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130-504: Henry Cow were an English experimental rock group , founded at the University of Cambridge in 1968 by multi-instrumentalists Fred Frith and Tim Hodgkinson . Henry Cow's personnel fluctuated over their decade together, but drummer Chris Cutler , bassist John Greaves , and bassoonist/oboist Lindsay Cooper were important long-term members alongside Frith and Hodgkinson. An inherent anti-commercial attitude kept them at arm's length from

260-480: A bass player and found Georgie Born , a classically trained cellist and improviser . Even though she had never played bass guitar before, she joined the band in June 1976 and tuned her bass in 5ths like a cello with a lower C. In the interim, the band's compositions, including a new Hodgkinson epic with the working title of " Erk Gah ", grew more complex. Henry Cow returned to London in early 1977, where they merged with

390-425: A heart attack and died suddenly at the age of 65. Shortly after the announcement of his death, fans and supporters paid tribute to him. The following day, BBC Radio 1 cleared its schedule to broadcast a day of tributes. London's Evening Standard boards that afternoon read "the day the music died", quoting Don McLean 's hit " American Pie ". Peel had often spoken wryly of his eventual death. He once said on

520-400: A "grumpy old man who catalogues records" in the film Five Seconds to Spare . However, he had provided narration for others. He appeared as a celebrity guest on a number of TV shows, including This Is Your Life (1996, BBC), Travels With My Camera (1996, Channel 4 TV) and Going Home (2002, ITV TV), and presented the 1997 Channel 4 series Classic Trains . He was also in demand as

650-455: A Henry Cow tribute album , but rather "echoes (much transformed during its long journey through time, space, memory and the mysterious twists and turns of the creative process) in [Edelin's] own musical inner world". In September 2019, American historian of experimental music and an associate professor of music at Cornell University , Benjamin Piekut published Henry Cow: The World Is a Problem ,

780-659: A burden to both Henry Cow and Virgin: none of Henry Cow's records were licensed or distributed in the countries in which they spent all their time playing, and Henry Cow were not making any money for Virgin. Henry Cow needed to record again but Virgin refused to give them studio time at The Manor . When Henry Cow referred to the contract ("one month at a first class studio"), Virgin Records (in October 1977) agreed to cancel it. By now, Krause's health had deteriorated to such an extent that touring became impossible for her and she decided to leave

910-528: A column, The Perfumed Garden , for the underground newspaper the International Times (from autumn 1967 to mid-1969). When Radio London closed on 14 August 1967, Peel joined the BBC's new music station, BBC Radio 1 , which was first broadcast on 30 September 1967. Unlike Big L, Radio 1 was not a full-time station but a broadcaster of a mixture of recorded music and live studio orchestras. Peel said he felt he

1040-827: A concert in Rome in July 1975, Henry Cow remained behind with their truck/bus/mobile home and began meeting local musicians, including progressive rock band Stormy Six , and the PCI ( Italian Communist Party ). The PCI offered them concerts at Festa de L'Unità (large open-air fairs that run every summer all over Italy), and they joined Stormy Six's L'Orchestra , a musicians' co-operative in Milan . Each contact they made led to more contacts and soon doors opened for Henry Cow all over Europe. While rehearsing for an upcoming tour of Scandinavia in March 1976, John Greaves left

1170-475: A concert tour with Robert Wyatt in England, France and Italy to launch In Praise of Learning and Wyatt's new album, Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard . This was followed by a period of almost constant touring across Western Europe that continued until Henry Cow disbanded in 1978. Henry Cow's music was challenging and uncompromising and this often led to them being accused of deliberately making it unapproachable. In

1300-643: A detailed biography and analysis of the band from their inception in 1968 to their demise in 1978. On 18 November 2022, Greaves, Frith, Hodgkinson and Cutler reunited for concerts in Piacenza , Italy, under the moniker of Henry Now with Italian friend Annie Barbazza  [ it ] guesting. The same line-up played two gigs in the Czech Republic in November 2023. In January 2024 Henry Now performed in Barcelona with

1430-399: A double LP Concerts for a new Norwegian underground label Compendium (re-released later on the budget Virgin sub-label Caroline ). For the first time, they did everything themselves: the mastering, cover design, cutting, pressing and manufacturing. The album included an excerpt from one of several concerts performed with guest artist Robert Wyatt in 1975. Henry Cow began auditioning for

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1560-493: A dramatic, almost Brechtian flair. Music journalists at the time often underestimated the formal compositional element of their music, while others simply dismissed it as being "inaccessible". John Kelman wrote at All About Jazz that "Henry Cow represented a new kind of classical chamber music; one where spontaneity was a partial component, and the instrumentation used created textures that defied those looking for tradition and convention." Edward Macan in his 1997 book Rocking

1690-642: A form of experimental rock that drew on rock sources, such as the Velvet Underground and Frank Zappa, as well as wider avant-garde influences. Groups such as Can , Faust , Neu! , Amon Düül II , Ash Ra Tempel , Kraftwerk , Tangerine Dream , and Popol Vuh merged elements of psychedelic rock with electronic music , funk rhythms, jazz improvisation , and avant-garde and contemporary classical compositions, as well as new electronic instrumentation . The ideas of minimalism and composers such as Stockhausen would be particularly influential. The movement

1820-417: A further three sessions between 1973 and 1975. In April 1972, Henry Cow wrote and performed the music for Robert Walker's production of Euripides ' The Bacchae . This involved an intense and demanding three-week period of concentrated work that changed the band completely. It was during this time that Geoff Leigh on woodwinds joined and Henry Cow became a quintet . In July 1972, the band performed at

1950-404: A line-up of Cutler, Frith, Hodgkinson and Annemarie Roelofs. Henry Cow's music included elaborately scored pieces (often with complex time signatures ), tape loops and manipulations , "flat-out free improvisation " and songs . It incorporated elements of jazz , rock , contemporary classical music and the avant-garde . Dagmar Krause's vocals added another dimension to their sound, giving it

2080-402: A live band, yet of the original six albums they made, only one, Concerts gave a glimpse of their live performances. In January 2009 Recommended Records released The 40th Anniversary Henry Cow Box Set , a nine-CD plus one-DVD collection of over 10 hours of previously unreleased and mostly live recordings made between 1972 and 1978, over four hours of which was improvised. This offered, "for

