30 Wednesday May 2012
Posted in Progressive Rock
Beggars Opera Doris Single RGS 9500
Beggars Opera new single Doris RGS 9500 will be out on the 12/6/2012 on itunes ….
3 new art rock tracks from 70′s Prog rockers Beggars Opera. Ricky Gardiner’s surreal power guitar, Virginia Scott’s nano rocky horror tale lyrics and voice and Tom Gardiner solid drums.
1/ Doris
2/ More Blue Sky
3/ It’s Friday Night You Know
01 Tuesday May 2012
Posted in Band, Progressive Rock
Beggars Opera have a new Amazon download page where you can download vintage and current Ricky Gardiner Songs (RGS) Beggars Opera releases.
28 Saturday Apr 2012
Posted in Progressive Rock, Reviews
BEGGARS OPERA: BEES
Promise In Motion RGS 9486
Ricky Gardiner Songs
‘BEES opens with Ricky Gardiner’s signature, soaring, guitar sound, singing through doors of chord changes, the sound experience is bright, progressive yet ducks into darkness, implying an underbelly has been rumbled and you’ll hear it later. Singer Virginia Scott’s ‘Go Wireless’ mantra plays as an introduction chorus and brings a glamorous edge that moves in to a kind of Karen Carpenter voice, darkly appealing for the salvation of the honeybees and all apocalyptic possibilities with Colony Collapse Disorder, that the song is sweetly telling us about.
The lyrics are very conversational (you get the feeling this is what Virginia might speak like if you were casually talking with her over a cup of Earl Grey). She expertly makes it glide over brooding growls of guitar and piano tones in the verses opening out the darkness of the track. There are hints of music concrete with intense sounding samples of bees working, midi trumpet’s hooking their way through a similar vocal – ‘how can we find our way through, when our electro-communication is jammed’ – pointing us to other human ways of communication that are so often over looked, that is psychic, electro energy, magnetic fields, vibes etc.
This is a kind of progressive pop, with a staple of pop now being the marriage of the sweet and dark, the clean and dirty, that The Velvet Underground gave way to all those years ago. BEES is lyrically apocalyptic and sonically sweet and lush like fresh fields after an April shower, a cosmic twist, the sinister in the sweet with some expert instrumentation, operatic builds and falls, Carpenter-esque pop at every unexpected turn.’
-Miss Gardiner 2012
17 Tuesday Apr 2012
Posted in Progressive Rock
Is language a virus from outer space?
If so – who controls it?
Is it part of a plan?
Is it growing outside us?
Doris RGS 9500: NEW taster track from Beggars Opera forthcoming experimental rock 4 EP marathon opus Mrs Caligari’s Lighter.
Guitar: Ricky Gardiner
Keys and Vox: Virginia Scott
Electric Kit: Tom Gardiner
06 Friday Apr 2012
Tags
Ricky Gardiner and one of our Marshall Stacks. In 1969 Beggars Opera bought 2/200 watt Marshall stacks, one for lead one for bass and a 200 watt Marshall PA. All were white. They travelled by van in many countries without problem heavy as they were to handle. JC one of our crew jumped off a five foot stage carrying a 4×12 : an incredible feat. RIP Jim Marshall: what would we have all done without him.
Posted by Beggars Opera | Filed under Progressive Rock
26 Thursday Jan 2012
Posted in Band, Progressive Rock
Tags
The Beggars Opera website has been redesigned and is now visible on:
www.beggarsopera.co.uk
Just for sentimental value here is a bootleg of Beggars Opera LIVE from the 70′s playing Raymond’s Rd.
29 Thursday Dec 2011
Posted in Progressive Rock
2011 Beggars Opera released Promise In Motion RGS 9486 for itunes download:
itunes
Have a listen to track 6/ Bees.
Looking forward to 2012:
Beggars Opera will be uploading Mrs Caligari’s Lighter: a set of 4 EP’s to itunes, new poems and lyrics, photos, and a brand new Beggars Opera website.
