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michaeloneillwords-music · 3 years ago

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Oasis: Knobworth. Cocaine, Caricature and ‘The Culture Industry’s’ wet dream.

This week sees the release of the documentary film ‘Oasis Knobworth 1996’ which marks 25 years since the Manchester rock band played to over a quarter of a million disciples in a field in Hertfordshire across two nights. Obviously brand Oasis couldn’t miss the opportunity to celebrate its own greatness, in what is now being understood and accepted as some sort of era defining moment in pop cultural history. As a native of Manchester, who whether he likes it or not is psychically entrenched in the cities musical and cultural legacy and who was 15 years old when this event took place, I equally cannot miss the opportunity to challenge this retro fetish overstatement and present my own subjective understanding and experience of watching these caricatures of sex, drugs and rock roll as they rose to prominence. Let's face it ‘the culture industry’ has always needed fodder to sell to a teenage audience who in coming of age are flirting with the mask of social identity which is heavily informed by pop culture, and from late 1995 onwards Oasis, led by the brothers Gallagher were that fodder. The juggernaut of utter nonsense that they were peddling really began with the release of their sophomore effort (What’s the story) Morning Glory on the 2nd of October 1995, which to this day has gone on to sell in excess of 22 million copies worldwide, figures that depressingly highlight the state we are in as a species. Upon hearing the album as a 14 year engrossed in pop music culture I immediately disliked it. Gone were the walls of thick guitars, punkish irreverence and embellishments of baggy Northern Psychedelia that marked the best moments of their debut album, instead the listener was subjected to an overly clean, acoustic, commercial sounding record that was lyrically lazy, pedestrian and trite, to me it was and always will be an artistic car crash. It sounded immediately like a band uninterested in challenging itself or its audience, who instead were solely concerned with mass appeal, shifting units and making money. Whilst it should always be noted that the Gallagher brothers made no attempt to hide their aspirations for commercial success, material wealth and brand ubiquity, I simply find such sole motivations a turn off, that, more often than not result in utter dross, the kind that defines Oasis’ discography. Indeed, any ascent to the summit of pop culture will rarely be the sole result of an absolute desire for honest and uncompromising artistic expression, to just ‘make something’ regardless of economic reward or consideration for the consequences of what that expression communicates, represents or signifies. Indeed, such an approach will often come into direct conflict with the bottom line of the music industry, which is solely concerned with profit, monopolistic market control, the dissemination of ideology and projection of archetypes. And so it is that far from the ‘deviant bad boys of pop’ peddled by the culture industry press from 1995 onward, Oasis were actually a very obedient market vehicle for profit, who promoted nihilistic hedonism, idolatry, narcissism, misplaced masculinity, benign sexism, cocaine, lager and a depressing caricature of working class identity, and last but not least a brand of Beatles infused substance devoid pub rock. The ‘culture industry’ had been peddling this sort of shit from the mid 60’s in pop music and long before in general pop culture and as a result dear reader it was obviously very marketable once again to the mid-nineties teenage generation and to many subsequent generations for that matter. The game doesn't change. Oasis were and remain a wet dream of ‘the culture industry’, all too happy to short change a generation of youth culture with their destructive notions of cool, short sighted egocentric one dimensional outlook, and celebration of pack animal conformity under a banner of ‘rock and roll’ which signals ‘defiance’ ‘deviance’ and ‘hope’ but when unpacked and interrogated actually reveals a concession and obedience to the drudgery, depression and anomie of a top down controlled market culture by both the band and its disciples. They were without doubt a grey cloud of hard materialist understanding and sense pleasure that would leave Saint Francis of Assisi empty inside and reaching for a razor blade. I think it was the idolatry, narcissism and the reductionist mask of masculinity (that were all no doubt in the air at Knobworth, I couldn’t actually say as I wasn’t there, I had seen them on 26/11/1995 at the Manchester Nynex, and although I certainly do have deep seated masochistic tendencies everybody has a limit, and once was enough) that the band and its followers displayed that really didn’t sit well with me when the cultural juggernaut of Oasis and Britpop took off. These traits were for the most part distilled, embodied, displayed and performed by the band's frontman Liam Gallagher, a man whose answer to all of life’s existential conundrums is a pint of Carling. To me, Liam always carried a look of someone who had been asked a question they didn’t understand and was just trying to front it out with a gormless stare in an attempt to display some presence of depth and mystique to his onlooking disciples and celebrity obsessed media. When he did speak his articulations rarely got beyond how he was ‘mad for it’, how he was the ‘best frontman’ in the ‘best band’ and when his adopted mask of self-confidence was ever threatened would often bark ‘fook off’ in deflection and defence. Gallagher became the ‘Archetype’ that the modern-day British working class (and wannabe working class) alpha male identity is built on. Replete with feather cut, stone island jacket, adidas originals and cheap cocaine, ready to perform the identity prison they have adopted until the cows come home. I occasionally ponder as to whether the clinging too and performance of such a symbolically material identity merely masks an innate fear, and serves to deny the unpacking and unmasking of the ‘authentic self’, and how that process would more than likely contradict the projected ‘tower of strength’ that is indefinitely projected and protected by this deflective mask. I mean I thought we were an expression of consciousness with the innate capacity for creativity, who are looking to integrate the inner self into the ‘persona’ so as to not be imprisoned and tormented by the demands of the social mask, the gulf between the two and its insistence for the inauthentic? Who knows, and ultimately who really cares in this day and age. In terms of the idolatry, the fans deification of Liam and his brother Noel, alongside their deification of John Lennon, the two Paul McCartney's, Bozo and Poor Weller also really pissed me off when I was 15 and still doesn’t sit right with me today. It's the rock n roll hierarchy-musical establishment-gotta pay your dues-know the classics-they’re a fucking genius claptrap that really gets me goat. I mean fuck off, they've just made a record aided and abetted by an industry who want to flog them to death for moolah, and i’m expected to sit here and believe they're some sort of god like genius that captured the feelings of a mass populace, nah mate, it was capital backed exceptional marketing and mass gullibility. Limmy would capture working class culture in a 20 second video clip shot on his phone for nothing entitled “She’s turned the weans against us” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5VaPQflLq0&ab_channel=Limmy) in a far more profound and meaningful way 15 years after Knobworth. Furthermore, music solely informed and inspired by music and music history makes me want piss on my own face. That whole disciple of rock n roll dogmatic cultish crap, we want to be like our hero's motivation is so very depressing. I mean you’re having a unique subjective sensory experience, migrating through your own orbit of experience, and then when you engage with your creative faculties as a singular human being you adopt wholesale the principles and goals of those who’ve gone before you, or equally when simply embodying your identity it’s one built on the fetishization of a vapid celebrity archetype? Really? Really though? You’re not gonna take the opportunity to figure yourself out and project the uniqueness of your experience, reject or accept the external organising principles or merely just ‘mix the fucker up’? Hey who am I to pose such questions I guess, and in the immortal words of Oasis “You have to be yourself, you can’t be no one else”. Ha. I do think that line should now be updated to “you have to be a caricature of yourself because you cannot be anything else” though. Ooooh. Anyway, I shouldn’t really be blaming the current mask of one dimensional male social identity or celebrity deification on Oasis, they’re merely a cog in a machine that reproduces this reproduction over and over. However, that doesn’t detract from the fact that they are Manchester's greatest cultural own goal (shame really cause after the opening 5 or 10 minutes I was thinking we've got a team here), who made and continue to make to this day nonsensical grey groove-less drudgery a viable commodity with posthumous releases and as solo artists. Now that may be easy for me to say, as I was without doubt somewhat spoiled by exposure to the cities compelling history of DIY music from a young age, from the shadowy existential concrete corridors of Joy Division to the sharp witted marriage of high/low brow culture and realism/surrealism presented by The Fall, all the way through to the theological and philosophical street politics of The Stone Roses. Come 1995/96 I maybe expected more, but therein was a lesson for me, never expect, and indeed, always take the art and never the artist, and never ever deify. Musically Oasis were breathtakingly boring, real stodgy laboured stuff, and lyrically, to be brutally honest they were cringeworthy and embarrassing. However, to give them their due they did have conviction, but I’m sure that fellow Northerner Harold Shipman also had conviction in his creative output, but ultimately that doesn’t mean it was any good now does it? To me Oasis sounded like they were sent from the back of a battered cement mixer, or the lounge of the Robin Hood, or from the bottom of an overflowing ashtray on a coffee table in a council flat where shit cocaine is being relentlessly sniffed and Sky Sports News plays indefinitely. Symbolically they may be best defined as a scrunched up and discarded losing betting slip on the floor of a bookmaker’s that is heavy with the air of momentary hope, desperation, and inevitable loss. No thanks. P.S Look, all subjective criticism aside, Oasis spoke to millions and for that I congratulate them, they just never really spoke to me. Initially Liam and Noel were a breath of fresh air with their straight up lads with guitars attitude, riding their obvious desire with endlessly projected self- belief. However, to me there was just nothing after that initial Jab of intent present on Definitely Maybe and in interviews circa 94/95, there was no hook, combination or knock-out punch. Couple that with a general lack of grace, rhythm and finesse in the ring and to me as a spectacle it became boring very quickly, and as the rounds wore on that predictable Jab looked tired and stale, and the self-belief turned to coke fuelled narcissism. The ‘flock identity’ that materialised in the slipstream of their ascent and especially the attitude mimicry that was present then and remains today in the ‘Oasis Fan’ to be truthful is touch tragic. Furthermore, I've always held a deep-seated scepticism of the dynamics and motivations of 'the crowd' at the point of critical mass, especially when corporate power is deeply involved and invested in the relationship between the art and the audience. D'you know what I mean?

#manchester #music #social commentary #philosophy #cultural critique

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1962dude420-blog · 4 years ago

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Today we remember the passing of Joey Ramone who Died: April 15, 2001 in Manhattan, New York

Jeffrey Ross Hyman, known professionally as Joey Ramone, was an American musician, singer, composer, and lead vocalist of the punk rock band the Ramones. Joey Ramone's image, voice, and tenure as frontman of the Ramones made him a countercultural icon.

Jeffrey Ross Hyman was born on May 19, 1951, in Queens, New York City, New York to a Jewish family. His parents were Charlotte (née Mandell) and Noel Hyman. He was born with a parasitic twin growing out of his back, which was incompletely formed and surgically removed. The family resided in Forest Hills, Queens, where Hyman and his future Ramones bandmates attended Forest Hills High School. He grew up with his brother Mickey Leigh. Though happy, Hyman was something of an outcast, diagnosed at 18 with obsessive–compulsive disorder alongside being diagnosed with schizophrenia. His mother, Charlotte Lesher, divorced her first husband, Noel Hyman. She married a second time but was widowed by a car accident while she was on vacation.

Hyman was a fan of the Beatles, the Who, David Bowie, and the Stooges among other bands, particularly oldies and the Phil Spector-produced "girl groups". His idol was Pete Townshend of the Who, with whom he shared a birthday. Hyman took up the drums at 13, and played them throughout his teen years before picking up an acoustic guitar at age 17.

In 1974, Jeffrey Hyman co-founded the punk rock band the Ramones with friends John Cummings and Douglas Colvin. Colvin was already using the pseudonym "Dee Dee Ramone" and the others also adopted stage names using "Ramone" as their surname: Cummings became Johnny Ramone and Hyman became Joey Ramone. The name "Ramone" stems from Paul McCartney: he briefly used the stage name "Paul Ramon" during 1960/1961, when the Beatles, still an unknown five-piece band called the Silver Beetles, did a tour of Scotland and all took up pseudonyms; and again on the 1969 Steve Miller album Brave New World, where he played the drums on one song using that name.

Joey initially served as the group's drummer while Dee Dee Ramone was the original vocalist. However, when Dee Dee's vocal cords proved unable to sustain the demands of consistent live performances, Ramones manager Thomas Erdelyi suggested Joey switch to vocals. Mickey Leigh: "I was shocked when the band came out. Joey was the lead singer and I couldn't believe how good he was. Because he'd been sitting in my house with my acoustic guitar, writing these songs like 'I Don't Care', fucking up my guitar, and suddenly he's this guy on stage who you can't take your eyes off of." After a series of unsuccessful auditions in search of a new drummer, Erdelyi took over on drums, assuming the name Tommy Ramone.

The Ramones were a major influence on the punk rock movement in the United States, though they achieved only minor commercial success. Their only record with enough U.S. sales to be certified gold in Joey's lifetime was the compilation album Ramones Mania. Recognition of the band's importance built over the years, and they are now regularly represented in many assessments of all-time great rock music, such as the Rolling Stone lists of the 50 Greatest Artists of All Time and 25 Greatest Live Albums of All Time, VH1's 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock, and Mojo's 100 Greatest Albums. In 2002, the Ramones were voted the second greatest rock and roll band ever in Spin, behind the Beatles.