2210-516: A merger of the two bands, and in early 1975 they recorded In Praise of Learning at The Manor. The merger ended in April 1975 when Moore and Blegvad left. Krause remained with Henry Cow, which effectively spelled the end of Slapp Happy. Having made guest appearances on both the Henry Cow/Slapp Happy albums, Cooper rejoined in April 1975 and Henry Cow became a sextet . In May 1975 they embarked on

2340-479: A mixture of records and live sessions, a format that would characterise his Radio 1 programmes for the rest of his career. Peel's enthusiasm for music outside the mainstream occasionally brought him into conflict with the Radio 1 hierarchy. On one occasion, the station controller Derek Chinnery contacted John Walters and asked him to confirm that the show was not playing any punk , which he (Chinnery) had read about in

2470-434: A month the average age of the audience dropped by 10 years and the whole social class changed – which I was very pleased about. In 1979, Peel stated: "They leave you to get on with it. I'm paid money by the BBC not to go off and work for a commercial radio station ... I wouldn't want to go to one anyway, because they wouldn't let me do what the BBC let me do." Peel's reputation as an important DJ who broke unsigned acts into

2600-576: A new set of material (recorded later to complete Western Culture ) and revisited for the last time all the places that had supported them over the years. In March 1978, Henry Cow invited four European groups, Stormy Six (Italy), Samla Mammas Manna (Sweden), Univers Zero (Belgium) and Etron Fou Leloublan (France), to come to London and perform in a festival Henry Cow had organised called Rock in Opposition , or RIO. Throughout Europe, Henry Cow had encountered many " progressive " groups refusing to bow to

2730-496: A performance on the roof of a 14-storey building in Cambridge. In April 1969, Powell left and the band reverted to a duo, with Frith playing violin and Hodgkinson on keyboards and reeds. In October 1969 philosopher Galen Strawson auditioned for the band. Later, Frith and Hodgkinson persuaded bassist John Greaves to join the band, and with the services of a couple of temporary drummers and then Sean Jenkins , Henry Cow performed as

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2860-577: A quartet for the next eight months. In May 1971, Martin Ditcham replaced Jenkins on drums, and with this line-up they played at several events, including the Glastonbury Festival alongside Gong in June 1971. Ditcham left in July 1971, and it was not until September that year that the drummer's seat was filled again, this time by Chris Cutler. Responding to one of Cutler's adverts in Melody Maker ,

2990-475: A radio programme of his own "so that I could play music that I heard and wanted others to hear". His housemaster, R. H. J. Brooke, whom Peel described as "extraordinarily eccentric" and "amazingly perceptive", wrote on one of his school reports, "Perhaps it's possible that John can form some kind of nightmarish career out of his enthusiasm for unlistenable records and his delight in writing long and facetious essays." Peel completed his national service in 1959 in

3120-602: A result of his BFBS programme he was voted, in Germany, "Top DJ in Europe". Peel was an occasional presenter of Top of the Pops on BBC1 from the late 1960s until the mid-1990s, and in particular from 1982 to 1987 when he appeared regularly. In 1971 he appeared not as presenter but performer, alongside Rod Stewart and the Faces , pretending to play mandolin on " Maggie May ". He often presented

3250-569: A review of Unrest in New Musical Express on 15 June 1974, Neil Spencer called the band "determinedly inaccessible". As a result, Henry Cow were virtually ignored in their own country. Virgin Records too, having started dropping experimental groups in favour of commercial ones, now showed little to no interest in the band. The group continuously considered whether to continue or not; there certainly were no economic inducements. Cutler said, "We had to make what amounted to political decisions about

3380-535: A sense of purpose most groups simply don't have." And yet their music may not have been as good as it could have been. Henry Cow conducted their affairs as a collective and all decisions, including those related to their music, had to be approved by the group. Cutler said at a conference on "Composition and Experimentation in British Rock 1967–1976" in Italy in 2005 that Henry Cow had a rule that "the composer no longer owned

3510-584: A set of Cooper's compositions in Henry Cow, then in News from Babel , Music for Films and Oh Moscow . The Henry Cow set featured Cutler, Frith, Greaves, Hodgkinson, Roelofs, Michel Berckmans , Alfred Harth and, on one piece, Veryan Weston and Zeena Parkins ; Krause performed later in the evening, but not on the Henry Cow set. The concerts were performed at the Barbican Centre , London on 21 November 2014, as part of

3640-746: A snappy Radio Times billing. In the course of our historic meeting we had, I imagine, some fine reasons for dismissing the idea of a Festive 40 and going instead for a Festive 50, a decision that was to ruin my Decembers for years to come, condemning me to night after night at home with a ledger, when I could have been out and about having fun, fun, fun." After his death, the Festive Fifty was continued on Radio 1 by Rob da Bank , Huw Stephens and Ras Kwame for two years, but then given to Peel-inspired Internet radio station Dandelion Radio , and continues to be compiled. In 1969, Peel founded Dandelion Records (named after his pet hamster) so that he could release

3770-587: A trailer for a BBC programme on VD on his Night Ride programme, Peel received significant media attention because he divulged on air that he had suffered from a sexually transmitted disease earlier that year. This admission was later used in an attempt to discredit him when he appeared as a defence witness in the 1971 Oz obscenity trial. The Night Ride programme, advertised by the BBC as an exploration of words and music, seemed to take up from where The Perfumed Garden had left off. It featured rock, folk, blues, classical and electronic music. A unique feature of

3900-414: A voice-over artist for television documentaries, such as BBC One's A Life of Grime . In April 2003, the publishers Transworld successfully wooed Peel with a package worth £1.5 million for his autobiography, having placed an advert in a national newspaper aimed only at Peel. Unfinished at the time of his death, it was completed by Sheila and journalist Ryan Gilbey. It was published in October 2005 under

4030-494: Is self‑indulgent: there’s a sharpness to the intricate arrangements as very obvious waves of passion and commitment from everyone on stage flow and spread across the auditorium." In May 2019, the Michel Edelin Quintet  [ fr ] with John Greaves released Echoes of Henry Cow , an album of variations on Henry Cow compositions and other music. Aymeric Leroy wrote in the liner notes that it should not be seen as

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4160-577: The Henry Cow Box ). At more or less the same time they set up Music for Socialism and its May Festival. It had been three years since Henry Cow had performed more than one concert a year in their own country. In an attempt to break the apathy that seemed to be discouraging anyone from wanting to put them on, they tried to organise a small alternative tour themselves, but abandoned it after 11 concerts when they started losing money: clearly nothing had changed. Their contract with Virgin Records had now become

