The Roy Harper websites at royharper.com and royharper.co.uk have been overhauled. Tracy Harper sent out an announcement about it yesterday. I don't anything further to add to this since I have been heavily involved in the effort - Paul.

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Hello everyone, Hope you've all been keeping well. We know It's been very quiet for the last little while but we have a bit of news...

We've updated the website! Many many thanks to Paul Davison for all of his help and patience over the last... year or so. It's been a long time coming and I've relied on him heavily!!

At first glance you might not notice much difference as we've worked hard to maintain the original design. The main difference is that we now offer full album downloads in MP3 and FLAC formats. There are a few albums now available for download that have been unavailable for some time. There are a couple of albums that remain unavailable but those will be up in MP3 and FLAC formats in the next couple of weeks as soon as they've had a general remaster... 'In Between Every Line' and 'Harper 1970-1975':

http://www.royharper.co.uk/magento/downloads.html

The other thing is that we have integrated the old diary pages into a proper blog format:

http://www.royharper.co.uk/blog/

If you're into Facebook there is also an official Roy Harper page:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Roy-Harper/141407956471

We've tested everything as much as we can but there is likely to be something that we haven't run up against. Please let us know if you have any problems with ordering or in viewing anything. email on info [at] royharper [dot] co [dot] uk.

Something that you do need to know is that your login details for the old shop will no longer work. You'll have to create a new account if you would like to take advantage of some of the new shop features such as purchasing downloads, creating a wishlist, and viewing your order status. Some options won't be available until you login. Your newsletter subscription has not changed. You do not need to re-subscribe.

Finally, Gavin Moore's new album 'Tonnta' is now available in our 'Other Artists' category. Some of you will know Gavin from his opening sets at the 100 Club shows in London and at the 'Debarras' shows here in Clonakilty. There are a few sample tracks to listen to and links for more information here:

http://www.royharper.co.uk/magento/other-artists/tonnta.html

So, that's it for now for news. Again, please let us know if you have any problems with the website. We'll be keen to fix any issues ASAP!

As part of the Offset creative conference’s ‘In Conversation’ events, Harry Pearce will be on stage in conversation with music legend Roy Harper. Their talk “Flashes From the Archive of Oblivion” will cover their 28 years of friendship and collaboration on many of Harper’s records. This will include anecdotal stories behind the records and about the designs themselves.

Roy Harper is an English rock/folk singer-songwriter/guitarist who has been a professional musician since the mid-1960s. Harper has admitted being influenced by many forms of music, ranging from Miles Davis to Indian Raga to Stravinsky. His earliest musical influences were American blues musicians Lead Belly, Josh White and Big Bill Broonzy, and folk musician Woody Guthrie. His career and influence have been respected by many musicians including Jimmy Page and Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin, Pete Townsend of The Who, Kate Bush, Pink Floyd, and more recently Californian harpist Joanna Newsom. Harper is also known for his guest lead vocals on Pink Floyd’s song “Have a Cigar.”

Among Harry’s previous work with Roy Harper is his sleeve design for the reissue of The BBC Tapes, sessions for the BBC recorded between 1969 and 1978.

The talk will take place on Friday 6th November at Dublin’s Offset three-day creative gathering.

Find out more at http://pentagram.com/en/new/harry-pearce/

Roy is featured in "The Word" magazine as part of a feature on cult heroes.

Roy has put an unedited copy of his brief but excellent interview on his site at http://www.royharper.co.uk/shop/display_page.php?page=press/word_2009. It's eight questions and answers and I'm certain that some of the answers were not quite what the interviewer was expecting. Here's a snippet:

