Date: 29.05.23
Location: Ruigoord. The Netherlands.
Attendees: René van der Voort (interviewee), Ana Collins (interviewer).
AC: Good afternoon Rene. How would you describe the style of music generally associated with Ira Cohen projects?
RV: The genre? Well, improvisational music was what he felt best with. So not Rock ’n Roll or not straight rock, it was like, improvising behind him and with Sunburnt hand of the man and also with No neck blues band, another important one was to accompany screenings of his movies, the Living Theatre movie, the other one, the India movie…
AC: Yes, Kings with Straw Mats filmed at the Kumbha Mela.
RV: Thatʼs it, yes. In Holland, he did a couple of these things with other music involved, with live musicians but it was always experimental, improvisational music.
AC: Did Ira himself play instruments or do vocals singing?
RV: No but he would recite his poetry, spoken word poetry to accompany the music.
AC: Did Ira mostly focus on live performances or studio recordings also?
RV: He did both. The events that I attended were live of course.
AC: Any particularly memorable performances?
RV: Oh yes, there was the one, a beautiful one in Utrecht, it was the first time I saw the Thunderbolt movie. That was at the time when I did the first Angus Maclise album, which was a bootleg. I was always worried if I met him—met Ira, that he would ask, “Was that your doing?” Because it was a bootleg. I was always afraid that he would say, “You shouldnʼt have done that, you should have asked the family.” But I couldnʼt reach anyone. Hettie was still alive, Hettie Maclise and Ossian. But I couldnʼt reach those people. It was a small production, three hundred copies or something. I got a UK record label called Fierce Records and they brought out a single, with a two minute extract of a ritual by Angus Maclise. They said, “This is all you need to hear.” So I made that album and put that single on the album also with all the music from the soundtracks of the underground movies that Angus played on. That was the first album. That was the beginning of all the other stuff that came out later.
AC: Related to Angus Macliseʼs prolific work?
RV: All the Angus Maclise releases afterwards, ja.
AC: How did audiences and critics respond to Ira Cohenʼs experimental music projects?
RV: The times that I attended, oh yes he received a lot of acclaim. He was treated like a counter cultural hero. For people in the know, of course. That is always the case of course. If you donʼt know what happens in a movie that he showed you the preview, if you donʼt know those people, then it is not so meaningful, the references.
AC: Ira was influenced by Antonin Artaudʼs Theatre of Cruelty in his performance aesthetic, taking inspiration from primitive rituals, shamanism and trance. Could you tell me more about how you think the Northern European artistic sensibility of Amsterdam at that time may have influenced Iraʼs work?
RV: The Surrealists, Brion Gysin of course. I myself am not the occult or esoteric type. Like Hans (Plomp) he has a different meaning, interpretation on everything. I am pretty straight forward. When you die you die. Stuff like that and I think Ira…he made a myth of it also, in my opinion. He was serious about it of course but it was also playful for him.
AC: He had a somewhat dualistic approach. I think with magic, with superstition, with spirituality and religion it is almost like, we believe, we donʼt believe, we believe sometimes, we believe a little bit…
RV: But if heʼs talking about Akashic Records, it might be a real philosophy but itʼs also a very nice concept to think about, that nothing gets lost, everything is somewhere.
AC: Everything is recorded, everything is written.
RV: You know that story about the Titanic, that Gavin Bryars just did a thing, Gavin Bryars made the singing of the Titanic, a piece of music, and he said that when that little orchestra played as the Titanic went down in the sea.
AC: And the band played on…
RV: And the band played on. It never will totally disappear, so the sound vibrations are always there. I like that kind of thing. So you can think about it in two ways. You can take it very seriously and make it the guiding principle of your whole life or you can take it like, “Wow, a good idea,” or whatever—thatʼs me!
AC: Time, place and circumstance. Could you please tell me more about Iraʼs relationships with other artists from the creative community of Amsterdam?
