Sembra smentire le notizie di non buona salute il grande attivismo di David Thomas degli ultimi tempi: un tour europeo di una ventina di date appena terminato con Pere Ubu (The Annotated Modern Dance), nuovi concerti in calendario con i fedeli Two Pale Boys (per musicare dal vivo un B-movie degli anni sessanta, Carnival Of Souls) e poi da solo, in duo con Chris Cutler e in trio con Cutler e John Edwards, l'imminente pubblicazione di nuovi album di Rocket From The Tombs (Bar Fly) e Pere Ubu (Lady From Shanghai) e altri impegni anche come produttore esterno (The Numbers Band, The Inward City). Demo, download ufficiali, podcast, materiali d'archivio e informazioni aggiornate su tour e discografia si trovano presso www.ubuprojex.net e www.hearpen.com

A quindici anni dalla fondazione della sua Tricatel è pronto a scrivere un libro su come non si gestisce un'etichetta discografica... Tra illusioni e disillusioni, uno sguardo al passato e uno al futuro, Bertrand Burgalat si confida con David McKenna in una bella intervista pubblicata in The Quietus.

http://www.tricatel.com
http://www.tricatel.com/blog
http://thequietus.com/articles/06299-rockfort-tricatel-interview

Cuneiform Records ha pronti sei nuovi titoli: Afuche, Highly Publicized Digital Boxing Match; Cheer-Accident, No Ifs, Ands or Dogs; Gösta Berlings Saga, Glue Works; un doppio cd per Wadada Leo Smith's Organic, Heart's Reflections; e un doppio cd anche per Richard Pinhas & Merzbow, Rhizome, tratto dal loro concerto al festival Sonic Circuits lo scorso settembre. Di Pinhas & Merzbow c'è anche, in tiratura limitata, un album in vinile (blu, se acquistato direttamente dall'etichetta) da un concerto del 2008 a Les Instants Chavirés a Parigi.

www.cuneiformrecords.com

Tra i documenti recuperati di recente da UbuWeb - ma il filmato circola su YouTube almeno da un anno - c'è anche un curioso happening concettuale firmato Red Crayola con Art & Language, epoca 1976: Nine Gross and Conspicuous Errors.

Corrected Slogans was the first LP to be produced and was worked on by Art & Language and Red Crayola founder member Mayo Thompson between 1973 and its release date in 1976. The album’s artwork, musical scores and other ephemera were shown in the room next door to the two videos And Now for Something Completely Different and Nine Gross and Conspicuous Errors (both 1976), which have a similar lyrical content to the album and which both contain ironic posturing that thinly masks an awkward energy brought about by the mixture of political anthems and rock and roll. Unrehearsed songs are performed by groups of unsuspecting participants as well as the knowing core collaborators Art & Language’s Michael Baldwin and Mel Ramsden, with Thompson on guitar and Jesse Chamberlain on drums. Activist slogans, such as ‘we must ferociously attack so called institutionalized egalitarianism – it is a smokescreen, which attempts to replace activist content with liberal structures’, are chanted en masse and played out as theoretical quotations and self-mocking mantras. At one point Ramsden sings the line ‘Marx’s old chestnut “the philosophers know how to interpret the world, the point is to change it” is embedded in the nexus of dialectics’ and Thompson makes a dedication ‘to Ludwig Wittgenstein, who said “you cannot be a philosopher and a Communist at the same time”’.

www.ubu.com/film/al_error.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Crayola

Chris Cutler invita a riflettere sulla prassi del filesharing in termini di ecologia, diversità culturale, profitto sostenibile e danni collaterali. Affida il contributo alla rivista The Wire - sul numero di giugno 2011 - prendendo spunto da un articolo pubblicato il mese scorso da Kenneth Goldsmith, fondatore quindici anni fa di UbuWeb, che già ha suscitato diverse reazioni. Da leggere!