In 1996, after a tour with the Lollapalooza music festival, the band played their final show and then disbanded.

Ramone's signature cracks, hiccups, snarls, crooning, and youthful voice made him one of punk rock's most recognizable voices. Allmusic.com wrote that "Joey Ramone's signature bleat was the voice of punk rock in America." As his vocals matured and deepened through his career, so did the Ramones' songwriting, leaving a notable difference from his initial melodic and callow style—two notable tracks serving as examples are "Somebody Put Something in My Drink" and "Mama's Boy". Dee Dee Ramone was quoted as saying "All the other singers in New York were copying David Johansen (New York Dolls), who was copying Mick Jagger... But Joey was unique, totally unique."

In 1985, Ramone joined Steven Van Zandt's music industry activist group Artists United Against Apartheid, which campaigned against the Sun City resort in South Africa. Ramone and 49 other recording artists – including Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Keith Richards, Lou Reed and Run DMC — collaborated on the song "Sun City", in which they pledged they would never perform at the resort.

In 1994, Ramone appeared on the Helen Love album Love and Glitter, Hot Days and Music, singing the track "Punk Boy". Helen Love returned the favor, singing on Ramone's song "Mr. Punchy".

In October 1996, Ramone headlined the "Rock the Reservation" alternative rock festival in Tuba City, Arizona. 'Joey Ramone & the Resistance' debuted Ramone's interpretation of Louis Armstrong's "Wonderful World' live, as well as Ramone's choice of Ramones classics and some of his other favorite songs; The Dave Clark Five's "Any Way You Want It", The Who's "The Kids are Alright" and The Stooges' "No Fun."

Ramone co-wrote and recorded the song "Meatball Sandwich" with Youth Gone Mad. For a short time before his death, he took the role of manager and producer for the punk rock band the Independents.

His last recording as a vocalist was backup vocals on the CD One Nation Under by the Dine Navajo rock group Blackfire. He appeared on two tracks, "What Do You See" and "Lying to Myself". The 2002 CD won "Best Pop/Rock Album of the Year" at the 2002 Native American Music Awards.

Ramone produced the Ronnie Spector album She Talks to Rainbows in 1999. It was critically acclaimed but was not very commercially successful. The title track was previously on the Ramones' final studio album, ¡Adios Amigos!.

Joey Ramone died at the age of 49 following a seven-year battle with lymphoma at New York-Presbyterian Hospital on April 15, 2001, a month before he would have turned 50. He was reportedly listening to the song "In a Little While" by U2 when he died. In an interview in 2014 for Radio 538, U2 lead singer Bono confirmed that Joey Ramone's family told him that Ramone listened to the song before he died, which Andy Shernoff (The Dictators) also confirmed.

His solo album Don't Worry About Me was released posthumously in 2002, and features the single "What a Wonderful World", a cover of the Louis Armstrong standard. MTV News claimed: "With his trademark rose-colored shades, black leather jacket, shoulder-length hair, ripped jeans and alternately snarling and crooning vocals, Joey was the iconic godfather of punk."

On November 30, 2003, a block of East 2nd Street in New York City was officially renamed Joey Ramone Place. It is the block where Hyman once lived with bandmate Dee Dee Ramone and is near the former site of the music club CBGB, where the Ramones began their career. Hyman's birthday is celebrated annually by rock 'n' roll nightclubs, hosted in New York City by his brother and, until 2007, his mother, Charlotte. Joey Ramone is interred at Hillside Cemetery in Lyndhurst, New Jersey.

The Ramones were named as inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as part of the class of 2002.

Several songs have been written in tribute to Joey Ramone. Tommy, CJ and Marky Ramone and Daniel Rey came together in 2002 to record Jed Davis' Joey Ramone tribute album, The Bowery Electric. Other tributes include "Hello Joe" by Blondie from the album The Curse of Blondie, "Drunken Angel" by Lucinda Williams, "You Can't Kill Joey Ramone" by Sloppy Seconds, Joey by Raimundos, "I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone" by Sleater-Kinney, "Red and White Stripes" by Moler and "Joey" by the Corin Tucker Band, "I Heard Ramona Sing" by Frank Black, Amy Rigby's "Dancin' With Joey Ramone" and "The Miracle (of Joey Ramone)" by U2.

In September 2010, the Associated Press reported that "Joey Ramone Place," a sign at the corner of Bowery and East Second Street, was New York City's most stolen sign. Later, the sign was moved to 20 ft (6.1 m) above ground level. Drummer Marky Ramone thought Joey would appreciate that his sign would be the most stolen, adding "Now you have to be an NBA player to see it."

After several years in development, Ramone's second posthumous album was released on May 22, 2012. Titled ...Ya Know?, it was preceded on Record Store Day by a 7" single re-release of "Blitzkrieg Bop"/"Havana Affair"

#april 15 #2001 #r.i.p.#joey ramone #the ramones

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drawing-way-outside-the-lines · 5 years ago

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Ezreal ‘Ezra’ McLelland. *Supporting character

Voice Claim: (Jared Leto) https://youtu.be/KCVjpDnBHds?t=4s (Right click on links and open in new tab)

Partner(s): None. Parents: Willow Amalthea Shaw Cullman and Jonah McLelland by @gaiahypothesims Kids: None Age: Immortal, but translates into late 20's. Birthday: 16th of September. Height: 190cm Body type: Muscular, but not too buff, has a pretty slim waist, and a small round bubble butt. Eye color: Dark blue/dark brown. Classification: Human, immortal. Known powers: None yet.

About: Confident, Creative, Freethinking, Daring, Kind, Passionate, Humorous , Stubborn, Spontaneous, Charming, Courageous, Open-minded, Sarcastic, Fun-loving, Honest, Flexible, Outspoken, Charismatic, Optimistic, Playful, Extrovert, Teasing, Flirty, Cheeky and Talkative. ~ Sexuality Pansexual. ~ Has several bright colored tattoos. ~ Has stretched earlobes. ~ Has tongue and industrial piercing. ~ Loves bright colors his favorite being hot pink/neon pink ~ Lives in NY. ~ Lives with his roomies Travis, Wyatt and Milo. ~ Is into old muscle cars. ~ Was conceived and born while his mom traveled to the past, to hunt down Jonah McLelland (Her dad’s crush) to bring him back to the future as a gift for Willow’s dad, when he was feeling very down over some personal issue. Jonah never made it back to the future, nor does he know he has an adult son. ~ Obsessed with the 90′s where he grew up. ~ Slinkies, Push Pop’s and Treasure Trolls are golden gems from a time that must NEVER be forgotten!!! ~ Batik and tie-die fabrics are the shit! ~ Great dancer. ~ Is an excellent guitar player. ~ Also pretty great with a mouth-harmonica??? ~ Can’t carry a tune although both his mom and granddad are amazing singers. ~ Is a pretty good cook on the other hand. ~ Beer drinker, but loves pretty/colorful drinks. ~ Smoker. ~ Also weed. ~ Works as a bartender at a lively NY club. ~ Is a bit of a ladies man - Think Joey from Friends. ~ Mostly smells of 90's bubble gum and one of following perfumes: Diesel - Diesel Green, Diesel - Fuel For Life Denim, Diesel - Plus Plus, Jean Paul Gaultier - Le Male Shaker Edition or Gucci - Envy For Men. ~ Enjoys coloring books. ~ Have never been in a relationship. ~ Is very positive and outgoing - thinks he’s friends with everyone! ~ Definitely a hugger! Do you need a hug? - No? Well, you’re gonna get one anyway! ~ Always helpful although he will most likely show up late. ~ Loves his mom, his family, his friends, everything 90′s related, bubble gum (the pink original 90′s bubblegum you can smell in the whole house) Surge soda, 7up soda, dancing, going clubbing, zombie movies, bright colors, any type of fun party, girls, colorful drinks, his roomies, Fruit Loops, pop rocks, potato chips, cats, neon lights, anything that glows in the dark, colored glowsticks, grunge, skating, dance music and smoothies. ~ Is a pretty creative person and loves to do stuff with his hands. ~ His style is pretty casual with jeans, Dr Martens boots/or sneakers and t-shirts, often bright colored ones, very often stolen from his granddad, Andy.

Ezra’s tag Ezra’s house/home Ezra’s moodboard Handwriting/ask answer pic:

One Gif to describe him:

One song to describe him: Ace of Base - Beautiful Life Personal play list: 1. The Outhere Brothers - Boom Boom Boom 2. GALA - Freed from desire 3. Zig & Zag - Them Girls Them Girls 4. Ini Kamoze - Here Comes the Hotstepper 5. Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch - You Gotta Believe 6. 2 Brothers on the 4th floor - Dreams (Will come alive) 7. Sash! - Adelante 8. ATB - 9 PM 9. Shaggy - Boombastic 10. East 17 - House Of Love 11. Snap! - Rhythm is a Dancer 12. R.E.M. - Shiny Happy People 13. Nightcrawlers - Push The Feeling On 14. Smash Mouth - All Star 15. Inner Circle - Sweat (A La La Long) 16. Ace of Base - All That She Wants 17. No Mercy - Where Do You Go 18. Blackstreet ft. Dr. Dre, Queen Pen - No Diggity 19. RUN DMC - It's Tricky 20. Chumbawamba - Tubthumping 21. Beastie Boys - (You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party) 22. The Offspring - Pretty Fly (For A White Guy) 23. Bloodhound Gang - Mope 24. Peter Andre - Mysterious Girl 25. Fatboy Slim - Weapon Of Choice 26. East 17 - Deep 27. Smash Mouth - Walkin' On The Sun 28. Ricky Martin - Livin' La Vida Loca 29. Red Hot Chili Peppers - Under The Bridge 30. The Avalanches - Frontier Psychiatrist

#Ezreal McLelland #Ezra #immortal #supernatural #ts3 #sims3 #sims 3 #simographysup #simblr

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timdahill · 5 years ago

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3/29

Hey blog. The last day and a half have felt like an eternity. I feel like I’m in some sort of hellish purgatory mixed with a Groundhog Day nightmare. If I don’t have things to do to keep my mind busy I often get in my own head and get very sad. I isolate myself from my friends and am left to my own devices. I’ve noticed I’ve been on edge lately, and so has my mom. The only thing that’s been keeping me sane is playing my favorite band almost nonstop, U2.

I discovered U2 when I was around 15, weirdly the same age my dad found them. They’re his favorite band too. Since then the rest is history. It’s very hard to put into words what this band means to me, although I can give you examples. I could ramble on and on about them forever, so I will try to keep it around the minimum word length.

There are certain songs that almost never fail to bring me to tears because I find them so moving. If you gave me almost any U2 song I could tell you what album it’s from. I can tell you the years when each album was released. (Happy late 33rd to their most successful album, The Joshua Tree!). Lyrically, I know the motivations of many of their popular songs off War, The Unforgettable Fire, and The Joshua Tree. I have watched hours of footage of their interviews on youtube. I can even tell the year an interview or concert takes place by looking at what Bono is wearing. Some say I’m obsessed, but I just like to consider myself passionate. I find their music to be extremely moving.

Originally a small Irish band from Dublin, Ireland Larry Mullen Jr. (drums), Adam Clayton (bass), David Evans (lead guitar, known as The Edge), and Paul Hewson (Bono, frontman) were just four normal teenagers. That all changed when Larry Mullen put up a flyer on the bulletin board at school that he was trying to form a band. Originally calling themselves “Feedback” and later “The Hype”, they practiced in Larry Mullen’s kitchen, eventually working their way from small gigs to their first record deal at Island Records. Their first two albums, Boy (1980) and October (1981), flew under the international radar until making strides in hits like “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and “New Year's Day” in their third album, War (1983). They would build off that success in The Unforgettable Fire (1985) and eventually reach superstardom and earn album of the year and the title “Rock’s Hottest Ticket” with their 1987 album The Joshua Tree.

I would like to keep going but I won’t bore you for that long. But, if you are looking for a new and unique sound with songs that tell beautiful stories, you know where to go. U2 is unlike any other, and without them, I don’t know where I’d be today.

#life2020 #u2fans

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punk-chicken-radio · 6 years ago

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Happy Birthday, Joey Ramone!

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Joey Ramone - What A Wonderful World

Joey Ramone (ne: Jeffrey Ross Hyman) was born on May 19, 1951, in Queens, New York. The family lived in Forest Hills, Queens New York where Joey and his future Ramones bandmates attended Forest Hills High School. Though happy, Joey was something of an outcast, diagnosed at 18 with obsessive–compulsive disorder.

Joey was a fan of the Beatles, the Who, David Bowie, and the Stooges among other bands, particularly oldies and the Phil Spector-produced "girl groups". His idol was Pete Townshend of the Who, with whom he shared a birthday. Joey took up the drums at 13, and played them throughout his teen years before picking up an acoustic guitar at age 17.

