The Squid's Ear Magazine
Squidco Harvest Sale!
Friday through Sunday Save 10%-15% on all new items!




Drake, Bob: 13 Songs and a Thing (Recommended Records)


 

Price: $15.25
Price Was: $16.95
Squidco Harvest Sale:
Save $1.70




Quantity:

In Stock

Quantity in Basket: None

Log In to use our Wish List
Shipping Weight: 5.00 units


EU & UK Customers:
Discogs.com can handle your VAT payments
So please order through Discogs

Sample The Album:


product information:

Personnel:



Bob Drake


Click an artist name above to see in-stock items for that artist.




UPC: 752725015929

Label: Recommended Records
Catalog ID: CTA13
Squidco Product Code: 1792

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2004
Country: Great Britain
Packaging: Jewel Tray
Recorded during 2001 and 2002 by Bob Drake.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.
"The latest collection of twisting, turning instrumentals and songs, and another instant classic. If you didn't venture down this way yet, now is a good time to start. In a category of one, Bob undermines musical, technical and production norms with a breathtaking amalgam of broken rules and unimaginable musical logic. " - ReR Megacorp

Artist Biographies

"Bob Drake was born in Cleveland, Ohio on December 6, 1957, and spent his youth in Watseka, Illinois. There he taught himself how to play guitar and drums, but after hearing Yes's Fragile in 1972, Drake decided he wanted to be a bassist and bought himself a Rickenbacker 4001 bass guitar, which he still uses today. Henry Cow also had a big influence on him: "[T]hey were doing something I felt was a lot closer to what I was imagining I'd like to do - 'complex' intricate songs and arrangements, noisy things going on which fit organically in the music, and less emphasis on 'perfect' studio overcooked impersonal perfection."

Drake experimented with recording techniques and "warped rock", but soon found that no one was interested in "new and strange music" in his rural Midwestern home town. He moved to Denver, Colorado in 1978 where he worked for a while as a sound engineer on B horror movie sets. He also spent time recording local underground bands and playing bass guitar and drums with some of them. Drake put an advertisement at a local music store requesting a guitar player "into Henry Cow, Yes ...", and met up with experimental rock guitarist and composer Mike Johnson. Drake and Johnson played in a few cover bands before forming Thinking Plague in 1982. By 1990 Thinking Plague had recorded three albums and established a name for themselves in progressive circles.

In the late 1980s the Denver music scene "just evaporated" as musicians seeking "greener pastures" moved elsewhere. Drake, "flat broke" at the time, moved to Los Angeles where he found a job as a recording engineer. There he established a name for himself working with several mainstream artists like Ice Cube, Tina Turner and Engelbert Humperdinck. During this time he also formed an alternative rock group, Hail with ex-Thinking Plague's singer Susanne Lewis, and joined Dave Kerman's avant rock group, the 5uu's. Hunger's Teeth, the 5uu's' third album was praised for its "challenging music" and "production values", and made Drake a "sought-after engineer and collaborator".

Drake released his first solo album, What Day is It? in 1994. It was a limited edition (1,000 copies) self released record that Drake pressed himself. He later made five more solo albums, which were all released on ex-Henry Cow drummer Chris Cutler's UK independent record label, Recommended Records. In 1994 Drake and Kerman moved to an old farm house owned by Cutler and Henry Cow's sound engineer EM (Maggie) Thomas in Caudeval, southern France. They converted it into a studio which they called Studio Midi-Pyrenees. Later Drake worked closely with Cutler on a number of projects for Recommended Records, including the remastering of several albums and box sets, for example The Art Box (2004) and The 40th Anniversary Henry Cow Box Set (2009). He also joined Cutler's avant-rock band The Science Group in 1997, in which he played and engineered/produced the group's two albums.

Drake continued to work on and off in the 2000s with Thinking Plague and the 5uu's. In 2007 he formed his own group, Bob Drake's Cabinet of Curiosities to perform material from his solo albums live on stage. The group comprised Drake (guitar, vocals, violin, banjo), Kerman (drums), David Campbell (guitar, bass guitar, vocals) and Jason DuMars (soprano/alto saxophones, keyboards). They played at NEARfest in Pennsylvania in June 2007 with guests Olivier Tejedor (keyboards) and Lynnette Shelley (vocals)."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Drake_(musician))
10/2/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:
Related Categories of Interest:

Rock and Related
Solo Artist Recordings
Before April-2006
Recommended Records
Guitarists, &c.
Progressive Rock
RIO (Rock in Opposition)
Song Based Music
Rock and Related
Solo Artist Recordings
Before April-2006

Search for other titles on the label:
Recommended Records.


