Caedmon (May 2010)
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Topic: Caedmon (May 2010)
Posted By: toroddfuglesteg
Subject: Caedmon (May 2010)
Date Posted: May 16 2010 at 13:10
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1978 at Arthur's Seat, Edinburgh
2010, the same place, the same people & the same pose minus the park bench. Caedmon is a band with an untraditional background. Something they will explain more in this interview. They are also working on the follow up to their 1978 album. I caught up with them for this interview. Ken Patterson answered my questions. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Caedmon
started out among veterinary students in Edinburgh in 1973. You are
veterinaries then. I am actually going for a beauty therapy at my
local vet clinic on Monday morning......... But for some reason, they
may refuse me service. Anyway, please tell us more about the start up
of Caedmon.
For
the first few months we were a three piece band: Andy Love, Angela
Naylor and Ken Patterson, all vet students in Edinburgh. Our first
gig was at Christmas time in 1973. Listening to recordings of the two
guitars and female voice you’d note Pentangle as its main
influence. The initial repertoire was virtually all from ‘The Jesus
Movement’, with fluorescent ‘Jesus Stickers’ on guitar cases as
evidence.
Soon
Simon Jaquet and Sam Wilson joined the band, Andy left and returned
to Aberdeen. We took a big step forward in the development of the
band’s sound with the addition of fifth member Jim Bisset, the only
Scot of the five, who came with Fender Stratocaster and an amp of his
very own. The
first original song we played was written by Lance Stone, a friend of
the band with music by Simon Jaquet. This was the next major advance
for the band and numerous original songs were penned by the four
instrumentalists and by jamming together as a band.
 You
have so far only released one album in 1978 called Caedmon. Please
tell us more about this album because it has an interesting history.
The
album represented the majority of the writing we had done together up
to that point. It was all original material except for ‘Give me
Jesus’, a traditional spiritual. The
album was a milestone for us, marking our time together, with the
knowledge that Angela and Ken were both graduating and moving on to
other cities. 500 vinyl copies were made and were just in time for
the band’s farewell gig (where virtually all were sold).
We
were not signed to a label. We recorded twelve over two consecutive
Sundays at Barclay Towers Studio in Edinburgh: essentially a live two
track recording of instruments playing live and a two track over-lay
of vocals. The
sleeve was designed by Ken with sleeve notes and lyrics hand written
by Angela and Sam. Whilst the sleeve was away being printed we
discovered that the twelve tracks took up too much space for a vinyl
album at the time, so tracks 6 and 12 were put on to a single at 45
rpm, which was included in the package.
The
album was re-released on CD in 2002. Please tell us more about this
re-release. Out
of the blue, Kissing Spell phoned up Simon Jaquet and proposed a
re-release. We didn’t know the label. Presumably they had found a
copy in an Oxfam shop or similar source. We were flattered and agreed
to some Cds being made. We only discovered that the vinyl album was
selling for huge prices to collectors (claims of a value of up to
£1000 per album) at a later date. We’ve never made any money from
the project apart from a modest one off fee for the use of the master
tape for making the CD. The Kissing Spell CD has presumably sold
well, but we have no notion of how many. It’s
the internet that’s allowed access to underground material like our
1978 one-off album enabled its inclusion in such archives as your
own. Acid Folk and Psychedelic Folk are tags that have invented
relatively recently to describe our sort of music combining original
(not traditional) songs with an acoustic celtic folk leaning melded
with the sound of electric guitar and bass.
You
were a part of this Jesus movement which was very big in the 1970s,
but hardly visible these days. The Jesus movement ran the the
marxist-leninists pretty close in activity level and popularity in
Scandinavia at that time. Which was a good thing. Please tell us more
about the Jesus movement, the ideology and the music. We
were one of the first bands in the Jesus Movement to write music that
had its own integrity: songs that evidenced our faith in subtle and
intelligent lyric writing. The pressure from the Jesus Music movement
was to write very overt and somewhat facile stuff.
Other
artists who blazed this trail of less obvious and more thoughtful
music were Bruce Coburn, Steve Butler, Adrian Snell, Ricki Ross. They
found their feet at this time, they were Christians but were more
subtle and considered in their approach, dwelling upon the quality of
their music rather than churning out ditties to please a church going
audience.
