I used to get sick of always hearing it on the radio, it was always playing when i went to the super market. Yeah it was great hearing it the first ten times but they absolutely thrashed it.
IMHO Henry Cow is not only the best band in the history of progressive rock but quite possibly the culmination of the whole avant rock thing. I simply love this guys, true 'musical heroes' for me, alongside Glenn Branca, Anton Webern, Captain Beefheart, Anthony Braxton and Orthrelm. Well, in this concert recorded in Switzerland (Vevey) in 1976, with splendid audio and image quality, we have the british formation in its intermediate period, where to the band's initial sonic blend (compositional exercises inspired by the Second Viennese School + free jazz infused improvisations + electroacoustic experiments) is added the anarchic spirit of the bretchian expressionist cabaret. Simply essential, perless and timeless stuff.
@Marty Gabriel But also I was saying more in the vein that is doesn't matter that it sounds like chaos when it's composed, since they seemed to also embrace pure chaos
@Marty Gabriel I wouldn't call something like Linguaphonie, or Arcades, or The Long March many adjectives before I'd arrive at "chaotic". Do you feel that chaotic is an inapropriate word? Also to mention, I like all that stuff I listed, it's not like I'm saying it like it's criticism.
Hodgkinson (the guy who introduces the song in French) was reading Mao and the Situationalists when he wrote this song ... Henry Cow is full of dorks who read too many books and that's what I love about them
One of their most "Canterbury" sounding pieces - it's little wonder that John Greaves was so easily able to turn around from this and go play in National Health.
as someone who has only been in the receiving end of this band for about 4 months, even at this point i must agree, this suite is absolutely gourgeous.
@AlexanderBabikovHimself i so very agree. since, i've listened to all their albums, and still in praise of learning is my favourite. absolutely brilliant stuff, the band's made, along with the splinter acts, such as the work, news from babel, etcetera.
Ive always like Henry Cow. I feel they were the best of the RIO bands. I love the album version of this composition, but I never felt they could pull it off live. This is amazing.
Have you ever heard the half hour live version they did in Halsteren in 1974? That is my favorite live version. It's instrumental and features a bunch of free improv sections interspersed between the motifs.
Amazing music by amazing musicians. Dagmar's diction and pronounciation is impeccable (she is german). She executes extremely complex melodies and rhythms with astonishing ease & facility.
Hi, I'm born in Vevey in 1964, I still live there, I have play Progressiv rock since 1979 with my band Deyss listening King Crimson, Gentle Giant, Yes Genesis and all others and I only heard the name of Henry cow for the 1st time only today??? I cannot believe, how it's possible..is this band so underrated or I was on the moon the last 50th years??? ++ Now I found this footage made in my country what a coincidence...someone can tell me where in Vevey this has been recorded? Thanks Joe
GREAT GREAT!!! IN MY HEART SINCE DAY ONE (BACK IN 7O'S, I'LL NEVER FORGET THE SHOCK OF THE FIRST TIME).I AM A FOLLOWER OF ALL THE MUSICIANS, GREAT WORKS .....SEARCH THEM !!!
I've seen Fred Frith several times both in the DC area and in San Francisco and I saw Chris Cutler at a friends art gallery in DC (Signal 66) but I've never seen the rest of the musicians, nor this amazing band. I wouldn't have liked it when they were around being a child. But I love it now.
Discordance was their game creating an oddball body of work that in their day pushed boundaries. It was refreshing to have musicians willing to do this knowing what they were doing was not designed for commercial success but would be appreciated as a groundbreaking work of art that would push boundaries and open up new territories for exploration.
My like second time hearing this band and I'm really impressed. Might be up there with King Crimson in bands that took me by surprise. Dagmar's vocals are great, she also looks like my mom did as a young lady growing up in Schweinfurt a bit. :) The bass is really well done too.