In 1974, Jeffrey Hyman co-founded the punk rock band the Ramones with friends John Cummings and Douglas Colvin. Colvin was already using the pseudonym "Dee Dee Ramone" and the others also adopted stage names using "Ramone" as their surname: Cummings became Johnny Ramone and Hyman became Joey Ramone. The name "Ramone" stems from Paul McCartney: he briefly used the stage name "Paul Ramon" during 1960/1961, when the Beatles, still an unknown five-piece band called the Silver Beetles, did a tour of Scotland and all took up pseudonyms; and again on a 1969 Steve Miller album where he played the drums on one song using that name.

The Ramones were a major influence on the punk rock movement in the United States, though they achieved only minor commercial success. Their only record with enough U.S. sales to be certified gold was the compilation album Ramones Mania. Recognition of the band's importance built over the years, and they are now regularly represented in many assessments of all-time great rock music, such as the Rolling Stone lists of the 50 Greatest Artists of All Time and 25 Greatest Live Albums of All Time, VH1's 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock, and Mojo's 100 Greatest Albums. In 2002, the Ramones were voted the second greatest rock and roll band ever in Spin, trailing only the Beatles. ~Wikipedia

Joey’s signature cracks, hiccups, snarls, crooning and youthful voice made his one of punk rock's most recognizable voices. During his career he released as a solo artist two full length albums and three EP’s. With the Ramones 14 studio, 7 live and 15 compilations. Joey sadly passed away from lymphoma on April 15, 2001 and is greatly missed.

Join us in wishing a Happy Birthday Joey Ramone!

PCR Staff

#Happy Birthday Joey Ramone

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pattie-remembers · 7 years ago

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Famous muse Pattie Boyd says she neglected herself in her rock star marriages

10 April 2018 — 10:21am

If you remember the '60s, you weren't there: so it is said of that explosive decade of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll when girls sashayed down the Kings Road in tiny skirts and Biba boots, boys wore ruffled shirts over tight velvet trousers and London was the epicentre of cool.

Oblivion came with the territory: Eric Clapton was supposed to have slept with more than 1000 women but as he told me in an interview for Fairfax Media, "I wouldn't know, I was in a blackout for quite a few of them".

George Harrison and wife Pattie Boyd.

Photo: Keystone Pictures USA / Alamy Stock Photo

Pattie Boyd was both muse and wife to Clapton, to George Harrison before him and no stranger to drug and booze-fuelled partying. But there was little danger of failing memory for her. She kept a record of the wild years – portraits and reportage style snaps taken with a Polaroid and, later, on a Hasselblad.

As fans and paparazzi clamoured at the door, Boyd had the inside track, hanging out with The Beatles and friends, at home with George, on tour with Eric. "I took endless photos," she says. "It was something to do, otherwise you could feel a bit spare."

Pattie Boyd and her then husband George Harrison in England in 1968.

Photo: Pattie Boyd

We are talking in her Kensington flat ahead of an exhibition of her photographs and a series of speaking engagements in Australia in May. I'd spent several minutes on the rather grand doorstep, repeatedly ringing the bell and wondering if I'd got the wrong address. Perhaps she'd been having a nap; she is 74 after all and it is that snoozy, post-lunch time of day when I often feel like one myself. She does seem quite dreamy, half-heartedly remonstrating with a friendly Irish terrier called Freddie who inspects me thoroughly before jumping onto a large pouffe, not quite as pristine white as the matching sofas. "He's allowed on that one," she says.

Boyd is wearing skinny jeans on her long, slim legs and a deep blue mohair jumper; a fall of blonde hair frames what is still recognisably the face that launched, not a thousand ships, but three of the greatest love songs of the 20th century.

George Harrison wrote Something in the first flush of his youthful marriage to Boyd; the soaring guitar chords of Layla expressed Clapton's yearning obsession with his friend's wife. Then, when he had won her, he wrote Wonderful Tonight – and who hasn't danced dreamily to that, wrapped in a lover's arms?

There is a photograph of a 19-year-old Boyd in the flat: blonde fringe, huge blue mascara'd eyes and a tiny Union Jack stuck on the end of her nose. It is from a weighty coffee table book, Birds of Britain, containing portraits of London's posh totty – society girls who roamed the bars and vintage clothes stalls of Chelsea. Boyd's face is on the cover.

George Harrison, 1968

Photo: Pattie Boyd

She was a model then, on the run from her dysfunctional family, broke and living on Birds Eye chicken pies in a shared flat. "You had to go round the photographers persuading them to use you for shoots," she says. "Norman Parkinson said, 'Come back when you've learned to do your hair.' It was all DIY hair and make up back then."

Did photographers hit on her? "Well some might try it on but you didn't submit and say, 'Oh must I?' You'd get out of there and warn the others." So it wasn't a #MeToo scene? "No! I don't know why these women don't just say, 'F--k off, I'm not having a meeting with you in your dressing gown with nothing on underneath.'" Is she a feminist? "Well not in the old 'hate men' way, but I don't like women being treated badly. I think the young generation – what are they called, snowflakes? – don't take responsibility for themselves."

George Harrison and Eric Clapton in England in 1976.

Photo: Pattie Boyd

She met George Harrison on the set of A Hard Day's Night – she played a schoolgirl – and they married when she was 21. They moved into Friar Park, a gothic pile in Hampshire where the Beatles came to record, friends drove from London to stay and she threw herself into decorating, cooking and entertaining. She was, she says, blissfully in love but often lonely: wives and girlfriends were not allowed on tour and Harrison was frequently absent. After the Beatles had discovered the Maharishi Yogi and they all went to India to learn meditation, Harrison returned gripped by eastern mysticism. "He chanted a lot," she recalls, "it's difficult to talk to someone who's chanting."

He had also discovered that he was attractive to women: "He was famous, good-looking, had tonnes of money and flash cars – what a combo. Girls were offering themselves everywhere and he loved it. To come home to old wifey must have been a bit dull."

I took endless photos. It was something to do, otherwise you could feel a bit spare.

Does she think all men would be like that if they could? "Yes I do," she says firmly. What constrains them? She shrugs: "Society, women, family?"

Eric Clapton had been a frequent visitor to Friar Park, laying siege to Boyd and, famously, playing a guitar "duel" with Harrison in the kitchen: she was the putative prize. "It was John Hurt [the actor] who described it as a duel," she says, "and he was so on the button. I sensed it but I hadn't formulated it."

She was attracted to Clapton, by then a rock deity – the legend "Clapton is God" was spray-painted on city walls – but determined to stay in her marriage. Her parents had split up when she was 10, her stepfather was a cruel and unusual man who tyrannised the family and left her mother for another woman: "As a child I always thought I would do anything to avoid divorce."

By the time she left Harrison – "He didn't want us to be together, it was a life of rejection" – Clapton had made good on his threat to take heroin if he couldn't have her. It would be four years before they got together.

Propped on an easel beside the window of Boyd's flat is a rather beautiful black and white photograph of John Lennon. Did she take it? "No, I bought it." Wasn't he the most interesting of the four? "He was, yes, he was. He was quite volatile, you never knew what he would say next. He was a pretty sexy guy actually." Did they have a fling? "No!" she exclaims. I explain I'd seen it suggested somewhere in a newspaper article. "How cheeky," she says comfortably. Later, reading her autobiography published in 2007, I find another reference to the rumoured liaison. True or not, I don't think she minds the idea.

Boyd and Clapton married in 1979: "I was madly passionate about him," she says. "We lived at Hurtwood Edge [Clapton's home for the past 50 years], I was in my 30s and ready to have babies; I used to wander round the house thinking, this will be the baby's room, the nanny can sleep here." But it was not to be: despite visits to a series of doctors and several rounds of IVF, the longed-for baby never arrived.

Clapton, meanwhile, had replaced heroin with alcohol and was drinking heroically. Boyd joined him on tour where he and the band would have girls to their rooms after the show. Cruellest of all, two of his extra-marital relationships produced babies: a daughter Ruth and two years later a son, Conor, who would die, aged four, in a fall from the window of his mother's New York apartment. Boyd and Clapton divorced in 1988.

Asked once who was the great love of her life, Boyd nominated Harrison: "I think he always loved me … Eric loves himself. She admits now: "In both my marriages I had neglected myself, and got lost in a big cloud of fame, I got lost in their lives."

When the music stopped Boyd found herself with a legacy – cardboard boxes full of photographs which she exhibits and sells as prints from her online gallery. They are the archive of an era: here is an angelic George lying in bed in an Indian ashram, Eric in a woodshed leaning on an axe and looking Lawrentian in corduroy trousers, Paul and Linda McCartney at Boyd's wedding to Eric, Anita Pallenberg and Marianne Faithfull at the Brixton Academy. They are candid and intimate: did anyone ever object? "No, not at all," she says, surprised, "I would never show a photo where someone's not looking good."

The collection has been a useful earner for the girl who left school with three O levels and had no need to work while married to rich men. She has continued to take photographs – portraits of actors for their books and pictures from her travels. Does the contemporary work sell? "No one's really interested," she says without rancour.

Freddie needs a walk so we put on coats and set off for Holland Park where the trees are still leafless but there are daffodils and a hint of spring. Boyd has been with her partner, property developer Rod Weston, for 20 years – "we are old friends" – and they wed in 2015. They share the Kensington flat and a cottage in Sussex bought for her by Clapton. Why did they decide to marry? "We have lots of nieces and nephews between us," she says, "we wanted to put everything in order so there wouldn't be any tears." We walk on a few paces: "It's funny," she says, "Rod has been much nicer since we married and I am happier and less selfish. I didn't anticipate that."

She remained friends with Harrison until his death from cancer in 2001 and has stayed in touch with Clapton, many years sober and married with three more children. Last year she accompanied him to the launch of a documentary about him, A Life in 12 Bars, in which she features, naturally. "He rang me and said, 'It's a bit raw Pattie, I hope you'll be OK.' I said, 'I'll be fine Eric. I'm a grown-up now."

George Harrison, Eric Clapton and Me: An Evening with Pattie Boyd will be held at Sydney's Four Seasons Hotel on May 15. Boyd's work will be shown at the Blender Gallery in Paddington from May 5 to June 2 as part of the Head On Photo Festival.

Morning & Afternoon Newsletter

Delivered Mon–Fri.

https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/famous-muse-pattie-boyd-says-she-neglected-herself-in-her-rock-star-marriage-20180409-h0yi6e.html

#pattie boyd #pattie remembers

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1dhomeroom · 7 years ago

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Anne T. Donahue on Why Grown Adult Women Are Obsessed with Harry Styles

The blessed prince of pop embodies the traits many of us are still trying to find ourselves. (Plus, let’s honest, he’s a babe)

Anne T. DonahueSep 15, 2017 A photo of Harry Styles from One Direction. He is wearing a black shirt and suit (Photo: Getty)

We started this week on a high note. While filling in last-minute for The Killers, Harry Styles performed solo for the first time in BBC Radio 1’s Live Lounge and delivered fresh renditions of “Sign of the Times,” “Two Ghosts,” and Fleetwood Mac’s “The Chain.” It was beautiful, it was magical and it solidified the 23-year-old’s place as a blessed prince on the pop music landscape. And, days away from his first world tour, it also reaffirmed that Styles is an artist worth caring about.

The myth of Styles is unparalleled. From his turn in Dunkirk to his self-titled solo debut, the 1D alum has gone on to establish himself as a young cultural icon with universal appeal. Which is rare for someone entrenched in industries (music and film) equally notorious for toxic and disposable approaches to young talent. Even rarer? That in addition to a subculture that existed during One Direction’s heyday, Harry’s fanbase has grown to include grown-ass women. And it’s all due to the Holy Trinity.

Good music, a great sense of style, and a magnetic personality: these are the traits one must exhibit to maintain a place atop pop culture’s hierarchy. Fortunately, by the time One Direction announced its hiatus in 2015, Harry had already mastered all of them, earning praise not just for co-writing the group’s jams or his vocal range, but for his onstage charisma, his unscripted interviews and a very public friendship with Stevie Nicks. Plus, he’d begun aligning himself with fashion houses renowned for creativity and gender fluidity: Gucci suits became mainstays, while his penchant for Yves Saint Laurent boots went on to garner physical reactions. He embraced prints, sheer fabrics, lace, and even women’s clothing. And as a result, he cemented himself as an artist who took an active role in his image.

When One Direction promoted Midnight Memories in 2013, the singer began standing out for his fashion sense, having graduated from graphic tees and high tops to a sleeker, tailored style. But during Made in the A.M.’s press cycle the next year, he upped the aesthetic ante: with longer hair, a zest for hats and military jackets and unbuttoned dress shirts, he began drawing comparisons to ’70s rock mavericks —especially Mick Jagger—which made sense, especially after 1D’s performance with Ronnie Wood back in December 2014.

