Author Archive
Pulse Festival of Central and Eastern European Music/Coin Street Festival
South Bank, London 16 June 2007
[by Ken Hunt, London] Now in its third year, the Pulse Festival proved hitherto to be something of an expatriate affair. Its focus on acts from countries from the former Soviet bloc meant that audiences from the acts’ homelands filled the venues in droves. It felt like patriotic solidarity or whatever you want to call it sucked people in. Mind you, that could equally be said of, say, Iranian, Kurdish or German expat audiences in London. Holding a day of free concerts on and near the National Theatre’s riverside terrace was an inspired idea. As was combining it with the Coin Street Festival. The free concerts included the Czech-Roma hip-hop ensemble Gipsy
25. 6. 2007 |
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[by Ken Hunt, London] As much as the films, Disney songs are the stuff of English speakers’ dreams (and nightmares if Fantasia’s demon king counts), the common ground, the warp and weft of Anglophone culture. Hal Willner’s 1988 Stay Awake project was a fresh, ripe look at the Disney Songbook. Its cast included Los Lobos, Ken Nordine, Sinead O’Connor, Sun Ra, Bonnie Raitt, Syd Straw and Suzanne Vega. But one Stay Awake interpretation re-set the bar height beyond Sinatra’s wildest imagination
25. 6. 2007 |
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Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London
7 June 2007
[by Ken Hunt, London] There’s a good chance that you’ve read or maybe attempted to read The Lord of the Rings either in Tolkien’s idiosyncratic and often highly time-warped English or in translation. It’s much translated. It’s gone into many other languages and Peter Jackson successfully translated it into visual language in his masterful film trilogy (2001-2003). Turning the trilogy into a vehicle for the London stage has produced a lavish affair of a very different kind. Reportedly pumped into the production – and here I confess to the sin of repetition and coming over all faint – is the astronomical figure of GBP 12.5 million. Still, costs tend to sky-rocket when the stakes and potential for profit are high
15. 6. 2007 |
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[by Kate Hickson, UK] Joe Boyd, the author of White Bicycles (subtitled “Making music in the 1960s”) did a great deal when it came to acting a midwife to the soundtrack to many people’s lives during the 1960s. He produced era-defining music by the likes of Eric Clapton & The Powerhouse, Pink Floyd, Soft Machine, The Purple Gang, Fairport Convention, the Incredible String Band, Nick Drake and Brotherhood of Breath. Then he went on to do it again, overseeing recordings by the likes of Richard & Linda Thompson, Kate & Anna McGarrigle, Maria Muldaur, Dagmar Krause and 10,000 Maniacs. With his Hannibal hat on, he brought Hungary’s Márta Sebestyén and Muzsikás and Bulgaria’s Bulgarka Vocal Trio to our attention.
9. 6. 2007 |
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BBC World Music Awards
The 1000 year Journey
Barbican
London, May-June 2007
The Barbican centre, well known for its flexible and multi genre programming, hosted this year’s BBC Radio 3 Awards for World Music ceremony. The nearly 5 hour long show with 2 intervals was opened by the winner in Asia Pacific category, the Indian classical musician Debashish Bhattacharya, switching between 3 different instruments, all based on the lap steel guitar.
Unfortunately, three of the total of 10 winners didn’t appear on the bill. Gogol Bordello (Americas category) rejected the invitation due to other commitments, the French singer Camille (Europe) and Somalian rapper K’Naan (Newcomer) sent a last-minute cancellation
9. 6. 2007 |
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Pizza On The Park, London 23 April 2007
“A cause for national rejoicing,” exclaims the Oysterband’s front man John Jones whilst setting the scene for a rare Oysterband acoustic event. It’s St. George’s Day. What could be more celebratory than an (a) to (d) where
(a) is toasting England’s patron saint;
(b) is England’s national bard, Wm. Shakespeare’s birthday;
(c) is Boris Yeltsin’s exit from the Russian stage; and
(d) is an Oysterband unplugged bash at an upmarket pizza parlour on the wrong side of a Royal Park?
Over the course of their set, the Oysters conjure a little token religion, some socialism, the spirit of New Jerusalem and a buzz-saw cross-cut of culture, ancient of modern. Over the course of the evening, they really hit the parts that needing hitting
9. 6. 2007 |
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[by Ken Hunt, London] There is an iconic image of Fritz ‘The Orange Dude’ Richmond, who died on 20 November 2006 as the result of lung cancer, in Eric von Schmidt and Jim Rooney’s illustrated story of the Cambridge, Massachusetts folk scene, Baby, Let Me Follow You Down (1979. It was taken by John Cooke of the Charles River Valley Boys at Club 47 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Richmond is profiled playing washtub bass, wearing his trademark shades with a scarf around his neck, max musicianly cool. John B. Richmond was born on 10 July 1939 in Newton, MA
9. 5. 2007 |
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[by Ken Hunt, London] The drummer and more, Ian Wallace, born in Bury, Lancashire, England on 29 September 1946, died in Los Angeles on 22 February 2007. California had been his home and base of operations since 1976 when he churlishly decided that the warmth of the Californian sun beat the fine wet rain of his homeland. His companion in rhythm in David Lindley’s El Rayo-X, Ras Baboo called him, in the finest tradition of finest crap cinematography and, one hopes, a curl of the lip worthy of Anthony Quayle, ‘English’. He could escape British weather but not his heritage
1. 5. 2007 |
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[by Ken Hunt, London] The US critic Paul Nelson chose to walk away from writing, despite a writing career that included stints of writing and editing for Circus, Musician, Rolling Stone, Sing Out! and Village Voice. He wrote insightfully about a range of acts including Jackson Browne, Warren Zevon and The Clash. He specialised in engaging with music that excited him; during a stint at Mercury Records in the A&R department he signed the New York Dolls, an act of faith viewed as folly by many in the company
1. 5. 2007 |
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[by Ken Hunt, London] His claim to inclusion here may seem droll, but the poet, songwriter, teacher, Noise Abatement Society mainman and so-called but very eccentrically sane, Ivor Cutler deserves homage more than an obituary for his surrealistic pillow folksongs. Born on 15 January 1923 close to the Ibrox Stadium in Glasgow of Jewish, Eastern European stock, he died aged 83 on 3 March 2006
1. 5. 2007 |
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