Ivor Cutler, R.I.P.
Photo by Mikey Delgado
I am sad to report the death a few days ago of Ivor Cutler. If the character of a nation is measured in part by its eccentrics, then the UK (and the world) is a slightly poorer place for his passing.
Cutler was a multi-talented creator whose work was championed by such heavyweights as the Beatles (Lennon was a big fan, and Cutler appeared in Magical mystery tour) and John Peel. It was through Peel, in fact, that I initially heard of Cutler and came to acquire (at import prices) the brilliant A wet handle, a collection of 83 (obviously short) poems with odd bits of harmonium wheezing at the end of each piece. (You can listen to samples over at Last FM.)
I’ve always loved those poems; they’re wonderfully punk in their lo-fi recording and those crazy poetic gems are like surreal haiku snapshots. Sub-Evil and I used one of these (”Baked beetles”) in one of our KUMM liners.
I never met him (and only ever bought the one CD - I’m not a very good repeat customer, even when I really like the stuff), but I’m sad that he’s gone just the same. Go write a short, silly poem, and then have the courage to share it. It’s the least we can do.
As Charlie Fowler said…
Andy Kershaw was also a big fan and will replay one of Cutler’s sessions for Peel on his BBC 3 radio show Sunday night and that should be available for a week in their Listen Again system. WeatherGirl, Sub-Evil Boy, and I will also play some Cutler on our KUMM show on Sunday (2-4pm, U.S. Central time).
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March 13th, 2006 at 21:09
I listened to part of Andy Kershaw’s show tonight and one of the Ivor Cutler tracks he played was “Gruts for Tea — great stuff!
Joey
March 15th, 2006 at 01:48
Thanks a ton for the tip. I’ve never heard that track, although I’ve heard of it and definitely looking forward to checking it out.
Kiel Harell and I did a Poor Man’s Concert on KUMM Sunday night that featured one or sometimes two Ivor Cutler tracks between every song we played. We even played “A specific sundry” just for you :-). It was a very cool show, but unfortunately I didn’t get the levels right when I set it up to record, and it’s pretty badly distorted. Sigh.