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.
9. 6. 2007 | read more...
[by Ken Hunt, London] For me, over 25 years, several incarnations and in many lands, the Oysters have revealed themselves as capable and incapable of many things. As my silver-backed friend Mike Kamp of Germany’s guerrilla folk magazine Folker! has observed of things that will not happen, the Oysterband will never land a great big hit. Mind you, that is so far off their agenda to be risible.
9. 6. 2007 | read more...
[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 | read more...
[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 | read more...
[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 | read more...
[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 | read more...
[by Ken Hunt, London] In 2000 Česká Televize (Czech Television) celebrated Egon Bondy’s life and times with the documentary Fišer alias Bondy. The poet-lyricist, writer, philosopher and political commentator’s achievements could have filled a whole series of television programmes. One of Czechoslovakia’s most prominent and prolific men-of-letters, he railed against his homeland’s politicians and politics throughout his life. Outside his homeland however, he was primarily known as the era-defining lyricist for Czechoslovakia’s best-known beat group, The Plastic People of the Universe.
20. 4. 2007 | read more...
[by TC Lejla Bin Nur, Ljubljana] Last time, with album Tekitoi two years ago, Rachid Taha was Alter, this time, with second Diwan, he is foremost Different, thus basically not Indifferent, conditionally more rootsy, rough, acoustic, with less electricity and electronicity, not only in comparison with regular author albums, but also with first Diwan (1998)…
9. 12. 2006 | read more...
[by Ken Hunt, London] One of the things that impresses me most about Bellowhead the quality of the music aside is that they take the music seriously without seeming to take themselves seriously. They played their big songs Rigs of the Time, Fire Marengo and Flash Company with admirable playfulness and, when necessary, circus wit, However, their souped-up, trad-style instrumentals, like the funk and soul horn interjections juxtaposed with fiddlistics of Sloe Gin, similarly hit the bulls-eye.
30. 10. 2006 | read more...
[by Ken Hunt, London] The Mexican Indian (Mixtec)-American singer Lila Downs bestrode the Heidecksburg big stage in bright sunshine on the Sunday afternoon like a cougar. The temperatures were in the 30s and she and her band responded accordingly, putting on a truly eye- and ear-catching show that revealed many layers of her performance artistry denied the audio – and probably the DVD – medium. Not least of these were the sheer physicality of her performance and the degree of the eye contact between the musicians. She coiled and uncoiled on stage, responded wide-eyed to an unexpected flurry of bass notes or an impromptu variation on a harp run (I love Mexican harp but lack the vocabulary to discuss it with authority), albeit on a melodic theme that she knew inside-out (therein lies the real deal).
8. 8. 2006 | read more...