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Ted Milton | |
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| Born | 1943 (age 82–83) Bedford, Bedfordshire, England |
| Origin | London |
| Genres | Art rock |
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| Years active | 1962–present |
| Member of | Blurt |
| Website | tedmilton |
Ted Milton (born 1943) is an English poet and musician, best known for leadingBlurt, an experimentalart rock group.
Milton grew up inAfrica,Canada andGreat Britain. He published some early poems in magazines likeParis Review andBrian Patten'sUnderdog. In 1969, his poetry was published in the anthologyChildren of Albion: Poetry of the Underground in Britain. In the mid-1960s, he began performing as apuppeteer, participating in numerous international festivals and appearing onSo It Goes, the television show hosted byTony Wilson. Milton contributed a short scene forTerry Gilliam's filmJabberwocky.
Eric Clapton in his autobiography describes often hanging out with Milton in the summer of 1965 at Milton's girlfriend Clarissa's apartment. "Ted was the most extraordinary man. A poet and a visionary ... he was the first person I ever saw physically interpreting music ... to enact it with his entire being, dancing and employing facial expressions to interpret what he was hearing. Watching him, I understood for the first time how you could really live music, how you could listen to it and completely make it come alive, so that it was part of your life. It was a real awakening."[1]
In the late 1970s, Milton began to playalto saxophone and founded the groupBlurt.[2] The first single, "My Mother Was a Friend of an Enemy of the People", was soon followed by the live albumIn Berlin (1981). Since then, Blurt have released more than 20 records. They continue to tour and the new albumBeneath Discordant Skies will be out in the autumn of 2015. While living inBrussels in the mid-1990s, Milton started making book-objects withfound materials. These were shown at several exhibitions and have been taken up in theBibliothèque Nationale inParis, as well as in theBritish Library.
Milton also makes art objects and installations, having had shows at Nadine inBrussels and at the bookstore Tropisme, also in Brussels,
In 2001, Milton staged anhomage to the Russian author of the absurdDaniil Kharms, "In Kharm's Way", a mixture of music, puppeteering and spoken word, with the electronic musician Sam Britton. In 2007, Milton collaborated again with Sam Britton in the "ODES" project; an overview of 25 years solo work outside Blurt. Also Milton has recently completed "Elegiac" – a collaboration withGraham Lewis from the band Wire and Sam Britton (Icarus).
The Milton Text Book, a selection of Milton's lyrics, has been published and funded throughKickstarter.
Milton now lives inDeptford, south-eastLondon.
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