|
Comments:
Dave: The title comes from
‘Like Some Kous-Kous Western’. There’s a bit
where Brian sings something that sounds vaguely eastern or Arabic
and somehow mutates into something like a yodel – I commented
that it sounded like Arabic yodelling and that was filed away
somewhere for future use.
There’s a lot of other material from this era that was
never finished for one reason or another.
1.) Green Candle
Dave: The title comes from
a line in the play Pere Ubu by Alfred Jarry – ‘by
my green candle’. I’d heard it on an Open University
program and it became a phrase we used on dice evenings.
Brian: The
lyrics were inspired by the writings of Baudelaire - about the
decadent city, it's inhabitants, those who live for it and thrive
in it - the 'bon viveurs' and creatures of the night. At the
time I was teaching at a school of architecture and Baudelaire's
imagery was a point of reference for some students of urban
design.
3.) Bearded Cats
Dave: It grew out of something
that started from the two of us just playing guitar together.
It had a kind of jazzy feel to it and the lyrics grew out of
that; the idea of these two guys in some dingy club playing
this jazz number. They’re not too hot so ‘every now
and then we play a bum chord’. Brian knew a guy who could
play violin and he came in one day to record his part long after
the track was otherwise finished – I never even met him.
5.) Dichotomy Rag
Dave: This uses something
called a fragmenter, which was a loop tape made up of lengths
of magnetic tape and leader tape. It was run through a three-head
tape deck set on record. The output of this deck fed into another
tape recorder, which recorded the output of the first deck.
This meant that only the bits of music that fell onto a piece
of magnetic tape were recorded and then subsequently recorded
onto the second tape deck. So although we were playing continuously
only fragments of our playing were recorded. It was just another
way to try something new. Once we had this basic track Brian
recorded the overdubs, having learnt to play to the backing,
something that was beyond me.
7.) Wilf in Builth
Dave: I went on a walking
holiday in mid-Wales and on the holiday met someone called Wilf.
The holiday ended up in a place called Builth Wells which, most
people just call Builth. Builth is actually pronounced ‘bilth’.
So ‘Wilf in Bilth’, I just liked the sound of it.
10.) Clean Gender
Dave: ‘Clean Gender’
is an anagram of ‘Green Candle’ and is sort of a reprise.
12.) Lonely Rosa
Dave: The basic track for
‘Lonely Rosa’ started in a similar way to 'Bearded
Cats' with a guitar improvisation.
13.) J.P.W.B.C.
Dave: When we were mixing
the album I had a short instrumental backing that sounded vaguely
Japanese. We’d hired a varispeed tape deck to master the
album on and we found that we could slow down the violin part
on 'Bearded Cats’ to fit with this Japanese-like backing
I’d made. So ‘JPWBC’ simply stands for Japanese
piece with Bearded Cats. Or, just
pretending we’re Burmese coolies.
14.) Like Some Kous-Kous Western
Dave: The title came from
the idea that if you moved a spaghetti western eastwards it
would be a cous cous western.
|