Which is particularly appealing, since an evolution of one’s style tends to connote an evolution of one’s self. (Also, Mick Jagger is a total babe.) But where anyone with money can begin investing in labels and designers, Harry used his wardrobe as a vehicle through which to explore creative complexity—and to suggest that like Jagger and Bowie, he also didn’t (and doesn’t) subscribe to gender norms.

And that’s appealing to grown-ass adults, particularly as we’re still finding ourselves stuck releasing “unisex” collections that resemble shapeless pieces from a dystopian future. But Styles actually gets it. And by using his platform as a means of embracing gender neutrality, particularly through clothes, he signals an understanding of how fashion can be a gateway to bigger conversations, to creativity and to self-expression. Which should draw in anybody—and does, regardless of age bracket.

Because in addition to growing up, he’s continued to include his teen fan base. When speaking to Cameron Crowe in April he defended teen girls, while more recently he went on record about the necessity of One Direction’s hiatus. And that type of transparency is important, particularly since it parallels Harry’s inclusive persona. While Styles’ new music is geared towards an older crowd (more on that in a second), his respect for teen culture re-affirms his humility: he isn’t too good for the community who launched his career, and he’s old enough not to act like a petulant child, rebelling against his teenage self. At 32, I know few adults my own age who can walk that fine line—most of us are still grappling with who we used to be versus who we want to be now.

Arguably, we’re all kind of like Zayn: where the first Direction defector used Mind of Mine to separate himself from the 1D narrative, Harry used his debut for self-expression on a few fronts. Instrumentally, he played guitar (which only Niall Horan did in 1D). And vocally, he delivered a range of ballads (“Sign of the Times”), rock songs (“Kiwi”), and sweet, acoustic jams (“Sweet Creature”), as if to show us what he could do. Plus, he sang explicitly about adult-ish content: sex, heartbreak and his own self-destructive tendencies, all while presented without slagging off the group he came from or dismissing the type of music they used to perform. In contrast to Mind of Mine, Harry Styles seemed a celebration of past and present Harry, while suggesting he seemed to know himself, at least enough to take stock of his life in an articulate way.

And that’s a trait—the willingness and ability to compromise—fellow adults can recognize. Because while his debut was decent, it was his press tour that drew further attention to Styles’ capacity for charm, warmness and intellect. His first solo interview with Another Man saw him engage (as an equal) with Paul McCartney, while he used a conversation with Chelsea Handler to talk about fame and God. On Graham Norton, he held his own against the quick wit of the host and the guests (fellow adults) while very politely acknowledging the pandemonium around him.

Compare this to an artist like Justin Bieber (who’s staging complicated battles very publicly), or Zayn (who’s nestled comfortably into rebelling against his 1D persona), or even to an actor like Leonardo DiCaprio (whose cargo shorts and model girlfriends tend to eclipse everything else), and Harry’s approach to his music, his acting, his fans and the press is very rare. He simply is, which is refreshing when it comes to a famous person—or a person in general. And as adult consumers of his music and, well, brand, it makes sense that we find refuge from our day-to-day bullshit in the persona of a young artist who embodies the traits many of us are still trying to find ourselves. (Plus, like Mick Jagger, he’s also a babe.)

So ultimately, Harry’s trajectory seems destined to keep us in awe of his choices. And whether those are about his suits, his open blouses, or his ability to speak and sing candidly about his experiences with perspective, he’s laid the foundation for an empire defined by the merits of taking creative and aesthetic risks, and doing so with grace, humility and an earned confidence.

In fact, you could say that Harry’s real appeal lies in our own desire to be like him. And while we—as adults—may harbour a crush or think he’s cute or just love his music, we zero in especially hard because he exhibits what we strive to achieve ourselves. Personally, I’d love to perform a One Direction song next to Ronnie Wood.

Or hang out with Stevie Nicks. Because if she stands by Harry, that’s good enough for me, full stop.

http://www.flare.com/celebrity/harry-styles-donahue/

#harry styles #flare #grown adult women #obbsessed

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themeatlife · 8 years ago

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the Meat Life - Top 25 Linkin Park Songs - 2017 Edition (Numbers 11-15)

Continuing on with my fave LP tracks...

#15 - Numb/Encore with Jay-Z (2004 from Collision Course EP) previously #17

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It started as a project for a collaboration TV show for MTV. The mashup trend had been hot in the early-2000s and MTV wanted to capitalize. Their first artist signed up was Jay-Z. Producers asked Jay the artist he would like to try this mashup concept with. Jigga Man chose LP.

They ended up recording six tracks for the Collision Course EP, all while MTV filmed the process and released Numb/Encore as the single. The Jay-Z/Linkin Park mashup ended up being the only collaboration done by MTV. MTV aired their mashup special the week the EP was release and the EP went double-platinum.

Stylistically, Numb/Encore features a fractured sample of Numb in the background. The first half of the song has Jay-Z rapping the first couple verses of Encore. The second half of the song has Bennington singing a verse and chorus of Numb.

Numb/Encore went on to win a Grammy for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration in 2005. During the live Grammy performance, the song was mashed up even further with the Beatles classic Yesterday, with guest singer Paul McCartney.

#14 - Somewhere I Belong (2003 from Meteora) previously #7

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Lead single off their second album Meteora, it went on to be the band’s second #1 Billboard Modern Rock hit and the first of five #1s off the album. The video is one of many directed by Joe Hahn. The song’s music features a cord progression on the guitar that is sampled and then played in reverse, heard alone in the very beginning and throughout the background of the track.

#13 - Leave Out All the Rest (2008 from Minutes to Midnight) previously #19

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This was the final single release off Minutes to Midnight. It displayed LP’s alt-rock prowise. According to Shinoda, the lyrics are supposed to read like an apology letter. While recording and demoing, they had both Bennington and Shinoda sing the lead on the song and then picked whichever sounded best. The song was featured heavily on releases at the time. It was used as the theme on an episode of CSI and most notably on the end credits of Twilight.

#12 - Iridescent (2011 from A Thousand Suns) previously #4

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Iridescent is the third and final single off of A Thousand Suns. A rock ballad on an experimental album that obsesses about the end of the world. The lyrics sing of hope in the midst of chaos and moving forward from past failures. Shinoda is featured singing the verses while Bennington is featured on the chorus. The whole band sings in the third chorus. This song was almost the lead single off ATS, but the band wanted to establish the album a bit before releasing it. The song has since become a fan favorite and was used as the theme for Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

#11 - New Divide (2009 from Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen) previously #13

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For a time, they didn’t release a Transformers movie without LP doing the theme (until 2014′s Transformers: Age of Extinction). In 2009, Linkin Park wrote a song specifically for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. The band also worked with composer-legend Hans Zimmer to incorporate elements of the song into the movie’s score. Another Joe Hahn directed clip. The song itself is structured similar to most of the LP library and features a lot of synthesized elements to highlight the electronic feel of Transformers.

At one time this video held the band’s most played YouTube video. Today it holds the third spot behind Numb and In the End.

Top Ten up next!

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easterndaze · 8 years ago

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Primitive. Messy. Low Quality: An Interview with Latvian Artist Figūras

I read somewhere a little while ago about the link between electronic music and the historical and artistic movement of post-modernism; that some of the greatest and most interesting electronic music has deeply rooted influence and perhaps elements of post-modernism within it. Said elements were defined as heightened forms of musical abstraction, minimalism, avant-garde and experimental to counteract the ‘blandness’ of the previous period (Modernism), and many more. It was an interesting read that concluded with the claim that those aforementioned segments were still very ripe in the modern music industry. And although these characteristics seem lengths away from the special facilities of mainstream music and culture, their echo can still be heard in the back corners of the Internet and the musical underground of alternative music. With this in mind, you can imagine my interest when I listened to the sounds and music of Latvian based musician and artist Figūras.

Figūras is an electronic artist whose practice encapsulates several elements of post-modernist music. Over the course of seven experimental mixtapes/EP’s and albums the Latvian artist has explored the realms of outsider electronic music and avant-garde soundscapes. Among his many releases, Figūras exhibits elements of minimalism, the more alternative and underground genre of lowercase music; which was invented by experimental composer Steve Roden on the infamous Forms of Paper album, and even flourishes of noise and power electronics music. These sub-genres, combined with the industrial and minimalist art featured on the cover of subsequent releases, make Figūras’s music an experience to listen to.

For example; a mini-album length release simply entitled Laptop showers the listener with engaging abstracted sounds and the crunch and churn of electronic noises in a collage like appearance. Another release, entitled Mixtape I: Reminiscence of a Past Void, compacts an outsider, electronic form of free jazz music and several slow passages of droning ambient music into two lengthy tracks. And just like the philosophical, musical, artistic and architectural response to ‘blandness’ and former linear constructs of Modernism, Figūras’s music is never a linear genre or musical format. In fact, over the length of a track, a Figūras song can morph into several different genres; at times sounding quiet and meditative before filling your ears with industrial noise and warped samples.

LAPTOP by Figūras

The artist himself claims a kind of retrospective distaste for the concept and namesake of post-modernism, but maintains his practice contains portions of the movement thoroughly. His love and interest of lengthy, improvisational pieces has also lead the way for a kind of live performance art, and his love for jazz has inspired an undercurrent of the genre throughout his music; while maintaining a prevalent factor in his music is art as a visual medium.

How would you describe your music?

Primitive. Messy. Low quality. Long. My hope would be for it to never start and never stop.

Who are your main musical influences?

As a kid I was probably most influenced by Jean-Michel Jarre that my father listened to while driving. Later on, I got into everything I could get my hands on - Iron Maiden, drum'n'bass, noise, hardcore, Aphex Twin, jazz and even Phil Collins. I lived in a very isolated world in a way - pirated CDs and BBC1 broadcasts were my windows to the outside world in 90's. Later on, after getting tired of sequenced music I started to get into improvisation - we did 30 hours or so of improvised noise with Mārtiņš Roķis (known also as N1L) about 10 years ago and I gradually got into improvisation. Figūras started with extensive use of delay only recording live improvisations. Terry Riley was a huge influence in doing that, also new age music, stuff that Sound Forest festival brought to Riga over the time.

Mixtape I: Reminiscence of Past Void by Figūras

What instruments/electronics do you use to create sounds and music?

I've used different things over the time - laptop, reel-to-reel, cassette players, old Soviet guitar, vintage church organs (that I actually tried to carry to gigs which now seems incredibly stupid). Now I've settled with couple of synths - Soviet Kvintet with dis-functional A key, archaic RMIF TI-5 synth (early 90's Latvian made analog synth that sometimes goes out of control), Electribe for sampling and a looper/delay pedal. I still use the laptop every now and then but I prefer actual knobs and keys as it becomes more mystical in a way. I used a PC for many years and just got tired of gluing patterns together without any live action. The process is what makes Figūras function.

Are you inspired by visual art or sound art at all?

During the daylight, I'm actually an artist and curator. I also co-run a gallery 427 in Riga. So, in a way Figūras was a way to blend my visual practice with sound, I do a lot of endless drawings and so sound was in a way continuing that. I actually see Figūras as extension of my artistic practice.

Your music features elements of post-modernism (musical abstraction, minimalist compositions, an evolving and experimental sound) would you consider your music post-modernist?

I actually dislike the word "post-modernism" - I guess it's some kind of high school trauma of being obsessed with post-modernism as I was discovering the whole wide world. But on the other hand, yeah, why not. I don't like labelling, so in a way I don't really care what you call it. But of course, it's more influenced by stuff that happened after WW2 rather than modernist music, though I still like Erik Satie and Dadaists and stuff like that. If you want to categorize it I guess there's more connection with minimalism, conceptualism and even partly Fluxus.

I hear some characteristics of jazz in your music. Are you at all influenced by jazz?

Oh, that's interesting, I don't see that, but could be so because I used to listen to jazz a lot. My favourite LP of all time is Raubiško's Jazz Trio's “Images of Ancient Egypt”. I like the repetitive elements in jazz, gradually changing over the time, the improvisation.

Who are some of your collaborators?

I'm collaborating with Vivienne Griffin every now and then. I have recorded some music with Viktor Timofeev and Quantum Natives; we just released our first album under the name Zolitūde (http://www.ofluxo.net/zolitude/). I think in a way we share the same interests in sound. In both cases we also share interest in contemporary art. And also in both cases it's very tricky since they both live somewhere else.

I used to do stuff with Mārtiņš Roķis as we were discovering our interest in improvisation, we also did a radio show together about 15 years ago. I've also played with Mona De Bo, amazing Latvian band and some other Latvian artists.

What does a Figuras live show look and sound like?

Sometimes I have some cut-up videos of Police Academy in the background, often times there's not much else. I've done two concerts that I called Never Ending - the idea was to start with the opening of a bar and end with closing, both times it lasted about 10 hours and no one, not even bar tenders, saw the whole thing.

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I like the idea of not fully grasping the whole piece, for each listener to have a different perspective. It also helps me to go into a sort of routine/trance where little things matter less and less, notes blend into each other, the structure morphs and everything can go alter the sound. I like mistakes and errors (not technical though).

