| |
NEWS
/Aug. 2012
You can find the latest news on the recent activities in music and literature
by PETE PAVLI, one of the
most important collaborators of Mr. Calvert. You can read the news in
the collab-o-relations
section.
NEWS;
July/Aug. 2011
The Pentameters Theatre, London presents:
"Mirror Mirror" - Nostalgia for
the Future
by Robert Calvert
From 19th July-14th August 2011 the Pentameters Theatre Londen will present
this - we believe newly discovered - stageplay by R. Calvert.
Read the official press
release.
New Entry; July 2007
the world ON
Calvert section features a new entry - quite a novelty and
certainly dear to me... - a few months ago I did an e-mail-interview with
Robert Calvert's youngest son NICHOLAS
CALVERT - you'll certainly learn a few new things about
his father here, coming from a pretty private and
unusual perspective - a(nother) must read.
New
Entries; April 2006
some updates have been added:
the world ON
Calvert section features a VERY interesting new entry by
former Sonic Assassins and Hawkwind
keyboarder PAUL HAYLES.
Well written, including some funny, interesting and unknown stories
from the days of 1978 - a must read.
after
the new production of "The Stars That
Play With Laughing Sam’s Dice" at the Pentameters
Theatre in London, I've added a collection of reviews - one especially
written for this site by Jon Jarrett (thanks!) - you'll find the reviews
annexed to the Calvert-works-page(s)
or you can click HERE
I've
finally... added the real-audio soundfile
of a brand-new cover version of Calvert's song Working
Down a Diamond Mine - recorded by
Spaceship Eyes / Don Falcone - it's another *world premiere*!
- you can find / hear it in the collab-o-relations
section - scroll-down the menu to Don Falcone.
NEWS;
18. Aug. 2005
The Pentameters Theatre, London presents:
"The Stars That Play With Laughing
Sam’s Dice"
by Robert Calvert
Pentameters
presents the first production in 20 years of this fascinating play,
about a little-known and formative episode in the early life of Jimi
Hendrix, and the first production of the play since the death
of the author in 1988.
The play was written in 1975/76 and was first produced by Leonie Scott-Matthews
at Pentametres Theatre in 1976.
More infos HERE
NEWS on the re-launch of this site:
Many of you may know, that the spirit
of the p/age has been offline for quite a while. I took
it from the web as it looked and felt, well, antique... - and that certainly
isn't at all what a/the spirit of the p/age, a presentation of the work
of Mr. Calvert should be...
When I got the offer from Jerry Kranitz
to host the site on his server, I thought I'd make one last update-effort,
imagining it'll take a few weeks... eventually it took almost a year...
- first off: to unscramble the ma/ess of data I had accumulated (as
it always is, when you do your first website...) - after that I simply
had to integrate the new material, that had piled up over the last years,
for the simple reason that it's too good to rot in my filing-cabinets...
in short: this monster of a site kept growing and growing.....
In general I've tried to focus these updates on the not-so-well-known
works of Calvert - so, you won't find loads of new stuff on Capt. Lockheed
etc. This is already well-documented, also on other sites - instead
you'll find a lot of new material on Calvert's literary works, his "cabaret"
and musical projects and the more obscure / unknown parts of his musicial
and literary activities. As you will see below, many of these new entries
present exclusive / never before seen or heard material.
Following you'll find a list of the most important new additions to
the spirit of the pa/age (slightly incomplete for sure, as I lost track
myself...) - so:
WHAT'S NEW
on the new Calvert-site / the spirit of the p/age:
(one
of) the MAJOR part(s) of this re-launch
is the extensive and certainly exclusive presentation of Calvert's (more
or less) unknown/unavailable/unreleased masterpiece:
- this extensive special
is including the complete soundfiles of all the songs featured in this
'Electronic Musical for the Cybernetic Age', animations from the original
staging in 1981, excerpts from the original script, soundfiles of Calvert
reading dialogue-parts of the script, an extensive narration of the play
and it's plot and much more...- all this is featuring loads of material
you've never seen/heard before - incl. the original studio recording of
the fabulous Why
can't the World be run by Machines?
