Comus (band)

Comus are a British progressive folk band which had a brief career in the early 1970s; their first album, First Utterance, gave them a cult following which persists. They reunited in 2009 and have played several festivals and released a new album.

History

Comus was formed in 1969 by fellow art students Roger Wootton and Glenn Goring who developed their musical style performing in folk clubs in and around Bromley in Kent. The band was named after Comus (a masque by John Milton), and is also from the name of the Greek god Comus. The band grew from the early folk duo to the six piece ensemble that David Bowie came to appreciate. They appeared regularly at his Arts Lab project in Beckenham, Kent. He also invited them as support act for a 1969 concert at London's Purcell Rooms.

Their first album, First Utterance, with cover art by Wootton and Goring, appeared in 1971. The music is largely acoustic art rock (also described as acoustic metal and acid folk) that blends elements of Eastern percussion, early folk and animal-like vocals. The lyrics involve violence, murder, mental disorder and the mystical.

+/- (band)

+/-, or Plus/Minus, is an American indietronic band formed in 2001. The band makes use of both electronic and traditional instruments, and has sought to use electronics to recreate traditional indie rock song forms and instrumental structures. The group has released two albums on each of the American indie labels Teenbeat Records and Absolutely Kosher, and their track "All I do" was prominently featured in the soundtrack for the major film Wicker Park. The group has developed a devoted following in Japan and Taiwan, and has toured there frequently. Although many artists append bonus tracks onto the end of Japanese album releases to discourage purchasers from buying cheaper US import versions, the overseas versions of +/- albums are usually quite different from the US versions - tracklists can be rearranged, artwork with noticeable changes is used, and tracks from the US version can be replaced as well as augmented by bonus tracks.

History

Bandō

Bandō may refer to:

People

Other

See also

Bando (disambiguation)

!!!

!!! is a dance-punk band that formed in Sacramento, California, in 1996 by lead singer Nic Offer. Its name is most commonly pronounced "Chk Chk Chk" ([/tʃk.tʃk.tʃk/]). Members of !!! came from other local bands such as The Yah Mos, Black Liquorice and Popesmashers. They are currently based in New York City, Sacramento, and Portland, Oregon. The band's sixth full-length album, As If, was released in October 2015.

Background and history

!!! is an American band formed in the summer of 1995 by the merger of part of the group Black Liquorice and Popesmashers. After a successful joint tour, these two teams decided to mix the disco-funk with more aggressive sounds and integrate the hardcore singer Nic Offer from the The Yah Mos. The band's name was inspired by the subtitles of the movie The Gods Must Be Crazy, in which the clicking sounds of the Bushmens' Khoisan language were represented as "!". However, as the bandmembers themselves say, !!! is pronounced by repeating thrice any monosyllabic sound. "Chk Chk Chk" is the most common pronunciation, which the URL of their official website and the title of their Myspace page suggest is the preferred pronunciation.

Comus

In Greek mythology, Comus (Ancient Greek: Κῶμος) is the god of festivity, revels and nocturnal dalliances. He is a son and a cup-bearer of the god Bacchus. Comus represents anarchy and chaos. His mythology occurs in the later times of antiquity. During his festivals in Ancient Greece, men and women exchanged clothes. He was depicted as a young man on the point of unconsciousness from drink. He had a wreath of flowers on his head and carried a torch that was in the process of being dropped. Unlike the purely carnal Pan or purely intoxicated Dionysos, Comus was a god of excess.

Comus in art

Description of Comus as he appeared in painting is found in Imagines (Greek Εἰκόνες, translit. Eikones) by Philostratus the Elder, a Greek writer and sophist of the 3rd century AD.

Lorenzo Costa depicted Comus in his painting The Reign of Comus.

Comus appears at the start of the masque Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue by Ben Jonson and in Les fêtes de Paphos (The Festivals of Paphos), an opéra-ballet by Jean-Joseph Cassanéa de Mondonville.

Comus (Handel)

The masque Comus, or There in the Blissful Shades (HWV * 44) is a short version of John Milton's Comus, based on a libretto earlier made by John Dalton for composer Thomas Arne's own Comus (Arne). The sixty-year-old Handel composed the setting in 1745 for the pleasure of other guests during his summer recuperation at the country seat of the Earl of Gainsborough. Some of the music was later recycled by Handel, for example as the tenor aria Then will I Jehovah's praise from the Occasional Oratorio.

Recordings

References

Comus (disambiguation)

In Greek mythology, Comus or Komus is the god of festivity, revels and nocturnal dalliances (the so-called Komastic rituals).

Comus or Komus may also refer to:

People

Locations

Musical instruments

Companies

Other uses