David Cunningham – "Grey Scale" (Piano – Piano 001) 1977

 

The first Piano release,made by cold storage recording studio main man, David 'Flying Lizard' Cunningham, was this minimal systems music offering in praise of the 'Error'. Without which nothing any good would have emerged from the primordial soup of music,slash, entertainment,slash everything.

Without error we would all still be banging drums in a cave in the south of France. Some people still are,mostly Hippies hiding away from having to get a job before the trust fund matures..

Without 'Error', mother nature would only have ever produced a rock,or a gas, or a Piers Morgan. There is an inherent need to mutate. Musical notes boast more than just a passing resemblance to the genetic code, so any note or gene in the wrong place can lead to the most horrific or exciting developments.Like evolution, if there's a need for this mutation, it will be used, but the mechanics remain in the background,....on the Grey Scale.

I'll let  David explain the Error System to you daft lot:

"Error System
The players play a repeating phrase. As soon as one player makes a mistake that mistake is made the basis of his repetition unless it is modified by a further mistake. Thus each player proceeds at his own rate to change the sound in an uncontrollable manner. On no account should 'mistakes' be made deliberately to introduce a change into a performance. In short - sustain your errors.
The water piece and the guitar piece are analogous to this process. However the process is automatic here, an inherent quality in the machinery used."

I found myself watching the hideous spectacle of Glastonbury 2022,last evening,with its endless reams of error-less meaning-less, middle class party music,absolute drivel.

I found myself weirdly enjoying Robert Plant and Alison Krause's rather splendid Folk renditions.....at the wrong festival i may suggest. While waiting for 'idles',whom i had priorly thought were 'not bad'.They bust a bloodvessel living up to the 'punk' band on the bill role they were assigned,and kept wheeling out a neo-hipster on a very expensive looking baritone sax,playing the same Free-Jazz squeal during the really 'Crazy' bits. I suspect the sax-hipster couldn't actually play his couple of grand's worth of brass,or understand what he had pretensions towards...for it was, was it not,Ornette Coleman who championed the erroneous note, as prioritizing the 'right wrong notes' over the 'wrong wrong notes'? This Idles guy got all the wrong wrong notes, but no-one had a single clue about what was wrong wrong or right right;one may as well play nothing nothing I thought.They formally stuck to the 'right' stuff that the massive sea of Billy Eilish fans from Surrey wanted to relay their 'Punk moment' and tell their children of the near-future about again and again....see, Mummy and Daddy really are the boring fucks you thought they were.Poor little sods, bored to sleep with endless tales of obscenely expensive festival exploits between the ages of 18 and 21,before they got their job in the city.As for the fuckers who are my age and their tiresome renditions of having an uncle who saw Quintessence and Bowie'a mime act back  in '71.....on mushrooms ('Drugs' they giggle!)...who cares? Its preposterous how these bland also-rans boast about paying to see some vaguely famed group play in the past,and seem to think that somehow this makes them 'cool' as if they were actually in these silly fucking groups? Yeah I was in Quintessence because i paid to see 'em.They'd even bring their own flute just in case the groups fluty man collapsed,and they asked the audience if anyone plays the flute,Keith Moon in Boston style.They hold up their hand ,"Me sir please sir!" in their moist pop star wet dream.Not a dry pair of Y-Fronts in the house. Yeah I saw Kajagoogoo play in Barnsley Railway station bogs back in '59.....hold on?...I'm genuinely envious of that one!!

Idles wouldn't have been allowed at any genuinely edgy 'punk' festival...if such a thing ever existed?.....hahaha those guys are sooo crazy,one of them wore a dress! hahahaha!

Prior to this shocking exposure, i had never heard of,or seen even a still of Billie Eilish. This is as dark as those kids are gonna get i thought.She led them in breathing exercises, started a reverse Mexican wave and shared her three commandments of concert-going: "Don't be an asshole, no judgment and have fun bitch!".Scything down 70 years of rock'n'roll history in one swooping scrape of Nero's fiddle like it had all never happened.

I felt a generation gap opening up immediately,mainly because I AM an Asshole,I judge everything and everyone, and i willfully avoid so-called,'Fun'...especially if i'm told to have it! 

I did ,however, join in on the breathing exercises,and the mexican wave in my friendless TV lounge, and consoled myself with a bout of sneering before i went to bed...alone...a choice not an obligation! 

Watching this crud was a very grave error on my part.....but maybe we can evolve from this?....I Doubt it very much.

Music is very fucking DEAD...well, at least very very fucking boring.

Tracklist:

1.Error System (BAGFGAB)
2.Error System (C Pulse Solo Recording)
3.Error System (C Pulse Group Recording)
4.Error System (E Based Group Recording)
5.Error System (EFGA)
6.Ecuador
7.Water Systemised
8.Venezuela 1
9.Guitar Systemised
10.Venezuela 2
11.Bolivia

DOWNLOAD an error message HERE!