#1970-1979 – Patti Smith

[sweetdreamsjeff]

The poetry that inspired Jeff Buckley

Aimee Ferrier

Sun 1 October 2023 21:15, UK

Voices as incredible as the one belonging to Jeff Buckley don’t come around too often. Unfortunately, after releasing one record, Grace, Buckley, with all his potential, was taken away too soon. At the age of 30, the singer went for a swim from which he never returned, drowning in the Mississippi River.

Yet, his legacy lives on as one of the most influential artists to emerge from the 1990s, and his music is widely celebrated today for its emotional and lyrical complexity. Not only did Buckley possess an otherworldly voice, but he was also an extremely gifted guitar player and writer, with all his talents combining to create a masterful body of work.

Even when Buckley was covering other artists’ songs, such as ‘Lilac Wine’, ‘The Other Woman’ and ‘Hallelujah’, he imbued the pieces with his own distinctive style. Yet, his penchant for covers wasn’t a reflection of an aversion to writing. Buckley knew how to pen a stunningly poetic track, with songs like ‘Lover, You Should’ve Come Over’ and ‘Morning Theft’ suggesting that even if Buckley didn’t have the vocal pipes he was gifted with, he’d get by just fine as a writer.

Buckley took inspiration from many different writers and musicians when writing his own songs. Musically, Buckley looked back to folk artists like Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan and, of course, his own father, Tim Buckley, from whom he was estranged. Elsewhere, he loved the work of Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the rich tones of Nina Simone, and Led Zeppelin, calling Robert Plant “my man”.

However, when it came to his literary inspirations, Buckley had an extensive book collection, which he no doubt looked to for ideas when writing his lyrics. He owned a lot of poetry, with Rainer Maria Rilke proving to be a particular favourite. Not only did Buckley own Dunio Elegies, Rilke on Love and Other Difficulties: Translations and Considerations Poems from the Book of Hours, but he also owned his epistolary collection Letters to a Young Poet.

Buckley was also a fan of the classic American poet Walt Whitman, owning Leaves of Grass and From the Soil. Of course, no poetry collection is complete without copies of Arthur Rimbaud’s A Season in Hell and Illuminations, alongside some Charles Baudelaire – Buckley-owned Paris Spleen. The singer also owned the Selected Poems of confessional poet Anne Sexton and modernist writer T.S Eliot.

Check out Buckley’s complete poetry collection below.

The poetry that inspired Jeff Buckley:

Dunio Elegies – Rainer Maria Rilke

Poems from the Book of Hours – Rilke

Rilke on Love and Other Difficulties: Translations and Considerations – Rilke

Leaves of Grass – Walt Whitman

From This Soil – Whitman

The Odyssey – Homer

Early Work, 1970-1979 – Patti Smith

You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense – Charles Bukowski

Selected Poems of Ezra Pound

The Complete Lyrics – Hank Williams

A Haiku Journey: Basho’s Narrow Road to a Far Province – Matsuo Basho

Paris Spleen – Charles Baudelaire

The Captain’s Verses – Pablo Neruda

Selected Poems – T.S. Eliot

A Season in Hell and Illuminations – Arthur Rimbaud

Writing and Drawings – Bob Dylan

Ode to Walt Whitman – Federico Garcia Lorca

New Poems: 1962 – Robert Graves

Fear of Dreaming: The Selected Poems – Jim Carroll

Selected Poems of Anne Sexton – Anne Sexton

Selected Poems – John Shaw Neilson

Selected Poems: Summer Knowledge – Demore Schwartz

The Collected Poems of Frank O’Hara – Frank O’Hara

Poems – Pier Paolo Pasolini

Space: And Other Poems – Eliot Katz

Tim Buckley Lyrics

[introspect-la]

NEW YORK ROCKER No. 20 (1979)

[mogwai-movie-house]

The Best Album Per Year for Sixty Years

No-one asked for it, of course, but I do like making lists, so here's me pondering what have been the best Long Players in the album artform the past 60 years. I originally tried to keep it to just one per year, but many years that proved impossible: when listing multiple albums I have tried ranking them with the one I feel narrowly edges out the others first, and I use lower case to indicate an album that is not at the same level as others on the list but was the best I've heard from that time.

Feel free to have fun with the list and make up your own.

