Scottish songwriter, outsider artist, multi-instrumentalist, and performer Ron Geesin is best known as the wildman who helped orchestrate Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother album when the band couldn't envision its end. In addition, he and Roger Waters also collaborated on the soundtrack for the film Music from the Body -- which is exactly what it turned out to be: amplified, treated sounds made by the innards of living beings! Geesin is much more than a sound effects producer and arranger, as Biting the Hand, a live, double-disc retrospective on Great Britain's Hux label attests. Geesin is quite a character. He plays everything -- a honky tonk-style upright piano in a beautifully developed cinematic style that marries the dancehall, the barroom, and the parlor, various banjos, guitars, the walls of a performance hall, a red petrol jug, and electronics; he sings and howls and sputters; he tells insane stories, reads wonderfully dramatic poems, and is hilarious in general. Contained here are his complete Peel Sessions from the BBC -- from the late John Peel's Top Gear program and from Bob Harris' Sounds of the Seventies. (Peel was huge fan, especially because Geesin refused to title his pieces.) In addition are live cuts from his legendary Country Meets Folk show at the Playhouse Theatre in Charing Cross, London, that ran for most of 1968. Finally, there is material from a comedy magazine program on the then-new BBC Radio 4 in 1973, plus television appearances. There are some unbroadcast spots as well. While the selections from the Country Meets Folk show are wild and wonderful, the Peel sessions stuff is the most satisfying -- for its intimacy and the camaraderie between Geesin and Peel, and also for its great spontaneity. Peel's voice is almost ubiquitous here, whether he's introducing or goading Geesin on, gently having a go at his radio audience, offering his insightful commentary, or all of the above. Peel was a soft-spoken gentleman and a visionary, and his track record speaks for itself; but it's quite endearing to hear him speak at length. Geesin, on the other hand, is a true eccentric, and while very gregarious with Peel, he's an iconoclast of the first order when it comes to his obscure yet wonderfully accessible and sophisticated audio folk art. This collection from Hux is not for everybody, but fans of Ivor Cutler and Vivian Stanshall will certainly delight in it. There is one more plus in this wonderful set: Geesin wrote the liner notes himself -- they alone are worth the price of this package.
© Thom Jurek /TiVo