Henry Cow Concerts

Henry Cow Concerts
Live album by Henry Cow
Released	1976 (1976)
Recorded	September 1974 – October 1975 London, Italy, Netherlands, Norway
Genre	Avant-rock free improvisation
Length	103:43
Label	Compendium (Norway) Caroline (UK)
Producer	Henry Cow
Henry Cow chronology
In Praise of Learning (1975) Henry Cow Concerts (1976) Western Culture (1979)

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[1]
All About Jazz	favorable[2]
Piero Scaruffi	6/10[3]

Henry Cow Concerts is a live double album by English avant-rock group Henry Cow, recorded at concerts in London, Italy, the Netherlands and Norway between September 1974 and October 1975. Sides one and two of the LP record consist of composed material while sides three and four contain improvised pieces.

The album includes Henry Cow's last John Peel Session, recorded in September 1975 and extracts from a concert with Robert Wyatt at the New London Theatre in May 1975. "Groningen" (recorded in September 1974) is part of an instrumental suite where the band improvised around fragments of an early version of Tim Hodgkinson's "Living in the Heart of the Beast" from In Praise of Learning (1975). Another performance of this suite (in full) later appeared in Halsteren on Volume 2: 1974–5 of The 40th Anniversary Henry Cow Box Set (2009).

CD reissues of the album include Henry Cow's tracks on Greasy Truckers Live at Dingwalls Dance Hall (1974), a double LP of an October 1973 concert, featuring Camel, Henry Cow, Global Village Trucking Company and Gong.

Track listing

Double LP

Side one – 22:50

1. "Beautiful as the Moon – Terrible as an Army with Banners" (Frith, Cutler)
2. "Nirvana for Mice" (Frith)
3. "Ottawa Song" (Frith, Cutler)
4. "Gloria Gloom" (Wyatt, MacCormick)
5. "Beautiful as the Moon (Reprise)" (Frith, Cutler)

Side two – 25:36

1. "Bad Alchemy" (Greaves, Blegvad)
2. "Little Red Riding Hood Hits the Road" (Wyatt)
3. "Ruins" (Frith)

Side three – 29:02

1. "Oslo" (Henry Cow)

Side four – 26:15

1. "Groningen" (Hodgkinson, Henry Cow)
2. "Udine" (Henry Cow)
3. "Groningen Again" (Henry Cow)

Double CD 2006 reissue

CD one

1. "Beautiful as the Moon – Terrible as an Army with Banners" (Frith, Cutler) – 5:41
2. "Nirvana for Mice" (Frith) – 5:30
3. "Ottawa Song" (Frith, Cutler) – 4:16
4. "Gloria Gloom" (Wyatt, MacCormick) – 4:14
5. "Beautiful as the Moon (Reprise)" (Frith, Cutler) – 3:11
6. "Bad Alchemy" (Greaves, Blegvad) – 2:55
7. "Little Red Riding Hood Hits the Road" (Wyatt) – 5:50
8. "Ruins" (Frith) – 16:29
9. "Groningen" (Hodgkinson, Henry Cow) – 8:54
10. "Groningen Again" (Henry Cow) – 7:27

CD two
  1–8.   "Oslo" (Henry Cow) – 28:59

9. "Off the Map" – 8:23 *
   • "Solo Piano" (Hodgkinson)
   • "Trio" (Hodgkinson, Cutler, Frith)
10. "Café Royal" (solo guitar) (Frith) – 3:20 *
11. "Keeping Warm in Winter" (Frith, Greaves) – 1:00 *
12. "Sweet Heart of Mine" (Henry Cow) – 8:58 *
13. "Udine" (Henry Cow) – 9:39

* CD releases only, Henry Cow's set on Greasy Truckers Live at Dingwalls Dance Hall.