----------------

1962 Bob Dylan - Bob Dylan 1963 The Freewheelin' - Bob Dylan 1964 another side of - bob dylan 1965 Highway 61 Revisited - Bob Dylan 1966 Pet Sounds - The Beach Boys / Blonde On Blonde - Bob Dylan / Revolver - The Beatles 1967 Magical Mystery Tour - The Beatles / The Velvet Underground & Nico / Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme - Simon & Garfunkel / Safe As Milk - Captain Beefheart 1968 Astral Weeks - Van Morrison / The White Album - The Beatles / Bookends - Simon & Garfunkel / We're Only In It For The Money/Lumpy Gravy - Frank Zappa 1969 Let It Bleed - The Rolling Stones / Abbey Road - The Beatles / In A Silent Way - Miles Davis 1970 Bridge Over Troubled Water - Simon & Garfunkel / Plastic Ono Band - John Lennon 1971 Imagine - John Lennon / Blue - Joni Mitchell / What's Goin' On - Marvin Gaye/ 2 - Moondog 1972 Exile On Main Street - The Rolling Stones / Discover America - Van Dyke Parks / Clear Spot - Captain Beefheart / Ege Bam Yasi - Can 1973 Raw Power - Iggy And The Stooges 1974 Blood On The Tracks - Bob Dylan 1975 Horses - Patti Smith / Discreet Music - Brian Eno / Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd / Velvet Donkey - Ivor Cutler 1976 The Ramones - The Ramones 1977 Low - David Bowie / New Boots & Panties - Ian Dury / Marquee Moon - Television / 77 - Talking Heads 1978 Music For Airports - Brian Eno / This Year's Model - Elvis Costello / Third (Sister Lovers) - Big Star / More Songs About Music & Food - Talking Heads 1979 Unknown Pleasures - Joy Division/ Fear of Music - Talking Heads / Into The Music - Van Morrison / Sheik Yerbouti - Frank Zappa / Rust Never Sleeps - Neil Young 1980 Remain In Light - Talking Heads / Closer - Joy Division / One Trick Pony - Paul Simon / Common One - Van Morrison 1981 Faith - The Cure 1982 Thriller - Michael Jackson / 1999 - Prince / 4 - Peter Gabriel / Too Rye Ay - Dexys Midnight Runners / Big Science - Laurie Anderson / Nebraska - Bruce Springsteen 1983 Swordfishtrombones - Tom Waits / Murmur - R.E.M. / Hearts & Bones - Paul Simon / Off The Bone - The Cramps 1984 Purple Rain - Prince & The Revolution / Hatful Of Hollow - The Smiths / Various Positions - Leonard Cohen / Reckoning - R.E.M. / The Unforgettable Fire - U2 1985 Don't Stand Me Down - Dexys Midnight Runners / Rain Dogs - Tom Waits / Around The World In A Day - Prince & The Revolution / Suzanne Vega - Suzanne Vega / Hounds of Love - Kate Bush / Hunting High & Low - A-ha 1986 Parade - Prince & The Revolution / So - Peter Gabriel / The Queen Is Dead - The Smiths / Graceland - Paul Simon / Steve McQueen - Prefab Sprout / Blood & Chocolate/King of America - Elvis Costello 1987 Sign O The Times - Prince / The Joshua Tree - U2 / Strangeways Here We Come - The Smiths / Actually - Pet Shop Boys / Tango In The Night - Fleetwood Mac 1988 Irish Heartbeat - Van Morrison & The Chieftains / Green - R.E.M. / Viva Hate - Morrissey / The Serpent's Egg - Dead Can Dance / Surfer Rosa - Pixies / Naked - Talking Heads / Introspective - Pet Shop Boys / I'm Your Man - Leonard Cohen / Blue Bell Knoll - Cocteau Twins 1989 Disintegration - The Cure / Technique - New Order / Doolittle - The Pixies / Oh Mercy - Bob Dylan / Avalon Sunset - Van Morrison / Rei Momo - David Byrne / Behaviour - Pet Shop Boys / Candleland - Ian McCulloch 1990 Extricate - The Fall / The Good Son - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds / Songs For Drella - Lou Reed & John Cale / Jonathan Goes Country - Jonathan Richman 1991 Screamadelica - Primal Scream / Achtung Baby - U2 / The Bootleg Boxset - Bob Dylan 1992 It's A Shame About Ray - The Lemonheads / Henry's Dream - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds / Automatic For The People - R.E.M. / Good As I Been To You - Bob Dylan / The Future - Leonard Cohen 1993 Debut - Bjork / Dubnobasswithmyheadman - Underworld / Exile In Guyville - Liz Phair / Neroli - Brian Eno / Come On Feel - The Lemonheads / Zooropa - U2 / Vena Cava - Diamanda Galas

1994 Selected Ambient Works Vol. II - Aphex Twin / Toward The Within - Dead Can Dance / Let Love In - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds / Dummy - Portishead / Autogeddon - Julian Cope / Vauxhall & I - Morrissey 1995 Anthology - The Beatles / The Ugly One With The Jewels - Laurie Anderson 1996 Boys For Pele - Tori Amos 1997 Ladies & Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space - Spiritualized / The Boatman's Call - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds / Time Out Of Mind - Bob Dylan / Vanishing Point - Primal Scream 1998 Up - R.E.M. / I'm So Confused - Jonathan Richman 1999 Play - Moby / I See A Darkness - Bonnie Prince Billy 2000 XTRMNTR - Primal Scream / All That You Can't Leave Behind - U2 / The Marshall Mathers LP - Eminem / Kid A - Radiohead / KY - Lemon Jelly 2001 Vespertine - Bjork / Love & Theft - Bob Dylan / No More Shall We Part - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds 2002 The Eminem Show - Eminem 2003 Room On Fire - The Strokes / The Man Comes Around/Unearthed - Johnny Cash / The Wind - Warren Zevon 2004 Has Been - William Shatner / How To Dismantle An Atom Bomb - U2 / You Are The Quarry - Morrissey / The Milk-Eyed Mender - Joanna Newsom / Smile - Brian Wilson 2005 Another Day On Earth - Brian Eno / Le Fil - Camille 2006 Modern Times - Bob Dylan / Surprise - Paul Simon / Love - The Beatles 2007 for emma, forever ago - bon iver 2008 vampire weekend - vampire weekend 2009 No Line On The Horizon - U2 / The XX - The XX 2010 show me the face - michelle gurevich 2011 Angles - The Strokes / So Beautiful or So What - Paul Simon 2012 Life Is People - Bill Fay / Old Ideas - Leonard Cohen 2013 Comedown Machine - The Strokes / Crimson Red - Prefab Sprout 2014 Ghost Stories - Coldplay / 1989 - Taylor Swift 2015 ★ - David Bowie 2016 Lover, Beloved - Suzanne Vega / Stranger To Stranger - Paul Simon 2017 American Dream - LCD Soundsystem / antisocialites - alvvays 2018 music for installations - brian eno 2019 weezer (teal album) - weezer 2020 rough & rowdy ways - bob dylan 2021 happier than ever - billie eilish 2022 dragon new warm mountain i believe in you - big thief