What’s next for Figuras?

I was just in Bucharest, doing a performance with Vivienne Griffin, Cian McConn, Katrina Damigos and Paul Dunca. It took place in National Museum of Contemporary Art that's located in People's Palace, 4th biggest building in the world. It was built by Communist leader Ceaușescu in 80's and is a massive monument. While rehearsing I did a lot of recording of my own stuff with Vivienne Griffin tuning in every now and then and I'm planning on releasing four or five releases with music recorded in People's Palace. I also have some other material lying around. Maybe another never ending concert is on its way. We'll see - I do music when I have time, so the what’s next is very vague. But I definitely want to overflood the internet with Figūras music – as I said it's never ending.

Many Figūras releases may be heard here, via the projects Bandcamp page as well as live performances which can be viewed and listened to here.

By Cam Phillips

#Figuras #Latvia #postmodern

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limejuicer1862 · 5 years ago

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Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me. I gave the writers two options: an emailed list of questions or a more fluid interview via messenger.

The usual ground is covered about motivation, daily routines and work ethic, but some surprises too. Some of these poets you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

James Carter

is an award-winning children’s poet. He travels all over the cosmos (well, Britain), with his guitar (that’s Keith) to give lively poetry performances and workshops. James once had hair, extremely long hair (honestly), and he played in a really nasty ultra-loud heavy rock band. And, as a lifelong space cadet, James has discovered that poems are the best place to gather all his daydreamy thoughts. What’s more, he believes that daydreaming for ten minutes every day should be compulsory in all schools. His poetry titles include Cars Stars Electric Guitars and Orange Silver Sausage (Walker Books) and Time-Travelling Underpants and Greetings, Earthlings! (Macmillan). James was the major contributor to the recent Cbeebies TV series Poetry Pie. He lives with his wife and two daughters in Wallingford, Oxfordshire.

The Interview

1. What inspired you to write poetry?

It’s a number of things. I’ve always really loved words – reading everything from comics/non-fiction as a child to novels as a teen/young adult, and now mainly non-fiction/poetry/plays. I’ve always been a bit imaginative I guess, and as soon as I bought my first electric guitar at 15, I just started writing lyrics to songs. Actually, I wrote my first lyric/poem thing, The Electrified Spiders, aged 8 or 9. I played in bands all through my 20s, writing and recording music. But as soon as I went to uni aged 29 I knew I wanted to write, to be a writer. I tried fiction at first, but it was the poetry/non-fiction that took off.

I’m a bit of an outsider (I’ve often been called ‘contrary’, and I certainly do question everything), always have been, and poetry fits in well with this sensibility, as poetry should show you the world from a different/fresh perspective. In a poem I have to be as original as possible – I feel that I’m implicitly saying ‘Hey look at that – but look at it like this…’. Also a poem has to say something, communicate something, even simply present you with a thought, an idea or a single image.

I like writing for children as it disciplines me. I can’t indulge myself too much, I have to ideally keep my young invisible reader interested. For me, children for me are the best age group to write for. I have no interest in writing for adults per se, but if adults ever like a poem I’ve written with children in mind, then that’s nice! This happened with a kind of eco poem I wrote for a school for World Book Day last year – Who Cares? – it went on the National Poetry Day website (I’m one of their ambassadors), and it was picked up by Radio 3 for their prose and poetry series. I never saw that coming! As a writer, you never know who will read your work, or how it will be received. I even had an email this morning from a woman asking if her 9 year old child could read my poem Love You More (it’s at my website – www.jamescarterpoet.co.uk) at her wedding. How lovely is that? As a poet I couldn’t ask for more.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

School – Macbeth / Canterbury Tales at O level, Philip Larkin at A level, then much later as a mature student, the lecturers at Reading Uni (on the B.Ed degree) were very passionate about poetry. It was the Craft of Writing course in particular that got me writing. In my twenties I went to a fair few John Hegley gigs. Great poet, great comic, and a wonderful person. He showed me you can write about literally a n y t h i n g…

3. How aware were you of the dominating presence of older poets?

Weird question! Actually, I’m now an older poet myself. And still I’d say the children’s poetry world is led by older poets – but thankfully we have lots of younger voices coming through. And crucially, I very much believe the poetry world is far more welcoming to new poets than it ever was. But I think that writing for children is not something that most people consider anyway until they have children / grandchildren or worked as a teacher or have been on the planet for a while…

4. What is your daily writing routine?

Don’t have one! I write anywhere, anytime. In a sense, I’m always writing. On trains, in cafés, on hilltops, in car parks. Depends what I’m writing though. If I’m writing a poem, I can even write/re-write aspects of it in my head, and then I’ll have to make a note of it on my phone or the envelope I keep in my pocket. (Worked for Paul McCartney when writing Hey Jude!) I often get obsessed with a poem as I’m writing it, and will run lines/phrases over and over in my head, chanting them, mouthing the words until they really flow – and every single syllable/word etc is just right. But if I’m writing a non-fiction verse book, say like Once Upon A Star / Once Upon An Atom, I need to either work on my laptop, or better still, on paper. I will take the manuscript with me wherever I go, making a great many tweaks/edits/changes.

5. What motivates you to write?

Two things – a) a love if not obession with words and the music of language, b) a fascination with the world – and a need to make sense of it, and I find writing a poem on a topic will help me to explore and express something on that subject / idea / memory. I’m always thinking about something or other, so a poem is a great place to put or distil my thoughts.

6. What is your work ethic?

I’m a workaholic. I’m always writing, at least always thinking about writing. Perhaps tweaking a line, refining a title, developing an image, or mulling over an idea for a new non-fiction book.

7. How do the writers you read when you were young influence you today?

As Morris Gleitzman so nicely expressed it, everything you read / think / observe / experience goes into the ‘mulch’ from which your writing grows. Specifically, I know that many rhyming things I write are to the rhythm of lines from Macbeth, or my favourite picture book Where The Wild Things Are (a massive influence on me) or even Tom Waits’ spoken word piece ‘What’s He Building In There?’ But I’m sure I’m influenced by lots of things I’ve read without even realising it.

8. Who of today’s writers do you admire the most and why?

As poets go, I really admire the Americans Billy Collins, Mary Oliver and Lilian Moore. As children’s writers go, I like Shaun Tan and Oliver Jeffers – and a great many others. But in the main, I try and read more widely, away from poetry so I can be inspired by other things – so it’s often plays and non-fiction.

9. Why do you write, as opposed to doing anything else?

I have done other things from teaching to lecturing to office work, but writing / working in schools as a work shopper and performer is by far the most rewarding thing I have ever done. I so enjoy working with children and teachers and librarians. Performing – all that showing off is fine, it’s great fun, but for me it’s all about switching children on as writers. I love the finales we have at the end of a visit, where the children read their poems. I was actually very close to tears yesterday when we had a Year 6 finale in one of my very favourite schools, in Newbury. The poems were quite brilliant. I feel that what I do now – my writing / workshopping and performing – is a culmination of all I’ve ever experienced, plus my two degrees – my teaching degree and my Masters in Children’s Literature.

10. What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?”

Write. Write. Write. Write. Read. Read. Read. Read. DON’T expect to get the first/second/third thing you write to be published as chances are it won’t be. Only JK Rowling was published immediately, everyone else pretty much has to serve an apprenticeship of years of writing in the wildnerness. Don’t be too inspired by what you read as a child, look to see what is published right now. If you are writing for children, make it modern. Don’t trust your own children as readers/listeners – of course they’ll love it as they will want to please you. Even more writing, even more reading… Find out through trial and error, not only what you want to write, but what you are best at. I thought I’d be a novelist, but I’m actually a poet/non-fiction writer – and I’m more than happy with that!

11. Tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment.

A kind of best-of poetry book for 7-11s – Weird, Wild & Wonderful – to be published Jan 2021 by Otter-Barry Books and illustrated by the fantastic Neal Layton. I literally just finished the final new poem to go in the book. The book is a round up really of all the most popular poems I have written, published and performed over the last twenty years. But there’s a selection of brand new ones too. As with all my books I’m aiming for a real range of poems in terms of forms / tone / topics. What I want from one of my poetry collections is a book in which a child reader will not know what they are getting next. I want my collections to read more like anthologies, as if they were written by many different poets. WW&W is divided into three loosely-themed sections Weird (more upbeat humorous and daft poems) / Wild (nature/animal poems) / Wonderful (memory poems/quiet, reflective pieces) – but even within those there is a range.

When I began writing in the late 90s (1990s, not 189s, obvs..) there was too much emphasis on humorous poetry I thought, and I’ve tried to resist that in my books. I want a real range. And actually I find it’s often the quieter poems that really stick with children, and mean more to them. When I perform for 7-11s I’ll mainly do the more serious poems, but I’ll also do some improvised comic stuff in between, even some music – piano, melodica and guitar. I still write instrumental music to this day.

Apart from Once Upon An Atom (Caterpillar Books/Little Tiger Press) – a book on science in verse for 5-8s, I have another book in that same series (as yet untitled!) which is being illustrated right now and that is on the subject of palaeontology – going back in time, exploring various extinct creatures from the past – from woolly mammoths to trilobites to T.Rexes. I really love writing non-fiction. Researching a topic for months, and then finding an interesting angle to tell the story of that subject. I don’t want too many facts. Other books do facts, so instead I try and establish a narrative thread of some kind that takes a reader into or through a subject. Once Upon An Atom is slightly different in that it has three sections – Chemistry / Physics / Biology, and in very simple poetic language explains/explores each of these. It was probably the toughest book I’ve ever done – explaining science to an infant isn’t easy! The illustrations by the Brazilian artist Willian Santiago are just brilliant – very vivid, slightly retro sci-fi at times.

12. Why did you write Once Upon An Atom?

I’ve always been fascinated by science. Biology was my favourite subject at school – until I did a week of it at A level and decided it had effectively turned into chemistry and physics, which I wasn’t happy about it, so I dropped it! Instead, I got into English big time – Shakespeare, Larkin etc. And later at uni I studied English with education – but I’ve always had an interest in science, particularly natural history and anything space-related.

I’d already written six or so books in this series for Caterpillar Books, and each one, though non-fiction – and in verse – told a linear story – eg Once Upon A Star (the Big Bang/formation of our sun) / Once Upon A Raindrop (the story of water on this planet, including water cycles) / Once Upon A Rhythm (the story of music). This time I wanted to write about Science, but however I thought about it, there was no actual simple and direct story, just a very complex/interconnected sequence of inventions/discoveries etc from the last 10,000 years, and that wouldn’t do for a younger children’s picture book. I’d read – rather tried to read – Bill Bryson’s (and I’m a massive fan of his usually) impenetrable The History Of Nearly Everything. I couldn’t read it. It was too dense. Too clogged with facts. I don’t gravitate (ho ho) to facts, as essential they are – for as a reader, I like some kind of coherent narrative. And I had that book at that back of my mind for the many months I was writing this one.

So for a structure for Once Upon An Atom I ended up with three basic parts, which were effectively chemistry, physics and biology. Initially I explained what they were without actually explicitly naming those disciplines as I thought it would be way over the heads/comprehension of 5-8s, the target audience of this series. It took ages to get it right – to find simple enough concepts for each scientific area without losing the real essence of what each is. I finally handed the manuscript in and the wonderful editors at Caterpillar said that they liked it, but that I HAD to include the terms physics, chemistry and biology. I tried to fight my case, but lost! I’ve learnt to trust editors 99% of the time, as they have the objectivity that I don’t, and crucially, they know the market. So a massive re-write followed and unfortunately, Pat and Isabel at Caterpillar were totally right – once again! – and I think/hope it became a better text for it. For the illustrator, they chose Willian Santiago from Brazil. (All the illustrators for the series are from around the world – Spain, Japan, Italy, Northern Ireland…) I was thrilled. His bold, bright exuberant style brought so much to the book.

I’ve since written a related book on inventions for the series, which I didn’t have space to cover in Once Upon An Atom. My editor Pat gave me the challenge of writing a book on materials (wood / glass / metals .. etc.) as her daughter, an Infant teacher, had told her that that is what she’d need for her class. And actually, that was an easier book to write as I simply wrote about the sequence of materials that homo sapiens have used over the millennia – and how each of these have helped us to build the modern world. I would never have thought to have written a book on inventions in that way – ie through the prism of materials – but it gave it a fresh perspective.

When you write for younger children, you can never lose sight of your reader. I simply now try and write books that I would have wanted to read at that age. I had a few nature books – typical 60s fare – The Observers Book Of British Birds/Mammals etc.. – but nothing on generic science. The two things I try and consider when writing this series are – is the language inviting enough? Am I enthusing / entertaining my reader somehow? And is this interesting / relevant enough? How can I make it more enticing/fascinating? To this end, I often find I spend more time on the first few pages than any other in a book – to get the tone / feel / voice / music of the language just right. You have to grab your reader literally from the first syllable… and that’s a challenge I really enjoy!

