porous like the fungi but currently really inspired by the Kip Hanrahanrahanrahan, having taken far too long to make the leap between Astor's late trilogy which he produced, and his own solo (not really the right word given his long list of collaborators) stuff. Also getting beyond Brel into the music of Les Freres Jacques and the words of Jacques Prevert after reading Johann Sfar's Vampire Loves. Just wish my french was up to it....
Which is to say, only a true village idiot would try to marry kronk sensibilities with the folk tradition.
Once I could have been a contender, then someone offered me some folk music. I didn't want to try it at first, but they all looked so happy, and I so wanted to belong. And I didn't belong - I played jazz but when they said to me "this is a beautiful chord voicing", I thought - where's the context, you cats? I played world music but got tired of being shouted at in ancient aramaic, and then they said I had to piss on my fingers to help my bendir technique and I didn't want to.
It's always someone else's fault.
I played with singer songwriters but the 'me' count made me twitchy. I played classical but they couldn't accept that I needed five snare drums for the cadenza in Nielsen's 5th. I played improv, but I had to keep inserting my dirty little idioms into their ideologically pure texture-scapes. Still, look at me now - stealing ballads from unsuspecting source singers. Trying out those step dance moves on the stomp box. I'm going to keep taking the ginkgo biloba and one day I might be intelligent....
These are some of the many exciting people I worked with back in the day:
Cicala Mvta, Richard Sanderson, Ashley Wales, Harry Beckett, Abdel Ali Slimani, Robert Dick, Maddy Prior, David Toop, Union Wireless, Jerry Donahue, Ian R Watson, Rhodri Davies, Eddie Prevost, Charles Hayward, Natacha Atlas, Chris Biscoe, Pat Thomas, Bows, Lob, Seth Lakeman, John Edwards, Cheb Nacim, PP Arnold, Zubop and Zubopgambia, John Coxon, Eliza Carthy,Paul Rutherford, Juldeh Camara, Johnny Flynn, Steve Beresford, Terry Edwards, Tony Bevan, U-Cef and the Halal Joint, Orphy Robinson, Tête à Tête Opera (as a composer, aaaaactually), The Very Tiny Little Kids, Lol Coxhill, Blaubauer, Tom Chant, Kakizakai Kaoru, Yazid Fentazi and Warehouse.
A fair few of them never noticed.
Here's some of the nice things people said before the trout ate my arms:
"He's a bit like Keith Moon.....he's all across everything all the time"
Charles Hazlewood, BBC4, July 2008
"Its an album full of thought, variety and surprises. Fair Ellen Of Ratcliffe in particular sounds born of the electro dance age with some truly astonishing percussion work by Pete Flood."
Colin Irwin, reviewing the new Tim Van Eyken album, fROOTS, June 2006
"Pete Flood contributes sudden, dramatic drumrolls whose fascination lies as much in what is missing from, as what is audible in, each peal. This is a Flood specialism witnessed in previous Back In Your Town nights: pinpoint accurate non-repetitiveness and a wilful ability to ruthlessly excise beats whilst remaining very funky indeed a case of being on the .66 if you will."
Eleventh Volume on Back in Your Town, Red Rose Club, 19/8/04
"Flood's percussion is equally as versatile. There's free jazz, Beefheartian clatter, lashings of bells, chimes and rusty metal; even (for a few bars only) there's some old school heavy funk. He propels, comments and decorates throughout with virtuosity but no flash, whipping up quiet polyrhythmic storms behind Watson's mercurial trumpet figures."
Gordon Miles, reviewing the Treecreepers album, BBC Online, Nov 06
"Watching Flood play is a real treat - he has a small drum kit but it is surrounded by a vast array of instruments, toys and household items, all of which can be either banged, shaken, rubbed or, well just plain dropped.....This is no playtime melange though, it's, well thought out and expertly performed, witness to the piercing and eerie use of bowed cymbals also used throughout "Bold Fisherman", along with the ultra subtle tapping of a tar with just fingers in the same song."
John Sharp, Reviewing Van Eyken at Tal-Y-Bont, Bangor, Folking About (http://folkingabout.blogspot.com/), Nov 06
"As for drum set handmade. Also utilization of waste material has done, that says the air does. Contents fully, large satisfaction it was live in the performance which hard is chewiness. Live you have heard, you instructed to the brown cell together. Thank you."
