The Warwick festivals were quite amazing - happening over a weekend and part influenced my own approach to
organising artistic endeavours. They created a kind of atmosphere and were open to both students and the public. We used to stop over in the hall of residence, taking a sleeping bag,crouched up with others in the commununal kitchens or any where you could sleep (unofficially of course)!
It was mind stretching with a mix programme of Pinter play, sound poets, wandering street theatre
(The Warwick Poster below is a little out of sych as I had to scan it in quarters and put it back together again - and not very skifully I'm afraid!)
events, artworks on the wall, local bands like Ra Ho Tep playing to a crowd in the Airport Lounge (no airport involved here - they just callled the room that!), poets gatherings, rock bands, folk concerts, discos, light shows, contemporary dance, photographic displays and lots spaces to socialise with students and others.
On the first one I attended in 1971, I was to read with the Umbrella poets in Airport Lounge - scary as most I wrote poetic song lyrics rather than straight poems at that stage and only had a couple written specifically for the page - a couple of Paul Simon inspired things. I was just turned 20 and had only read once, one poem at the Umbrella poets meeting with older and more experienced poets like John Hewitt and Geoff Pegg. It went ok but standing on stage with a group of poets in tuxedos and a large room of cross-legged students was a bit daunting. I didn't fit in with my long hair, patched up jeans and hippy boots. I was determined to do it though. I refused to stand along side the tuxedo deck poets and sat like arebel on the side of the stage until called - read the poem then got the hell out of there! I do it all the time now (perform that is - not get the hell out!). The weird thing about it was that no one responded to the poems at all - no clapping, no laughing, knowing nods and yet the same students were noicsy after in the auditorium
watching rock bands. I did one poem and walked through the cross-legged crowd wondering if I should feel dumb or proud - no indication until I got the back of the room and Fresh Maggots called me over and said they liked it! I was just relieved to know someone was human regardless of what they thought of my poem - we got the hell out of there - feeling proud to have done But relieved of the tension. When I interviewed the Liverpool Poets in in 1984 - they said they had had the same experience of University poetry readings. Respectful silence I think they call it. I wrote a performance poem called the Poetry Reading about it and others a little while later which I sometimes used when I organisied spoken words performances to wake the audience up -
The Poetry Reading by Trev Teasdel (1971 /72)
Nah, I don't want to go up there and read my poems,
What! Not in front of all those people watching me
As I strut and fret my ten minutes from one cliche to another
In full view, on the stage,
with words written purely for the page
In front of star poet who writers for a wage.
Nah! I Don't want to be the one to punture this nervous,
polite, library like silence,
reserved for poetry readings.
My poems, if read, would elicit NOISE -
Heckles from those in the backrow
Laughter, shouting, applause,booing,
spewing - response of some non-description.
Yes - poems of the page, should rage and rage,
and cause a stir, 'til hearts turn into coffins
to carry out the dead and dying culture of the past.
Society is noisy and poetry should shout back!
No, I won't read tonight....
Enlist me among the rebels in the backrow
who shout abuse; who bat-back the poet's words
with metaphoric tennis rackets
and watch them splash in the poet's face.
Who shout "Your words fail to offend -
They are whitewash and silence
Whitewash and silence-
They are nothing"
Nah! I won't read tonight...
My poem smell,
They haven't had a bath for a year and half
Poetry should be smelt,
smelt and not heard
It may seem absurd, but think off the turd.
It smells and sticks to your shoes,
acting as glue to attract more shit,
In short - Poetry should smell and stick to your shoes.
Nah! cut it out!
I won't read tonight
What and upset this church meeting of a poetry reading
with words that vandalise complacancy,
that point the finger, that cries out
Feel, feel, laugh laugh, cry cry,
speak out, jump up and down, feel good
Feel bad -
Convince me that you're not a cardboard cut out audience.
POETRY IS DEAD.....LONG LIVE POETRY!
Out out boring old farts of yesterday,
In, In with the new - a point of view
An axe to grind, a good laugh up it's sleeve -
Not for me poetry that
"Creeps into the crypt, craps, and creeps out again"
Creeping is for cats.
Poetry has a tiger in its tank
It should roar and shatter windows and cock a snoot at the Jumbo Jet.
Not for me-
the meek and mild mannered poems of middleclass muddleheadedness.
Poetry should fart and not apologise.
We live in a commercial jungle
and poetry should behave like a jungle animal
until society becomes civilised
and good manner appropriate
No I won't read to nite
Sod it!
(From ESCAPED POET - by Trev Teasdel - Poetic Licence Collective 1984)
Before the performance at Warwick, I got talking to a poet studying at the Uni - her name was Carol
Gutteridge adn she had just published a pamphlet of her work. I still ahve a copy although I never saw her again - here's one of the poems and illustrations. Can't remeber the title of the booklet as the title page has disappeared after all this time (poems are tricky as Roger McGough often says!).
The fest was my introduction to Bob Cobbing's exeriments with Sound Poetry and the absurd theatre of Adamov and Pinter - to Street theatre and much more. I learnt that there were many ways to be creative and that you didn't have to
do it in the same way as anyone else. These artists broke the 'rules' of their art form, were often misunderstood, ignored, called weird, called genius - but they carried on rowing their own artistic boats against the waves of artisitic conformity. Slowly art and the work moves on, catches up. Sometimes it takes a hundred years. The important thing is that some people have the guts to be different and persue their own vision of artistic endeavour.
LOCAL BANDS THAT PLAYED AT THE FESTIVALS WERE -
Edgar Broughton Band (link to My Space - Out Demons Out)
HIGH TIDE (Birmingham band I think)
INDIAN SUMMER (Links to their My Space - hear their music)
SORROWS (Re-formed for the ocassion)
ASGARD (Neol Davis used to play for Asgard c1969)
WHISTLER (links to Kevin Harrison's Marz Imprints site - Whister developed into Urge and there are aosme of the discs on this site)
APRIL (Bassist Ron Lawrence later played with Sniff and the Tears)
DAVE BENNETT - (Links to his My Space - hear his Ragtime guitar)
Ra Ho Tep (Links to Tim James site)
FRESH MAGGOTS (You can still buy their 1971 Cult Album which is enjoying a revival)
CARAVAN - (A Cantebury band but when I saw them at Circles (Where the BBC local radio Station is now in Cov - we spoke to the replacement Keyboard player - who I think was Steve Miller (but not the one of Joker fame) and I think he said he came from Nuneaton or thereabouts). Tenuous link I know!
High Tide..wasn't this the band that was a bit Hawkwindesque led by Tony Hill? ( who was a tad Jim Morrison ,(Doors) ) and sometimes included Simon House of Hawkwind and Third Ear Band.
My memories not so good , but I think they played in Birmingham a bit before the Warwick gig , deffo did the Roundhouse around Easter time. They toured after their 69 album Sea Shanties, which is still well worth listening to, even today.
I think they didnt go down too well at Warwick, I might be wrong. or there was some problem about payment,
They could be a bit too Beefheart for some
lesley
ps found this
http://www.myspace.com/therealhightide.
lesley
Posted by: BroadgateGnome | 02/14/2007 at 09:14 PM
Thanks for that Lesley - I did see the gig with High Tide but can't remember much much about them now - T'was an age and a half ago. Ithink they alos played the Village in Cov and possibly the Plough - will check archives.
HIGH TIDE _ MY SPACE - I've made you link active here - although when I tried to put the url into the browser I got a Page not available - will see if an active link fares better!
Posted by: HOBO - Coventry Music Magazine | 02/15/2007 at 12:07 PM