I visit a lot of schools, and I see a lot of non-fiction books in school libraries and in topic displays in classrooms. Apart from books like the Horrible Science/Histories series, I do wonder to myself how many of these books are actually read. I know that many non-fiction books we dip in and out of anyway and wouldn’t dream of reading chronologically, but with every non-fiction book I do I love the idea that the reader might experience the book from beginning to end, and follow a linear thread. The books in this series are short, snappy and meant as a taster books for a subject. (If a reader wants to know more, there will be many other books that go into greater detail.) And this certainly affects the way I structure and shape what I am writing. It’s all about the story for me – though I do always have a factual acrostic at the back to include a few dates, a few figures and background information. Facts can get in the way of a good story, so where better to place them than at the back of a book?

And oddly, I’m probably one of the least knowledgeable people I know. In theory, I shouldn’t be writing non-fiction! As a person, I have my own limited interests, but as a writer I’m into E V E R Y T H I N G. It’s not WHAT you write about, but HOW you write about it. And what I do have in abundance is enthusiasm! I’m absolutely hopeless at retaining facts, and because of this I have to do a lot of research. But I guess it does mean I come to every subject as a non-fiction writer reasonably fresh, and I’m literally learning as I’m researching and then writing – and I try to then distil that initial fascination/passion for learning into the text of whatever book I am working on.

13. How did you collaborate with Willian Santiago?

Apart from my forthcoming poetry best of collection Weird Wild & Wonderful (Otter-Barry Books, Jan 2021) – for which I cheekily requested – and got! – the utterly fabulous Neal Layton – I never get to choose illustrators. Caterpillar books are brilliant at trawling the world for new talent and matching my text with an illustrator’s images. With every book they have found e x a c t l y the right person. And this must be the case as the second book in the series, Once Upon A Raindrop – the story of water – illustrated by the incredible Nomoco – is longlisted for the Kate Greenaway award! And I’m absolutely over the moon for Nomoco, Myrto (the book’s designer) and all the wonderful humans at Caterpillar Books. They really deserve it as their books are so fresh, vital and innovative. It’s a real honour to work with such a creative/dynamic team.

And I never have contact with an illustrator during the process. I may have a few very occasional responses, but in general, I trust the editors/designer/illustrator. Visuals are not my area. I’m primarily and solely concerned with the words inside. Plus, too many cooks…

14. Page or Stage?

Although I do strongly believe – as a white, 60 yr old middle class male – in the craft – I’m very much into page rather than stage poetry, but I equally love the fact that there are younger poets coming through, a variety of ages, a wide mix of races.

15. Accessibility?

I also enjoy stage – but that comes much, much later in the process. I’ll often write a poem and not actually ever read it for months/years. I write primarily for readers. Also, I try and make my work so simple and uncluttered and direct that it is as if it has just flowed out…craft is trying to make it look easy. Which it certainly is NOT!!!!

16. How do you think being a musician helps your poetry?

Great question, Paul! Apologies if my answer comes over a bit pretentious.. it can get a bit la-di-dah when you’re talking about such things!

In a sense, a poet IS a musician. A poet orchestrates the music of a poem – using consonants, vowels, syllables, alliteration, assonances, rhyme/half-rhyme – line breaks/lengths – all this is linguistic music. And I do think to be a music-musician (guitarist/terrible keyboard player) for me is both a curse and a blessing. A blessing in that it helps me to feel my way along each line of a poem, to instinctively know what works/doesn’t work as I weave words/sounds, syllable by syllable. But it does mean that I sometimes procrastinate over even a phrase for many months. It means I tweak/edit/re-write obsessively. It means I find it very hard to read or even finish a rhythmical rhyming poem by another

Poet that doesn’t scan. A rhyming poem that doesn’t scan is akin to driving down a bumpy road. You keep trying to

Avoid the bumps, and you don’t quite know when/where they are coming. If a poem doesn’t scan, it isn’t finished.

If a poet ever says ‘Oh, it depends how you read it’, I don’t follow that. (But if it’s just performance stuff, spoken word that is not published on the page, just done in a live context, that’s very different). As a poet on the page you are giving your reader a poem that has implicit instructions on how it is to be read, and if they have to keep stopping to adapt/adjust because it doesn’t flow, then the poem isn’t fully doing its job. With my non-fiction verse series, I often imagine my readers as either busy parents/teachers/librarians reading aloud to a young child. If the text doesn’t scan, they have to work harder at delivering it to the child. And I don’t want that. I want it to be an easy, positive experience, so the words just readily sing and flow off the page. Also, if I have a 7-11 yr old reading one of my poems themselves, I don’t want them to struggle with a poem,I want them to enjoy it, to get it, to know what it’s about, and be moved/inspired/enlightened or whatever. Bumpy lines will not help this experience. Children more readily read fiction/novels, so I don’t want anything to deter them from reading one of my books. Instant readability is ESSENTIAL! But that doesn’t mean I want my poems to necessarily be superficial or lightweight all the time – which some indeed are, but I do want a great many poems to be re-read, and stimulate a bit of thought or reflection.

And overall, for this very reason I generally avoid reading rhyming verse nowadays and mainly read free verse, which I absolutely love. I try to start many of my poems as free verse, but invariably a rhyme, metrical pattern slips in. Some poems just demand to rhyme. Others will let me be more loosey-goosey and play with a free verse form, but even then I may play around – do free verse and make it into a midline acrostic as well. Depends on the subject/age group I’m writing for. With younger children, 98% of my stuff rhymes, for older readers, I’d say it’s about 60%. And in a sense, rhyming stuff is easier for me as I know how it should flow/sound, but free verse is not so obvious, is prose’s half-sibling, and has a quieter, subtler music. Writing rhyming verse is akin to a pop song in 4/4 in a major key. Free verse can be more like a very slow piano piece in waltz time in a minor key!

Whenever I read a poem (ie one by another poet) for the first time, I’ll be listening solely to the music, the soundscape.

I’ll trace the rhythm however blatant or subtle. I’ll listen to the vowels, the consonants, rhymes, alliterations, all of the tricks the poet is using. On second and third readings I’ll be processing the meaning, the message, the narrative or idea that the poem is expressing.

And that’s the same for writing for me. I’m initially concerned with the soundscape – but ultimately and clearly both are equally important. Above all poetry as far as I can see is language at its most musical and memorable – therefore the soundscape has to be well constructed. A poem built with craft is a poem built to last!

As daft as it sounds, when I’m working on a poem I will often carry it around in my head and I’ll be sounding the words out loud, all the while listening for opportunities to tighten the rhythm and the flow – but equally looking to see where I can include extra assonance alliteration and rhymes or half rhymes. All the while I’ll be ensuring that the poem says what it needs to say and I don’t care if it takes months because I want it to be the best it can be. I love words, so working with them like this is a real joy. I scrap far more poems than I keep. In one of my poetry collections I might write many hundreds of poems but keep only 40-50 or so. I want to minimise filler! In theory, I’d rather write just one single poem that I’m really happy with than thousands I have dashed off. This is why I won’t ever read a poem to an audience for many months even years as I want to ensure it’s totally finished. And even when I do eventually read it, I may well find extra tweaks I need to do!

And I’ve observed that children write in a very different way to adults. They’re far less self-critical and therefore they can write more quickly and freely. A child’s first draft will invariably be much better (relatively speaking) than an adult’s. Adults often write very slowly and cautiously knowing they can tidy it up later on. Not so children. Children I have discovered (having worked in over 1300 Primary schools!) write with verve and freshness and also very swiftly and will have no interest (unless without adult encouragement) in writing for any more than the 40 mins or however long that first version takes. Picasso said he wanted to paint like a child. I know what he meant. I certainly try to write is as openly as I possibly can in the first version. I tell teachers in INSET that you have an angel on one shoulder telling you ‘hey, you’re the best writer in world, go for it!’ but then later the devil on your other shoulder pipes up and says ‘Dream on, matey! What were you thinking of? What you’ve just written needs A LOT of work!’ And that analogy works for me!

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews: James Carter Wombwell Rainbow Interviews I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me.

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the90dayfianceblog-blog · 5 years ago

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season 7, episode 1

This season premiere, as is typical, mostly just served to lay some foundation for some drama. Here’s our cast of characters as of right now:

Mursel and Anna, both 38

Anna is a Nebraskan beekeeper. She met Mursel, a Turkish beekeeper, on a beekeeping Facebook group. She’s obsessed with her bees, which is the most endearing thing about her. “I think bees are cute because they live together,” says Anna. She seems to be working through some of her own issues. She was in a bad relationship with her kids’ dad, she left a couple of years ago, and she decided, based on that experience and some chance online encounters, that all American guys are interested in one thing only, which is not bees. Enter Mursel. They show the two of them having a kindergarten-level conversation on video chat. We immediately see what a brick wall the language barrier is.

She has three boys, who are 15, 14, and 6, and she declares on national television that her accident baby six-year-old, Leo, is her favorite. See you in therapy, kids. This may explain her dynamic with her children and the way they speak to her. Some of that is the fact there are two teenagers, but she seems pretty lax. Anyway, she’s worried about how they’ll all get along. The consensus is that the kids are not sold on Mursel, for valid reasons such as language and religious differences – though her oldest kid, a walking teenager stereotype, “doesn’t care” about any of it. The boys make Muslim jokes about bacon over breakfast and Anna is either unamused or doesn’t get it. The IMPENDING BIG CONFLICT, presumably, is that he’s Muslim, doesn’t drink, and doesn’t want her to drink. She, on the other hand, is “from the Midwest,” which is as good a suggestion as any that she drinks a lot (take it from this Midwesterner). Mursel doesn’t actually know that she drinks, as she admits to a friend later in the episode, and he has expressed that he would like to be around whenever she is drinking.

Mursel shows up at the end of the episode. This is the only airport reunion we see this episode. They’re genuinely happy to see each other, but it quickly devolves into awkwardness due to the language barrier. It is Paul-and-Karine-level bad, down to the unreliable translator app. She hadn’t realized how difficult that would make things. Mursel has so far seemed likable but maybe trying to hard. We want to know about Mursel and his backstory.

Predicted Outcome:

Alyssa says they will not get married because of the language and cultural barriers, and it will be strangely heartwrenching.

Laura says they will get married, but will end in a messy divorce, for the aforementioned reasons plus the kids issue. Teenagers are brutal.

Michael, 42 and Juliana, 22

Michael is a “self-employed wine entrepreneur” (let us just shudder at the eye-rolling pretentiousness of this statement) and walking midlife crisis. He’s quick to tell us how rich he is and rattles off all the rich-guy stuff he does ($90k sports cars, travels a lot, vintage guitars). He met Juliana, a Brazilian “model,” on a yacht party in Croatia. She grew up poor, is uneducated, and is currently working as a prostitute was discovered by a modeling agency. He does not explain how she found herself on a Croatian yacht party. She’s funny and thoughtful and smart, he says, and they’re kindred spirits. We don’t see or hear from her this entire episode, so all of this remains to be seen. We think there is a question about his legitimacy as a "rich-guy," and how he *actually* met her. He admits he has spent a lot of money on her, but he won’t say how much. He is incredulous that she can’t get a work visa even with her “legitimate job,” so the K1 was the only option. Wondering if there is a different reason she can't get a visa, which may not be as nefarious as the show is pointing to (like Evelin overstaying her via one time. See how well she and Corey worked?). He divorced his wife Sarah two years ago, but they’re still good friends and co-parents, they live down the road from one another, and he worries how Juliana will feel about all of that. He married Sarah when they were both young, and they grew apart. This feels mostly like a justification of his current relationship. I find myself wondering what Sarah’s side of that story sounds like. And I am wondering why he feels it is a good idea to marry someone incredibly young in comparison when he apparently understands growth occurs.

We see him with his two kids. His son is 8 and his daughter is probably 5 or 6. They are adorable and impossibly articulate. “It’s sort of an unusual circumstance,” says his daughter, about Juliana. Juliana’s visa interview is next week and Michael wants to check in with them. They’re extremely diplomatic about the whole thing, though his son can’t help but point out that “she’s closer in age to me than she is to you.”

We see Michael and Sarah having a heart to heart about the situation, and Sarah acknowledges, as gently as she can, that his money is probably playing a role in her interest in him. She’s also very diplomatic, and it becomes clear how the kids turned out so well. Michael isn’t offended by her suggestion but is confident that Juliana in it for the right reasons, or whatever. Sarah’s worried about the parenting situation and the role Juliana expects she will play in the kids’ lives.

Predicted Outcome:

Alyssa says they will get married, but it won't last because of the age difference and Michael's personality.

Laura says they will get married and she’ll stick around as long as the money’s coming in.