Just came across this, thanks for putting it on here. I bought their second and third albums back in the seventies. Something in their music spoke to me then, and I’m still learning how good their music is, all these years later. As someone else said, brilliant to hear all that complicated composition repeated live, wonderful playing. Ok
My God! Thank you for sharing!! This has long been one of my fave Henry Cow pieces and to see it live (though in 3 pieces) just made my day!!! Don't blink or you'll miss the master mind behind it all: Fred Frith!!!!
I'm astonished that this footage even exists. Who had the foresight? Interestingly, they really could play all of this stuff in concert - it wasn't all just elaborate studio constructions.
Awesome performance, thank you for sharing this. Awesome deep intelligent lyrics and technical talented musicians displaying a great concert. This is fucking cool.
"deep intelligent lyrics" Nah, not really. The lyrics are the weakest point of the song, that is, they are extremely pretentious, ambiguous in many parts to give the impression of a deep meaning, barely and it becomes evident of what they speak until the half of the song, and in other phrases they seem paraphrased in verbosity to look smarter, that is, "Disguised metaphors that keep us in a vast inverted stillness twice edged with fear" seriously? I'm the only one who thinks that in that phrase you can removed at least 4 words and still the same?And there are more phrases like that one.
Situation that rules your world - despite all you've said I would strike against it but the rule displaces... There I burn in my own lights fuelled with flags torn out of books and histories of marching together, united with heroes, we were the rage, the fire. But I was given a different destiny - knotted in closer despair. Calling to heroes, do you have to speak that way all the time ? Tales told by idiots in paperbacks; a play of forms to spite my fabulous need to fight and live. We exchange words, coins, movements - paralysed in loops of care that we hoped could knot a world still. Sere words, toothless, ruined now, bulldozed into brimming pits - who has used them how? Grammar book that lies wasted : conflux of voices rising to meet, and fall, empty, divided, other... Clutching at sleeves the wordless man exposes his failure : smiling, he hurls a wine glass, describing his sadness twisted into mere form : shattered in a glass, he's changed... How dare he seize the life before him and discompound it in sulphurous confusion and give it to the air? He's rushing to find where there's a word of liquid syntax - signs let slip in a flash : "clothes of chaos are my rage !" he shrieks in tatters, hunting the eye of his own storm. We were born to serve you all our bloody lives labouring tongues we give rise to soft lies : disguised metaphors that keep us in a vast inverted silliness twice edged with fear. Twilight signs decompose us High in offices we stared into the turning wheel of cities dense and ravelled close yet separate : planned to kill all encounter. Intricate we saw your state at work its shapes abstracted from all human intent. With our history's fire we shall harrow your signs. Now is the time to begin to go forward - advance from despair, the darkness of solitary men - who are chained in a market they cannot control - in the name of a freedom that hangs like a pall on our cities. And their towers of silence we shall destroy. Now is the time to begin to determine directions, refuse to admit the existence of destiny's rule. We shall seize from all heroes and merchants our labour, our lives, and our practice of history : this, our choice, defines the truth of all that we do. Seize on the words that oppose us with alien force; they're enslaved by the power of capital's kings who reduce them to coinage and hollow exchange in the struggle to hold us, they're bitterly outlasting... Time to sweep them down from power - deeds renew words. Dare to take sides in the fight for freedom that is common cause let us all be as strong and as resolute. We're in the midst of a universe turning in turmoil; of classes and armies of thought making war - their contradictions clash and echo through time.
+Dean Brucato That's some avant garde bock party you've got planned there. Let me know about it when it happens. You build it and the freaks will come...
H.C. était beauté, message, violence et rêve, mais surtout l'instrument puissant d'une volonté formidable. hENRY cOW disait "Je veux" quand beaucoup d’autres marmonnaient "je voudrais" Il a atteint son but sans se plier à la plus infime compromission, comme une charrue accrochée à une étoile. Une fois pour toutes, ces gens-là traçaient leur chemin et ne s'en écartaient jamais, refusant toute flagornerie qui fait de la musique populaire d'aujourd'hui une lasse prostituée.
