Pip Pyle
Encyclopedia
Phillip "Pip" Pyle was an English
-born drummer from Sawbridgeworth
, Hertfordshire
, who later resided in France. He is best known for his work in the progressive rock
bands Gong
, Hatfield and the North
and National Health
.
, a friend from kindergarten, and Phil's brother Steve, in forming Bruno's Blues Band, which rapidly evolved into Delivery
. However, Pyle left the band in 1970 after arguing with singer Carol Grimes
. He briefly played in blues band Chicken Shack
and Steve Hillage
's band Khan
.
In 1971, drummer Robert Wyatt
asked Pyle to play instead of him on one track of Daevid Allen
's solo album Banana Moon. From this, Pyle joined Allen in Gong
. While only in the band for eight months, Pyle plays on both Camembert Électrique
and Continental Circus
. Pyle was replaced by Laurie Allan
, but rejoined Gong for a period in the 1990s.
In 1972, Pyle worked with Paul Jones
(who had been singing with Manfred Mann
), before founding Hatfield and the North with the Miller brothers in 1972. Steve Miller was soon replaced in the band and the line-up eventually settled on Pyle, Phil Miller, Richard Sinclair
and keyboardist Dave Stewart. Hatfield and the North was released in 1974, while a second album, The Rotters' Club, followed the next year. As well as drumming, Pyle wrote many of the band's lyrics.
Following Hatfield, Pyle joined Miller and Stewart in National Health as well as playing in other projects, including Soft Heap
with Hugh Hopper
, Elton Dean
and Alan Gowen
. He also played on Neil's Heavy Concept Album
(1984), a spin-off from the television series The Young Ones
with which Stewart was involved.
In 1984, Pyle met Sophia Domancich and the two had a relationship for many years. Pyle also started his own band, Pip Pyle's Equip'Out, including Domancich. Equip'Out released Equip'Out, Up! and Instants. He released one solo album, Seven Year Itch, in 1998 with guests including Miller, Sinclair, Stewart, Dean (saxello), Hopper (bass), Jakko Jakszyk
, Barbara Gaskin
, John Greaves
(vocals), François Ovide
, Fred T. Baker (bass), Paul Rogers (double bass), Lydia Domancich (piano, Sophia's sister) and Didier Malherbe
(alto sax). Pyle also played in Miller's band In Cahoots
from 1982 to 2001, appearing on Cutting Both Ways, Split Seconds, Live 86-89, Live in Japan, Recent Discoveries, Parallel and Out of the Blue.
His last projects were his group Bash!, featuring the French guitarist Patrice Meyer, Fred Baker on bass and Alex Maguire on keyboards, and a Hatfield and the North reunion (also with Maguire). Bash! released the live album Belle Illusion (Cuneiform Records
), but only played five live shows in total (including Progman Cometh
), finding it difficult to attract interest from venues.
In 2005 Pyle joined Phil Miller and Richard Sinclair in a Hatfield and the North reformation, with Alex Maguire handling the keyboards. On 29 January, all three were reunited for the first time in fifteen years when Pyle sat in with the Richard Sinclair Band for a few old numbers ("Above And Below", "Share It", "Halfway Between Heaven And Earth" and "Didn't Matter Anyway") during a gig at Whitstable
's Horsebridge Arts Centre. The rejuvenated Hatfield made its official live debut on 18 March 2005 at the Mean Fiddler in London, and a brief tour of Europe followed in June. More international touring followed in 2005-06, including dates in Japan, Mexico, the US and Europe. On 26 August 2006 Pyle played his last gig in Groningen, Netherlands
.
He died in hotel in Paris
early in the morning of 28 August 2006, shortly after returning to France.
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
-born drummer from Sawbridgeworth
Sawbridgeworth
Sawbridgeworth is a small, mainly residential, town and also a civil parish in Hertfordshire, England.- Location :Sawbridgeworth is four miles south of Bishop's Stortford, twelve miles east of Hertford and nine miles north of Epping. It lies on the A1184 and has a railway station that links to...
, Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...
, who later resided in France. He is best known for his work in the 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...
bands Gong
Gong (band)
Gong is a Franco-British progressive/psychedelic rock band formed by Australian musician Daevid Allen. Their music has also been described as space rock. Other notable band members include Allan Holdsworth, Tim Blake, Didier Malherbe, Pip Pyle, Gilli Smyth, Steve Hillage, Francis Moze, Mike Howlett...
, 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:...
and National Health
National Health
National Health were a progressive rock band associated with the Canterbury scene. Founded in 1975, the band included members of keyboardist Dave Stewart's band Hatfield and the North and Alan Gowen's band Gilgamesh, the band also included guitarists Phil Miller and Phil Lee and bassist Mont...
