I wasn't back home quite as late as expected from the KOKO and the Bonzo's gig last Friday, but it was still pretty late, especially considering I had to be up for conducting our local orchestra first thing in the morning. The lack of sleep did not, to quote Wooster, make me exactly disgruntled in the morning but I was far from gruntled. Worth it, though.
I described the venue in my last blog and I can add a little to this now. When you enter through the foyer of the KOKO, you find yourself not in the theatre pit but straight onto the upper balcony, a disorienting experience. In other words the stage is buried well below ground level. It's a proper 'Muppet' theatre with its rows of ornate boxes adorning the walls layered right up into the gods. The Bonzos were accompanied by their own version of Statler and Waldorf. At this gig the odd couple of disagreeable old men were more akin to a tribute act for the surrealist duo Gilbert and George, making their weird artistic comedy contributions throughout the show. There is a long line of comedy acts leading to the Bonzos beginning in the days of old-time music hall and threading its way through to the Temperance Seven, the New Vaudeville Band and on to the Beatles pastiche band, the Rutles, created by Eric Idle and Neil Innes in the 1970s, who were supporting.
While driving home afterwards and reflecting on the great show I'd witnessed, I was reminded of a couple of acts whose memory is worth resurrecting. The first of these is Spike Jones (1911-1965) whose band of musicians were, like the Bonzos, highly skilled, unruly and rebellious but, perhaps unlike the Bonzos, were rehearsed down to the finest detail of comedy timing, the whole show being well supported by the USA TV networks. Spike's madcap musical comedy is well worth taking on board and you won't have heard Tchaikovsky like this before.
The other comic musician was a household celebrity still remembered by many but who may now not recall the reason for recognising his name. The Danish Victor Borge (1909-2000) achieved widespread fame in the USA and Europe as a classical pianist who single-handed took the pomposity and elitism of classical music and reduced it to tatters. Musical skill and comedy timing are used by Victor Borge as the blade that slashes at the classical bubble and boy does it let rip. He clearly provided inspiration for Morecambe and Wise's musical sketches, including the one with Andre Preview, and made his own notorious appearance on the infamous Muppet Show. But then which celebrity of any note didn't.
Remember Coco the Clown? I wonder if he ever performed at Camden's KOKO Club. Actually, the KOKO is in Mornington Crescent and when chatting about this amazing venue with one of my friends he exclaimed, "Is Mornington Crescent a real place? I thought it was made up as part of that pointless game in 'I Haven't A Clue'". Well, yes, it's a real place with shops, a London tube station all of its very own and the KOKO Club. I've been there before for Wilko Johnson's so-called last tour, a great night and there's another coming up with the 50th anniversary celebrations of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, or what's left of them. What's left includes Bob Kerr of Woopee Band fame who I used to love hearing and watching in the '70s, complete with mad-cap instruments and magic tricks on stage. There's a long long tradition of comedy popular and rock music and the Bonzos were a major part of it. Remember before them the New Vaudeville Band?; remember Vivien Stanshall's Kenny-Everett-forerunner radio show? Rember the Urban Spaceman (baby, I've got speed)? Anyway, the sun had got his hat on when I visited the KOKO last week just to reconnoitre and solve parking problems, getting to and from the venue and out of London again, etc., when the Bonzo's anniversary gig happens in April. What an appropriate place for this event. The KOKO, now a venue showcasing live modern music, used to be Camden Palace, a variety theatre that was one of the largest such venues in London, opening over a hundred years ago in 1900 and even hosting operatic performances. Now it is one of the few remaining relatively independent music venues, which are becoming rare throughout the country. So, if you can do anything to support such places as the KOKO, there may be a venue near you, then please do so. Look at the fab architecture in the pic. The dark grey bit at the front has just been bolted on to the main building behind.
Looking
for something outside the box of classical music? Bored with recycled
soothing background music? Want to find out what's hip and happening in
today's progressive music world? Start here.