[brookstonalmanac]

Birthdays 12.14

Beer Birthdays

John Frederick Wiessner (1831)

Simon Fishel (1846)

Vic Kralj (1959)

Five Favorite Birthdays

Tycho Brahe; Danish astronomer (1546)

Shirley Jackson; writer (1919)

Ginger Lynn; adult actress (1962

Stan Smith; tennis player (1946)

Clark Terry; jazz trumpet player (1920)

Famous Birthdays

Morey Amsterdam; comedian, actor (1908)

Kelley Armstrong; Canadian author (1968)

DeFord Bailey; country and blues musician (1899)

Margaret Bakkes; South African author (1930)

Lester Bangs; music journalist & author (1948)

Aphra Behn; English playwright and author (1640)

Ewa Białołęcka; Polish author (1967)

Jane Birkin; English singer, actor (1946)

Capel Bond; English organist & composer (1734)

Boudewijn Büch; Dutch author, poet & tv host (1948)

T. K. Carter; actor (1956)

David A. Cherry; artist & illustrator (1949)

Anne Conway; English philosopher and author (1631)

Jane Cowl; actress and playwright (1884)

Dan Dailey; singer, dancer, actor (1913)

Ernie Davis; Syracuse RB (1939)

James Doolittle; aviator (1896)

Patty Duke; actress (1946)

Paul Éluard; French poet and author (1895)

Herbert Feigl; Austrian philosopher (1902)

Roger Fry; English painter (1866)

George Furth; actor & playwright (1932)

Cynthia Gibb; actress (1963)

Miranda Hart; English actress (1972)

Scott Hatteberg; Oakland A's 1B/C (1969)

Don Hewitt; journalist & 60 Minutes creator (1922)

Vanessa Anne Hudgens; actress (1988)

Spike Jones; bandleader, comedian (1911)

Jan Antonín Koželuh; Czech composer (1738)

Abbe Lane; singer, actress (1932)

John Lurie; actor, saxophonist, painter & director (1952)

Krissy Lynn; adult actress (1984)

Steve MacLean; Canadian physicist & astronaut (1954)

Natasha McElhone; English-Irish actress (1971)

Sophie Monk; English-Australian singer-songwriter & actress (1979)

Alexander Nelke; Estonian-American painter (1894)

Nostradamus; French astrologer, physician (1503)

Beth Orton; English singer-songwriter & guitarist (1970)

Michael Ovtiz; talent agent (1946)

Jill Pipher; mathematician (1955)

Lee Remick; actress (1935)

Gerard Reve; Dutch-Belgian author & poet (1923)

Charlie Rich; country singer (1932)

Kyle Shanahan; football coach (1979)

Xul Solar; Argentinian painter and sculptor (1887)

Jon Staggers; Green Bay Packers WR (1948)

KaDee Strickland; actress (1975)

June Taylor; dancer & choreographer (1917)

Hans von Ohain; German-American physicist & engineer (1911)

Michaela Watkins; actor & comedian (1971)

Joyce Vincent Wilson; singer (1946)

Charles Wolfe; Irish poet (1791)

Mary Tappan Wright; novelist and writer (1851)

Tata Young; Thai singer, model, actor (1980)

[goemoney]

All My Friends Are Going To Hell 1970's

We want to determine what we collectively think is the best year of music. Hellions are assigned a year and will pick 10 songs that they feel represent the best of that year.

The only rules are:

One song per artist per album. If the artist released multiple albums, and/or singles, you can pick them, but you can’t pick two songs from the same album.

The song has to have been released in the calendar year. This might sound obvious, but sometimes a song is released before the album, or, for example, the album comes out in 1990, but the single is released in 1991 (back when they used to do things like that).

Below are the songs selected for the 1970's and a google forms poll will be shared separately to rank and determine the "best" year of music.

Here are the links to the playlists on Spotify and Apple Music

Part 1 Spotify

Part 1 Apple Music

Part 2 Spotify

Part 2 Apple Music

1970 :

Green-Eyed Lady - Sugarload

Get Up I Feel Like Being a Sex Machine - James Brown

War - Edwin Starr

Powerman - The Kinks

Paranoid - Black Sabbath

Ride Captain Ride - Blues Image

25 or 6 to 4 - Chicago

Spirit in the Sky - Norman Greenbaum

No Sugar Tonight / New Mother Nature - The Guess Who

Your Song - Elton John

1971:

Baba O'Riley - The Who

Imagine - John Lennon

Stairway to Heaven - Led Zeppelin

L.A. Woman - The Doors

We Can Work It Out - Stevie Wonder

Brown Sugar - The Rolling Stones

I Feel the Earth Move - Carole King

Hot Pants, Parts 1&2 - James Brown

Friends - Elton John

Theme from Shaft - Isaac Hayes

Bonus 1971 playlist

1972:

Starman - David Bowie

Superstition - Stevie Wonder

Close to the Edge - Yes

Heart of Gold - Neil Young

Perfect Day - Lou Reed

All the Young Dudes - Mott The Hoople

Pink Moon - Nick Drake

Thirteen - Big Star

Papa Was a Rollin' Stone - The Temptations

Back Stabbers - The O'Jays

1973:

Higher Ground - Stevie Wonder

Burnin' and Lootin' - The Wailers

5:15 - The Who

Jesus Just Left Chicago - ZZ Top

Glad and Sorry - Faces

Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth) - George Harrison

Let's Get It On - Marvin Gaye

Panic in Detroit - David Bowie

For You - Bruce Springsteen

Rocky Mountain Way - Joe Walsh

Bonus 1973 playlist

1974:

Rollin' - Randy Newman

Must of Got Lost - The J. Geils Band

Linden Arden Stole the Highlights - Van Morrison

I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight - Richard & Linda Thompson

I Can't Stand the Rain - Ann Peebles

Rebel Rebel - David Bowie

Free Man in Paris - Joni Mitchell

Jolene - Dolly Parton

You Haven't Done Nothin' - Stevie Wonder

Forever Young - Bob Dylan

1974 rejects

1975:

Thunder Road - Bruce Springsteen

Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen

Gloria: In Excelsis Deo - Patti Smith

Love is the Drug - Roxy Music

Tangled Up in Blue - Bob Dylan

Kashmir - Led Zeppelin

It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Want to Rock and Roll) - AC/DC

Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof of the Sucka) - Parliament

Low Rider - War

1975 extended playlist

1976:

Gonna Fly Now - Bill Conti

Blitzkrieg Bop - Ramones

Disco Inferno - The Trammps

The Rubberband Man - The Spinners

Hotel California - Eagles

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald - Gordon Lightfoot

More Than a Feeling - Boston

(Don't Fear) The Reaper - Blue Oyster Cult

Anarchy in the U.K. - Sex Pistols

Do you Feel LIke We Do - Peter Frampton

1977:

Psycho Killer - Talking Heads

Got to Give It Up, Pt 1 - Marvin Gaye

Three Little Birds - Bob Marley & The Wailers

Dreams - Fleetwood Mac

Stayin' Alive - Bee Gees

Sir Duke - Stevie Wonder

We Are the Champions - Queen

I Feel Love - Donna Summer

Peg - Steely Dan

God Save the Queen - Sex Pistols

1977 extended playlist

1978:

Heart of Glass - Blondie

Wuthering Heights - Kate Bush

Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shoudn't've) - Buzzcocks

The Electrician - The Walker Brothers

Beyond the Realms of Death - Judas Priest

One Nation Under a Groove - Funkadelic

Damaged Goods - Gang of Four

September - Earth, Wind & Fire

Just What I Needed - The Cars

Chase - George Moroder

1979:

The Devil Went Down to Georgia - The Charlie Daniels Band

Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough - Michael Jackson

Don't Do Me Like That - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

Message in a Bottle - The Police

Rapper's Delight - The Sugarhill Gang

Highway to Hell - AC/DC

The Gambler - Kenny Rogers

My Sharona - The Knack

Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black) - Neil Young and Crazy Horse

Train in Vain (Stand by Me) - The Clash

Contributors:

[sunmuted]

Lens of Controversy - Robert Mapplethorpe

Self Portrait, 1985.

Robert Mapplethorpe, a visionary photographer known for his provocative and boundary-pushing work, once said, "I don't like that particular word 'shocking.' I'm looking for the unexpected. I'm looking for things I've never seen before…I was in a position to take those pictures. I felt an obligation to do them." This statement encapsulates Mapplethorpe's approach to art—seeking the unexplored, the unconventional, and the profound. 

Self Portrait, 1974, Polaroid

Mapplethorpe's work spans many subjects, from homoerotic imagery to delicate floral still lifes. His photographs are characterized by their meticulous composition, exquisite lighting, and profound exploration of form. Despite (or perhaps because of) being diagnosed with AIDS in 1986, Mapplethorpe continued to push the boundaries of his art, producing some of his most ambitious work in the final years of his life.

Calla Lily, 1988 Platinum-palladium print

One of Mapplethorpe's most notable contributions to the art world was his documentation of the New York S&M scene in the late 1970s. These controversial images, depicting nude figures engaged in acts of sadomasochism, sparked debates about artistic expression and censorship. Yet, beyond the shock value, Mapplethorpe's photographs challenged societal norms and expanded the possibilities of artistic representation.

Brian Ridley and Lyle Heeter, 1979

In addition to his exploration of taboo subjects, Mapplethorpe also delved into the realm of self-portraiture. These introspective images offer a glimpse into the artist's psyche, as he experimented with different personas and identities. Through his self-portraits, Mapplethorpe invites viewers to confront their preconceptions and biases, challenging them to see beyond the surface and into the depths of human experience.

Self Portrait, 1982

Mapplethorpe's legacy continues to resonate in the art world, inspiring generations of artists to push the boundaries of their craft. His fearless exploration of taboo subjects and unwavering commitment to artistic integrity have left an indelible mark on the history of photography. As Patti Smith, Mapplethorpe's muse and friend, once said, "His work magnifies his love for his subject and his obsession with light." Mapplethorpe’s passion and vision shine through in his photographs, inviting viewers to see the world with new eyes.

