{"id":554,"date":"2015-08-26T00:55:44","date_gmt":"2015-08-25T14:55:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/musicwithmyinsanefriend.com\/insaneblog\/?p=554"},"modified":"2015-08-26T00:58:54","modified_gmt":"2015-08-25T14:58:54","slug":"the-ballad-of-big-bad-ben","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/musicwithmyinsanefriend.com\/insaneblog\/2015\/08\/26\/the-ballad-of-big-bad-ben\/","title":{"rendered":"THE BALLAD OF BIG BAD BEN"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"descript\">In 1997, following a negative review of Tom Chant&#8217;s <i>Touch <\/i>(Matchless), three big cheeses in London Improv &#8211; Eddie Prevost, Evan Parker and Martin Davidson &#8211; decided that the Ben Watson by-line must be banished forever. This was Tom&#8217;s big break, and it upset their plans if anyone pointed out the record wasn&#8217;t much cop (since then, all three musicians have agreed in private that I was basically right). Derek Bailey was highly amused, and congratulated me on outraging no less than three eminences with a single short review. <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Shortly thereafter, Evan Parker was raging in a reader&#8217;s letter against another &#8220;erroneous&#8221; critic, and said something along the lines of &#8220;the problem is that, if &#8211; God forbid &#8211; Ben Watson should be run over by a bus, there&#8217;s going to be another idiot ready to replace him&#8221;.<\/span> <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Derek pointed this out to me, raised an eyebrow and said &#8220;that&#8217;s a threat, you know, and not so veiled &#8230;&#8221;.<\/span> Derek responded to this letter (and some other things) in &#8220;The Ballad of Big Bad Ben&#8221;. It&#8217;s from <i>Chats<\/i> (Incus), a fantastic CD-R with lots of Derek&#8217;s inimitable spoken-word.<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<!--[if lt IE 9]><script>document.createElement('audio');<\/script><![endif]-->\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-554-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/musicwithmyinsanefriend.com\/insaneblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/TheBalladOfBigBadBen.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/musicwithmyinsanefriend.com\/insaneblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/TheBalladOfBigBadBen.mp3\">http:\/\/musicwithmyinsanefriend.com\/insaneblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/TheBalladOfBigBadBen.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 1997, following a negative review of Tom Chant&#8217;s Touch (Matchless), three big cheeses in London Improv &#8211; Eddie Prevost, Evan Parker and Martin Davidson &#8211; decided that the Ben Watson by-line must be banished forever. This was Tom&#8217;s big break, and it upset their plans if anyone pointed out the record wasn&#8217;t much cop &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/musicwithmyinsanefriend.com\/insaneblog\/2015\/08\/26\/the-ballad-of-big-bad-ben\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;THE BALLAD OF BIG BAD BEN&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/musicwithmyinsanefriend.com\/insaneblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/musicwithmyinsanefriend.com\/insaneblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/musicwithmyinsanefriend.com\/insaneblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/musicwithmyinsanefriend.com\/insaneblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/musicwithmyinsanefriend.com\/insaneblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=554"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/musicwithmyinsanefriend.com\/insaneblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":559,"href":"http:\/\/musicwithmyinsanefriend.com\/insaneblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554\/revisions\/559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/musicwithmyinsanefriend.com\/insaneblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/musicwithmyinsanefriend.com\/insaneblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/musicwithmyinsanefriend.com\/insaneblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}