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jt1674 · 8 months

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#henry cow #nirvana for mice #leg end #fred frith #chris cutler #john greaves #geoff leigh #tim hodgkinson

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nedison · 6 months

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Curiously, the apotheosis of the record as an instrument—as the raw material of a new creation—occurred just as the gramophone record itself was becoming obsolete and when a new technology that would surpass the wildest ambitions of any scratcher, acousmaticist, tape composer or sound organiser was sweeping all earlier record/playback production systems aside. Sampling, far from destroying disc manipulation, seems to have breathed new life into it. It was almost as if sampling had recreated the gramophone record as a craft instrument, an analogue performing instrument made authentic by nostalgia.

Obsolescence empowered a new mythology for the old phonograph, completing the circle from passive repeater to creative producer; from dead mechanism to expressive voice; from the death of performance to its guarantee. It is precisely the authenticity of the 12-inch disc that keeps it in manufacture. It has become anachronistically indispensable.

- Chris Cutler, Not As We Choose

#Chris Cutler #henry cow #music #vinyl #vinyl records

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thatrickmcginnis · 7 months

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DRUMMERS: Anton Fier & Chris Cutler, 1987

I photographed two drummers in 1987 who were more than timekeepers. Anton Fier arrived in Toronto as a bandleader - the organizing force behind The Golden Palominos, an alt/indie/avant garde supergroup who he had transformed from a jazz outfit on their first album to an experimental pop band on their second, Visions of Excess. Guest vocalists on the record included John Lydon, Michael Stipe of R.E.M., Jack Bruce from Cream and Fier's discovery, singer and songwriter Syd Straw, alongside an all-star cast of musicians that included Richard Thompson, Jody Harris and Bill Laswell. His touring band included Matthew Sweet and P-Funk keyboardist Bernie Worrell. I had done a very prickly, unsuccessful interview with Fier over the phone a few months previous, but for some reason (I loved the record) decided to ask my editors at Nerve for a re-match, interviewing and photographing him at his hotel for what would be a cover story.

My second interview with drummer Anton Fier turned out much better than the first, and my photos were even better. I was still using my human lightstand and tripod method, holding my Mamiya C330 in one hand and my Vivitar flash in the other while trying to focus and compose, but the results were improving. Fier and the Golden Palominos would continue to release a string of fascinating records through the '80s and into the '90s - albums like Blast of Silence, A Dead Horse, Drunk With Passion, Dead Inside and Dreamspeed, most of which are extremely rare today. Fier's career had begun with immense promise, with stints in the Lounge Lizards and The Feelies before the Golden Palominos, and he would play on records by everyone from the Electric Eels, Joe Henry, Lloyd Cole and Matthew Sweet to Yoko Ono, Mick Jagger, Jeff Buckley and Herbie Hancock. But by the 2000s he was beset by money and health problems, and in September of 2022 he was dead of assisted suicide in Switzerland. One of my 1987 portraits of Fier ran with his New York Times obituary - something neither he nor I would have imagined back in that hotel room near Maple Leaf Gardens.

The other drummer of note I photographed in 1987 was Chris Cutler, born in 1947 in Washington DC to a British intelligence officer and his wife. His musical career began when he joined the Cambridge prog band Henry Cow, and after the band broke up in 1978 he founded Recommended Records, later adding a publishing arm, November Books. While performing with Art Bears, News from Babel and countless other avant-garde groups, he wrote File Under Popular, a collection of essays on music. This book, and his apparently endless musical energy, was what inspired me to photograph and - I presume - interview him when he came to town in 1987. He embodied the DIY spirit that I also saw in punk rock, and I was impressed when he showed up at Ildiko's, the grimy club above a pool hall where I'd seen countless hardcore shows, with his whole drum kit condensed into two cases that he hauled up the stairs. I photographed Cutler in the grafitti-filled dressing room at the club, holding my C330 in one hand and moving my flash around with the other, getting a few dramatic results. Chris Cutler continues to perform, record, write and even broadcast to this day, and Recommended is still putting out records.

#portrait #Anton Fier #portrait photography #black and white #film photography #musician #mamiya c330 #early work #1987 #Golden Palominos #drummers #Chris Cutler #some old pictures i took

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esmamig · 1 year

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Living in the Heart of the Beast

Situation that rules your world (despite all you've said) I would strike against it but the rule displaces…

There I burn in my own lights fuelled with flags torn out Of books, and histories of marching together… United with heroes, we were the rage, the fire But I was given a different destiny - knotted in closer despair

Calling to heroes do you have to speak that way all the time ? Tales told by idiots in paperbacks; a play of forms To spite my fabulous need to fight and live We exchange words, coins, movements - paralysed in loops Of care that we hoped could knot a world still Sere words, toothless, ruined now, bulldozed into brimming pits -who has used them how? Grammar book that lies wasted : Conflux of voices rising to meet, and fall Empty, divided, other…

