Henry Cow Concerts

Henry Cow Concerts
Live album by Henry Cow
Released 1976
Recorded September 1974 – October 1975
London, Italy, Netherlands, Norway
Genre
Length 103:43
Label Compendium (Norway)
Caroline (UK)
Producer Henry Cow
Henry Cow chronology

  • Henry Cow Concerts
  • (1976)
Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
AllMusic [1]
All About Jazz favorable[2]

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

  1. "Off the Map" – 8:23 *
  2. "Café Royal" (solo guitar) (Frith) – 3:20 *
  3. "Keeping Warm in Winter" (Frith, Greaves) – 1:00 *
  4. "Sweet Heart of Mine" (Henry Cow) – 8:58 *
  5. "Udine" (Henry Cow) – 9:39

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

Personnel

Sound and art work

Concert venues and dates

Composed material

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

Singles

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.[4] An outtake from this recording session, "Bellycan" was released on the 1991 CD-release of Legend.[5]

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.[6] 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

References

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Anderson, Rick. "Concerts". AllMusic. Retrieved 2010-06-14.
  2. ↑ Jones, Nic. "Concerts". All About Jazz. Retrieved 2010-06-14.
  3. ↑ "Peel Sessions: Henry Cow". BBC Radio 1. Retrieved 2007-09-27.
  4. ↑ Cutler 2006, p. 6.
  5. ↑ Ramond, Michel; Roussel, Patrice; Vuilleumier, Stephane. "Discography of Fred Frith". New York Downtown Scene and Other Miscellaneous Discographies. Retrieved 2013-09-13.
  6. ↑ Cutler 2006, p. 2.

External links