Robert Wyatt: Classic or Dud?

I know his reputation more than his music -- but based on his two songs with Ultramarine, he's got a definite something.

And the brilliant tracks include - yes - some political ones. "Alliance" for instance is reductionist and I don't agree with it (or more to the point I don't care about the actual political situation being described) BUT as a portrait of political disillusionment and betrayal it's superb and like a lot of great political songs it's a disappointed love song too - "It's hard to talk to enemies / And we are enemies / What we had in common / Makes it even worse".

Also m'lud take into account: "At Last I Am Free", "Shipbuilding", "Born Again Cretin", "Arauco", "Kingdom" and a large chunk of "Shleep" too.

I would hardly rank him in the same league as Simon and Garfunkel; I haven't heard anything on Soft Machine 3 or greater, but it can't be as staggeringly annoying as "Cecilia". Uff da.

see also "dondestan revisited"

shleep is a beautiful record and the first I discovered; both rock bottom and ruth hit my cd player regularly. I liked Old Rottenhat as well, which means I like pretty much everything I've heard by him, which I suppose means I'm a fan and therefore think: classic.

'old rottenhat' close behind. prefer the original mix of 'dondestan' over the polished 'revisited' one by ten miles.

The recent live Matching Mole discs on Cuneiform are pretty shit-hot too.

i like everything he's done, even "a short break" and "the end of an ear" (which i listen to with some difficulty). his voice is indeed the unifying factor and it is so inviting, his wordless vocalizing in particular. apparently he can *sing* entire coltrane solos from memory.

i can't quite get into some of the matching mole stuff but "o caroline" is one of the greatest things he's done. manages to be self-effacing and utterly serious at once.

What a fucking wonderful country, right?

What a disgusting legacy. FUCK the United States of America.

jara's songs are lovely b/c they take the road not (often) taken w/r/t political songs, where a story about people living their daily lives, things like love and sex and children and school and so on, connect to politics in these suggestive but nonetheless clear ways. as wonderful as wyatt's reading of "te recuerdo amanda" is, jara's is heartbreaking. i shouldn't even bother to attempt to apply any superlatives to it.

I'm like, at a loss for words whenever discourse centers on the ridiculousness of this place.

Anyway, yes Amateurist you are your normal smart, sensible self. Still, frankly, I can't dismiss people who have politics opposite to my own. Gosh, I'd like to think we all do.

Darnit, this world is fucked, but for Christ's sake some of us pine for the alternatives...

Wyatt rules.

this is a nice thread. there was a doc on robert wyatt abt a couple of months back on BBC4 and he came across as a wonderful person. I've heard some soft machine and i sort of struggle with it for some reason but I like his voice so i should check solo stuff.

and soft machine doesn't even compare to his solo stuff. it's slow, moody, post-prog political love songs. and his keyboard tones are so warm and thick.

i keep passing up this one single of his. it's him and a bunch of south african musicians. anyone know anything about it?

He was closely identified with the Popular Unity movement of Salvador Allende. After Pinochet's coup which toppled Allende, Jara was arrested, tortured, and later killed (along with 1000s of other Chileans).

His stuff probably shouldn't be too hard to find in any Hispanic music store (I'm not sure where you're at, but there's a million such places in Chicago), and on eBay you can sometimes find the remastered CDs from his catalog that came out in Chile last year.

Anyway we're talking about him because Wyatt recorded one of his most famous (and beautiful) songs, "Te Recuerdo Amanda" ("I remember Amanada").

Anyway, Jason - yeah I believe I paid something like $30 or $35 for EPs as well. Too much, but as I say I had to have it (maybe it isn't too much, i dunno; I don't know what it went for new, but it seemed like a lot to me). It's just a really beautiful package, a nice thing to have on the shelf, you know? Yeah that Animals soundtrack is unsettling, and I've never even seen the film.

I think it would give me nightmares.

Also he was on one of the best singles ever, Vivien Goldmans Launderette / private armies record

Since when was Robert Wyatt ever a "Stalinist"? What, because he sang "Stalin Wasn't Stallin'"? Do some research before accusing people of being Stalinists.

Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, what exactly does that mean? Wyatt was a member of the British Communist Party, he was a Marxist, he was not a Stalinist.

"Robert Wyatt! I got on well with Robert. The greatest problem between us was a political one. I had been in the Young Communist League -- when I was a schoolboy, I'd established a branch or two. And I was the one that didn't get beaten up on the way to our first meeting. I'd worked with the Communist Party of Great Britain's headquarters. I kind of knew what the party was like. One of the things that appealed to me about Marxism was its anti-utopian foundation -- it was infinitely preferable to wishing that the world was a nicer place, or that Robin Hood was elected sheriff. But through reading a lot of theory and working for the party, I thought, 'This ain't for me,' whereas Robert was getting more into it. I really liked him, but that was the principal reason for drifting apart: he was getting more Stalinist and I wasn't."

