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University of Errors began out of an impromptu jam session at Komotion Studio in San Francisco at the end of September of 1998.
Daevid Allen, the founder of The Soft Machine in 1966 and Gong in 1969 was at the end of a solo tour and staying in SF for a few days before flying home to Austraila.
A jam was arranged with some friends and recorded. Listening back at the end of the night Daevid looked up and said: "Can I come back tomorrow and put some lyrics over some of this?". He did and then flew out that night and forgot about it. Michael and Pat and Jay took the tapes and spent some time mixing and sent the results to Daevid a few months later.
Michael received an e-mail from Daevid: "This is a band, we have to do this live. We will be University of Errors." or something like that happened.
The bands first album "Money Doesn't Make it' was those original recordings made out of the jam at Komotion and was released in June of 1999 by Innerspace Records.
The orginal line-up did two tours on the West Coast in 1999 and released 2 albums. Pat and Erik decided to depart to concentrate on Mushroom, Jay had other grown up responsibilities.
Michael, Josh and Daevid recruited Jason Mills of Brooklyn, NY and continued as a quartet touring in the US during 2000 and 2001. They recorded one LP recorded in Williamsburg at studio G at the end of the 2001 tour in early September. Two privately made live CD-s were made and sold at gigs during the 2002 tour. Go Forth and Errorize (later released on Voiceprint as Live In Chicago 2000) and Live In Chicago (2001). Both recorded at Schuba's in Chicago live to DAT.
Jason decided not to go on the European tour to concentrate on his band Beetroot with his new wife Fiona, so Josh, Michael and Daevid recruited Warren Huegel and continued as a live band touring mostly in Europe.
At the end of the 2003 Tour this line up recorded an entire CD of their versions of the earliest songs of The Soft Machine from when Daevid was a member of that band 1966-67.
Jet Propelled Photographs was released by Cuneiform Records and was the first of the four releases to just be called University of Errors, not Daevid Allen's University of Errors.
This was a colassal error. Suicide in the age of the search engine and data bases.
In November of 2006 the band played at the Gong Unconventional Gathering at The Melkweg in Amsterdam. This was a 3 day concert celebrating 40 Years since Daevid had his first visions of the Planet Gong while a member of The Soft Machine. UofE performed selections from the Jet Propelled Photographs CD. It was a fabulous weekend.
The concert was filmed and recorded and a DVD of the UofE performance will be released later in 2007 by Voiceprint Records in England.
November 2006 also saw the release of a limited edition live CD from the 2003 UK tour. It is the first live UofE release to include the fantastic Warren Huegel.
See the blog entry on this page for information.
Cover art by Merav Shacham of Tel Aviv.
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