RON GEESIN FOCUS
- THE MADCAP LAUGHS by Glenn Povey; an interview and retrospective on Ron's career
Hidden away in the depths of East
Sussex is the home of Ron Geesin; one of the finest examples of
eccentricity at its very British best. Familiar to readers of Brain
Damage magazine at least for his work on Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother
and his collaboration with Roger Waters on The Body, Ron's own brand of
manic genius remains largely overlooked and as an artist was severely
underrated as a first class musician and performer.
I say 'was', because these days
Ron seems to divide his time neatly into burying himself in his home
studio working for his own amusement and pottering in the garden.
However, one glance at the poor apple trees in his garden is enough to
suggest he's been ignoring his horticultural duties of late. In fact
Ron, although busy with his own musical projects, has found very few
commissions in recent times. Once very much in demand for TV
soundtracks including (of all things) chase scenes in The Sweeney and
the superb Sunday Bloody Sunday, the fact is, nowadays, original
composition has been placed in favour of library music.
Recently, myself and Ian Russell
visited Ron and sat down in his garden to have a chat about his career
and found a man a touch despondent that his own career has been
eclipsed by the association with Pink Floyd and the fact that he has
never fully realized his potential as an artist in his own right. Even
then he has contempt for musicians that have found success and betrayed
their "art" - causing him to send a birthday card to Roger Waters with
the inscription "happy fester". "I have no respect for stardom", says
Ron "only maybe the material that comes out of them from time to time".
Ron Geesin was born in
Ayrshire, Scotland in 1943 and began his musical career in 1961 as
pianist with The Original Downtown Syncopators (ODS), a jazz band he
joined only six days after their first. Indeed he had only been playing
piano six months prior to that! However he describes his first leanings
towards entertainment as "cheeky backchat with teachers at school". The
ODS were a "mixture of humour and violence" a band in which he
developed his own personal style, mainly of chief anarchist, elevating
him to that of front man and announcer for the band.
As time pressed on, the
band (and venues) became less tolerant and eventually he broke away
from the jazz circuit to develop his own act. Mixing warped ramblings,
poetry, banjo and piano skits with banging any object he could take on
stage, he soon became a popular feature at festivals and opening acts
for progressive rock shows, including in the early seventies, Genesis.
It is likely that his
outing with Genesis was his last big tour. Ron would either raise huge
laughs and receive standing ovations or frustrate the audience into a
heckling frenzy. One particular incident on the opening night of the
tour involved him masquerading as a technician. It wasn't well received
and somehow between intervals, whether by Ron's doing or not, certain
items of stage equipment became electrically "live". The show, amid a
near riot, was eventually cancelled.
Ron's association with Pink Floyd
began in late 1969 when he was introduced to Nick Mason via a musical
friend, Sam Cutler, also living in London's Notting Hill area. Although
a lasting friendship evolved with Nick, it was really with Roger Waters
that Ron found a kindred spirit.
Eventually the pair would
link up to work on The Body soundtrack, something which Ron was
approached to do as a solo work but which later involved Waters due to
some urgent lyrics being required. Something that was only recently
revealed was the fact that the whole of Pink Floyd played on the
closing track of the album, Give Birth To A Smile.
Heralding a new form of
filmmaking, The Body was intended to have only music as its soundtrack.
After the distributors had seen the rough-cut it was deemed necessary
to tone it down. "It was great - it told its own story of travelling
through the human body, but then they were forced to get Vanessa
Redgrave and someone else to narrate. They did all sorts of pansy stuff
over the top of it." What also disappointed Ron was the piece he
composed for the medical credits, a simple cello and violin duet.
Bemused by the inverted snobbery of the production team (all members of
the Workers Revolutionary Party - including Redgrave) the piece was
shelved because it was considered a glorification of medical workers.
That project over, the
association between Waters went through to the summer of 1970 when Pink
Floyd had begun demos on what would become Atom Heart Mother. An
inventive use of orchestration Ron worked out a score for 10 brass, 20
choir and one solo cello. However he considers the final piece "a
bloody disaster. I turned to Steve O'Rourke (Pink Floyd's manager) and
said, 'that's a good rehearsal, can we do it again?'"
Fraught with problems from
the start, Ron was frustrated by obstinate classical musicians, who
failed to sympathize with his position as a composer and not an
arranger or conductor. Musicians of that kind need strict instruction
and so eventually John Aldiss (choirmaster and subsequent conductor on
tour) took over from a rather frustrated and battered Ron.
Ron is not so much bitter of what
the finished product turned out to be, but heavily disappointed,
claiming he has never heard it played right (and nor have we in that
case). For the most he describes AHM as a "plodding mess" mainly
because the orchestral parts were played exactly one beat behind the
drums. Ron saw the show at London's Hyde Park on 18 July 1970 and
consequently left in tears.
The piece was only titled the day
before Hyde Park having previously been introduced as The Amazing
Pudding at concerts. It was only at the recording session for John
Peel's BBC program that it was officially named. Ron was witness to the
strange circumstances surrounding its naming and Atom Heart Mother was
taken from a newspaper headline by Waters at Ron's suggestion as an
eminently suitable place to look for an urgently needed title. Saving
the day, another Pink Floyd legend was born.
For Ron, that was his last
involvement with Pink Floyd, an experience that left him bewildered and
shattered. The project was completed without him and his efforts remain
uncredited on the album sleeve.
Ron is tolerant and
good-natured in recalling these events although it obviously pains him
that his own career has been blighted by the one-hit wonder status
afforded him by these two collaborations some 24 years ago.
Presently, Ron has several of his
own projects underway and intends following his recent compilation CD
"Hystery" (working backwards with a piece from each year of his career
to date) with more live shows and recorded works. It would be so nice
to see some of his solo LPs re-released in time as well - all little
masterpieces of musical and spoken meanderings that testify a great
underrated talent.
Our thanks to Ron, his wife
Frances, and son Joe for their marvellous hospitality and the time they
spent talking with myself and Ian.
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