64 Spoons
Encyclopedia
64 Spoons were a British
rock
/pop
band active in the late 1970s and early 1980s, who utilised strong elements of progressive rock
, jazz-fusion, punk
energy and performance comedy
. Though the band never met with commercial success during their lifetime, they were notable for being the launch-pad for the musical careers of the band's members (most notably lead singer and guitarist Jakko Jakszyk
and drummer/keyboard player Lyndon Connah).
English comedy. The band’s progressive rock (Hatfield and the North
, Egg
, Gentle Giant
, King Crimson
, Allan Holdsworth
), classical (Bartok
, Delius
) and avant-garde (Henry Cow
, Frank Zappa
) influences were mingled with disco
, West Coast sounds, and various types of ‘60s and ‘70s pop
. Jakko Jakszyk remembers that “We played our, at times, complex compositions with a punk-like ferocity and made sure that the lyrics to the songs were consciously unpretentious. Indeed, they contained a level of wit and imagery that would embarrass a Carry On
scriptwriter. There were musical and visual jokes aplenty. Three years into our career and we were once memorably described as 'Stravinsky
meets The Barron Knights." Reflecting the band's youth, song topics included various forms of social and sexual awkwardness ("It’s Only A Party", "Aggressive Travelling"), resistance to domesticity ("Plonder On"), the frustrations of suicide methods ("Ich Bin Heidi") and the music business ("The Do's and Don'ts Of Path Laying"), running away from home ("Dear Clare") and a rumination on pets and the afterlife ("Tails In The Sky").
). Their studies brought them into contact with Andy Crawford, a Royal College of Music
flautist
and classical guitar
player with an interest in Early Music
, but who also played bass guitar
on the side. Coalescing around a line-up of Connah on drums, Crawford on bass and Neal on keyboards, 64 Spoons began playing concerts in and around their home base of Watford
, Middlesex in 1976.
One of the band's early audience members was a teenage musician called Jakko Jakszyk (generally known as "Jakko"), who had been drawn to the band by "the ludicrous complexities of a fifteen-minute number called Life Is Unsaid". Despite his youth, Jakko had already fronted his own band - Soon After - which his self-confessed "dictatorial tendencies" had ultimately reduced the band to a lineup of "two screaming lead guitars and a trumpet", the latter played by former National Youth Jazz Orchestra
musician Ted Emmett. Despite feeling that he was out of his musical depth, Jakko was soon installed as 64 Spoons’ lead singer, guitarist
and frontman, using his "insecurities and arrogance" to spur the band on. With Jakko now also contributing to the songwriting, the expanded 64 Spoons line-up produced a whole set's worth of new material. Despite this, Jakko abruptly quit 64 Spoons after the first concert with the new line-up, having chosen to join Warren Harry’s punk/pop band (which had the advantage of already having a recording deal with Bronze Records
). Before leaving, Jakko recommended Ted Emmett as his replacement.
However, Jakko’s tenure with Warren Harry was short-lived and musically unsatisfying (he had done it mostly for the money) and by 1977, he had rejoined 64 Spoons. Retaining Emmett (on trumpet and backing vocals) and continuing as a five-piece, the band spent the next three years touring and playing around the United Kingdom
in small venues, building up a reputation as an interesting cult act. With punk rock now in fashion, 64 Spoons had to work hard to "justify" their progressive-rock-styled virtuosity. Jakko would later recall that the band had "somehow survived for a number of years by working our arses off and attempting to make our musical vision more palatable. We did this by making the whole thing theatrical. Ridiculous set pieces that involved various band members dressing up, coupled with an almost Dada
-esque approach to audience participation."