.
Biography
Pyle joined Phil MillerPhil Miller
Phil Miller is an English progressive rock/jazz guitarist who was part of the Canterbury scene.He was a member of the bands Delivery, Matching Mole, Hatfield and the North, National Health, Short Wave and has since worked in solo projects and in his band In Cahoots, which he founded in 1982...
, a friend from kindergarten, and Phil's brother Steve, in forming Bruno's Blues Band, which rapidly evolved into Delivery
Delivery (band)
Delivery was a British blues/progressive rock musical group, formed in the late 1960s. The band was one of the wellsprings of the progressive rock Canterbury scene....
. However, Pyle left the band in 1970 after arguing with singer Carol Grimes
Carol Grimes
Carol Grimes is a smooth jazz and world music singer.Grimes came to prominence in 1969 as a member of Delivery, associated with the Canterbury Scene. During the 1970s she performed regularly on the London blues circuit with her band The London Boogie Band...
. He briefly played in blues band Chicken Shack
Chicken Shack
Chicken Shack are a British blues band, founded in the mid-1960s by Stan Webb , Andy Silvester , and Alan Morley , who were later joined by Christine Perfect in 1968.-Career:...
and Steve Hillage
Steve Hillage
Steve Hillage is an English musician, best known as a guitarist. He is associated with the Canterbury scene and has worked in experimental domains since the late 1960s...
's band Khan
Khan (band)
Khan were an English progressive rock band of the Canterbury Scene during 1971-1972.Formed by Steve Hillage from Uriel, the initial line-up was Steve Hillage , Nick Greenwood , Dick Heninghem and Pip Pyle...
.
In 1971, drummer Robert Wyatt
Robert Wyatt
Robert Wyatt is an English musician, and founding member of the influential Canterbury scene band Soft Machine, with a long and distinguished solo career...
asked Pyle to play instead of him on one track of Daevid Allen
Daevid Allen
Daevid Allen , sometimes credited as Divided Alien, an Australian poet, guitarist, singer, composer and performance artist is co-founder of psychedelic rock groups Soft Machine and Gong .-Biography:In 1960, inspired by the Beat Generation writers he had discovered...
's solo album Banana Moon. From this, Pyle joined Allen in Gong
Gong (band)
Gong is a Franco-British progressive/psychedelic rock band formed by Australian musician Daevid Allen. Their music has also been described as space rock. Other notable band members include Allan Holdsworth, Tim Blake, Didier Malherbe, Pip Pyle, Gilli Smyth, Steve Hillage, Francis Moze, Mike Howlett...
. While only in the band for eight months, Pyle plays on both Camembert Électrique
Camembert Electrique
Camembert Electrique is an album by Gong, recorded and originally released in 1971. The album was recorded at Château d'Hérouville near Paris, France, produced by Pierre Lattes and engineered by Gilles Salle...
and Continental Circus
Continental Circus
Continental Circus is an arcade racing game created and manufactured by Taito in 1987. It was then republished in 1989 along with a home version of the game, which was available on various platforms including the Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Amiga, Commodore 64, MSX and ZX Spectrum.The arcade version of...
. Pyle was replaced by Laurie Allan
Laurie Allan
Laurie Allan is an English drummer, best known for stints in Delivery and Gong. He has also played with Robert Wyatt, for example on his albums Rock Bottom and Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard....
, but rejoined Gong for a period in the 1990s.
In 1972, Pyle worked with Paul Jones
Paul Jones (singer)
Paul Jones is an English singer, actor, harmonica player, and radio personality and television presenter.-Career:As P. P...
(who had been singing with Manfred Mann
Manfred Mann
Manfred Mann was a British beat, rhythm and blues and pop band of the 1960s, named after their South African keyboardist, Manfred Mann, who later led the successful 1970s group Manfred Mann's Earth Band...
), before founding Hatfield and the North with the Miller brothers in 1972. Steve Miller was soon replaced in the band and the line-up eventually settled on Pyle, Phil Miller, Richard Sinclair
Richard Sinclair
Richard S. Sinclair is a progressive rock bassist, guitarist and vocalist who has been a member of several bands of the Canterbury scene.-Biography:...
and keyboardist Dave Stewart. Hatfield and the North was released in 1974, while a second album, The Rotters' Club, followed the next year. As well as drumming, Pyle wrote many of the band's lyrics.
Following Hatfield, Pyle joined Miller and Stewart in National Health as well as playing in other projects, including Soft Heap
Soft Heap (band)
Soft Heap was a Canterbury scene supergroup founded in January 1978. The name references Soft Machine while "Heap" comes from the first letters of the band's founders: Hugh Hopper , Elton Dean , Alan Gowen and Pip Pyle . Hopper and Dean had worked together in Soft Machine, while Gowen and Pyle had...
with Hugh Hopper
Hugh Hopper
Hugh Colin Hopper was a progressive rock and jazz fusion bass guitarist. He was a prominent member of the Canterbury scene, as a member of Soft Machine and various other related bands.-Early career:...
