together, he plays fantastic versions of Beatles tunes, growling along with them in his own inimitable way. But soon we started improvising over them,the modulations becoming wilder and wilder until he fell from his stool onto the floor. I remember we were playing Fool on the hill and had just reached the middle section, so he kept playing, reaching underneath the keyboard to the bare strings and raking his hands across them in a convincing "dream sequence" typeway whilst wailing the middle bit. This brought a few people in to see what was going on and John, ever the performer, became carried along, getting ever more frantic with his hands until he actually drew blood. Now to us, on tour this was not an uncommon sight as we all suffered slight, or bad playing injuries fromtime to time, such is the nature of the music, but the more faint hearted of the girls realised we had drunk a little more than they had hoped for and left.There was still a hard core though.
I had admired one young girl's very short haircut and professed an interest to have my head shaved, Pip offered to do it for me so we left John and Elton banging and clanking under the piano and went to the bathroom to find some razors. This was really interesting and everyone collected around the door. We found some disposable Bic's and after wetting my hair, Pip (under pain of death to leave my ears) began shaving. After half an hour he had done about one quarter of my head and we had run out of razors. This was taking far longer than we had anticipated (try it yourself!) and everyone was becoming a bit bored, sowe took a break to find more razors and drink. This was done and he began again, slowly scraping my scalp bare. I think there's a vocation for him somewhere if he ever decides to stop working in Music, because he did a superb job, and after two hours (and 20 disposable Bic razors) I had a completely bare head - something I had always fantasised about - and not one scratch.
Everyone was really impressed that I had actually done it and Pip looked really proud of my 'non tonsure'. Of course I had wanted it done sometime anyway so it was the right time and place, although my hair blocked the drains so badly that apparently plumbers had to be called to stop them overflowing, but we had gone by then. The party seemed to go on for several days, although it probably wasn't that long because my hair was still non-existent when we caught the ferry. I seemed to frighten people who came near me, which frightened me!
One little postscript to this story concerns me getting home. I was greeted at the door by my partner of the time who said to me, the very instant I opened the door, "Trust you to come home drunk and bald". Fair comment I suppose and one of the best I have ever heard.
MORAL: If you change your appearance be prepared for other people's change of attitude.

Pip Pyle - figura centrale della cosiddetta "scena canterburyana" - è morto ieri nella notte, a Parigi, al rientro dal concerto tenuto a Groningen con Hatfield & The North. Aveva 56 anni. Batterista geniale e vivacissimo, autore di musiche e testi dal tratto inconfondibile, Pyle è stato protagonista di avventure memorabili con Delivery, Gong, Hatfield & the North, National Health, Soft Heap, In Cahoots, Shortwave, Brainville, Equip'Out e Bash!, segnando un'intera epoca musicale, soprattutto nel cuore degli anni Settanta, ma giungendo ai tempi attuali con creatività intatta.

Ciao ciao Pip nel Rotters' Club del Cielo!

Eccone la biografia, secondo Aymeric Leroy (dal sito Calyx):

Pip Pyle
Drums
Born : April 4th, 1950 - Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire (England)
Died : August 28th, 2006 - Paris (France)
Past Bands : Delivery (1966-70), Chicken Shack (1970-71), Gong (1971), Paul Jones Group (1972), All Wet And Dripping (1972), Hatfield and the North (1972-75, 2005-06), Weightwatchers (1975-76), National Health (1977-83), Soft Heap (1978-88), Rapid Eye Movement (1980-81), In Cahoots (1982-2001), Pip Pyle's Equip'Out (1984-95), Patrice Meyer Trio/Quartet (1985-87), Mimi Lorenzini Trio (1987), Faton Cahen Trio (1987-88), John Greaves Band (1990-91), Short Wave (1991-96), Gong/Shapeshifter (1992-93), Hugh Hopper Band (1994), Richard Sinclair/RSVP (1994), Gong (1994-96), Bash (2002-04), Absolute Zero (1999-)