[rockzone]

Tracklist: 12 Apr 2023

7pm Steppenwolf - Born To Be Wild (1969) Cheap Trick - The Flame (1988) HEAT - Living On The Run (Single Version) (2012) Ac/Dc - You Shook Me All Night Long (1980) Saxon - Strong Arm Of The Law (1980) The Who - You Better You Bet full Length Version Uriah Heep - One Minute (2014) Whitesnake - Crying In The Rain (1987) Eric Clapton - Layla (1970) Genesis - Turn It On Again (1980) Journey - Who's Crying Now (1982)

8pm Martina Edoff - Sound Of Thunder (2015) Jimi Hendrix - All Along The Watchtower (1968) Van Halen - Dreams (1986) ZZ Top - Gimme All Your Lovin' (1983) Thin Lizzy - Waiting For An Alibi (1979) Marillion - Market Square Heroes Meat Loaf - Couldn't Have Said It Better (2003) Patti Smith Group - Because The Night (1978) Free - Fire And Water (1970) Rainbow - Street Of Dreams (1983) Gary Moore - Friday On My Mind (1987)

* Recent shows can be heard On Demand and via Google Podcasts

[freeurheart]

from Patti Smith, "picasso laughing" from Early Work: 1970-1979

[musicollage]

Patti Smith Group – Wave. 1979 : Arista.

[undergroundrockpress]

Patti Smith Group - Dancing Barefoot, live in New-York, 1979

[albums-big-in-japan]

パティ・スミス・グループ  -  フレデリック Patti Smith Group  -  Frederick Arista 6RS-30, 1979, vinyl.

[mogwai-movie-house]

The 50 Best Albums of the 1970s

Blood On The Tracks (1974) - Bob Dylan

Imagine (1971) - John Lennon

Horses (1975) - Patti Smith

Exile On Main Street (1972) - The Rolling Stones

Bridge Over Troubled Water (1970) - Simon & Garfunkel

Plastic Ono Band (1970) - John Lennon

Blue (1971) - Joni Mitchell

Music For Airports (1978) - Brian Eno

Low (1977) - David Bowie

Transformer (1972) - Lou Reed

Unknown Pleasures (1979) - Joy Division

New Boots & Panties (1977) - Ian Dury

Discover America (1972) - Van Dyke Parks

Clear Spot (1972) - Captain Beefheart

This Year's Model (1978) - Elvis Costello

Ege Bam Yasi (1972) - Can

Moondog 2 (1971) - Moondog

Raw Power (1973) - Iggy And The Stooges

Third (Sister Lovers) (1978) - Big Star

It's Too Late To Stop Now (1974) - Van Morrison

Marquee Moon (1977) - Television

Velvet Donkey (1975) - Ivor Cutler

What's Goin' On (1971) - Marvin Gaye

Sticky Fingers (1971) - The Rolling Stones

Into The Music (1979) - Van Morrison

Moondance (1970) - Van Morrison

Sheik Yerbouti (1979) - Frank Zappa

Pink Moon (1972) - Nick Drake

L.A. Woman (1971) - The Doors

Hunky Dory (1971) - David Bowie

More Songs About Music & Food (1978) - Talking Heads

Rust Never Sleeps (1979) - Neil Young

Meddle (1971) - Pink Floyd

Discreet Music (1975) - Brian Eno

Talking Heads 77 (1977) - Talking Heads

Fear of Music (1979) - Talking Heads

Loaded (1970) - The Velvet Underground

The Hissing of Summer Lawns (1975) - Joni Mitchell

Wish You Were Here (1975) - Pink Floyd

Closing Time (1973) - Tom Waits

Trans-Europe Express - Kraftwerk

There's A Riot Goin' On (1971) - Sly Stone

Let It Be (1970) - The Beatles

The Ramones (1976) - The Ramones

Meet The Residents (1974) - The Residents

Never Mind The Bollocks (1977) - The Sex Pistols

Rumours (1977) - Fleetwood Mac

American Beauty (1970) - The Grateful Dead

Radio City (1974) - Big Star

Baltimore (1978) - Nina Simone

(Also Rans: Lorca (1970) - Tim Buckley / Paul Simon (1972) /There Goes Rhymin' Simon (1973) - Paul Simon / Ziggy Stardust (1972) - David Bowie / Future Days (1973) / Soundtracks (1970) - Can Judee Sill (1971) - Judee Sill/ #1 Record (1972) - Big Star / Veedon Fleece (1974) - Van Morrison / Hejira (1976) - Joni Mitchell / Heroes (1977) - David Bowie)

[electricrecs-blog]

Get Rec’d: The Haunting of Hill House and Wave

The record: Wave, The Patti Smith Group (1979)

The read: The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson (1959)

If you're looking for a great Halloween read, look no further than Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. Though it was published in 1959, Hill House is a horror novel in the Gothic mold, reminiscent of the most terrifying tales of the 19th century. Loosely based on the misadventures of a group of real-life "psychic researchers," Jackson's novel invites the reader to join an eclectic cast of characters in their brief occupation of the titular mansion, where paranormal activity is the norm. Haunted by past trauma and encounters with the uncanny, the inmates of Hill House slowly begin to unravel, but it's never entirely clear whether what they fear is real or just a figment of their crazed imaginations.