http://tinyurl.com/3s5fpax
http://www.thewire.co.uk/articles/6715
http://www.thewire.co.uk/articles/6445
www.ccutler.com
www.ubu.com

Gioca con il titolo di un vecchio album di Derek Bailey il cd di Lol Coxhill e Alex Ward appena pubblicato dalla Incus Records: Old Sights, New Sounds, registrato lo scorso ottobre presso la sede dell'etichetta e prodotto dall'infaticabile Karen Brookman.

http://www.incusrecords.force9.co.uk/catalogue/new.html
http://alexwardmusic.blogspot.com
http://tinyurl.com/42ygnrd
http://tinyurl.com/42metye
http://tinyurl.com/3vy8p4e

Un lavoro di Heiner Goebbels del 2007 va in scena per la prima volta in Italia questa sera al Teatro Comunale di Modena: Songs of Wars I Have Seen, basato sul testo di Gertrude Stein Guerre che ho visto. Spiega Goebbels: "What's most interesting to me, in this book, is that she keeps on speaking about her experiences of the Second World War, while she was in France, but she doesn't offer any focus, she doesn't give any hint of what we would consider important and not important. It's like neighbors talking about everything, and she combines very personal comments on food, on her dog, on the weather, with very political statements on the Americans and the Italians and the French and the prisoners in Germany. And the nice thing is that when you read this book--and probably when you hear this composition--you have to decide yourself, what is your own focus, between this relationship of your personal point-of-view and the political and social point-of-view."
Precede l'esecuzione della London Sinfonietta con l'Orchestra of The Age of Englightenment una presentazione dello stesso Goebbels, accompagnato da Franco Fabbri.

www.heinergoebbels.com
http://tinyurl.com/3z6ws7o
http://tinyurl.com/3gak6zd

Per poter davvero partecipare quest'estate al festival Zappanale - a Bad Doberan, in Germania, dal 19 al 21 agosto - Nick Didkovsky e il gruppo Doctor Nerve contano sull'aiuto di amici e sostenitori: l'appello è in KickStarter. Scrive Didkovsky: "We've been invited to do two shows at Zappanale, in August 2011. We'll also be participating in after hour jams, attending panel discussions, film screenings, meeting fans, other musicians, and promoters... it'll be a very productive and intense couple of days. The Zappanale and More Festival has been celebrating the legacy of the music of composer Frank Zappa for over 20 years. Doctor Nerve’s music has been profoundly influenced by Zappa’s iconoclastic innovation, and has been active for over 25 years. This is a unique opportunity for Doctor Nerve to participate in an international community that shares deep roots".

http://www.doctornerve.org
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctornerve/send-doctor-nerve-to-the-zappanale-festival

Nel mezzo dei turbinosi eventi della rassegna londinese Short Circuit organizzata la scorsa settimana dall'etichetta Mute, Simon Fisher Turner ha presentato un nuovo lavoro scritto a quattro mani con Mira Calix, Dead Men Can't Run, avvalendosi della collaborazione della violoncellista Laura Moody (Elysian Quartet) e delle apparizioni di un figurante, Steve. Un brevissimo estratto si vede - si fa per dire, nel buio catacombale di quell'area della Roundhouse - in http://tinyurl.com/3ttpjol

http://muteshortcircuit.wordpress.com
http://www.simonfisherturner.com

Ogniqualvolta Mike Westbrook ha occasione di riprendere l'opera di William Blake, celebrata negli album Bright as Fire e Glad Day, l'omaggio va anche al compianto Adrian Mitchell e al suo Tyger, da cui tutto prese il via quarant'anni fa. In occasione del nuovo allestimento corale di Glad Day proposto il 13 e 14 maggio scorsi a Newton Abbot, nella magnifica sede di Hannahs at Seale-Hayne, è intervenuta brevemente anche Celia Hewitt, la tenace e combattiva compagna di Mitchell, declamando una delle sue poesie più note e attuali, Cutting It Up:

