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:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: :: :: :: - WHAT'S RATTLIN' ? - :: :: The Weekly Digest for Canterbury Music Addicts :: :: Issue # 112 :: :: Friday, December 4th, 1998 :: :: :: :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: ------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "William Storage" <storage@nerve-net.com> Subject: Voiceprint reissues Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1998 18:03:53 -0800 Hi folks: Regarding the Voiceprint releases:I was finally able to get John Greaves' Accident and Kew Rhone from Amazon.Its great to finally have these on CD. Accident is a decent sounding "pressing" but Kew Rhone was an incredible disappointment. The horns sound like electronic grit. An interesting thought experiment (not a real offer): I find a good copy of the lp. I make a quality CD from it. I make the following offer. Send me a Voiceprint copy of Kew Rhone. I will return you a copy of the lp-based CD, and your Voiceprint copy with a hole in it that renders it useless. This practice ensures that such copying does not increase the number of copies in existence (that could be sold). Every owner of the lp-based copy payed their dues to Voiceprint and to Greaves. There is no possibility of lost sales. "Fair use" ruling is satisfied (you can make copies of stuff you own for personal use). Of course this is probably more trouble than its worth. Then again, if anyone offers to do this, I've got a Voiceprint Kew Rhone I'd love to see with a bullet hole in it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: toni besos <tonibeso@arrakis.es> Subject: Robert Wyatt´s Video Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 11:55:52 +0100 Hello. I´m Antonio and I´m spanish, and I don't speak english but I try to explain my desire. The first: congratulations for your bulletin. And second: I want(I need) to know the e-mail or the adress to obtain the italian video about Robert Wyatt his life and music. Better for me in italian, I supose that there isn´t spanish version. Well, thank you very much for your work. The best for all lovers of the music of Robert and for all the people. Thank you very much. Adéu. Adiós. Bye bye. Au revoir. Dash vidania. Ciao. Antonio. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Layton <davidlayton@earthlink.net> Subject: CD sales, reissues, etc. Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 23:16:31 -0800 Quite a bit has been said about the posts from Elton Dean and Steve Feigenbaum, and something should be said about the post from Chris Cutler. I won't respond to these addenda individually, but will make some general comments from my perspective as a long-time collector (though not as long as some of you) and one-time progressive disc jockey. Basically, it is important to point out that our favorite musical artists are having a tough time out there, and the only ones who can fix it are we. It has now been 30 years, approximately, since the whole Canterbury/progressive/fusion phenomenon started. If we take just the Wilde Flower musicians as a starting point, that is A LOT of music out there. My tastes, and I think this is true for many of us, are rather wide spread. It would take a fortune to get the collection I would like. I've probably spent too much already. This difficulty can make buyers conservative, unwilling to plunk down their $15, 12L, or 130fffor a risk. It is much easier to go with what is safe. Will it be Live at the Proms or Seven Year Itch? Chances are, nostalgia and fear will win over daring and curiosity. So, of course, retro CDs sell better than the new stuff. But, as Steve Feignebaum points out, this does a great disservice to the musicians who are still working. There can be no wonder that Hugh Hopper once worked at a travel agency or that Richard Sinclair prefers carpentry when no one will buy their new CDs, when a good showing at one of their concerts is 100 people. It is not, as some have said, a matter of musical quality. Because the music now is not what you remember or what you would like the musicians to do is not a reason for saying the music lacks quality. No matter how good "Nine Feet Underground" is, I would not want to play it repeatedly for thrity years. I have new ideas, new feelings I as a musician would like to put forward. We tend to forget that "Chloe And the Pirates" was once new and avant-garde. The short of it is that we should stretch out a little bit. So "Music From A Round Tower" is not Egg II. It is a magnificent work anyway and deserves our patronage. Which brings me in a roundabout fashion to bootlegs. Obviously a couple of blokes swapping tapes is nothing to get upset about. The problem occurs when someone decides to make money off of these things. This amounts to a big "fuck you" to the artists who receive nothing for these works, and the excuses that music should be free or that bootlegs are really an homage just don't make it. Internet bootlegging, brought up by Chris Cutler, is another area of concern here. Sure, the internet is free. But talent is not. It takes a lot of work to put together an album, a song even, and the enjoyment we get from it deserves our official recognition in return. Posting these things for free access on the internet amounts to bootlegging in a certain way. It is not like radio. On radio, though the artist is not directly paid for the work aired, the aired work acts as an advertisement, spurring the desire for people to acquire the item. Radio is not a storage system. Though people may tape off the radio, ultimately