Henry Cow: The World is a Problem Book

[mogrooves]

Looking forward to this; Ben Piekut's other books are quite good.

[Trane]

If ever a band deserved an explanatory book, Cow would be it. I'm in.
but I notice the Cow box individual discs are only 5 pounds apiece.

this could be interesting for me, since I passed up on those three boxset (simply too much stuff I didn't care for in these type of boxes, though I diid make an exception for the AZ boxset). I had borrowed the boxsets from my library system back then.

ReR now has a pre order link on their front page

thanks Steve.

Speaking of Henry Cow...

Michel Edelin Quintet w/ special guest John Greaves - "Echoes of Henry Cow"



1. Half the Sky (6:25)
2. Living in the Heart of the Beast (8:01)
3. War (4:32)
4. After the Flood (2:42)
5. Nursery (4:12)
6. Ruins (10:11)
7. Beautiful as the Moon (8:08)
8. The Bath of Stars (2:33)
9. Civilisation (8:27)
10. On Suicide (1:34)

Michel Edelin: flute, alto flute, bass flute
Sophia Domancich: piano, Fender Rhodes
Sylvain Kassap: clarinet, bass clarinet
Stéphane Kerecki: double bass
Simon Goubert: drums
John Greaves: spoken words

Recorded on September 17th and 18th 2018 by Vincent Mahey at Studio Sextan – La Fonderie, Malakoff, France
Album concert release: May 18th 2019, 6:30 pm, Like A Jazz Machine Festival, Dudelange - Luxembourg



https://roguart.com/product/echoes-of-henry-cow/132

Thanks, I hadn't heard of this, and I bloody missed the Luxembourg release gig/party last night. wall.gif
Had I heard that a week ago, I'd have made plans to go (brother lives there), and next sunday Steve Hackett plays in that area next sunday. Alas, it's the Belgian national, regional & European election day.
Is there something starting to happen also in the usually-sleepy Grand Duchy??

[Mr.Krautman]

Very nice that the Vevey concert DVD is now issued separately at a very affordable price, so far it was only available as a part of the boxset. Just ordered.

[Scrotum Scissor]

It's a good read. Scholarly written, as in not only its means of text and theory but its very intention - but I for one am glad that there's a "serious" work to serve as reference for one of the most genuinely fascinating ventures to come from the phenomenon which once was "rock music/culture".







Should have been more about the shagging, obviously.

[Zappathustra]

Ordered, but it will take a month to arrive

[chalkpie]

What was/is the consensus on this book?

[Kcrimso]

What was/is the consensus on this book?

It is great.

(Oh consensus... dunno... that was just my humble opinion. )

[NogbadTheBad]

It's very good but also very academic (unsurprisingly), a bit dry in places. I'm enjoying it.

[Zappathustra]

What was/is the consensus on this book?

I think it is essential reading, keeping a great balance between meaningful academic analysis and juicy, biographical information.

[Steve F.]

What was/is the consensus on this book?

It's a hoot! And I learned a lot (most strongly, I learned that I am glad that I was not in Henry Cow)

[Scrotum Scissor]

What was/is the consensus on this book?

Read it. You can have the time of your life just reading the biographic component (80%) and drop the Althusser'ian warble altogether. Or you can do the latter as well and discuss its contents with a deranged bag-lady on a street corner.

For fans and/pr devotees: unmissable. For those in the outer interest-zones: rewarding. For those on the fence: fairly valuable still. For those who already have decided to loathe the Cow and made up their minds as to why: try it anyway. For those whose existentialist views and adherence-identities in music have been seriously challenged by hearing the Cow: read it in the loo. For GTR/Asia fanatics: read it in bed before makin' out with the missus, either flesh or blow-up plastic.

It's a very worthwhile book.

[Conti]

^LOL

I've just finished Mike Barnes' book. Jakko's description of meeting the band in the 70s is hilarious.

Next one in queue is The World is a Problem.

[chalkpie]

Thanks everyone. Looks like I'll pick it up....I just wanted to make sure it wasn't a Thanksgiving turkey.

