The Savage Rose

Yesterday I was drawing and listening to music. See my comment to @roused's fine post of the jazz flute where I mention some of the things i listened to - and remember to give him some upvotes and comments on his high quality posts.

But another thing I listened to was a band that me and my contemporaries hated: The Savage Rose - Hippie band no.1 in Denmark.

The band was created in 1967 and the line up was made by people who all later became great musicians. The brothers Thomas and Anders Koppel and the lead singer Annisette Hansen who was later married to Thomas Koppel was at the centre of things - the brothers composing and Anisette with her wildly affected and strong vocal a natural focus. The drummer Alex Riel was a jazz drummer who later played with a lot of big names lie Bill Evans, Ben Webster and Dexter Gordon. The bass player Rugsted became a pop-icon in the eighties etc.

Here we can hear the early things progressive rock in its infancy...

The next clip is from a festival in Oslo, Norway in the early seventies. People were talking about that the little, bare feet Anisette would burn of her voice off before she was thirty the way she went all in, but somehow she is still on the road.

The band had a lot of changes and Anisette and Thomas Koppel became the main part of the band. They had a large following of old hippies. We despised them when I was young, but one thing that can in general get the Copenhageners united is the anarchist commune, Free town Christiania (yea, I know not all of course). Here is a live performance from a demonstration with the classic Christiania song, I kan ikke slå os ihjel. The chorus says: "You can't kill us, you can't kill us, because we are a part of you." It was written back in the days when it was discussed to close down Christiania, and has become a song that describes unity. The text is rather clever. Instead of calling to resistance it reminds the mainstream and the establishment that the fringes also are part of society.

In 2006 Thomas Koppel died and Denmark took part in Anisettes mourning, but the band has got some great new musicians and are still playing. Listen to this great organ solo and see the old Anisette still going strong.