RV: Thatʼs more a question for Hans I think, because heʼs more in that context because although The Hague is nearby, but itʼs far away from the Amsterdam daily life of course. But I think Ira was well respected, he was someone who took all the attention all the time, maybe some people didnʼt like that so much. He was a very imposing personality and even when you walked with him in the street it was like, people stared at you. They donʼt stare at me but they stared at him, with the dress, his stature even and the beard I suppose. One time we had an appointment and he wanted to come with his son Raphael and he was not yet inside and I could hear him loudly but he was still outside in the street so I couldnʼt see him but I heard him. So people donʼt have that with us, when we talk nobody hears it in the street but he was not even inside and you could already hear him.
AC: Did you collaborate with Ira on specific music projects?
RV: No not really, that came afterwards. Because I had that record shop I was always very busy here. All those years and now that I donʼt have the shop anymore, now I have more time of course. But we did do a couple of interviews together about Angus Maclise. I made a large piece in several magazines about Angus, that was in cooperation with Gerard Malanga and Ira. So I met him a lot of times to talk about these things and to talk about future projects maybe but not audio stuff or whatever. At the moment, Iʼm making all these books but I wasnʼt in that mood yet.
AC: When we talk about Gerard Malanga and Angus Maclise, now both of them came from the Andy Warhol factory scene. Did Ira also connect with that?
RV: No, not that much. He said about Gerard Malanga, “Heʼs nothing, he only cares if his hair is ok.” He was this flamboyant guy of course.
AC: The whip dancer!
RV: And Ira had no hair. So, “He only cares about his hair.”
AC: A rather superficial style over substance approach to performance.
RV: That was maybe the mood of the moment. But maybe thatʼs not nice to Gerard Malanga because I think heʼs a great poet and artist and he likes his hair, Ok!
AC: Ira was much more impressed by Angus Maclise.
RV: That whole glitzy scene of the silver dream factory, I donʼt think he went for that. Not really. He also wasnʼt a Beat. He always said, “Iʼm not a Beat.”
AC: Thereʼs a quote from Ira I think about the idea of being part of a particular movement, that it has to stop sometime so Ira preferred to be a part of continuity.
RV: Yeah, yeah true. He was a great poet. He left his mark but his following was quite niche.
AC: I was thinking while we watched Thunderbolt Pagoda today (screened at Ruigoord Fiery Tongues Festival) to be made in 1968, that was long before MTV videos for example but just as people say about the Velvet Underground, they sold not so many records of the first album, The Velvet Underground and Nico, but everyone who bought that record went out and started a Rock ’n Roll band and the cultural impact over time was hugely significant.
RV: Yes. I screened a lot of underground movies years ago in a place in The Hague and I got a lot of these movies and Ira was not really exceptional in the movie making at that time. He was special with the photography, with the Mylar, and also with the movies his use of the Mylar. But lots of people were making psychedelic movies and projecting them at that time. To make weird movies of occult stuff and to have no real story or whatever. Like Kenneth Anger for instance.
AC: Considering Ira as a multidisciplinary artist, you feel his poetry, his command of language was most impressive.
RV: If we talk about Jack Smith or Harry Smith, they were both much earlier and more advanced with their movies. Harry Smith made beautiful art movies. They are incredible. That was interesting too because these movies were made without music, the Harry Smith movies.
AC: Any particular memories of Ira which stand out for you?
RV: I have a few nice little stories. One at Ruigoord and one in Amsterdam at the Paradiso. I was with Ira at a concert of Sunburnt Hand of the Man and The No Neck Blues Band and he had these middle aged ladies, sorry how do we say that?
AC: Ladies “of a certain age.”
RC: Ladies of a certain age, they always flocked around him because at that time he had that Guru like appearance and one of these ladies came up to him when I was standing next to him and she asked him, “What are you up to these days Ira?” And he didnʼt want to respond I think but he said, “Masturbation and photography,” and the lady flew away.
The other anti-Guru I saw, it was here at Ruigoord, on the terrace next to the church and we were sitting there talking and some other ladies came and asked, “What can we bring you to eat Ira?” He said, “A croquette,” you know the terrible fried meat thing. She never came back also because she couldnʼt believe that Ira wanted to eat that shit.
AC: How can I serve you Guru, let me bring you Dahl, rice, macrobiotic delicacies…
RV: Yes, but he did that on purpose I think.
AC: He enjoyed winding people up and being provocative.