The Lodge (band)
Encyclopedia
The Lodge were a 1980s British
/Welsh
/American
art-rock band based in New York
, but performing mainly in Europe
, which briefly united members of Henry Cow
, Slapp Happy
, Art Bears
and Golden Palominos (among others). It was centred primarily around Peter Blegvad
and John Greaves
, and drew strongly on their previous collaborations and projects (most notably the Kew. Rhone.
album).
to work in cartoons (most notably as a background scene artist for Peanuts ). Soon after this, he renewed his musical association with Henry Cow bass player John Greaves
, and the pair linked up with singer/pianist Lisa Herman. The result was the Kew. Rhone.
album, released on Island Records in 1977 and credited to John Greaves/Peter Blegvad/Lisa Herman. This was a dense and detailed song cycle with music by Greaves, lyrics by Blegvad and contributions by Woodstock jazz
musicians Carla Bley
, Andrew Cyrille
and Michael Mantler
. Described as “a brilliant amalgam of Slapp Happy's skewed pop sense, the collective improvisation approach of Henry Cow, the sly wit of the Canterbury prog rock scene, and (most fruitfully) Carla Bley's inimitably skewed progressive jazz”, Kew. Rhone. was very well received by critics and musicians alike. (Robert Wyatt
reportedly bought two copies in case he wore out his original copy with enthusiastic replaying.) However, it was not followed up by an immediate sequel, although the participants stayed in touch.
Returning to England in 1982, Blegvad cut the albums The Naked Shakespeare and Knights Like These, both of which featured ex-64 Spoons
guitarist Jakko Jakszyk
. Greaves co-wrote three songs on The Naked Shakespeare and Blegvad returned the favour by writing lyrics for eight of the songs on Greaves’ Accidents album (also released in 1982).
However, Blegvad’s attempts at a British solo career suffered due to record company politics and the effects of 1980s production styles. Pushed by producers into an over-complex and technological sound, he himself favoured the sparser and rawer sound of his small live band which included his brother Kristoffer on guitar and backing vocals. Disillusioned, Peter Blegvad returned to New York in 1986 and began collaborating with The Golden Palominos
, the art rock band led by ex-Pere Ubu
drummer Anton Fier
.
The songs for The Lodge had been written over a period of about seven years dating from Blegvad’s 1982 return to England. As with Kew. Rhone., Blegvad wrote all of the lyrics and Greaves the music. Initially just a duo of Blegvad (guitar, vocals) and Greaves (keyboards, bass, vocals), with Lisa Herman joining them as guest vocalist, The Lodge ultimately transformed into a New York-based band by adding Jakko Jakszyk (guitar, flute and vocals), Anton Fier (drums) and Kristoffer Blegvad (vocals).
(tenor saxophone), David Hofstra (double bass), percussionist Michael Blair, future smooth jazz
star Chris Botti
(trumpet), and backing singers Deborah Berg (Eye To Eye
) and Jane Edwards.
Influenced by the time of its recording (and perhaps by Jakszyk’s more direct approach as a performer), the music of The Lodge was much more compact and straightforward than that of Henry Cow or Kew. Rhone., with a stronger emphasis on rock guitar riffs. Some pieces, such as “The Little Match Girl” were effectively straight-ahead rock songs (albeit with typically Blegvad-ian lyrical twists and word-games). Others, such as “Not All Fathers” and “Old Man’s Mood”, showed elements of tone poetry mixed in with African and art-rock rhythms, piano balladry, chants and chamber chorales. The Lisa Herman showcase, “Swelling Valley”, was a romantic piano-and-solo-voice performance which had more in common with an Aaron Copland
American landscape piece than with the muscular art-rock songs elsewhere on the record.
