Session
8 – Henry Cow & Soft Machine
Our concert video program this Weds night will
feature the British band Henry Cow, probably the most historically important
band in avant-garde rock. We plan to begin at 7:30, as usual at the E14
third floor video wall. If time permits, we will also show 1970-era
concert footage from one of their inspirational progenitors, also from the UK -
Soft Machine. Back story below...
OK, I'm painting with a very broad brush here,
but I think it's fair to say that the music of the American left during the
late 60's and early 70's found its main voice in protest music, primarily
fueled by the Vietnam War and the antiestablishment sentiment of the time. Most
of this was rooted in folk, although protest of this sort got into every genre
of music back then and certainly fueled some of the best emerging psychedelic
proto-prog (witness Jefferson Airplane's 1969 masterpiece,
"Volunteers" as perhaps my favorite example).
In Europe though, the political left in music
was the true left - a.k.a. communism. Few musicians in the US went that
far (for example, Phil Ochs, and that was indeed a tragic story), and it was
still essentially folk music anyway. But in Europe (especially Britain
and Italy), some of the most innovative genre-crossing music of the 70's was
hatched in the intellectual bastions of the far left. Perhaps harkening
to the early days of Russian Avant-Garde art, where the revolution sparked bold
new ways of thinking about expression (at least until the Bolsheviks broke up
the basement, so to speak), British and Italian left-leaning musicians of the
early 70's were driven to reinvent their music, their instruments, their
performances, and even the means of music distribution to subvert the dominant
capitalistic tyranny of musical mediocrity and pop. Henry Cow were fundamental to this movement.
Forged around 1970 during practice sessions in
basements in Cambridge, where many of the band's founders were students, Fred
Frith, Chris Cutler, Tim Hodgkinson, and John Greaves created Henry Cow (no,
they claim the name doesn't come from the American Composer Henry Cowell) - a
band that invented a new kind of music called "Rock in Opposition"
(RIO) that galvanized and defined avant-garde rock as we know it today. Their
music equally blended intricate composition with complete improvisation. They
were based around innovation, deconstructing their instruments, appropriating
found technology, and using the studio in what were entirely new ways back
then. Although they brought elements of avant-classical and free jazz to
their music, it burned with a politically-fueled
intensity that based it firmly in rock.
Henry Cow formally disbanded in 1979, leaving
an enormous legacy, with most of the members going on to make more amazing
music in solo careers and other bands far too numerous to mention - several are
still very active now. Some went on to become academics (e.g., Fred Frith
teaches now at Mills, and Georgie Born is a professor of musical anthropology
in Cambridge). Chris Cutler, in addition to his many musical projects,
founded Recommended Records (yes, the workers' sickle still is their emblem),
which established a pioneering new means of promotion and distribution for
innovative music (when I lived in Zurich during the early 80's, I visited the
local Recommended shop nearly every Saturday - there was nothing else like it
back then).
The concert that we'll show on Wednesday night
catches Henry Cow at what I feel was their peak. In addition to the
core of Hodgkinson, Frith, & Cutler, it features Georgie Born on bass,
Lindsay Cooper on reeds, and Dagmar Krause on vocals (admittedly, some Cow
followers aren't too keen on Dagmar's vocals, but I'm firmly in the Krause camp
- honed performing Brecht, she brings an extra intensity to a band that's
already extreme, as she triumphantly chants quotations from Mao or croons about
armies marching with banners). The concert was held outdoors in Vevey
Switzerland (on the shore of Lake Geneva, it's one of the most beautiful
regions on the planet), recorded for broadcast on Swiss Television.
As this show runs only 75 minutes, if we're up
for it, we'll follow the Henry Cow performance with a 1970 Paris show by Soft
Machine - inspirations to Henry Cow, they were one of the most influential
bands to emerge from Britain, essentially creating the famous "Canterbury
Scene". Featuring Robert Wyatt on drums, Mike Ratledge on fuzzed
organ & electric piano, Elton Dean on reeds and Hugh Hopper on bass, this
film also shows the band at its peak, right around the time of their third
album, which was a landmark in the delightfully dysfunctional marriage between
rock and jazz (Wyatt would leave the band shortly afterward because of this
evolution into jazz).
Entire books have been written about Henry Cow
and Soft Machine. For more info, start with:
http://www.ccutler.com/ccutler/bands/group02.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_Machine
There's a ton out there.
So, let's all come to the aid of our party this
Wednesday night and witness wonderful concerts from a very special time in
music history - the playing by both bands is astounding, and the music is
timeless.
===================================================
Joe Paradiso (Spring 2011)