Truly hot from the press of Trunk Records, BASIC MATHS, a riotous romp through my 1980-81 music and associated noises for Central Television’s 28-part educational TV Series: featuring Oberheim 8-voice synthesiser, piano, banjo, guitars, mouthorgan, percussion, voice – and other older analogue synthesisers including the legendary Synthi. Jonny Trunk is rather keen on this one!
All this material has been restructured to expose musical lines not much detected in the original mono mixes. As was, and still is, common in the film and TV Media, the sound was the last sensory experience to complete the programmes. I had little time to consider my reactions to the films, so drew on subconciously-stored experience to make something appropriate. The multiferously contrasting moods are now exposed in glowing stereophonic vibrancy. Get it here.
FACEROLL is two whole works, as if two sides of a vinyl LP, in a high quality WAV file, together with a 4-page PDF image and descriptive text including an informative Judy Trim obituary.
1. Judy’s Lovely Laugh unknown date/ 2001
This unedited piano solo was wholly improvised shortly after hearing of the untimely death of the lovely Judy Trim in 2001, first wife of the then Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters. They were close friends with us from about 1969 to the end of their marriage. We continued separately with both of them, Roger fading away a bit as he gravitated towards America and climbed through a few stratae.
2. Dribblers (Ron Geesin) unknown date/ 1980s
A note or two on the futility of talking – a scream of subconciousness: made with one voice, and a few random radio inserts, all in one take. This was realised by my well-tried technique of running ¼” magnetic tape between two machines and round an extendible arm to adjust the delay time, the left-hand machine in record and the right-hand machine in playback, feeding the recorded sound from that machine back though a mixer into the left-hand machine. With the levels all set correctly, the sound result is a spiralling canon. The level of the right-hand machine playback can be varied during recording, so long as it is not more than the overall level. The final result is then cut out of the recorded tape that has been collected on the right-hand machine.
Through most of 1980, a very good friend of mine, Murray Grigor, directed a series of four documentaries for Granada Television called ‘Edge of Britain’. These were themed around the early days in the life of the historian A. J. P. Taylor where he revisited the Lancashire coast, the area of his upbringing. He was born in Birkdale, near Southport.
The four programmes, Southport, Blackpool, Morecambe and Preston, were first transmitted on consecutive Thursdays starting on the 18th September 1980. Later, a one hour compilation was eventually networked on ITV on the 21st January 1981
You might have worked out by now that I made all the music for this series and, judging by this 38-minute Suite that I have completely remixed from the original 8-track components, I identified with, brought out and enlarged some of Taylor’s idiosyncratic observations.
All this work was made during my Oberheim 8-Voice synthesiser period, so many of the sounds are from that rich but synthetic multitonal monster, intermingled with my usual manual capabilities on piano, banjo, acoustic, electric and bass guitars and percussion. Actually, the hands were also responsible for adjusting long delays on tape between two machines and all those complicated synthesiser knobs. I have also made some creative use of stereo when all the original sound for the films had to be monophonic.
I played a grand piano in the mouth of Fingal's Cave, Staffa! Well, it wasn't a real one, as you'll see. This video has been remastered by my good friend Mark Ayres. It's from a long comical drama about the myths created around Scotland and its occupants, past and present, swirling through the mist: Scotch Myths, first transmitted on UK Channel 4 in 1982, written and directed by another good friend Murray Grigor. Mendelssohn was played by Alex Norton, later to feature in the detective series Taggart and the BBC2 sitcom Two Doors Down. This is the only time I ever shaved off my beard - and frightened our boys on return to home!
The remastering involved crossing over from the original mono flute and piano introduction to my stereo remix of the main part, 'Fingal's Grave' from the CD 'Funny Frown' for better sound quality.
Yes, New Podcast: Good - FUN - just up
The Stapled Brain is my 60-year comprehensive collection of aphorisms, poems and stories,
true and fantastic, funny, serious, provocative and outrageous,
scribbled on anything that would hold a pencil mark
and in anything from trains, buses, toilet and bed.
Hardback; 176 pages; 23 colour illustrations; 29 monochrome illustrations.
In American Royal format: 6 1/8th" x 9 1/4" (166mm x 235mm).
Get it here, signed of course!
Just discovered - two overlooked pieces:
PERPLEXED OF TUNBRIDGE WELLS (1991/07/10)
I saw a man upon a train
de-wax his ear into his brain
and flick the fluff from off his suit
and eat the bits from off his boot.
He tugged at cuffs and fiddled tie
and even swatted unseen fly.
I tingled warm with watchful eye
to see him poke and tweak and pry.
Stepping up examination,
unrelenting exploration,
grinding teeth in concentration,
led him up his nose in station.
You know what B. R. is like:
when journey's vital, it's on strike;
when mug is full and seats are taken,
you hit floor - well-stirred and shaken!
Digital manipulation
came within this train's fixation,
so it lurched in pure delight
and jammed his finger out of sight!
The moral here is plain to see
(except for he who sat near me):
"When there's too much stress and strain,
man with twitch poke hole in brain."
SLIMMER (1991/07/10)
When you get thinner,
you'll want a good dinner
to stoke up the boiler
and be a good sinner.
Sneaking out for a damn good bit of dinner - and not telling the Chinese Virus - an electronic keyboard was produced from a back room. I gave it some exercise, while realising that I'd never sat so low at a keyboard - truly astonished to have made a wee piece = short work = doodle.
My very last fully-committed live performance - at the Cardiff Arts Centre, 7th February 2020: solos on piano, banjo, bass marimba, voice and percussion; readings from my new book 'The Stapled Brain'; ends with my interpretation of 'Bassoon' by Vassily Kandinsky and includes yet another short discussion on my immersion in Pink Floyd's 'Atom Heart Mother'. Edited by Paul Machliss from three audience members' videos.
Surprise! Nothing to do with organised noise or performance, except perhaps through the tenuous link of structure and form.
This book is the fruit of some 30 years of original research - and collecting. There was no history, so I wrote it. Published: March 2016 by The Crowood Press.
! SEE THIS, SEE THAT, SEE THEN, SEE NOW !
Ron Geesin: An Improvised Life was first shown on Sat 3 Oct 2015 in London, followed by a Q&A with the Director Tom McInnes and chaired by Robin Denselow. It has now been shown on Sky Arts several times since 2018.
This multi-source sound work grew from my lasting admiration of blackbird song and its resemblance to the syncopated phrasing in jazz.
The eventual octophonic composition ran at the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexill-on-sea, UK, through October to November 2014.
This was projected to be my last live performance - Recital Room, City Halls, Glasgow, 29th March 2014 - due to arthritis now affecting my left hand, but I rallied!
The performance was filmed and may be issued later.
The story of my staggeringly fraught collaboration with Pink Floyd to create Atom Heart Mother (suite) is now published by The History Press.
Already into its second printing (2013/08/26). The only place to buy it signed is here, well, there.
See the complete performance, most faithfully captured by Lucida Productions at the Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris on the 12th January 2012.
Yes, I went and did it! RonCycle1 - the journey of a melody was finally mixed at Mark Ayres' Studio in the Summer of 2010 and is out on Tonefloat in CD and LP (+CD) forms.
Since it is a continuous work in 16 sections, I was not going to artificially split it for vinyl, but there was a natural silence that fell just right, so you've got it. I can do no better than give you the Notes in full. Get it from HEADSCOPE now.