bourbonese qualk live. DMA2 1988

bourbonese qualk. dma2 bourdeax 1988

DMA was a record label and music promotion organisation based in Bordeaux who were best known for the annual DMA2 ‘Divergences/Divisions’ music festival during the late eighties. This festival became one of the most respected ‘experimental with an industrial slant’ music event in Europe and featured such stars as as Legendary Pink Dots, Nocturnal Emissions, The Hafler Trio, laibach and of course, Bourbonese Qualk.

Musical roads of the world.

Steen Krarup Jensen and Jakob Freud-Magnus building the Asphaltophone

back in the seventies novelty cereal packet gifts reached a zenith of inventiveness and surreality.My particular favourite was a sound player ‘toy’ – basically a strip of red plastic, shaped like a cable tie, with audio samples encoded into grooves in the strip. The idea was to fit one end to a hole in the empty cereal packet and run your fingernail along the strip at a constant speed. the cereal box acted as an sound box, amplifying the vibrations delighting the astonished breakfast audience with audio clips from history, if my memory serves me correctly, Chamberlain’s “…and here is the paper” and Churchill’s ” some chicken, some neck” amongst others.

“Live Series 2″ & the London Ambulance Station

Live series 2 cassette package

 

To Londoners, The old Kent rd  has been for many years a byword for poverty; the cheapest, dismal brown coloured property on the monopoly board and in reality a grimy thoroughfare providing the boundary of two of the most neglected regions of London, Peckham and Bermondsey. Once the heartland of a solid white working class population the area was bombed close to complete destruction during the war and then rapidly rebuilt with monolithic high-rise housing estates which by the 1980s had begun to be abandoned and crumble.

In the cold winter of 1984 we – bourbonese qualk and crew – occupied the Ambulance station, an empty five story castle-like building on the Old Kent Road. Our ambition was to create a radical ‘cultural-political centre’ (though we would never have used that term) and a general base for our activities – performance space, recording studio and office for the Recloose organisation label –  in the middle of this piece of un-picturesque South East London. After lengthy renovation (removing 1 meter deep layers of dead pigeons, replacing piping, windows and tiles on the vertiginous roof) The top two stories were converted into artists studios, the middle storey our living quarters. The first floor was taken up as meeting space for anarchist groups, a free cafe and offices for the local squatters organisation, ‘S.N.O.W’ (who housed more people in 1985 than the local council). The ground floor was changed into a large performance space and bar as well as a recording studio, sculpture studios and print workshops.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

adventures in forestry

lots of Qualkology this week. This time an mp3 compilation put together by Uncle Spellbinder at  Anomolous Mind – a kind of online label that issues unnofficial bootlegs, mashups and so-on (incuding, strangely, the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Patti Smith and the Who) .  ‘Adventures In Forestry’ is the title they have given to their selection of early ‘classic qualk’ (not my description) of the 1983-1987 period.

“Bourbonese Qualk  is by far one of the most under appreciated bands in my memory. One of the main reasons I created this comp of the early years was with the hopes that others would come to appreciate the wondrous sounds Bourbonese Qualk created over your all-to-short tenure” says kindly Uncle S.

download it here: ‘Adventures In Forestry’ bourbonese Qualk 1983-1987

Labirintho

endopoiesis

In one of the most drunken fits of my life, I single handedly managed to wreck a Bourbonese Qualk gig. Porto, Portugal, 198…9? 91? I love BQ, I have all their musical output, but I can’t avoid being proud of wreaking havoc that night. For years, people I didn’t know came up to me and asked: “aren’t you that guy who…” yes, that’s me!

yeh

haha! not quite what happened…you came on stage and miles strangled you until you passed out – while still playing guitar..

simoncrab

ah well, I MUST have been there…true, my memories are a bit hazy but I definitely don’t recall any drunken Portuguese ‘wreck’ the gig…I suspect that you were so drunk you wrecked the wrong gig.

chizzle3000

Simon! Put up some more vids fer god’s sake!!!

simoncrab

um, ok…i’ll see what i’ve got.

heshter

Go on ! Bung something up, otherwise this is the only online evidence of your godlike genius… and I stole it off your own website anyway !

sbranquinho

its impressive how music and people were so diferent…im 22 years old and a feel so disconected i wish i lived in the sixties

endopoiesis

Ok,the whole story to refresh your memories:there was no stage, Labirinto is too small for a stage,and the place was packed.I was right at the front with my mate, and we were so drunk that we started plucking the guitar(bass?too drunk) strings while Miles(?) played on.He wasn’t too happy,so he kicked us a couple of times.I wasn’t too happy either,so when he put the guitar down(in between songs or during a song with no guitar,not sure)[continued on next comment]

giorgiomichello

Good for you, twat!! You sound like a genuine fucking arsehole. I’m sure your typical British Stag Night shenanigans are exactly what every BQ fan wants to read about. Thanks so much for being pushed out of your mother’s foul cunt!!!