The album’s most experimental aspect was in its approach to words. Several songs dealt with the topic of milk
, explored from a symbolic or ritualistic perspective and in a manner which Blegvad referred to as a pursuit of its “occult subtext”. The title track and the songs “Solitary” and “Milk” used cut-up texts sourced from writings about milk by various writers (including philosopher Gaston Bachelard
, dramatists Jacques Audiberti
and Antonin Artaud
), and classical scholar/mythologist Jane Ellen Harrison
) which were arranged into “what seemed to be a congruent order” and then edited into lyrics. Blegvad also employed three “word chords” (multiple different words spoken simultaneously) to close “Old Man’s Mood”. He described these as “meta-phonemes, in which a story is told vertically instead of horizontally.”
In 1988 the album line-up of The Lodge performed a concert at the Bataclan in Paris
minus Herman and Fier, with Gavin Harrison
taking over on drums and Lyndon Connah (64 Spoons
) as live keyboard player. A second concert was played at the ICA
, London
in 1989 (again minus Herman and Fier) with Steve Franklin (In Cahoots
) replacing Connah and Nic France (Nucleus
, Loose Tubes
) replacing Harrison.
, Dizrhythmia, Level 42
and 21st Century Schizoid Band
as well as pursuing a solo career (often accompanied by Gavin Harrison). Fier concentrated on the Golden Palominos, in which he was sometimes joined by Herman. Kristoffer Blegvad moved to Rome but continued to contribute to his brother’s recordings and live concerts.
In typical Henry Cow
/Rock in Opposition
fashion The Lodge’s participants worked together again in various combinations, but The Lodge itself was over. Due mostly to the band’s short life, the project has tended to be obscured by its members’ individual and collective projects both beforehand and afterwards. Enough interest in The Lodge remained to ensure that Smell of a Friend was reissued on the Voiceprint label in 1996.
Two songs from Smell of a Friend ("Swelling Valley" and "The Song") were later to reappear on John Greaves' 1996 album Songs, the former sung by Kristoffer Blegvad and S'Ange and the latter by Robert Wyatt (who also contributed a reinterpretation of two Kew. Rhone. songs - the title track and Gegenstand).
was finally performed live in its entirety at Les Abattoirs, Bourgoin-Jallieu in May 2008 (thirty-one years after its original release and nineteen years after the demise of The Lodge). The live band was John Greaves (piano, vocals), Peter Blegvad (vocals, computer), Lisa Herman (vocals), Jef Morin (guitar), David Lewis
(trumpet, flugelhorn), Daniel Yvinec (bass), Simon Goubert (drums) and Cecile Bohler (additional vocals) with live video mix by Eric Petrotto.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
/Welsh
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
/American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
art-rock band based in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, but performing mainly in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, which briefly united members of Henry Cow
Henry Cow
Henry Cow were an English avant-rock group, founded at Cambridge University in 1968 by multi-instrumentalists Fred Frith and Tim Hodgkinson. Henry Cow's personnel fluctuated over their decade together, but drummer Chris Cutler and bassoonist/oboist Lindsay Cooper were important long-term members...
, Slapp Happy
Slapp Happy
Slapp Happy was a German/English avant-pop group consisting of Anthony Moore , Peter Blegvad and Dagmar Krause . The band formed in Germany in 1972. The band members moved to England in 1974 where they merged with Henry Cow, but the merger ended soon afterwards and Slapp Happy split up. Slapp...
, Art Bears
Art Bears
Art Bears were an English avant-rock group formed during the disassembly of Henry Cow in 1978 by three of its members, Chris Cutler , Fred Frith and Dagmar Krause...
and Golden Palominos (among others). It was centred primarily around Peter Blegvad
Peter Blegvad
Peter Blegvad is an American musician, singer-songwriter, and cartoonist. He was a founding member of the avant-pop band Slapp Happy, which later merged briefly with Henry Cow, and has released many solo and collaborative albums...
and John Greaves
John Greaves (musician)
John Greaves is a British bass guitarist and composer, best known as a member of Henry Cow and his collaborative albums with Peter Blegvad...