Live gigs were animated affairs, with the band employing any entertainment tricks they could to keep the gig going. Neal and Connah frequently swapped roles between keyboard playing and drumming. Pete Goddard of Facelift magazine remembers a show at the Palace Theatre in Watford as "one of the finest and most ludicrous shows I've ever seen", with the band making full use of the theatrical facilities, up to and including flying themselves around on stage hoists
. Thanks in part to Jakko’s incessant promotion, the band attracted numerous fans both in and out of the industry (including several of the band’s own heroes such as Bill Bruford
and Dave Stewart). However, this did not translate into success. According to Jakko, the band had "management, an agency; record company interest and we worked all the time. It just didn't go that one step further. Some kind of bad luck always seemed to befall us, just when we looked like getting our big break."
By 1980, 64 Spoons was nearing the end of its life, plagued by insecurity, internal bickering and feeling ever more at odds with British musical fashion and critical taste. The band went through several developments involving changes of presentation (via "a series of haircuts that would frighten a gibbon") and a change of name (shortened to The Spoons). There was also a change of line-up: Jakko recalls that "in another inspired piece of career based decision making, we… sacked Ted (Emmett). We felt that the trumpet was a stupid, outmoded and ultimately unfashionable instrument to have in a pop group. Ted joined The Teardrop Explodes
." This was a cruel irony, as The Teardrop Explodes were, at the time, enjoying the very success which the newly-rechristened Spoons were aiming for.
None of these efforts made any difference. Following a particularly disastrous gig outing to Oldham and Carlisle in May 1980, the band played a couple of final gigs and then folded for good. Jakko subsequently commented "They say that success is largely down to timing. Well, we timed it perfectly. We were the wrong band at the wrong time."
A one-off 64 Spoons live reunion was planned in the mid-1990s but never happened. However, various 64 Spoons members still keep in touch and work together. Jakko and Lyndon Connah, in particular, are frequent collaborators (predominantly on Jakko’s projects).
Although best known for having been Level 42
's guitar player between 1991 and 1994, Jakko Jakszyk has also maintained a solo career producing a series of original albums. As a project partner, he’s played with the jazz/songwriter/Indian music project Dizrhythmia (with Danny Thompson
, Gavin Harrison
and Pandit Dinesh ), the Henry Cow
spin-off project The Lodge
(with John Greaves
and Peter Blegvad
) and the British progressive rock band The Tangent
. He has been a collaborator with both Tom Robinson
and his old hero Dave Stewart (both in Rapid Eye Movement and with the Dave Stewart & Barbara Gaskin project). Between 2002 and 2007, Jakko sang and played guitar for the 21st Century Schizoid Band
, a collection of King Crimson
alumni playing King Crimson music from the 1960s and 1970s. He has also sustained a long career as a session musician, including work for various musicians and bands including Swing Out Sister
.
Lyndon Connah also became a sessions player (working with Squeeze, Thomas Dolby
, Wham!
, Take That
, Joe Cocker
, Sinéad O'Connor
, David Sylvian
, Tom Robinson
, The Human League
and Prefab Sprout
among others). He spent five years as Level 42
’s keyboard player (2001–2006) and is currently a member of Go West
. He currently co-leads the pop band 3 Blind Mice with Alex Grayson.
Tam Neal went on to a career in theatre (including a stint as part of the backing band for The Chippendales) and is known for his original scores for plays. He frequently contributes to 3 Blind Mice (playing everything “from maracas to house brick” and piano).
Andy Crawford mostly abandoned bass guitar to concentrate on playing the baroque flute (he is a regular performer with the Gabrieli Consort and the London Handel Orchestra) and for a career as a wood craftsman. He has occasionally played bass for steel pan player/composer Rachel Hayward
and has also been a member of the "Western gamelan" ensemble MetalWorks.
Ted Emmett played on The Teardrop Explodes’s second album Wilder and was subsequently part of their touring band. He has also played with Joan Armatrading
and has sometimes contributed to 3 Blind Mice.
magazine editor Paul Colbert commented that what he still found surprising about the 64 Spoons recordings were the presence of “1990s ideas being imagined, played and recorded in the late 1970s. There are twists and turns in this plot you will recognise in present pop music, present funk, present jazz and present rock.”
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
/pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
band active in the late 1970s and early 1980s, who utilised strong elements of progressive rock
Progressive rock
Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...
