Ping!

Still here good people, just been quiet, working out how life works now, and you know what? I think I might just have the hang of it. Sick, but no no sicker, and considering what I've got, that's as good as it gets, so that's good enough for me.

I will be writing more again now, both here and on Twitter, just needed a break from the whole blogging thing to get away from the idea of writing about being sick and well, it's such an integral part of my life now I don't really feel the urge to bang on about it.

Anyways, fuck all this, hope y're all good out there, and I'm actually going to catch up on all yr writing (you know who you are) and, I should imagine, roundly take the piss with the comments. In the meantime, I'm going to listen to Tony Oxley's Four Compositions For Sextet (which is a hell of a lot less dry and academic than it sounds) and Andrew Hill's un-fucking-touchable Compulsion!!!!!*. Oh yeah, it's a free jazz Monday, no doubt 'bout that.

And, this is important, if you like sludge, old AmRep or just good old-fashioned low end filth, go and buy a copy of the new Palehorse album, Harm Starts Here (Candlelight) immediately, it's exceedingly toothsome and your ears will thank you.

*Yep, it really does have five exclamation marks in the title. It was the 60s.

La Resaca

In lieu of being capable of saying anything even vaguely coherent or sensible, due to a severe lack of sleep over the previous few days, I advise you to follow this link and immerse yrself in the wild and wooly sounds of this years Tinderbox Festival, which can be found here.

Para Saber Tocar, Hay Que Saber Escuchar

Before I post my huge, rambling article about the gig below, I highly recommend that you go here and listen to the fucker courtesy of the lovely people at BBC Radio 3. It's up for another six days.

I don't normally translate the titles of my posts, but this one deserves it, as it roughly translates as "in order to know how to play, one must know how to listen". Never a truer word said.

El Ruido Alegre

Frank Zappa once said something along the lines of "the best thing about free jazz is it's capacity to annoy". That's because Frank Zappa was a fucking idiot. What free jazz expresses better than any other music is pure fucking unalloyed joy. The joy of love and life lived, of music and the power of communication and real fucking empathy, of deeply shared experience and emotion and knowledge, raw and beautiful and intense like no other music on this fucking planet. I know this because I've just witnessed the fucking glorious explosion of the Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet in full flight, and it was truly fucking righteous, astonishing and profound like no other music I've experienced for a very long time, if ever. Fuck, I'm high as a kite and I've had nothing stronger than a beer or two, and tomorrow I'll try to explain why in a coherent manner, 'cos right now I can't, because I've been steamrollered in the best possible way by a force of fucking nature that burned like a newly born star. Damn. I wish everyone I know could have been there 'cos this was so special, genuinely extraordinary, just everything music and art should aspire to be.

It's That Cephalopodic Time Again

This one's dedicated to the memory of the great Rashied Ali (July 1st 1935 - Aug 12th 2009) so expect some serious fireworks.

This month's jazz molluscs:

Illi Adato - Electronics/Percussion
Shura Greenburg - Double Bass
Andrew John - Electric Bass
Lee Knight - Guitar
David O'Connor - Baritone Sax
Cigar Tamlin - Drums/Trumpet
Colin Webster - Alto/Tenor Sax
Gareth Wilkins - Arp/Moog/Rhodes

more details here

Ladies & Gentlemen, It's Got Eight Limbs & A Distributed Brain, It Shouldn't Be Able To Survive Out Of The Water, And Yet It Thrives!

Tell yr friends. Come witness the return of the mighty

Oh yes, Octopus finally returns to the lovely (if somewhat echoey) Cafe Oto, with a rather fucking fine line-up consisting of:

Craig Tamlin - Drums/Percussion
Shura Greenberg - Double Bass
Andrew John - Electric Bass
Shabaka Huthchings - Bass Clarinet/Tenor Saxophone
Oren Marshall - Tuba
Illi Adato - Percussion
Gareth Wilkins - Arp/Moog/Rhodes
Lee Knight - Guitar

So why not come along, enjoy some excellent organic locally brewed ales or the marvellous Normandy ciders and immerse yrself in the world of the Octopoda.