Contemporary music
can be considered as music composed post World War II, that is, from the
end of the 1940s on. This covers a period which could be described as a
time of permanent revolution in music and includes such extremes as
total serialism (Boulez), experimental (Cage), abstract expressionism
(Feldman), minimalism (Glass), tintinnabuli (Part), uncomfortable
(Crumb, Ligeti), mystical (Tavener), ambient (Eno), landscape (Luther
Adams). There is so much, it's difficult to know where to start but rest
assured there will be music that you will hate and much that you will
love.
In the UK, we are blessed with some great modern composers
and their works. One is Howard Skempton, expert at the miniature, given
particular mention here because his work is disarmingly undemanding,
despite his somewhat unorthodox personal musical history going back via
Cornelius Cardew and the Scratch Orchestra. Another is the recently
deceased Jonathan Harvey who has left a legacy of great contemporary
music, particularly his larger scale works. The UK is also the proud
possessor of BBC Radio 3 with its contemporary music programming ('Here
and Now') and the annual Huddersfield Festival of Contemporary Music,
spearheading live events.
At this point, check out my Timeline of 20th century composers and events to start building a picture of how rich and diverse contemporary music is.Here
are ten suggestions for you to listen to. It's not a 'top ten' in any
sense, but a play-list cross-section of styles, so you'll get a feel
for the diversity of contemporary music and maybe find something you
really respond to. You can stream these pieces from Soundcloud or Grooveshark. Morton Feldman, Rothko Chapel Terry Riley, In C George Crumb, Black Angels John Luther Adams, Become Ocean Howard Skempton, Lento Jonathan Harvey, Speakings John Coolidge Adams, Shaker Loops Krzysztof Penderecki, Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima Michael Nyman, Chasing Sheep is Best Left to Shepherds Toru Takemitsu, How Slow the Wind Like
to explore more? I've recently converted my website into amagazine format and
it's all about contemporary music. It has a new address, too, and is the Contemporary Music Project.
Whenever
I sit down to write these Musical Notes, I think to myself, what on
earth am I going to write about this time? A minute later and I've
realised how much there is to say about what's been going on in my
local, Newent, musical life and it becomes more a case of how to cut
this information down to manageable proportions. It's been said before -
there is something in Newent's air that makes it a focal point for
music making.
Last night I took part in the Newent Community School concert in
Gloucester Cathedral with hundreds of people, children and adults either
performing or listening in the audience. Listening and performing are
dependent on musical education, whether a formal process, or simply
'self-taught' and the successful results of all those ingredients were
there in full view. It's the fact of relationships, of a
coming-together, between the many facets of making music that brings it
all to life.
This month I was introduced to a project applying itself to
relationships in music making that could well have a significant
influence on local music and beyond. 'Soundscape', the brain child of
David Sass, has the aim, like our orchestra, of promoting music,
encouraging musical participation, education and relationships between
musicians and the public. Unlike the orchestra, it is coming from the
direction of rock and popular culture rather than classical. This I
like. There is much potential for mutual support and some interesting
projects that could involve our players. Time will tell, but watch this
space.
Our Music Appreciation Group (NOMAG)
meets again shortly and, thinking above about popular culture, there is
something that bothers several of its members that I hope to help with.
This is the relationship of digital technology and listening to
classical music. For anyone not at home with a tablet, laptop or
smartphone, the words 'streaming', 'podcast' and 'download' can be
pretty alien creatures. Streaming, for example, and 'the cloud' have
confusing visual associations with rivers and the sky that are quite
alarming. Come along to the next meeting for a simple clarification if
you will.
Oh, yes, and just in case you were wondering about the picture at the
beginning of this newsletter, it's a bit of that alarming but in this
case beautiful technology: 'cymatics' is the art of making music
visible; the picture is a typical cymatic image made from acoustic
vibrations and is remarkably similar to the image of the 'mandala', a
pictorial representation of psychological wholeness and healing.
Mandalas were created in the religious art of many different cultures as
inspiring objects for meditation. Happy musical meditating!
