Two items I'd like to bring to the attention of any readers...
Firstly, and I think I'm a bit behind on this news, but the thoroughly awesome Cave In have reconvened after their hiatus of three-and-a-half years and are releasing an EP soon on Hydra Head Records. They have one Boston show booked and no plans to tour, but new music is more than I could have asked for or expected anyway so that's cheered me right up...
(This is Cave In playing "Big Riff" a.k.a. one of the best songs ever ever ever)
...especially after hearing the sad news that Canterbury scene jazz/rock legend Hugh Hopper has died, succumbed to the leukemia he was diagnosed with only this past Winter. Mr Hopper was one of the finest bass players this country has produced - he not only had the chops, but he had a fantastic sense of balance, texture and his own role in a composition. He played with many notable figures in British music, but will undoubtedly be remembered as a not-quite-founding member of (The) Soft Machine. In this spot he hammered away through many exciting and charismatic jams, sharing the rhythm section with Robert Wyatt (among others) and authoring such post-psychedelia classics as "Memories", "Facelift", and the four-part suite "Virtually" that can be found on Soft Machine's "Fourth" album - surely one of the best jazz fusion records of all time. I was lucky enough to see him perform two years ago with Brainville, the frenetic and abrasive free jazz/noise/rock/beat-poetry trio that also included Daevid Allen (of Gong/ early period Soft Machine/University of Errors) and Chris Cutler (of the dangerously insane-sounding Henry Cow, and many more). It was my first time seeing any of these players live, and I was especially excited about seeing Daevid Allen play lead guitar. But once they took the stage it was Hugh Hopper that held my attention, anchoring the daring explorations of the guitarist and drummer by dropping these huge thick slabs of electric bass at baffling meters and appearing every inch the refined and tasteful musician that forty-five years behind an instrument will make you. And when at one point I looked down to see how his distortion pedal could possibly sound so savage and noticed it was the 'Facelift' itself - sharing its name with the song that bowled me over as a 16-year-old - I was genuinely starstruck. Here's a great clip of the three-piece version of Soft Machine ripping through Wyatt's "Moon in June". These guys all look insanely cool by the way, like... devastatingly awesome. I mean, just look at Hugh's moustache and Mike Ratledge's glasses (keyboard player). And Robert Wyatt's tie. Roughly translated, all that get-up means "I'm better than you at jazz fusion, and I don't really feel the need to put too fine a point on it."
Also, The Mars Volta covered Hugh's "Memories" as a bonus track for the iTunes version of 'Bedlam...' and it's great. It's also further proof that The Mars Volta know what the fuck they're talking about, because this song was never on a proper Soft Machine record (only a collection of '66 demos, and covered by Allen and Wyatt on the "Bananamoon" record in 1971). You can listen to Cedric and Omar's version here.
And here's a shot I took of Hugh playing with Brainville (3/7/07) at The Borderline in London. (L to R is Daevid Allen, Chris Cutler, Hugh Hopper.) (Click to enlarge by the way)
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