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06-24-2013, 04:09 PM
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#41 (permalink) |
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Model Worker
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Fela Kuti: Father of Afro-Beat Music & Controversial Political Outlaw
 Photo above: Fela Kuti I saw the Nigerian Afro-beat musician Fela Kuti in concert in the '80s and the intensity of his stage performance blew me away. Fela lived a life swirling with political intrigue and controversy.. It was hard to figure out if Fela was grassroots African liberation leader like Nelson Mandela or an egomaniacal leader of a cult of true believers, like the Rev. Jim Jones. Fela built a communal compound in which his large group of followers lived, farmed the land and played music. Fela also opened a live music nightclub on the grounds of the compound. In the late '60s Fela's anti-government communiques and speeches became a thorn in the side of the national government in Lagos. During a visit to Los Angeles Fela was introduced to the political teachings of Malcom X. After being deported from the United States over a work permit violation, Fela returned to Nigeria and escalated the militant rhetoric of his anti-government attacks. In the mid Seventies, Fela attempted to secede from the nation of Nigeria. He declared himself to be king of Kalakuta Republic, a new nation he created on the 1000 acres of land he owned in Nigeria. Many people thought Fela was being needlessly provocative by declaring what amounted to a unilateral civil war against the Republic of Nigeria. The nation of Nigeria was upset by Fela's brazen declaration of independence and in 1977, 1,000 Nigerian soldiers attacked his Kalakuta compound. Fela suffered a fractured skull as well as other broken bones; his 82-year old mother was thrown from an upstairs window, inflicting injuries that would later prove fatal. The soldiers set fire to the compound and prevented fire fighters from reaching the area. Fela's recording studio, all his master tapes and musical instruments were destroyed. Most Nigerian citizens and the international community were outraged by this brutal show of force against Fela and his commune members by the Nigerian government. Fela fled to Ghana and lived in exile for a year. He returned to Nigeria in 1980 but was later imprisoned by a newly installed military regime that sentenced him to ten years in prison in 1984. Thanks to a campaign by Amnesty International Fela was freed from prison in 1985. Fela spent the remainder of the '80s waging a fierce campaign against the the global policies of Ronald Reagan in the United States and Margaret Thatcher in the UK. Fela quieted down in the '90s and only those closest to him knew he was suffering from a fatal illness. He died in 1997. Fela spent much of his public life under attack by feminists for his misogynistic attitudes toward females. Fela had at least a dozen wives and observed tribal customs that relegated women primarily to the task of conceiving and raising children. Fela's band was known for their improvisational skills and when I saw them they traded riffs on a single song for nearly an hour. You can hear how Fela's was influenced by American funk artists like James Brown on this YouTube video of a performance of the song Pansa Pansa in Berlin in 1978.
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There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff. Townes Van Zandt Last edited by Gavin B.; 06-26-2013 at 07:33 AM. |
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06-25-2013, 11:18 AM
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#42 (permalink) |
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Model Worker
Join Date: Jan 2009
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Lost Album Classics Vol. II
 Album Title: Colossal Youth Artist: Young Marble Giants Release Date: 1980 Young Marble Giants were a short-lived band from Cardiff Wales with a post-punk vision that stood in stark contrast to the prevailing sound of the early '80s "new wave" movement in the UK. I purchased their first and only album, Colossal Youth based on the brand name credibility of their label, Rough Trade Records.  Photo: Rough Trade Record Shop Rough Trade began as a retail record shop founded by Geoff Travis in West London in 1976. In 1978 Travis began issuing 45 rpm singles on the Rough Trade label including reggae artist Augustus Pablo, and the debut singles by the Irish punk band Stiff Little Fingers and the Sheffield based electronic music group Cabaret Voltaire. In 1979, Rough Trade created a splash with the release of Live At the Witch Trials, the debut album of the Fall, a Manchester band led by the eccentric vocalist Mark E. Smith. Early in 1980, Rough Trade released Crazy Rhythms the stunning debut album of the New Jersey based garage band the Feelies. I still remember purchasing Colossal Youth at my local punk record store, Newbury Comics in Boston and my first impressions when I came across the album in the "New Artists" bin at the store. I loved the black & white cinéma vérité influenced cover art of Colossal Youth, but I purchased the album (without hearing it) on the strength of Rough Trade's reputation for releasing music by highly innovative artists. Nearly every album release by Rough Trade in 1980 was bold and innovative. Rough Trade was the earliest indie label of the post punk era. For the sake of accuracy I should add that the venerable post punk label Factory Records was also formed in the same year (1978), up north in Manchester England. However, Rough Trade issued it's first single just a couple of weeks before Factory Records. The Rough Trade label was the epitome of "post-punk", a term first used by music critic Greil Marcus to describe the incendiary Leeds based band, Gang of Four.  