Monday 23 January 2012

A Cantonbury Tale

Well, if this doesn't get your Monday morning sunny side up you got problems:



Remember seeing Wyatt on The Old Grey Whistle Test around '85 singing his (beautiful) version of 'Shipbuilding' and a bigger juxtaposition to the current vogue of mid-eighties artists (big hair, shoulder pads etc) a 14 year old lad couldn't wish to see. Sat in a wheelchair looking like a slightly bedraggled History teacher, he was intriguing to say the least. Remember going to my local library to find some Wyatt tunes, the nice man behind the counter pointed me towards Soft Machine WHO I COULD NOT GET MY HEAD AROUND. Thankfully, i did come across this AMAZEoid version of I'm A Believer' Cosmic kicks ahoy



From these humble beginnings i found a load of other artists from the same (Cantonbury) scene, including the wonderful Kevin Ayers.



If your not au fait with Mr Ayers and you enjoy, pastoral english psychedelia a la Syd Barrett, then many riches await you.



Finally Caravan are one of those bands that you might associate with prog-rock or long dull instrumental passages, and you might be right, but they also wrote and perfomed some of the best, off-beat pop songs of the early 70's
Example 1

Example 2: Why Has There Never Been A Best Of Caravan?








2 comments:

Rin said...

I didn't know much Robert Wyatt until fairly recently so tis been a real treat catchin up. That's always a joy. I'm...kinda doing that with McCartney too now, sloowwwwwly though. Exposure therapy. Watch this space. The new Field Music record really owes said fella quite the debt, dunnit? Maybe I can count that as part of my homework.

Love Ayers. As a professional music idiot I don't think I know a lick of Caravan, though. Gonna crank up the playlist and buff my brainpan shiny now.

Rin said...

(Didn't know much solo Wyatt I mean!)