Synjin, 32 and Tania, 29

Tania is a social activist and bartender from Connecticut who “self-identifies as Latina.” We see her generically yelling about change and democracy. She is a self-proclaimed wild woman because she takes natural supplements and plays with sex toys. She’s objectively insufferable. We are open-minded, but there is something about her that feels like she is desperately trying to prove something.

She met a South African guy on a dating app, flew to South Africa soon after, and it didn’t go well, so she left his house in the middle of the night to go to a bar (don’t you know about HUMAN TRAFFICKING, mah boy?) where she met a cute bartender, Syngin, and then went home with him instead. She ended up staying in South Africa with Syngin for two months, because change and democracy can wait. Syngin is apparently a recovering racist and “loves nature and Mother Earth,” she says. She went back to the US, applied for his K1, and then moved into the shed in her mom’s backyard, where she and Syngin both plan to live when he arrives. Her mom, who is delightful, isn’t thrilled and thinks Syngin lacks ambition. Tania wants kids but Syngin is “freaked out” by them, and that always ends well. We see Tania in a New York hotel spending an inordinate amount of time getting ready to go pick up Syngin at the airport, followed by a similar amount of time prattling on to her two friends about how amazing she looks. Why she is bringing friends to this event is unclear, because this is not prom with the cute guy in math class Also would like to know if Syngin is aware she is bringing others to the airport. She starts to panic in the cab because his plane has already landed and she cannot believe she is so late.

Predicted Outcome:

Alyssa says that they won't get married because it will be continuously trying to prove something to each other. Living in Mom Tania's shed is already a bad decision.

Laura says they won’t get married because I don’t know him yet, but she’s terrible and probably incapable of

Emily, 29 and Sasha, 32

Emily, a reformed party girl from Portland, graduated from college and decided to move to the “wonderland” that is Russia to teach English. She was unpleasantly surprised to find that her wildly uninformed perceptions about Russia were not correct. She had no friends, couldn’t speak Russian, and the city was dirty and cold. Desperate to meet people, she decided to join a gym, where she met personal trainer Sasha, who had never met an American before. “He had good vibes, I guess,” she says, as all great love stories go. She taught him English, she claims. If that’s true, I now believe in her teaching abilities, because his English is legitimately excellent. He proposed in an elevator without a ring. She is also wife #3, and she’s due in four days to have a baby. He’s got two other kids, one with each wife. Not a good look, he realizes, but “I’m a good guy,” which is reminiscent of Paul discussing his arson. Emily is ready with her own arguments. “He happened to marry his mistakes,” she says. As women who have been in relationships and have broken up with people, this seems like a very risky statement to make. Anyway, she’s having the baby in Russia, so that Sasha can be there. We see Emily talking to her sister, who says a lot of mean things about Emily’s size and her life choices, namely her decision to have the baby in Russia. Emily conveniently gets dizzy and hangs up, while immediately calling Sasha to pick her up. It looks like there may be an interaction with one of Sasha's ex-wives in the next episode, so we may have different opinions on them next week.

Predicted Outcome:

Alyssa says they are obviously going to be connected because of their baby, but probably will not work out either. Sasha living two children behind seems very sad.

Laura agrees. Too much baggage. It’s all going to come to a head somehow.

Anny, 30 and Robert, 41

Robert lives in Florida but is from Brooklyn, and it shows. He’s an Uber driver, and you’d think he was a surgeon, the way he talks about his job. He name-drops all the celebrities who have been in his car. I somehow doubt Shaq is in the habit of getting in random Ubers. He has a hyperactive son, Bryson, who is maybe 2.

He met Anny online. She lives in the Dominican Republic. He booked a cruise that stopped in the DR for one day, he proposed after 8 hours together, and he hasn’t seen her in person since. He's very defensive about his life choices. Anny is moving to Florida this week. He keeps referring to her as “shorty,” which I did not think was a thing anymore. Bryson is acting out during the video chat, and he worries whether she’s ready to be a parent to him. Anny also seems worried about being a parent, too, and there are questions raised.

Money is an issue. It clearly motivates her, but he obviously doesn’t have much. We see them having a very unproductive argument over the phone about money – he sent her some, she wasn’t able to access it, and they both yelled at each other about it. All of this occurs while he is at a store trying to buy her some lingerie. This lingerie-buying outing is set to some derpy music, so you know we’re in for it. The saleslady asks him what her size is. I don’t know, he says, but I know she has a big butt and nice curves. The poor saleslady soldiers on through his lusting, but also doesn’t miss the opportunity to say to the camera, in a masterful use of her allotted 30 seconds, that she likes when men think about what their women will like, not what they themselves like. Also, this seems like something intimate to do when only spending 8 hours with her but this isn't about Caesar and chocolate panties.

Predicted Outcome

Alyssa says they will probably get married but we don't know much about Anny right now.

Laura is withholding judgment until we meet Anny, but is not optimistic about them getting married right now.

FIN. Next week we’ll meet one more couple, and we see the return of Angela, who we’ll hesitate to even write about because she’s so terrible in so many ways. Our eggs are already shaking at thought of her toting anything.

#90dayfiance

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itsiotrecords-blog · 7 years ago

Link

http://ift.tt/2vjxsVL

Modern western society tends to view shed hair with all the tolerance it affords a dead rodent, as you may know if you’ve ever heard your mother shouting, “Why is there a capybara in my shower drain?” But some shrewd thinkers have started to see the hidden merits of human hair. They view it as a viable resource and look for practical ways to use it. And some of their best (and oddest) ideas come straight from the pages of history.

#1 Holy Relics One of the first get-rich-quick schemes was the sale of fake “holy relics.” Relics could include morbid keepsakes like a tooth, scrap of clothing, finger or lock of hair from a saint. In the Middle Ages, these grisly tokens were in great demand but were often fake. The macabre highlight of this scheme is that fake relics were sometimes from real people. No one but the con man who sold them will ever know who the mummified fingers and severed curls really belonged to! Some religious groups still use relics, but fact-checking is a lot easier today. However, some religious leaders don’t really seem to care whether relics are authentic or not. Religious feeling, they reason, is more important. It sounds like the fake-relic scam is due for a revival! A modern version is the sale of celebrity hair. You can buy “authentic hair” online that’s said to come from figures like Neil Armstrong, George Washington, Paul McCartney, Marilyn Monroe, JFK, Justin Bieber, and even the King himself, Elvis Presley. Is it for real? Well, there’s only one way to find out: let’s ask Paul and Justin if they have anything to do with this nonsense.

#2 Incense Anyone who’s leaned too close to a lit birthday cake will recall the acrid stink of singed hair. What sort of masochist would want to smell that stench in incense? Well, in India, incense was historically of two kinds. One was as pleasantly aromatic as you’d expect. Lovely plants like ginger, fragrant leaves and gums were used for this type. It was meant to appease demons or spirits. If the spirits were doing something you didn’t like, you’d try this first. The other sort was meant to repel spirits. It was often made of not just human hair, but other nasty things like pig manure and horse hair. If a spirit or demon couldn’t be appeased, this was the next line of defense. It was hoped that any self-respecting demon would flee in terror from the smell, much like any self-respecting human. Similar mixtures were also used as a remedy for fainting. This may be a case where the cure is worse than the affliction.

#3 Fertilizer Feeding your crops with human hair and excrement may sound like an extreme survival story, but it was standard in ancient Chinese farming. It sounds unsafe, but hair is relatively harmless and full of nutrients. It contains 15% nitrogen (compared to chicken manure at 4.6%) but doesn’t burn plants. In some situations, hair fertilizer is comparable to chemical fertilizer. It works best as a long-release treatment though, because your ponytail can take years to compost. If you want to feed your hair to a house plant, chop it finely first. That will help it break down faster.

#4 Family “Hairlooms” One tiny tribe in China came up with the world’s most creative hand-me-down: their great- grandmothers’ hair. Each woman of the Longhorn Miao tribe combines the lengthy locks of her ancestors with other natural fibers to form a huge, ropelike mass. This is then wrapped in a figure-eight shape around a pair of “horns” worn on her head. Real animal horns were once used, but now pieces of wood in the same shape take their place. Wrapping 10 pounds of hair onto them can be a nearly hour-long process. Such an extreme hairstyle is usually worn on holidays, but it’s sometimes shown to curious visitors as well. Their ancestor’s hair is often the most precious object these women own, valued even above their detailed and colorful embroidery. The tribe, isolated for hundreds if not thousands of years, continues its hand-me-down custom to this day.

#5 Embroidery Dongtai hair embroidery is another old Chinese custom. In contrast to the Longhorn tribe’s colorful handiwork, this art started out black-and-white. It began over a thousand years ago with a purist form that uses only naturally colored black human hair to stitch designs onto white silk. At first these creations only featured pictures of Buddha, which young girls would stitch with care to show their devotion. More recent pieces show scenes full of ancient Chinese symbolism. Over time, a colored variation developed as well. Both branches of the neglected art form nearly faded to oblivion in the past century, but a few artists are trying to revive it. With around 30 companies marketing the craft in its home province of Jiangsu, hair embroidery has a chance at a comeback.

#6 Medical Sutures From the Mayans and the ancient Romans to the present day, human hair has a long history in the field of suturing. It’s fallen out of favor in modern Western practice, but at the turn of the twentieth century it was still in use by some American doctors. It allegedly worked quite well, and didn’t cause infections. Despite its history, hair suturing probably doesn’t have a future in developed countries. It shows promise, though, as a solution for those with less access to healthcare. An Indian medical college has performed tests on human hair to see if it’s practical and effective as suture material for developing countries, and so far the results are optimistic.

#7 Music The Mangyans live on an island in the Phillipines called Mindoro. Their folk music tradition birthed the git-git, a bowed instrument strung with human hair. It compares to the violin in both function and looks. The git-git was only used by young men when they went courting. Serenading was an important part of courtship; young men had to both sing and play musical instruments during the process. In addition to the git-git, the young men would sometimes also play the kudyapi’, which is basically a six-stringed guitar. In Western society, both violins and violin bows have sometimes been strung with human hair as well. This is usually more of a publicity stunt than a practical means of making music, though. Hair isn’t as strong as the steel-core violin strings usually used. Because of this, human hair works better for folk music than orchestral music, which calls for more sound.

#8 Pest Control Human hair has been used for centuries to repel animals and control pests. It’s used differently on different kinds of animals. It works on moles by annoying them enough to drive them away. To deer, just the scent of humans is alarming. Rhinoceros beetles in India can be trapped by a simple ball of human hair. Farmers place it at strategic points on the tree, the beetles try to walk over the hairball to get at the crop, their spiky legs get tangled up and they can’t move! The Old Farmer’s Almanac even cites a strategy to repel rabbits by encircling a garden with human hair. The rabbits, like deer, will only be scared off if they’re wild. In the suburbs, where the smell of humans is everywhere, rabbits and deer will adapt to its presence. So if you’re thinking of making a rabbit-repelling hair fence, only bother if you’re out in the country.

#9 Clothing Using human hair in fabric is traditional in both India and China. Knowing that pure hair fabric would be too rough, they blend it with softer animal hair and wool. The reason it’s so rough is that human hair is thicker than other fibers used in clothing. Spinning it into thread makes some of the coarse, stiff ends stick straight out. The high prickle factor that results is not ideal for clothing. Imagine a pair of shorts made of the stubble of a three-day-old beard! It’s not exactly what you want rubbing against your sensitive skin, is it? In modern Western society, clothing made of human hair is quite a novelty. It’s usually used in cutting-edge or alternative designs. But during World War II, human hair was seen as a viable substitute for other fibers in short supply. The bolts of cloth on display at Auschwitz are a grisly woven memorial to the horrors of the Holocaust. The cloth didn’t originate as a memorial, but was created as part of everyday trade agreements by the Nazis. The Nazis traded their prisoners’ hair to German factories, which mixed it with various fibers to make fabric.

#10 Jewelry Human hair was one of the oddest passions of the Victorian age. People gave each other locks of hair to show affection. They made accessories of it and even sent bits of their hair to one another on postcards. It must have been a bad time to live if your hair was already thin! Hair work was just as popular as knitting and crocheting. Several different techniques were used, such as table braiding and arranging individual strands into “paintings” on ivory brooches. Incredibly fine and detailed work was the result of this obsession. Pieces such as bracelets, rings, earrings, necklaces, brooches, chains and shawl pins were made of hair, as well as accent pieces like handbags and bookmarks. Many of these are now on display in a hair museum, which looks as creepy as it sounds. The Victorians sometimes embroidered with hair too, but they weren’t as fond of it as the ancient Chinese were. They would rather stitch with normal thread. Considering all the things they made out of hair, they wouldn’t have had much extra to fuel their cross-stitching!