Happy Days
Virginia and Ricky
15 Thursday Dec 2011
06 Tuesday Dec 2011
Posted in Poetry
Iggy Surreal
You look on from the wings
and see a vision
wild and strong
I wonder where the raw power is
immediate reaction to
the vibrations comin`
linkin` roadwaves in the air
catastrophic love lives began here
and they ended in the
archetypes are here
freedom is felt here
feelings spill over here
fox takes a powder
imagine the loneliness
being out there
then suddenly exposed
you swallow you’re pride
you’re out there
Jimmy the raver
Jimmy insane
Jimmy the saviour
Jimmy cocaine
Beautiful smile
lust for life
I wouldn’t change places
come to Marlboro country
Jimmy leavin us now
reasoning has always worried
fragile person
strong projection
image
refractor and
the camera shake
meant that my photos
were a big mistake
N.Y. city
dim white light
shakin
Heidi
Paris
France
luxurious – luxury
opulence – total
you beat you’re head on
a brick wall
for years and
no one sees the tears
hears your fears
it’s just now
and I can see now
why its right
I feel now
I do now
I can do
I can fight
Iggy surreal
you are for real
you are a legend
Back stage fright
change in the light
thin white duke
in a changing day
in a changing way
the joker laughs
the hang man smiles
time is here
to stay
feel the trick
liftin surreal imagine
three cars at the
station waiting
for who knows how long
but go now
go now
leave now
speed
grows now
fox lookin on
iggy surreal
a danger to mankind
but a kind man
a reversal of the natural
order enclosed
comin out
of a chrysalis
to free captivity
a slave
queens
kings
archetypes
images
strong
felt
meant
here
now
Don’t let go
Can’t let go
its now
or never
Vision of tomorrow
it began today
it is the hour of
Japan’s weird sensual
trap of slaves
of powdered joy
ephemeral
instructed lady
In it
without it
it happened today
that’s where it started
observers
lookin on
I didn’t know you were here
impassioned stare
we’ll build tomorrow’s empires
we’ll make tomorrow’s world
its all so easy within
our grasp
clock ticks time away
its happening now
one
vision of pure
exhibiting
contact the senses
release
impact
stunning fright
600 m.p.h
2 Jumbos collide
350 people die
spit on floors
hotels and bars
climb up stairs
corners
people wanting
needing
s + m
imagine
imagine who’s left
quiet
smothered
apartment
enclosed
oil tragedy on the wall
steak tartare
Irish coffee in a bar
black and strong
human
love is now
I want more
6 imbiss
sauerkraut
kurfurtendam
flughaven
down town Detroit
the next one on the show
iggy surreal
I see what you feel
maybe the only one
who’s is free to reveal
your not known to people
who need to know
what
I keep imagining all the things
to do but
I need to go anyway
I had to move on
that last gig
and the changes in my head
have made the past
the colours of the day
flickered away
insertion right
baby you’ve been a long time coming
nobody can
diana demon and crazy games
Poem by Virginia A Scott
Written in the USA and Berlin during the Iggy Pop Idiot Tour of 1977
The Vibrators
supported Iggy Pop on the UK leg of the tour.
Above photo Virginia Scott Cleveland Ohio 1977 by Ricky Gardiner
06 Tuesday Dec 2011
Posted in Interviews, The Passenger
The Passenger Story
Photo Ricky Toronto 1977: Virginia Scott
Interview questions by Robert Webb 2005.
The Independent on Sunday
1/ I’ve read a quote from you in the book Gimme Danger about how you were walking around your garden and your ear was caught by the chord sequence you were playing. Was it an unconscious thing; a little like McCartney waking up with “Yesterday” going through his head?
RG/ It may have been partially hypno-pompic. It was certainly a case of the chord sequence ‘slipping through’ while I was ‘lost in the glory’ of a beautiful spring morning’. I heard myself playing in the distance.
The strength, inherent in a round, arrested my attention and I registered the sequence for future use.
2/ What are the actual chords?
RG/ The chords are simple enough. It is a mystery to me why they had not previously appeared in that order. They are – Am, F, C, G- Am, F ,C, E/E7.
3 / Did you have other ideas for the riff, before you played it to Iggy, and what did he say when you played it to him?
RG/ When I was invited to join David and Iggy in Berlin, I did not realise that they needed material, so I was unprepared when they asked me if I had ‘anything’. My surprise was effectively covered when I recalled the aforementioned chord sequence and promptly played it to them on my unplugged Strat. David immediately liked it, Iggy was open and receptive at the time but I suspect it did not have quite the same impact as a screaming chain saw which is his natural preference, I think. None the less, he appeared the next morning with the completed lyrics andafter we recorded it, he seemed very pleased. I must also mention the fine contribution that Carlos Alomar made to the recording- a very nice man and a good musician.
Carlos Alomar: Chateau 1976. Photo: Ricky Gardiner
4/ The song doesn’t move on from the circular chord sequence – no middle eight or chorus. Weren’t you tempted to write more?
RG/ I did not develop the riff prior to convening in Berlin and neither David or Iggy suggested any addition.
It lives on unaltered.
5/ What’s your view on Iggy’s lyrics? Are they about Bowie?
RG/ I do not read anything personal in lyrics.
I have no interest at all in the personal dynamics between people.
We all have our personalities to deal with and I expect we all deal with it in our own way.
Therefore, I make no judgement on the people’s personalities or their inter reaction.
The main issue for me is the music-getting the work done – enjoying the recording. In general terms, Iggy displays a spontaneously vivid and fertile imagination which he puts to very productive creative use in the studio.
This made the recording very rewarding.
6/ Tony Visconti has called you an “unsung hero”, and I take it you first met Iggy and Bowie via him. What’s your feeling now about your involvement with Iggy. Are you still in touch?
RG/ Tony is, himself, something of an ‘unsung hero’. He is very patient and yet decisive.
He is always willing to try a new approach yet he doesn’t intrude unnecessarily.
I am grateful that Iggy is still out there ‘treading the boards’ and apparently going from strength to strength.
Tony Visconti 1976 Press cutting.
7/ What do you do now?
RG/ For at least 10 years I have suffered from Electro Magnetic HyperSensitivity (www.feb.se ).
I am allergic to most aspects of modern and not so modern technology. I spend time trying to find ways round my disability. I am aided by my wife composer/artist Virginia Scott.
8/ Also, can you give me release details for your album The Passenger, and a little more info on your own version please (beyond what I have gleaned
from your web site ): which I like very much.
RG/ We have two versions of the Passenger which were recorded prior to EMHS.
Ricky Gardiner 2005