THE drummer of the Canterbury scene, period. Need one say more? As Hatfield and the North and National Health's drummer, Pip Pyle deserves mention as one of the greatest drummers on the progressive rock scene.
Pyle was born in Sawbridgeworth (Hertfordshire) in 1950. Why 'Pip', by the way? "Well, Pip is diminutive for Philip, as you'd probably guessed. My father changed his mind when I was two weeks old. Perhaps Philip was too long a word for him...". Pyle became friends with Phil Miller in the early 50's... yes, that's right, they actually went to kindergarten together! It was also during this period that Pyle started playing on biscuit tins. Although he took a few lessons from jazz drummer Buzz Greene, he is largely self-taught.
In 1966, at age 15, Pyle was a founding member of Brunos Blues Band, later renamed Delivery (whose sole album Fools Meeting was finally re-released on CD in 1999) with the Miller brothers. "I was in Delivery until 1970 when I was fired after a row with the singer, Carol Grimes...". Then followed a short stint with blues band Chicken Shack of which he holds few happy memories : "I reluctantly admit to having played with that band... I was fired from that, again, for laughing at the guitarist Stan Webb when he did a terribly heartfelt and ghastly version of "If I Were A Carpenter". So much for the blues...".
Fortunately for him, a major career opportunity was around the corner. In April 1970, Delivery played Upstairs at Ronnie Scott's while Soft Machine had a residency in the main room. Pyle became friendly with Softs members Elton Dean and Robert Wyatt, and it was the latter who recommended him to Daevid Allen who needed a drummer to finish his Banana Moon album in early 1971. "There was a track which Robert, for some reason, couldn't face doing himself, so I did it. That's how I met Daevid Allen and ended up joining Gong". Meanwhile, he'd briefly joined Steve Hillage's band Khan.
Although Pyle's stint with Gong was very short (April to December 1971), he remains, along with Pierre Moerlen, the most fondly remembered drummer in the band's history, playing on the classic Camembert Electrique album. In 1992, twenty years after his departure from Gong, Pyle would rejoin the band for the Shapeshifter sessions and subsequent tour!
Back in England, Pyle joined singer Paul Jones' backing band alongside guitarist Gary Boyle (shortly to form his own band, Isotope) and his old Delivery accomplice Roy Babbington. After yet another stint with All Wet And Dripping, a Canterbury-influenced band in which he replaced Charles Hayward, he resumed his collaboration with the Miller brothers and Richard Sinclair in a reformed Delivery, in the summer of 1972. "Then Dave Sinclair replaced Steve, and later Dave Stewart replaced him... Meanwhile, we found the name Hatfield and the North. It took a long time to get a group together in those days, we were too stoned!".
Hatfield and the North lasted until June 1975, with Pyle contributing most of the lyrics and a fair share of the compositions. After the break-up, Phil Miller and Dave Stewart went on to National Health. For various reasons, Pyle wasn't in that band, although he helped them while they were looking for a permanent drummer. "During that period, I did a fair amount of playing with various musicians on the London jazz scene in various clubs and workshops. I had a group with Elton Dean, Keith Tippett and Jim Richardson on bass, called the Weightwatchers, which I remember for a totally unreasonable and delirious tour of Europe in 1976...".
