What a perfect night to go see someone attack a piano with horsehair. “It’s rock and roll, Jim but not as we know it”
Dressed in blue dustcoats, and looking like a pair of pantomime mad scientists, our protagonists, Graeme and Sven, stood pushing and pulling some absolutely heavenly sounds from their distressed piano. Due to the nature of the instrument, the finite length of the equine tailfeathers and the required proximity of the players, it was difficult occasionally to see what they were up to. Milking a cow? An impromptu game of Wiff Waff? Regardless. At all time, the sound, which is what I was there for after all, was wonderful and superb. A sawing polyphonic multi-timbred racket ricocheting around the rafters of the sonically ‘bright’ Recital Rooms. The sort of thing you could imagine a short trousered Phillip Glass whistling on his milk round.
Ears still tender after a punishingly loud show, last week, at what is becoming my most frequented wee room. (in City Hall)
The first item was a piano and synth piece.
The second piece was a video of what looked like Perth City centre in the run up to Xmas, this involved pipe bands, sword swallowers and a couple of bemused swans pecking towards the camera lens. Heavily saturated video and very very loud. I think it was this item that did it for my ears!
Third was Phillip Glass’ Closing on the piano and it also sounded to me as if they were using a backing track?
Interval
The Long Piece being the entire second half (forty five minutes) did what it said on the tin
Type John Cavanagh’s name into Google and, nearby, you’ll nearly always see references to Syd and The Piper at The Gates of Dawn.
However, this evening, that isn’t the album that’s holding a lit Zippo to the feet of my synapses, and making me applaud, as Mr Cavanagh, in his occasional guise of ‘Phosphene’, accompanies an edited version of Roger Corman’s movie, The Raven.
No,instead, it’s flashes of my favourite pieces of musical mayhem from that second album, A Saucerful of Secrets, that keep flashing past the inside of my eyelids………….…and that’s no bad thing at all!
Like some modern day silent film pianist (the soundtrack and dialogue had been muted) he beavered away be-headphoned, twiddling, twerning and cajoling all sorts of synchronised accompanying squeals & sounds from his VCS3 (or Putney as we in ‘the know’ like to call them)
The first half, meanwhile was a tad gentler with John reading a short fairy-tale, The King That Would See Paradise, from Andrew Lang’s ‘Orange’ Fairy Tale Book (1906) This piece came in at just around half an hour long and featured a pleasant burbling analogue synth, reminiscent of Tim Blake’s early work. I could also hear many percussive delay sounds that recalled Dave McRae’s intro to Matching Mole’s ‘Gloria Gloom’.
When not reading the text, and indeed what a sonorous timbre he has, John also made good use of chimes, some Ganesh style singing bowls and heavily processed/delayed/choral vocals.
As the story ascended to its inevitably bleak denouement we were treated to a Cavanagh clarinet solo so shrill, deranged and unexpected, it would have sounded quite at home snuggling up to Flash Gordon’s Ape. I was annoyed to hear that this was the penultimate soundlab show as I would have liked to have experienced more.
With a few right stinkers of gigs under my belt recently, it was hoped that Leon R would pull something out of the hat, and what a hat it was. The good thing about these city festivals (Jazzfest, Celtic Connections etc) is you can set your watch by them generally. If the ticket say half seven then that’s when the act steps on stage. Billy Bones, me and Shields met up in what is by far the best city centre ale pub, Blackfriars.
We moved round the corner early doors to discover that the crowd was being shepherded into their seats. ‘Is there a bar, can I take a drink into the hall and is there an interval? I am not an alcoholic!’ I blurted out to the usher who answerd no to all my questions and advised that the show was about to commence.
First time in this hall since it’s refurb and very impressed (though not really taken with the colour that the walls and pillars were painted)
Leon Russell (the nearest I’ve seen to a South Park cartoon made flesh) walked slowly on stage and wondered aloud how he came to be playing at an International Festival “Seems that sometimes you have to come across an ocean to realise you’re a jazz musician,”. He then played for the next half hour solid but it wasn’t until he started telling between song anecdotes about ‘Bobby Dylan’, Joe Cocker etc. that the show really took off. I’m not an Elton John fan, far from it, but he’s done the music world a great favour by recording The Union with Leon and in doing so, introducing him to a whole strata of listeners that would never have heard of him. His band, two guitars , bass & drums, clearly love the man and are all impressive players to boot, all getting a small solo spot of their own. Chris Simmons in particular is impressive and makes blues noises the likes of which I haven’t heard for decades. Leon’s own style embraces many others, he even plays that Susan Boyle song ‘Wild Horses’!
So bad are his legs that for the encore, he stands at his piano and asks that we pretend he’s gone backstage with the rest of the band before they return and regale us with a Chuck Berry medley. A fine wee night!
Lighthouse Beacon Straight Ahead 