The
now sadly deceased Larry Norman was a ground breaker in the Christian
music movement. But you were more in the direction of Fairport
Convention, Pentangle and the folk rock scene at that time. Please
tell us more about your music and your influences.
Primarily
we were influenced by British folk and rock, but found an audience
within a Scottish circuit of youth groups, within concerts in church
halls and the like. As we matured we played our original material in
the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and in pub gigs. The music we enjoyed
affected our writing and arranging. Because all four of the
instrumentalists composed Caedmon’s music was and is very eclectic
and varied picking up on many infuences. As well as folk you would
hear the Beatles, The Stones, Alex Harvey, Humble Pie playing in our
flat and we were in awe of the slick studio sound of 10cc and
Americans Steely Dan. James Taylor, Paul Simon, Bert Jansch shaped my
guitar style (Ken) Jimmy Hentrix shaped Jim’s.
You
were formed in 1973, toured until 1978 and released the album the
same year. What else have you been up to besides of sorting out
lambs, dogs and horses ? Angela
is a part time small animal practice vet in the Midlands. Jim designs
websites in the NW, Ken is a composer, community musician and film
maker based in the NE, Sam is an important boffin in Edinburgh
University in computers and Simon ran drugs awareness programmes
throughout Scotland and is now a consultant in the Arts and Youth and
Community work. Sam and Simon play in ‘Flaming Nora’ and ‘Dave’s
New Bike’. Ken plays in ‘The Side Café Orkestar’.
Caedmon
are now gathered in Edinburgh again and plotting to give us some more
of Caedmon. Please tell us more about what you are plotting and/or
your future plans.
On
the 7th
and 8th
May 2010 we performed our first concerts together for 32 years. We
got together on the thirtieth anniversary of our farewell concert on
the basis that we would write a new album of brand new material
reflecting upon the lives we’ve lived over that period.
The
album was recorded over seven consecutive days 26th
April – 2 May 2010. There are some vocals left to do. Let’s hope
that it’s finished and out by Autumn 2010! Working title ‘A
Chicken to Hug’.
The
rough mixes are sounding exciting. There are themes of family, birth,
death, sex, the passage of time, things said and left unsaid. It’s
interesting because there are four different writers in the band and
further material that emerged from jamming and joint writing. Also,
we’re not all Christians any more, and we agreed that we’d
express our own individual perspectives in our writing without
censoring each other’s ideas, valuing the journey we’ve all
taken.
I
think that fans will spot that it’s Caedmon straight away, but
there are obvious new elements…. primarily the use of a drum kit
and accordion….. instrumentation that we didn’t have before…..
also each member takes on some lead vocals (it was only Angela and
one track from Simon on the first album).
There’s
still a bewildering range of rhythms, instrumentation, eclectic mix
of styles in influences and we’ve managed to steal a few more days
to record the new album so we’re very happy with the musicianship.
We’ve also had Steve Butler from ‘Lies Damned Lies’ as producer
and he’s got the best out of us.
Just
to wrap this interview up; do you have any regrets in your music
career ? Personally
(Ken) I have no regrets. I’ve always had a hankering to be in the
spotlight and envied contemporaries like Ricky Ross who found big
fame…… but I’ve had a good life. Musically I’m rooted in
community music where the main goal is to involve anybody who wishes
to play or sing in meaningful music-making, music that’s good for
the soul.
What
is your all time favourite animal patients (species) ?
Chickens
to hug.
What
is your five all time favourite albums ? Steely
Dan, ‘Can’t Buy a Thrill’, Fairport Convention
‘Unhalfbricking’, Pentangle ‘Reflection’, Bob Fox and Stu
Luckley ‘Nowt so Good’ll Pass’, Bruce Cockburn ‘Dancing in
the Dragon’s Jaws’
Anything
you want to add to this interview ?
We’ll
keep you informed with release dates of the new album “A Chicken to
Hug” and invite you to review it! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A big thank you to Ken and the band for this interview. Their PA profile is http://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=3861 - and their home page is http://www.caedmonsreturn.com/ - 
2010 live
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