Tribute to Jack Bruce - Radio Kras "In Campo Aperto" (podcast)

Jack Bruce

Last Friday night I had the pleasure of appearing on Gimi's "In Campo Aperto" program on Radio Kras in order to pay tribute to one of the best British bass players of the last 50 years - Jack Bruce.

Here is the podcast of the program we put together (in Spanish)

It features a few tracks form a fantastic concert Jack did with the BBC Big Band in November 2008 along with unreleased performances by Cream at the Ricky Tick Club in April 1967, the Spalding Festival in May 67 and Detroit in November 1967.

The tracks from the Ricky Tick (Sunshine of Your Love, Hey Lawdy Mama, Sweet Wine and Rolling and Tumblin) are particularly blistering and feature a band still in good humour and before the excesses and arguments of the last year of their history set in.

The Detroit performance in November 1967 at the Grande Ballroom (featured here are Steppin' Out, Train Time and I'm So Glad) is an example of three outstanding musicians at their improvisational best and pushing rock music to its outer limits. This is not necessarily "easy listening" music. At the time (and perhaps even now) it must have seemed almost avant garde and occasionally formless. Free rock even. It's challenging stuff and I would say that the Detroit performance is arguably superior to the later official 1968 live releases.

We also play tracks from West Bruce and Laing's 1974 Live album and Jack's brilliant debut solo album "Songs For A Tailor."

Jack Bruce was an outstanding and innovative musician who helped to revolutionize late 1960s rock by incorporating jazz and improvisation. This perhaps led to excess in less imaginative hands but also it made it more intelligent and complex - and interesting. Here we celebrate his life and contribution.

The program itself was somewhat improvised and we played what we had to hand on the night. Jazz radio.

Hope you enjoy it.

The discussions are in Spanish. The music is universal....


Radio Kras "In Campo Aperto / Intergalactic Sofa" - Tribute to Jack Bruce
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https://ia902205.us.archive.org/23/items/Aperto311014/Aperto31-10-14.mp3

If the above link doesn't work go here and download http://radiokras.net/index.php?id=2335

Rope Ladder To The Moon documentary
Here is Tony Palmer's excellent 1969 documentary which we mention in the podcast. A young Jack Bruce shows us around the Scotland of his youth, plays tracks from Songs For A Tailor and talks about Cream, music and the future.

More stranger than known
Cream live at the Spalding Bar-B-Que, 29th May 1967

Peter Green - "A Mind To Give Up Living" - The Blues of despair...

The Intergalactic Sofa - A Radio Kras Podcast

Freak Out! In praise of Improv

My Radio Kras Podcasts - From Punk to Funk

The Birth of the British Voice in Rock. British Psychedelia 1967 to 1974 - A Radio Kras podcast (in Spanish)

Last Friday I had the pleasure of appearing again on Gimi's show "In Campo Aperto" on Gijon's Radio Kras in Spain.

We decided to put together a program about British late 60s / early 70s psychedelia and the birth of the "British voice" in rock music.

One of the notable things about late 60s British psychedelia is that for the first time British rock bands stopped the pretense of singing in American accents and started to sing about more homegrown themes in an English accent - albeit quite a middle class one. British psychedelia gave the Brits a chance to take American music and really make it their own.

© D.Mainwood

It should be remembered that right up until the mid 60s everyone, including the Beatles, was singing American inspired pop and R'n'B in their best fake American accents. The true "British voice" in rock was born with Ray Davies and the Kinks singing about London's dedicated followers of fashion and well-respected men but then, around 1967, under the stewardship of Syd Barrett, Pink Floyd, Traffic, Caravan and quite a few others, it emigrates from the city to "get it together in the country" and explore the idyllic sultry summer afternoons of hazy childhood reminiscence in a manner that seemed quite heavily influenced by Lewis Caroll. British pop music of this period seems to take on a much hazier and greener hue as if to reflect the countryside itself. As I have observed elsewhere I can't help but think Jonathan Miller's (somewhat psychedelic) 1966 film interpretation of Alice In Wonderland may have had an influence on this new exploration of the pastoral but anyway, by the summer of 1967, a new interest in all things arcadian in British pop can plainly be heard in the addition of a new palate of instruments, such as flutes, mellotrons, harpsichords and horns, to create a kind of bucolic English baroque 'n' roll. Traffic and the Pink Floyd may have led the way but even the Rolling Stones sidestepped their usual R'n'B to make Ruby Tuesday and Dandelion - two of the finest examples of the new sound. The Beatles, as usual, topped everyone with Strawberry Fields Forever - a song and production which, in my opinion, is a kind of impressionist pop classic. In fact, considering its themes, perhaps this period can even be seen as a kind of British musical version of 19th Century French impressionism.