I don't know why, but I never really got the Zappa influence - HC are simultaneously darker and more playful than Zappa, who I find a little arch and knowing at times. Both brilliant musically, but I much prefer Henry Cow. I managed to see them play a few times, but not this lineup (unfortunately). Dagmar is wonderfully intense, Tim looks like he is having a good time, Chris is just an artist on the drums. In fact the whole band is wonderful throughout this long and complex piece. RIP Lindsay
I agree, the Zappa connection is overblown. Leg End had a slight Mothers influence, but there's none at all from Unrest through Western Culture. Zappa was never involved in free improvisation. Zappa never did anything like Oslo from Concerts, or discs 4 & 5 of The Road, the wholly improvised quartet concert in Trondheim after Greaves left. After dissolving the original Mothers, Zappa never again had an ensemble that was more than the sum of its parts. In the Henry Cow File in Melody Maker in 1974 they listed their influences, favorite albums and musicians. You can hear them in their music, Messiaen, Bartok, Schoenberg, Janacek, Berio, Mingus, Coltrane, Wyatt, Soft Machine, etc. Greaves and Cutler do mention the Mothers, but Cutler adds in parentheses, '66-'67. I think in terms of the sheer scope of their music, no other rock band of the '70s is a match for them. The only one which comes close perhaps is the Zamla Mammaz Manna of Schlagern's Mystik/Für Aldre Nybegenarre with its folkloric ditties, long through composed piece and two sides of live improvisations. It was probably Henry Cow's influence, which prompted them to perform freely improvised concerts in the first place.
A Zappa influence? I've never heard anyone compare HC to FZ before! Zappa is as American as they come and Henry Cow are as European! Slight similarity in instrumentation and odd time signatures but there the comparison ends.
psychedelicpiper In the early days of Henry Cow, Tim deliberately tried his best to sound as Mike Ratledge-like on the organ as possible. They had a bit more of a "Canterbury" sound back then, shame there isn't more of that material available.
Thanks to Giancarlo, that is GREAT footage, never seen them although I have all the albums from those years. I guess by now John Greaves split for National Health? Dagmar, Hodgkinson, Frith and Cutler are all at their best... Crazy new and not to be heard in your local disco!!!
Revolutionary! As strong now -- maybe stronger -- than in 1976. The most magnificent coda ever. If only the political spirit invoked by this piece could be enacted in the world of 2019. Maybe it can be!
DAMN!!! Why isn't music this good today?? Thank God for recording. Fabulous. Almost sounds like Zappa slowed down and played backwards. I wonder what Frank would have thought of this. Thank you!!
In the 70s and 60s you do not need to look hard. Simply if most of today's music is trash, today's music is trash, it does not change in anything that exist some exceptions.
MY GENIUS WIZARD,PERHAPS THE GREATEST OF ALL TWENTIETH CENTURY GENIUS'S,PAUL HINDEMITH, whose ludus tonalis,symphony In Bflat for concert band 1951, all piano,mathis der Mahler,i hear echo in this great music,most musician majors in college use,learn from his HORIZONS AND LIMITATIONS, UNTERWEIZEN UND TONSTATZ, other, check him out, MILE'S DAVIS AND CHARLIE BYRD' PARKERS VERY FAVORITE COMPOSER,COW, IS OF HIS POWERS,
This is from a different edit than I'm used to, pretty sure. Many perspectives and shots seem unfamiliar, and I've watched this performance quite a bit. Thanks for posting!!
FRITH è un GENIO ma anche TIM HODGKINSON lo è , LIVING IN THE HEART OF THE BEAST è praticamente SUA e lo stesso dicasi per la Ancor più celebrale e complessa ERK GAH !!!!! Inutile dire che anche il resto della band è di straordinario livello !!!!! Dagmar krause grande vocalist femminile, Lindsay Cooper rip la fiatista sax tenore fagotto flauto traverso e oboe , Georgie Born basso elettrico e CHRIS CUTLER batteria e percussioni varie , durante l'esecuzione di LIVING IN THE HEART OF THE BEAST vi fu un inconveniente tecnico ,il violino di FRED FRITH non stava funzionando allora ad un certo punto DAGMAR improvvisò un vocalizzo in sostituzione dello strumento che però qualche minuto dopo riprese a funzionare e così la band poté portare a termine la suite !!!!!!