If you’re looking for trouble

Here’s how to start

Blow up the theatres

Tear down the art

Burn down the libraries

And concert halls

Cut your jazz and ballet

And then cut off your balls

And be a serial killer of culture

A serial killer of the soul

If you’re looking for trouble

Take the artists you’ve got

Stack their works all around them

And torch the lot

The human soul is hungry

And so’s the human heart

The food and drink makes them feel and think

It comes from works of art

And the human soul without art

Is locked in a dungeon cell

If you take your knife and cut the arts

You can cut your throat as well

‘Cause you’re serial killer of culture

A serial killer of the soul

If you’re looking for trouble

Cut your grants to the poor

Seek out the old and sick

Cut them some more

Suffer little children

To go to school in hell

Then watch them burn your cities

And your country estates as well

‘Cause you’re a serial killer of Britain

A serial killer of its soul 

Una recensione dei concerti è al blog Mainly Jazz in Bristol mentre un video amatoriale tratto dalla prima delle due serate è pubblicato su YouTube.

www.westbrookjazz.co.uk/mikewestbrook/blake.shtml
http://tinyurl.com/3eyu2x4
http://tinyurl.com/4xgtp57

Ospite di Battiti, su Radio3, stasera a partire dalla mezzanotte, è Marco Dalpane: il pianista e compositore bolognese, da più di vent'anni autore di sonorizzazioni per vecchie pellicole dell'era del cinema muto, propone dal vivo versioni per solo pianoforte di alcune musiche tratte dalla colonna sonora composta per il film "The General" di Buster Keaton (1926).

http://tinyurl.com/2ana8bo
http://www.marcodalpane.com
http://www.myspace.com/marcodalpane

Nell'ambito dell'Ah-Um Jazz Festival, in corso in questi giorni a Milano, suona domani sera l'Artchipel Orchestra diretta dal batterista e compositore Ferdinando Faraò, con un programma che comprende brani di Mike e Kate Westbrook (da Platterback), Alan Gowen e Dave Stewart. Il concerto è alla Fonderia Napoleonica Eugenia (via Thaon di Revel 21, alle ore 22), con un'anteprima pomeridiana a Piazza Verdi, su Radio3.

www.ahumjazzfestival.com
www.radio.rai.it/radio3/piazzaverdi

C'era anche l'allegra compagnia dei Capybaras ad animare il pomeriggio musicale Daylight Music sabato scorso alla Union Chapel di Islington, a Londra: un breve filmato è disponibile su YouTube.

Il loro primo album, It's Capybara time!, si trova tramite ReR Megacorp: "The musical genres pay tribute to the semi-aquatic Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris, world's largest living herbivorous rodent. As concept musicals go this is a doozy. Today's pop giants are obliged to feed the world, settle the arab-israeli question or save the geosphere in order to deflect attention from their own groaning investment portfolios - and no portofolio is more bloated than that of recovering gigastar Bing Selfish. Hence his weepy espousal of this rampant South American water rat. The band is kicking, the ironies biting and fans will no doubt be screaming. 'Capybara party in the jungle - Tonite!'".

http://tinyurl.com/capybaras-UC
http://tinyurl.com/6hmqraq
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/capybaras
http://www.youtube.com/user/kibs411

Un'interessante, recentissima intervista a Bill MacCormick - bassista in Quiet Sun, Matching Mole, Phil Manzanera's 801 e Random Hold - si legge in It's Psychedelic Baby Magazine.

http://calyx.perso.neuf.fr/mus/maccormick_bill.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_MacCormick
http://www.btinternet.com/~stephen.yarwood/bmc.htm
http://www.allmusic.com/artist/p100390

A trent'anni oggi dalla sua scomparsa, ricordano Alan Gowen e il suo straordinario talento di tastierista e compositore in gruppi come Gilgamesh, National Health e Soft Heap alcuni interventi in What's Rattlin'?

