THE DERBY DAZZLER

Here's the transcript of the Peter Hammill Internet Chat from Sunday 15 November 1998:


Mr.Hammill used the pseudonym "Derby Dazzler"
derbydazzler: it's my pleasure to be here
AskPeter: nomelite says: what would it be an early influence about your rough style of vocals.Maybe Captain Beefheart?

derbydazzler: It's been stated before but I was trying to do something with the voice...
derbydazzler: equivalent to what Hendrix did with guitar....
derbydazzler: or Coltrane with sax.
derbydazzler: ga

AskPeter: lesteves says: is it possible an album Peter hammill/Robert Fripp?

derbydazzler: anything is possible! I suspect, though, that we're both people...
derbydazzler: who like to have control over our own projects....
derbydazzler: so shared ones are potentially problematic!
derbydazzler: Certainly, though, I hope to work with Robert again in some capacity or another...
derbydazzler: in the near future. ga

AskPeter: marco65 says: What has become of the "BeCalm" and "ALoud" series after "Fireships" and "The Noise"? (Marco)

derbydazzler: hi marco. I think that these have become (both of them) series of 1...
derbydazzler: The original idea was to delineate (some) of the divisions in my music...
derbydazzler: but since then I've preferred to present a mish-mash (as per usual!)
derbydazzler: ga

I think we should mention that we could consider this event an internet birthday party as well as an IRC chat. Peter celebrates his 50th birthday this month!!!

derbydazzler: already celebrated, on the 5th. A week of Peter-fest...

AskPeter: badgerman says: Did you ever imagine back in the 70's that you'd still be in the rock business at 50? When did it first strike you it wasn't anymore just a young persons game?

derbydazzler: 1. It was absolutely beyond imagining in the 70s that, even if you were lucky...
derbydazzler: you'd be able to do something for more than five years or so...
derbydazzler: I'm talking, obviously, about the attempt to do something serious...
derbydazzler: So back then I imagined that I/we might have a decent run for five years or so...
derbydazzler: and then I'd somehow transmute, thirty years later...
derbydazzler: into an acclaimed novelist on some Pacific isle....
derbydazzler: didn't quite work out!
derbydazzler: as far as 2. (n ot a young person's game) goes that was never a problem...
derbydazzler: for me, once I'd realised that I was definitely hooked on and fulfilled by music....
derbydazzler: after all my ear had first been sparked by blues players who keep going until the drop...
derbydazzler: (as I hope to do)...
derbydazzler: In my view problems only come if you start trying to do work...
derbydazzler: or write from a perspective or age which is false for you... Geddit? ga

AskPeter: aboxofrogs says: How do you like working with DGM? Is it a change over your past experiences with record companies?

derbydazzler: this kind of relates to the previous question...
derbydazzler: it was an odd moment for both Robert and myself to meet up again after several years...
derbydazzler: as, effectively, record company moguls (albiet of singularly small &amp mobilely intelligent natures!)...
derbydazzler: who would have imagined that?
derbydazzler: A natural development, though. Anyway, my, or rather Fie's relationship with Discipline...
derbydazzler: is transparent and honourable. They release in the US and Fie releases most other places and...
derbydazzler: of course the artistic decisions and copyright ownership are Artist's Own...
derbydazzler: as it should be. This is not the way of the world with other record cos...
derbydazzler: even some comparatively benign independent ones!
derbydazzler: ga

AskPeter: phinoz says: Peter, would you consider perhaps a regular fan release of live concert material ala Robert Fripp/King Crimson?


derbydazzler: Just before I reply I'd like to apologies for...
derbydazzler: some of the typos, but I'm trying to get these answers out as quickly as poss!

WotanCCC: You're doing great Peter.

: No problem, I'll clean 'em up in the transcript! LOL!!!

WotanCCC: We'll fix it in the mix....
WotanCCC: B-{)}

derbydazzler: Well, there's the Collector's Club, but also Robert has a great fund of tapes from here...
derbydazzler: and there, I believe, across the years.
derbydazzler: I don't have an archive like that. So no such releases...
derbydazzler: although something may emerge over the next years...
derbydazzler: I guess everyone here knows that I favour brutal representations of ...
derbydazzler: That Which Once Happened onstage anyway!
derbydazzler: ga

AskPeter: bernhards says: If you compare "This" to your works from the 70s, how would you say has your music changed?

derbydazzler: A truism, but I'm obviously older!
derbydazzler: Since I've always had a horror of repetition and a fear of...
derbydazzler: boredom (of myself, first of all!). That means that I've always tried...
derbydazzler: to do something new. At times, this mean faltering steps...