Clutching at sleeves the wordless man exposes his failure : Smiling, he hurls a wine glass, describing his sadness twisted Into mere form: shattered in a glass, he's changed… Now dare he seize the life before him and discompound it in Sulphurous confusion and give it to the air? He's rushing to find where there's a word of liquid syntax - signs let slip in a flash : "clothes of chaos are my rage !" He shrieks in tatters, hunting the eye of his own storm

We were born to serve you all our bloody lives Labouring tongues we give rise to soft lies : Disguised metaphors that keep us in a vast inverted stillness Twice edged with fear

Twilight signs decompose us

High in offices we stared into the turning wheel of cities Dense and ravelled close yet separate: planned to kill all encounter Intricate we saw your state at work its shapes Abstracted from all human intent. With our history's fire We shall harrow your signs Now is the time to begin to go forward - advance from despair The darkness of solitary men - who are chained in a market they Cannot control - in the name of a freedom that hangs like a pall On our cities. And their towers of silence we shall destroy

Now is the time to begin to determine directions, refuse to admit The existence of destiny's rule. We shall seize from all heroes and Merchants our labour, our lives, and our practice of history : this Our choice, defines the truth of all that we do

Seize on the words that oppose us with alien force; they're enslaved By the power of capital's kings who reduce them to coinage and Hollow exchange in the struggle to hold us, they're bitterly Outlasting… Time to sweep them down from power - deeds renew words

Dare to take sides in the fight for freedom that is common cause Let us all be as strong and as resolute. We're in the midst of A universe turning in turmoil; of classes and armies of thought Making war - their contradictions clash and echo through time

#henry cow #fred frith #tim hodgkinson #geoff leigh #rock in opposition #chris cutler #john greaves #lindsay cooper #dagmar krause #slapp happy #art bears #in praise of learning

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nervoussystemmusicreverence · 8 months

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Henry Cow - Bittern Storm Over Ulm

Music Video

youtube

Artist

Henry Cow

Composer

Fred Frith

Produced

Henry Cow

Credit

Tim Hodgkinson – Farfisa organ, piano, alto saxophone, clarinet Fred Frith – Stereo guitar, violin, xylophone, piano John Greaves – Bass guitar, piano, voice Chris Cutler – Drums Lindsay Cooper – Bassoon, oboe, recorder, voice

Released

May 27 1974

Streaming

youtube

#henry cow #fred frith #tim hodgkinson #john greaves #chris cutler #lindsay cooper #1970s #1974 #music #Youtube

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ozkar-krapo · 11 months

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WHEN [Lars PEDERSEN]

"Black, white and grey"

(LP. Tatra. 1991 / rec. 1990) [NO]

youtube

#when #lars pedersen #1990 #norway #industrial #rio #progressive #ambient #chris cutler #records #Youtube

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bungitonthen · 2 years

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leg end unrest

in praise of learning western culture

#henry cow #fred frith #chris cutler #tim hodgkinson #john greaves #lindsay cooper

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radiophd · 4 months

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chris cutler / zeena parkins -- qeh 4

#1990s #experimental #noise #chris cutler #zeena parkins

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c-40 · 1 year

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A-T-3 072 David Thomas & The Pedestrians - Variations On A Theme

David Thomas was a founding member of Pere Ubu. He now lives in Brighton, England. I have no idea when David Thomas moves to the UK, I have a feeling it's the late 1970s

The Sound of the Sand and Other Songs of the Pedestrian was recorded in the UK and released in 1981 as David Thomas's debut solo album. Pere Ubu split for a while beginning in 1982. Variations On A Theme, Thomas's second studio album is released in 1983

David Thomas writes

"Variations On A Theme was an album recorded in snatches, as opportunity arose. It was, from start to finish, a struggle to make-do with no budget and very little money to support it.

In November 1982, David Thomas, Lindsay Cooper and Chris Cutler [Henry Cow] were on a European tour as David Thomas and his legs (though it may have been The Pedestrians). A chance to fill some downtime by recording for free in a Swiss studio came up. Later in the tour they played the concert that was recorded by a fan and later released as Winter Comes Home. On returning to London, in December 1982, it turned out that Anton Fier [Pere Ubu] was in town. A session with Cutler was arranged at Cold Storage, an improv studio assembled in a metal-walled former meat locker. Jack Monck, a member of one of Syd Barrett's solo bands, overdubbed bass to the Swiss recordings at another studio.

David returned to Cleveland. It was quickly arranged for Richard Thompson to fly in for a week, rehearse and record the rest of the album with Paul Hamann [Human Switchboard] playing bass and Anton on drums. Jim Jones helped out at rehearsals with songwriting."

Anton Fier sadly died last year

Variations On A Theme is long out of print, which is a shame because it's ace

Pedestrian Walk