4290-512: The Channel 4 miniseries Sounds of the Suburbs , "I've always imagined I'd die by driving into the back of a truck while trying to read the name on a cassette and people would say, 'He would have wanted to go that way.' Well, I want them to know that I wouldn't." Peel once said that if he died before his producer John Walters , he wanted Walters to play Roy Harper 's song " When an Old Cricketer Leaves

4420-618: The Edinburgh Festival , and wrote and performed music for a ballet with artist Ray Smith and the Cambridge Contemporary Dance Group at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe . Smith appeared with Henry Cow at several of their early 1970s performances, to "add a dimension to the whole experience". Smith's acts included "set[ting] up an ironing board stage left and spen[ding] the whole evening ... quietly ironing" at

4550-532: The Kensington Town Hall and the London School of Economics respectively. Invited guests included Derek Bailey , Lol Coxhill , Ivor Cutler , Ron Geesin , David Toop , Lady June and Smith. Improvisers Bailey and Coxhill became "enthusiastic supporters" of Henry Cow and attended many of their concerts; Frith later stated that he was "strongly affected by their critical engagement and encouragement". For

4680-639: The Rainbow Theatre , "read[ing] out short passages of discontinuous text between each piece of music" at the Hammersmith Palais , and miming with a glove puppet at the New London Theatre . Smith later went on to do the "paint sock" art work for three of Henry Cow's LP covers. Back in London, they started to organise a series of concerts and events under the names Cabaret Voltaire and Explorers' Club at

4810-582: The Royal Artillery as a B2 radar operator. Afterwards, he worked as a mill operative at Townhead Mill in Rochdale and returned each weekend to Heswall on a scooter borrowed from his sister. While in Rochdale during the week, he stayed in a bed-and-breakfast in the area of Milkstone Road and Drake Street, and developed long-term associations with the town as the years progressed. In 1960, aged 21, Peel went to

4940-602: The Soft Machine and Nico as "pioneers of avant-rock". In addition, The Quietus ' Ben Graham described duos the Silver Apples and Suicide as antecedents of avant-rock. Pitchfork cited Red Krayola as being "likely the most experimental band of the 1960s". In the opinion of Stuart Rosenberg, the first "noteworthy" experimental rock group was the Mothers of Invention, led by composer Frank Zappa. Greene recognises

5070-494: The Strange Fruit label. In May 2020, an alphabetised catalogue of hundreds of classic Peel Sessions others had previously uploaded to YouTube was published. The Festive Fifty – a countdown of the best tracks of the year as voted for by the listeners – was an annual tradition of Peel's Radio 1 show. Despite his eclectic play list, it tended to be composed largely of "white boys with guitars", as Peel complained in 1988. In 1991,

5200-510: The krautrock subgenre merged elements of improvisation and psychedelic rock with electronic music , avant-garde and contemporary classical pieces. Later in the 1970s, significant musical crossbreeding took place in tandem with the developments of punk and new wave , DIY experimentation, and electronic music . Funk , jazz-rock , and fusion rhythms also became integrated into experimental rock music. Early 1980s experimental rock groups had few direct precedents for their sound. Later in

5330-518: The synthesizer , allowing the Beatles and the Beach Boys to become the first crop of non- classically trained musicians to create extended and complex compositions. Drawing from the influence of George Martin , the Beatles' producer, and the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson , music producers after the mid-1960s began to view the recording studio as an instrument used to aid the process of composition. When

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5460-461: The "Teenage Kicks" lyrics "teenage dreams, so hard to beat". A headstone featuring the lyrics and the liver bird from his favourite football team, Liverpool FC , was placed at his grave in 2008. He was buried in the graveyard of St Andrew's Church in Great Finborough . John Peel Sessions were a feature of his BBC Radio 1 shows, which usually consisted of four pieces of music pre-recorded at

5590-544: The 1960 election campaign, and took photographs of them. Following Kennedy's assassination in November 1963, Peel passed himself off as a reporter for the Liverpool Echo in order to attend the arraignment of Lee Harvey Oswald . He and a friend can be seen in the footage of the 22/23 November midnight press conference at the Dallas Police Department when Oswald was paraded before the media. He later phoned in

5720-698: The American singer and radio personality Jim Lowe . Following this, and as Beatlemania hit the United States, Peel was hired by the Dallas radio station KLIF as the official Beatles correspondent on the strength of his connection to Liverpool. He later worked for KOMA in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma , until 1965, when he moved to KMEN in San Bernardino, California , and used his birth name, John Ravenscroft, to present

5850-924: The Annual World Youth Festival in Cuba never materialised. In August they returned to the Sunrise studios to complete Western Culture , after which the band officially announced their break-up in the press, stating that "… although the group as a commodity, as a name, ceases to exist the work of the group will go on …" Western Culture was released on Henry Cow's own Broadcast label. Shortly afterward, Chris Cutler launched Recommended Records , his own independent label and non-commercial record distribution network. The legacy of Henry Cow continues. Former members have collaborated in numerous projects, including: A partial Henry Cow reunion occurred in 1993 when Hodgkinson, Cutler, Cooper and Krause came together to record " Hold to

5980-591: The BBC's studios. The sessions originally came about due to restrictions imposed on the BBC by the Musicians' Union and Phonographic Performance Limited which represented the record companies dominated by the EMI cartel. Due to these restrictions, the BBC had been forced to hire bands and orchestras to render cover versions of recorded music. The theory behind this device was that it would create employment and force people to buy records and not listen to them free of charge on

6110-475: The BBC's television coverage of music events, notably the Glastonbury Festival . From 26 September to 31 October 1987, Peel produced a six-part radio series on BBC Radio 1 called Peeling Back the Years . In it, he discussed his life and career at length with his long-time producer John Walters and also played some of his favorite records. The show's theme music was " Blue Tango " by Ray Martin which, Peel revealed,

6240-680: The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds (1966) was released to a four-month chart stay in the British top 10, many British groups responded to the album by making more experimental use of recording studio techniques. In the late 1960s, groups such as the Mothers of Invention , the Velvet Underground , the Fugs , the Monks , Red Krayola , Soft Machine , Pink Floyd and the Beatles began incorporating elements of avant-garde music , sound collage , and poetry in their work. Historian David Simonelli writes that, further to