Upon Bill Bruford's departure, Pyle eventually joined National Health and played on the band's three studio albums. He wrote a piece for the band, "A Legend In His Own Lunchtime", later retitled "Binoculars" and recorded on Of Queues And Cures (1979). During the last period, he penned another piece : "Seven Sisters", which belatedly appeared on his 1998 solo album Seven Year Itch then, in its original NH incarnation, on the Play Time live CD - re-titled "Pleiades" for obscure copyright reasons.
By the time of National Health's demise, Pyle had been involved in Soft Heap, a parallel jazz band, for a couple of years. The original line-up of Elton Dean, Alan Gowen, Hugh Hopper and Pyle underwent a couple of changes, with Hopper's replacement by John Greaves and, after Gowen's untimely death in 1981, the recruitment of Mark Hewins on guitar. In 1980-81, Pyle was also involved in Rapid Eye Movement, a low-key combo led by Dave Stewart with Jakko Jakszyk (guitar and vocals) and Rick Biddulph (bass and vocals). That quartet toured Europe twice and did unfinished recordings. This marked Pyle's earliest use of Simmonds electric drums. Some of his compositions were played by REM, including a new version of "Seven Sisters" with lyrics, and another epic instrumental, "The Mensa Membrane".
Later in 1981, Pyle of course took part in the reformation of National Health. "Well, we never really reformed, just enough to do a record of his tunes we found written out in his music room, and three gigs, one in London and two at the Edinburgh Festival". Again, Pyle made occasional use of the controversial electric drums on D.S. Al Coda, but his interest for this instrument had faded by 1982 : he used them on John Greaves' first solo album Accident and for a few gigs with T-Mit, a band also comprising Richard Sinclair, Mark Hewins (guitar) and Vince Clarke (percussion).
In November 1982, Pyle was a founding member of Phil Miller's In Cahoots, and has remained in the band for nearly fifteen years. In 1984, he met French pianist Sophia Domancich, who became his girlfriend and with whom he formed Equip'Out. The pair's first project was a quartet with ex-Edition Speciale keyboard player Ann Ballester and Urban Sax bass player Bernard Weber. In December of that year, Equip'Out was formed with Elton Dean, Hugh Hopper and Didier Malherbe, and a first album was recorded the following year. Apart from Pyle's "Foetal Fandango" (originally a middle section for the original "Seven Sisters"), the material was written by Domancich and Hopper. With Malherbe soon leaving, the quartet continued gigging occasionally.
In 1985-86, Pyle worked extensively with French guitarist Patrice Meyer alongside Hugh Hopper, for several tours and the album Dromadaire Viennois (1987). In 1988, Hopper left Equip'Out, and gigs became more sporadic. Charles Calamel, the bass player from Domancich's own Trio Davenport, joined for a while, as did guitarist Mimi Lorenzini. Eventually, the band became a quartet again with the addition of British double bass player Paul Rogers. A second album was recorded in 1990, again with only one piece by Pip Pyle, the others being penned by Domancich and Dean. Sophia Domancich, who also took part in the reformation of Hatfield and the North in March 1990, eventually left Equip'Out after her relationship with Pyle came to an end.
In 1991, Pyle was a founding member of Short Wave with Hugh Hopper, Didier Malherbe and Phil Miller. He also rejoined Gong during the sessions of Shapeshifter (1992), having played at the band's televised reformation concert in April 1990, and toured regularly with them between 1992 and 1996. "For me, Shapeshifter was a very difficult recording date : Daevid had already finished the record with another drummer, but after a tour, he insisted that I replace him on the multitrack... Not an easy or particularly rewarding task although in the end I think I managed to bluff my way through it all with all the dignity I could muster...". Pyle took part in the 1994 25th Anniversary concerts, even replacing Pierre Moerlen at the last minute in the 'Trilogy Line-Up' set. This led to extensive American and European tours with Gong in 1996.
