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Newsletter 1
Spring '97
- Ex + Bennink
- Tony Buck
- Roof/Red Note
- Kletka Red
- Terrie + Andy
- Sok's book
- Han Buhrs
- Folk project
And 1996 was supposed to be The Ex's sabbatical year! That didn't
quite happen and meanwhile 1997 is full speed on! To bring a little clarity
to this mishmash of activities, here's the first of The Ex's newsletters
which we hope to write every half year.
1995 ended with a Bang. First we released the "songs" CD "Mudbird
Shivers" including vocals by Han Buhrs, followed by the instrumental
double CD "Instant". 32 improvised pieces, with guests such as
Han Bennink, Ab Baars, Tristan Honsiger, Wolter Wierbos and Michael Vatcher.
The year ended with an Ex party in Paradiso, "Plezante Aangelegenheid".
In a full house we had an evening full of surprises: a reunion of the legendary
Stretcheads from Glasgow, Han Bennink with snare and wooden shoes, Tony
Buck with drums and samples, dance with Katie Duck and Eileen Standley,
a blues duet with Han Buhrs and Dolf "Koeienverhuur" and a blistering
Ex gig accompanied by Tony Buck, Michael Vatcher (so 3 drummers!) and Wolter
Wierbos.
Then Terrie and Emma went to Africa in an old Land Rover. Down to Cape of
Good Hope along the West side and back up along the East: sand, mud, pygmies,
Masaii, rotten bridges, roasted leopard, 21 Mahmoud Ahmed tapes, and much
more.
Meanwhile the rest of The Ex couldn't sit still. Involvements in bands and
projects such as Roof, Kletka Red and Magpie developed and Jos began writing
three books at once and breaking his head over new lyrics. As The Ex, apart
from playing one concert at the Melkweg, Amsterdam, during which all the
members of Osdorp Posse joined us on stage for a few songs ,we practised
a lot and organised a little tour in Germany, Austria and Czech. ( Kat 6
months pregnant!) Exactly one year from the day he left, Terrie reappeared
in an Austrian ski resort, St. Johann in Tirol, the last gig of the tour,
Joining straight back in!
The Ex and Han Bennink
At the moment we rehearse with strings and vocal chords only...
Kat (and Ollie of course) are about to bring another little whippersnapper
on to this planet (latest news... it's a wee girl) and so Kat will have
a rest period till after the summer. In the meantime we have invited Han
Bennink to join us this spring for some concerts in the Netherlands, Belgium
and France. We first heard about Han in our early punk days via Wim, who
was the drummer with the Rondos at the time and who now plays with De Kift.
He described Han as this crazy drummer who tried to saw the stage in half
at the Doelen, a kind of semi-posh club in Rotterdam. Luc however was years
ahead of us and was frequenting Han Bennink gigs with his pals at the age
of sixteen, while still going to school. In the last 10 years or so we've
seen Han play loads of times in various formations and he has been a big
source of inspiration to us during this time. It was so great to discover
a musician who could manage to retain such an energy and enthusiasm for
so long (35 years or more) and be as fresh and inventive as someone who
had just begun.
This isn't the first time we've played with Han however... He was invited
to play on the "Instant" double-CD and we played two fantastic
gigs with him, one along with Ab Baars and Wolter Wierbos at the Bimhuis
in 1991 resulting in the release of the 6.4 single and "The Ex &
Guests" video and later at the October Meeting in 1992, also at the
Bimhuis.
Tony Buck
Another "live" project we will involve ourselves with
this year is a four piece improvising outfit, consisting of Australian drummer
Tony Buck, Terrie, Andy and Luc. We first played with Tony when he joined
Terrie and Andy's duet at the Doornroosje in Nijmegen, supporting Fugazi
two years ago. We didn't know what hit us and it went so well that we asked
him to join us later for a tour with The Ex with Michael Vatcher and Ab
Baars. The four piece will do a mostly improvised set around Holland and
Belgium in April.
Roof and Red Note
Roof is the meeting place of vocalist Phil Minton, cellist Tom
Cora, percussionist Michael Vatcher and bassist Luc Ex and was formed out
of a mutual enthusiasium for various prior collaborations. In the case of
Phil and Tom in the form of the Hendrix Project . Tom and Luc worked together
for five years in "The Ex and Tom Cora" producing two CDs and
playing over a hundred concerts. Luc and Michael have also worked together
in Ex side projects. Their first CD "The Untraceable Cigar" is
released on Red Note, a label created and managed by Luc and one of his
Konkurrent workmates Ab. Red Note so far has produced six releases by bands
including Mosquito, Bongo Fury, Astro Peril, The Spaceheads, and most recently
sample manipulator Bob Ostertag.