[Scrotum Scissor]

I actually keep wondering how it must be to read anything like this for anyone not particularly versed in the casus matter. Some 15 years ago I had a few folks over for nightcaps after an academic sympozium here in Oslo, one of whom was a postmodernist Deleuze-scholar, and I asked him about the esteemed philosopher's dwellings into contemporary street culture and more specifically of his involvement with Heldon, the musical project of his protegée Richard Pinhas.

He told me that he'd collected recordings of Deleuze's lectures and readings but never come across anything with music in it - and then I played him Pinhas' L'Ethique only to have him flabbergasted that Deleuze would have agreed to lend his voice to "[...] such an abominal sound". I was fascinated at how the guy clearly didn't realize how tight the connection was between underground ("rock") culture and the realms of radical academics in the late 60s until early 80s, if only for the fact that historically speaking he obviously was - he simply just didn't have any experience with it himself. Which struck me as completely odd. He knew practically nothing of wider counter-cultural transcendence in that age, merely the Deleuze'ian theories as such. Where on earth was the broader context of understanding?

He was a fan of J. C. Mellencamp and Three Dog Night, this man. I always find that a bit hilarious on thinking back on the incident.

[Steve F.]

"[...] such an abominal sound".

That's a great story! thanks.

P.S.

15 years ago? so 2005? Who listens to Three Dog Night after, um, 1978?

[NogbadTheBad]

It is a great story

[Scrotum Scissor]

Who listens to Three Dog Night after, um, 1978?

Deleuzian scholars lacking basic historical-cultural insights, Steve! Scholars into Schopenhauer or Nietzsche stick to the Osmonds.

[chalkpie]

I have my olde man's Three Dog Night vinyl...maybe I'll be 'that guy' too .

OK probably not.

[Zappathustra]

Involvement with Heldon? Can you please be more specific, because I am in the dark here.
Deleuze is like a top 3 20th century thinker-writer for me. An outstanding mind, with a unique capacity of putting revolutionary ideas into words

[Scrotum Scissor]

Involvement with Heldon? Can you please be more specific, because I am in the dark here.

Pinhas was tutored by Deleuze on his M.A. and PhD., although I believe the latter was not his actual doctorate advisor. Pinhas made a name for himself at the Sorbonne for presenting highly radical interpretations of existentialist classics into his own brand of nihilist post-modernism (and indeed lectured there for a year or so in the mid-70s). He kept referring to Lyotard's "excesses of reach" at a point where the latter was hardly taken seriously by anyone (outside of academia) except for renegades like Foucault and R.D. Laing. Pinhas certainly developed his own brand of radical pragmatism and politically charged activist chart, though.

I'm not much of a fan of -either- of these nowadays, to be fair (except for Pinhas' music, of course, and some major bolks of Deleuze's authorship), and neither of my old idol Allen Ginsberg and his lesser-than-bestowed-of-basic-self-insights art of comprehension as to positions in ethical interpretation, but then again I used to think hardcore pornography was "enpowering" and "liberating".

It truly isn't, and I can hardly even read Ginsberg anymore.

[moecurlythanu]

Thanks Richard. I had no idea of that related to Pinhas.

[Zappathustra]

Pinhas was tutored by Deleuze on his M.A. and PhD., although I believe the latter was not his actual doctorate advisor. Pinhas made a name for himself at the Sorbonne for presenting highly radical interpretations of existentialist classics into his own brand of nihilist post-modernism (and indeed lectured there for a year or so in the mid-70s). He kept referring to Lyotard's "excesses of reach" at a point where the latter was hardly taken seriously by anyone (outside of academia) except for renegades like Foucault and R.D. Laing. Pinhas certainly developed his own brand of radical pragmatism and politically charged activist chart, though.

I'm not much of a fan of -either- of these nowadays, to be fair (except for Pinhas' music, of course, and some major bolks of Deleuze's authorship), and neither of my old idol Allen Ginsberg and his lesser-than-bestowed-of-basic-self-insights art of comprehension as to positions in ethical interpretation, but then again I used to think hardcore pornography was "enpowering" and "liberating".

It truly isn't, and I can hardly even read Ginsberg anymore.

thanks man