<: To me 'This' feels like a celebration of all that has come before. There'

derbydazzler: "Bad" albums. But without being too dam' Auterish about it, I have to say that ...
derbydazzler: the story (aural &amp otherwise) graudally accumulates.
derbydazzler: So I don't reject stuff from the 70s (or earlier); nor think that was The Best work...
derbydazzler: I try always to do the best work, but from the perspective and with the experiences of exactly how old I am noe...
derbydazzler: including all the past stuff.
derbydazzler: I would also say that "this" is some kind of statement of continued intent...
derbydazzler: Since I was recording it in the 50th year , after 30 yrs of doing this (-ish)
derbydazzler: , it being the 40th album (according to my own, perhaps suspect numerology)...
derbydazzler: I wanted to get some element of all the things in music which still interest me in there, rather than making a...
derbydazzler: "coherent" piece per se - as in "Everyone", the last.
derbydazzler: I think that's enough on that? ga

: A nod towards the past as you walk to the future, so to speak.

derbydazzler: In the now, absolutely!

AskPeter: randomtask says: Who are some of your main influences and who do you listen to when you have the time just to listen to music?

derbydazzler: Second part first. I guess in common with other musicians one of the things which one...
derbydazzler: relinquishes upon realising that this (music-making) is not just a passing fad but...
derbydazzler: a career and a life is the ability to "listen" pure and simple. Anything which
derbydazzler: remotely approaches one's own area will be subject to a critical analysis of a somewhat dubious nature...
derbydazzler: So, for instance, I rarely listen to anything in the neo-rock arena as a"punter"
derbydazzler: In fact, it can't serve me in that way, because, after all, I usually spend at least
derbydazzler: 8hours a day working on the Stuff that *I* think this kind of music should contain. So
derbydazzler: to listen to it as a listener would not be exactly relaxing to me.
derbydazzler: I also have to point out that as a family man..
derbydazzler: and i guess there are a few family people out there?

: definitely

derbydazzler: grabbing 45 minutes of absolutely undivided attention of an evening would be a task worthy of
derbydazzler: Hercules!
derbydazzler: OK, part 1. Influences at the start were (strangely enough)
derbydazzler: R'nB; Chicago Blues; Hendrix; British groups, esp Animals, Who, Kinks; Beatles to an extent; Soul Music.....
derbydazzler: Then I got exposed to jazz &amp classical in all their manifestations
derbydazzler: and since I believe that the absolute virtue of rock music is that one can
derbydazzler: bang all of these things together and produce something new
derbydazzler: I/we did!
derbydazzler: But this is a long time ago.. and
derbydazzler: I refer you back to my previous answer m'lud
derbydazzler: once you're actually doing something influences become more like perfumes in the air
derbydazzler: than themes you follow.
derbydazzler: ga

AskPeter: richardsw15 says: Do you have any particular favourites among those 40 albums - and any you'd rather sweep under the carpet?

derbydazzler: For me every one of the albums is not only a collection of writing, music &amp performance
derbydazzler: but also a period of time, both of recording/writing
derbydazzler: and fo life. So they're strange diaries for me, in a way...
derbydazzler: "Oh, *that's* the stuff that interested me then?"...
derbydazzler: As I said before, the process is cumulative.
derbydazzler: So I couldn't knock out any one album and have the others remain as they are!
derbydazzler: F'rinstance, a lot of people don't "get" "In a Foreign Town"
derbydazzler: and I admit some of it sounds prettty clunky to me now too but
derbydazzler: if I hadn't done that there's no way I could have advance d into the worlds
derbydazzler: of Fireshhips or Everyone.
derbydazzler: ga

: Peter, you talked about your musical influences, but I suspect there are significant literary influences that have in impact in your work. Can you share some of those with us as well?

derbydazzler: I'm a bit of a scattergun reader these days.
derbydazzler: I was very keen on Norse Sagas/anglo saxon stuff in my teens... Njal's saga, Beoweulf &amp so on.
derbydazzler: then Sci-Fi evidently came into it.
derbydazzler: And Shakespeare's obviously been around all my life!!!
derbydazzler: But I also have an affinity for the odd world of Pynchon &amp Borges...
derbydazzler: and many others.

<: And perhaps Poe?

derbydazzler: But, again, "influence" is funny stuff when it comes to what actually
derbydazzler: goes into the work. I've managed to preserve
derbydazzler: literature as an are in which I can simply be a consumer...
derbydazzler: although I often argue back with the page, surprise, surprise!
derbydazzler: ga

AskPeter: yellowfever says: How do you regard experiments like "Fall of House of Usher" today?

derbydazzler: as a chapter of accidents which deserves a second look
derbydazzler: ga

AskPeter: richardsw15 says: Taking up the 'family man' topic - and please forgive me if this is too personal - what do your family make of your work?

derbydazzler: do you want me to make this an all-round family show?
derbydazzler: LoL
derbydazzler: For them the fact that I am "who" I am and

: Yes, how do the kids feel about 'Since the Kids' ;-)

derbydazzler: do what I do is absolutely normal of course.
derbydazzler: Holly(daughter no 1)'s first week at home was accompanied by my percussive efforts on
derbydazzler: pH7. After that *anything's* normal.
derbydazzler: ga

AskPeter: xtarkus says: Peter, are you still in contact with the other members of VDGG and will there be a project in the future with this guys?

