Category: Music

Call Your Girlfriend

Danny Baker recommended this video. It’s very cute. But it seems I’m behind the times. Apparently it went viral about six months ago. It wears well, it still sounds good to me. It’s a little bit like a playground clapping song. It is performed by three members of Swedish choral group Erato sitting around the kitchen table with empty margarine cartons, handclaps and sweet vocal harmony.

Frames of reference

A Pedantic Plaque

We made this plaque around twenty years ago. The wood was cut and shaped and painted with size and gesso and red bole, then gilded with 22 carat gold leaf and finally inscribed with a tongue twister. According to Iona & Peter Opie, editors of The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, this was in past times considered to be a remedy for hiccups when repeated thrice in one breath. But they don’t say whether it is Rowley as in rolled, or Rowley as in round. It seems to play on the possibility that it could be either. We think the former but there are some who insist it’s the latter. Maybe this will help –

Frames of reference

FIP

I first heard FIP a couple of years ago. My twin daughters who were students in Brighton came home with stories of illegal transmitters broadcasting this French radio station to the Sussex coast. Sadly Ofcom, the British media regulator, silenced the station by confiscating the transmitters. Nowadays the best way to listen is online at www.fipradio.fr. They broadcast a refreshing and eclectic mix of world music, jazz, chanson and film music, free from the inane chatter of manic egotistical djs and without interruption from advertising jingles. Listening to FIP is always inspiring and usually prompts a search for more information on newly discovered musicians. Highly recommended.

Frames of reference

Cherry Street

Not very long ago I visited a colleague at his studio. I’d been there before once or twice but this time I noticed a beautifully framed photograph high up on the wall opposite his work table. It was of Django Rheinhardt, watching over him like a guardian angel. It reminded me of a piece I’d read by Geoff Dyer about his musical hero, Don Cherry, and how he always liked to have a photograph of him above his desk. Don Cherry was a humble and sincere musical voice with a gregarious spirit, often finding the common thread linking music from different cultures, and I decided then he should be up there on my workshop wall too. His music has been with me since his days playing with Ornette Coleman and I followed all his explorations into what has since become known as World Music. He opened lots of doors and what he found there was always another aspect of himself.

Continue reading “Cherry Street”

Frames of reference