'Big Bass Tune' from the B So glObal album '3'

Amongst all the metaphorical loose change, bus tickets, dead wasps etc. that I found down the back of the external hard-drive cushions recently, I found these little gems. They are recordings of the Duffs, a fantastic Oxfordshire-based band that I joined in the late ’80s.

The other three members of the band, Peter Franklin (vocals, guitars), Ian Staples (bass) and Pete Gardner (drums) all lived on narrowboats around Banbury at the time. I would drive up from Southend-on-Sea for rehearsals and gigs in a wheezingly decrepit, hand-painted, long-wheelbase Transit that burned oil at such a rate that I had to stop every so often and top up the reservoir.

These recordings were made by the legendary and greatly-missed Richard Haynes at Dungeon Studio in Ascott-under-Wychwood.

Thin Coat

Think you can work out who Charlie is, should be too difficult

Charlie

Lies Lies Lies

Red Square (forward THE GREAT SQUARIONS!) - Jon Seagroatt, Ian Staples & Roger Telford - live at the Tinderbox Festival (www.myspace.com/tinderboxfestival) (www.myspace.com/redsquarealbum)

Red Square live at the 2011 Tinderbox Festival

A segue of 4 tracks from our shiny new 9 track album 'Cosmic Wheels'. The tracks are: 'Your Mouth', 'Hey Hey', 'Everybody' & 'Billy Pilgrim'.
 
All tracks written by Ian Staples and arranged by the Psychedelic Raiders (Ian Staples: guitars & vocals, Jon Seagroatt: bass, vocals, saxes & organ, Chris Hills: drums & tabla).

The album was recorded, mixed and produced by Jon Seagroatt.

Original 1967 artwork by Ian & Tilly Staples.


Four track segue from the album 'Cosmic Wheels'

Dennis Skinner Jeremy Vine Show Today 14.9.15
This Guy Put Hims Firmly into His place 
Utterly Brilliant...

Dennis Skinner Jeremy Vine Show Today 14.9.15

Talking drum, sawblade w/cigarbox, toy piano, shruti,two kalimba with effects, cello banjo.

Kalimba 7 Tracks

RED SQUARE is a pioneering free-improvising, avant-rock band, originally from Southend-on-Sea, Essex, that formed in 1974 and broke up in 1978, before reforming again in 2008 as a result of renewed interest in the band having been probably the first ever to take on the challenges of total free improvisation from a rock perspective.

Bridging the worlds of psychedelia, metal and avant-jazz and pre-dating the experimentation of Sonic Youth and Last Exit by a decade and The Thing by twenty five years, Red Square's railing aural assaults were once considered too extreme for commercial release. 

Red Square revolves around the astonishingly original guitar playing of veteran sixties survivor, Ian Staples - tape and noise experimenter, action-painter, Grosvenor Square radical and wired denizen of the Middle Earth Club. 

Not only does Staples’ iconoclastic sound palette encompass influences from delta blues and Hendrix through to Derek Bailey and Stockhausen, but a mongrel-blues strain of Trout Mask-inspired DNA courses virulently through every line he plays. 

The Red Square line up is completed by Jon Seagroatt, (woodwind and electronics), member of the legendary psych-folk band Comus, and co-founder, with Staples, of Red Square, plus drummer / percussionist Lee Smith, who replaced Roger Telford  - featured in all four of these recordings - in 2012.

Red Square continue to deliver free-form avant-metal through very big speakers with undiminished enthusiasm. 


Bird Haus - from the Red Square album Bird Haus (Fo Fum, 2012)

The Minotaur, his heart racing, recognises the Labyrinth. Leans forward, clicks 'like'.

Plan's for the 2012 Tinderbox are now well advanced, please visit <a href="http://www.tinderboxfestival.co.uk" target="_blank"><font color="#FF9900"><b>Tinderbox Festival</b></font></a> for the latest information!

Red Square's Tinderbox Festival is a mini-micro festival of challenging music set in unchallenging, positively embracing surroundings, where the trees want to hug you as much as you want to hug them.
The thematic idea of Tinderbox is to present an eclectic range of musics which have improvisation as a core ingredient.
Last June we ran a trial one-day mini-festival-cum-birthday-party at a fantastic canal-side location at Cropredy. We installed a stage, a decent PA system and some engagingly twinkling lights. We dialled up a bit of sunshine, and then we invited a few improvising bands and musicians that we liked to come along and play.
The event proved such a success, with both bands and audience, that, by the next day, we had agreed to repeat the format again for this year.
One thing we found very interesting was the way that people who had never been exposed to this kind of music enjoyed both the music and the day itself. It seems that the setting of a small, outdoor festival creates a user-friendly context for improv and helps to overcome some of the suspicion that often greets experimental musics.
After all, if you're lying in a field in the sunshine with a glass of wine and a nice bun, whilst some crazee cats are busy circuit bending on stage, it's somehow all seems a little less threatening. We will certainly be keeping the relaxed, 'challenging music in a non-challenging environment' feel for this year.
We want Tinderbox to be a place where musicians can meet, hear what one another are up to and exchange ideas (and gigs), and where the audience can dip their toes in some pretty cutting-edge sounds whilst relaxing with a nice picnic and a bun.
All of the bands &amp; collectives represented here played at the 2011 Festival - to them; many thanks for an exceptional day of music.



Red Square live at the 2011 Tinderbox Festival

Tinderbox Festival (2011)