this is too much trouble and they simply buy the music if they like it enough. The computer is a storage system, so that a person may simply retrieve the file off the net and use it at leisure. The artist receives nothing for this and there is little incentive beyond better sound quality for a person to get the cd, especially if it is hard to find. In the long run, artists will get far less from internet posting than from free radio airplay. I agree with Chris that someequitable system of nominal payment should be emplaced. What kind of system, I can't say. There, that's my $1.50 worth. Comments and suggestions greatly encouraged. From the land that brought you Toto, too, David ------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Gary Davis <artshop@artist-shop.com> Subject: Hux Records Date: Sun, 29 Nov 1998 15:26:04 -0500 Hi, folks: The latest Artist Shop newsletter is out and you'll find it in its entirety at <http://www.artist-shop.com/news.htm>. Here's one little snippet from it of special interest to Canterbury fans. New to The Artist Shop is the UK label, Hux Records<http://www.artist-shop.com/hux>. The folks who created Hux records were also responsible for the Windsong and Strange Fruit labels. It seems they have access to a HUGE cache of BBC recordings that have not seen the light of day on CD or any other official recording. Among their first releases are recordings by Caravan, Gentle Giant, Jan Akkerman of Focus, Bill Nelson's Be Bop Deluxe, Kevin Ayers (with Mike Oldfield, David Bedford, Lol Coxhill), Atomic Rooster (with Carl Palmer), and much more. Also much more to come! Definitely visit this page on a regular basis. For a label that's just started, they've got an incredible catalog under their belt! Also more frightening news from One Way <http://www.artist-shop.com/oneway> as they continue to whittle away their catalog. I'd previously reported that the Soft Machine titles Four, Five, Six and Seven had been moved to their "not to be repressed once depleted" list. I'm afraid that two more Soft Machine titles have been moved to that list - specifically The Soft Machine and Volume Two. So folks who have any interest in any of those six Soft Machine titles had better act while they can. Gary ************************************************************** Gary DavisThe Artist Shop The Other Roadhttp://www.artist-shop.com artshop@artist-shop.comphone: 330-929-2056 fax:330-945-4923 SUPPORT THE INDEPENDENT ARTIST!!!************************************************************** Check out the latest Artist Shop newsletter at http://www.artist-shop.com/news.htm ------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Charlotte & Ulrik Stenberg & Fackmann" <facksten@get2net.dk> Subject: Best music site on the web Date: Wed, 2 Dec 1998 18:17:19 +0100 Hello There! I just tell you, that I consider your Canterbury Website as one best andmost interesting and well-structured, user-friendly music sites at all.Even though I have only have a partial interest in Canterbury Music (read:GONG) I keep returning to read the ever exciting, much detailed stories onyour musicians. I feel this is the passion work of real music fanatics (i.e. people like myself) Good luck to you & thank you for the information on GONG & related (including the much-missed lyrics). Ulrik Fackmann, København/Copenhagen, Deanmark facksten@get2net.dk [Can't help including that sort of message in WR! - AL] ------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: HuskerDeux@aol.com Subject: Blegvad at Hitchcock Date: Wed, 2 Dec 1998 23:16:33 EST Just a few additions to Matthew's review: I thought Whistler were pretty dull; lyrically fairly ungenerous too, lots of songs saying "please stop loving me" and "go away and kill yourself." They made a harmless sub-Fairport noise - when they weren't sounding like Frente - but nothing that got me particularly excited. But then I never understood the fuss about The Cranberries.... Shirt report: black w/white polka dots for main set; black and white diamonds for the encores. The Joan Baez song that Matthew mentioned was "Silver Dagger" - this actually came early in the set; the encore cover was REM's "Electrolyte" with Tim being the Michael Stipe Music Stand. Approximately-ordered set list: ac: cynthia mask sally was a legend (? new to me) when i was dead silver dagger victorian squid nasa clapping i don't remember guildford queen of eyes + viva sea-tac +(we think there was another one here with Tim but can't remember what !) + elec: autumn is your last chance you and oblivion freeze unsettled insanely jealous encore #1, ac: madonna of the wasps + i feel beautiful + jewels for sophia + encore #2, ac: electrolyte (+) elec: speed of things + with Tim audience celebs: Peter Blegvad, Jerry Sadowitz, James Fletcher (not together, but would make an entertaining trio I'm sure). Other notes: the sound was a little thin, a noticeable lack of bottom end on the electric set, but pretty clear, and it was nice to see a gig without getting smoke in your face, beer on your shoes and irrelevant conversations burbling away in the background (says mr grumpy). maybe too large a venue, though - little more than half full by the looks of things, and the house PA wasn't quite up to the job of filling the hall with that loud, lewd & lou'd rawk sound. Interesting that the set had virtually no duplication (just a couple of songs) with the film; maybe robyn guessed that a large proportion of the audience would have seen the film just a couple of weeks earlier and decided to give us a little variety. Storefront CD Review from The