, and drew strongly on their previous collaborations and projects (most notably the Kew. Rhone.
Kew. Rhone.
Kew. Rhone. is a concept album by British bass guitarist and composer John Greaves, and American singer-songwriter and guitarist Peter Blegvad. It is a song cycle composed by Greaves with lyrics by Blegvad, and was performed by Greaves and Blegvad with vocalist Lisa Herman and others...
album).
Roots (Henry Cow, Kew. Rhone. etc)
Following his ejection from Henry Cow in 1975, Blegvad had returned to New YorkNew York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
to work in cartoons (most notably as a background scene artist for Peanuts ). Soon after this, he renewed his musical association with Henry Cow bass player John Greaves
John Greaves (musician)
John Greaves is a British bass guitarist and composer, best known as a member of Henry Cow and his collaborative albums with Peter Blegvad...
, and the pair linked up with singer/pianist Lisa Herman. The result was the Kew. Rhone.
Kew. Rhone.
Kew. Rhone. is a concept album by British bass guitarist and composer John Greaves, and American singer-songwriter and guitarist Peter Blegvad. It is a song cycle composed by Greaves with lyrics by Blegvad, and was performed by Greaves and Blegvad with vocalist Lisa Herman and others...
album, released on Island Records in 1977 and credited to John Greaves/Peter Blegvad/Lisa Herman. This was a dense and detailed song cycle with music by Greaves, lyrics by Blegvad and contributions by Woodstock jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
musicians Carla Bley
Carla Bley
Carla Bley, née Borg, is an American jazz composer, pianist, organist and band leader. An important figure in the Free Jazz movement of the 1960s, she is perhaps best known for her jazz opera Escalator Over The Hill , as well as a book of compositions that have been performed by many other...
, Andrew Cyrille
Andrew Cyrille
Andrew Charles Cyrille is an avant-garde jazz drummer.Cyrille was born in Brooklyn, New York into a family with a mother from Haiti. He began studying science at St...
and Michael Mantler
Michael Mantler
Michael Mantler is a composer and trumpeter in new jazz and contemporary music.-Career: United States:Mantler was born in Vienna, Austria...
. Described as “a brilliant amalgam of Slapp Happy's skewed pop sense, the collective improvisation approach of Henry Cow, the sly wit of the Canterbury prog rock scene, and (most fruitfully) Carla Bley's inimitably skewed progressive jazz”, Kew. Rhone. was very well received by critics and musicians alike. (Robert Wyatt
Robert Wyatt
Robert Wyatt is an English musician, and founding member of the influential Canterbury scene band Soft Machine, with a long and distinguished solo career...
reportedly bought two copies in case he wore out his original copy with enthusiastic replaying.) However, it was not followed up by an immediate sequel, although the participants stayed in touch.
Returning to England in 1982, Blegvad cut the albums The Naked Shakespeare and Knights Like These, both of which featured ex-64 Spoons
64 Spoons
64 Spoons were a British rock/pop band active in the late 1970s and early 1980s, who utilised strong elements of progressive rock, jazz-fusion, punk energy and performance comedy...
guitarist Jakko Jakszyk
Jakko Jakszyk
Jakko M. Jakszyk is an English guitarist, singer-songwriter , multi-instrumentalist and producer...
. Greaves co-wrote three songs on The Naked Shakespeare and Blegvad returned the favour by writing lyrics for eight of the songs on Greaves’ Accidents album (also released in 1982).
However, Blegvad’s attempts at a British solo career suffered due to record company politics and the effects of 1980s production styles. Pushed by producers into an over-complex and technological sound, he himself favoured the sparser and rawer sound of his small live band which included his brother Kristoffer on guitar and backing vocals. Disillusioned, Peter Blegvad returned to New York in 1986 and began collaborating with The Golden Palominos
The Golden Palominos
The Golden Palominos was an American musical group headed by drummer and composer Anton Fier, first formed in 1981. Aside from Fier, the Palominos membership was wildly elastic, with only bassist Bill Laswell and guitarist Nicky Skopelitis appearing on every album.While the Palominos' records...
