History of The

VARI-PAGE 1 • VARIANT • VOLUME 2 NUMBER 8 • SUMMER 1999 History of the LMC Clive Bell “It’s funny, we do all these interviews with Melody of musicians, usually referred to as the ‘first gener- musicians was John Stevens’ work in concerts and Maker and NME and the fanzines, and we try to talk ation’‚ of improvisers. These included Evan Parker, workshops. Maggie Nicols was another improviser about this real underground of London, improvisers like Derek Bailey, Paul Lytton, John Stevens, Tony who excelled at leading workshops. Within one Evan and Derek, Lol, Moholo, the whole African Oxley, Howard Riley, Paul Rutherford, Barry Guy hour, a roomful of assorted and embarrassed indi- contingent —and of course none of them have ever and Trevor Watts” (Quote from Resonance Vol 2, No viduals could be led to build a communal musical heard this music. It’s kind of a bummer. It’s such an 2). This was around 1971, and concerts were held experience of enormous power. Suddenly the mys- underground music. It’s very serious but it’s also very at the Little Theatre Club in Garrick Yard and the teries of group improvisation and experimental humorous. It’s very alive.” Unity Theatre in Camden Town. music were opened up—veils fell from eyes, and Then, in April 1975, came Musics magazine, the sheer joy of music-making seemed accessible Above left: The Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth in The Wire 108, Feb which Martin Davidson remembers as resulting to all. I recall one musician warning me that after Club Room 1993. from a phone conversation between himself, his a John Stevens workshop he had observed that with Martin At the end of the 90s, the free music world can Klapper and wife Mandy and Evan Parker. The editorial board most of the male participants had erections. I still seem a wonderfully well-kept secret, a gen- Richard in summer 1975 was Bailey, Parker, Steve couldn’t really see what was so wrong with this— Sanderson 1998 uinely underground art activity. For 25 or 30 years Beresford, Max Boucher, Paul Burwell, Jack Cooke, maybe this music wasn’t so cerebral and abstract Above right: there’s been a scene there, all those club concerts Peter Cusack, Hugh Davies, Mandy and Martin as some people made out? Feminist listed monthly on the London Musician’s Davidson, Richard Leigh, John Russell, David In 1975/76 the London Musicians Collective improvising Collective (LMC) Calendar, the LMC Annual Toop, Philipp Wachsmann and Colin Wood. I emerged from a series of meetings, and mailed group, late 70s Festivals —but is it a musical genre? Sometimes it remember Colin Wood remarking that Musics was out its first newsletter in August 1976. The Below: Derek feels like you can pin it down. At Derek Bailey’s the first thing this crowd had found that they Collective was separate from Musics magazine, but Bailey, Maggie annual Company series, even though the musicians Nicols, Lol could all agree about. And I’m sorry about these involved many of the same people. It was hoped ranged from classical French horn player to thrash lists, but if you want to make enemies with a histo- that an organisation would carry more weight in Coxhill 98, guitarist, you could see a simple listen-and-get-on- Otomo & Eye ry like this, all you have to do is leave out some- dealings with other organisations, institutions and with-it approach. But even here the low key pre- 94 one’s name. the press. And these musicians had a lot in com- sentation, the strange theatre of encounters “STOP PRESS REVIEW SECTION:Three years ago ten mon: nowhere to play, and no wider recognition of between musicians who had never met, and the their music. outbursts of completely unplanned musical bril- music students from Cologne sat in horseshoe, one end of fine Wren church in Smith Square, sang ninth chord A major difference from the Musicians’ Co-op liance all combined to bewilder and undercut neat was the LMC’s openness to anyone who wanted to theory. The qualities of Company were often down all evening, sound mixed and rarefied by man in nave. Last Saturday ten religious men from Tibet sat in join. Richard Leigh again: “It was always seen as a to Bailey’s personality and style. As in the world of network drawing more and more people from var- jazz, strong individuals stamped their character on horseshoe on same spot, sang tenth chord all evening, no sound mixer.” ied backgrounds into the scene”. Improvisers were musical encounters. And the LMC was born dipping their fingers into the many pies of mixed because individuals wanted to band together for Colin Wood in Musics No 4, October 1975. media, dance, film and performance art. And in everyone’s benefit. Musics came out six times a year and ran for 23 fact at this time, just before