Showing category "music" (Show all posts)

Molecule III

Posted by Ken Edwards on Monday, August 26, 2013, In : music 


Thanks to Howard Jones and COMA Sussex, this score of mine from a number of years ago was performed again last April (listen to it here) at St John sub Castro Church in Lewes. The score fits onto a standard postcard and I hope is self-explanatory (apologies for the typo in the instructions, which wasn't my fault). It was originally part of a project, Postcard Music, in which 12 composers based in London at the time each contributed a score/postcard. It's long out of print.

Howard and the ensem...
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Big(gish) in Wales

Posted by Ken Edwards on Friday, June 21, 2013, In : music 
Today, Midsummer Day, The Moors play their first gig of this year in Hastings Old Town, at the Jenny Lind Inn, where we've performed eight times previously (the last being 28 December). I hope the sound balance will be improved from that occasion, when we were plagued by problems: our current drummer, Russell, will be taking charge of the PA and mixing this time, as he did in Brecon, Wales, at the beginning of this month.

That was kind of interesting. It was the furthest the band had ever been...

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There's something in there...

Posted by Ken Edwards on Wednesday, March 6, 2013, In : music 
To Oxford last week (the proof copy of Philip Terry’s tapestry arrived just as we were leaving) to hear a rare performance of "There's something in there" - a piece composed a few years ago by John Tilbury using my words. 

Maybe a dozen or so red kites wheeling and hovering over the M40 around Beaconsfield, their forked tails slanting like rudders, as the sun started to emerge. I've never seen one before, and didn't realise they had got quite so common in this part of the world.

The concert w...

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Songwriting in Hastings

Posted by Ken Edwards on Wednesday, October 3, 2012, In : music 
There's an interview with me at Hastings Online Times. It's mainly about songwriting, but there's a bit about poetry and Reality Street too.

Working on some more stuff to upload here: a response to Peter Riley, recent poetry publications, and previews of the forthcoming Reality Street books: The Alchemist's Mind and White, both being printed now for release next month. (Apologies to those contributors to The Alchemist's Mind who got advance copies - these contain an out-of-date list of Support...
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The Moors at the Standard

Posted by Ken Edwards on Monday, September 24, 2012, In : music 

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The Moors at the Stag, August 2012

Posted by Ken Edwards on Monday, August 13, 2012, In : music 

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The Moors launch (part 2)

Posted by Ken Edwards on Friday, May 11, 2012, In : music 
It's taken me a week to recover from the launch of The Moors' album, called, imaginatively enough (as John Peel would have said) The Moors.

Two really uplifting gigs: first, last Friday, opening the Hastings Jack-in-the-Green festival in the cavernous St Mary in the Castle. I don't know how many were there, maybe 200 (?) - anyway, it was a joyous occasion, all ages from kiddies to seniors, many of them bopping and a few of them buying the CD. Roland, who had engineered our album, mixed the sou...
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The Moors launch

Posted by Ken Edwards on Tuesday, May 1, 2012, In : music 
The Moors - the band I co-founded with Elaine - releases its first album today. You can listen to all 12 tracks online and buy the CD or download here. And there's more info here. And here.

 

We're launching it at St Mary in the Castle, Hastings, where the band plays the opening concert of the Hastings Jack-in-the-Green weekend this Friday 4 May, and in the Brighton Fringe Festival at the Brunswick pub on Sunday 6 May. It's going to be an exhausting weekend, but I'm looking forward to it.
 
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Bruised Rationals

Posted by Ken Edwards on Wednesday, October 19, 2011, In : music 
A text-music piece of mine from 1996, Bruised Rationals, is being revived next Tuesday (25 October) in a performance by the CoMA London Ensemble in their first concert of the autumn 2011 season.

As most composers will attest (and I am only a very part-time composer – writing the occasional song for The Moors being as much as I can manage right now), if getting a performance is hard, getting a second or third is almost impossible. I was fortunate enough at the time to be a member of the CoMA ...
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The Moors - sound & vision

Posted by Ken Edwards on Saturday, June 4, 2011, In : music 


The band I play in - The Moors - did a festival gig in Sedlescombe, East Sussex, on Sunday 29 May, and a friend of ours videoed it. There are four videos on YouTube now, encompassing five of our numbers.

And the band has just succumbed to the Facebook plague, so do visit us there.

Please "like" us if you can - we only had eleven fans as of this morning, and we definitely have more than that!

And/or find out more about us on our website.

I'm going to be away from this blog for about a week, but wi...
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Captain and Monk

Posted by Ken Edwards on Monday, December 20, 2010, In : music 


 I saw and heard Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band play the Rainbow Theatre, formerly the Finsbury Park Astoria, London, in 1973. I remember the performance being wild and other-worldly; but then, an hour beforehand I had partaken of a slice of cake baked by my flatmate which contained a special ingredient that may have messed with my mind somewhat. That was de rigueur then.

