Beggars Opera - Official Page

Music:

Member Since: 10/22/2006
Band Website: beggarsopera.co.uk
Band Members: Ricky Gardiner-guitar/bass/vox.Virginia Scott-vox/keys. Tom Gardiner -drums.Beggars Opera are legendary progressive classical rockers who formed in 1969. They were signed to the Vertigo label and had four albums with them (the most any band did and has). They went their seperate ways in the mid seventies where various solo careers kicked off, but they have now reformed to produce new works.For the 1st time the freshly remastered BEGGARS OPERA /THE FLOOD ( xprt) ON YOUTUBE Beggars Opera /Ricky Gardiner: GUITAR, CX5 AND TAPE 1986.ANDPaintings and Drawings : Virginia Scott 1994-2005.

Influences:Life and King Crimson, Robert Fripp, Jethro Tull, Deep Purple, Average White Band, The Sensational Alex Harvey Band, Jack Bruce, Eric Clapton, Cream, Led Zeppelin, Frank Zappa, Mountain, John Cage, Schumann, Wagner's Ring, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Frank Sinatra, Iggy Pop, Tangerine Dream, Edgar Froese, Maggie Bell,Tony Visconti, Ed Ruscha, Patti Smith, Blondie, Nico, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Bill Withers, Rainer Burke, ALASDAIR GRAY writer/artist LANARK and POOR THINGS, David Bowie, Iron Butterfly,Tin Machine, Dracula, A.L.Kennedy,Stockhausen's Mantra, Piobaireachd, Hank Marvin, Shirley Bassey, Different Trains, Martha Argerich, Keith Jarret, Dave Brubeck, Bob Dylan, Dr Angus MacDonald, The Lament for Viscount Dundee, Colloseum, Pete Brown, Jeff Beck, Heimat/Edgar Reis, Glenn Gould, Dante's Inferno, Messiaen/ Quartet for the End of Time, Ratcatcher,Pink Floyd, Roy Wood Electric Light Orchestra, Franz Von Suppe, William Seward Burroughs, Astrology, Charles Dickens, Aldous Huxley, Yngwie Malmstein,Carlos Alomar, Joanna MacGregor, The Battle of Waterloo, The Italian Campaign WW2, Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji, D H Lawrence, Janice Galloway /CLARA, Sandie Shaw, David Lynch, Dusty Springfield, Johnny Cash, Stevie Wonder, Eric Satie,The Shadows,Tina Turner, Salvador Dali, Jackson Pollock, William Makepeace Thackery,Lon Cheyney, Always Crashing in the Same Car, Vladimir Horowitz,Mo Tucker,Michael Landy's Breakdown,Bram Stocker, James Brown, Cardonald, Tamla Motown, The Beauties of Scotland /RO Forsyth, Bob Dylan, Peggy Lee, Steinway Pianos, Johannes Brahms, Rolling Stones,In the pipelineFOR MORE INFORMATION INCLUDING LYRICS PLEASE VISIT THE NEWLY REBURBISHED Ricky Gardiner Website

Sounds Like: Miss G: After reading an article recently in Wire about Sonic Youth, they explained that they were uninterested in pushing a sense of ’newness’ in their albums, yet still being explorative. How important is it to push ’newness’ whether it is re inventing the wheel or appropriating old for new the post-modern way? What is the Beggars Opera standpoint on that notion?Virginia: In 1962, when Ricky Gardiner and I were musically conjoined in our first ever band The Vostok’s, the notion of musical collaboration was inevitable.He to me was a cool slick guitarist, who could play ’Mystery Man’ better than Hank Marvin of the Shadows. What was I to him? A singer with dark long black hair and blue eyes who could play anything, jam and hang out with guitars, keys and the vinyl of the day through Scottish dawns and gloamings? I was studying classical piano in Italy when Ricky formed Beggars Opera and on my return was appointed composer in residence. I still am. The art/Dadaist link you refer to, and therefore the use of said as a means of producing the ’new’ or the ’less predictable’, does not apply to a ’reinvention’ but to a ’revivification from cryonation’ for Beggars Opera, or a link in the concatenation of retrospective musical aspirational energies invested in Beggars Opera’s identity as a postmodern structure, which kept evolving subliminally. I know little of Sonic Youth’s music except through the ’Trainspotting 2’ cd and an interesting track called ’Atmosphere’.I am more aware of Kim Gordon their bassist through her ’Her Noise’ installation at the South London Gallery, which I read about in Modern Painter’s. But I see what you mean by asking this interesting question.NEW SLIDE SHOW OF OLD PAINTINGS by Virginia Scott .

Record Label: RGS
Type of Label: Indie