The original LP of the Patti Smith Group's fourth album, Wave, paid homage to Jean Genet by borrowing a few lines from his poem "Le Condamné à mort," exhorting listeners to "Go through the walls, if you must." No epigraph could be more reminiscent of Jackson's novel, and the songs it precedes explore similar themes of possession, alienation, illusion, and spiritual crisis. "Dancing Barefoot" and "Revenge" channel a troubling power, while "Hymn" and "Seven Ways of Going" flirt with religious fanaticism, anguish, and ecstasy. Perhaps most unsettling is the eponymous "Wave," an abstract poem that troubles the waters of memory, set against an Eldritch soundscape of restless winds and funereal piano. Like The Haunting of Hill House, Wave's unearthly atmospherics beckon the listener into a new dimension where fear and revelation are always intertwined. 

[llovelymoonn]

i’m a bad person

richard siken \\ carlo maratti jael slaying sisera \\ patti smith early work 1970-1979: “seventh heaven” \\ janet allinger geisha with knife 2 [detail] \\ mary oliver dream works: “wild geese”

kofi

[heartodaygrowntomorrow]

1,238.) Thurs Apr. 23, 2020

‪The Song of the Day is: Marianne Faithfull - “Broken English”(1979)‬ ‪#SongoftheDay #musicblog #parenting #journal #COVID19 #MarianneFaithfull #punk #singersongwriter #brokenenglish #coronavirus #HearTodayGrownTomorrow Support the Blog - Click Below‬

The Song of the Day is:

Marianne Faithfull – “Broken English” From the album Broken English (1979)

Lose your father, your husband Your mother, your children What are you dying for? It’s not my reality

It’s just an old war Not even a cold war Don’t say it in Russian Don’t say it in German Say it in broken English Say it in broken English

Marianne Faithfull – Barry Reynolds – Joe Mavety –…

[ccohanlon]

my generation, part 3

There was a period between 1974 and 1979 — no more than four or five years at most — when it looked as if we might redeem ourselves. Punk rock is rarely identified with Baby Boomers these days, but it is the one enduring cultural legacy to which my generation can lay sole claim. From its raggedy-assed, New York originators — among them, Iggy Pop (born 1947), Patti Smith (born 1946), Richard Hell (born 1949), Johnny, Tommy, Joey and Dee Dee of The Ramones (born between 1948 and 1952), and The Dead Kennedys’ Jello Biafra (born 1958) — to the rawer, more politicised and subversive Londoners with whom the public most readily associates punk — among them, The Sex Pistols’ Johnny Rotten (born 1956) and Sid Vicious (born 1957), The Clash’s Joe Strummer (born 1952), The Banshees’ Siouxsie Sioux (born 1957) and The Damned’s Dave Vanian (born 1956) — and its one great Australian band, The Saints, the late G.G. Allin (born 1956) oh, and Nick Cave (born 1957), still the coolest Australian alive, its protagonists were all, without exception, Baby Boomers.

Punk was unarguably a social as well as a musical revolt, and its raw, self‐negating anger was directed not only at an older generation, but at the majority of its own, which had sold out any chance for genuine social and political change. It was no accident that punk first emerged during the mid-1970s, when the city of New York, under mayor Abe Beame, teetered on the edge of bankruptcy or that many of its most coherent and vehement songs, such as The Clash’s London Calling, were released in 1978 just before the infamous ‘winter of discontent’ under Prime Minister James Callaghan’s Labour government, during which the economy began to collapse under the weight of high unemployment, industrial unrest, and dysfunctional public services. The rising groundswell of Conservative sympathy (and self‐interest) would carry Margaret Thatcher into power the following spring.

Punk’s musical prejudices were many, but a constant in all of them was impatience with its own generation’s obsession with the surface of things. With its pared‐down, DIY approach to recording, total disdain for basic instrumental skills, and simplistic, buzz‐saw‐like songs that were never more than one tempo — fast — two minutes’ duration, three chords and four‐beats-to‐the‐bar, with titles like Too Drunk to Fuck, Blank Generation, White Riot, and Anarchy in the UK, punk slashed at the tie‐died remnants of hippie counterculture — by then, an already long-in-the-tooth Eric Clapton, the legendary guitarist and founder of the ’60s ‘supergroup’ Cream, was appearing in British beer ads — and directed its razor‐edged, amphetamine‐fuelled intensity toward the shimmering glitter of disco and the grandiose posturing of heavy metal rockers, whose stadium gigs were becoming as over‐produced and robotic as Hitler-Jügend rallies in the 1920s and ’30s.

Malcolm McLaren (born on January 22, 1946 — one of the very first Baby Boomers) was punk’s arch manipulator, its media‐savvy Svengali. The then‐partner of fashion designer Vivienne Westwood (who had yet to make her name and fortune as a couturier) and the co‐proprietor with her of a fetish and bondage clothing shop called SEX on London’s Kings Road, McLaren was the dandyish, amoral and rudely cunning (if not downright crooked) manager of Britain’s most infamous punk band, The Sex Pistols, fronted by Johnny Rotten (neé John Lydon) The band was a McLaren creation, inspired by both the disaffected, working‐class kids — prototypical punks — that hung out at SEX, and McLaren’s own encounters with the nascent New York punk scene during a visit there in 1974. The Sex Pistols lasted only a couple of years — releasing just one album, Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols, before Johnny Rotten announced their break‐up during a shambolic American tour in 1978, and the band’s notorious bass player, Sid Vicious, killed his girlfriend in a drug‐addled haze at New York’s Chelsea Hotel the same year, over‐dosing on heroin a few months later at a party to celebrate his release on bail from the city’s Riker’s Island jail — but not before McLaren had demonstrated just how to execute what he would later call “the great rock’n’roll swindle”.

