Saturday, June 7, 2008

Roy Henry Alexander Gover

My first post about RHAG generated a few comments, and I'd like to encourage people to share any information they have about him. I recently found out he is deceased.

After months of uncertainty I found the cassette I was afraid I'd lost forever, and I'm overjoyed to share it. It appears to be two sessions, the first from Feb 14, 1987, and one from Feb 27, 1987.

If this is your first exposure to Roy Henry, you're probably going to wonder what the hell's going on. This is normal. The text is stream-of-consciousness with muzak accompaniment recorded. It helps if you're acclimated to other English 'eccentrics' (a term that they all hate) like Vivian Stanshall and Ivor Cutler. As I've said before, it's very difficult to come by any historical information on Roy Henry, but judging from this music he lived his life as art, purposefully blurring the line between fact and fiction.

The Feb 14 session is a little better, so let's start there. He's been to a work related birthday/Valentines day partyand returned home.





The Feb 27 session is shorter and weirder. He has a vision of his parents and talks to his imaginary bandleader.







Download the Feb 14 session:
http://www.divshare.com/download/5177430-a77
Download the Feb 27 session:
http://www.divshare.com/download/5177363-e53

5 comments:

taro nombei said...

Greetings from Tokyo
I'm intrigued by the RHAG posts, still processing them though.
thanks for all the posts!
TN

Emma Muse said...

He was the Art Director before Bob Dalterio. One of the greatest pleasures of working at Bonfield & Associates was going to lunch with Roy Gover, Bob Dalterio, and Tina Hildreth.

Roy was indeed dedicated to his art and had a friend, Jeff Coopland, with whom he produced a number of very funny tapes. I have a few but don't know where others would be. The last I knew of him, he was living north of San Francisco.

GRK. said...

Oi, don't call Ivor English!

Rev. Spike Beasley said...

That's far from muzak - it's vocal-contemporary-lounge-jazz. very Peter Cook voice. Very AWESOME! I need to release my copious hours of Vomitry.

e said...

Just wanted to let you know that we've posted a new article about Roy Gover on the web, with some new mp3 rips of some of his tapes that we aquired.

http://offinc.blogspot.com/2009/10/roy-gover-our-message-in-bottle.html