Susan Lomas has written a book about Kevin Ayers. It is not a biography, but the story of a sequence of events leading up to the Kevin Ayers memorial event that took place in Deia, Mallorca on the 16th August 2013. It also serves as a ‘Beginners Guide to Kevin Ayers’ too. The book is now available as a paperback on Amazon (see Kevin Ayers: August 16th 2013 Deià) and from time to time will be available as a free Kindle download.
If you would like to be notified when the free Kindle days are, just leave your email below and we will let you know. Thank You.
Here we are on the 18th of February 2014. If you love Kevin Ayers and his music, please raise a glass sometime today. This last 12 months seems to have gone very quickly. I had a really strange moment a few weeks ago driving from Briançon in The French Alps to Turin Italy on a very dark night. I normally do the trip on the motorway, but this time I decided to take the normal roads, so off I went listening to Odd Ditties. Somewhere on the SS24 between Chiomonte and Susa, this track ‘Stars’ came on and it got to me, big time. Since then I can’t get it out of my mind and I think that stretch of road, which is very beautiful in the daytime, will now be permanently associated, for me, with ‘Stars’ by Kevin Ayers, forever. I’m happy about that and it was the first Kevin Ayers song I listened to today.
Just recently I had some lovely emails from Ramon Garcia who downloaded the Soft Machine John Peel Special radio show that I have. He said;
Montolieu by Eddie Castellan
“I enjoyed enormously the link to John Peel Radio show; which I took a long time to listen to:
and finally I have, here in Carcassone, after a pilgrimage to the sites of Kevin Ayres: a pilgrimage I wanted to do, nearing a first anniversary of his passing: Thanks a lot: I enjoyed enormously listening to the show; in this cold night; like a cold shoulder; of Carcassone. I became very fascinated by Kevin Ayers after reading his obituary in Le Monde, and as I was working on a translation not far from Montolieu, Since then I became a great fan of his music, and life choices. Montolieu is very impressive, it is really a song by Kevin transformed into village, eerie indeed: and it was very eerie to imagine him playing his guitar at sunset, on the little wall which stretches from his house (the house where one would imagine Verlaine writing Les Violons de l Automne), and in front of Les jardin aux Anges, the nice bistrot on the other side: Wonderful place indeed”.
I asked Ramon if he had any photos of Montolieu, but unfortunately he had no camera, just a phone with a flat battery! So here is a photo taken by my lovely guitar playing mate Eddie Castellan, who lives at Fa, not far from Montolieu.
Have a great day everyone and remember to raise that glass.
Thank you Ramon for this, I hope you didn’t mind me sharing this with the rest of the World. I promised Ramon I would get something special out today, but it might be later in the week as I am really really pushed for time today. Watch this space it will be worth it.
My Cassette Recording of the John Peel Soft Machine Special 1976
Back in 1976 John Peel did a ‘Soft Machine Special’ show on Radio 1. This hour long show featured tunes by Soft Machine, Kevin Ayers, Robert Wyatt, Gong, Isotope, Euterpe and many other bands. It really was quite brilliant and here you can download it in mp3 format. [continue reading…]
I was just looking around the web trying to find a really nice picture of Kevin and Galen Ayers together, there’s a few but I really liked this one that I found on this blog post called “stranger in blue suede shoes”
This is the poster for Friday’s event at Cafe Sa Fonda, Deia Mallorca. Galen Ayers said, “Thank you for your emails and messages. As of now the guest list is closed. For all others wanting to attend, there will be a 10euro door fee on the night. I look forward to seeing you there. Love Galen”.
This morning I mentioned to my friend Jon Nicholls, band leader and bass player of Mixed Feelings, that Sue and I were going to Deià for the Kevin Ayers funeral in August. I knew that Jon liked to go to Minorca, but I didn’t realise that he was so into Mallorca too. Jon came back with a very useful and enthusiastic reply that I am sure he won’t mind me sharing here: [continue reading…]
If you are intending on being in Deià on the 16th August 2013 here is some information I have found about getting from Palma airport to Deià. The information is a few years old but I think it will still be relevant this year too. [continue reading…]
I read today that the funeral of Kevin Ayers will be on what would have been on his 69th Birthday in Deia, Majorca. This was mentioned by his daughter Galen on the wonderful Ollie Hallsall Archive. [continue reading…]
I’ve been trying to pinpoint this place for about half an hour now, but I’ve finally got it. This was a very important place as regards the whole Kevin Ayers, Mike Oldfield, Daevid Allen kind of thing. Deià has been known for a long time as a place where literary types would hang out and make their home, but music played a huge part too. [continue reading…]
When I was a teenager I lived in Newcastle-Under-Lyme in Staffordshire, England. The main places we went to see gigs were The Victoria Hall in Hanley, Trentham Gardens and Keele University.
My friend Andy Winfield and I would take it in turns to buy the NME every Thursday (I think) and scour it for gigs that were in these venues, hoping that some of the slightly more wacky bands we were into would be playing locally. I remember seeing the ad pictured here and being so excited that Kevin Ayers was playing at Keele University on Wednesday 11th May 1977.
I think as it was May, the ticket for it was probably my birthday present in April from my Mum and Dad. [continue reading…]
From time to time we can let you know about any further discoveries we make about Kevin Ayers and his music. Just leave your email here and we will let you know. So far we have the 1976 John Peel Soft Machine special and the 2012 Mr Kyps, Poole, Dorset Bootleg for download. Wonderful stuff – just leave your email here and we will send it over right now.
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