6370-558: The Beatles stood at the apex of a progressive movement in musical capitalism". The musical passage recorded by the Doors in 1968, " Not to Touch the Earth ", is what critic Mick Wall described as "nearly four minutes of avant-rock." As progressive rock developed, experimental rock acquired notoriety alongside art rock . By 1970, most of the musicians which had been at the forefront of experimental rock had incapacitated themselves. From then on,

6500-477: The Beatles' " Tomorrow Never Knows " ( Revolver , 1966), the band's February 1967 double A-side single, pairing " Strawberry Fields Forever " with " Penny Lane ", "establish[ed] the Beatles as the most avant-garde [rock] composers of the postwar era". Aside from the Beatles, author Doyle Greene identifies Frank Zappa , the Velvet Underground , Plastic Ono Band , Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band , Pink Floyd ,

6630-675: The Byrds , the Rolling Stones and John Lennon and Yoko Ono . The programme captured much of the creative activity of the underground scene. Its anti-establishment stance and unpredictability, however, did not find approval with the BBC hierarchy and it ended in September 1969 after 18 months. In his sleeve notes to the Archive Things LP Peel calls the free-form nature of Night Ride his preferred radio format. His subsequent shows featured

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6760-495: The Citizen King ", sung by the whole group, was Henry Cow's first overtly political statement. To promote its new signing, Virgin organised a UK tour for Henry Cow and Faust , who had also just signed to the label. During this tour, Henry Cow began preparing music for an unorthodox and provocative play, based on Shakespeare 's The Tempest . Some of this music was used on their next record Unrest . In November 1973, members of

6890-565: The Classics: English Progressive Rock and the Counterculture described Henry Cow's music as "highly eclectic" and said that their pieces often included "furious atonal instrumental passages with no discernable melodic contour or key center, impossibly complex shifting meters alternating with freely ametric sections with no definable beat or regular recurring rhythms, and jagged, sprechstimme -like vocal lines that blur

7020-479: The Crease ". Walters had died in 2001, leaving Andy Kershaw to end his tribute programme to Peel on BBC Radio 3 with the song. Peel's stand-in on his Radio 1 slot, Rob da Bank , also played the song at the start of the final show before his funeral. Another time, Peel said he would like to be remembered with a gospel song . He stated that the final record he would play would be the C. L. Franklin sermon "Dry Bones in

7150-773: The EFG London Jazz Festival , and at the Lawrence Batley Theatre , Huddersfield as part of the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival , on 22 November 2014. A third remembrance concert for Cooper featuring the same line-up above was held in Forlì , Italy on 23 November 2014. In a review of the Barbican concert on 21 November, Dom Lawson of The Guardian called it "a fitting salute to Cooper's life", adding "what tonight’s experience never becomes

7280-540: The Heart of the Beast " on their third album, In Praise of Learning . In November 1974, avant-pop group Slapp Happy ( Anthony Moore , Peter Blegvad , Dagmar Krause ) invited Henry Cow to record with them on their second album for Virgin. The result was Desperate Straights , an almost entirely Slapp Happy-composed album that surprised critics, considering how dissimilar the two groups were. The success of this venture prompted

7410-782: The Jesus and Mary Chain as "avant-rock icons." According to Paul Hegarty and Martin Halliwell, some 1980s and early 1990s avant-rock acts such as the British musicians David Sylvian and Talk Talk returned to the ideas of progressive rock, which they call " post-progressive ". During the 1990s, a loose movement known as post-rock became the dominant form of experimental rock. In a reaction against traditional rock music formula, post-rock artists combined standard rock instrumentation with electronics and influences from styles such as ambient music , IDM , krautrock, minimalism , and jazz. In 2015, The Quietus ' Bryan Brussee noted uncertainty with

7540-563: The Manchester area from working in a cotton mill in Rochdale in 1959, Peel signed Manchester bands Stack Waddy and Tractor to Dandelion and was always supportive of both bands throughout his life. It is alleged that Peel spotted a Rochdale postmark on the envelope containing the tape sent to him by Tractor, then called "The Way We Live". As Peel stated: It was never a success financially. In fact, we lost money, if I remember correctly, on every single release bar one. I did quite like it but it

7670-542: The Pops in the 1980s, and provided voice-over commentary for a number of BBC programmes. He became popular with the audience of BBC Radio 4 for his Home Truths programme, which ran from the 1990s, featuring unusual stories from listeners' domestic lives. Peel was born John Robert Parker Ravenscroft at a nursing home in Heswall on 30 August 1939, the son of Joan Mary (née Swainson) and cotton merchant Robert Leslie Ravenscroft. He had two younger brothers and grew up in

7800-436: The Rolling Stones and John "Hoppy" Hopkins , were discussed between records. All this was far removed from Radio London's daytime format. Listeners sent Peel letters, poems and records from their own collections so that the programme became a vehicle for two-way communication; by the final week of Radio London he was receiving far more mail than any other DJ on the station. After the closure of Radio London in 1967, Peel wrote

7930-458: The United States to work for a cotton producer who had business dealings with his father. He took a number of other jobs afterwards, including working as a travelling insurance salesman . While in Dallas , Texas, where the insurance company he worked for was based, he conversed with the presidential candidate John F. Kennedy , and his running mate Lyndon B. Johnson , who were touring the city during

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8060-639: The Valley". On his Home Truths BBC radio show, Peel once commented about his own death: "I definitely want to be buried, although not yet. I'm 61 on Wednesday—just a working day for me, I'm afraid—so actually I should have a mile or two left in me, but I do want the children to be able to stand solemnly at my graveside and think lovely thoughts along the lines of 'get out of that one, you swine', which they won't be able to do if I've been cremated." Peel's funeral took place in Bury St Edmunds on 12 November 2004 and

8190-482: The Zero Burn, Imagine " for Hodgkinson's solo album, Each in Our Own Thoughts . The song was formerly known as "Erk Gah" and composed by Hodgkinson for, and performed by, Henry Cow. When asked in 1998 about a possible Henry Cow reunion concert, Frith replied, "Forget it! We're all much too busy." In December 2006, Cutler, Frith and Hodgkinson performed together at The Stone in New York City, only their second concert performance since Henry Cow broke up in 1978. The first

