It is with immense pleasure that WAWS is able to announce the release in February 2000 of a major, almost unadulterated set from Kevin’s 1995 tour with the Wizards of Twiddly. The release comes courtesy of some diplomatic negotiating from Peter Muir whose company, Market Square Music, has collated the CD. Peter is a fan who goes back a long way, certainly crossing my path well before the first WAWS, and he has had the simple ambition of one day releasing a Kevin Ayers CD. Maybe that’s the best launch ‘Turn The Lights Down’ could have - it’s been born out of desire, chosen and polished with pride.

It really is the only legal CD of an (almost) complete live Ayers performance, warts, ‘Super Salesman’ and all - you’ll love the familiar foible about the lights, the restarted ‘Am I Really Marcel?’ as a certain person forgot the lyrics, Mr Snake’s gin has a ‘soft and losy grow...’. The only change comes as the band actually returned after much footstomping for an encore of ‘Beware of the Dog’ which has become track 9 on the CD in place of the absent ‘Mr Cool’ which was actually played on the night. I’m guessing that ‘Mr Cool’ was incomplete as the tape was turned over so couldn’t after all be used? There’s such a lot of music to digest that this isn’t about picking out particular favourites from the 13 songs - every single minute of Kevin Ayers, good, bad or otherwise, holds its own interest in the overall scheme of things.