1. Why do you think you inspire such devotion?

I don't think that I properly realize that I have anyone devoted to me. There's something called Roy Harper, and then there's me, a person who seems to trundle along in a parallel universe to that narrative. In the times when I realize that the narrative may have devotees, it's tempered with a thought that there are a lot of people out there who may be in some way antipathetic. In other words, I think that Roy Harper divides opinion a lot. He's not really someone you can really treat as wallpaper. There's some very high class incidental music out there. Pink Floyd, and Coldplay immediately spring to mind. Moby and even Eminem on a lesser level. Stuff with a capability to be used as soothing or familiar background sound. Complimentary audio to a particular lifestyle, or to being played in the workplace at reasonably low volume. Things that might seem to suggest, but don't finally say very much other than they are very well produced high class music art. Often image is the key component. You could describe this as a way of writing in which any lyrical content is purely subject to the music or the image, and is actually ancillary, and often even incidental. The reason why this kind of music art is always going to be fashionable is that it doesn't disturb people, and it usually compliments the status quo. Which is great, I don't have anything against that, but it's not where I'm coming from, that is, me, the founder of Roy Harper. I'm coming from the same kind of place Woody Guthrie, Phil Ochs, Richard Fariña and Big Bill Broonzy came from, where a song can be a contentious point of view, often a bold a statement, or a strong opinion based on available empirical fact. Any and all of which can be loaded with emotion. Some people really get it, lots don't, people who can't be bothered to decipher meaning in lyrics think of me as purely esoteric, and there are billions who know nothing of me at all. One thing is for sure, I don't think I leave many who do.. sat on the fence. And Roy of course, well he's likely to carry on for quite a while after I've left. He's nothing I can actually stop now.. he's become a slight disturbance out there in cyberspace.

Long-time Roy Harper fans may be familiar with the fanzine "Hors D'Oeuvres", which was sold mail order and at gigs from 1983 onwards. It was started by Pete Cunliffe and later taken on by Dave Carlin and Darren Crisp. For me this was an incredibly useful source of information, in the pre-internet days where information about gigs and releases, and connections with other fans, were very rare and precious. Pete has done a one-off special edition, download-only (for now at least). You can get a copy from http://www.saints-hosting.org.uk/sadfish/hdo/HdOmed.pdf and you will need Acrobat Reader to open this file. If you don't have acrobat, download it from http://get.adobe.com/reader/

Here's Pete's introduction to the issue.

 

Roy Harper fan site [old] 

http://www.youtube.com/user/RoyHarperFan

 Roy & Jimmy Page etc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3GbrwaqZBE

 Roy 2010

http://www.stormcock.net/vb/showthread.php?t=1319

"We made this short film in the pub. I grew my 'Gabby Hayes' beard especially for it. It was a lot of fun. This could be the beginning of something small... !"

In case you're new to the site and missed the podcasts with my interview with Roy, you can get the whole interview (without the podcast surround) at http://www.stormcock.net/node/502

The podcasts are still available as well of course. Click on the podcast link and browse.

A wonderful article has appeared on the webste "www.jambase.com" containing an interview with Roy and a video primer for people unfamiliar with his music. It's at http://www.jambase.com/Articles/17026/The-Empirical-Poetry-of-Roy-Harper.

Here's a brief excerpt:

I don't normally announce blog and diary entries on the site front page but I feel I have to in this case. Roy has just published his essay "The Code in the Artwork" on his site. This is a long piece covering the concepts and motivations behind those four wonderful songs on 'Stormcock' and also the various clues and messages that exist in the album art. I am a little embarrassed to admit that most of this had completely passed me by, even on those pictures on the album sleeve that I used to stare at while listening to the (vinyl) LP. It might be the same for you as well.

I think that one of the points that comes out of reading it, and relistening to the album, is how so little has changed in all those years that have followed. We are still destroying ourselves and our planet; justice is still a luxury afforded to few, organised religion is still (and perhaps even more so) directly contributing to conflict and subjugation, not one day has passed without armed conflict somewhere on earth, and we still treat each other with ill will, pettiness and selfishness.

Some people might argue that music has no place, or power, to address such weighty matters and attempt to open our eyes. But I believe artists, be they poets, musicians, painters, or story tellers, have the ability and even the obligation to do this - to step away from the rockface, look around, perceive, and communicate. In 'Stormcock' Roy did this, and released it to the world in 1971. I can only imagine how he must feel to see the state we are all in so many years later.

The diary entry is at http://www.royharper.co.uk/shop/display_page.php?page=diary/entry23

Enjoy. I think a lot of us will be listening to Stormcock in the near future.

 

 

 

A wonderful little article about Roy has appeared on the online edition of the Taiwan News, with him answering "20 questions" in his usual very personal and funny way. Very much worth a read. http://www.etaiwannews.com/etn/news_content.php?id=793555&lang=eng_news