punk and its DIY “The group of people that were working around the issues. In its coverage of improvised and non-west- ethic erupted, there was a remarkable burst of SME (Spontaneous Music Ensemble) at that time —John ern music alongside performance art, it reflected energy in the underground arts scene. Dancers Stevens, Derek Bailey,Trevor Watts, Paul Rutherford — the broad interests of a so-called ‘second genera- founded the X6 Dance Collective and New Dance were working on a method that I could call ‘atomistic’‚ tion’ of improvisers, and provided a convivial focus magazine at Butlers Wharf, while film makers breaking the music down into small component parts point. Interested outsiders were welcome to share started the London Film Makers Co-op. These too and piecing them together again in a collective way, so in the work of pasting the magazine together. In have survived and are with us today, in the form of as to de-emphasize the soloistic nature of improvisation those pre-wordprocessing days pasting meant the Chisenhale Dance Space and the Lux Cinema and replace it by a collective process. But at the same paste, as well as glue, scalpel and unwashed mugs. in Hoxton Square. For musicians, the venue crisis time AMM had what I would call a “laminar” way of These days the unwashed mugs are the only sur- was becoming acute. The Little Theatre Club had working, where although the solo had been lost and the vivors of the era. folded and the Unity Theatre burned down. The emphasis was on a collective sound, an orchestral sound “The LMC was formed by the slightly newer lot of usual expedient of hiring a room in a pub, college if you like, it was not done by breaking the music into musicians simply because everyone was fed up with or community hall was dependent on the whim of small components but by contributing layers which playing in bad rooms above pubs or nowhere at all. the landlord, and would not allow performances to would fit together and make a new whole.” Whereas Musicians’ Co-op members had briefly enjoyed be run on the musicians’ terms. A space with max- Evan Parker, talk at Actual Music Festival, ICA, August (?) the hospitality of Ronnie Scott and his club, due to Mr imum flexibility was needed if the work was to 1980. Scott’s justifiably high regard for Evan Parker,Tony Oxley, develop freely. “An obstinate clot of innovation”, was how the Howard Riley, Barry Guy et al, musicians such as Nigel “We had been looking for premises (I remember surreal Wire magazine described the LMC in 1997. The Coombes,Tony Wren, Paul Burwell or Colin Wood might dealings with the Diocesan Committee for Redundant LMC has shown remarkable powers of survival, just as well have come from Mars (or stayed there). Churches)..Actually a lot of the connections between the but it was not the first grouping of its kind. There was nothing happening, other than the music.” LMC and LFMC happened through informal contacts, for Richard Leigh: “The Musicians‚ Cooperative was David Toop, Resonance Vol 2, No 1, winter 1993. instance I had fallen in love with Annabel Nicolson when set up as a pressure group for a clearly defined set A source of continuing inspiration to the younger she and the Film Co-op were still in the Dairy in Prince of PAGE 2 • VARIANT • VOLUME 2 NUMBER 8 • SUMMER 1999 Wales Crescent, and I hung about while she was free improvisers, one of its most distinctive fea- Left: Tilbury programming films there, doing odd jobs like selling tea tures as an organisation was its openness and Below: Paul and biscuits, sweeping the floor, and designing a inclusiveness. Other musical pressure groups were Burwell on the beach in the membership card that was also a Thaumatrope... The more closely tied to one genre or style of music making, while the LMC forever had a hankering seventies LFMC wanted to take the space at 42 Gloucester Avenue Bottom: Derek for the genuine experiment, whatever the idiom. (Camden Town), but it was too large for them, and I Bailey and think Guy Sherwin approached the LMC with a view to This has contributed to its resilience, and also gen- dancer subletting. I think Annabel might have had something erated a constant debate about what on earth the to do with the idea, as the LMC ‘office’‚ and meetings LMC stands for. were located in her one room flat.” For many years the LMC was a large collective Paul Burwell, Performance magazine. (200 members), supposedly running itself in an authentically collective manner. Open monthly Even before finding a venue, “LMC events” had meetings enabled the entire membership to par- been happening all over London, ever since the ticipate in a lively criticism of any member who organisation was founded.

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