This, of course, was their break-thru smash hit single. :-)
lol
Should of been
In a parallell world it probably is!😀
I used to get sick of always hearing it on the radio, it was always playing when i went to the super market. Yeah it was great hearing it the first ten times but they absolutely thrashed it.
@@jublaim " And once again it's time for Anti-Matter World's Top of the Pops! "
IMHO Henry Cow is not only the best band in the history of progressive rock but quite possibly the culmination of the whole avant rock thing. I simply love this guys, true 'musical heroes' for me, alongside Glenn Branca, Anton Webern, Captain Beefheart, Anthony Braxton and Orthrelm.
Well, in this concert recorded in Switzerland (Vevey) in 1976, with splendid audio and image quality, we have the british formation in its intermediate period, where to the band's initial sonic blend (compositional exercises inspired by the Second Viennese School + free jazz infused improvisations + electroacoustic experiments) is added the anarchic spirit of the bretchian expressionist cabaret.
Simply essential, perless and timeless stuff.
That drummer has such elegance with his traditional grip there. I love to see talented musicians enjoying the process.
2nd best drummer who ever lived
@@myearsloveit foolish remark - but, what can one do? fannish infatuation - he was a good drummer, leave it at that
@@brianhammer5107 fuck your opinion
@@brianhammer5107 he's not dead and has not stopped drumming
@@damonberry9123 never said he was dead
Part 3 - So uplifting. The struggle to awaken and seize our own power and shape our own destiny.
Sounds just like the album - all that seeming chaos is actually highly composed.
They improvised a lot though
@Marty Gabriel Really? Wow
@Marty Gabriel But also I was saying more in the vein that is doesn't matter that it sounds like chaos when it's composed, since they seemed to also embrace pure chaos
@Marty Gabriel I wouldn't call something like Linguaphonie, or Arcades, or The Long March many adjectives before I'd arrive at "chaotic". Do you feel that chaotic is an inapropriate word? Also to mention, I like all that stuff I listed, it's not like I'm saying it like it's criticism.
Amazing that they pulled this off live. Tremendous musicianship. Chris Cutler plays with such style.
One of the greatest bands of all time, Frith is a genius and his versatility knows no bounds, extraordinary composition!
Zapa zapa zappa eappzpzpzozozzoepapdf
no, but they were a pretty good group
@Marty Gabriel Tim is a genius too.
@@iamdamosuzuki_ tim is a legend
I love the way the constructivist nature of the music reflects the Marxist lyrics.
they re facists?
Hodgkinson (the guy who introduces the song in French) was reading Mao and the Situationalists when he wrote this song ... Henry Cow is full of dorks who read too many books and that's what I love about them
@@bman778 ...gesundheit.
@@fishtolizard3930 volkswagen
The best musical suite from HC in a dedicated stunning live performance. Dagmar's vocals added a lot to the bands potential.
"Erk Gah" is a great one too. Not quite as great as this one but close.
a masterpiece from a great band .
saw them live so many times :-)
Where did you see them?
I just came across this live version. There is and was no other musical group like Henry Cow. I've been a fan since 1974.
Questi musicisti mi sono molto cari. Più passano gli anni e più intenso è il loro ricordo. Lindsay RIP
Best lyrics in whole rock music!
Saw them supporting Beefheart. Incredible gig.
One of their most "Canterbury" sounding pieces - it's little wonder that John Greaves was so easily able to turn around from this and go play in National Health.
Fancy seeing you here. Though all seriously musically minded people can appreciate the ingenuity of the Cow, I shouldn't be surprised! :)
I actually did a 6-part series on prog rock and the Canterbury Scene for NZ national radio, and I gave HC their due, you can be sure.