, jazz-fusion, punk
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
energy and performance comedy
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
. Though the band never met with commercial success during their lifetime, they were notable for being the launch-pad for the musical careers of the band's members (most notably lead singer and guitarist Jakko Jakszyk
Jakko Jakszyk
Jakko M. Jakszyk is an English guitarist, singer-songwriter , multi-instrumentalist and producer...
and drummer/keyboard player Lyndon Connah).
Sound and influences
Due to the formal musical training and tastes of the band members, 64 Spoons were a musically accomplished and eclectic band who merged "ten-minute collections of rich jazz chords, contrapuntal bass lines, and liquid guitar solos" with a strong sense of pop and batheticBathos
Bathos is an abrupt transition in style from the exalted to the commonplace, producing a ludicrous effect. While often unintended, bathos may be used deliberately to produce a humorous effect. If bathos is overt, it may be described as Burlesque or mock-heroic...
English comedy. The band’s progressive rock (Hatfield and the North
Hatfield and the North
Hatfield and the North were an experimental Canterbury scene rock band that lasted from October 1972 to June 1975, with some reunions thereafter.-Career:...
, Egg
Egg (band)
Egg were an English progressive rock band formed in January 1969.-Career:The founding members of the group were Dave Stewart who played organ , Mont Campbell on bass and vocals and drummer Clive Brooks...
, Gentle Giant
Gentle Giant
Gentle Giant were a British progressive rock band active between 1970 and 1980. The band was known for the complexity and sophistication of its music and for the varied musical skills of its members. All of the band members, except the first two drummers, were multi-instrumentalists...
, King Crimson
King Crimson
King Crimson are a rock band founded in London, England in 1969. Often categorised as a foundational progressive rock group, the band have incorporated diverse influences and instrumentation during their history...
, Allan Holdsworth
Allan Holdsworth
Allan Holdsworth is an English guitarist and composer. He has released twelve studio albums as a solo artist and played many different styles of music over a period of four decades, but first drew attention for his work in jazz fusion...
), classical (Bartok
Béla Bartók
Béla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer...
, Delius
Frederick Delius
Frederick Theodore Albert Delius, CH was an English composer. Born in the north of England to a prosperous mercantile family of German extraction, he resisted attempts to recruit him to commerce...
) and avant-garde (Henry Cow
Henry Cow
Henry Cow were an English avant-rock group, founded at Cambridge University in 1968 by multi-instrumentalists Fred Frith and Tim Hodgkinson. Henry Cow's personnel fluctuated over their decade together, but drummer Chris Cutler and bassoonist/oboist Lindsay Cooper were important long-term members...
, Frank Zappa
Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed...
) influences were mingled with disco
Disco
Disco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...
, West Coast sounds, and various types of ‘60s and ‘70s pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
. Jakko Jakszyk remembers that “We played our, at times, complex compositions with a punk-like ferocity and made sure that the lyrics to the songs were consciously unpretentious. Indeed, they contained a level of wit and imagery that would embarrass a Carry On
Carry On films
The Carry On films are a series of low-budget British comedy films, directed by Gerald Thomas and produced by Peter Rogers. They are an energetic mix of parody, farce, slapstick and double entendres....
scriptwriter. There were musical and visual jokes aplenty. Three years into our career and we were once memorably described as 'Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
meets The Barron Knights." Reflecting the band's youth, song topics included various forms of social and sexual awkwardness ("It’s Only A Party", "Aggressive Travelling"), resistance to domesticity ("Plonder On"), the frustrations of suicide methods ("Ich Bin Heidi") and the music business ("The Do's and Don'ts Of Path Laying"), running away from home ("Dear Clare") and a rumination on pets and the afterlife ("Tails In The Sky").
History
64 Spoons was originally formed by Lyndon Connah and Tam Neal, a pair of multi-instrumentalist friends who had been writing songs since the age of 10 (Tam having trained at the Royal Academy of MusicRoyal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...
