gumption in limbo

Tom Cora with The Ex

I came into Tom Cora via the excellent Scrabbling at the Lock the first of 2 waxed collaborations he did with The Ex. His raw and aggressive cello playing is a fine match for the Dutch punkers and prompted me to search out other works by him. In addition to working w/ The Ex, Cora brought cello to the honky-tonks with Eugene Chadbourne, played home-made instruments w/ his feet while bowing alongside Fred Frith in Skeleton Crew, worked on The Hat Shoe's quirky Differently Desperate (also featuring This Heat's Charles Hayward) and was a fixture in the downtown NY improv scene to name just a few.

Well I came across this killer vhs recording of Tom playing solo in Italy:

Tom Cora - The Passing - Live in La Spezia (Italy) 1993

and this excerpt of Skeleton Crew playing an old Turkish song (note that these guys are playing the percussion with their feet):

Skeleton Crew - Dere Geliyor Dere - Paris 1983

and was inspired to share this, the opening track from Scrabbling at the Lock:

State of Shock -- The Ex & Tom Cora