, Elton Dean
Elton Dean
Elton Dean was an English jazz musician who performed on alto saxophone, saxello and occasionally keyboard....
and Alan Gowen
Alan Gowen
Alan Gowen was a fusion/progressive rock keyboardist, best known for his work in Gilgamesh and National Health.-History:...
. He also played on Neil's Heavy Concept Album
Neil's Heavy Concept Album
The cassette version of the album is very similar but features the track "Cassette Jam" following "Cosmic Jam" where Neil does an impression of the album being broken on tape like in "Cosmic Jam" and then "Brown Sugar" where Neil discovers some buskers performing the track by The Rolling Stones and...
(1984), a spin-off from the television series The Young Ones
The Young Ones (TV series)
The Young Ones is a British sitcom, first broadcast in 1982, which ran for two series on BBC2. Its anarchic, offbeat humour helped bring alternative comedy to television in the 1980s and made household names of its writers and performers...
with which Stewart was involved.
In 1984, Pyle met Sophia Domancich and the two had a relationship for many years. Pyle also started his own band, Pip Pyle's Equip'Out, including Domancich. Equip'Out released Equip'Out, Up! and Instants. He released one solo album, Seven Year Itch, in 1998 with guests including Miller, Sinclair, Stewart, Dean (saxello), Hopper (bass), Jakko Jakszyk
Jakko Jakszyk
Jakko M. Jakszyk is an English guitarist, singer-songwriter , multi-instrumentalist and producer...
, Barbara Gaskin
Barbara Gaskin
Barbara Gaskin is a British singer who, with her musical partner, the keyboardist Dave Stewart, formed a duo in 1981. In September of that year they had a number one single in the UK with a cover version of the song "It's My Party"...
, John Greaves
John Greaves (musician)
John Greaves is a British bass guitarist and composer, best known as a member of Henry Cow and his collaborative albums with Peter Blegvad...
(vocals), François Ovide
François Ovide
François Ovide was a French guitarist, best known for his longstanding collaborations with Albert Marcoeur and with John Greaves....
, Fred T. Baker (bass), Paul Rogers (double bass), Lydia Domancich (piano, Sophia's sister) and Didier Malherbe
Didier Malherbe
Didier Antonin Malherbe is a saxophonist and flautist. He was one of the founders of the Canterbury sound band Gong....
(alto sax). Pyle also played in Miller's band In Cahoots
In Cahoots
In Cahoots is a Canterbury scene band led by guitarist Phil Miller, their main composer.The band was formed in November 1982 by Miller with Pip Pyle , Richard Sinclair and Elton Dean , as the Phil Miller Quartet. It was expanded to a quintet and given its definitive name when Peter Lemer joined...
from 1982 to 2001, appearing on Cutting Both Ways, Split Seconds, Live 86-89, Live in Japan, Recent Discoveries, Parallel and Out of the Blue.
His last projects were his group Bash!, featuring the French guitarist Patrice Meyer, Fred Baker on bass and Alex Maguire on keyboards, and a Hatfield and the North reunion (also with Maguire). Bash! released the live album Belle Illusion (Cuneiform Records
Cuneiform Records
Cuneiform Records is an independent record label based in Silver Spring, Maryland.The label releases a mixture of musical styles, including progressive jazz, modern fusion music, progressive rock, the Canterbury Scene and electronic music...
), but only played five live shows in total (including Progman Cometh
Progman Cometh
Progman Cometh Music Festivals were two Canterbury scene music concerts held at the Moore Theatre in Seattle Washington in 2002 and 2003.-Friday, August 16th:* 7:00pm Glass * 8:30pm Hughscore* 10:00pm Pip Pyle's Bash! - world debut!...
), finding it difficult to attract interest from venues.
In 2005 Pyle joined Phil Miller and Richard Sinclair in a Hatfield and the North reformation, with Alex Maguire handling the keyboards. On 29 January, all three were reunited for the first time in fifteen years when Pyle sat in with the Richard Sinclair Band for a few old numbers ("Above And Below", "Share It", "Halfway Between Heaven And Earth" and "Didn't Matter Anyway") during a gig at Whitstable
Whitstable
Whitstable is a seaside town in Northeast Kent, Southeast England. It is approximately north of the city of Canterbury and approximately west of the seaside town of Herne Bay. It is part of the City of Canterbury district and has a population of about 30,000.Whitstable is famous for its oysters,...