). Their studies brought them into contact with Andy Crawford, a Royal College of Music
Royal College of Music
The Royal College of Music is a conservatoire founded by Royal Charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, England.-Background:The first director was Sir George Grove and he was followed by Sir Hubert Parry...
flautist
Flautist
A flautist or flutist is a musician who plays an instrument in the flute family. See List of flautists.The choice of "flautist" versus "flutist" is the source of dispute among players of the instrument...
and classical guitar
Classical guitar
The classical guitar is a 6-stringed plucked string instrument from the family of instruments called chordophones...
player with an interest in Early Music
Early music
Early music is generally understood as comprising all music from the earliest times up to the Renaissance. However, today this term has come to include "any music for which a historically appropriate style of performance must be reconstructed on the basis of surviving scores, treatises,...
, but who also played bass guitar
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
on the side. Coalescing around a line-up of Connah on drums, Crawford on bass and Neal on keyboards, 64 Spoons began playing concerts in and around their home base of Watford
Watford
Watford is a town and borough in Hertfordshire, England, situated northwest of central London and within the bounds of the M25 motorway. The borough is separated from Greater London to the south by the urbanised parish of Watford Rural in the Three Rivers District.Watford was created as an urban...
, Middlesex in 1976.
One of the band's early audience members was a teenage musician called Jakko Jakszyk (generally known as "Jakko"), who had been drawn to the band by "the ludicrous complexities of a fifteen-minute number called Life Is Unsaid". Despite his youth, Jakko had already fronted his own band - Soon After - which his self-confessed "dictatorial tendencies" had ultimately reduced the band to a lineup of "two screaming lead guitars and a trumpet", the latter played by former National Youth Jazz Orchestra
National Youth Jazz Orchestra
The National Youth Jazz Orchestra is a British jazz orchestra founded in 1963 by Bill Ashton.Based in Westminster, London, NYJO started life as the London Schools' Jazz Orchestra and evolved into becoming the national orchestra...
musician Ted Emmett. Despite feeling that he was out of his musical depth, Jakko was soon installed as 64 Spoons’ lead singer, guitarist
Guitarist
A guitarist is a musician who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar while singing.- Versatility :The guitarist controls an extremely...
and frontman, using his "insecurities and arrogance" to spur the band on. With Jakko now also contributing to the songwriting, the expanded 64 Spoons line-up produced a whole set's worth of new material. Despite this, Jakko abruptly quit 64 Spoons after the first concert with the new line-up, having chosen to join Warren Harry’s punk/pop band (which had the advantage of already having a recording deal with Bronze Records
Bronze Records
Bronze Records is an independent English record label set up in 1971 by record producer Gerry Bron, and based in Chalk Farm, London.Bron had been producing Uriah Heep for Vertigo Records, and he set up this new label for future Uriah Heep releases, along with Juicy Lucy, Richard Barnes and Colosseum...
). Before leaving, Jakko recommended Ted Emmett as his replacement.
However, Jakko’s tenure with Warren Harry was short-lived and musically unsatisfying (he had done it mostly for the money) and by 1977, he had rejoined 64 Spoons. Retaining Emmett (on trumpet and backing vocals) and continuing as a five-piece, the band spent the next three years touring and playing around the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
in small venues, building up a reputation as an interesting cult act. With punk rock now in fashion, 64 Spoons had to work hard to "justify" their progressive-rock-styled virtuosity. Jakko would later recall that the band had "somehow survived for a number of years by working our arses off and attempting to make our musical vision more palatable. We did this by making the whole thing theatrical. Ridiculous set pieces that involved various band members dressing up, coupled with an almost Dada
Dada
Dada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature—poetry, art manifestoes, art theory—theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a...
-esque approach to audience participation."
Live gigs were animated affairs, with the band employing any entertainment tricks they could to keep the gig going. Neal and Connah frequently swapped roles between keyboard playing and drumming. Pete Goddard of Facelift magazine remembers a show at the Palace Theatre in Watford as "one of the finest and most ludicrous shows I've ever seen", with the band making full use of the theatrical facilities, up to and including flying themselves around on stage hoists
Fly system
A fly system, flying system or theatrical rigging system, is a system of lines , blocks , counterweights and related devices within a theatre that enable a stage crew to quickly, quietly and safely fly components such as curtains, lights, scenery, stage effects and, sometimes, people...