:(

:(

that's really too bad. was just listening to his latest one (Comicopera) the other day and just marveling at the guy's career, the way he just popped in and out at will and delivered music that sounded completely out of time and place but were all very much Robert Wyatt. he seems like such a sweet guy. I hope he's not suffering.

for the overwhelming majority of his life, he has sustained an unquestionably heroic existence, in terms of what he has advocated and in how he has persisted in his daily life and his creative output. When he does go, hopefully there will be some glimmer in his consciousness beforehand that his life had been well lived.

A friend of mine booked a summer outdoor music series in NYC in the 2000s: one time he told me that he had talked to robert and had nearly convinced him to travel to NYC and DO A FUCKING SHOW. He claimed that Robert was set to do it but that Alfie's mom was herself near death and he didn't want to commit to something like that in Alfie's time of need. I found this very hard to fathom, as I don't believe, other than ToTP in 1975 (which is mimed, right?) that he ever played live after the accident; or did he appear at one of the meltdown festivals? And I don't think he ever traveled outside of Western Europe; I think he and Alfie lived in Spain in the late 80/90s. It was really really hard for me to believe that he would agree to come to america and play live for some fairly low profile, but also not at all DIY, not at all left wing politics affiliated summer music series. I would have been a pig in shit if he did. tho.

robert played a few concerts in the early days after the accident... only one under his own name, at drury lane in 1974, but a couple as a major performer - hatfield and the north at the roundhouse in 1974 and a couple of shows with henry cow in 1975. he's also done a few in-studio performances for television broadcast under his own name. other than that mostly just guest performances - with david gilmour at "meltdown", with paul weller a couple years back. sad to hear of robert's progressive memory loss, glad that he's being cared for. i didn't know him at all, but what i know of him, of... not just his music, but his _personality_, the stories other people have told of him, they've been really influential on me. he seems like an admirable person. as much as admiring someone i don't know can... lead to disappointment, i do think it's fair to say that i admire him.

He also came on for a couple of numbers, singing and playing pocket trumpet, with Charlie Haden, Carla Bley and a version of the Liberation Music Orchestra at Ornette Coleman's Meltdown Festival in London, in 2011. Even then his voice was audibly diminished, but still poignant and distinctive. Might have been his last live appearance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5OJN5bwLRM

Thanks, not seen that clip before

i get a little emotional thinking about him, he really touches me a in a way few musicians do.

but there was something so special and inspiring about how he went from being just this MONSTER drummer, a real physical force on that instrument and then have all that taken away from him, and then transformed himself as an artist to make music that made that sense of physical frailty such a core and touching part of what it was

i don't know if i said that very well but i hope you know what i mean

totally, thank you

Friend of mine managed to end up backstage at a Patti Smith concert (in the Southbank probably?) Verlaine might have been there and Gillespie almost certainly was and various other luminaries. He said everyone there were complete arseholes and then he noticed a guy sitting (he thought) in a corner, pint of beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other, covered in ash. He went over to talk to him and it was Robert Wyatt and he was like, "What do you make of all this?" and he was basically the only genuine person in the room.

amazing posts, ums and veronica moser

oh! I also interviewed him! having talked with him and Scott Walker, that shit was major for me.

and then transformed himself as an artist to make music that made that sense of physical frailty such a core and touching part of what it was

I've always thought of Rock Bottom as one of the very few albums that sounds exactly the way the artist imagined it in their head, idk how to describe this exactly but it's not something I get from a whole lot of albums

very sad news. It's a horrible way to go - it takes everything away from a person.

He did a gig in Brighton in support of Jeremy Corbyn in 2016, w/Weller and Danny Thompson. It was widely reported in advance, but I've never read a review. There are bits on Youtube.

Ugh!

His son's post puts the best light on it, reassuring himself and others w/o overselling---I know from experience w relatives that progressive memory loss does have its stages, and hopefully he can still listen to his own music, or from his collection (response to music can often be among the last things to go, if it goes at all). Good that he still recognizes friends and family, although as long as he enjoys them, doesn't matter if he's got their names etc. Good son, good that he's got one, didn't know that. Does he have other kids?

I think he had his son very young. He's pictured on the gatefold of Gong's "Camembert Electrique"!

So sorry to hear this.