That is one of the most beautiful musical suites I have ever heard. I've loved this for 30 years. Amazing.
as someone who has only been in the receiving end of this band for about 4 months, even at this point i must agree, this suite is absolutely gourgeous.
@AlexanderBabikovHimself i so very agree. since, i've listened to all their albums, and still in praise of learning is my favourite. absolutely brilliant stuff, the band's made, along with the splinter acts, such as the work, news from babel, etcetera.
Ive always like Henry Cow. I feel they were the best of the RIO bands. I love the album version of this composition, but I never felt they could pull it off live. This is amazing.
Have you ever heard the half hour live version they did in Halsteren in 1974? That is my favorite live version. It's instrumental and features a bunch of free improv sections interspersed between the motifs.
So sad to hear about death of Lindsay Cooper. Tremendous influence on the Henrys, what they later did , and elsewhere.
Your blackest Black Sabbath isn't a tenth as heavy metal as this magnificent music.
True
You obviously never heard of Magma ;)
Mauricio I certainly have
Been listening to Magma for some 40 years. Saw them about two years ago. Agreed, they are pretty darn top notch as well.
Amazing music by amazing musicians. Dagmar's diction and pronounciation is impeccable (she is german). She executes extremely complex melodies and rhythms with astonishing ease & facility.
Hi, I'm born in Vevey in 1964, I still live there, I have play Progressiv rock since 1979 with my band Deyss listening King Crimson, Gentle Giant, Yes Genesis and all others and I only heard the name of Henry cow for the 1st time only today??? I cannot believe, how it's possible..is this band so underrated or I was on the moon the last 50th years??? ++ Now I found this footage made in my country what a coincidence...someone can tell me where in Vevey this has been recorded? Thanks Joe
it makes me think of Zappa and the Mothers.
GREAT GREAT!!! IN MY HEART SINCE DAY ONE (BACK IN 7O'S, I'LL NEVER FORGET THE SHOCK OF THE FIRST TIME).I AM A FOLLOWER OF ALL THE MUSICIANS, GREAT WORKS .....SEARCH THEM !!!
I've seen Fred Frith several times both in the DC area and in San Francisco and I saw Chris Cutler at a friends art gallery in DC (Signal 66) but I've never seen the rest of the musicians, nor this amazing band. I wouldn't have liked it when they were around being a child. But I love it now.
Dagmar chants are outta this world
Discordance was their game creating an oddball body of work that in their day pushed boundaries.
It was refreshing to have musicians willing to do this knowing what they were doing was not designed for commercial success but would be appreciated as a groundbreaking work of art that would push boundaries and open up new territories for exploration.
Henry Cow was too progressive even for Prog Rock fans. Still it's one of the best! (Along with Frank Zappa and King Crimson).
My like second time hearing this band and I'm really impressed. Might be up there with King Crimson in bands that took me by surprise. Dagmar's vocals are great, she also looks like my mom did as a young lady growing up in Schweinfurt a bit. :) The bass is really well done too.
Breathtaking music! The Best of Henry Cow! Thank you for posting!
How amazing that this was shown on TV! Can you imagine seeing today on CBS Friday at 8pm!
Just came across this, thanks for putting it on here. I bought their second and third albums back in the seventies. Something in their music spoke to me then, and I’m still learning how good their music is, all these years later. As someone else said, brilliant to hear all that complicated composition repeated live, wonderful playing. Ok
I love the simple guitar intro 🙂
My God! Thank you for sharing!! This has long been one of my fave Henry Cow pieces and to see it live (though in 3 pieces) just made my day!!! Don't blink or you'll miss the master mind behind it all: Fred Frith!!!!
Great band, great music !!! Between Magma and Soft Machine
I love the drummer from 11:00 - very artistic!
VERY VERY GOOD BAND OLD...........................
Adoro lo stile vocale di Dagmar Krause
I'm astonished that this footage even exists. Who had the foresight? Interestingly, they really could play all of this stuff in concert - it wasn't all just elaborate studio constructions.
