Structured Disasters was formed in 2015 by Dan Gregory, Mark Browne, Mark Gerrard and Liam Jackman in order to bring interesting music to Aylesbury and profile Aylesbury musicians in London and Oxford. To date they have arranged concerts for Adam Bohman, David Toop, Lee Riley, Sly & The Family Drone, Black Spring, Neil Campbell, Turnstone, Justice Yeldham, Phantom Chips, Black Ju Ju, Lust Rollers, Glockenspiel. Venues have included Aylesbury’s Limelight Theatre, Jericho Tavern and Last Bookshop Oxford and Hundred Years Gallery. Structured Disasters also produce limited edition cassette.
John Russell/Terry Day
Graham Dunning/Mark Browne
Spinecakes/Dan Gregory
Door 3:30 | music 4pm | £5 entry
John Russell: guitar
Born 1954, London. John Russell got his first guitar in 1965 while living in Kent and began to play in and around London from 1971 onwards. An early involvement with the emerging free improvisation scene (from 1972) followed, seeing him play in such places as The Little Theatre Club, Ronnie Scott’s, The Institute of Contemporary Arts, The Musicians’ Co-Op and the London Musicians’ Collective. From 1974 his work extended into teaching, broadcasts (radio and television) and touring in the United Kingdom and, ever extensively, in other countries around the world . He has played with many of the world’s leading improvisers and his work can be heard on over 50 CDs and albums. In 1981, he founded QUAQUA, a large bank of improvisers put together in different combinations for specific projects and, in 1991, he started MOPOMOSO which has become the UK’s longest running concert series featuring mainly improvised music.
Terry Day: multi-instrumentalist, improvisation pioneer, songwriter, tune-smith, lyricist, poet, painter, conductor.
began improvising on the drums in a duet with his brother Pat in 1955, and in 1960 formed an improvising trio of piano, bass & drums. Since the early 1960’s he has been a First Generation Pioneer of Improvisation, Free Jazz & experimental music, having collaborated with many improvising musical luminaries, groups, dancers, painters, poets and artists from around the world. For this December afternoon session Terry Day brings back this exciting group whose September concert at the gallery was so successful.
Graham Dunning: electronics
As an artist Graham makes things in various different formats, but generally to do with either Sound or Found Objects. He has a background in experimental music and this continues into the art he makes and how it is produced, using experimentation and play as a main part of his making process. Sometimes self-imposed restrictions are applied to his projects in a similar manner to the way scientific experiments are conducted. Noise – as unwanted sound like record crackle or tape hiss – often features in the work, and a visual equivalent in dirt, dust or decay. His work explores time and commemoration: How people store their memories, in personal archives – photographs, audio journals, post-it notes – and what becomes of those archives. Discarded objects are interesting in themselves, for the stories that they suggest or that can be read into them. Collecting things is a fascination: his own collecting and the way others collect.
Mark Browne: saxophone /collected objects:
Mark Browne picked up a saxophone in 1980 first playing alto and then soprano and sopranino (affectionately referred to as the castrata and piranho saxphones). 1983-86 playing with Cockpit Improvised Music with Adam Bohman, Jonathon Bohman, Richard Crow, Nick Couldry, Paul Bevan and Teddy Coleridge. An occasional member of Conspiracy with Adam Bohman, Andy Hammond, John Telfer and Nick Couldry. 1984-present duo with Steve Nash (The Fanatics Of Disaster/The Fastidious Amateurs Of Grief). 1994 performed around Denmark as a guest of Martin Klapper. Throughout the 1990s occasional concerts and recording with Lol Coxhill. Late 1990s changed instrumentation to incorporate collected objects (small percussion, bowed objects, bone, glass and game calls). Attended the first Eddie Prevost workshops. 2006-13 member of the Roland Ramanan Tentet. 2007-2012 guitar and saxophone playing with the Alpha Males. 2010 formed Crush!!! with Sonic Pleasure and Ian MacGowan. Recent recordings: Malapert and Erratic, The Prejudices Of History, The 1926 Floor Polish Variation (Browne/Sanderson/Thompson) for Linear Obsessional and Genial Decay for Confront. 2015 – present recording and performing with Lust Rollers with Dan Gregory and with Spinecakes (Mark Gerrard). The 4th Edition of the 52 Noisy Little Clouds (a set of 52 unique recordings packaged with artwork) is to commence in May 2016.
Spinecakes/Dan Gregory:
Spinecakes (Mark Gerrard) born in 1921, starting life as the seventh son, of the seventh son of some minor English Royals. The silver spoon of this low ranking toff extended to a boarding school education, holidays in the South of France, and many introductions to various types of turpitude and debasement. Fast running out of funds in the early 80s and becoming notorious after alleged liaisons with both Jerry Hall and Jade Jagger in the 90s, Mark was required to reluctantly embark on a career in music. Having no other talent than an unnerving awareness of natural occurring magnetic fields, his chosen area of expertise was to become a practitioner in lo-fi electronics. Further disassociation with his past was achieved with his nurturing of the young Dan Gregory. Dan Gregory (born 1938) comes from the Eastend of London. Before finding salvation in music he had performed many and varied jobs, most noticeably as high end “bit of rough”, offering various types of unethical massage to woman of “a certain age” at a very reasonable rate. A chance meeting with Spinecakes whilst escaping the boudoir of Jerry Hall secured the musical association. Lengthy periods of unnecessary self-indulgence resulted in the duo hanging out with Moore and Curtis on the set of the Persuaders. Negotiations for the Persuaders film soundtrack came to nothing. In desperation Dan has recently returned to his Eastend routes and has taken up market trading in specialising in East Asian hedge funds and illegal Japnoise vinyl.