As a sideline, he played in the backing bands of Greaves, Mimi Lorenzini, Malherbe, Faton Cahen, Claude Barthélémy, Michel Godard and Emmanuel Bex (the trio Tertio, with Patrice Meyer on guitar) among others. As far as Equip'Out is concerned, the band's later line-ups were fluctuent : Francis Lockwood (piano, Didier's brother) joined for a while, then was replaced by Meyer on guitar for the band's final gigs in 1994-95, as documented on Hux Records' Instants CD, recorded at Les Instants Chavirés in Montreuil in April 1995.
Between 1991 and 1997, Pyle was also hard at work on his long-awaited debut solo album, the aptly titled Seven Year Itch, which was finally finished in time for an autumn 1998 release. "It is a collection of songs and instrumental pieces written over the last ten years that no-one seemed to want to play, plus a demented cover of "Strawberry Fields Forever"...". The prestigious line-up assembled on the album reads like a who's who of the Canterbury scene : John Greaves, Richard Sinclair, Dave Stewart, Phil Miller, Elton Dean, Hugh Hopper, Barbara Gaskin, Jakko Jakszyk, Michel Godard, Didier Malherbe, Fred Baker, François Ovide, Paul Rogers, Alain and Yvon Guillard, etc.
In 1997, Pyle left Gong to make way for Pierre Moerlen's return to the fold, and for a while after that he chose to devote his energy to In Cahoots. In 1998, he joined forces with Daevid Allen, Hugh Hopper and Mark Kramer in Brainville for dates in the UK and the US, documented on a recent CD, although he has since been replaced by Chris Cutler. With Short Wave and Equip'Out both inactive, Pyle has joined the American progressive trio Absolute Zero, touring and recording in Florida and California in the autumn of 1999. He of course contributed to Phil Miller 's 'blues' project, Out Of The Blue, but following disagreements with Phil Miller, he left In Cahoots following the Japanese tour of 2001.
Pyle chose to concentrate on a new 'solo' project, a band named Pip Pyle's Bash which made its live debut in August 2002 at the Progman Cometh festival in Seattle (USA). The quartet consisted of himself, Patrice Meyer on guitar, Fred Baker on bass and Alex Maguire on keyboards, and performed material written by the drummer over the previous couple of years, as well as pieces by other band members. A live album, drawn from that concert and (mainly) a second one in Paris the following year, Belle Illusion, was released by Cuneiform Records in May 2004, followed by a short European tour. There was another short tour that year, producing half of a projected second album.
In 2005 Pyle joined Phil Miller and Richard Sinclair in a Hatfield and the North reformation, with Alex Maguire handling the keyboards. On January 29th, all three were reunited for the first time in 15 years when Pyle sat in with the Richard Sinclair Band for a few old numbers ("Above And Below", "Share It", "Halfway Between Heaven And Earth" and "Didn't Matter Anyway") during a gig at Whitstable's Horsebrdige Arts Centre. The rejuvenated Hatfield made its official live debut on March 18th, 2005 at the Mean Fiddler in London, and a brief tour of Europe followed in June. More international touring followed in 2005-06, including dates in Japan, Mexico, the USA and Europe. On August 26th Pyle played his last gig in Groningen, The Netherlands. He died in a Paris hotel early in the morning of August 28th shortly after returning to France.