All the pages on THE KID are featuring loads
of images from the original staging in London, 1981. Most of them are
taken from the (probably one and only) video-recording of this event -
so, you'll finally get a pretty good idea, how this Meisterwerk was staged
in typical no/low-budged minimalist fashion. Besides the main pages (narration
of the plot etc.) you'll find sepearte pages for each song/lyrics, incl.
sound/imageloops... and everything. - in short (after all): you MUST check
this out!
the
list of Calvert's WORKS
has been broken up into 6 parts and extended with various new pieces (music,
plays a.m.):
> an extensive entry on Calvert's lost play
on Brian Jones and Donald Crowhurst
an
(again) extensive entry on Calvert's various Krankschaft
Cabaret shows in the early 80's - feat. links to the lyrics
and soundfiles of many unpublished performance pieces.
the
newly released live-recordings with Hawkwind
from 1976
Steve
Pond's great (and free!) mp3 release of a Calvert
w. Maximum Effect gig from 1986
HYPE
- the record - now features a "world premiere"
(Yeah...) - not one of these so-called bonus-without-vocals-tracks,
this is a REAL new / unreleased track: Could't
go on - this must be an outtake from the Hype-recordings
- and it's quite a gem...- just strange, that it didn't make it on the
album....you can listen to it in full real-audio-beauty.
HYPE
- the novel - this entry now features the closing chapter
of this wonderful description of the dog-eat-dog-world-of-music-biz,
which is, sadly long-out-of-print.
THE
BOX - another extensive new feature.... - again another
unavailable literary work of Calvert...and another (wow!) world-premiere:
you can now read the full-transcription of the only remaining copy (i.e.
a crackly audio-tape, feat. Calvert reading this stage-monologue) -
you can also listen to a couple of audio-files, feat. Calvert's reading.
early
short-prose - these texts have been annexed to the entry
on Calvert's contributions to the 'Frendz' and 'New Worlds' magazines,
in which they were originally published
Test
Tube Baby of Mine - another extensively extended entry
on Calvert's comedy on the pitfalls of genetic engineering. Annexed
to the entry in the list of works you'll find a photo from the rehearsals,
description of the play's characters, excperts from the script and more...
Pan-Transcendental
Industries - annexed to the list of works and Calvert &
Hawkwind pages you'll find another extensive feature on the fabulous
1978 Hawklords tour-concept: Pan-Transcendental
Industries - featuring loads of animations, soundfiles and the
brilliant / visionary texts from the original tourbook... this is a
MUST-READ. (annexed to the Hawkwind pages
of that period, you'll also find a couple of new - so far unreleased
- images from that tour.)
Annexed to the entry on Calvert's first volume of poetry: CENTIGRADE
232, you'll now find a memory-report
on the book-launch-event - and quite a hilarious one it is (was).
NEW TEXTS / LYRICS:
THE BOX (see
above)
early short-prose (see
above)
TEST TUBE BABY OF MINE
(see above)
HYPE (the closing chapter
- see above)
Pan Transcendental Industries
(see above)
the WORDS
section has been broken up in four parts:
The major one (Words) still contains Calvert's poetry and links to the
available pieces in prose. This page feature a couple of new poems both
from CENTIGRADE 232 and THE
EARTH RITUAL.
The two NEW sections are:
UNRELEASED
POEMS (from the estate of R.C.) and
PERFORMANCE
PIECES - this page features transcriptions from various
audience recordings from the early 80's, when Calvert tried out various
formats of his cabaret-shows. Another premiere (in writing), I suppose
- apart from the texts you can also listen to soundfiles from the original
recordings - not in excellent condition soundwise, but certainly worth
in terms of content and flair...
3
short prose-texts from the early 70's have been annexed to WORKS
section - those were published in the legendary FRENDZ
magazine.
And
there's still the pretty extensive LYRICS
section (in 4 parts), in which you'll find - more or less - ALL the
lyrics to Calvert's songs and collaborations. The major new addition
to this section are the illustrated lyrics of Insolence
Across the Nation - Calvert's collaboration with ICU on
one of the weirdest records ever made....
A
HUGE part of the time I spent on this update went into my
own favourite section:
this section features illustrated and (by now mostly) animated
versions of various poems and lyrics of Robert Calvert.
Almost all of the entries on this site have been extensively - or in most
cases: completely revamped. Apart from this, Calv-Art features a great
number of new entries - in the LYRICS section:
New / completely re-newed entries in the
POEMS section of Calv-Art
are:
All these pages contain links to real-audio files of
the original recordings of the songs or readings of these poems.
