ATAVACHRON
Enigma Records ST-73203
"...Where No Guitarist Has Gone Before..."
Allan Holdsworth
by Ric Levine
O riginality is a term used to describe many
artists, even when it doesn't necessarily apply.
Thankfully, the word still has meaning when names
like Coltrane, Reinhardt, Miles, McLaughlin,
Hendrix, Metheny, and Fripp (and the scores of
other musicians that fill your respective lists) are
mentioned. Without doubt, Allan Holdsworth
belongs on any list of "originals".
Holdsworth's reputation as an innovative and
influential guitarist is well-known in discerning
circles. His uncommon chordal shadings and com-
plex, linear solos have an enveloping quality. Those
who own any of the albums on which he has con-
tributed (see the Selected Discography at the end
of this article) know what I'm saying: it is a very
impressive body of work. His new album,
Atavachron, admirably adds to his achievements,
and reveals Holdsworth's continuing quest for his
own unique sound.
Like any true pioneer, Holdsworth is never
content with the typical tools of his trade. Indeed,
synthesizers and more recently, the MIDI (Musical
Instrument Digital Interface), have opened up new
avenues of musical exploration for him. You'd think
with the myriad possibilities available through these
technological little wonders, there'd be enough to
keep anyone busy.
This Englishman, as you already know (or
will understand after reading the following inter-
view), is not /ust anyone. Nor is his new instrument,
the SynthAxe, just any musical instrument: there
is the familiar fretboard that can be played by a
guitarist, but it is a synthesizer controller, not a
guitar. Though uncomfortable and unusual to some,
the SynthAxe has found a master worthy of its
creative capabilities. [For more on the SynthAxe,
pick up the June issue of Guitar Player].
I caught up with Allan at his home in Orange
County, C A . , where he lives with his wife, Claire,
and their three children, Louise, Sam and Emily.
O n e of the most striking characteristics about
Holdsworth is that his honesty is only exceeded by
his profound modesty, much like his fellow coun-
tryman, Peter Gabriel. I hope you find it as
refreshing and enlightening as I did.
16
. Glass; Mr. Berwell; All Our Yesterdays. All titles
Cymbiosis: / understand if your family could
have afforded it you would have had a saxophone
instead of a guitar when you were younger?
Holdsworth: Yeah, that's what I really
wanted—to play saxophone.
Cymbiosis: Why was that?
Holdsworth: \Afell, I just loved the sax-
ophone. It was the sound. I think people are first
attracted to music and then to specific sounds
within it. I also liked violin later. But at the time
I liked saxophone more, because it was on most
of the records that my dad had. He was a jazz player
and had a lot of jazz records.
Cymbiosis: So you had things like John Col-
trane, Charlie Parker, Cannonball Adderly, Benny
Goodman and Artie Shaw?
Holdsworth: Yeah, Dad played in the Air
Force band during the war, and they played a lot
of swing.
Cymbiosis: So that might account for why
a lot of your riffs almost sound hornlike as opposed
to how a "regular" guitarist might sound?
Holdsworth: I don't think any of that was
Cymbiosis
Personne/: Allan Holdsworth-guitar, SynthAxe;
Jimmy Johnson-bass guitar; Gary
Husband-drums
Guest Artists: Alan Pasqua-keys; Billy Childs-
keys; Rowanne Mark-vocals; Chad Wbckerman-
drums, percussion; Tony Williams- drums
On 'Looking Glass': Holdsworth, Childs,
Johnson, Williams
Side 1: Non-Brewed Condiment; Funnels; The
Dominant Plague; Side 2: Atavachron; Looking
composed by Allan Holdsworth.
Producer: Allan Holdsworth
deliberate, really. M y parents bought me a guitar;
it was real cheap. I think they paid 10 shillings for
it, about a dollar at the time, I guess. I just left it
lying around and had no interest in it.
Cymbiosis: Why did you finally pick it up?
Holdsworth: Curiosity, really. I gradually got
interested in it, decided to play it, and once I got
to a certain point, it was like a light switch went
on, and I started to learn how to play the guitar.
I think it's only after I'd been playing a few years
that the kind of things I listened to a lot when I was
younger started unconsciously coming out in my
playing. I was trying to get more of a sound out of
the guitar than it wanted to make at that time.