In his all-too-brief professional music career, jazz-rock keyboardist and composer Alan Gowen garnered respect from his peers and a small cult audience but little more than that, although he arguably deserved much more. He made his initial mark within what is now referred to as the Canterbury scene of British prog rock, which received a fair amount of critical acclaim but usually only moderately sized audiences, and he also arrived on the scene after the late-'60s and early-'70s Canterbury heyday, thus never achieving the levels of attention enjoyed by such fellow keyboardists as Soft Machine's Mike Ratledge, Caravan's Dave Sinclair, or Dave Stewart of Hatfield and the North and National Health. Yet, his relatively small body of work reveals a searching and explorative sensibility that might have brought him wider artistic acclaim and even an acknowledgement of his impact on latter-day musicians extending into the 21st century -- had he not died of leukemia on May 17, 1981. As is the case with so many musicians who have died prematurely, this is something that can only be surmised.

http://calyx.perso.neuf.fr/mus/gowen_alan.html
http://www.nndb.com/people/963/000044831
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andymurkin/Resources/MusicRes/Canterbury/OtherCant/Gowen.html
http://www.allmusic.com/artist/alan-gowen-p17965/biography

Comicoperando - The Music of Robert Wyatt è in concerto domani sera a Firenze (Stazione Leopolda), il 18 a Zurigo (Rote Fabrik), il 19 ad Amsterdam (Bimhuis) e il 22 a Victoriaville (Fimav). I brani in scaletta giovedì scorso in occasione dell'appuntamento londinese erano: September The Ninth, The British Road, Gloria Gloom, Little Red Robin Hood Hit The Road, Memories, Little Red Riding Hood Hit The Road, Life Is Sheep, Just As You Are, Alliance, The United States Of Amnesia, Sea Song, Beware, Alifib e Out Of The Blue.

Il brano offerto come bis, Soup Song, è in un video amatoriale in http://tinyurl.com/soupsong, un commento al concerto si legge in http://tinyurl.com/6kh5zkg mentre qualche immagine è proposta in http://tinyurl.com/6zsck99

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comicoperando

http://tinyurl.com/soupsong
http://tinyurl.com/6kh5zkg
http://tinyurl.com/6zsck99

Tre nuovi titoli nella ricca e articolata discografia di Jean Derome: Fléchettes, da un'improvvisazione in duo con il percussionista Lê Quan Ninh; Danse à l’Anvers, terzo capitolo per il suo trio jazz con Normand Guilbeault e Pierre Tanguay; Le mensonge et l’identité, composto a quattro mani assieme a Joane Hétu e affidato agli archi del Bozzini Quartet con modalità e implicazioni 'politiche' illustrate in una nota in http://tinyurl.com/mensongeidentite.

http://www.actuellecd.com/
http://www.actuellecd.com/en/bio/derome_je/discog
http://tinyurl.com/mensongeidentite

Due video su YouTube introducono alla monumentale opera d'archivio The Eternal Myth Revealed-The Story Of A Universal Being And His Music dedicata a Sun Ra e ormai in via di pubblicazione per l'etichetta Transparency. Il primo volume, che conterrà venti cd e non quattordici come precedentemente annunciato, copre gli anni dal 1933 al 1959: lo si può prenotare in anticipo anche tramite ReR. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZSlXP_5LsY
Pt. 1 (1924-1953) examines Sun Ra's early 1920s Blues Vocal and 1930s Big Band influences, his first recordings in 1946 as a piano sideman, his arrangements and compositions, Sun Ra as a singer in the late 1940s, his trio in 1949, creating the sound for vocalists Laverne Baker and Joe Williams, coaching The Hambone Kids in 1952 and the late 1940s Afro-Cuban influence of band leader Perez Prado and other rare facts and musically unheard inclusions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IWYiafSyQo
Pt. 2 (1953-1959) examines the solo piano recordings Sunny recorded in his apartment, the R&B Doo Wop influence of the Jazz vocal group The Ink Spots, Sun Ra coaching his R&B Doo Wop group The Nu-Sounds, the Sun Ra Bebop Band live at Bud Land in 1956, a rare live performance at the Pershing Ballroom featuring Pat Patrick-baritone sax, Gene Ammons-tenor sax, J.J. Johnson-trombone, Sun Ra-piano, Ronnie Boykins-bass and Robert Barry-drums, a feature on tenor saxophonist John Gilmore from a 1958 Bud Land performance, Sun Ra and the band playing the pop tune Tequila and closing with vocalist Hattie Randolph and the 3 takes of Round Midnight from the 1959 Sound Sun Pleasure album.

