Duncan managed to save this and recently I wondered if a copy was still around. This was based on questions our readers sent in and a few I added about ten years ago. It's a good read and Dave's wit is well on display.
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Dave Stewart is a legend among the late '60s / early '70s Canterbury musicians.
Progressive Ears invited its members to pose some questions to Dave and Barbara about their past and present musical endeavors - and they gladly obliged us. The questions and replies are published here - raw and unembellished, loosely divided into the various career phases.
URIEL & EGG (1968-1972)
PE: Of all the 70's bands you performed with - Egg, Khan, Hatfield, National Health ... do you have a particular favorite band? And if so, do you also favor a certain album that band has recorded?
Dave Stewart: I have a soft spot for Uriel (who eventually became Egg) because it was my first pro band, the other guys were / are great musicians and at the age of 17 it was a thrill to play with them. I feel a strong bond with the Egg guys - Clive, Mont and our roadie Alf - because we went through a lot together at a tender age.
For me, the stand-out tracks from the era are Egg's 'A Visit To Newport Hospital' and 'Enneagram' (the version on the 2007 CD The Metronomical Society), Hatfield's 'Let's Eat' and 'Lumps', and National Health's 'The Bryden 2-Step'. I have to say I think the Khan album is the best-produced of the albums I played on back then.
Most of my '70s bands made two albums before breaking up and in each case the second album was better than the first. I don’t have a favourite, but I understand why people single out Hatfield's The Rotters' Club: each member has an interesting compositional style and the album contains pleasant-sounding, lyrical songs as well as complex instrumentals. Most of the good musical things I associate with the period are in there somewhere.
PE: Egg's music was dominated by Mont, Hatfield's by Pip and Phil. It wasn't until National Health that the majority of the comps were by Dave. Was it a matter of just having so many songwriters and having to "share it"? Or was he just more confident in composing by the time of National Health? (That said, I think "Mumps" is one of the greatest songs ever.)
DS: You're right about Egg. With Hatfield there was a gradual sea change: when I joined they were playing mainly Phil's and Richard's material and I had to ease my way in as a writer. But by the time of The Rotters' Club we were playing a lot of my music. I was grateful that Phil, Richard and Pip were so accommodating to my ideas - the band already had three good writers but they welcomed my input because they're the kind of musicians who instinctively value creative contributions. That gave me the confidence to push my compositions to the fore when Alan Gowen and I formed National Health.
SPIROGYRA (1968-1973)
PE: How does Barb look back at the time and feel about the music she made with Spirogyra?
Barbara Gaskin: I feel really fortunate. To be able to record three albums when we were scarcely out of our teens and to tour all over Britain - and sometimes Europe too - was a truly amazing experience to have. Listening to that music now is pure nostalgia for me - and nostalgia is naturally bitter sweet. The music may have been a bit rough around the edges from time to time, but it was passionately felt and engendered in me a love of singing and recording which persists to this day.
PE: When can we expect some more music in the vein of Spirogyra!
BG: Founder member Martin Cockerham has recently released two new CDs under the name Spirogyra. You can find extracts and information on a MySpace page.
NOSTALGIC QUERIES
PE: Do you miss playing the weird notes and odd time signatures that were so prevalent 30-35 years ago?
DS: In the privacy of my music room with the shutters drawn I often play weird notes and odd time signatures (sometimes by accident), so for me there's no sense of loss. I'm always looking for new harmonic and rhythmic angles, though of course my compositional priorities have radically changed since the '70s. It would be a retrograde step for me to try to re-enact my old approach, I don’t think you should go backwards. And we are talking a LONG time ago here!
PE: Do you sense any sort of progressive renaissance is brewing?
DS: We've emerged from the era when anything which smelled faintly of prog was universally jeered at, a trend started (in the UK anyway) by music journalists. Now we can calmly weigh up the good points and weaknesses of the original genre. If you asked me what those were, I’d say that the widespread experimentalism and creativity of the mid- to late '60s were great, but the over-inflated sense of self-importance of a small (but highly visible) minority of musicians which followed was progressive rock's Achilles heel - it provided the media with a convenient stick to beat us all with.