Cymbiosis: And that's what moved you into
electric guitar?
Holdsworth: When I got my first electric
(which was just an acoustic fitted with a pickup),
I didn't start out trying to make the guitar sound
like a saxophone, or anything like that. It just
evolved over a number of years. It's only now that
I realize that's what was happening subconsciously.
All these years I've really wanted to make a different
sound than I was making.
Cymbiosis: And then you started listening
to people like Charlie Christian.
Holdsworth: He was on the records that my
father had, so I went back and listened to those with
new ears because I realized that this guy was play-
ing guitar. Charlie Christian was the first real big
major guitar influence. . . and Django [Reinhardt].
But mostly Charlie Christian, because I just love the
sound that he got, and I still love it today. There's
a lot of jazz guitar sounds. Guys like Jimmy Ramey,
Joe Pass, Tal Farlow, Jim Hall...I love the way they
play. But there's something about the sound that
I really don't like. It's kind of like a rubber bandy
sound, a dead, short kind of guitar sound, [laughsj
It's just not for me.
Cymbiosis: So Clapton's was more of a
sound that you wanted?
Jul/Aug 1986
Holdsworth: When I first heard Eric Clapton
it was great. It was the first time I'd heard that kind
of sound and the first time I'd heard the amplifier
being used in that manner. Guys had done it before
by accident, but this kind of thing was more
deliberate. That sparked me off because it was kind
of a horn, violin sound...just off in the right
direction.
Cymbiosis: You apparently had a fascination
with your parents' record player when you were
very young and you've certainly carried on in your
father's tradition about wanting to surround yourself
with equipment. [That's about all that could be seen
in the living room].
Holdsworth: \Afell, it's a curiosity. I'm curious
about it all. I've always been interested in elec-
tronics, and I wanted to know why the guitar
sounded like it did when using a certain amplifier.
I had to analyze and find out why each amp
sounded different, so I spent a lot of years modify-
ing and messing with tube amplifiers.
Cymbiosis: That was when you had gotten
your first guitar, when you were about 17 or 18?
Holdsworth: No, it was before that when I
got it.
Cymbiosis: So you didn't start playing it un-
til you were in your early 20s.
Holdsworth: Yeah. I think I would have
gotten into it sooner, if I'd had the right instrument.
I wish now somebody had given me a violin when
I was little; I really think I would have taken to it.
I still have an affinity with it, but I can't play it,
because it's a ridiculously difficult instrument to
play. But there was something about it that was more
comfortable and easier than the guitar. It was just
at that point in time it was too late, because I would
have had to neglect the guitar in order to make any
progress on the violin. I just didn't think I could
do it, so I left it out.
Cymbiosis: Instead, you took up an instru-
ment that you didn't really fancy and fashioned a ^
17

^ALLAN HOLDSWORTH
whole new style of playing that Guitar Player has
called "the Allan ffoldsworth school of guitar play-
ing."
Holdsworth: Yeah, it's weird. I don't unders-
tand that anyway. I'd like to think that an individual
is an individual, so that he can be whatever he
wants to be. That's one of the things that I like to
stress to people.
I have a stubbornness not to want to do
anything the same as somebody else. If I see and
hear something and I'm moved by it, I want to do
something with that quality. It's only the quality that
concerns me, not what it was. When Jaco [Pastorius]
was doing all that stuff with the bass, people were
so preoccupied with the sound he was making they
totally ignored what he was actually doing. The
most important part about Jaco was what he was
playing on the bass. That was the thing! If I'd have
been a bass player, I'd have been looking for that,
and I'd have forgotten about the sound. The sound
was just the sound that he made—it was his. Instead,
what happened was you got a whole bunch of guys
going around sounding like Jaco. In the end, it
almost ruined a perfectly good sound because it
became so common.
Cymbiosis: / understand that when you were
auditioning bass players for one of your bands in
England, if you saw a fretless bass being opened
up, you said, "Fine, next."
Holdsworth: Yeah, we did. I know that
sounds unfair; it was just that we'd been through
so many guys trying to find a bass player, and it was
pretty difficult. We found out that most of the guys
who had fretless basses were just trying to play like
Jaco. They made that tuba-like sound, but they
couldn't play in tune. All we wanted was a guy with
character; some personality of his own. The first
bass player, Henry Thomas, was great. We had some
personality problems, and it didn't work out for one
reason or another, but he was great.