, the art rock band led by ex-Pere Ubu
Pere Ubu
Pere Ubu is an experimental rock music group from Cleveland, Ohio.Père Ubu may also refer to:* Ubu, the enigmatic central figure of a series of French plays by Alfred Jarry, including Ubu Roi, and subsequent plays Ubu Cocu and Ubu Enchaîné...
drummer Anton Fier
Anton Fier
Anton Fier, , is an American drummer, composer and bandleader. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio.Fier was an early member of The Lounge Lizards and The Feelies. He was in The Lodge , worked with Pere Ubu, was briefly in the Voidoids and founded The Golden Palominos...
.
Formation
By 1988, these various connections had eventually coalesced into The Lodge, a project which had explicitly been intended as a follow-up to Kew. Rhone. but which had taken a long time to emerge. Blegvad has reflected “We lacked discipline in those days, or something, I don't know... John and I retired to a Vermont farmhouse one hot summer with the idea of writing an album... and I think I wrote one line in two months!"The songs for The Lodge had been written over a period of about seven years dating from Blegvad’s 1982 return to England. As with Kew. Rhone., Blegvad wrote all of the lyrics and Greaves the music. Initially just a duo of Blegvad (guitar, vocals) and Greaves (keyboards, bass, vocals), with Lisa Herman joining them as guest vocalist, The Lodge ultimately transformed into a New York-based band by adding Jakko Jakszyk (guitar, flute and vocals), Anton Fier (drums) and Kristoffer Blegvad (vocals).
Smell of a Friend
The group’s only album - Smell of a Friend - was recorded in New York in 1988 (with overdubs added in Cambridge, UK). It was released by Island Records the same year. Kristoffer Blegvad handled most of the lead vocals, although those on the title track were split with Jakszyk. (Elsewhere, Greaves recited the words on "Old Man’s Mood", and Lisa Herman briefly joined the ensemble to contribute lead vocals and piano to "Swelling Valley" as well as backing vocals elsewhere on the album.) Additional musical backing was provided by Gary WindoGary Windo
Gary Windo was a jazz tenor saxophonist.He came from a musical family in England and by age six took up drums and accordion, then guitar at 12, and finally saxophone at 17. He lived in the United States in the 1960s, but returned to England in 1969...
(tenor saxophone), David Hofstra (double bass), percussionist Michael Blair, future smooth jazz
Smooth jazz
Smooth jazz is a genre of music that grew out of jazz fusion and is influenced by R&B, funk, rock, and pop music styles ....
star Chris Botti
Chris Botti
Christopher Stephen "Chris" Botti , is an American trumpeter and composer. In 2007, Botti was nominated for two Grammy Awards including Best Pop Instrumental Album. On December 4, 2009, he was nominated for three more Grammy Awards including Best Pop Instrumental Album and Best Long Form Music Video...
(trumpet), and backing singers Deborah Berg (Eye To Eye
Eye to Eye (band)
Eye to Eye are a duo formed by Seattle, American singer Deborah Berg and British pianist Julian Marshall.-History:They first met in San Diego, California in 1980 at a performance of the dance ensemble Mostly Women Moving, for whom Berg danced...
) and Jane Edwards.
Influenced by the time of its recording (and perhaps by Jakszyk’s more direct approach as a performer), the music of The Lodge was much more compact and straightforward than that of Henry Cow or Kew. Rhone., with a stronger emphasis on rock guitar riffs. Some pieces, such as “The Little Match Girl” were effectively straight-ahead rock songs (albeit with typically Blegvad-ian lyrical twists and word-games). Others, such as “Not All Fathers” and “Old Man’s Mood”, showed elements of tone poetry mixed in with African and art-rock rhythms, piano balladry, chants and chamber chorales. The Lisa Herman showcase, “Swelling Valley”, was a romantic piano-and-solo-voice performance which had more in common with an Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"...