In 1976, McLaren showcased The Sex Pistols during punk’s first festival at the 100 Club on Oxford Street, London, and talked EMI into signing the band for what was said to be a half‐million pound advance — although this figure was probably just McLaren hype — and releasing its first single, Anarchy in the UK, at the end of November 1976. Less than a fortnight after the song hit the UK charts, the band members got into an on‐air slanging match with Bill Grundy, the host of Thames Television’s popular early evening program Today; guitarist Steve Jones called him a “fucking rotter”. It was the beginning of a run of bad press – “Punk? Call it Filthy Lucre” ran the front page headline of The Daily Express – and it was deliberately inflamed by McLaren. It scared EMI enough to terminate its contract with the band at the end of January 1977. Six weeks later, in a ceremony staged (probably by McLaren) outside the gates of Buckingham Palace, the Sex Pistols signed to Herb Alpert’s A&M Records. This time the deal didn’t last the day: at a party back at the record label’s offices, the band members sexually harassed secretaries, picked fights with executives and, in a lurid coup de grace, Sid Vicious trashed the managing director’s office and vomited on his desk. A&M publicly cut the band loose less than a week later.

It was left to one of the first of England’s Baby Boomer entrepreneurs, Richard Branson (born 1950) — who played in an altogether bigger league than McLaren when it came to both opportunism and shameless self‐promotion — to sign the band to Virgin Records for another large advance and the promise of total artistic control. In May 1977, The Sex Pistols released its second single, God Save the Queen. With the help of some well‐planned radio airplay and the usual sensationalist press, it reached number two on the UK charts during the same week as the country celebrated Queen Elizabeth’s Silver Jubilee. Later, one of the band‐members, Paul Cook, told a journalist: “It wasn’t written specifically for the Queen’s Jubilee. We weren’t aware of it at the time. It wasn’t a contrived effort to go out and shock everyone.” Maybe not, but Malcolm McLaren convinced the band to change the original title of the song, No Future.

McLaren recently recalled that he made money then “by doing the exact opposite of what most people would think would be correct. I acted the irresponsible, the ultimate, child and everything I did was what society hated.” His public posturing and game‐playing during punk’s last gob‐spit at ‘the system’ would have made Sir Guy Grand proud. Sadly, by the end of the ’70s, punk’s truculent nihilism had dissipated, and a corrosive process of co-option and homogenisation had begun. Within a decade, punk and all the other good things youth culture had encompassed over the previous quarter‐century — and would encompass, briefly, in the decade ahead, such as rave culture, graffiti art, gangsta rap and mash‐ups — would be reduced to an unidentifiable but easily consumable mush. Meanwhile, a faltering global realpolitik, resurgent squabbles in the Middle East, and economic and social disarray in the developed world (especially the United Kingdom) suggested a future more uncertain and dangerous than anything that George W. Bush would have us fear in the aftermath of 9/11. The brittle, pre‐Apocalyptic edginess of the early ’80s was reminiscent of the ’60s.

MTV was launched on American cable networks on August 1, 1981. The US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention had just recognised the first cases of AIDS, in five gay men in California. Of course, the two events were unrelated but it felt like the beginning and the end of youth culture.

With its all‐music‐video format modelled on Top 40 radio by former whizz‐kid Baby Boomers fresh out FM radio programming and advertising — the first video that MTV broadcast was The Buggles’ Video Killed the Radio Star — and its use of young, good‐looking ‘video jockeys’, or VJs, who appeared to have been genetically engineered to match a broad cross‐section of the racially diverse, financially disparate, youth demography found in densely populated American urban centres, even if the music it first featured was predominantly white, MTV appeared to dull rather than enliven the collective imagination, despite its popularity. The symbiosis it had with a music industry already absorbed into huge, multinational media conglomerates — MTV itself was itself the product of a joint venture between Warner Communications and American Express, the Warner‐Amex Satellite Entertainment Company, that morphed into MTV Networks Inc. just ahead of an IPO in 1984 — was obvious and a little creepy: apart from hourly entertainment news spots and studio interviews with music stars, MTV’s only content was music video clips produced by the major labels and provided to the new network free of charge (although it would not be long before the network would charge them to put a video into what was called ‘heavy rotation’). In other words, MTV was running ads for the record labels twenty‐four hours a day, seven days a week.

None of its growing audience gave a damn. “Too much is never enough” as one of MTV’s earliest promotional slogans put it. In keeping with the times, the new network was about as cynical as you could get.

“I think the relationship between authentic youth cultural happenings and youth culture consumption is indistinguishable,” Douglas Rushkoff, Professor of Media Culture at New York University, said in a recent interview. He might as well have simplified it to “culture and consumption”, because even by the ’80s the porous membrane between the two had already been breached — and not just among youth. Shopping was the primary cultural activity of most major cities in the developed world, and with more products competing across more programming choices — if not yet more media –—for the exponentially shorter attention of more consumers willing to spend more time and money on themselves than ever before, it was inevitable that marketers would have to look for other ways of ensuring, if not higher (or more conscious) awareness of their brands, then more constant visibility. We needed the brands to become ambient, ever‐present. “Turn it on, leave it on” – another MTV slogan.