Little evidence remains of any of this, though there's a rather iffy sound recording on YouTube. Soon after, I wrote ...
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Cage against the machine

Posted by Ken Edwards on Wednesday, December 15, 2010, In : music 
Cage Against the Machine is a campaign to get John Cage's 4'33" to No 1 in the singles charts for Christmas. This may have started as a joke against the ubiquitous X Factor, but it isn't any more - there's a real chance of this happening. And if it does, a number of charities stand to make real money - every purchase benefits the young people's mental health charity C.A.L.M., Youth Music, the British Tinnitus Association, the music therapy group Nordoff Robbins and Sound & Music.

You can downl...

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US trip, part 1: The Church of St John Coltrane

Posted by Ken Edwards on Wednesday, September 29, 2010, In : music 
On Sunday we went to church.

Haven't done that for a good many years, but this was different. I had always been curious about the St John Coltrane Church in San Francisco - wondered if it still existed, but there it was mentioned in the guidebook: services between 12 noon and 3pm every Sunday.

The church was founded by Franzo Wayne King, now Archbishop of the St John Will-I-Am African Orthodox Church, after he had had a religious experience listening to Coltrane's music.

Finding it was another m...
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One more day

Posted by Ken Edwards on Monday, July 19, 2010, In : music 
I'm awake. I have been granted another day. Maybe twenty, twenty-five years, who knows? Some charlatan is trying to push big society ideas at me. I don't buy it. I'm very fortunate. There is someone who cares. I was born into a world where Thelonious Monk existed. Not to mention Captain Beefheart's Magic Band, which came later. Desert blues. Still rocking. How low can I go? The sky is blue, the sea is green, a bicycle is being pedalled. Yesterday Nelson Mandela was 92. I shall, in celebration...
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Moors at the Stag

Posted by Ken Edwards on Friday, November 27, 2009, In : music 
Well, now, here's something else. This was recorded by our good neighbours Shirley & Don at the Stag Inn, Hastings Old Town, last Saturday night (21st). There are two other songs now uploaded to YouTube. It was an excellent evening. I look a bit too serious (nervous) here, but I did enjoy myself, honest.  Great playing from Jenny, Richard and Andy, and storming solo by Elaine.

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Moors on record

Posted by Ken Edwards on Monday, July 27, 2009, In : music 
This week I take delivery of a limited run of a seven-track CD which the Moors - the band I co-founded with Elaine - will use to promote themselves. The CD will be launched at our forthcoming gig as part of the free Hastings Beach Concerts, where it will be on sale at £5,  £1 of which goes to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. The concerts, attracting thousands of people, are an annual event, marking the beginning of Hastings Old Town Week, and benefiting the RNLI locally.

We're on a...
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The Moors have arrived!

Posted by Ken Edwards on Monday, May 18, 2009, In : music 


Goodness, that was really something. The Moors had an enjoyable debut at the Hastings Motor Boat & Yacht Club last Saturday (16 May). At least, we enjoyed it and we believe the audience did so too.

What started ten months or so ago as Elaine and I jamming with a few friends on some klezmer and Balkan tunes has turned into a real, live band with a distinctive style. I'm really proud of what Andy (drums), Richard (guitar), Jenny (fiddle), Elaine (sax/flute/fife) and I (bass guitar/vocals) have a...
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Bob Dylan at the Roundhouse

Posted by Ken Edwards on Tuesday, April 28, 2009, In : music 
I promised to report back from this. I am not a diehard fan, except for his high water period, in my opinion, between Highway 61 Revisited - John Wesley Harding. I last saw him (in the distance) at Earls Court, 1981, a mostly terrible gig. The recent albums have been quite good, though.

Sunday 26 April in Chalk Farm, London, was a bit of an ordeal. Having endured the crashing Roundhouse  website a few weeks ago to obtain tickets, picking them up at the box office (and being wrist-tagged) was t...
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Why I like David Byrne

Posted by Ken Edwards on Wednesday, April 15, 2009, In : music 
Because he's not a brainless rock'n'roller. Check out the journal he's been keeping on his current tour.

Caught the Brighton date last night. A terrific five-piece band, plus three backing singers, three acrobatic modern dancers, all in virginal white. They moved all the time. You couldn't take eyes nor ears off them. Below is a pic stolen from earlier in the tour - I never got round to getting out my camera.



David Byrne has been a favourite of mine since the classic Talking Heads albums he ma...
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Eliades and the Casa de la Trova

Posted by Ken Edwards on Thursday, March 5, 2009, In : music 
Eliades Ochoa was probably the youngest member of the band that recorded the Buena Vista Social Club album ten years ago (apart from Ry Cooder, that is) - he's only 63 now. On that album he sang "Chan Chan" and "El Carretero". He comes from eastern Cuba, and plays country style, with a strong son montuno flavour. He played the Brighton Dome last week. It was a must-hear for me.

He was much the same as the last time we saw him, six years ago at the Barbican, cowboy hat and all, though I don't ...
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Ken Edwards This blog is written by Ken Edwards, co-founder and editor/publisher of Reality Street, and it's mainly about the press. Ken's personal blog can now be found at http://www.kenedwardsonline.co.uk