#robertsaxton

Robert Saxton’s Acoustic Heavy Metal

I first heard about Robert Lots of Love Saxton when I was on tour a couple of years ago.  The band had just played an especially odd Piney show, an "underwater" gig at the Cube Cinema in Bristol - how did we play underwater?  Well... that's a story for another blog.  My mate Dan put us up in his spare room, so me and all the boys piled into this room with futons and air beds, tie-dye throws on the walls, you get the picture; it's all very Bristol, groovy and right-on.  Then Growler (my beloved brother-in-band) starts telling us bedtime stories about where he works, because he works in the weird, wild world of academia at one of the prestigious Oxbridge colleges.  It was here we heard about Robert Saxton, who apparently says "Lots of love!" all the time; that's not such a bad catch phrase... and it sounded like Growler and Dr. Saxton had become firm friends, bound by pints and curry nights.

Fast-forward a couple of years and Nick Growler Fowler is going to be playing one of Robert Saxton's pieces along with producer Dan Hulme, namely "Night Dance Fantasy" for solo guitar and electronics.  I know they've been working pretty hard to prepare for it, so I swan down to meet them at the Royal Overseas League right behind the Ritz, a stone's throw from Buckingham Palace (note: this place is like walking into a P.G. Wodehouse book, when I first moved to England I thought everywhere was going to be like this and that everyone would be wearing tweed all the time unless they were out fox-hunting and then they'd be wearing those red jackets, but that's a story for another blog too), so I go to meet the man I've heard so much about and to talk to Growler and Robert about the preparation for the forthcoming performance.

Robert greets me and we make a beeline to the bar, we get stuck into a drink (me white wine, him a pint of Cobra) and I ask him about working with Benjamin Britten.  Because in the early days Robert received tutelage from Britten, and he's one of those legends, you know?  So what was that like?  For a start, I'm surprised he's even old enough to work with Britten... Robert explains, "He gave me encouragement as a child, he wrote me a lot of letters which are now in the British Library, because we were both from East Anglia we had that in common, it was local."

Growler arrives and pipes in, "I'm from East Anglia too, Peterborough, big up East Anglia massive!"  There is another trip to the bar to celebrate Growler's arrival, he's just been on the Oxford Tube and is very thirsty!

We settle back in and Robert doesn't miss a beat, back to Britten, "He was very kind, the thing about Britten, we've learned in subsequent years to his death that he was a difficult old thing and he could be very um... choosy about who he worked with and didn't work with, but with younger people he was marvelous, absolutely fantastic to me.  He would correct my music and send it back to me, he'd say 'Oy this could be better,' he was very tough in a kind way that never put you off... he was always there to give advice and he would always answer letters by hand, they were different times."

So what's the deal with "Night Dance Fantasy," how did it all start?  Robert Saxton was originally commissioned to do this piece in 1986 for the classical guitarist David Starobin.  He explains that the piece was inspired by the later paintings of Goya, the music is using a guitar palette to recreate this kind of mood, a tone poem.  Exploring the origins of the Spanish guitar, he takes you on a journey and when the piece ends you don't know if it was all a dream.  

"Night Dance Fantasy" is being reinvented by Nick Growler Fowler, who has played with many bands and been signed to major labels and all that fun stuff, most recently he's been travelling the world as the guitarist for Gaz Coombes' Mercury-nominated, solo project, he's working on the Saxton piece with producer Dan Hulme who began his studio career as an engineer for Factory Records before going on to work at the Strongrooms in London, working with bands like The Coral and Tricky.

I wanted know how these guys managed to find each other... Robert explains, "I remember when Nick (Growler) arrived at the music faculty he was working the front desk, he had been working for London Fashion Week before that, and I thought 'thank goodness they found someone professional,' and it's marvelous he's moved on to graduate studies now.  He's been such a good friend, and we've been having so much fun with this project."

When I asked how this new take on the piece came about, Robert explained that it was Growler who discovered the piece and then Growler explains that a graduate student at the college tipped him off about it.   "Then I think I was a bit drunk on a night out with Robert and said 'let's do your piece in the Union Chapel!'"

"We love to socialise but we never have time," Saxton tangents, then starts to tell me about how he'd recently been food poisoned by some rice at a Chinese restaurant.  

"What's this got to do with Night Dance?" asks Growler.

"Well because now when we go out for a curry it's only gonna be naan bread for me," laughs Saxton.

"But really," he gets serious for a minute,"This new version of the piece is like a fantasia of the original, I've written them a graphic score... they've taken the basics and reinvented it. Nick (Growler) gives it a constant glow, an energy coming from the inside, it's extraordinary the colours he gets.  In a way you and Dan have released this piece from the page.  For the second movement, Dan uses his abilities to create a more modern dance world; (he says to Growler) he's created the acoustic stream in which you swim"

Growler interrupts, "I feel like I've been living inside this piece for about 3 months now and I feel like I've gone mad, it's really mad.  If this is what it's like to be Robert, that explains a lot!"