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'Live At Morden Tower' Cassette (Side A & B)
Tuesday, 11 August 2020
Thursday, 16 July 2020
Thursday, 9 July 2020
DEREK BAILEY : 'On The Edge : Improvisation (It's Nature and Practice)' 1992 Channel 4 UK TV Series Episodes 1-4
"A series of four 55 minute films shown on Channel 4 TV in the UK in early 1992. To say this was the best and most intelligent analysis of improvisation to be screened on UK television is probably unnecessary: it has in all likelihood been the only televised programme on this form of music-making. Written and narrated by Derek Bailey, produced and directed by Jeremy Marr, it developed out of the first edition of Bailey's book on improvisation (the broadcast almost coinciding with the publication of the second edition) and attempted to provide a world-view of the subject, not being bound by country, musical genre or preconception."
1: Passing it on
Broadcast 2 February 1992 this programme featured: Douglas Ewart at Haynes School in Chinatown, Chicago; improvisation in Mozart with Robert Levin, piano and the Acadamy of Ancient Music with Christopher Hogwood; John Zorn and Cobra; improvisation in religious and devotional music and communities with: Naji Hakim - organ improvisations in Paris; Gaelic psalm singing on the Scottish Isles of Harris and Lewis; and Indian singing with Pundit Hanuman Misra.
2: Movements in time
Broadcast 9 February 1992, tracing the effects of migration on improvising links across continents and the production of new styles from the combinations: qawwali from the Sufis in New Delhi, Northern India; Hindu music of Rajistan with Ram Narayan; early medieval music performed in Andalucia by Symphony (Stevie Wishart, Mark Loopuy, Jim Denley); improvisation in dance with: Mario Maya, flamenco; Indian kathak mime and movement; and Egyptian gypsy music; the mixture of Cuban music and jazz with Eddie Palmieri.
3: A liberating thing
Broadcast 16 February 1992, concentrating on jazz based and free improvisation. With Max Roach at the Harlam School of the Arts; Butch Morris conducting (with, among others, Shelley Hirsch); Sang-Won Park and Korean music; Max Eastley's sound sculptures; Derek Bailey (solo and fleetingly with Phil Wachsmann, Steve Noble and Alex Ward); Steve Noble and Alex Ward duo; Nashville musicians including Buddy Emmons; Eugene Chadbourne.
4: Nothing premeditated
Broadcast 23 February 1992, with Jerry Garcia and The Grateful Dead; Buddy Guy; George Lewis and computers (and in quartet with Douglas Ewart and sound and video generation); mbira music from Zimbabwe; music of the Tonga people; concluding with a house party on the Lower East side.
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Thursday, 7 May 2020
OLD SKULL - 2 x newspaper articles (Los Angeles Times June '89 + People Sept '89)
A couple of early newspaper articles from around the time debut album 'Get Outta School' was released. Full album here :
LOS ANGELES TIMES article - June 18th 1989
ELECTRIC YOUTH: The teen-pop phenomenon is a...
By PAUL GREIN
ELECTRIC YOUTH: The teen-pop phenomenon is a certifiable pop trend, but 9-year-old J.P. Toulon of Madison, Wis., doesn’t want to wait until he’s a teen-ager to make his mark on the music scene.
So Toulon formed a rock group, Old Skull, which has released an album and is set to play two local dates this week.
But don’t look for Old Skull at Tomorrowland Terrace in Disneyland. The group, which also includes Toulon’s younger brother, Jamie, 7, and his friend Jesse Colins-Davies, 9, doesn’t play poppy kid-stuff like New Kids on the Block or teen-dream ballads like Debbie Gibson. Old Skull bills itself as the world’s youngest punk band. Its rallying cry: “Tiffany can kiss our (rear)!”
The group, scheduled to play Monday at the Club With No Name and Tuesday at Bogart’s, just released its debut album, “Get Outta School.”
All of which has made Toulon the B.M.O.C. of his fourth-grade class.
“They think it’s pretty cool now that we have a record out,” he said by phone from Madison. Toulon added that his parents have been pretty cool too. “They just say, ‘Don’t throw your equipment into the audience,’ ” he reports.
Toulon’s father Vern, 34, is also in a local band, the Meek. But his band doesn’t have a record deal.
“I’ve only been playing twice as long as he’s been alive,” said Dad. “But hey, it’s cool. And if the L.A. dates lead to a full-scale tour, we could open for them.”
PEOPLE article - September 18th 1989
Those Precocious Young Bloods in Old Skull Are the Only Punk Rockers with a 9 O'Clock Bedtime
by PEOPLE staff
They are every baby-sitter’s nightmare: three leather-lunged boys who curse with abandon, never sit still and just can’t get their hands on enough stuff to break. But Jesse Collins-Davies, 10, J.P. Toulon, 10, and his brother Jamie, 8, haven’t been sent to their rooms for their antics—they’ve gotten a record contract instead. Together they are Old Skull, the world’s youngest punk band.
Old Skull got its start three years ago in Madison, Wis., when the boys began jamming with the blessings of their dads, Robin Davies, a rock bass player, and Verne Toulon, who plays in a local rock band. By the time executives at Restless Records in L.A. heard one of their tapes, the trio had perfected what company talent recruiter Ron Goudie calls their “insightful and unpolluted” sound. Their debut album, Get Outta School, was released in June and has sold some 10,000 copies.
Old Skull’s members admit to a certain lack of polish. J.P, for instance, can’t play all the chords on his guitar. “It sounds better that way,” he says. And Jamie, Jesse claims, “doesn’t do nothin’ but smash on metal.” (“I do too,” Jamie counters.) The boys do write their own material—songs ranging from the gritty “Kick Ass” (“We’re gonna kick ass ’cause my dad said so”) to the more civic-minded “AIDS” and “Homeless.” This summer they strutted their stuff at the Ritz nightclub in New York and on MTV. Says J.P.: “We got to smash our equipment and blow away people’s speakers.”
Back home, life is generally calmer. The band practices once a month in the Toulons’ basement in preparation for weekend gigs around Wisconsin. They spend their free time skateboarding and are in bed by 9ish. And should their new fame start to go to their heads, there is always school to keep them in line. “The principal won’t let us play our music anymore because we say ‘hell’ and ‘ass,’ ” says J.P “I sort of see what he means.”
Wednesday, 29 April 2020
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