Two evenings with Tender Buttons.

Sunday 26th November at Iklectik with Steve Beresford, Gino Robair and Steph Horak, Trio Sowari and Tender Buttons (Tania Chen, Gino Robair and Tom Djll).
Monday 27th November at Foyles with Tender Buttons and John Butcher.
Steve Beresford, Gino Robair, Steph Horak

Trio Sowari

Tania Chen

Tender Buttons

Tender Buttons with John Butcher

John Butcher

Gino Robair and Tom Djll

Tania Chen

Han Bennink and Alexander Hawkins

At Cafe Oto tonight…that’s HB playing the floor and AH on piano in the first drawing and HB solo on the drums in the second.

Han Bennink

Tonight at Cafe Oto…

David Toop’s ‘Raw Materials’.

A recent blog by David Toop using one of my drawings…https://davidtoopblog.com/2017/07/31/raw-materials/

A few seconds of blindness

When I showed some of my ‘live’ drawings recently there were a lot of jokes about drawing with my eyes closed. That, of course, is not what I do. I look at the subject of the drawing but not at the drawing itself. Last night at Cafe Oto for the first of the ‘Art of Improvisers’ season I did two very quick drawings of the saxophonist Julie Kjaer. One with my eyes open and one, as an experiment with my eyes closed. And there was almost no difference. Some of this is due to visual memory I guess but there is also ‘body memory’ involved…and the fact that the two drawings were done, pretty much, back-to-back.

Jeremy Deller Playback Session at Tate Modern

Laura Snapes and Jeremy Deller. On the floor, listening.

Jeremy Deller in conversation with Laura Snapes in the Wolfgang Tillmans; 2017 exhibition. In a room kitted out with equipment provided by Tillmans from his own Berlin gallery for ‘optimum listening’. An entertaining choice of music and it did sound really good despite its origins in a laptop. The room itself though was a reminder of how important the environment is to listening…harsh lighting, acoustic panels, institutional carpet…it felt like attending a seminar. Deller was aware of this and tried to change the atmosphere by asking people to sit on the floor and, unsuccessfully, asking that the lighting should be changed. Easy to link this to Tate Modern’s often bland display policy that can seem like the lowest common denominator rather than elegant simplicity.

Here is the playlist….each with a link to youtube.

The Beach Boys – ”Til I Die’

The KLF – ‘Chill Out’…Deller played an excerpt from this.

Kraftwerk – ‘Autobahn’ (single version)

Sandy Denny – ‘Fotheringay’ or, alternatively, Fairport Convention – ‘Fotheringay’.

Freedom Singers – ‘We Shall Overcome’.

King Tubby, Augustus Pablo, Jacob Miller – ‘Baby I Love You So’.

Grace Jones – ‘Walking in the Rain’.

Led Zeppelin – ‘The Ocean’…edited to omit the jam at the end.

Giorgio Moroder – ‘Utopia’

John Hopkins remix – ‘Disclosure’ by Magnets ft. Lorde.

Seijiro Murayama & Ross Lambert. 28. ii. 17

At Oto Project Space tonight…voices, guitar, snare drum, rain on the roof, trains.

at Cafe Oto and two locked grooves +

Wednesday 22nd February at Cafe Oto. Alasdair Roberts with Stevie Jones and Alex Neilson.

One ‘real’ locked groove (Heaven 17 – 12″ of ‘Come Live With Me’:

and one ‘accidental’ locked groove (BBC Dance Orchestra -78RPM – ‘I Like Bananas (Because They Have No Bones):

Also, I just listened to this from King Gong on Discrepant. Recommended.

A Sketchbook

This is a complete sketchbook from 23rd January to 1st February 2017 in lieu of a longer text. James Moore and Marc Ribot playing John Zorn’s ‘the Book of Heads’ at The Stone (soon to close), New York. Simon Fisher Turner on laptop with Shiva Feshareki on turntables at Cafe Oto. Night One of The Art Ensemble of Chicago with Roscoe Mitchell, Hugh Ragin, Junius Paul and Don Moye also at Cafe Oto.