Miscellaneous Bits Of Old Gruesomes

1983 - I'm closing up shop, winding down the Sydney life and ramping up the financials as I prepare to travel overseas. I lend my slightly broken Arp Odyssey to Patrick (it's destined never to feel my loving touch again), sell off my adored collection of the complete Samuel Beckett to Ian and my trusty TEAC 4 track recorder to Dermott (this one is fated to break down a few months after I leave - it was pining, no doubt) and give away the vast majority of my 2-300 LP record collection to whoever wants it, saving a musty sub-set of favourites.

One of the last things I do is make a compilation of tracks that will remind me of the records I've saved as well as the records I've lost. Here's the track list (if you can read it):



There were other cassettes on the trip including more pleasant listening like Chaka Khan's "I Feel For You", dancey comps, pop comps and, ofcourse, things we'd pick up along the way to reminisce over later. But, after all these years, the single minded weirdness of the old gruesomes selection still manages to make me smile.

Ivor Cutler was always good for a laugh but I wanted to include one of the few tracks that have a musical backing:

mp3: Baby Sits

We saw him in London near the end of 1984 with David Thomas and Linsdsay Cooper and a lot of other old favourites on the same special event bill: He was a complete arsehole, actually.

Ever since I first head "Music In Fifths" I'd mostly loved the sound of the Philip Glass Ensemble. But his main LP tracks were far too long to fit easily onto a comp tape. Luckily he'd also released the soundtrack to "North Star" which contained some of his most concise pieces:

mp3: Ange de Oranges

I never saw Mr Glass in performance until much, much later but, even though he seemed quite nice, he's probably an arsehole too.

"Guitar Solos 2" was a dark little album (which fits in neatly with Fred Frith's slightly ominous improv style) but the very unusually harmonic pieces by Hans Reichel were always a little ray of sunshine amongst the gloom:

mp3: Donnerkuhle

For many, many years I'd referred to this track as "Vain Yookte" but it was in fact "Donnerkuhle" which is a shame becase I really love the way sound of that 1st title comes out of my mouth. I've never seen Mr Reichel play live, nor seen him in the street, but I hear he's slightly difficult at the very least.