Times, London, 27/11/98: Although doomed forever to roam the cult hinterlands along with fellow English folk-rock eccentrics such as Roy Harper, Robyn Hitchcock still has the clout to play the Queen Elizabeth Hall next Monday and to get film director Jonathan Demme ("Silence of the Lambs") to make a documentary about him. Recorded live in a New York shop window, and punctuated by rambling, surreal monologues, "Storefront Hitchcock" is the soundtrack to Demme's movie, and captures the former Soft Boy in full idiosyncratic flight. From the "jittery" histrionics of "Freeze" to a surprisingly tender version of Jimi Hendrix's "The Wind Cries Mary", Hitchcock maintains a fitful momentum without ever disclosing what exactly he is on about. (no writer credit on the cutting I've got, sorry). >>> I thought that this was an interesting thing, Blegvad a Fegmaniac? Yes!!! ------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Claude Proost - NMC" <claude.proost.nmc@glo.be> Subject: centipede Date: Thu, 3 Dec 1998 16:51:54 +0100 Hi Where can I buy the album Septober Energy from Centipede? Claude ------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "David Voci" <david_voci@tcibr.com> Subject: Nucleus/Jenkins Date: 04 Dec 98 12:13:50 -0800 Just a note relative to Nucleus reissues...I got an email from Steve Feigenbaum 3-4 months ago re possible/future availability of Nucleus reissues... I am not sure about the exact nature of his message but I seem to remember that SF said that a good part of Nucleus' catalogue would be re-released in near future...I do own the double CD release of the first two Nucleus records on BGO but as many readers would agree(I know Age Rosthuizen made mention of this topic in #110 or #111)it would be hella cool to be able to buy the rest of the catalogue on CD as this is an extremely good band/very Canterbury(IMO). I know alot of Rattlers and others would love to have their catalogue made more available. The exact same is true of Elton Dean's massive catalogue. I was listening to the above CD over the weekend and basically realised how great Nucleus really is and how great a musician Karl Jenkins is, especially considering that when John Marshall is on board, things really cook. I am a bit surprised that Nucles does not get talked about more on these pages.A while ago I came into some very cheap closeout CD's from a German label called DA Music who had a sales office in New Jersey near Asbury Park (Hi Jersey Gypsy) and just to finish my order I received a bunch of selections from the United Rock and Jazz Ensemble. I didn't hang on to these CD's for long as the music wasn't compelling enough for me(very mainstream/typical/ etc)but there was one called 'Live Im Schutzenhaus' that opened up with a very CB sounding number...Of the six or so that I got this live CD came closest to CB even though there was only a song or two that really jumped out at me. In closing I would like to commend the first Gilgamesh CD as I recently got it from a local shop...Hard as hell to get but alas, a great piece...Now to be able to find the second one...Which I believe is on Spalax as well as the first Soft Heap LP...I have to do some heavy checking as certain Spalax stuff is hard to get even though most is pretty well circulated. Enjoy, dv [A good opportunity to mention that a brand new interview with John Marshall has just been added to Calyx. The URL is :http://www.alpes-net.fr/~bigbang/interviews/jmarshall.html - AL] ------------------------------------------------------------------------- * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** FORTHCOMING CANTERBURY-RELATED CONCERTS ** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * [for more info : check out the 'Concerts' page of CALYX - see URL below] CARAVAN[Hastings-Sinclair-Richardson-Coughlan-Hastings-Leverton-Boyle-Bentall] Dec 10 - Dublin, Vicar Street POLYSONS FEAT. HUGH HOPPER - SOFT MACHINE COVERS Dec 08 - St.Germain-en-Laye (France), La Clef DIDIER MALHERBE/PIERRE BENSUSANDec 05 - Alençon (France), La Luciole [tel: 02.33.32.83.33]Dec 15-17 - Paris (France), Satellit'Café [D.Malherbe solo]Jan 22 - Elancourt (France), venue unknown [tel: 01.30.51.53.54]Jan 23 - Montereau (France), venue unknown [tel: 01.64.70.44.14]Feb 26 - Valenciennes (France), Théatre le Phoenix [tel: 03.27.32.32.00]Feb 27 - Faches-Tumesnil [near Lille] (France), Les Arcades [tel: 03.20.62.96.96]Mar 06 - Jarny (France), Espace Gérard Philippe [tel: 03.82.33.12.25] GLOBAL Dec 18 - Chagford (Devon), Jubilee Hall WITCH Dec 12 - Totnes (Devon), Seven Stars Hotel * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * END OF ISSUE 112 _________________________________________________________________________ WHAT'S RATTLIN' ? - WHAT'S RATTLIN' ? - WHAT'S RATTLIN' ?_________________________________________________________________________ CALYX - The Canterbury Website http://www.alpes-net.fr/~bigbang/calyx.html THE ULTIMATE ONLINE CANTERBURY DISCOGRAPHY http://www.alpes-net.fr/~bigbang/cantdisco.html WHAT'S RATTLIN' ? BACK ISSUES - ONLINE ARCHIVE http://musart.co.uk/watrat/watrat.htm + search engine : http://musart.co.uk/ssearch.htm * To subscribe, send me an e-mail with 'WR sub' in the subject line.* To send a message for inclusion in the next issue, send it with 'WR: [subject]' in the subject line.* If your e-mail address changes, please notify me and mention both your old and new addresses so I can remove the former and add the latter.* If you can no longer receive WR or don't want to anymore, don't forget to unsubscribe! _________________________________________________________________________