This softening in attitude has helped renew interest in '70s prog and that style certainly seems to be an influence on some current bands. You could call it a renaissance; a less charitable view would be that it's merely musical recycling. Having said that, it’s extremely difficult to be really original, and if you are, the chances are that people won’t get it - I mean, look how the first night audience reacted to The Rite Of Spring in 1913 - "Boo!!! Get off! Bring back the DJ!"
Personally I enjoy hearing new ideas and creative approaches wherever they come from. It interests and amuses me that bands like Meshuggah and The Mars Volta have fused heavy metal with prog. The Mats/Morgan band seem to be the natural successors of the '70s genre and Gavin Harrison / 05Ric's work takes rhythmic exploration as far as any sane person would want to go. I've also heard some very adventurous underground dance tracks and experimental world music / classical fusion projects over the last few years. But let's not get carried away - the original prog movement threw up a lot of good stuff, but you can't claim to be progressive in the true sense of the word if what you’re doing amounts to a rehash of what went before, albeit better played and with enhanced production values.
Can I just add that none of the bands I was in regarded themselves as part of the 'progressive rock' movement - we weren't comfortable with stylistic pigeonholes.
PE: I was wondering if Dave can now look at his past works with a different perspective, in the fact that back in the day he seemed to be frustrated by the lack of commercial and financial success of the bands he was in, but they have stood the test of time and regarded as classics by many.
DS: Yes, I do view my past work slightly differently now. I agree that the compositions have (thankfully) stood the test of time and I'm grateful that people still enjoy them, particularly as back in the day we had no idea people would be interested 30 or 40 years down the line.
It was a struggle to make a living in the '70s, but that’s not why I went solo. I did it because working in bands was beginning to hold me back creatively and I needed some freedom. When Bill discontinued the Bruford group in 1980 I had a choice of continuing to ally myself with an ensemble as I’d done for the last 12 years, or striking out on my own and trying something different. The latter was a lot more appealing than forming yet another band in which my musical instincts would have to be harnessed to (and limited by) the other players' artistic ethos. I gave band membership my best shot, but it finally reached a point where it would have been musically stifling for me to carry on doing it.
In my view the financial rewards (or otherwise) are entirely separate from musical considerations. When I recorded my solo version of 'What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted' with Colin Blunstone on vocals in 1981 I didn't expect it would even get released, let alone make the top twenty. Barbara and I were both gobsmacked when our cover of 'It's My Party' was a number one hit - we'd only recorded it for a laugh. Although it might appear unlikely to the cynically-minded, I did those tracks purely because I enjoyed them with no thought of financial gain. I've always done what I like musically with no concessions to commercialism, and on some occasions I've been lucky enough to get paid for it, quite an achievement in the music business!
PE: Will there be any more lovely affectionate covers done in the vein of 'As Long As He Lies Perfectly Still'?
DS: You never know, though I don't have any in mind at the moment. That Soft Machine cover was my friend Jakko's idea and the project was kick-started by a combination of circumstances I can’t imagine occurring again. It was fun to do, and very nice that Hugh Hopper (Soft Machine bassist) and Clive Brooks (Egg's drummer) were involved.
PE: IMAGE This seems to me an obvious question for this forum but does Dave have any instrumental works (i.e. soundtracks he's done, unfinished projects, etc.) that he ever intends to release? (You know, a bone he can throw to the bearded, great-coated, slightly disturbed young (now old) men he once served so well. <wink>)
DS: Thank you "Wink"! The bone request could be a problem - I do have one left over from a turkey Christmas dinner but I already buried it in the garden in anticipation of leaner times. On a more musical note, we're considering releasing a CD of my soundtrack music one day. Some of it is instrumental and might set pulses racing in the hamlet of Beardscoat Progmarsh as well as in less disturbed parts of the musical community.
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Originally Posted by Zeuhlmate
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