Personnel

• Lindsay Cooper – bassoon, flute, oboe, recorder, piano
• Chris Cutler – drums, piano
• Dagmar Krause – voice, piano
• Fred Frith – guitar, piano, violin, xylophone
• John Greaves – bass guitar, voice, celeste, piano
• Tim Hodgkinson – organ, clarinet, alto saxophone, piano (Greasy Truckers set, CD release only)
• Robert Wyatt – vocals ("Bad Alchemy" and "Little Red Riding Hood Hits the Road")
• Geoff Leigh (Greasy Truckers set, CD release only) – tenor and soprano saxophone, recorder, flute, clarinet

Sound and art work

• Henry Cow – producers
• Maggie Thomas – cover art
• David Vorhaus – original LP mastering (Kaleidophon, London)
• Bob Drake – CD remastering (Studio Midi Pyrenees, France)

Concert venues and dates

• "Beautiful as the Moon – Terrible as an Army with Banners", "Nirvana for Mice", "Ottawa Song", "Gloria Gloom", "Beautiful as the Moon (Reprise)": Peel Session, BBC Studios, 5 August 1975,^[4] recorded and mixed by Bob Conduct and Tony Wilson.
• "Bad Alchemy", "Little Red Riding Hood Hits the Road": New London Theatre (with Robert Wyatt), 21 May 1975, mixed by Sarah Greaves.
• "Ruins", "Udine": Palamostre Auditorium, Udine, Italy, 13 October 1975, mixed by Neil Sandford, recorded by Sandro Pascolo.
• "Oslo": Høvikodden Arts Centre, Oslo, Norway, 25 July 1975, record and mixed by Jack Balchin and Harold Clark.
• "Groningen", "Groningen Again": Vera Club, Groningen, the Netherlands, 28 September 1974, mixed by Sarah Greaves.
• "Off the Map", "Cafe Royal", "Keeping Warm in Winter", "Sweat Heart of Mine": Greasy Truckers Live at Dingwalls Dance Hall, recorded at The Manor, 4 November 1973 by Henry Cow and Tom Newman (CD releases only).

Composed material

The composed material (with the exception of "Ottawa Song") originally appeared on the following albums:

• Matching Mole: Matching Mole's Little Red Record (1972) – "Gloria Gloom"
• Henry Cow: Legend (1973) – "Nirvana for Mice"
• Henry Cow: Unrest (1974) – "Ruins"
• Robert Wyatt: Rock Bottom (1974) – "Little Red Riding Hood Hit the Road"
• Slapp Happy/Henry Cow: Desperate Straights (1975) – "Bad Alchemy"
• Henry Cow/Slapp Happy: In Praise of Learning (1975) – "Beautiful as the Moon – Terrible as an Army with Banners"

Singles

• "In Concerto" (1977, 33⅓ rpm 7" single, Gong, Italy) – included with issue 4/4 of the Italian magazine, Gong
  1. "Beautiful as the Moon – Terrible as an Army with Banners" (Frith, Cutler)
  2. "Udine" (Henry Cow)

CD reissues

In 1995, East Side Digital reissued Henry Cow Concerts as a double CD with four extra tracks. The extra tracks came from Greasy Truckers Live at Dingwalls Dance Hall (1974), a double LP of an October 1973 concert performed by Camel, Henry Cow, Global Village Trucking Company and Gong, each band contributing to one side of the double album. Henry Cow's contribution, however, was actually recorded a week later at The Manor Studios because a power failure at the event had delayed the start of the concert and a 2am curfew reduced Henry Cow's set (billed last) to ten minutes. At the Manor, Henry Cow improvised their Greasy Truckers set to tape and mixed the tracks in a single session.^[5] An outtake from this recording session, "Bellycan" was released on the 1991 CD-release of Legend.^[6]

In October 2006, Recommended Records released a remastered version of Henry Cow Concerts, which included the Greasy Truckers set, on a double CD. The original dynamics of "Oslo" was restored, which had been compromised to fit it onto side three of the double LP.^[7] The remastering was done by Bob Drake in March 2006. An accompanying booklet included an interview with Henry Cow in Sweden in 1977, and a seven day extract from the November/December 1977 Road Diary by Chris Cutler.

See also

• Henry Cow Box (2006)

References

• Cutler, Chris, ed. (2006). Henry Cow Concerts (CD booklet accompanying the 2006 reissue of Henry Cow Concerts). Recommended Records.

Footnotes

External links

• Fred Frith discography
• Another Henry Cow Concerts review at All About Jazz.