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."
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/
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
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.
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.