In one of those happy on-line community moments, I got a cool pointer on Flickr from imago (who has some very cool photos – see the example to the right) to a neat clip of Ivor Cutler performing a great little song “Shoplifting”. This was pulled from an old UK TV show called The Old Grey Whistle Test (also here, and the Beeb will sell you DVDs), and features Ivor playing his harmonium and singing. It’s a wonderfully goofy song and a totally dead-pan performance that is, in some ways, just what I would have expected from Cutler.
Check out the video here. imago found it on WFMU’s blog, and they snagged it from YouTube. Great fun and definitely recommended.
It looks like Andy Kershaw’s BBC Radio 3 show on Sunday is a very popular “Listen again” show this week, which is a nice sign. The show featured a great Cutler session recorded for John Peel in 1979, as well as a fine tribute to Ali Farka Toure, who also died recently. And who couldn’t love that Rev. Charlie Jackson guitar sermon track! This show should be available until sometime Sunday, so check it out while you can!
And again a huge thanks to imago for the tip!
You’re very welcome! I believe that a wider appreciation of Cutler will engender more kindness, wonder and eccentricity in the world
Wonderfully put. As someone who teaches for a living (scary thought, I know), I’m often struck by the fact that at least some students students are much more willing to embrace eccentricity in older people (“She’s really cool!”) than in people their own age (“That’s pretty weird.”). It’s like they want to be cool eccentrics when they’re 75, but conformists when they’re 20, and I’m just not real sure it works like that.
So I subject people to Ivor Cutler and Nimrod Workman and Janie Hunter and hope for the best :-).