I always find myelf returning to this set.
Thank you for sharing this gem!
So much Messiaen in the beginning of part 2, I love it
RIP Lindsay. You were the finest of the fine. Ankh em Maat!
just amazing and tremendously important music... you can really hear the bridge to the later Art Bears here, only this is tremendously complex
The best rock band ever. Conceptually and technically
Genius-Dagmar,Fred,Chris Lindsay,Tim and Georgie Born on fantastic bass!
Greetings from Pispala, Finnland.
THE ultimate progressive overture, from the most progressive band of all.
LOL. "most progressive" - please
@@brianhammer5107 Out of curiousity, which band do you believe to be the most progressive?
This is incredible!
Awesome performance, thank you for sharing this. Awesome deep intelligent lyrics and technical talented musicians displaying a great concert. This is fucking cool.
"deep intelligent lyrics" Nah, not really. The lyrics are the weakest point of the song, that is, they are extremely pretentious, ambiguous in many parts to give the impression of a deep meaning, barely and it becomes evident of what they speak until the half of the song, and in other phrases they seem paraphrased in verbosity to look smarter, that is, "Disguised metaphors that keep us in a vast inverted stillness twice edged with fear" seriously? I'm the only one who thinks that in that phrase you can removed at least 4 words and still the same?And there are more phrases like that one.
just amazing ..i got almost everythin they ever recorded cos' i love'em
Situation that rules your world - despite all you've said
I would strike against it but the rule displaces...
There I burn in my own lights fuelled with flags
torn out of books and histories
of marching together, united with heroes, we were the rage, the fire.
But I was given a different destiny - knotted in closer despair.
Calling to heroes, do you have to speak that way all the time ?
Tales told by idiots in paperbacks;
a play of forms to spite my fabulous need to fight and live.
We exchange words, coins, movements
- paralysed in loops of care that we hoped could knot a world still.
Sere words, toothless, ruined now, bulldozed into brimming pits
- who has used them how? Grammar book that lies wasted :
conflux of voices rising to meet, and fall,
empty, divided, other...
Clutching at sleeves the wordless man exposes his failure :
smiling, he hurls a wine glass, describing his sadness twisted
into mere form : shattered in a glass, he's changed...
How dare he seize the life before him
and discompound it in sulphurous confusion and give it to the air?
He's rushing to find where there's a word of liquid syntax
- signs let slip in a flash : "clothes of chaos are my rage !"
he shrieks in tatters, hunting the eye of his own storm.
We were born to serve you all our bloody lives
labouring tongues we give rise to soft lies :
disguised metaphors that keep us in a vast inverted silliness
twice edged with fear.
Twilight signs decompose us
High in offices we stared into the turning wheel of cities
dense and ravelled close yet separate : planned to kill all encounter.
Intricate we saw your state at work
its shapes abstracted from all human intent.
With our history's fire we shall harrow your signs.
Now is the time to begin to go forward - advance from despair,
the darkness of solitary men - who are chained in a market they cannot control -
in the name of a freedom that hangs like a pall on our cities.
And their towers of silence we shall destroy.
Now is the time to begin to determine directions,
refuse to admit the existence of destiny's rule.
We shall seize from all heroes and merchants our labour, our lives, and our practice of history :
this, our choice, defines the truth of all that we do.
Seize on the words that oppose us with alien force;
they're enslaved by the power of capital's kings
who reduce them to coinage and hollow exchange in the struggle to hold us,
they're bitterly outlasting...
Time to sweep them down from power - deeds renew words.
Dare to take sides in the fight for freedom that is common cause
let us all be as strong and as resolute.
We're in the midst of a universe turning
in turmoil; of classes and armies of thought
making war - their contradictions clash and echo through time.
No fair. .you read the record sleeve.
Yes, it's Georgie. And she was a few months shy of her 21st birthday at the time, so actually only 20.
definitely the stuff you want to play at the next scheduled block party
+Dean Brucato
That's some avant garde bock party you've got planned there. Let me know about it when it happens. You build it and the freaks will come...