And glad for any chance to post my favorite recording of all time again, which I mention above some years ago, regarding his performing....1975 with Henry Cow in their Slapp Happy days, on the CD/lp it's combined with Gloria Gloom, blending into this, Wyatt joining the band(s) for a cover of his Little Red Riding Hood Hits the Road, giving us Robert in harmony with Dagmar Krause.

Just glorious stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48ikl7FCuYo

the last two minutes of that, chills every time.

Not live but this 80s single gives us Wyatt and Tracy Thorn and Claudia Figueroa.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHCSMT1Q1OY

omg thanx Dan! Keep 'em coming people.

and then transformed himself as an artist to make music that made that sense of physical frailty such a core and touching part of what it was

sad news ... was watching this recently, really terrific.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyrK3hA9318

opened this thread with a little trepidation. God bless him. Still the greatest living englishman

He said he was retiring to take care of Alfie, acknowledging her care of him for so long. I wonder how she's doing, is she even still alive?

oh yes: https://twitter.com/duduschka

sad news ... was watching this recently, really terrific.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyrK3hA9318

― tylerw, Wednesday, February 7, 2024 1:07 PM (ten minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

he's wearing the album cover from Ryuichi Sakamoto's Esperanto ten years before it was even released. talk about being ahead of your time.

jammed this slammer at a dj night last week. it sounds so good really loud.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bGv13da2ik

This performance has always been one of my favorites, French TV from 1967. Wish there were more of it.

https://my.mail.ru/mail/elfn/video/3039/3185.html

Russian site but it seems OK. There's a shorter version on youtube (and this one was on yt but I can't find it now).

Blessings to him.

huh, i thought there was more of that dim dam dom '67 video but i don't seem to have any

i did turn up this that seems to be from the same session.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP8zmGLYbmI

gotta be more out there, the french tv archives kept everything

f'rinstance, here's one i haven't seen anywhere before (disregard the title, it's a bit of "esther's nose job"!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5SpwQOKd6M

(re: "Little Red Riding HOod Hit The Road" w/Henry Cow):

the last two minutes of that, chills every time.

― dan selzer

those whole concerts... there are tapes, they're fantastic. the 36 minute "beautiful as the moon-gloria gloom-ruins" medley, the entirety of "side richard" from "ruth is stranger than richard", "living in the heart of the beast"... i don't think there are full professional recordings, but there is a recording from radio of "living in the heart of the beast" from one of the paris gigs. wyatt and krause singing together on the rousing outro, so good!

one of the things i do a lot of, is i listen to and read about other people to understand myself better, and i've done this a lot with wyatt's stuff, for good or for ill.

it's interesting, because i used to read people talking about robert wyatt having a sad voice... "the saddest voice in the world", i think ryuichi sakamoto once described it... and it's one of those things that confused me a lot, i didn't understand why people described his voice as "sad". maybe it's not! i've grown to think of it that way. i think of him as being incredibly kind, incredibly compassionate, and also having this deep, kind of profound sadness about him.

i wrote a piece a year or so back about wyatt and his departure from soft machine, and i found this quote from him from "The Best of NME 1970-1974", published in 2018:

"I was very, very unhappy. I mean, it had to happen, but I had taken the Soft Machine for granted as a little family. It had formed from friendships that dated back to infancy, from 10 or 11 years old. You can fall out with your family, but you can't divorce them. So, when Soft Machine ejected me from that family, I had the most enormous collapse in self-confidence from which I've never really recovered, to be honest. And I always think they were right, looking back on it, to throw me out. I was too drunk, they were more grown up, more sophisticated, everything. But nevertheless, it felt like being exiled from a country, to somewhere where nobody spoke your language. I was very disorientated, and nervous, and anxious."

but like dow says it's something that always seems to have been in his voice, that sadness

and then of course the accident, and he hasn't been able to take care of himself for the past fifty years, and i guess, when one is disabled and one can't take care of oneself, it's easy to feel... to not have a lot of self-confidence.

i've heard so much of his stuff but the things of his that i relate most strongly to are "shleep", that whole album with songs like "was a friend", about the whole soft machine thing, half-smiling, willing hands, and then "september the ninth" with alfie's beautiful poem:

Woman wishing for wings,
(Too large a lump to pass for bird)

i've loved that song for decades and now that song hits me in ways that weren't intended when benge wrote the words. it sounded like... the record came out when i was 21, and it sounded to me "mature" but not _boring_, at an age where "mature" and "boring" mostly seemed like synonyms. the kind of maturity i hoped i would grow into. i don't know if i've grown into maturity, but that album is one that... my understanding of it has certainly deepened as i've grown older. there aren't a lot of records that, i guess, that can ever mean as much to me as that record, given the time i've spent with it.

the other thing of his that really hits me hard is his performance of john greaves' "the song". it has that old-style diction that uses "man" to mean "woman", but that bit:

"man is the union of divinity and dust (of inanity and lust)"

it's not his words, but his voice. the way "sometimes i feel very sad" aren't brian wilson's words, but they're his voice. it's the voice that gives those words meaning, to me.

