Painter men
This month’s sudden insight from rock’s subconscious – jazz-rock-poetry goes overground!
HARVEST, 1970
He bangs the drums: Pete Brown & Piblokto! start the art school dance, Copenhagen, 1970.
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Pete Brown & Piblokto!
Things May Come And Things May Go, But The Art School Dance Goes On For Ever
D RAWNBY Widnes-born jazz trumpeter Mal Dean – who would die young in 1974 – the sleeve of Things May Come And Things May Go, But The Art School Dance Goes On For Ever featured dozens of likenesses, including Syd Barrett, The Who, the Stones, Alec Guinness, Graham Bond, Dali, Arthur Brown, Davey Graham, Van Gogh, Vivian Stanshall, William Blake and many other cool customers who meant business. “Oh, sure,” says Pete Brown today. “We were as hip as you could get in those days.”
Born in Surrey in 1940 to a Jewish family escaping the Blitz, Brown does enjoy a hip pedigree. He met fellow poet Mike Horowitz at the 1960 Beaulieu Jazz Festival – described as an “outbreak of beatnik violence” by The People newspaper – and joined his arts group New Departures. Affiliated to the Liverpool poetry scene, Brown appeared alongside Burroughs and Ginsberg at the 1965 International Poetry Incarnation, and the following year began his long writing partnership with Jack Bruce, composing the lyrics for Cream hits including I Feel Free, Sunshine Of Your Love and White Room. Having played with John McLaughlin in