LOL! Next summer if I'm still in S.Buffalo buddy
Fantastic. Thanks for Sharing!
WOW!!! THANK YOU HENRY COW! AND THANK YOU Giancarlo Buzzanca!!
Definitely a field recording.
H.C. était beauté, message, violence et rêve, mais surtout l'instrument puissant d'une volonté formidable. hENRY cOW disait "Je veux" quand beaucoup d’autres marmonnaient "je voudrais" Il a atteint son but sans se plier à la plus infime compromission, comme une charrue accrochée à une étoile. Une fois pour toutes, ces gens-là traçaient leur chemin et ne s'en écartaient jamais, refusant toute flagornerie qui fait de la musique populaire d'aujourd'hui une lasse prostituée.
This is the day I was born
great timeless machine
Greatest ending of any Cow piece ever.
All together haunting and lovely music ... This music is so far and away ahead of anything before or since. Btw that bass player looks like she's 17.
Incredibly complex composition with influences from all over the place. Deserves several listens. You don't get many bands like this anymore.
You didn't back in 76, either.
Always Be Listening.
I don't know why, but I never really got the Zappa influence - HC are simultaneously darker and more playful than Zappa, who I find a little arch and knowing at times. Both brilliant musically, but I much prefer Henry Cow. I managed to see them play a few times, but not this lineup (unfortunately). Dagmar is wonderfully intense, Tim looks like he is having a good time, Chris is just an artist on the drums. In fact the whole band is wonderful throughout this long and complex piece. RIP Lindsay
I agree, the Zappa connection is overblown. Leg End had a slight Mothers influence, but there's none at all from Unrest through Western Culture. Zappa was never involved in free improvisation. Zappa never did anything like Oslo from Concerts, or discs 4 & 5 of The Road, the wholly improvised quartet concert in Trondheim after Greaves left. After dissolving the original Mothers, Zappa never again had an ensemble that was more than the sum of its parts. In the Henry Cow File in Melody Maker in 1974 they listed their influences, favorite albums and musicians. You can hear them in their music, Messiaen, Bartok, Schoenberg, Janacek, Berio, Mingus, Coltrane, Wyatt, Soft Machine, etc. Greaves and Cutler do mention the Mothers, but Cutler adds in parentheses, '66-'67. I think in terms of the sheer scope of their music, no other rock band of the '70s is a match for them. The only one which comes close perhaps is the Zamla Mammaz Manna of Schlagern's Mystik/Für Aldre Nybegenarre with its folkloric ditties, long through composed piece and two sides of live improvisations. It was probably Henry Cow's influence, which prompted them to perform freely improvised concerts in the first place.
I love Frank Zappa, but hearing Henry Cow automatically makes me think of the Soft Machine. I'm surprised there's not more comments about it.
philippe cirse Still closer to Soft Machine than Zappa, though, you gotta admit. Absolutely nothing Zappa about this.
A Zappa influence? I've never heard anyone compare HC to FZ before! Zappa is as American as they come and Henry Cow are as European! Slight similarity in instrumentation and odd time signatures but there the comparison ends.
psychedelicpiper
In the early days of Henry Cow, Tim deliberately tried his best to sound as Mike Ratledge-like on the organ as possible. They had a bit more of a "Canterbury" sound back then, shame there isn't more of that material available.
this is fantastic
Me amrgaron la noche. No voy a dormir por seguir escuchando esto. gracias por subirlo
Wow! I never saw them being from the states. Finally...
Thanks to Giancarlo, that is GREAT footage, never seen them although I have all the albums from those years. I guess by now John Greaves split for National Health? Dagmar, Hodgkinson, Frith and Cutler are all at their best...
Crazy new and not to be heard in your local disco!!!
Extraordinary.
Brill! Thanks.
Revolutionary! As strong now -- maybe stronger -- than in 1976. The most magnificent coda ever. If only the political spirit invoked by this piece could be enacted in the world of 2019. Maybe it can be!
certainly hope not
You'd rather have fascism?
wow saw them 1975!
how could you not?