http://www.myspace.com/michael_transparency

http://www.discogs.com/label/Transparency
www.rermegacorp.com

L'etichetta britannica Mute si autocelebra con due elettrizzanti giorni di concerti, proiezioni, installazioni, dj set e incontri pubblici presso la celebre Roundhouse a Londra: prendono parte a Short Circuit tra i molti altri Erasure, Laibach, Residents, Richard Kirk, Gareth Jones, Balanescu Quartet, Simon Fisher Turner, Martin Gore e Irmin Schmidt, anticipati ieri da Alva Noto e Ryuichi Sakamoto in una serata organizzata assieme alla tedesca Raster-Norton.

http://www.roundhouse.org.uk/short-circuit
http://tinyurl.com/66d9axw
http://mutedotcom.wordpress.com/category/news
http://www.raster-noton.net

Un nuovo allestimento corale del lavoro di Mike Westbrook sulle poesie di William Blake, Glad Day, viene presentato questo fine settimana nella prestigiosa sede di Hannahs at Seale-Hayne a Newton Abbott, Devon, con la partecipazione del gruppo vocale Hannah's Voice guidato da Marion Wood.

Mike Westbrook’s new version of his acclaimed settings of William Blake’s poetry brings the distinctive voices of Phil Minton and Kate Westbrook together with a choir and a highly original quartet of jazz instrumentalists, accordionist Karen Street, violinist Billy Thompson, Steve Berry on double bass and Westbrook himself on piano.

www.westbrookjazz.co.uk
www.westbrookjazz.co.uk/mikewestbrook/blake.shtml 

Hannahs at Seale-Hayne
Newton Abbot
Devon TQ12 6NQ
01626 325800
enquiries@dhrt.co.uk
www.hannahssealehayne.com

Comicoperando - The Music of Robert Wyatt torna in scena con una formazione in parte rinnovata rispetto all'episodio dell'anno scorso a Modena: Dagmar Krause, Annie Whitehead, Karen Mantler, Michel Delville, John Edwards e Chris Cutler. La serie di concerti - che nei prossimi giorni toccherà anche Firenze, Zurigo, Amsterdam e Victoriaville - inizia domani sera a Londra, alla Queen Elizabeth Hall, all'interno di un programma intitolato National Treasures: "We celebrate our national treasures – individuals who are instantly recognisable and who have, by their vision, their imagination, their powers of leadership, their humour or their compassion, transformed the life of the nation. Our national treasures include politicians, writers, chefs, musicians, artists, comedians and thinkers, all appearing in person at Southbank Centre during the Festival of Britain".