American landscape piece than with the muscular art-rock songs elsewhere on the record.
The album’s most experimental aspect was in its approach to words. Several songs dealt with the topic of milk
Milk
Milk is a white liquid produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals before they are able to digest other types of food. Early-lactation milk contains colostrum, which carries the mother's antibodies to the baby and can reduce the risk of many...
, explored from a symbolic or ritualistic perspective and in a manner which Blegvad referred to as a pursuit of its “occult subtext”. The title track and the songs “Solitary” and “Milk” used cut-up texts sourced from writings about milk by various writers (including philosopher Gaston Bachelard
Gaston Bachelard
Gaston Bachelard was a French philosopher. He made contributions in the fields of poetics and the philosophy of science. To the latter he introduced the concepts of epistemological obstacle and epistemological break...
, dramatists Jacques Audiberti
Jacques Audiberti
Jacques Audiberti was a French playwright, poet and novelist and exponent of the Theatre of the Absurd.He was born in Antibes, France. He died in Neuilly-sur-Seine...
and Antonin Artaud
Antonin Artaud
Antoine Marie Joseph Artaud, more well-known as Antonin Artaud was a French playwright, poet, actor and theatre director...
), and classical scholar/mythologist Jane Ellen Harrison
Jane Ellen Harrison
Jane Ellen Harrison was a British classical scholar, linguist and feminist. Harrison is one of the founders, with Karl Kerenyi and Walter Burkert, of modern studies in Greek mythology. She applied 19th century archaeological discoveries to the interpretation of Greek religion in ways that have...
) which were arranged into “what seemed to be a congruent order” and then edited into lyrics. Blegvad also employed three “word chords” (multiple different words spoken simultaneously) to close “Old Man’s Mood”. He described these as “meta-phonemes, in which a story is told vertically instead of horizontally.”
Live performances
The Lodge’s initial live performances were in May 1987 as a duo/trio of Greaves and Peter Blegvad with Lisa Herman guesting on some songs. These concerts took place in small venues in Greenwich Village, New York – one of them as part of a series of “Pretentious Music” nights.In 1988 the album line-up of The Lodge performed a concert at the Bataclan in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
minus Herman and Fier, with Gavin Harrison
Gavin Harrison
Gavin Harrison is a British drummer and percussionist. He is best known for playing with the British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree which he joined in 2002. As of 2008, he also plays with the band King Crimson....
taking over on drums and Lyndon Connah (64 Spoons
64 Spoons
64 Spoons were a British rock/pop band active in the late 1970s and early 1980s, who utilised strong elements of progressive rock, jazz-fusion, punk energy and performance comedy...
) as live keyboard player. A second concert was played at the ICA
Institute of Contemporary Arts
The Institute of Contemporary Arts is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. It is located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in 1989 (again minus Herman and Fier) with Steve Franklin (In Cahoots
In Cahoots
In Cahoots is a Canterbury scene band led by guitarist Phil Miller, their main composer.The band was formed in November 1982 by Miller with Pip Pyle , Richard Sinclair and Elton Dean , as the Phil Miller Quartet. It was expanded to a quintet and given its definitive name when Peter Lemer joined...
) replacing Connah and Nic France (Nucleus
Nucleus (band)
Nucleus were a pioneering jazz-rock band from Britain who continued in different forms from 1969 to 1989. In their first year they won first prize at the Montreux Jazz Festival, released the album Elastic Rock, and performed both at the Newport Jazz Festival and the Village Gate jazz club.They were...
, Loose Tubes
Loose Tubes
Loose Tubes was a British jazz big band/orchestra active during the mid-to-late 1980s. Critically and popularly acclaimed, the band was considered to bethe focal point of a 1980s renaissance in British jazz...
) replacing Harrison.