It didn’t take genius to figure out that brands should behave like the media they used to distribute awareness of themselves. Nuances of meaning and emotional engagement could be different depending on how and where the brand insinuated itself into a consumer’s awareness: the medium was no longer just the message, as McLuhan had argued when, in 1967, he rewrote his most famous catchphrase, but rather the massage, the effect on our sensorium. Traditional advertising was, and still is, interruptive — it deliberately intersected the periods of attention we allotted to entertainment and information programming across what was, in the ’80s, a limited range of passive media — so the logical step was to create opportunities for brands, their product expressions and values to exist not only within the context of entertainment and information (still mainly as interruptive advertising), but also within the content.

Today, a high percentage of the multi‐million dollar marketing budgets (and sometimes the $100–200 million negative costs) of blockbuster feature films — usually the action‐driven franchises such as James Bond, Spiderman or X‐Men, the so‐called ‘tent‐pole pictures’ that prop up the intrinsically rickety balance sheets of Hollywood studios — are funded by product placement written into the scripts even before shooting begins. For example, Ford’s multi‐picture, multi‐brand relationship (including Aston Martin, Jaguar, and Range Rover) with the most recent series of Bond films starring Pierce Brosnan was said to have cost the ailing US car manufacturer over $US125 million; and in 2000, international courier Federal Express underwrote much of the production and marketing budgets of Cast Away, starring Tom Hanks as your average FedEx executive who is transformed into a modern Robinson Crusoe when the FedEx cargo plane on which he catches a ride crashes on a remote island in the Pacific.

Pop singers such as Mariah Carey, Beyoncé, Jay‐Z, Kanye West and Nelly supplement their already extraordinary earnings from record sales, music publishing and touring with millions more dollars just for ‘name checking’ brands in songs that will pervade, for a short while, the awareness of a huge number of young, impressionable consumers impatient to realise their potential. Agenda, a US youth marketing company, even tracks what brands are mentioned most in the songs on US music charts to create a Top 40 chart of its own, American Brandstand. (The current Gen Y pop stars have studied Boomer formulae for appropriation and hype, now so refined that anyone can use them. Rather than rejecting them, they have embraced these formulae with such enthusiasm that, for the first time since the ’30s, youth culture appears to be ‘aspirationally older’.)

In some cases, entirely new, purpose‐built content has been created as brand vehicles — not only TV programming, film and music but also sporting and cultural events. The array of high profile, sponsored literary prizes in the UK is an example. Another is the unregulated, post‐apocalyptic version of ‘the world game’, played inside a locked cage, that Nike invented to promote its involvement in the 2002 World Cup hosted by both Korea and Japan. Nike featured it in a couple of award‐winning TV ads starring some of soccer’s best‐known international players. Then the US company built a real‐ life arena — a playing field deconstructed as theme park and sci‐fi movie set — in a Tokyo warehouse, where Japanese youth, its target consumers, could play it as well.

All sides of the marketing/media/consumer equation are still dominated by Baby Boomers. We are the most powerful consumer segment in the global economy, with aggregate gross earnings in the United States alone of US4.1 trillion dollars a year (and with a projected global entertainment media spend of $US1.8 trillion a year by 2010). If we are no longer at the white‐hot core of the hyper‐mediated consumerism that passes for popular culture these days, our money — and the parasitic tenaciousness with which we have wormed our way into the imaginative ambitions of other generations, usually to their detriment, since the mid‐60s — enables us to exert influence everywhere.

Advertising strategists, demographic researchers and academics argue that both Generations X and Y are inured to Baby Boomer attempts to market to them on anything but their own terms. “Young people have grown up immersed in the language of advertising and public relations. They speak it like natives,” Douglas Rushkoff writes in his 2000 book Coercion: Why We Listen To What They Say.“As a result, they are more than aware when a commercial or billboard is targeting them. In conscious defiance of demographic‐based pandering, they adopt a stance of self‐protective irony — distancing themselves from the emotional ploys of the advertisers.”

To some extent, this ignores the depth of the Baby Boomers’ experience. Boomers were still young when passive, pre‐programmed mass media began a slow transformation of its hardware, formats and programming, and we not only participated in the early evolution of interactive media — through which individualised information, entertainment, transaction and communication could eventually be accessed any time, anywhere — we were among its inventors. Media are as much a natural element for Boomers as they are for younger generations. We have appropriated, co‐opted or ‘remixed’ the disparate perceptions, attitudes and trends of four generations of youth culture distributed — and preserved — by old and new media in order to commoditise them (while sterilising any inherent idealism): how do you think we came up with the amorphous hip‐ness of The Gap’s t‐shirts and cargo pants, or Starbucks’ Beatnik‐manqué coffee lounges?

Will the younger generations ever break the ageing Boomers’ suffocating headlock on popular culture? To some extent, they have already by sharing music, video, games and software online. Baby Boomer executives, lobbyists and lawyers decry file‐sharing because it deprives a work’s creator of both income and control, and because it threatens all businesses — not just those in entertainment or publishing — which derive revenue and power from the licensing of intellectual property (in other words, most of the world’s largest corporations). Our real dread is file‐sharing’s subversive simplicity. All it needs is mass for it to erase traditional concepts of ownership and value.

The revolution starts there.

Part three of three. First published as part of a single essay in Griffith Review, Australia, 2006.