Comicoperando is a sextet paying tribute to one of the world's best-loved singers and songwriters in jazz and pop history. They revisit and reinvent Wyatt's repertoire from a wide range of perspectives while remaining rooted in the composer's restlessly inventive and iconoclastic spirit.

http://tinyurl.com/3vngev4

http://tinyurl.com/3bgth95

Un cd della Intakt, Clearing Customs, documenta ufficialmente uno dei progetti più recenti di Fred Frith, rivolto principalmente all'improvvisazione e allestito con musicisti di diversa nazionalità e formazione: Wu Fei, Anantha Krishnan Mridangam, Marque Gilmore, Tilman Müller, Patrice Scanlon e Daniela Cattivelli. L'album è frutto di alcuni concerti in studio e dal vivo che il gruppo tenne in Germania a novembre e dicembre 2007 sotto l'ombrello della Südwestrundfunk in occasione della rassegna New Jazz Meeting. Magari non era jazz, dice Frith, ma è stato divertente. E aggiunge: "I’ve never particularly thought of myself as a jazz musician. Jazz is something I have admired from a distance – an intriguing, inspiring, tree-shaking life force that inevitably informed my work even as I recognized that it was not my story. Brubeck, Miles, Mingus, Ornette, Coltrane, Sun Ra – my icons, my dreams, my secret life, but as inaccessible to me as were the worlds of my other heroes: Bartok, Messiaen, Stockhausen. My world, but not ‘my’ world. My role models as an improviser were not the founders of LMC, or ICP, or FMP, or AMM, but the Pink Floyd in 1968, the Grateful Dead on Anthem to the Sun, the Mothers of Invention, and my colleagues in Henry Cow".

http://www.intaktrec.ch/176-a.htm

Un triplo cd antologico ripercorre le vicende di Elliott Sharp con il suo gruppo a geometria variabile Carbon nel periodo 1984-1991: The Age of Carbon. Su etichetta Intakt.

http://www.intaktrec.ch/188-a.htm
http://www.panix.com/~esharp
http://www.repple.se/datacide

A propiziare salti e balli attorno all'albero di maggio giunge dalla berlinese Jazzwerkstatt un cd di inediti dei Ninesense di Elton Dean - Alan Skidmore, Harry Beckett, Mark Charig, Nick Evans, Radu Malfatti, Keith Tippett, Harry Miller e Louis Moholo con Dean - e del trio Beckett / Miller / Moholo, colti dal vivo in due distinte occasioni nella primavera del 1981 e del 1982. Un testimone di allora, Wolf Kampmann, spinto anch'egli alle danze, annota: "For exactly thirty years the concert by Elton Dean’s Ninesense continued to resonate in my memory. It was a magical moment of revelation, which came at precisely the time I was engaged in finding myself. Initially deeply alienated, I followed these nine musicians even though I was absolutely convinced they were maneuvering themselves in the direction of collective chaos. The names Elton Dean, Mark Charig, Keith Tippett, and Harry Miller were associated with bands like King Crimson and Soft Machine. I was curious and I didn’t want to let them get away that easily. Without realizing it was happening I found myself drawn into the slipstream of this psycho-acoustic chain reaction. The chaos sorted itself out, the horde became a team, and the individual became absorbed into the collective, with the whole, in turn, providing support for the parts. I couldn’t grasp at all how Elton Dean managed to merge these extremely individual expressions into a metalanguage at a higher level, without exerting force on any one of them or cramping their style. Each element was perfectly positioned, everything fell into place. Mountains, rivers, trees, houses, cows, stones, and blades of grass merged to form a dynamic landscape. The ugly became beautiful, the faltering began to flow, the arbitrary became organic. And in something that had seemed alien I quite unexpectedly discovered myself. By the end I found myself dancing enraptured where only forty minutes earlier I had been totally repelled. What a metamorphosis!".

http://www.jazzwerkstatt.eu/

Il nuovo eccellente album del Rova, Planetary (SoLyd Records, 2011), utilizza foto degli archivi Nasa per alludere a presenze, trasparenze, scarti e arcane traiettorie nello spazio sonoro, qui gestito in autonomia dal quartetto dopo un periodo denso di collaborazioni e di rinforzi esterni. E un altro loro recente progetto - The Sax Cloud, di nuovo per formazione allargata, un quadruplo quartetto itinerante - incorpora immagini, quelle di siti arcaici fotografati dall'alto da Georg Gerster, quale spunto di indagine dei rapporti spaziali tra le parti e il tutto, gli artefici, i materiali e i luoghi della performance musicale: una presentazione è in http://www.rova.org/projects/sax-cloud.html

http://www.rova.org
http://somethingelsereviews.com/2011/02/18/rova-saxophone-quartet-planetary-2011