8320-411: The air. One of the reasons why the offshore broadcasting stations of the 1960s were called "pirates" was because they operated outside of British laws and were not bound by the needle time restriction on the number of records they could play on the air. The BBC employed its own house bands and orchestras and it also engaged outside bands to record exclusive tracks for its programmes in BBC studios. This

8450-409: The album". This was reflected in other contemporary experimental rock LPs, such as the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds and Smile , the Who 's The Who Sell Out (1967) and Tommy (1969), and the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967). The Velvet Underground were a "groundbreaking group in experimental rock", according to Rosenberg, "even further out of step with popular culture than

8580-465: The band invited him to a rehearsal, and it was only when Cutler joined that Henry Cow settled into a permanent core of Frith, Hodgkinson, Cutler and Greaves. The band then relocated to London, where they began an aggressive rehearsal schedule. After having entered John Peel's "Rockortunity Knocks" contest in 1971, Henry Cow recorded a John Peel session for BBC Radio 1 in February 1972. They later went on to record another session in October that year and

8710-469: The band participated in a live-in-the-studio performance of Mike Oldfield 's Tubular Bells for the BBC, which was later released on the 2004 DVD edition of Oldfield's video compilation, Elements . During a tour of the Netherlands in December 1973, Geoff Leigh left the group. Looking for more unusual instruments to draw them further away from rock and jazz, Henry Cow asked classically trained Lindsay Cooper ( oboe , bassoon ) to join. In early 1974

8840-406: The band signing with Virgin Records in May 1973. Within two weeks of signing the contract, Henry Cow began recording their debut album Legend (also known as Leg End ) at Virgin's Manor Studios in Oxfordshire . It took three weeks of hard work, but at the end they were able to handle the studio themselves, which would prove to be invaluable later in their career. The track " Nine Funerals of

8970-401: The band to start working on the Kew. Rhone. project with Peter Blegvad, and Dagmar Krause withdrew due to ill health. Committed to the tour, Henry Cow had to perform as a quartet (Hodgkinson, Frith, Cooper and Cutler) and adjust their music accordingly. They took the radical option and abandoned composed material completely in favour of pure improvisation . In May 1976, Henry Cow compiled

9100-404: The breakfast show. Peel returned to England in early 1967 and found work with the offshore pirate radio station Radio London . He was offered the midnight-to-two shift, which gradually developed into a programme, The Perfumed Garden . Peel's show was an outlet for the music of the UK underground scene. He played classic blues , folk music and psychedelic rock , with an emphasis on

9230-403: The broadcast of the chart was cancelled due to a lack of votes. Topped by Nirvana 's " Smells Like Teen Spirit ", this Phantom Fifty was eventually broadcast at the rate of one track per programme in 1993. The 1997 chart was initially cancelled due to the lack of air-time Peel had been allocated for the period, but enough "spontaneous" votes were received over the phone that a Festive Thirty-One

9360-417: The case of imitative painters, what came out was almost always merely derivative, whereas in the case of rock music, the result could be quite original, because assimilation, synthesis, and imitation are integral parts of the language of rock." Martin says that the advancing technology of multitrack recording and mixing boards were more influential to experimental rock than electronic instruments such as

9490-593: The composition once the band had started to work on it." In a 1998 interview Frith said that this may have led to much of Henry Cow's material being "watered down" rather than strengthened. He felt that "this ... was a big mistake, and a lot of our best ideas may not have been fully realised as a result of it." Cutler wrote that when Art Bears was formed in 1978, he and Frith decided there would be "no discussions; if someone had an idea, they put it to tape. Then we'd listen and it would be immediately clear if it worked, didn't work or could work if pursued." Henry Cow were largely

9620-618: The debut album by Bridget St John , which he also produced. The label released 27 albums by 18 different artists before folding in 1972. Of its albums, There is Some Fun Going Forward was a sampler intended to present its acts to a wide audience, but Dandelion was never a great success, with only two releases charting nationally: Medicine Head in the UK with "(And the) Pictures in the Sky" and Beau in Lebanon with "1917 Revolution". Having had an affinity with

9750-462: The decade, avant-rock pursued a psychedelic aesthetic that differed from the self-consciousness and vigilance of earlier post-punk . During the 1990s, a loose movement known as post-rock became the dominant form of experimental rock. As of the 2010s, the term "experimental rock" has fallen to indiscriminate use, with many modern rock bands being categorized under prefixes such as "post-", "kraut-", "psych-", "art-", "prog-", "avant-" and "noise-". In

9880-479: The divorce became final in 1973. In 1987, Milburn took her own life. Peel married Sheila Gilhooly on 31 August 1974. The reception was held at Regent's Park , with Rod Stewart as best man. In the 1970s, Peel and Gilhooly moved to "Peel Acres", a thatched cottage in Great Finborough . In later years, Peel broadcast many of his shows from a studio in the house, with Gilhooly and their children often being involved or at least mentioned. Peel's passion for Liverpool FC

10010-547: The early recordings of the Mothers of Invention". The band were playing experimental rock in 1965 before other significant countercultural rock scenes had developed, pioneering avant-rock through their integration of minimalist rock and avant-garde ideas. The Beatles' album Sgt. Pepper's inspired a new consideration for experimental rock as commercially viable music. Once the group released their December 1967 film Magical Mystery Tour , author Barry Faulk writes, "pop music and experimental rock were [briefly] synonymous, and

10140-670: The entire Mike Westbrook Brass Band and folk singer Frankie Armstrong to form the Orckestra . They played their first concert at the Moving Left Revue at The Roundhouse in London and then at the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park . The Orckestra later went on to tour in France, Italy and Scandinavia (extracts from some of these performances were released in 2006 on a CD-single included in

10270-453: The established Rock business ; and (2) a determination to pursue their own work regardless. After the festival, RIO was formalised as an organisation with a charter whose aim was to represent and promote its members. RIO thus became a collective of bands united in their opposition to the music industry and the pressures to compromise their music. Henry Cow's last concert was held in Milan on 25 July 1978. A final performance scheduled at

10400-421: The first Ramones LP – it was identical to the first time I had heard Little Richard – the intensity was frightening! So I played five or six tracks on the next show and immediately I received mail from people demanding that I never play stuff like that again. Whenever that happens I always go in the opposite direction, so I played more and it was great! It was a classic case of changing courses in mid-stream and in