. Thanks in part to Jakko’s incessant promotion, the band attracted numerous fans both in and out of the industry (including several of the band’s own heroes such as Bill Bruford
Bill Bruford
William Scott "Bill" Bruford is an English drummer, percussionist, composer, producer, and record label owner. He was the original drummer for the progressive rock group Yes, from 1968-1972. Bruford has performed for numerous popular acts since the early 1970s, including a stint as touring...
and Dave Stewart). However, this did not translate into success. According to Jakko, the band had "management, an agency; record company interest and we worked all the time. It just didn't go that one step further. Some kind of bad luck always seemed to befall us, just when we looked like getting our big break."
By 1980, 64 Spoons was nearing the end of its life, plagued by insecurity, internal bickering and feeling ever more at odds with British musical fashion and critical taste. The band went through several developments involving changes of presentation (via "a series of haircuts that would frighten a gibbon") and a change of name (shortened to The Spoons). There was also a change of line-up: Jakko recalls that "in another inspired piece of career based decision making, we… sacked Ted (Emmett). We felt that the trumpet was a stupid, outmoded and ultimately unfashionable instrument to have in a pop group. Ted joined The Teardrop Explodes
The Teardrop Explodes
The Teardrop Explodes were an English post-punk/neo-psychedelic band formed in Liverpool in 1978. Best known for their Top Ten UK single "Reward" the group originated as a key band in the emerging Liverpool post-punk scene of the late 1970s, the group also launched the career of group frontman...
." This was a cruel irony, as The Teardrop Explodes were, at the time, enjoying the very success which the newly-rechristened Spoons were aiming for.
None of these efforts made any difference. Following a particularly disastrous gig outing to Oldham and Carlisle in May 1980, the band played a couple of final gigs and then folded for good. Jakko subsequently commented "They say that success is largely down to timing. Well, we timed it perfectly. We were the wrong band at the wrong time."
A one-off 64 Spoons live reunion was planned in the mid-1990s but never happened. However, various 64 Spoons members still keep in touch and work together. Jakko and Lyndon Connah, in particular, are frequent collaborators (predominantly on Jakko’s projects).
Recordings
64 Spoons released one single during their lifetime, "Ladies Don’t Have Willies". This is now a collector’s item. 64 Spoons also recorded various sessions for an album. None of these were released during the band’s existence, but the material was eventually compiled for a posthumous album called Landing On A Rat Column. This was ultimately released in 1992 on Freshly Cut Records, over a decade after it was recorded. (The album did not include "Ladies Don’t Have Willies", due to copyright issues as it had already appeared on a various-artists compilation album.)Post-Spoons
All of the members of 64 Spoons went on to have successful careers within the music industry.Although best known for having been Level 42
Level 42
Level 42 are an English pop rock and jazz-funk band who had a number of worldwide and UK hits during the 1980s and 1990s.The band gained fame for their high-calibre musicianship—in particular that of Mark King, whose percussive slap-bass guitar technique provided the driving groove of many of the...
's guitar player between 1991 and 1994, Jakko Jakszyk has also maintained a solo career producing a series of original albums. As a project partner, he’s played with the jazz/songwriter/Indian music project Dizrhythmia (with Danny Thompson
Danny Thompson
Daniel Henry Edward 'Danny' Thompson is an English multi-instrumentalist best known as a double bassist and businessman...