Again: All the files in Calv-Art have been
re-vamped...you better check out all of them... ----and when you do
so...keep in mind, that many of these pages are pretty heavy in terms
of the featured data - especially the flash-animations, that are cotaining
lots of sounds etc - just be a bit patient...and don't forget to turn
on you SPEAKERS.
this section of the site is - obviously - as much my
baby as the one of Mr. Calvert. The
pages you'll find gathered here, are both an interpretation
and a combination of his work (supplying the source material)
and my own, translating it into something that could -hopefully- be
called web-art. I am not at all sure, that
Mr. Calvert would agree to all the interpretations and transformations
I did with (or to?) his work. That's a natural/inevitable fact, when
it comes to interpreting/transforming another artist's work - however,
I am convinced, if Calvert would still be amongst us, that the web would
be one of his favourite workspaces by now - hard to say in which form,
but he'd surely be online quite a lot, trying out suitable formats for
his ideas - and - obviously - I am equally convinced that his work,
in all it's fascinating variety, should be a part of this online-world,
which he predicted so early on in many of his works.
The works of Calvert which I've chosen as special features in the Calv-Art
section are not necessarily "the best" or "representative"
- they simply had to suite an online-transformation, meet some of my
available material and ideas etc... - naturally I have a special liking
for all of them for various reasons - still, I'd like to recommend
a handful of them.
My favourite, as I think it's a very suitable audiovisual adaptation
of the poem AND the (still extremly important) situation/setting that
it describes, is FLY
ON THE SCREEN.
The same applies (hopefully), though in a more playful manner to THE
ACTION MAN EXPLAINS.
A real beast of a file, in terms of data-masses is VOODOO
CHILD, Calvert's ode to Jimi Hendrix. However, if you are patient
enough, you'll have a real jukebox on your hands, combining the sounds
of Hendrix and the voice of Calvert - inviting yourself to be the DJ.
(beware, this can be a very noisy experience!)
I also like SCARECROWS
a lot for its 'simplicity' - and as a bonus, you can hear Calvert reading
this poem - another unreleased audio-file from his estate. You also
should check out SWING,
which - differing from the other files, also includes non-Calvert sound-files,
by the Finnish band Nemesis, which, I think,
accompany the poem extremely well. Aanother rec. would be The
Red Baron Regrets - an example for Calvert's lifelong fascination
for the ambiguous hero - and I think this one captures the tone and
atmosphere of the poem pretty accurately.
(Not only) the HAWKWIND fans among you should
definitely try out the three-parted DEATH
TRAP animation, a real audiovisual minefield - again: heavy files,
with lots of loops and noises... - the same goes for STEPPENWOLF
- on the first look not entirely new...but feat. a lot of new sounds
and animations - the same goes for UNCLE
SAM'S ON MARS. These files work almost like animated jukeboxes of
those songs.
(A re-vamped version also exists of CATTLE AT TWILIGHT, a short prose
text from 1974)
other
updates:
HAWKWIND
AND CALVERT
these four pages may - on first sight - look relatiely un-altered....however,
they do contain a LOT of new stuff - but in order not to overload them
EVEN MORE, I annexed most of the new material into various new (pop-up)
pages....just check out the links. These pages feature a great variety
of interviews, articles etc - and a lot of new images - many of them
may be new, even to the "devoted" Hawkfan. (I hope). A highly
interesting new comment here comes from Nigel Ayers,
member of Nocturnal Emissions, who's acknowleging Hawkwind's/Calvert's
pioneering role for some of the (some years later) up-coming industrial
bands.
annexed
to the list of works and Calvert+Hawkwind pages you'll find another
extensive feature on the fabulous 1978 Hawklords
tour-concept: Pan-Transcendental
Indutstries - featuring loads of
animations, soundfiles and the brilliant / visionary texts from the
original tourbook...
annexed
to the Hawkwind/Hawklords pages you'll also
find a selection of new - and so far unpublished - photos by Peter
Zabulis from the gig
at Leicester De Montford Hall in 1978 - these are truly great shots.
Don't miss them.
Via
a link from the revised BIOGRAPHY
page you can now pay a visit to Robert Calvert's
grave. Another link from the bio-page leads to a bio-sketch,
written by Calvert himself in 1981.