The Lodge disbanded
Following the European concerts, the band – always loosely connected - drifted apart. Both Greaves and Blegvad resumed solo careers – in Blegvad’s case, far more happily than before (his next album, 1990’s King Strut and Other Stories, gained excellent reviews and he returned to a UK-based career). Jakszyk went on to work with Tom RobinsonTom Robinson
Tom Robinson is an English singer-songwriter, bassist and radio presenter, better known for the hits "Glad to Be Gay", "2-4-6-8 Motorway", and "Don't Take No for an Answer", with his Tom Robinson Band...
, Dizrhythmia, Level 42
Level 42
Level 42 are an English pop rock and jazz-funk band who had a number of worldwide and UK hits during the 1980s and 1990s.The band gained fame for their high-calibre musicianship—in particular that of Mark King, whose percussive slap-bass guitar technique provided the driving groove of many of the...
and 21st Century Schizoid Band
21st Century Schizoid Band
21st Century Schizoid Band are a King Crimson alumnus group formed in 2002.The name derives from the famous song "21st Century Schizoid Man" from the first King Crimson album, In the Court of the Crimson King...
as well as pursuing a solo career (often accompanied by Gavin Harrison). Fier concentrated on the Golden Palominos, in which he was sometimes joined by Herman. Kristoffer Blegvad moved to Rome but continued to contribute to his brother’s recordings and live concerts.
In typical Henry Cow
Henry Cow
Henry Cow were an English avant-rock group, founded at Cambridge University in 1968 by multi-instrumentalists Fred Frith and Tim Hodgkinson. Henry Cow's personnel fluctuated over their decade together, but drummer Chris Cutler and bassoonist/oboist Lindsay Cooper were important long-term members...
/Rock in Opposition
Rock in Opposition
Rock in Opposition or RIO was a movement representing a collective of progressive bands in the late 1970s united in their opposition to the music industry that refused to recognise their music...
fashion The Lodge’s participants worked together again in various combinations, but The Lodge itself was over. Due mostly to the band’s short life, the project has tended to be obscured by its members’ individual and collective projects both beforehand and afterwards. Enough interest in The Lodge remained to ensure that Smell of a Friend was reissued on the Voiceprint label in 1996.
Two songs from Smell of a Friend ("Swelling Valley" and "The Song") were later to reappear on John Greaves' 1996 album Songs, the former sung by Kristoffer Blegvad and S'Ange and the latter by Robert Wyatt (who also contributed a reinterpretation of two Kew. Rhone. songs - the title track and Gegenstand).
Kew. Rhone. live, 2008
As a long-delayed postscript, Kew. Rhone.Kew. Rhone.
Kew. Rhone. is a concept album by British bass guitarist and composer John Greaves, and American singer-songwriter and guitarist Peter Blegvad. It is a song cycle composed by Greaves with lyrics by Blegvad, and was performed by Greaves and Blegvad with vocalist Lisa Herman and others...
was finally performed live in its entirety at Les Abattoirs, Bourgoin-Jallieu in May 2008 (thirty-one years after its original release and nineteen years after the demise of The Lodge). The live band was John Greaves (piano, vocals), Peter Blegvad (vocals, computer), Lisa Herman (vocals), Jef Morin (guitar), David Lewis
David Lewis
-Academics:*David Lewis , civil lawyer and first Principal of Jesus College, Oxford*David Lewis , English author and psychologist*David C...
(trumpet, flugelhorn), Daniel Yvinec (bass), Simon Goubert (drums) and Cecile Bohler (additional vocals) with live video mix by Eric Petrotto.
Discography
- Smell of a Friend (Antilles/New Directions (Island), 1988 – reissued Resurgence (Voiceprint), 1996)
External links
- Page for The Lodge at Progarchives.com
- New York times review of an early Lodge gig
- Video clip of the 2008 Kew. Rhone. concert, including excerpts from "Seven Scenes from a Painting...", "Kew.Rhône" and "Apricot".