I am by no means the Hall’s expert on Kevin Ayers, but since he died recently and he is of interest to a few of my favorite Townspeople, relatively new and old, and since these very same folks have been chipping in their memories of enjoying the man’s music, let me open up a formal discussion for the benefit of those of you who know almost nothing about the guy and, even more so, for my own education.
I first came across Ayers in college through 2 sources. First, there was that June 1, 1974 album, which I hungrily borrowed from a friend for the chance to hear Eno, John Cale, and Nico in a band with Mike Oldfield (whose music I only knew through sneaking into my first R-rated movie, The Exorcist) and this Ayers guy, about whom I knew nothing. The album was OK, as I spun it over the next few days, trying like mad to get high enough to feel like it was great, but I returned it to my friend and never felt tempted to buy it for myself.
Next, over the last few weeks of my freshman year, I became friends with this tall, geeky, super-underground weirdo-prog guy, John. We initially bonded over artists like Captain Beefheart, the Velvet Underground, psychedelic Beatles, and King Crimson, the last of whom I’d recently been introduced to by another friend. He took this as a sign that I may be ready for exploring the deeper hippie-prog territory he specialized in, stuff like Henry Cow, Van Der Graaf Generator, and Gong. I wasn’t thrilled about all of those underground prog bands, but it was cool to hear new stuff and try to get a handle on this proto-Thurston Moore look-alike I’d suddenly befriended.