Kletka Red
Kletka Red is a project originally conceived by Leonid Soybelman,
singer and guitarist from Estonian band Ne Zhdali. The band also includes
Andy from The Ex, Tony Buck on drums and Joe Williamson on double bass.
The music is a kind of jerky fractured hybrid of improvised noise and beautiful
traditional Klezmer tunes with Leonid singing in Russian, Yiddish and his
own invented language. They released a CD album in October '96 called "Hijacking",
on John Zorn's Tzadik label.
Dance
In the last year or two The Ex has been invited to work in collaboration
with dance groups. Firstly with Danswerkplaats on a project called "Its
all too beautiful". More recently Magpie, an improvisation dance/music
group steered by dancer Katie Duck and drummer Michael Vatcher invited members
of the Ex to join them for several performances including a three, one and
a half hour set extravaganza at the Frascati, Amsterdam, along with 13 dancers
and and some other guest musicians, including Michael Vatcher, Misha Mengelberg,
Paul Lovens and Michael Moore. A possible tour with Magpie is planned in
Switzerland later this year.
Re-releases
We are working on the reissue of the "1936 - Spanish Revolution".
At the time (1986) a double single with a 144 page book with photos of the
Anarchist Revolution, from CNT archives. It will be the same book in CD
format with two little 3 inch CD's. It will also include a translation of
the text into Spanish which was not included in the original version. It
may take a while to come out. After that there are plans for a singles compilation
plus book and in between probably the re-release of both "Hands Up!
You're Free" and "Dead Fish".
Terrie and Andy
Another Ex side project that grew from our enthusiasm for improvised
music was a guitar duet with Terrie and Andy which began in early 1995 and
will continue hopefully till we're at least 87 years old. The gigs so far
have been short energetic 15 to 30 minute long performances of completely
improvised music sometimes with a third invited guest to throw the whole
into even greater chaos. We plan more in the future perhaps even with the
possibility of including backing tapes with samples and rhythms.
A selection of these gigs from '95 was filmed by Isabelle Vigier (Unbend
Films) and later edited and compiled onto a 45 minute video called "Sounds
Of Bells".
Dub project
We call it "DUb", but actually as yet we don't know
what kind of music will emerge from this adventure. It will involve the
use of samples and rhythms along with played instruments and whatever other
things we find. Colin, The Ex's sound man, is rapidly finding his way around
all this machinery and along with Luc and Andy will try and build up some
big "monster" sounds somewhere in the distant future, hopefully
before samplers become old fashioned. Keep your ears in waiting!
Sok's book out soon
End of May vocalist G.W. Sok will have his first collection of
writings published, called "Ex-rated". The 112 page book, illustrated
by Sok himself, will include seventy of his finest lyrics written for the
band during the last sixteen years of their existence. Most of them have
already been set to music as Ex releases, some have never appeared in print
before. Critics have described his words as "capably articulate",
"scathingly sarcastic and literate", "words of anger, confusion
and hope", "both trivial and essential get the razorblade edge
of the Ex tongue".
At the same time, IJsbrand Koudvuur (Sok's real name, i.e. occasionally)
will be releasing his first book as well. "Verkorte halen" is
written in Dutch and contains forty (very!) short stories. None of which
have ever been released before. Both books will be distributed by Uitgeverij
Ravijn.
Han Buhrs
Han recently decided to stop working full time with The Ex, and
when you see his agenda for '97 you can see why! This year he will continue
to work with both his bands Diftong and The Schismatics. He will also work
at various moments during the year with Dull Schicksal, Jacques Palinckx,
The Pata Orchestra, Katharina Bown and a trio with Wilbert De Joode and
Jan Klare. He also plans a big band project called Schismatics Nutnonet
including Ab Baars, Ann La Berge and Oren Marshall. During all this time
he will continue his work as composer, father, and finishing a "not
so solo" solo CD as well as working as a house carpenter. We will definitely
work again with Han in the near future.
Folk project
Over most of this year we will be regularly working on a project
based around the idea of choosing a collection of world wide traditional
folk tunes/songs, and creating our own versions of them. Our choices will
primarily depend on what we find the most beautiful and the most appropriate
for The Ex. We will take songs from lands as far apart as Italy, Kenya,
Cambodia, Hungary, Afghanistan, Ethiopia and Kurdistan. The idea comes partly
from the success of our past efforts to rework old traditional songs such
as the Hungarian tune "Hidegen Fújnak A Szelek" and a song
with Kurdish singer and saz player Brader Mûsîkî, called
"Milîtan". The project is still in its early stages i.e.
making a first selection, listening to and becoming more familiar with the
songs and to keep Kat busy while mothering, translating the words for her
and Jos so they can practice singing these tunes. We'll keep you updated.
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