Thanks, I relate to all of that, although your experience goes deeper--wish I'd been listening to him at 21!
As for live, yall keep an eye on Cunieform's Bandcamp posts, and maybe elsewhere on BC, as well as YouTube, and the skies.

That Dim Dam Dom clip you posted is the second half of the Russian one I posted. There are clearly edits in the clips, maybe they were so wild even the French didn't think they were worth keeping.

The Daevid Allen clip upthread suggests that would not have been a concern of French TV in the 60s.

i love schleep for the funny mental explorations and the love songs. i've been a little obsessed with 'i'm a believer.' i put on schleep once at a bookstore i worked at in an old west tourist town and the owner hated it.

listening to Comicopera, now surely his last solo album...what a beautiful album to cap his career.

Comicopera was my favorite album of 2007; it remains so.

The Daevid Allen clip upthread suggests that would not have been a concern of French TV in the 60s.

― The British Boy of Film Classification (Tom D.)

i'd honestly like to know more about french pop music television in the late 1960s... when i look at clips there are names of all these different shows, "Dim Dam Dom, "Tous En Scene", and then in the 70s you have "RockEnStock" and "Pop 2" and later "Melody" with Genesis and King Crimson... and then late in the decade the main show is "Chorus". all these shows and I can't keep track of them all. They showed a _lot_ of pop music, it seems like, on a _lot_ of different shows. I was looking up Soft Machine clips the other day and somebody mentioned that "Pop 2" was started by someone who'd run one of the earlier shows, but that show was cancelled for political reasons. And in the Anglosphere you just get to see the clips, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, nobody says anything about the shows themselves, their history, what they were _like_... anyway INA preserves them all and has put a lot of them online. Often paywalled but it doesn't stop it from getting out. And in fact the video stuff is far more widely accessible than the French radio stuff. There are lots of French radio broadcasts that are just unknown and unheard in good quality. And yeah, INA does seem to have kept everything, they seem to have a _very_ good archival policy. You can see not just the broadcast sections but unbroadcast rehearsal outtakes, in many cases. Just like in Germany, the Beat Club show would broadcast maybe four minutes of a Dead '72 show but the whole set is on audio, at least, and often the whole set is on video. The archival policy is very, very different to that in the UK, which barely showed anything and immediately wiped it all.

The other thing that I am aware of personally is June of 1968. Which seems to have been a significant event, and I don't know how that affected the music TV shows, but God, it must have, right?

this one will never not slay me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Huwy0Vq5-Ak

Thanks, I relate to all of that, although your experience goes deeper--wish I'd been listening to him at 21!

― dow

ahhh, well, there was a lot i missed out on by spending my late teens and early 20s focused entirely on "classic rock" and "prog rock", but it's good to know i didn't miss everything. wyatt wasn't really "prog rock" or "classic rock", but he was adjacent enough that i heard him relatively early on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEEX3uRJyo4

I don't think Cuckooland is one of his most loved albums, but I love it. Forest is a powerful Romani holocaust song and has really beautiful lyrics by Alfreda. It makes me well up every time.

The other thing that I am aware of personally is June of 1968. Which seems to have been a significant event, and I don't know how that affected the music TV shows, but God, it must have, right?

You mean May? Yes, the French are good at archiving stuff (cf. the BBC).

Yes, Paris in May, Moon in June

l

I don't think Cuckooland is one of his most loved albums, but I love it. Forest is a powerful Romani holocaust song and has really beautiful lyrics by Alfreda. It makes me well up every time.

Thanks, I relate to all of that, although your experience goes deeper--wish I'd been listening to him at 21!
― dow

It doesn't seem like this has been posted before, but I loved it. One hour doc from 1998, Italian made.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z5zy6MaFtI

missed this. heartbreaking

Friend of mine managed to end up backstage at a Patti Smith concert (in the Southbank probably?) Verlaine might have been there and Gillespie almost certainly was and various other luminaries. He said everyone there were complete arseholes and then he noticed a guy sitting (he thought) in a corner, pint of beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other, covered in ash. He went over to talk to him and it was Robert Wyatt and he was like, "What do you make of all this?" and he was basically the only genuine person in the room.

^exactly as you would expect

Robert Wyatt is the best <3
Wish him all the love

this sux :(