Cymbiosis: Now this was after your Soft
Machine and Tony Williams days?
Holdsworth: O h , yeah. This was way after
that-and after Bruford and U.K. This was the begin-
ning of this band now, the I.O.U. band. Then we
found Paul Carmichael and we liked him because
he didn't sound like he was trying to do anybody
else. He was going for his own thing, and that, to
me, counts ten times over.
Cymbiosis: Is that desire to go beyond the
levels of prior musicianship what led you to the
exploration of odd time signatures, like you did with
the Soft Machine?
Holdsworth: WeW, most of my music has odd
bars here and there. The Soft Machine was my first
example of playing constantly in one fixed odd
time; it altered my thinking and phrasing. It was
good for me. I enjoyed that band at the time as
18
much as anything else I've ever done.
Cymbiosis: That's good to hear, because
when we'd talked before, you gave the impression
that you didn't like anything you'd ever done before.
Holdsworth: I didn't say I liked it! I just said
I enjoyed it at the time. There's a difference. You
have to hope that you still try to do your best at
any point in history. It just sounds so old or so bad
to me now. Not the rest of the guys, what I'm play-
ing. It's just when I listen to those old things, it's
like seeing yourself running around in diapers. I
can't listen to it, it sounds so...unknowledgeable.
But, I enjoyed it at the time. It was a good
experience.
Cymbiosis: So when you conceive songs in
different signatures, you're not necessarily transfixed
on a specific time signature.
Holdsworth: O h , I never write specifically
in anything. I think I write in 1. [Laughs) No, it's
just the way the music comes out. If the music is
written in such a way and the structure warrants
an odd bar or two, then that's what happens. Like
"Water on the Brain," on the Road Games
album, apart from the first bar, it's all in 4. It sounds
like it's odd, but it isn't. It's just accents.
Cymbiosis: Now you've got a new toy for
your composition—the SynthAxe. Can you tell us
a little bit about it and how you became involved
in it?
Holdsworth: Basically, I tried it through
natural curiosity. I had tried using some of the other
available guitar controllers and guitar synthesizers,
or whatever they were called. It was totally hilarious;
it was like a revelation and a frustration at the same
time, because when you plugged a Roland guitar
into a DX7, you'd be able to make some of the same
sounds as a keyboard player or synthesists make.
It was interesting for a guitar player, but I knew that
Allan at h o m e demonstrating the unique qualities of SynthAxe.
the system didn't work because of the way that they
have to track the pitch and then convert that to
voltage. I think pitch to anything is like pitch to editor] at Guitar Player and asked him if they had principle to this. I personally believe that's the right
glitch, as I call it. It just has an inherent flaw in it heard anything about it. I eventually tracked down way to go.
somehow. So I don't think there would be a syn- Bill Aitken, the inventor; I saw him over at the Cymbiosis: And in addition to the trigger
thesizer player in the world if the keyboard was N A M M Show a couple of years ago. He let me play strings, you have a keyboard on the SynthAxe.
pitch to voltage. this thing, and I was absolutely blown away with Holdsworth: Each key corresponds to a
When I saw the first brochure on the Syn- it. They've made a lot of improvements since then string, so if you play this [first] key, you have to be
thAxe, I read the way they were doing it and I knew and that's one of the other incredible things about playing on this [first] string, and so on.
that I had to see it. So I phoned anybody I knew it. They just keep coming up with ways to make Cymbiosis: H o w r's the SynthAxe going to
at guitar magazines, like Tom Mulhern [associate this thing better without changing its shape or the change your approach to composition?
way it plays or feels. For example, the trigger strings Holdsworth: I've now got more sonic
on the first one I played were really insensitive com- capability than I had before with the guitar, in-
pared to the way they are now. Now they've got asmuch as I can use synthesis and, in effect, that
have a stubbornness a new set of trigger strings where the sensing can
be adjusted from the console, so you can have them
has sparked a whole other thing off in me. I was,
in some ways, getting fed up, not with the guitar
not to want to do set up any way you want. If you make mistakes on
it, it's your own fault. The machine doesn't make
itself, but with the way that the guitar was soun-
ding in some respects. It was reaching a point
any. And that's what I was looking for. I wanted an where, more or less, everybody started to sound
anything the same as instrument that was going to allow me to control a little like everybody. There's obviously some really
the synthesizer the way a keyboard player would, great exceptions like Scott Henderson or Eric
somebody else." and it seemed to me that this was the closest, or Johnson-all these guys who are doing their own
this was..."it". I think there is going to be a whole thing.
other generation of controllers that will use a similar Cymbiosis: Stanley Jordan. ^
Cymbiosis Jul/Aug 1986 19

"JHBfR HOLDSWORTH
Holdsworth: Stanley Jordan. And many more.