E' iniziata ieri con un incontro pubblico con il compositore la serie di concerti ed eventi vari Reverberations: The influence of Steve Reich, in calendario questo fine settimana a Londra, al Barbican Centre. Un contributo introduttivo si ascolta in un podcast pubblicato su SoundCloud, mentre il programma completo - sei concerti in due giorni, con Bang on a Can, So Percussion, Kronos Quartet, Mark Stewart, Tyondai Braxton, Lee Ranaldo, Amadinda Quartet e la BBC Symphony Orchestra tra i molti protagonisti - si esplora in http://www.barbican.org.uk/reverberations 

The extraordinary musical influence of Steve Reich and his compositions are the focus of a marathon weekend at the Barbican on 7 and 8 May 2011. Following the hugely successful weekend for his 70th birthday in October 2006, the Barbican welcomes back the great pioneer of musical minimalism as special guest on a weekend that explores his influence on generations of musicians as well as his own work. Highlights of the weekend include performances of all the new music that Steve Reich has written since the last marathon weekend, including the European premiere of his new string quartet “WTC 9/11”, written for and performed by the Kronos Quartet, co-commissioned by the Barbican. There is also a groundbreaking collaboration between former Battles front man Tyondai Braxton and the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

http://www.barbican.org.uk/reverberations
http://www.barbican.org.uk/music/event-detail.asp?ID=10581
http://soundcloud.com/barbican-music/may-2011-steve-reich-kronos

Dopo ben undici anni di attività chiude uno dei luoghi più cari e frequentati dalla comunità zappiana sul web: Kill Ugly Radio. Nell'immediato non spariscono le preziose sezioni wiki e discografia, né vanno perduti gli innumerevoli contributi archiviati nel blog, ma nel suo messaggio di commiato il 'mitico' Barry's Imaginary Publisher suona piuttosto definitivo: "It has been an honor and a pleasure to host KUR during the past 11 years. I’ve learned so much from your comments and emails, laughed my ass off at some of them, and believe me when I say that without KUR, I would have never met some of the brightest people within the Zappa community. I’m proud to say some of them remain close friends to this day. I hope KUR has been a source of fun, discovery and inspiration over the years. Perhaps it gave you a chuckle, or perhaps you became acquainted with music you’d not heard before, perhaps you engaged in, or read some really erudite discussion on a variety of topics. It’s been a pleasure talking to you - and don’t forget to register to vote."

www.killuglyradio.com

Lancia i suoi primi vagiti, chiedendo attenzioni e amorevoli cure, il nuovo nato nella famiglia filo-Canterburyana sul web: The Polite Force. "It is a non-profit music community site first and foremost dedicated to appreciators of the Canterbury scene which was a music scene centered around Canterbury in England that started back in the 1960s with bands like Caravan and the Soft Machine. In addition to facilitating discussion and information exchange on Canterbury scene/music related topics, The Polite Force also aims to be a resource on factual information on all things Canterbury scene related where entries on bands, artists and releases will be searchable and indexable. This will be a work over time and if you are able to contribute, please consider helping us out!"

www.politeforce.com

Steve Gay e Jonny Greene aggiornano al sito PlanetGong la sezione dedicata agli album di Daevid Allen e Gong - Magick Brother, Bananamoon, Camembert Electrique, Flying Teapot e il singolo Est-ce-que Je Suis - pubblicati a suo tempo dall'etichetta francese BYG e apparsi con diverse varianti, non prive di errori e difetti, anche sui mercati tedesco e giapponese.

