Henry Kaiser Appreciation Thread

This is an appreciation thread for Henry Kaiser. There are probably not too awful many HK fans worldwide, including at PA, so I won't be astonished if this thread grows a bit slowly. Nevertheless, HK has been around on the music scene since the early 80s or little longer. He has always been extremely innovative. He did quirky avant-garde work throughout the 80s, when it was far from popular to do so, and continues to do so today. For those at PA saying that there's nothing truly innovative anymore ought to give him a listen. It's hard to say where to start with his discography, because it's so huge and so varied. I'm certainly not going to try to encapsulate everything there is to say about HK in this one post. I can't do it. I propose trying to describe different aspects of the Henry Kaiser "elephant" post by post. I don't envision this as a blog, so help me out.

Also, we will probably not have all the same stuff of his. As I said, his discography is huge. I've never even seen a full discography, so let us all know you may happen to have, and what you think of it. It may well be one that someone else (including me) hasn't heard of.

Try to find "The Mistakes" with Mike Keneally, Andy West and Prairie Prince.

On Those Who Know History Are Doomed to Repeat It, embedded in the midst of some old time Zappa-like blues and pop pastiches, is a 30 minute Symph Prog epic called Dark Star/The Other One that would be of interest to most any PA member. No mellotron but plenty of violin. I couldn't find it on YouTube, but I did find Dark Star, which is a shorter 17 minute epic from another album I was unaware of called Eternity Blue. No violin on this version but lots of guitar revelry, so enjoy.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XwH8PKr02ho

[Post Script: Since posting this I've learned that Dark Star is originally a Grateful Dead piece. Sorry for my ignorance.]

Edited by HackettFan - May 06 2015 at 17:07

The only CD I have is Those Who Know History, which is an interesting set of covers.  Who knew the theme from The Andy Griffin show had lyrics?

HackettFan wrote: On Those Who Know History Are Doomed to Repeat It, embedded in the midst of some old time Zappa-like blues and pop pastiches, is a 30 minute Symph Prog epic called Dark Star/The Other One that would be of interest to most any PA member. No mellotron but plenty of violin. I couldn't find it on YouTube, but I did find Dark Star, which is a shorter 17 minute epic from another album I was unaware of called Eternity Blue. No violin on this version but lots of guitar revelry, so enjoy. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XwH8PKr02ho

Even as I posted this I actually had Eternity Blue on order and didn't even recall it. I found it for a pretty good deal. I've got my eye on perhaps getting Celestial Squid next.

I know there are Henry Cow fans on PA. Has anyone, in following Fred Frith, come upon his collaborations with Henry Kaiser? (With Friends Like These..., and With Enemies Like These Who Needs Friends?). What do you think? I haven't investigated Henry Cow yet. I plan to.

Something Henry Kaiser does that is real cool, and pretty unusual if not unique, is he uses one or even two delays set at long time spans and uses it sort of like a looper, improvising to himself. He sounds like two guitars. The effect is really cool. He uses this technique throughout the whole album on Where Endless Meets Disappearing and on Garden of Memory.

For your viewing pleasure. Here's a nice interview with Henry Kaiser on Dunlop TV:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWsaSphPvXM&list=RDOWsaSphPvXM&index=1