Recommended & Related Releases:
Drake, Bob
The Room In The Tower
(Crumbling Tones)
A great set of 11 succinct songs and instrumentals from multi-instrumentalist, prog icon Bob Drake of Thinking Plague, The Science Group, VRIL, and Peter Blegvad fame, vignettes that play with pop formats in insidious ways around recurring Drake themes including a Planet of Dogs, three rustic tales, and a perturbing room in the tower, all noted in a colored foldout poster with lyrics.
Cutler, Chris
Compositions And Collaborations 1972-2022: In A Box [10 CD / DVD / BOOKLET BOX SET]
(Recommended Records)
An amazing collection and reflection on the work of percussionist, composer and connector Chris Cutler of Henry Cow fame and founder of the highly influential Recommended Records label and distribution service, through 10 CDs, 1 DVD and two books of documentation, artwork, photographs, published and unpublished texts in a sturdy box, with over five hours of unreleased materials.
Drake, Bob
Legendary Lore Of The Holy Wells Of England
(Recommended Records)
A unique exposition of an 1893 text by Robert Charles Hope exploring the legends of England's "holy wells", the water of which was purported to have healing properties, adapted to atmospheric songs by Drake and performed on a 1940 Hammond model BC organ and a Challen upright piano; delicate and descriptive songs that detail the legends and the hope they inspired.
Drake, Bob
Planets & Animals
(Recommended Records)
Bob Drake continues to tug on the heart-strings of prog in short but smart songs that reference the best of the last few decades of prog/psych/avant rock forms, Drake as always handling all parts in a great balance of guitar, electronic & acoustic instruments, including some newly invented instruments; includes a fold-out poster in Bob Drake style from Joe Mruk.
Drake, Bob
The Gardens of Beastley Manor
(Recommended Records)
Bob Drake takes his listeners on a 22 piece instrumental journey through a "Beastley" garden of confident melodic foundation anBob Drake takes his listeners on a 22 piece instrumental journey through a "Beastley" garden of confident melodic foundation and experimental forays, captured by day and night, a tour de force of conception and execution.
Blegvad, Peter
Bandbox [6 CD BOX SET]
(Recommended Records)
Starting with Blegvad's "Downtime" LP, this box traces the evolution of the Peter Blegvad Trio into a quintet with Karen Mantler and Bob Drake, released in a solid box with a double CD of alternate versions, unreleased material and live performances, plus a 72 page book of photographs, memorabilia, drawings, documents and recollections; the ultimate reissue!
Drake, Bob
The Skull Mailbox
(Crumbling Tones)
Other Recommended Releases:
Drake, Bob
Antiquities [6-CD BOX SET]
(Recommended Records)
Collecting multi-instrumentalist & vocalist Bob Drake's albums Little Black Train, The Skull Mailbox and Other Horrors, XIII Songs and a Thing, The Shunned Country, and Bob's Drive-In in a solid box set, with a bonus CD, a specially curated collection of outtakes and oddities from this amazing avant-rocker, a member of Thinking Plague, 5uu's, Hail and The Science Group.



Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought:
Ibarra, Susie Trio
Radiance
(Hopscotch Records)
Drummer Ibarra's trio with Cooper-Moore and violinist Charles Burnham blur boundaries in a band of great versatility, taste and collective musicianship.
Cooper-Moore
Solo - Deep in the neighborhood of history and influence
(Hopscotch Records)
Cooper-Moore's astonishing solo piano album live in Guelph shows his immense knowledge of jazz idioms crossed with mind-altering, outer-edge playing, Moore's "improvisation as lifeblood".
Necks, The
Mosquito / See Through
(Recommended Records)
Art Ensemble of Chicago
Sirius Calling
(Pi Recordings)
Smith, Wadada Leo / Anthony Braxton
Saturn, Conjunct the Grand Canyon in a Sweet Embrace
(Pi Recordings)
Art Bears
Revisited
(Recommended Records)
Gregorio, Guillermo / Mats Gustafsson / Kjell Nordeson
Background Music
(Hatology)
HATSALE2HATSALE2
Newton, Lauren
Filigree
(Hatology)
Melford, Myra Extended Ensemble
Even the Sounds Shine
(Hatology)
Drake, Bob
13 Songs and a Thing
(Recommended Records)
Cooper, Lindsay
Sahara Dust
(Intakt)
Bailey, Derek
Ballads
(Tzadik)
Evidence: Cartier, Derome, Monk, Tanguay
Live a la Casa Music of Thelonious Monk
(Ambiances Magnetiques)
The second release by the trio of Evidence (Pierre Carter, Jean Derome, Pierre Tanguay) who are devoted to the great jazz music of Thelonious Monk.
Various Artists
Ambiances Magnetiques Volume 1: La Bastringue Migratoire
(Ambiances Magnetiques)
Evidence: Cartier, Derome, Monk, Tanguay
Musique de Thelonious Monk
(Ambiances Magnetiques)
A tribute to the music of Thelonious Monk by the group Evidence, comprised of Pierre Cartier (bass), Jean Derome (reeds) and Pierre Tanguay (drums).



The Squid's Ear Magazine

The Squid's Ear Magazine

© 2002-, Squidco LLC