But I was just generalizing. When I got the Syn-
thAxe, it just sparked off this incredible interest in
synthesis which I'd never thought of before. So I'm
trying to get a deeper understanding of synthesis
so I can create my own sounds and programs. And
that is really exciting to me, because I'm so new
at it. I've got all this energy again like I had when
I first started playing. It's a different kind of energy
than the one I have for just developing my musical
knowledge. So one helps the other. It's a new in-
spiration for me.
Cymbiosis: Like a kid in a candy store all over
again.
Holdsworth: In a way, yeah, because it's so
new. I want to be able to make as Individual a sound
on that as what people think I do on the guitar. It
has to be possible. I guess if I could do that, it vwuld
prove something. [Laughs]
Cymbiosis: And leave your mark on the
world?
Holdsworth: Not like that. Just for my own
satisfaction. I would like to be able to create—like
Jan Hammer or Joe Zawinul. There's not many syn-
thesists you can say that about. They're recognizable
through the music. When I hear Chick Corea play
synthesizer, I can recognize the musician—I can
hear the notes through the sound. It's still the music
that's the most important thing. That's all I want to
achieve. I can now make a lot more sounds, so it's
more inspirational to me in the writing sense.
Sometimes I find a sound and I'll go off on a whole
other thing than I would have done If I'd just been
trying to write a piece on guitar.
Cymbiosis: Well, your new album,
Atavachron, because of the SynthAxe, has a distinct-
ly different sound from Metal Fatigue, the orte prior.
Holdsworth: Vfeah, I think there's two reasons
for that. O n e is because I've been thinking over the
last couple of years that when I reviewed all the
albums, I'd never feel quite so happy with the vocal
tracks. Not because of the vocals, because Paul
[Williams] sings great. It wasn't that. It's just because,
musically, they seem to be more watered down or
more fickle. They just didn't seem to be what I
wanted. And I wanted to do an instrumental thing,
so when I got the SynthAxe, I was thinking in those
terms. So when I started to write the music, it just
came out more instrumental. And, second, because
I was playing some of the synth parts and playing
guitar, I realized we should definitely get a keyboard
player in the band.
Cymbiosis: Vbu've gone away from keyboards
in the past, especially after your U.K. and Bruford
days.
Holdsworth: They were basically keyboard-
dominated situations, and I wanted to reverse the
roles and use the guitar. For example, with Bill
20
[Bruford], he'd always use the synthesizer above the
guitar for a chordal section, just because he thought
the synthesizer sounded better than the guitar. I
needed to get that out of my system and escape
from all the synth things. So we did the I.O.U., Road
Games, and Metal Fatigue—three trio albums. So
I've had four or five years of trio and I really felt
that I wanted to do something else.
Cymbiosis: And so you recruited Biily Childs.
Holdsworth: Yeah. Originally, Alan Pasqua
was the guy I first thought of in the band, because
I just love the guy. I can't say enough good things
about him. He's an incredible musician.
Cymbiosis: You've worked with him quite a
bit in the past?
Holdsworth: No, I worked with him with
Tony Williams, which is the only time. (I was
definitely suffering from novice behavior in those
days). And it was nice to get back together to play
with him again. So I asked him to play on Metal
Fatigue. He played a s o l o on " T h e Un-Merry-
Go-Round".
O n "Atavachron", because I'd written and
recorded most of the music on synthesizer, I wanted
to get somebody else to come and play solos. So
Gary Willis, the bass player on"The Un-Merry-Go-
Round','introduced me to the piano player, Billy
Childs, and he sounded great. And through working
Bunny Brunei, I met Kei Akagi, who's fantastic.
He's the guy who's in the band now.
Cymbiosis: He's the one we saw you with
at the Roxy [L.A., 14 March 1986].