10530-520: The first time the band started getting some attention from the national music press. Reviewing the first Cabaret Voltaire event with Kevin Ayers in October 1972 in New Musical Express , Ian MacDonald described Henry Cow as "one of the most resilient and obstinate of that range of groups normally ignored by the popular music press". This exposure, and a John Peel recording session in April 1973, led to

10660-476: The first time," according to Kelman, "a comprehensive account of Henry Cow's breadth and depth." Source: The Canterbury Website Henry Cow Chronology . Notes: before Sean Jenkins joined, the band auditioned several other drummers. According to Fred Frith, between 1969 and 1971, the band played more as a trio than with a drummer. From November 1974 to April 1975, Henry Cow merged with Slapp Happy to form one group. The band's final studio album, Western Culture ,

10790-529: The first wave of 1980s experimental rock groups, including acts such as Material , the Work , This Heat, Ornette Coleman 's Prime Time, James Blood Ulmer , Last Exit , and Massacre , had few direct precedents for their sound. Steve Redhead noted the resuscitation of New York's avant-rock scene, including artists such as Sonic Youth and John Zorn , in the 1980s. According to journalist David Stubbs , "no other major rock group [...] has done as much to try to bridge

10920-484: The gap between rock and the avant garde" as Sonic Youth, who drew on improvisation and noise as well as the Velvet Underground. In the late 1980s, avant-rock pursued a "frazzled, psychedelia -tinged, 'blissed out'" aesthetic that differed from the self-consciousness and vigilance of earlier post-punk. The UK shoegaze scene was seen by some as a continuation of an experimental rock tradition. Pitchfork described contemporary acts My Bloody Valentine , Spacemen 3 , and

11050-476: The group began recording Unrest at The Manor. Having only enough prepared material to fill one side of the LP, they developed a studio composition process that produced the second side. In May 1974, Henry Cow were on tour again around England and Europe with Captain Beefheart . It was during this tour that they realised they were becoming a conventional rock band, playing the same material night after night. Their music

11180-407: The group's debut album, Freak Out! , as marking the "emergence of the 'avant-rock' studio album" at a time when Warhol's presentation of the Velvet Underground's shows was redefining the parameters of a rock concert. According to author Kelly Fisher Lowe, Zappa "set the tone" for experimental rock with the way he incorporated "countertextural aspects ... calling attention to the very recordedness of

11310-561: The group, although she agreed to sing on Henry Cow's next album. The recording of this album was to begin at Sunrise studios in Kirchberg , Switzerland in January 1978. However, a group meeting one week before threw into question the material planned for it, the aforementioned "Erk Gah" in particular. Cutler and Frith hurriedly wrote a set of songs which, along with some of the planned material, were duly recorded. On returning to London, another meeting

11440-462: The hegemony of American and British rock music . Instead they drew on non-American music sources, such as local folk music and 20th century " classical " or "art music", and often sang in their own languages. As was the case with Henry Cow, these groups struggled to survive: record companies were not interested in their music. Although these groups and Henry Cow were musically diverse, what they had in common was: (1) their independence and opposition to

11570-428: The ideas and work of British artist and former Roxy Music member Brian Eno —which suggested that ideas from the art world, including those of experimental music and the avant-garde, should be deployed in the context of experimental rock—were a key innovation throughout the decade. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Germany's " krautrock " scene (also referred to as kosmische or elektronische musik) saw bands develop

11700-419: The late 1960s and early 1970s, as Lou Reed put it, there were those were trying to become much better musicians, or much better players of their instruments at any rate, and those who were trying to forget what little they already knew. The presumption in the latter case was that technical skill was getting in the way of, or replacing, significance. Although experimentation had always existed in rock music, it

11830-418: The line between song and speech." Trond Einar Garmo described Henry Cow's music as avant-garde rock . Writing in his book, Henry Cow: An Analysis of Avant Garde Rock (2020), Garmo stated: I have chosen to use the term 'avant-garde rock' for Henry Cow's music. The word 'avant-garde' is usually associated with art that is 'difficult', 'incomprehensible', and to some extent 'meaningless'. The actual meaning of

11960-603: The mainstream music business , enabling them to experiment at will. Critic Myles Boisen writes, "[their sound] was so mercurial and daring that they had few imitators, even though they inspired many on both sides of the Atlantic with a blend of spontaneity, intricate structures, philosophy, and humor that has endured and transcended the ' progressive ' tag." While it was generally thought that Henry Cow took their name from 20th-century American composer Henry Cowell , this has been repeatedly denied by band members. According to Hodgkinson,

12090-432: The mainstream was such that young hopefuls sent him an enormous number of records, CDs, and tapes. When he returned home from a three-week holiday at the end of 1986 there were 173 LPs, 91 12"s and 179 7"s waiting for him. In 1983 Alan Melina and Jeff Chegwin, the music publishers for unsigned artist Billy Bragg , drove to the Radio 1 studios with a mushroom biryani and a copy of his record after hearing Peel mention that he

12220-468: The name Art Bears , crediting the rest of Henry Cow as guests. Later that year Henry Cow returned to Sunrise, by then without Dagmar Krause and Georgie Born, to record their last album, Western Culture , an instrumental. Annemarie Roelofs had joined the band two months before the split and plays on the album as well. Henry Cow agreed to disband as a permanent group, but did not announce the fact immediately. They continued for another six months, creating

12350-452: The name "Henry Cow" was "in the air" in 1968, and it seemed like a good name for the band. It had no connection to anything. In a 1974 interview, Cutler said the name was chosen because "[i]t's silly. What could be sillier than Henry Cow?" Fred Frith met Tim Hodgkinson , a fellow student, in a blues club at Cambridge University in May 1968. Recognising their mutual open-minded approach to music,

12480-531: The nearby village of Burton . He was educated as a boarder at Shrewsbury School , where future Monty Python member Michael Palin was his contemporary. In his posthumously published autobiography, Peel said that he was raped by an older pupil while at the school. Peel was an avid radio listener and record collector from an early age, firstly of music offered by the American Forces Network and Radio Luxembourg . He recalled an early desire to host

12610-465: The new music emerging from Los Angeles and San Francisco. As important as the musical content of the programme was the personal – sometimes confessional – tone of Peel's presentation, and the listener participation it engendered. Underground events he had attended during his periods of shore leave, such as the UFO Club and the 14 Hour Technicolor Dream , together with causes célèbres like the drug busts of