Japanese Blog, name untranslatable, Farmyard Animals Trio - live at chofu Ginz, Tokyo, 20/2/2005
"More gratingly, Pete Flood's ham-fisted tango pastiche for Flora and Leo segues into a solemn and sentimental scene for Rosa, composed by Chadwick. The effect of all of these juxtapositions is to neuter the expressive potential of individual scenes, and to create a rudderless, confused drama."
The Guardian on Family Matters by Tête à Tête an opera written by myself and five other composers, 12/02/04 (and it was a flamenco pastiche you chinless fool).
"Best of all was Pete Floods percussion kit which, looking like some kind of satanic Christmas tree, made the trip worthwhile in itself."
Club Integral @ Whitechapel Gallery, 18th December 2009.
Featuring music from Lotus Pedals, Nobodies, MayMing, Boycott Coca-Cola Experience and Jack Shirt. + DJ Chris Cornetto and projections from Jaime Rory Lucy of Rucksack Cinema
Lotus Pedals: - "Gorgeous live music from the supremely strange Lotus Pedals, who remained on stage throughout the show...shambolic, bold and beautiful...offers truly unique rewards." Beccy Smith - British Theatre Guide.
GRACIAS POR TU AMISTAD, EL ABUELO DICE BIENVENIDOS A LA FAMILIA! Thanks for your friendship. JOHN CHURCHILL Ggrandpa says welcome to the churtchill..s family! </
This years festival is headlined by Billy Bragg (Friday), Seth Lakeman (Sunday) and Peatbog Faeries (Saturday) with many more top artists also performing incl the award winning The Demon Barbers.
Hey pete, thanks for the friendship, and well done for the belter of a gig with Bellowhead in Newcastle a little while back!! Comment back if you get the chance.
Thankyou for accepting our request, if you ever need a hybrid electro-bassing-harmonium-trumpet-man for your triangular-bartok-dissecting-band-project, by all means let me know.
CLUB INTEGRAL PRESENTS - HEXA / BENJAMIN BRUNEL / THE NOBODIES/THE BOYCOTT COCA-COLA EXPERIENCE
Club Integral present two concerts featuring Hexa from Manhattan, NYC on 20th and 22nd February at The Canterbury Arms in Brixton and Cafe Oto in Dalston
20th February: Club Integral 8:30 PM Friday 20th February 2009 Featuring irrepressible, adrenalized garage-band paeans from New York's finest - Hexa; mournful ballads about relationship breakup, with laughs, from the Nobodies; and agit-prop blues from Boycott Coca-Cola Experience. Entry: £5 before 9pm and £7 after 9pm. Canterbury Arms, Canterbury Crescent, Brixton, London SW9 7QD. (two minutes from Brixton tube)
22nd February: Club Integral @ Cafe Oto 8:00 PM Sunday 22nd February 2009 Hexa play an acoustic set. Singer/composer Benjamin Brunel plays a piano set of his caustic and original songs. Arch miserablists The Nobodies perform tragic cheap tavern songs about love. Entry £5 before 9.00 PM £7 after. Cafe Oto, 18-22 Ashwin Street, Dalston, London E8
CLUB INTEGRAL on Friday 30th January 2009 - 8.00 PM until late. At THE CANTERBURY ARMS, Canterbury Crescent, Brixton SW9 - two minutes from Brixton tube station.
Entry: £5 before 9.00 PM, £7.00 after.
Featuring music from: Trumpet and beats duo LOOP ELLINGTON Avant-garde wayfarers KOBAYASHI Australian folk chansonniers THE DOOMED BIRD OF PROVIDENCE. + a special guest to be announced.
With projections from JAIME RORY LUCY of RUCKSACK CINEMA DJs CHRIS CORNETTO and KARINA TOWSEND (Chalkwell Ladies).
Ha, ha! That'd be great! Think it might confuse some people though. Maybe safest to stick with beer till the world's ready! Liken your jazz trio too. Hope to see you guys play live sometime!
Ah, finally a drummer I feel I can relate to! Liken your stuff Mr Flood! I can only hope to have a kit half as interesting as your Bellowhead set up someday!
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