Holdsworth: That's right, and Kei was actual-
ly going to play on some of the album, but he wasn't
available at the time. V\fe couldn't coordinate it, and
so I asked Alan and he played on two tracks, "Atava-
chron" and " M r . Berwell". Billy Childs played on
"Funnels."
Cymbiosis: Who is Mr. Berwell?
Holdsworth: That's my son, Sam. It's a
nickname that Gary Husband came up with. It's
very involved and it would probably sound too
ridiculous to even get into.
Cymbiosis: The very last track on the album,
"All Our Yesterdays", is very different from the rest
of the album. According to the title sheet, it's the
only song in which there's any improvisation go-
ing on. . .
Holdsworth: There's improvisation on all of
the tracks. I mean, all the solos are improvised. The
only reason I wrote that down—the improvisation-
was it was total. We didn't have anything fixed. It
was just absolutely, totally free.
Cymbiosis: And on vocals...
Holdsworth: Rowanne Mark.
Cymbiosis: Right. That's the first time you
ever recorded with a female vocalist on arty of your
songs.
Holdsworth: No, she sang on " H o m e " [from
Metal Fatigue] originally, but I chose not to use
it. Not because of her, I love the way she sings. She
sang it beautifully and with no lyrics. But it started
Cymbiosis
When I got the Syn-
thAxe, it just sparked
off this incredible in-
terest in synthesis
which rd never
thought of before.
to remind me a little bit of too much of a Star Trek
thing; because of the sound and the way that it
worked out. But I always had in mind to use her
because she's so talented. So when I wrote the
melody for "All Our Yesterdays", I tried it on guitar,
then tried it on synth, and I went, "Wait a minute,
this is perfect for vocals, perfect for Rowanne," so
I callerJ her and she asked me how I wanted to do
it. I told her to have a go and write some [lyrics].
I told her what I felt the music was about, and she
phoned me back a few days later, sang these lyrics
over the phone and knocked me out. They were
perfect. It was exactly what I had in mind for the
song. I was really pleased with the way that turned
out.
Cymbiosis: It seems as though we are kin-
dred spirits with Star Trek and that's where the ti-
tle Atavachron comes from. Why that particular
episode?
Holdsworth: It wasn't because of that episode
so much. It was because of the machine, the
Atavachron. They [Capt. Kirk and Co.] knew that
this planet's sun Is about to nova, and decide to
check it out to see if they can do anything to help
get the people off the planet. They find them all
gone; they've all been processed through this
machine that puts them back into their own planet's
history. There's something intriguing about that. So
much of history is forgotten in some ways. It was
just the way I had to look back into my own past
and the music I was listening to when I first started,
trying to figure out if I'd missed anything on the
way. And Atavachron is such a great word. I just love
the name and the title. "All Our \bsterdays" encom-
passed the same thing. It was a reflective kind of
thing, and that's what that song's about. It's like
looking back over your own life.
Cymbiosis: And "Looking Glass?"
Holdsworth: No, "Looking Glass" was dif-
ferent. "Looking Glass" was because Tony Williams
played on that track, and I always enjoyed working
with him. It was just like having some of that again.
Cymbiosis: You've named Tony Williams as
probably one of your biggest influences. Flow does
Jul/Aug 1986
he, as a drummer, influence you as a guitarist?
Holdsworth: Because of the way that he is,
the way that he plays and the way that he does
things. It's his person. People play like they are, I
think. When I went to see him play with V.S.O.P.,
I felt I was going to burst into tears. It was Incredi-
ble. I can't describe it. He has such a grasp on
whatever it is that's real. Like Michael Brecker. I feel
the same thing when I hear him play now. And Keith
Jarrett. It's just the whole of what Tony's doing, the
way he's playing, experimenting, his timing, the
whole thing. Whatever it is, he has It. And I'm total-
ly inspired by all that. I just felt like I wanted to go
and hug him after the gig because he's so great.
It transcended just notes or anything. It's beyond.
I don't know what it is, but it sure makes you feel
good.
Cymbiosis: That's the key. Music should
transcend everything.