The
QUOTES
pages, feat. selected statements and interview-pieces of Calvert on
his work and a wide variety of his manifold interests and obsessions
have been extended.
new
entries to The
World ON Calvert
here you'll find a couple of additions, including two MAJOR
ones...
the
most important is surely the extensive interview
with JILL CALVERT - a voice on the life/work... of Robert
Calvert, that, to the best of my knowledge, hasn't been heard publically
- yet... - here you'll certainly get a few more new angles on this truly
complex persona...not so much, as usually, from the music, but from
the "private" world...
the
other major new entry is an equally extensive interview
with NIK TURNER. Well, that one doesn't need a comment,
eh?
a
very interesting new entry comes from NIGEL
AYERS, member of NOCTURNAL EMISSIONS - here's (finally)
a member of the diverse community of industrial
musicians/artists who's acknowleding the pioneering work of Hawkwind
and Calvert for the industrial scene that unfolded in the mid/late 70's.
another
new entry has been written by FRED
REEVES , member of Inner City Unit and The Maximum
Effect, the band that accompanied Calvert in
his later years.
You'll
also find an extended entry of DAVE BROCK
on Calvert - hopefully I'll be able to include an extensive interview
with him, in the not-too-far-away-future - we'll see. Also other pages
of this section, like the one of Peter
Hammill on Calvert, have been revised and extended.
The
Collaborators:
a
new (and long overdue) entry on Pete Pavli
- one of the most important and innovative musicians that Calvert worked
with on a couple of his best projects, like THE
KID FROM SILICON GULCH.
the
page(s) on Michael
Moorcock have been extensively updated and broken up in
two parts - feat. new texts, images and soundfiles - incl. an illustrated
and suitably noisy version of SONIC ATTACK
the
page on the finish electro/ambient group Nemesis
have been expanded and updated - as a special treat they now feature
2 Calvert cover-versions as real-audio tracks. A definite recommendation!
another
new page in this section is devoted to Don
Falcone - the main man behind Spaceship
Eyes, Spirits Burning and a couple
of other bands and projects. This page also features audio-files of
both Calvert-cover-versions, and tracks
that integrate/sample some original Calvert material - alongside a wide
range of original Falcone-projects/tracks - highly recommended!
IMAGES
(in general):
> you'll find LOADS of new images - spread all over the site....just
snoop around
SOUNDS
> all soundfiles (and you'll find A LOT of them, spread over the
entire site) have been revamped - i.e. they are playing in higher quality
now...
the page on Calvert's poem WHITE DYNASTY features an extended. excerpt
of an unreleased Calvert-song ("Sanctions")
...that's -more or less- IT. As always: many THANKS
to each and everyone who contributed to this site. Feel free to send
your comments, cash and criticism.
and
now...?
In regard to the future of this site: you shouldn't expect regular updates
- this simply eats up too much of my time, which I'd rather devote to
my own/other projects. However, in case any 'really' interesting / important
material comes my way, I think I won't be able to resist... - but as
it is, the site should be extensive enough for a couple of re-visits.
ps:
whatever happened to the "rest"
of the project...
Those of you, who visited the spirit of the p/age
in it's earlier format may remember that it also announced the plan
to expand this site into an offline project and a video/tv-documentary.
Those weren't just fantastic plans - I've really tried, especially in
terms of the documentary - but, despite good and initially promising
contacts, without luck. Seems like even the editors of the so-called
fringe programmes would rather produce the 15th programme on Madonna
or Pink Floyd, than one on a more or less unknown and hard-to-categorize
artist as Mr. Calvert was, however fascinating and far ahead of his
times he/his work was (IS!). It's, as we know, all about ratings, even
on the edges of television, where that odd thing named 'culture' is
supposed to hibernate.
There were also some other plans like compiling a Calvert-covers
project, the release of (still) unreleased works (both music
and writings) - again: this is a matter of time. I just don't have it
- or like to spend it on such activities - and apart from that, it's
something that simply has to be worked out with the estate of Robert
Calvert - so, someone who is (geographically) closer, would be a far
better person for such plans, however intriguing and worthwhile they
surely are. If anyone should step forward and take up the task, I'd
surely be willing to assist as best I can - and forward the tracks (some
VERY interesting ones) that have been sent to me in the meantime.
(more than) enough now.... -
so, check the menu below and enjoy...
- K.G.
|
|