It has been criticized as an ephemeral and rather naive stage in British rock but some glorious music came out of it. So here is the show we put together as a kind of celebration of British pop's impressionist psychedelic baroque'n'roll period and its first attempt at a uniquely "British" sound. It is a mixture of the popular and well-known with a few unreleased rare things like the Traffic and Pink Floyd BBC concerts from 1970 and 1971 respectively.

Enjoy. The commentary is in Spanish.



Pink Floyd - See Emily Play / Paintbox / Kinks – See My Friends /  Victoria  / Shangri-la / Beatles – Strawberry Fields Forever / Rolling Stones - Goodbye Ruby Tuesday / She’s a Rainbow / Traffic – Paper Sun /  40 Thousand Headmen  / Traffic BBC in Concert (April 1970) - Who Knows What Tomorrow May Bring? / Every Mother's Son / Medicated Goo / John Barleycorn Must Die / Pink Floyd BBC Concert (September 1971) – Fat Old Sun / One of These Days / Yardbirds – Happenings 10 Years Time Ago / Tomorrow – My White Bicycle / Pretty Things – Defecting Grey / Zombies - Beechwood Park / Hung Up On A Dream / Caravan - And I Wish I Were Stoned / Don't Worry / Robert Wyatt – A Last Straw / Little Red Riding Hood Hits The Road / Kevin Ayers – Stop This Train /  Religious Experience / Rolling Stones - Dandelion

Download here
https://archive.org/details/Aperto200614

http://radiokras.net/index.php?id=2162




More stranger than known
Jonathan Miller's Psychedelic Alice in Wonderland

Parallax - The Pink Floyd BBC Sessions

The Intergalactic Sofa - A Radio Kras Podcast 

My Radio Kras Podcasts - From Punk to Funk

Ten 21st Century Summer Psychedelic Nuggets 

The Intergalactic Sofa - A Radio Kras Podcast

The Intergalactic Sofa ("one size fits all") meets the Radio Kras Tardis.

And when you touch down…
Do you remember when you first heard music? Did you ever hear a piece of music when you were a kid and suddenly things were never the same again? I remember hearing the Beach Boys' I Get Around on the radio when I was about 9 years old. It resulted in possibly the biggest peak experience of my life. In the three minutes or so that this song lasts some mysterious force in the universe picked me up, rearranged all my molecules, messed with my 9 year-old sense of reality and blasted my nervous system into a hitherto unknown region of the multiverse. Suddenly all the pieces in the cosmic puzzle fit and the universe roared YEEESSSSSS!!! Charged up? I was bloody soaring through the red... Then, finally, as the song began to fade, it deposited me safely back down in the family living room wondering what the hell was that? And where do I find some more? I was never really the same again. It gave me a passion for music and I’ve been chasing that buzz ever since.

That is what music does to you. That is what any good art will do to you. It makes you feel something and hopefully inspires you. And so...

The Intergalactic Sofa
When Gimi asked me to do another program with him on his In Campo Aperto show on Radio Kras I suggested doing something with a Grateful Dead / psychedelic theme. It is the music I have probably found most inspirational over the years and, in the case of the Dead, a pretty fail-safe tonic and general pick-me-up for when the times get too weird.

This post was actually the original inspiration for the show. Freak Out! In Praise of Improv
I ended up narrowing my choices down to about 5 or 6 hours of music. I knew I wanted to get the 19 / 09 / 1970 Grateful Dead gig at the Fillmore NY in as I think it is some of their finest recorded music. The rest we pretty much just chose as we went along.

We set the Intergalactic Sofa on auto-pilot for Eight Miles High; The Misunderstood took us to the Sun, Jonathan Wilson to the Valley of a Silver Moon and the Dead circumvented a particularly fine Dark Star. We finally ended up on the Quicksilver Messenger Service's Happy Trails.  A fine ending. Turned out quite well really...

Check the embedded program out below. Both Gimi and I agreed it's a pretty cool trip
Don't worry the chat is in Spanish. The music speaks for itself I hope this stuff inspires you as much as it does me...
  

