OFF: Thanx to a neat person

[Chris Warburton]

I couldn't figure out the sequence of messages - I seem to receive mails from
this list in a scrambeld sequence sometimes - but people were talking/asking
about these and some others
>
>{Can} - Progressive Rock (German, I think?)

If you want to know about Can & other 70s German bands like this, try the book
"Krautrocksampler" by Julian Cope (yes THAT Julian Cope from Teardrops explodes
& sundry solo madness) as a starting point.  I think "Progressive Rock" is not
a very appropriate description.  These guys were wild improvisers, and their
albums were sometimes edited together (the old fashioned way, with razor
blades) from hours of Jamming at their InnNerSpace studios ( in a castle - the
Schloss Norvenich).  Two (I think) of them were students of Karlheinz
Stockhausen.  The first 6  or so albums are the best: I personally recommend
Tago Mago, Ege Bamyasi, Soon Over Babaluma & Future Days; these four map a
transition from full on weirdness to a kind of spaced out (almost) dance-music
that anticipates trip-hop by about 20 years - one of the BEST bands ever,
completely unclassifiable.

>
>{Gong} - should be readily available on CD from most good record >stores.  But
beware, their recordings extend over as many years as >Hawkwind with an equal
number of personnel changes

Early stuff very stoned & silly, lotsof stuff about cheese (cf. Camembert
Electrique), flying teapots, gnomes, played in a kind of strange jazzy
electronic style: utterly mad (their performance at Repton School
(old-fashioned english boarding-school) was hilarious). After the departures of
founder Daevid Allen (ex Soft Machine) and Steve Hillage they moved in the
direction of high-energy fusion (Allan Holdsworth on gtr for a while!).  Allen
kept up the pot-head pixie stuff with Mother Gong and other bands.

>
>{Soma}

Australian electronica originally recording for Extreme recently moved on.  You
may find their discs in strange places, try under dance (seriously), ambient or
Trip-Hop.


There is a magazine called The Wire, which started off as a Jazz/Contemporary
classical magazine, but which now covers an incredibly eclectic mix of musics,
and they have had articles on Can & Soma.  The Julian Cope book grew out of a
commission to write an article for them.  Mail me direct if you want more info,
or contact them direct via the_wire at ukonline.co.uk.

That's enough of that.

TTFN<

Chris Warburton's Personal Mailbox

"It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine"
                                               -R.E.M.
My Home page:

http://members.tripod.com/~Meliadus/index.htm

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