, Gavin Harrison
Gavin Harrison
Gavin Harrison is a British drummer and percussionist. He is best known for playing with the British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree which he joined in 2002. As of 2008, he also plays with the band King Crimson....
and Pandit Dinesh ), the Henry Cow
Henry Cow
Henry Cow were an English avant-rock group, founded at Cambridge University in 1968 by multi-instrumentalists Fred Frith and Tim Hodgkinson. Henry Cow's personnel fluctuated over their decade together, but drummer Chris Cutler and bassoonist/oboist Lindsay Cooper were important long-term members...
spin-off project The Lodge
The Lodge (band)
The Lodge were a 1980s British/Welsh/American art-rock band based in New York, but performing mainly in Europe, which briefly united members of Henry Cow, Slapp Happy, Art Bears and Golden Palominos . It was centred primarily around Peter Blegvad and John Greaves, and drew strongly on their...
(with John Greaves
John Greaves
John Greaves was an English mathematician, astronomer and antiquary.-Life:He was born in Colemore, near Alresford, Hampshire. He was the eldest son of John Greaves, rector of Colemore, and Sarah Greaves...
and Peter Blegvad
Peter Blegvad
Peter Blegvad is an American musician, singer-songwriter, and cartoonist. He was a founding member of the avant-pop band Slapp Happy, which later merged briefly with Henry Cow, and has released many solo and collaborative albums...
) and the British progressive rock band The Tangent
The Tangent
-Formation:Originally formed by keyboardists Andy Tillison and Sam Baine of Parallel or 90 Degrees and The Flower Kings guitarist Roine Stolt, bassist Jonas Reingold, and drummer Zoltan Csörsz. The septet was completed by renowned saxophonist David Jackson of Van der Graaf Generator and...
. He has been a collaborator with both Tom Robinson
Tom Robinson
Tom Robinson is an English singer-songwriter, bassist and radio presenter, better known for the hits "Glad to Be Gay", "2-4-6-8 Motorway", and "Don't Take No for an Answer", with his Tom Robinson Band...
and his old hero Dave Stewart (both in Rapid Eye Movement and with the Dave Stewart & Barbara Gaskin project). Between 2002 and 2007, Jakko sang and played guitar for the 21st Century Schizoid Band
21st Century Schizoid Band
21st Century Schizoid Band are a King Crimson alumnus group formed in 2002.The name derives from the famous song "21st Century Schizoid Man" from the first King Crimson album, In the Court of the Crimson King...
, a collection of King Crimson
King Crimson
King Crimson are a rock band founded in London, England in 1969. Often categorised as a foundational progressive rock group, the band have incorporated diverse influences and instrumentation during their history...
alumni playing King Crimson music from the 1960s and 1970s. He has also sustained a long career as a session musician, including work for various musicians and bands including Swing Out Sister
Swing Out Sister
Swing Out Sister are a British "sophisti-pop" group best known worldwide for their 1986 song "Breakout". Other hits include "Surrender", "Twilight World", "Waiting Game" and a remake of "Am I the Same Girl?" Though album sales in the U.S. and Europe have levelled off since the early 1990s, the...
.
Lyndon Connah also became a sessions player (working with Squeeze, Thomas Dolby
Thomas Dolby
Thomas Dolby is an English musician and producer. Best known for his 1982 hit "She Blinded Me with Science", and 1984 single "Hyperactive!", he has also worked extensively in production and as a session musician.-Early life:Dolby was born in London, England, contrary to information in early 1980s...
, Wham!
WHAM!
Wham! were a short-lived British musical duo formed by George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley in the early 1980s. They were briefly known in the United States as Wham! UK due to a naming conflict with an American band....
, Take That
Take That
Take That are a British five-piece vocal pop group comprising Gary Barlow, Howard Donald, Jason Orange, Mark Owen and Robbie Williams. Barlow acts as the lead singer and primary songwriter...
, Joe Cocker
Joe Cocker
John Robert "Joe" Cocker, OBE is an English rock and blues musician, composer and actor, who came to popularity in the 1960s, and is most known for his gritty voice, his idiosyncratic arm movements while performing, and his cover versions of popular songs, particularly those of The Beatles...
, Sinéad O'Connor
Sinéad O'Connor
Sinéad Marie Bernadette O'Connor is an Irish singer-songwriter. She rose to fame in the late 1980s with her debut album The Lion and the Cobra and achieved worldwide success in 1990 with a cover of the song "Nothing Compares 2 U"....