's Horsebridge Arts Centre. The rejuvenated Hatfield made its official live debut on 18 March 2005 at the Mean Fiddler in London, and a brief tour of Europe followed in June. More international touring followed in 2005-06, including dates in Japan, Mexico, the US and Europe. On 26 August 2006 Pyle played his last gig in Groningen, Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
.
He died in hotel in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
early in the morning of 28 August 2006, shortly after returning to France.
Discography
- 1986: L'Équipe Out (52e Rue Est)
- 1991: Equip' Out Up! (NTI Music 3 TMR 301)
- 1998: 7 Year Itch (Voiceprint RecordsVoiceprint RecordsVoiceprint Records is a company and record label based in England, founded in 1990 by Rob Ayling. They specialise in re-releasing old material, especially progressive rock, but also have new releases, all under the Voiceprint and other imprints....
VP198CD) - 1999: Pip Pyle's Equipe Out (Voiceprint Records VP213CD) (re-issue of 1st album)
- 2004: Belle Illusion (Cuneiform RecordsCuneiform RecordsCuneiform Records is an independent record label based in Silver Spring, Maryland.The label releases a mixture of musical styles, including progressive jazz, modern fusion music, progressive rock, the Canterbury Scene and electronic music...
Rune 193) (partially recorded at Progman ComethProgman ComethProgman Cometh Music Festivals were two Canterbury scene music concerts held at the Moore Theatre in Seattle Washington in 2002 and 2003.-Friday, August 16th:* 7:00pm Glass * 8:30pm Hughscore* 10:00pm Pip Pyle's Bash! - world debut!...
) - 2004: Instants (Hux RecordsHux Records-External links:* * * * *...
062)
Chronology
- 1966 - 1971 DeliveryDelivery (band)Delivery was a British blues/progressive rock musical group, formed in the late 1960s. The band was one of the wellsprings of the progressive rock Canterbury scene....
- 1971 - 1971 GongGong (band)Gong is a Franco-British progressive/psychedelic rock band formed by Australian musician Daevid Allen. Their music has also been described as space rock. Other notable band members include Allan Holdsworth, Tim Blake, Didier Malherbe, Pip Pyle, Gilli Smyth, Steve Hillage, Francis Moze, Mike Howlett...
- 1972 - 1975 Hatfield and the NorthHatfield and the NorthHatfield and the North were an experimental Canterbury scene rock band that lasted from October 1972 to June 1975, with some reunions thereafter.-Career:...
- 1975 - 1976 The Weightwatchers (with Elton DeanElton DeanElton Dean was an English jazz musician who performed on alto saxophone, saxello and occasionally keyboard....
and Keith TippettKeith TippettKeith Tippett is a British jazz pianist and composer.Tippett, the son of a local police officer, went to Greenway Boys Secondary Modern school in Southmead, Bristol. He formed his first jazz band called The KT7 whilst still at school and they performed numbers popular at the time by The Temperance...
) - 1977 - 1983 National HealthNational HealthNational Health were a progressive rock band associated with the Canterbury scene. Founded in 1975, the band included members of keyboardist Dave Stewart's band Hatfield and the North and Alan Gowen's band Gilgamesh, the band also included guitarists Phil Miller and Phil Lee and bassist Mont...
- 1977 - 1988 Soft HeapSoft Heap (band)Soft Heap was a Canterbury scene supergroup founded in January 1978. The name references Soft Machine while "Heap" comes from the first letters of the band's founders: Hugh Hopper , Elton Dean , Alan Gowen and Pip Pyle . Hopper and Dean had worked together in Soft Machine, while Gowen and Pyle had...
- 1982 - 2002 In CahootsIn CahootsIn Cahoots is a Canterbury scene band led by guitarist Phil Miller, their main composer.The band was formed in November 1982 by Miller with Pip Pyle , Richard Sinclair and Elton Dean , as the Phil Miller Quartet. It was expanded to a quintet and given its definitive name when Peter Lemer joined...
- 1984 - 1995 Pip Pyle's Equip'Out
- 1992 - 1996 Gong reformed
- 1991 - 1996 Short WaveShort Wave (band)Short Wave Live is the only album by Short Wave, a UK band related to the Canterbury Scene, consisting of Hugh Hopper , Didier Malherbe , Phil Miller and Pip Pyle .The band was formed in 1991...
- 1998 - 2006 Absolute Zero
- 2002 - 2006 Pip Pyle's Bash!
- 2005 - 2006 Hatfield and the North reformed
External links
- Official website
- Calyx biography and chronology
- Interview with Pip Pyle
- Obituary in The IndependentThe IndependentThe Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
- Obituary in The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
- Obituary by Dave Stewart of Hatfield and the North
- Pip Pyle's funeral on youtube.com