Holdsworth: And the other thing is that it can
also be really bad. I've played so bad sometimes,
it makes me literally want to stop and just not do
it anymore. I get so disturbed that it could even hap-
pen. Sometimes I'd be so distracted by something
that was so minimal that I'd just completely screw
up everything. I could get so nervous that I actual-
ly couldn't remember anything. I remember once
at the Beverly Theater [L.A.]. It was horrendous. I
was actually on stage and I could not remember
any of the chords, the notes. . .anything. It's a fear.
Then I can sit at home and play on my own when
there is nobody watching or listening and I can
really do something; then as soon as I have to do
it in front of people, it changes me. This last year,
I knew that I had to do something about it. I've been
consciously trying to relieve that kind of pressure
from myself by trying not to worry so much about It.
Cymbiosis: ft sounds like you're awfully hard
on yourself.
Holdsworth: Maybe I am. I don't mean to
be. All I want to do is go out there and play, but
the fear sometimes overrides everything.
Then I started to feel like I could change it.
I once had a really big argument with someone
before we went on stage. It wasn't with a member
of the band, it was with an outside person. And I
remember, I felt like I had played reasonably well,
and it really showed me: the anger had overridden
the fear. So I wasn't scared any more, because I
wasn't thinking about that. I was able to relax and
get inside the music because it was such a relief
from what I'd just been dealing with, and playing
was great. So that started me off. I feel you have
to get to that point, at least, to be able to go on
stage and even start to play, especially if you're go-
ing to be improvising and trying to create
something.
Cymbiosis: And you, being such an in-
dividualist, it seems that the fear wouidn't be so
much from being abie to please the audience as
Continued on page 40
21

ALLAN HOLDSWORTI^
Continued from
much as pleasing yourself.
Holdsworth: I guess it is. Obviously you
hope in your heart that people out there are going
to like you. I think the main reason anybody does
anything is because they have a desire to do it, so
in that respect it's kind of selfish. But I'd like to go
up on stage and be able to be easy enough with
myself to play well, and sometimes I'm so uneasy
that I just can't even start. And usually that's when
everything goes out the window. It's a horrible feel-
ing because it's like I know I'm going to make a
mistake before I make it.
Cymbiosis: Then it becomes a self-fulfilling
prophecy.
Holdsworth: Yeah, it's like I'm almost scared
then to start thinking. I have to get more inside it
somehow. So what I'm learning now is [to] ignore
those things. If it doesn't sound quite right or
whatever, I just ignore it, go through and do the
music.
Cymbiosis: Perhaps one of the things you
could do to relax yourself is come up with your
Demon Ale. Are you still going to be brewing "Old
ffoldsworth's Demon Ale"?
Holdsworth: If I were rich, that's what I'd do:
start a brewery in California. I'd just brew a beer
that I think would appeal to Americans just as much
as anybody else. I don't think you really have to
know anything about beer to be able to tell if it's
good. And I think it'd do incredible. I'd love to put
up a pub somewhere in L.A: a real pub, not one
of those plastic ones that they have there now.
Cymbiosis: Maybe what you could do is midi
the SynthAxe through a vat of it, or a "Non Brew-
ed Condiment".
[Laughter]
Holdsworth: Yeah, right. WeW, non-brewed
condiment is something that's use on fish and chips
in England because it's cheaper than malt vinegar.
It's just a substitute for malt vinegar, like you have,
in America, mayonnaise that's not real mayonnaise.
And the reason for that [title] was that it was a tune
that I did entirely on the SynthAxe. It was my first
real synthetic piece in a way and since my favorite
food is still fish and chips, and my favorite drink
is still ale, " N o n Brewed Condiment" seemed like
the perfect title for that piece.
It's like I was saying, the fact that the Syn-
thaxe is different from the guitar makes it better.
Psychologically I can relate that to the synth and
to the sound. I can look and see the sound, whereas
on the guitar it's just made for something else, you
know. And I can understand why there's going to
be a lot of guitar players who may not like SynthAxe,
because it's not like a guitar. It won't do some things
that are very guitaristic.
Cymbiosis: Like what?
