Henry Cow: The World Is a Problem by Benjamin Piekut (review)

If you are familiar with the band Henry Cow, then you know how difficult it can be to describe their style to others. If you're not familiar with them, then maybe this book will help you tremendously. I say this not because this is a bad book (it isn't) but because the subject matter is something of an enigma. They were a band that amalgamated twentieth-century classical influences from composers like John Cage and free-jazz elements like those used by Ornette Coleman and melded them with experimental rock styles similar to those of Pink Floyd and Frank Zappa. They were products of the English private-school system who adopted communist and socialist ideas and principles. Finally, they tried to promote these ideals through their musical performances as well as through their increasingly antagonistic interactions with the decidedly capitalist record industry. For Henry Cow, the world was indeed a problem—but so was Henry Cow itself.

Piekut begins by describing the musical environment that led to the Cow's birth. First was the free mingling of classical, jazz, and popular styles in the late 1960s (and the increasingly improvisatorial nature of those styles), followed by the rise of European-based rock, especially German artists like Tangerine Dream and Can, that downplayed the influence of American rhythm and blues in favor of local folk styles. Finally, there was the increased use of electronic and amplified sounds, not to mention the number of musical artists who were primarily learning their craft from repeated listening to recordings rather than through traditional means. Piekut refers to these, in the afterword, as "vernacular musicians" (self-trained from recordings), as opposed to their elite (traditionally educated) counterparts.

Chapter 1 introduces Henry Cow to the world, and vice versa. The band had its roots at Cambridge University when Fred Frith met Tim Hodgkinson. Both were products of the public-school system. Fred went to Leys School, Tim attended Winchester College, and both earned degrees in a subject other than music. Despite this, they both played several instruments and listened to a wide variety of music. They met while playing at a university blues and folk club, Frith on violin and Hodgkinson on saxophone, and quickly struck up a friendship. By 1968, the two had formed Henry Cow with several of their Cambridge classmates and began playing engagements around the country. Though everyone thought that they named themselves after twentieth-century American composer Henry Cowell, the band always denied it (without actually providing a real story for the name). Their penchant for improvisation and complex chord and rhythmic structures started to gain them the attention of critics and audiences alike.

There were several changes to the band's membership, but as Piekut describes in chapter 2, Henry Cow crystalized around Frith (guitar, bass guitar, violin, keyboards), Hodgkinson (sax, clarinet, keyboards, lap steel guitar, electronics), Chris Cutler (percussion), John Greaves (bass guitar), and Geoff Leigh (saxophone, flute, clarinet, recorder, vocals). It was this lineup that signed for the relatively new Virgin Records label and recorded their initial album, Leg End, in 1973. They toured in support of label mates Faust, an important band in the formation of the Krautrock experimental movement in Germany, who apparently decided to self-destruct on the road. While this could have been disastrous for Henry Cow as well, they emerged intact and stronger than ever. Piekut coined the term contraviviality to sum up the Cow's ability to suffer external and internal setbacks and somehow rise above them—at least, for a while.

The internal setbacks begin to surface in chapter 3. Henry Cow experienced a change in personnel, with Leigh leaving and being replaced by bassoonist/oboist Lindsay Cooper. It was this group that recorded their second album, Unrest, in 1974. They also toured both as the supporting act for American avant...