That ending....
ganda banger dassss
Dagmar"s voice and the rest of the band are right on! Amazing live recording. Brava! !wonder what year this was?
+Dean Brucato It's all in the notices ,,,, 25 August 1976 in Vevey, Switzerland
DAMN!!! Why isn't music this good today??
Thank God for recording. Fabulous. Almost sounds like Zappa slowed down and played backwards. I wonder what Frank would have thought of this.
Thank you!!
+enoboye It is.
yeah I agree when people bash on "today's music" its like you obviously haven't looked hard enough.
brandon willis .Jus keep searching, it's worth.
In the 70s and 60s you do not need to look hard. Simply if most of today's music is trash, today's music is trash, it does not change in anything that exist some exceptions.
I like most of Frank's music, but he hated everybody.
And they are back, under the name Henry Now so you can catch them live....
But not in Rome 😞
i love you dagmar! I wish i could create a time machine
Is it the chairman Mao suit?,its very Hillary Clinton.
these were the years ... of Mao suit democratization ... ;-)
Nothing wrong with a bit of Mao suit democratisation, Carla!
I hear a lot of Zappa in the melodies, but with a different twist.
Like it a lot.
awesome
MY GENIUS WIZARD,PERHAPS THE GREATEST OF ALL TWENTIETH CENTURY GENIUS'S,PAUL HINDEMITH, whose ludus tonalis,symphony In Bflat for concert band 1951, all piano,mathis der Mahler,i hear echo in this great music,most musician majors in college use,learn from his HORIZONS AND LIMITATIONS, UNTERWEIZEN UND TONSTATZ, other, check him out, MILE'S DAVIS AND CHARLIE BYRD' PARKERS VERY FAVORITE COMPOSER,COW, IS OF HIS POWERS,
All hail Vevey, and for Yes too :D
This is from a different edit than I'm used to, pretty sure. Many perspectives and shots seem unfamiliar, and I've watched this performance quite a bit. Thanks for posting!!
Van der graaf generator meets king crimson meets frank zappa on steroids
13:25 and on = goosebumps
Musical bedfellows with the great Frank Zappa.
The performance is f...king epic! Thanks for sharing this masterpiece. ps who is the girl on the bass ?
Georgina Born
This sounds like Frank Zappa!!
Im saying this as a girl, Georgie is so fine
She's beautiful
r.i.o. ( rock in opposition)
if this is Georgie Born, she was 21 at this time (born in 1955)
p.s. Georgie Born was in National Health too.
If this didn't make the proles rise up, am not sure what will...!
Hmmm... I shouldn't wonder. But why wasn't this record a massive hit?
Wondering if the drummer is the same cat in the Edgar Winter group?
For a few bars at a time, they could almost be Hatfield and the North...
- Wunderbar! Vielen Dank aus Schweden! Is it from the Big Box?
FRITH è un GENIO ma anche TIM HODGKINSON lo è , LIVING IN THE HEART OF THE BEAST è praticamente SUA e lo stesso dicasi per la Ancor più celebrale e complessa ERK GAH !!!!! Inutile dire che anche il resto della band è di straordinario livello !!!!! Dagmar krause grande vocalist femminile, Lindsay Cooper rip la fiatista sax tenore fagotto flauto traverso e oboe , Georgie Born basso elettrico e CHRIS CUTLER batteria e percussioni varie , durante l'esecuzione di LIVING IN THE HEART OF THE BEAST vi fu un inconveniente tecnico ,il violino di FRED FRITH non stava funzionando allora ad un certo punto DAGMAR improvvisò un vocalizzo in sostituzione dello strumento che però qualche minuto dopo riprese a funzionare e così la band poté portare a termine la suite !!!!!!
well contain of Dialectical Materialism in act of music !
Норм музончик, не хуже КиШ и Ромы Зверя.
//
Excellent band, great music.