40
Holdsworth: Wfell, like harmonics and things
like that. PSfflRMATIoff Continued from page 33
Cymbiosis: D o you see moving from guitar
almost exclusively... pressed. So, with several demos and a completed group's second album. Released in 1985, Identity
Holdsworth: No, I'll never do that. I see it second album under their arms, the label shopping Crisis is the premiere project from Rhombus
as an addition because I'm still searching for the process began and soon ended. Records, which happens to be Affirmation's own
guitar sound. It's getting closer. It's getting more "We checked around and talked to lots of label. With its formation. Affirmation seems to have
horn-like, [laughs], so it must be getting closer. The different people and played some tapes for them a grip on the universal problems that plague most
SynthAxe guys, themselves, have no intention of it and somebody would say, 'Why don't you guys go professional musicians: musical creativity and per-
ever being a substitute. And the other thing is I don't with Windham Hill's sound. There's a big market sonal control over the recorded product.
particularly feel the need to get guitar sounds for that', or they'd say, 'I think you guys ought to "That's the nice thing about having our own
simultaneously with the synthesized sounds. So I add some vocals and go R & B', or ' N o , man, go label. Wfe're not restricted or controlled by the
feel happy to put that guitar sound aside for a while into the metal fusion stuff like [Allan] Holdsworth', " higher-ups to tell us what to do or what we have
and see what else there is out there. an obviously frustrated Thom said in relating the to sound like. We can just sidestep all that stuff.
Cymbiosis: And when you come back to the negative experiences of dealing with record execs. The frustration is gone!" beams Jimbo. "Small
guitar, you can have a fresh approach to it. Thom continued, "They only know about record labels like ours are (bund throughout the
Holdsworth: Playing the SynthAxe has success in dollars and cents. The financial bottom history of jazz. You couldn't find some top quality
helped my guitar playing, because in a way it's dif- line as opposed to creativity. It got to the point music on major labels because it just didn't sell.
ficult to play. It's taken me a while to get used to where I was having a hard time trying to write Some of the greatest players were on Blue Note and
it. There's certain things about it that react differently something because everyone was telling us to do Riverside and some other great labels, and most of
or feel different. When you deflect the string with these different things. As a band, we were having them have fallen by the wayside, like Inner City."
the picking hand, obviously you can't feel anything an identity crisis about what we were going to do. Affirmation is a band that is determined to
on your finger of the left hand, because the string's So after another aborted contract with another com- succeed on their own terms. The personal commit-
not being deflected. Little things. So when I go back pany that shall remain nameless (we had the se- ment of energies and finances, as well as the
to the guitar, it just enhances the guitar in some cond album sitting in the can for almost a year), outstanding music on the Cymbiosis tape, bear this
respects, without detracting from the SynthAxe at we decided that after dealing with these idiots, we out. It isn't easy to do it yourself in the music in-
all. {yc\ knew as much or more than they did about the dustry especially when your basis is >our ideals and
record business and how to do it. So we decided not the profit margin. But don't be mistaken. Affir-
we were just going to put it out ourselves." mation isn't trying to lose money either. |D C I
ALLAN HOLDSWORTH The 'fusion' controversy and the record com-
SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY pany hassles fueled the origin of the name of the (Catch them At M y Place, Tues., 26 Aug. at 8 p.m.)
1975 Soft Machine/Bund/es. Harvest 062-96
356 (import)
1975 GongfCazeuse. Virgin V2a74 (import)
(also released in U.S. as Expresso. Col-
umbia PZ 34428)
1975 Tony Williams Lifetime/Be/ieve It. Col-
umbia PC 33836
1976 Jean-Luc PDnty/£n;gmat/c Ocean. Atlan-
tic CS19110
1976 Tony Williams Lifetime/M;7/(on Dollar
Legs. Columbia PC 34263
1977 Gong/Expresso //. Virgin V2009 (import)
1977 Bill Bruford/fee/s G o o d To Me. Pblydor
2302 075 (import)
1978 U K / U K . Polydor PD-1-6146
1979 Gong/T/me Is The Key. Arista A B 4255
1979 Bill Bruford/One of a K/nd.Polydor
PD-1-6205
1981 Soft Machine'The Land of Cockayne. EMI
EMC 3348 (import)
1982 Allan Holdsworth//OU. Reissued 1985.
Enigma 72031-1
1984 Allan Holdsworth/Road Games. Warner
Bros. 23959-1
1985 Allan Holdsworth/Meta/ Fatigue.
Enigma 72002-1
1986 Allan Holdsworth/Atavachron. Enigma
ST-73203
Cymbiosis Jul/Aug 1986 41