derbydazzler: well we had a drink or fourteen together over the Peterfest last week..
derbydazzler: I can't imagine that we *won't* do work of some kind or another with each other in various combinations over the next years...
derbydazzler: but I very much doubt that it would be under the aegis of VdGG!!!!
derbydazzler: But I think there might well be some good combinations to come...
derbydazzler: even though this wasn't the question (we're hovering around an ocean of worms here...)
derbydazzler: I think it's evidence of our sense in packing up when we did
derbydazzler: that we *do* actually remain good if intermittent friends and
derbydazzler: the old days and the old music are unsullied by rancour.
derbydazzler: We never copped out.
derbydazzler: tha's why we had to stop
derbydazzler: ga

AskPeter: balaf says: Frozen place sounds like Eno's Music for Airports, will the next 'experimental' album be in that direction?

derbydazzler: If (whatever it's going to be) it's going to be experimental, it'll obviously have to
derbydazzler: be new to me as well.
derbydazzler: Although I'm amazed to find that combining things in different quantities and
derbydazzler: perspectives seems to, produce new reults each time.
derbydazzler: If we're struggling for analogous world here I guess it"s
derbydazzler: cuisine!
derbydazzler: I seriously I hope to get acquainted with the next experiments
derbydazzler: only in the thick of them and
derbydazzler: still attempt to come at things without too many preconceptions...
derbydazzler: ga

AskPeter: kilngoddes says: What was the inspiration for the piece called, Safehouse?

derbydazzler: It's one od the "cinematic" songs...
derbydazzler: that's not to say that it's intended as a soundtrack for an imagined movie, but
derbydazzler: as an encapsulation of "the" movie itself...
derbydazzler: Just Good Friends &amp Don't tell me also fall into this category, among others, btw
derbydazzler: So I just had this cinematic feeling of The Last Survivors of The Resistance
derbydazzler: in a city being overrun, sending out messages to no-one.
derbydazzler: I guess it's somewhere between Graham Green &amp Sarajevo...
derbydazzler: ga

AskPeter: davnu says: Peter, have you ever played with Robert Wyatt?

derbydazzler: no, never. Same stage, but not simultaneously..
derbydazzler: a man to whom I doff my hat
derbydazzler: there aren't many of us left
derbydazzler: ga

AskPeter: jkochel says: Why have you moved toward more layered vocals on your recent albums as opposed to the strong single lead vocals in VDGG?

derbydazzler: first of all they're difficult
derbydazzler: and secondly they're fun!
derbydazzler: Also, in Vdgg (see the VERY FIRST q/a) my function as vocalist was to cut through like a guitar or horn.
derbydazzler: So in that envrion one alone is best...
derbydazzler: also, that was more-or-less a representation of
derbydazzler: what it sounded like live, so "real"
derbydazzler: I do have to say, though, that the multi-layered vocal thing is something that's
derbydazzler: been going on for a good many years, right back to the early 70s..
derbydazzler: ga

: Peter, you've got some dates coming up in Europe in December. I've had lots of inquiries about your next tour of the states. Anything you can tell us about that or any other tour plans? And which musicians might be accompanying you?

derbydazzler: In Europe in December I'll be accompanied by the impeccably unspeakable
derbydazzler: Stuart Gordon on violin and Noise
derbydazzler: It's a combination with a lot of continuing possibilities. Well, they all, are, frankly!!!

: BTW, for our European fans out there, you'll find those dates listed at &lt derbydazzler: AS far as the States goes, I beat my breats in humble apologies for not having given any of that
derbydazzler: stage-welly over there for so many years...
derbydazzler: Ican only tell you that it is an absolute Priority One

: yahooo!

derbydazzler: for me to do so, somehow, somewhere, whatever, in 1999!
derbydazzler: ga

AskPeter: garyl1 says: What is your opinion of the state of rock music in general at present?

derbydazzler: interesting
derbydazzler: as in the Chinese curse "may you live in interesting times"
derbydazzler: ga

WotanCCC: Is there anything else you would like to mention
WotanCCC: before we conclude today?

derbydazzler: actually that last answer was a bit too flip.
derbydazzler: There remain people who believe that rock music is a form
derbydazzler: which si the equal of any other artistic one
derbydazzler: I don't mean in being worthy of museum-isation, but of Statement.
derbydazzler: So it's possible to DO Stuff.
derbydazzler: But I have a lot of sympathy for people NOW coming in &amp trying to do stuff
derbydazzler: because the Industry (which it now is) is inimically set against
derbydazzler: Actual Work.
derbydazzler: I mean to say... Interesting!
derbydazzler: Nothing more to add for now.
derbydazzler: It's been a pleasure to neo-chat with yo8u all!
derbydazzler: ga


< : Looks like our time is up...
< : I'd like to thank everyone for joining us tonight.
: Peter, we appreciate your taking the time to
< : come and chat with us today, : Thanks for joining us, Peter.

derbydazzler: Bye
derbydazzler: It's back to the dressing room for me...