Of the many labels on which Gong have released albums over the past forty years, the French BYG label has proved the hardest one to catalogue and organise with any reliable degree of accuracy. There is little easily accessible documentation on the finer details of this obscure and short-lived label which specialised in issuing albums by relatively unknown, predominantly American free-jazz musicians in the late 1960's and early 1970's. Gong were one of a small number of non jazz artists signed to the label. BYG only released Gong and related albums in three different countries, France, Germany and Japan, with the French releases naturally being the most prolific and the Japanese ones the most rare and hardest to find. The pressing quality on the Japanese albums appears to be far better than the French versions. It is a common belief that the French BYG pressings were often made from recycling old unsold albums, re-melting them for use in new albums. If you look closely at many of the French releases, especially the later pressings, small bubbles and imperfections are visible on the album's surface. In many cases this leads to a high level of background noise and loss of sound quality when the record is played. However this does not detract from their desirability to collectors, and they remain perhaps the most prized of all albums among Gong aficionados for being the true first releases the band's early recordings. When asked Daevid remembers BYG always scrambling to save costs on pressing and mentioned early releases being made by, "pig-farmers in the French countryside somewhere", and he wasn't being completely ironic.

www.planetgong.co.uk/gas/discogs/byg.shtml

Ha debuttato nel Regno Unito con una raffica di concerti al Cafe Oto londinese dal 18 al 20 aprile scorso, durante un programma di tre giorni curato dal leader Peter Brötzmann. Registrazione di uno dei concerti del poderoso Chicago Tentet va in onda stasera per Jazz on 3, un'altra è archiviata in http://tinyurl.com/6bteub5, video e immagini sono su YouTube e Flickr mentre una recensione si legge in LondonJazz. Joe McPhee (pocket trumpet/reeds), Peter Brotzmann, Mats Gustafsson, Ken Vandermark (reeds), Paal Nilssen-Love (drums/percussion), Fred Lonberg-Holm (cello), Per Ake Holmlander (tuba), Johannes Andreas Bauer (trombone), Michael Zerang (drums/percussion), Kent Kessler (bass), Jeb Bishop (trombone).

http://www.cafeoto.co.uk/brotzmann-chicago-tentet.shtm
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cafeoto
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b010ntzn
http://londonjazz.blogspot.com/2011/04/review-peter-brotzmann-chicago-tentet.html
http://tinyurl.com/6bteub5

Gli ostaggi risolvono in allegra jam session con gli aggressori il drammatico dirottamento del loro aereo di linea: accade a Mick Jagger e compari in Rolling Stones Hostage Incidents, nella ricostruzione di Eugene Chadbourne con l'Estonian Guitar Octet. Osserva Bruce Gallanter, di Downtown Music Gallery: "The piece is broken into nine sections so that each guitarist gets to solo (including Eugene). The subtext of the piece is fictional story of the Rolling Stones being taken hostage on an airline flight and then jamming with the terrorists. Anyone who grew up in the sixties and anyone who loves basic rock music in general should be familiar with most of these songs. Starting with "Jumping Jack Flash", one guitarist kicks off that opening riff and soon the other guitarists join in adding bits in different styles and with different effects. Originally I thought that this might get too chaotic but this is not the case as Dr. Chadbourne has found a way of directing the guitarists to not step on each other and layer their parts into a seamless stream. Considering that the Stones were and still are my favorite sixties band, I was intrigued by this idea and pretty much knocked out by how well it came off. Early Stones fans know just how diverse the band was in the sixties, borrowing from the blues and R 'n' B and then inventing their own style of rock which included elements of folk, baroque, psych, punk, etc. The guitarists here dip into the wealth of licks and effects come up with something consistently interesting and evolving into something else throughout. Throw in some noise elements and over-the-top jamming and we have another winner from the mighty Doc Chadbourne and his nifty guitar army".

www.eugenechadbourne.com
www.myspace.com/estonianguitaroctet
www.downtownmusicgallery.com