, David Sylvian
David Sylvian
David Sylvian is an English singer-songwriter and musician who came to prominence in the late 1970s as the lead vocalist and main songwriter in the group Japan...
, Tom Robinson
Tom Robinson
Tom Robinson is an English singer-songwriter, bassist and radio presenter, better known for the hits "Glad to Be Gay", "2-4-6-8 Motorway", and "Don't Take No for an Answer", with his Tom Robinson Band...
, The Human League
The Human League
The Human League are an English electronic New Wave band formed in Sheffield in 1977. They achieved popularity after a key change in line-up in the early 1980s and have continued recording and performing with moderate commercial success throughout the 1980s up to the present day.The only constant...
and Prefab Sprout
Prefab Sprout
Prefab Sprout are an alternative English pop rock band from Witton Gilbert, County Durham, England who rose to fame during the 1980s. Eight of their albums have reached the Top 40 in the UK Albums Chart, and one of their singles, "The King of Rock 'n' Roll", peaked at number seven in the UK...
among others). He spent five years as Level 42
Level 42
Level 42 are an English pop rock and jazz-funk band who had a number of worldwide and UK hits during the 1980s and 1990s.The band gained fame for their high-calibre musicianship—in particular that of Mark King, whose percussive slap-bass guitar technique provided the driving groove of many of the...
’s keyboard player (2001–2006) and is currently a member of Go West
Go West (band)
Go West is an English pop duo, formed in 1982 by lead vocalist and drummer Peter Cox ; and guitarist and vocalist Richard Drummie...
. He currently co-leads the pop band 3 Blind Mice with Alex Grayson.
Tam Neal went on to a career in theatre (including a stint as part of the backing band for The Chippendales) and is known for his original scores for plays. He frequently contributes to 3 Blind Mice (playing everything “from maracas to house brick” and piano).
Andy Crawford mostly abandoned bass guitar to concentrate on playing the baroque flute (he is a regular performer with the Gabrieli Consort and the London Handel Orchestra) and for a career as a wood craftsman. He has occasionally played bass for steel pan player/composer Rachel Hayward
Rachel Hayward
Rachel Hayward is a Canadian actress. Born and raised in Toronto, Rachel began pursuing a serious acting career in her early twenties. As a child and teen, she was involved in modeling and commercials but always thought she would become a doctor. She graduated from the Ontario College of Art,...
and has also been a member of the "Western gamelan" ensemble MetalWorks.
Ted Emmett played on The Teardrop Explodes’s second album Wilder and was subsequently part of their touring band. He has also played with Joan Armatrading
Joan Armatrading
Joan Anita Barbara Armatrading, MBE is a British singer, songwriter and guitarist. Armatrading is a three-time Grammy Award-nominee and has been nominated twice for BRIT Awards as Best Female Artist...
and has sometimes contributed to 3 Blind Mice.
Influence on other musicians
In the sleevenotes to Landing On A Rat Column, VoxVox (magazine)
Vox was a British music magazine, first issued in October 1990. It was published by IPC Media, and was later billed as a monthly sister-magazine to IPC's music weekly, the NME....
magazine editor Paul Colbert commented that what he still found surprising about the 64 Spoons recordings were the presence of “1990s ideas being imagined, played and recorded in the late 1970s. There are twists and turns in this plot you will recognise in present pop music, present funk, present jazz and present rock.”
External links
- 64 Spoons page at Level 42 ‘Forever Now’ website
- Jakko M. Jakszyk @ MySpace (replaces previous homepage)
- 3 Blind Mice homepage (Lyndon Connah)
- Andy Crawford’s homepage
- “The Last Days Of The Spoons” – Jakko’s tragicomic account of the final end of 64 Spoons
- Sleevenotes and photos from Landing On A Rat Column (on Andy Crawford’s homepage)
- Collection of reviews of Landing On A Rat Column from Jakko’s homepage