12740-412: The only available women in the early 1960s were in high school. In 2012 a woman stated that she had a three-month affair with Peel in 1969, when she was 15 and he was 30. She said they had unprotected sex; this was shortly after Peel discussed contracting a sexually transmitted disease . The relationship resulted in a "traumatic" abortion. She stated that, "Looking back, it was terribly wrong and I

12870-600: The organization of the group and its relation to the commercial structures, and this was bound to be reflected in the music too." Henry Cow's anti-capitalist stance was brought on partly out of necessity rather than choice. They began working outside the music industry and did everything for themselves. They abandoned agencies and managers and stopped looking for approval from the music press. Henry Cow quickly became self-sufficient and self-reliant. Virtual exiles from their own country, they made mainland Europe their second home where they (and their music) were well received. After

13000-468: The power and mystique of a rock vanguard by depriving it of a tradition to react against." Anderson claims that the no wave scene represented "New York's last stylistically cohesive avant-rock movement." The early 1980s would see avant-rock develop significantly following the punk and new wave , DIY experimentation, electronic music, and musical cross-breeding of the previous decade, according to Pitchfork . Dominique Leone of Pitchfork claims that

13130-489: The press and of which he disapproved. Chinnery was evidently somewhat surprised by Walters' reply that in recent weeks they had been playing little else. In a 1990 interview, Peel recalled his 1976 discovery of the first album by New York punk band the Ramones as a seminal event, At that time almost all the new bands comprised of people who had previously been in successful bands who had broken up then reformed.... Well I played

13260-544: The production methods of dub and disco . During this era, funk , jazz-rock , and fusion rhythms became integrated into experimental rock music. Some groups who were categorized as "post-punk" considered themselves part of an experimental rock trajectory, with This Heat as one of the prominent players. The late 1970s no wave scene consisted of New York experimental rock bands that aimed to break with new wave , and who, according to Village Voice writer Steve Anderson, pursued an abrasive reductionism which "undermined

13390-513: The programme was the inclusion of tracks, mostly of exotic non-Western music, drawn from the BBC Sound Archive ; the most popular of these were gathered on a BBC Records LP, John Peel's Archive Things (1970). Night Ride also featured poetry readings and numerous interviews with a wide range of guests, including his friends Marc Bolan , journalist and musician Mick Farren , poet Pete Roche, singer-songwriter Bridget St John and stars such as

13520-413: The regular " Peel Sessions ", which usually consisted of four songs recorded by an artist in the BBC's studios, often providing the first major national coverage to bands that later achieved fame. The annual Festive Fifty countdown of his listeners' favourite records of the year was a notable part of his promotion of new music. Peel appeared on television occasionally as one of the presenters of Top of

13650-433: The rest of the group and became a trio. Powell at the time was studying music at King's College under Roger Smalley , the resident composer. Smalley was influential in Henry Cow's early development. He exposed them to a variety of new music from bands and musicians like Soft Machine , Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa . Smalley also introduced them to the idea of writing long and complex musical pieces for rock groups. It

13780-552: The story to the Echo . While working for the insurance company, Peel wrote programs for punched card entry for an IBM 1410 computer (which led to his entry in Who's Who noting him as a former computer programmer ), and he got his first radio job working unpaid for WRR (AM) in Dallas. There, he presented the second hour of the Monday night programme Kat's Karavan , which was primarily hosted by

13910-471: The term "experimental rock", and that "it seems like every rock band today has some kind of post-, kraut-, psych-, or noise- prefixed to their genre." John Peel John Robert Parker Ravenscroft OBE (30 August 1939 – 25 October 2004), better known as John Peel , was an English radio presenter and journalist. He was the longest-serving of the original disc jockeys on BBC Radio 1 , broadcasting regularly from 1967 until his death in 2004. Peel

14040-469: The title Margrave of the Marshes . A collection of Peel's miscellaneous writings, The Olivetti Chronicles , was published in 2008. At the age of 25, while residing in Dallas in 1965, Peel married 15-year-old American girl Shirley Anne Milburn. The marriage was never happy, with reports that she was often violent towards him. Although she accompanied Peel back to England in 1967, they were soon separated and

14170-567: The two began performing together, playing a variety of musical styles including " dada blues " and "neo-Hiroshima". One of Henry Cow's first concerts was supporting Pink Floyd at the Architects' Ball at Homerton College , Cambridge , on 12 June 1968. In October 1968, Henry Cow expanded when they were joined by Andy Powell (bass guitar), David Attwooll (drums) and Rob Brooks (rhythm guitar). They performed with this line-up until December that year, when Frith, Hodgkinson and Powell split off from

14300-478: The word, however, is 'vanguard'. Avant-garde artists are, therefore, artists who find new directions and expand the boundaries of the art form in which they operate. And it is in this sense that I have used the word. Avant-garde rock represents the most experimental and radical trends within rock. Henry Cow's music was challenging, not only to the listener, but also to the band themselves. They often composed pieces to challenge their own capabilities. Some of their music

14430-493: Was at this time that Henry Cow began writing music to challenge their collective ability to play, then using it to improve on themselves. As a trio, with Frith on bass guitar, Powell on drums and Hodgkinson playing an organ that Frith and Powell had persuaded him to learn, Henry Cow performed a number of gigs on the university calendar, including the annual Architects' Ball and the Midsummer Common Festival, as well as

14560-458: Was attended by over 1,000 people, including many of the artists he had championed. Eulogies were read by his brother Alan and fellow DJ Paul Gambaccini . The service ended with clips of him talking about his life. His coffin was carried out to the accompaniment of his favourite song, the Undertones ' " Teenage Kicks ". Peel had written that, apart from his name, all he wanted on his gravestone were

14690-409: Was compiled and broadcast. Peel wrote that "The Festive 50 dates back to what was doubtless a crisp September morning in the early-to-mid Seventies, when John Walters and I were musing on life in his uniquely squalid office. In our waggish way, we decided to mock the enthusiasm of the Radio 1 management of the time for programmes with alliterative titles. Content, we felt, was of less importance than

14820-418: Was convened to question the predominance of songs on the album. The group agreed that the songs would be released separately by Cutler and Frith, while the instrumentals would be released later by Henry Cow. This decision, however, spelled the end of the band. Cutler, Frith and Krause released the songs, with four extra tracks recorded at David Vorhaus 's Kaleidophon Studio in London, as Hopes and Fears under