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nofomoartworld · 8 years ago

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Hyperallergic: Setting the Puzzling Language of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake to Music

James Joyce playing a guitar (1915) (via Cornell Joyce Collection/Wikimedia)

“The things that make the Wake hard to read are the same things that make the book so much fun to interpret musically,” Derek Pyle, cofounder of Waywords and Meansigns, told Hyperallergic. The project was organized in 2014 to set James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, arguably his most complicated book, to music. “You can hear the text in so many different ways — there’s German and Gaelic, catechisms and Vedic sutras, all embedded in the text, and you can pull out whatever elements catch your fancy.”

The 2017 album art by Heather Ryan Kelley for Waywords and Meansigns (courtesy the artist)

The first edition of Waywords and Meansigns was released in 2015, and a second in 2016, with chapters divided into tracks. Now on, May 4, the anniversary of the book’s first publishing in 1939, a third album will be released, concentrating on passages instead of full chapters. All are shared under a Creative Commons license, with over 100 contributors from 15 countries to date. Visual art will accompany the album (including work by Raymond Pettibon), and curious contributors are still welcome to get involved.

“By setting the book to music, and also by giving away all our audio online, we definitely hope to make the work more accessible,” Pyle explained. “I think people are more likely to listen to music in a foreign language, that’s not too uncommon, and much easier than reading a book in some language you don’t understand.” He added that the book is, if not a foreign language with its made-up words and scramble of over 60 languages, is “a really weird dialect of drunken and cosmic English.”

For instance, the first page includes the word “Bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunnt-rovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk!,” a thunderclap onamonapia for Eve and Adam’s fall from the Garden of Eden. Other sections have an experimental narrative flow: “And you’ll miss me more as the narrowing weeks wing by. Someday duly, oneday truly, twosday newly, till whensday.”

Art by Sara Jewell for Waywords and Meansigns (courtesy the artist)

Pyle said that while they “definitely attract people who lean towards experimentation” in music, they’ve had contributions from jazz, punk, classical, and folk artists. They include amateurs, as well as professional musicians, like bassist Mike Watt, former Mercury Rev members Jason Sebastian Russo and Paul Dillon, Irish pianist John Wolf Brennan, and electronica artist Schneider TM.

Some contributors are just Joyce-obsessed, like Adam Harvey who has memorized whole chapters. The main requirement is that the lyrics have Joyce’s unabridged words, and that they be audible. The project isn’t the first to respond to Finnegans Wake with music — John Cage’s 1979 Roaratorio was inspired by the book — or to attempt to unravel its meaning artistically (such as the 2014 Folio Society release with illustrations by John Vernon Lord), but its shareable and collaborative nature makes it a distinct digital-age experiment. Joyce himself was a singer, and played the guitar and piano, so in a way creating a rhythm for his words is a fitting tribute to the author’s perplexing prose.

While the full audio for the third edition will be available May 4, you can listen to the 2016 release (care of the Internet Archive) below:

The post Setting the Puzzling Language of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake to Music appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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frankokguitar-blog · 8 years ago

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The West London Mojo Triangle

New Post has been published on http://frankokellyguitar.org/guitar-thoughts/west-london-mojo-triangle/

The West London Mojo Triangle

“It is strange how we all come from a similar area” , Richie Blackmore.

The term “Mojo Triangle” was first coined by James L. Dickerson as the title for his 2005 book which described the astounding array of musical styles that originated in the area between Nashville, Memphis and New Orleans.

I can’t promise the birth of Blues, Jazz, Country and Rock and Roll. But as a guitarist I want to tell you about a part of Greater London that birthed some of the most influential guitarists of all times. An area that gave rise to the clubs that would give the world the Rolling Stones and Cream and also see the creation of the worlds most famous amplifier.

Come with me into the West London Mojo Triangle!

This is not Central London with it’s grand buildings and tourist sights nor is it the old parts of the City and the East End where the chthonic memories are almost breathable, this the London that expanded West and South during the Victorian height of Empire using the railway to join up hundreds of villages that would form into the haphazard quilt of boroughs they are today and where London pushes into the county of Surrey on its South-West borders. note 1

Into this suburban milieu towards the end of the Second World War were born Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton, all within less than twenty miles of each other.

Within the same area Pete Townsend, Ron Wood and Brian May would be also be born.

Page was born at the top of our imaginary triangle in Heston. A nondescript suburb overshadowed by nearby Heathrow airport.

Two years later the young Richie Blackmore’s family would also move there from the West Country.

In the bottom left of our triangle Eric Clapton was born in the village of Ripley, Surrey and across to the East, Jeff Beck was born in Wallington.

A map of the best British rock singers would cover most parts of Britain but virtually all the best guitarists of their generation would be concentrated in one area.

Quite how the leading lights of British Rock guitar came to be born in such a geographically small place is remarkable. Page would later move to Epsom, Surrey putting him even closer to his peers. Barely 15 miles between all of them.

They were part of the cultural zeitgeist that saw young British men look west to a black blues culture that at the time was as mythic as it was unknown. A jigsaw puzzle of riffs fitted together on cheap guitars. Each new delivery of records from the U.S. obsessively listened to and dissected.

For a generation brought up with the insipid offerings of 1950’s radio this was a taste of something real.

The blues men’s songs may have spoken of sex, death and heartache but it was the pulse of the guitars underneath articulating something deeply human that resonated with these young men.

In the recordings of Robert Johnson, the voice narrates the scene, but the guitar works on a different level, a heartbeat and cry at the same time. This was profoundly influential particularly on Clapton and Keith Richards.

The shadow of World War II still hung over the early Sixties. Though the youth had not experienced the war personally everyone knew someone close to them who had suffered during the conflict. London was still dotted with bomb sites and food rationing had continued for nine years after the war.

The moving away from a dark destructive past into something brighter was a great impetus on British youth culture. There was resonance with the Blues’s defiant swagger against the odds.

By taking the template of the blues and distilling that feeling into a new brash hedonistic sound; the youth of the Sixties felt they were truly escaping the darkness of the previous generation. That theirs would be a golden age of sexual and spiritual freedom carried there with the aid of an unquestioned technology.

One factor that aided the dissemination of the Blues were three clubs that would showcase and bring together the most gifted of their generation.

In a small basement below a bakery in Ealing, West London the appropriately named Ealing Blues club opened in March of 1962 by Blues evangelist Alexis Korner. His band, Blues Incorporated included Charlie Watts on drums and Jack Bruce on Bass and would serve as a greenhouse for many aspiring young musicians.

[Ealing Club entrance]

There the young Mick and Keith would be so impressed by Brian Jones’s slide playing they asked him to join their band. Rod Stewart, Pete Townsend and Jimmy Page were also among the regulars of this small shabby club.

In nearby Richmond in early 1963, the Crawdaddy club opened at the back of the Station Hotel Pub.

The Rolling Stones took up a two night a week residency here with their classic line up of Jagger, Richards, Jones, Wyman and Watts now in place.

The Beatles would come to see them there and with audiences overflowing on the streets the club was forced to move to bigger premises at the nearby Richmond Athletic Ground.

The Stones soon achieved fame and their place was taken by a group called the Yardbirds who would hire a young Eric Clapton as their lead guitarist.

The Yardbirds also found commercial success which caused blues purist Clapton to leave and join John Mayall’s group, the Bluesbreakers. Using a then unpopular Gibson Les Paul run through a custom made Marshall amp, Clapton redefined the British Blues sound with a smooth but fiery overdriven tone that would cement his status as one of the finest guitarists in the world.

Ever restless, Clapton would later team up with fellow Ealing club patrons Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker to form Cream whose heavy improvised interpretations of the Blues would be an influence on Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple and spawn many imitators.

[The Yardbirds. Jeff Beck 1st left. Jimmy Page 2nd from right.]

The Yardbirds found an able replacement in the mercurial Jeff Beck whose experimental approach to guitar helped greatly added to the bands success. Beck was overlapped and ultimately succeeded by his friend Jimmy Page who had finally decided to give up his lucrative career in session work.

The group would fragment in 1968 leaving just Page and manager Peter Grant to fulfil a tour commitment in Scandinavia. New members were recruited and so great was the chemistry that upon the tours completion they recorded an album. A threat of legal action by an original member caused the band to change their name upon the records completion and so Led Zeppelin came to be.

Eel Pie island an island in the River Thames at Twickenham in the Borough of Richmond was also an important venue in the development of many artists. It’s eponymous hotel being the place where a young Rod Stewart first got noticed and where again the Stones and the Yardbirds continued to ply their trade. As the Sixties progressed names as big as Bowie, Pink Floyd and Black Sabbath would also play there until it morphed into Britain’s biggest hippie colony.

[The Stones play Eel Pie Island 1963]

The symbiotic relationship between the clubs and the bands concentrated in such a small area made for a regular exchange of ideas and band members but one thing would become clear was that this was not like Liverpool where the Beatles would totally dominate the scene and the rest were left behind.

Here the quality of musicians was matched by their quantity. For every aspiring young guitarist elsewhere in the country how many had Clapton’s focus, Beck’s originality or Pages’s breadth of vision? That essential quality that put them ahead of the pack and created a sonic landscape that would inspire generations of guitarists.

Richie Blackmore like his childhood neighbour Jimmy Page would spend his early career as a session musician. After a long period in backing bands, Blackmore would join Deep Purple where his more classically influenced style would have a huge impact on the growing genre of Heavy Metal. Every significant guitarist who emerged in the eighties would acknowledge their debt to Blackmore.

The Who were also on the rise. Pete Townsend’s highly distinctive playing style powering their hits. Their 1973 album Quadrophenia would be an homage to the mid sixties “Mod” culture of West London. One of factors in the Who’s early bombastic stage shows would be Townsend’s friendship with local Jazz drummer Jim Marshall.

In 1962 Marshall opened a music shop in Hanwell, West London. Always interested in amplification and listening to the wishes of local teenage guitarists like Townsend and Richie Blackmore he had a try at making an amp that would be more powerful than those available at the time.

With the aid of two friends and after six attempts the first Marshall Amp went on sale, rapidly selling out in days.

By the mid-sixties to keep up the with demand for bigger and louder amps several new models were made including the “Bluesbreaker” amp for Clapton and the first Marshall Stack made for the Who. By the end of the decade what started as a small local music shop has transformed itself into a world beating manufacturer. Almost every major rock act on earth would go on to use Marshalls but it was in 1966 that he would meet the man he described as “the greatest ambassador my amplifiers have ever had”.

Former shop employee, drummer Mitch Mitchell brought in his new boss to see his old boss and so Jimi Hendrix added a vital ingredient to his then still largely unknown sound.

[Jimi Hendrix with Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell.]

London would play a pivotal role in Hendrix’s career. At the “Bag of Nails “night club British rock royalty including the Beatles, Mick Jagger, Townsend and Beck sat in stunned disbelief as they witnessed his phenomenal stage show.

The challenges and possibilities that Hendrix’s playing posed fed back into the British guitar community. The bar had been raised and for the more ambitious players like Clapton or Beck, Hendrix was an energising presence.

Within a year Hendrix would make his first album in London launching an astonishing body of work that would innovate how the electric guitar would be played for ever. A chance meeting in a nightclub with young acoustic expert Roger Mayer would give him access to the cutting edge effects he was designing such as the Octavia pedal used on “Purple Haze”. “He would talk in colours and my job was to give him the electronic palette which would engineer those colours so he could paint the canvas.” Mayer said.

Together with his Marshall amps, Hendrix now had the tools to express the sounds he heard in his head.

The iconic images from the American Monterrey and Woodstock festivals are how we visually remember him. His searing “Star Spangled Banner” is probably one of the most eloquent and potent protest songs ever played without words.” I’m American so I just played it” Hendrix later said in an interview. A statement that was filled with nuance as to what type of American or indeed whose America he was talking about.

But his life was interwoven with London. A place he often described as the only home he ever had. His unstoppable ascent beginning with his arrival there in late September 1966. The mythic arc of his life tragically ending in late September 1970 in West London’s Notting Hill.

In Hendrix the apotheosis of the American Blues man was achieved. But without London it would not have happened. The enthusiasm of a handful of suburban English kids making possible a discovery by White America of an art form that most were unaware of. The heady mix that originated in the American South was given a British twist and a decade of unparalleled creativity took place.

By the Seventies there would not be a rock guitarist in the world who was not influenced by at least one of the guitarists from this part of greater London.

The synchronicity involved in having so many creative people in one small place is still inexplicable. Nothing in the landscape suggests inspiration. A guided tour would be met with bafflement as to the prosaic nature of the locations. Nevertheless the world of music owes a great deal to the “West London Mojo Triangle”!

note 1Surrey’s borders have always been pushed back as London expanded. Historically Surrey was the southern side of the Thames at London. So Shakespeare’s plays at the Globe theatre would have been shown in Surrey even though today it looks to be obviously in the centre of London. A significant change to the borders happened in 1965 which means that for the purposes of my story some places named such as Richmond would have been in Surrey at the time but after 1965 would then be part of Greater London.

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