The Intergalactic Sofa (gets you there on time)

1. The Byrds - Eight miles high (Single). An apt start and Gimi and I chatted about how under-rated a guitarist Roger McGuinn is and how wonderfully berserk his playing is here.
2. The Byrds - Why? (Single). From the era of Why Not?
3. The Byrds - What's Happening? (Fifth Dimension LP). Crosby gets existential and McGuinn's guitar supplies the answers.
4. The Byrds - Hey Joe (Fifth Dimension LP). The Byrds rock...
5. The Misunderstood - My Mind (Before the Dream Faded LP). Hold tight. You can quite clearly hear steel guitarist Glen Ross Campbell tear holes in the very fabric of reality in the last 30 seconds.
6. The Misunderstood - I Can Take You To The Sun (Before the Dream Faded LP).
7. The Butterfield Blues Band - East / West (East / West LP). According to Joel Selvin when the BBB played San Francisco in '65 they had a massive effect the SF scene.
8. The Grateful Dead Live at the Fillmore East, New York (September 19, 1970). http://archive.org/details/gd1970-09-19.mtx.chappell.SB14.31510.sbeok.flac16  Dark Star > St. Stephen > Not Fade Away > Darkness Jam > China Cat Jam > Not Fade Away. Some of the finest Dead music there is.
   
9. Jonathan Wilson - The Trials Of Jonathan (Live in Aviles, Spain 8/7/2013).
10. Jonathan Wilson - The Valley Of The Silver Moon (Live in Aviles, Spain 8/7/2013). Keeping the faith and a great live band.
11. Cream - NSU live in Detroit Oct 1967. Eric tries to keep up with Ginger and Jack.
12. Jimi Hendrix Experience - Red House (Live in San Diego - In The West LP). The skill and the ideas. Hendrix nails it.
13. The Quicksilver Messenger Service - Mona, Maiden of the Cancer Moon, Calvary (Side 2 Happy Trails LP). The best psychedelic western film soundtrack that never was. 
14. The Byrds - Captain Soul (Fifth Dimension LP). We hope you had a pleasant flyte...

Listen below


Download
available here http://radiokras.net63.net/index.php?id=1685
or here https://ww2.archive.org/details/Aperto2813




More on stranger than known

My Radio Kras Podcasts - From Punk to Funk

Freak Out! In Praise of Improv

Cream live at the Spalding Bar-B-Que, 29th May 1967

The Grateful Dead - 1969 Dark Star set to vintage 1950s San Francisco film

The Tarnished Gold of Beachwood Sparks

Texas International Pop Festival with Led Zeppelin, Janis, Johnny Winter, Delaney and Bonnie, Sly, Sam and Dave

My Radio Kras Podcasts - From Punk to Funk

When I was a around 10 or 11 years old if you'd asked me what I wanted to be in life I would have said a DJ. I used to record myself introducing the few singles I had at the time onto onto a very cheap 70s cassette player and make my own "shows".

So, in the last year or so, and thanks to Gimi at Radio Kras in Gijon, Spain, I have just recently fulfilled a kind of lifetime ambition. I guested on Gimi's show "In Campo Aperto" on Gijon's Radio Kras. The first show we did was on 70s punk and pub rock and last week we did another on 60s and 70s funk. It was great fun. You get to talk about and play the music you love with the knowledge that you might just be introducing someone somewhere to a song or performance you have loved for years.

Both shows are in Spanish and after a few beers my Spanish tends to get even more eccentric than it is usually but we made it through.

Each program tries to give a general summary of the music featured.

If anyone is interested here are the links to the 2 podcasts of the shows we did.




Funk and Soul Power (17th May 2013)
We discuss and play tracks by the following;

Al Green | Alan Toussaint | Ann Peebles | Aretha Franklin | Bernard Purdie | Cornell Dupree | Curtis Mayfield | Dr. John | Gladys Knight | Impressions | Isley Brothers | James Brown | Jr Walker | King Curtis | Lee Dorsey | Little Feat | Maceo Parker | Marvin Gaye | O. V. Wright | Otis Redding | Sam and Dave | Syl Johnson | Sly and The Family Stone | Temptations | The Meters | Wilson Pickett

Link to podcast



See my other post related to it  - Optimism, Positivity and SOUL POWER!




Punk (August 2012)
A show about mid 70s Punk rock, pre-punk and Pub Rock featuring The Velvet Underground, MC5, Stooges, Flamin Groovies, Television, Richard Hell, Dr Feelgood, Mike Spencer and the Cannibals, 101ers, Eddie and the Hot Rods, Nick Lowe, The Clash, The Sex Pistols etc.) 

You can listen to it here


Both podcasts are in Spanish but the music is universal.