14950-461: Was described by occasional stand-in presenter John Walters as being "about people who had fridges called Renfrewshire". Peel also made regular contributions to BBC Two's humorous look at the irritations of modern life Grumpy Old Men . His only appearances in an acting role in film or television were in Harry Enfield 's Smashie and Nicey : The End of an Era as John Past Bedtime, and in 1999 as

15080-509: Was hired because the BBC "had no real idea what they were doing so they had to take people off the pirate ships because there wasn't anybody else". Peel presented a programme called Top Gear . At first he was obliged to share presentation duties with other DJs ( Pete Drummond and Tommy Vance were among his co-hosts) but in February 1968 he was given sole charge of Top Gear. He presented the show until it ended in 1975. In 1969, after hosting

15210-768: Was hungry; the subsequent airplay launched Billy Bragg's career. In addition to his Radio 1 show, Peel broadcast as a disc jockey on the BBC World Service , on the British Forces Broadcasting Service ( John Peel's Music on BFBS ) for 30 years, VPRO Radio3 in the Netherlands, YLE Radio Mafia in Finland, Ö3 in Austria (Nachtexpress), and on Radio 4U, Radio Eins (Peel ...), Radio Bremen (Ritz) and some independent radio stations around FSK Hamburg in Germany. As

15340-467: Was in London in 1986. Frith and Hodgkinson also performed improvised duo concerts in 1990. Extracts of the concerts were released in 1992 as Live Improvisations . Cooper died in September 2013; In June 2014, it was announced that there would be a Henry Cow reunion as part of two concerts celebrating her life and works. The band, including Henry Cow members Chris Cutler, Fred Frith, John Greaves, Tim Hodgkinson, Annemarie Roelofs and Dagmar Krause, performed

15470-519: Was never charged with any offences. The journalists Sarah Woolley and Fiona Sturges, in The Independent , cite Peel's first marriage to Milburn in 1965 as an example, as Milburn was aged 15 and Peel 25 when they married; this was legal in Texas at the time. Peel told The Guardian in 1975, regarding his relations with young women, "All they wanted me to do was abuse them, sexually, which, of course, I

15600-461: Was no longer a challenge and they were becoming complacent. After some serious deliberating, they asked Cooper to leave and fulfilled their last outstanding concert obligations (a tour of the Netherlands) as a quartet . Without Cooper they were forced to abandon much of their learned material and worked on a 35–40 minute piece Hodgkinson had written that later became the politically charged " Living in

15730-454: Was not until the late 1960s that new openings were created from the aesthetic intersecting with the social. In 1966, the boundaries between pop music and the avant-garde began to blur as rock albums were conceived and executed as distinct, extended statements. Self-taught rock musicians in the middle and late 1960s drew from the work of composers such as John Cage , Karlheinz Stockhausen , and Luciano Berio . Academic Bill Martin writes: "in

15860-554: Was one of the first broadcasters to play psychedelic rock and progressive rock records on British radio. He is widely acknowledged for promoting artists of many genres, including pop , dub reggae , punk rock and post-punk , electronic music and dance music , indie rock , extreme metal and British hip hop . Fellow DJ Paul Gambaccini described Peel as "the most important single person in popular music from approximately 1967 through 1978. He broke more important artists than any individual." Peel's Radio 1 shows were notable for

15990-560: Was only too happy to do." He told The Sunday Correspondent in 1989, "Girls used to queue up outside. By and large not usually for shagging. Oral sex they were particularly keen on, I remember. [...] One of my, er, regular customers, as it were, turned out to be 13, though she looked older." He jokingly added that he "didn't ask for ID". An interview originally published in The Herald in April 2004 stated that he admitted to sexual contact with "an awful lot" of underage girls. He said that

16120-408: Was partly born out of the student movements of 1968 , as German youth sought a unique countercultural identity and wanted to develop a form of German music that was distinct from the mainstream music of the period. The late 1970s post-punk movement was devised as a break with rock tradition, exploring new possibilities by embracing electronics, noise , jazz and the classical avant-garde, and

16250-453: Was perhaps manipulated." In July 2022 a petition was launched to rename the "John Peel Stage" at the Glastonbury Festival , because of the accusations. In 2023 the stage was renamed "Woodsies". Emily Eavis , co-organiser of the festival, said the name change "was not related to a recent petition". On 25 October 2004, during a working holiday in the Peruvian city of Cusco , Peel suffered

16380-422: Was reflected in his children's names: William Robert Anfield Ravenscroft, Alexandra Mary Anfield Ravenscroft, Thomas James Dalglish Ravenscroft, and Florence Victoria Shankly Ravenscroft. Thomas, now better known as Tom Ravenscroft , also became a radio DJ. At the age of 62, in 2001, Peel was diagnosed with diabetes following many years of fatigue. Peel has been accused of sexual misconduct, although he

16510-531: Was released in 1979 after the group had split up. Years given below are for the recording(s), not first release, unless stated otherwise. Experimental rock From its inception, rock music was experimental, but it was not until the late 1960s that rock artists began creating extended and complex compositions through advancements in multitrack recording . In 1967, the genre was as commercially viable as pop music , but by 1970, most of its leading players had incapacitated themselves in some form. In Germany,

16640-406: Was scored beyond the conventional ranges of their instruments, necessitating that they "reinvent their instruments" and learn how to play them in completely new ways. Frith explained in a 1973 interview, "What we've done is to literally teach ourselves to ... compos[e] music which we could not initially, play. Because of that attitude, we can go on forever. It's a self-generative concept which gives us

16770-426: Was the first record he ever bought. Between 1995 and 1997, Peel presented Offspring , a show about children, on BBC Radio 4 . In 1998, Offspring grew into the magazine-style documentary show Home Truths . When he took on the job presenting the programme, which was about everyday life in British families, Peel requested that it be free from celebrities, as he found real-life stories more entertaining. Home Truths

16900-450: Was the reason why Peel was able to use "session men" in his own programmes. Sessions were usually four tracks recorded and mixed in a single day; as such they often had a rough-and-ready, demo-like feel, somewhere between a live performance and a finished recording. During the 37 years Peel remained on BBC Radio 1 , over 4,000 sessions were recorded by over 2,000 artists. Many classic Peel Sessions have been released on record, particularly by

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