Sempre su Calyx è disponibile una cronologia delle attività concertistiche di Pip Pyle, aggiornata al 2004.

"Mortality, if there's a reason / We know not what it is"
(John Greaves, Back Where We Began)

Anche quest'anno Jean-Hervé Peron organizza a Schiphorst (nel nord della Germania, nello Schleswig-Holstein) la rassegna, assai informale in verità, dal titolo Avantgarde Festival. Le date sono dall'1 al 3 settembre prossimi. Concerti, installazioni, azioni sceniche, discussioni e attività di varia socializzazione cui partecipano, tra gli altri, Charles Hayward, Edward Ka-Spel, Asmus Tietchens, Geoff Leigh e naturalmente Faust.

Informazioni e programma in http://www.art-errorist.de/festival06/Index.htm

Faust (Zappi, Jean-Hervé Péron, Olivier Manchion e Amaury Cambuzat in questa versione) sono in concerto a Milano per la Festa de l'Unità, Mazda Palace, giovedi 24 agosto 2006, dalle ore 21.30 (l'ingresso è gratuito, pare).

Di imminente uscita il libro, scritto da Andy Wilson, dedicato alle vicende dei loro primi "eroici" anni:

September sees the release of the first book about the band, titled Faust: Stretch Out Time 1970-75, by Andy Wilson.

Fully Illustrated, the book covers the early history of the band and reviews all of their music from that period, collected on The Wümme Years and Faust IV. It also includes essays on the history of Krautrock, on time and on the influence of Frank Zappa on the group, as well as live reviews from the period.

"In 1970 Polydor Records funded an unusual experiment. They gave some unknown German musicians a retreat in the countryside near Hamburg, equipped it with a studio and their best engineer, then left them free to do as they liked. This is the story of Faust and the music they made between 1970 and 1975, music which continues to inspire and confound listeners to this day. Along the way, Andy Wilson recounts the rise of Krautrock and its connection with the social upheavals of the late '60s and early '70s. He also discusses the role of time in music, takes a swing at Frank Zappa and looks in detail at the records Faust made in their heroic years.

Andy Wilson lives in Hackney, London. He has been listening to Faust for the best part of a lifetime."

http://www.faust-pages.com/

Table of the Elements annuncia il programma del proprio quarto festival - quest'anno denominato "Bohrium" - ad Atlanta, Georgia, dal 31 agosto al 4 settembre prossimi. Tony Conrad, Rhys Chatham, rari film di Ira Cohen, un omaggio a John Fahey e la quarta versione del Japanese New Music Festival ideato dall'irrefrenabile Tatsuya Yoshida sono in cartellone assieme a molti molti altri eventi.

Programma, poster e informazioni in http://www.myspace.com/tableoftheelementsfestival4

Jazz on 3 trasmette oggi (00.30, ora italiana) la registrazione integrale di Art Wolf, che Mike e Kate Westbrook hanno prodotto lo scorso marzo negli studi radiofonici della BBC in una formazione ampliata rispetto a quella dell'album (da qui il nome per la session, Art Wolf Plus).

In dettaglio:

ART WOLF PLUS

Kate Westbrook vocals, tenor horn

Mike Westbrook piano, euphonium

Chris Biscoe alto, soprano saxes

Pete Whyman soprano, alto saxes

Tim Harries bass

Sebastian Rochford drums

Set list (70.46)

11.00 Art Wolf Sketches

03.41 My Pale Parasol

05.25 Unsigned Panorama

03.17 In Meinem Puppenhaus

14.01 Art Wolf Scavenges > band members

02.23 Exile

03.28 Oil Paint On Canvas

03.37 Oil & Pencil On Cardboard

02.58 Di Chi Sei Lupo

07.54 Doll's House

02.34 Il Mio Chiaro Parasole

03.38 Sketching Party

01.36 Ma Pale Ombrelle

05.08 Whose Wolf Art Thou?

http://www.westbrookjazz.co.uk

David Garland, cantante e compositore newyorchese di squisita originalità e conduttore del celebre programma radiofonico Spinning on Air, è stato a sua volta ospite e protagonista di un programma condotto da Irene Trudel su WFMU lo scorso giugno. Oltre novanta minuti per parlare di musiche, iniziative e progetti in cantiere - su tutti, un nuovo album dal titolo "Noise in You" - e soprattutto per presentare dal vivo alcune proprie canzoni, accompagnandosi a una dodicicorde acustica.

"I really enjoyed having the shoe on the other foot, or microphone at the other mouth, or however you might describe my performance on Irene Trudel’s WFMU show. Just as I present in-studio performances and interviews on Spinning On Air, Irene invited me to perform and talk about my own music on her show. I think the session gives you a good introduction to my songs and thoughts about them. My segment runs about 90 minutes, and begins at about an hour into the show. In addition to the songs which I played live, accompanying myself on guitar, you can hear two recordings from my album-in-progress, “Noise In You,” and a track from “I Guess I Just Wasn't Made for These Times,” my album of Brian Wilson covers."

Il programma è archiviato in http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/19358