Charming.  Jorge Stretcher WAS at the above mentioned gig (Bourbonese Qualk  at the Labirintho, Porto, Portugal in 1990) and made these recordings of the somewhat chaotic event:

Bourbonese Qualk live at the Labirintho, Porto, Portugal in 1990

bourbonese qualk radio broadcast 1989…

Some time ago, well, many years ago, we (bourbonese qualk) were asked to provide some unique material to be broadcast on a French radio show by Tristan Koreya. We put together a collage of work in progress at the time (1989 ?). The result was a snapshot of half finished tracks linked together in typical qualk fashion i.e. semi-randomly. Some of the music made it onto various releases in a slightly more polished form, others didn’t, thank god.  most of the music is Miles Miles and I (where was Owen?) with a focus on twangy guitar tunes and Arabic doodles – The quality is patchy and some of it over-indulgent, sketchy and in need of severe editing, some of it kind-of works – bear in mind, this was intended as a one-off never to be heard again broadcast. Tristan has posted MP3s of the show on His blog ‘nostalgie de la boue‘ which brings a snapshot of the time, and all the accompanying ghosts, back to life:

bourbonese qualk unreleased broadcast 1989

“Triptyque” : Achwghâ ney wodei MP3s

Finally, an MP3 version of Achwghâ ney wodei’s “Triptyque” album with the remaining postcard prints and back cover design – thanks to Paphio23 and Maarten for providing MP3 rips of their vinyl:

Achwghâ ney wodei

Widely assumed to be an alias side project of bourbonese qualk, Achwghâ ney wodei with an equally ridiculous name were infact a real group; Didier Copp , Eric Sterenfield (‘Riton’) , Françoise Boitiere , Phillippe Royer (‘Woudi’) who were active in the so-called ‘alternative’ Parisian music scene in the late Eighties. With peers such as as Mano Negra, Bérurier Noir’ and Les Negresse Vertes, Achwghâ ney wodei complemented the eclectic style of the times with a cartoon comedic style based on French working class Chanson, music hall and character driven vignettes.

“something inside me turned upside down”

bourbonese qualk. RRV, Lisboa 08-12-1987

Some unreliable recollections and rough recordings of the gig we (bourbonese qualk) did at the Rock Rendezvous in Lisbon in the 80’s, (December 8th 1987 to be exact…my memory triggered by recent comments on this blog): At the time Portugal was undergoing a minor renaissance in new music – the Fascist dictatorship of the seventies had given way to a state of attrition between the traditional conservative catholic mainstream versus an ad-hoc collective of revolutionary groups, eccentrics and newly active youth. This polarization resulted in a profusion of new music groups such as (amongst many others) electronic experimentalists SPQR (who supported us at this gig), dark surrealists ‘Mão Morta’ and the cerebral pop of Pop De’ll Arte. Our gig was organized by the hyperactive João Peste of the Ama Romanta label – responsible of promoting much of the new Portuguese underground and hosted by Rock Rendezvous, the epicentre of live music in Lisbon at the time.

Sounds From Memory #3: Riot.

The intention of these series of posts is to document sounds that have remained in memory. Not sounds that are particularly pleasant or trigger ‘Proustian Resonance’ but unique sounds that once heard are never forgotten (therefore impossible to reproduce or record). If i get enough – and please add your own – i’ll organise them into a top ten ‘mnemaudio’ chart.

Miles was the first casualty, and, I always maintain, the inspiration for the violence that took place at the Trafalgar Square Anti-Poll Tax protest in 1989. During what was an admittedly tense but peaceful sit down protest in front of Downing Street, Miles charged at the Police brandishing a metal pole. He was immediately floored, struck on the head by a brick thrown from the police lines*. Seconds later the police panicked and sent mounted riot squads charging into the unarmed protesters, this event ignited a day of fierce fighting in the centre of London. For six hours the police held protesters in the square: The sound that fixed in my memory is the combined roar of bottles and bricks being thrown, burning buildings, screams, police sirens, helicopters, horses, whistles and ambulances which, after six hours, merged into one high pitched continuous distorted scream. This noise stayed with me for weeks, day and night -a kind of hysterical tinnitus.

*I dragged miles to an ambulance which took him to hospital. A few hours later he discharged himself, concussed, dripping blood from a head wound he returned to the battle pressing home his assault on the forces of ‘law and order’.

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