Photo: Young Marble Giants The music on Colossal Youth came as a complete surprise to me upon first hearing it. Young Marble Giants didn't even play rock music. Instead of a drummer, the Young Marble Giants used electronic drumbeats played on low tech homemade synthesizer attached to a brief case containing a box of circuitry and several knobs and dials. The drum machine gadget sounded very similar to Brian Eno's earliest low tech synth experiments with Roxy Music. There really wasn't a genre or existing musical category in the early Eighties to file the music of Young Marble Giants under. The Young Marble Giants had a musical vision that was completely outside of rock music framework. Even the most experimental post punk groups like Gang of Four, the Mekons, Joy Division and the Fall maintained rock music as the basic framework for their avant garde musical adventures. The Young Marble Giants' music was dark and minimalist, not unlike some of the quieter and more introspective music of the Velvet Underground. The only two instrumentalists in YMG were two brothers: Stuart Moxham played choppy rhythm guitar phrases on a Richenbacker guitar and wrote most of the music. Phillip Moxham played bass in a manner that was influenced by the dub reggae sounds of Robbie Shakespeare and the juggernaut bass lines of PIL's Jah Wobble. The focal point of YMG was female vocalist Alison Statton. Allison had a winsome, waif-like voice. Allison intoned the lyrics in a cool and detached manner that floated over the musical mix. Her understated vocal phrasing became widely imitated by many female vocalists, most notably Beth Gibbons of Portishead. The songs expressed an antipathy toward the consumer society and capitalism in general. The opening cut on Colossal Youth, Searching For Mr. Right shows how radically different Colossal Youth was from the crop of bands associated with the emerging post-punk scene in Great Britain in the early '80s. Searching For Mr. Right Searching for Mr Right Waiting up half the night Feeling like I'll be dead Before I'm old Teaching myself to be The Young Untold How can I hope to be Someone for you to see? Blind as the Fate decrees I will go on Teaching myself to be The Young Untold Am I in vain tonight? Lose you against the light Who can you be Mr Right? Young Marble Giants had a deeply cynical post modern view of traditional romantic relationships. The lyrics of Searching For Mr. Right completely reject the power imbalance in male/female relationship. Alison expresses her own frustration with having to play the role of the "young untold" girl who has to play dumb in order to attract the attention of a male. Another song Include Me Out is an angry outcry against consumerism directed at a former romantic partner. Include Me Out Re-arranging the atoms in my hairdo Gets me thinking 'bout good times I had with you Back in the Sixties when love was free Never need to worry bout my G.C.E. * Dying of boredom in your plastic home Pretty the pictures, work to the bone Don't be depressed, you can just pick up the phone But it won't answer 'cos there's no-one home Count your possessions out one by one Include your lovers, include the one You threw away in nineteen sixty three Include me out, don't label me * (footnote)= G.C.E. is the General Certificate of Education issued in the UK to advanced level students as a pre-requisite to attend colleges of higher education. Music For Evenings is another existential polemic against the notion of romantic love in which Ms. Statton tells her romantic pursuer how boring he is and to stop coming around her with his wallet. Strong words indeed. Music For Evenings I don't need you to love me I don't need you to care Take your body from by me Be yourself over there Though you think you adore me Secretly you just bore me When I'm thinking of something You always come up nothing Now I'm not a neurotic Or my business psychotic And my only excuse is: Everything comes from chaos Keep your music for evenings And your coffee for callers Say goodbye to your freedom Don't come here with your wallet I saw Young Marble Giants in concert on their first and only American tour at Hurrah's in New York. They played faithful renditions of the songs on Colossal Youth and were well received at the notoriously rowdy punk club. About 50% of the audience didn't quite know what to make of the strange ensemble of three musicians who played a set of quietly hypnotic music that was unlike any music they'd ever heard before. I was sad to read in NME that Young Marble Giants had called it quits shortly after their American tour ended. But I'll always have the sublime Colossal Youth to remember how they enchanted me with their authentic Bohemian attitudes in the summer of 1980.
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There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff. Townes Van Zandt Last edited by Gavin B.; 06-26-2013 at 07:39 AM. |
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06-27-2013, 04:17 PM
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#43 (permalink) |
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Model Worker
Join Date: Jan 2009
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Lost Album Classics Volume III
 Album Title: East-West Artist: The Paul Butterfield Blues Band Year of Release: 1966 Few white blues players have been able to transcend the traditional notion that blues is a music that is based on the shared experiences of African Americans. Authenticity equals credibility in the minds of most blues enthusiasts. It's a powerful argument; and few white performers have been able perform the blues without inviting comparisons to the original African American blues masters.  Paul Butterfield Paul Butterfield never invited comparisons because he demanded that listeners accept him on his own terms as an artist, and even the old blues masters could not deny Butterfield's prodigious talents and his inspired performances. The Butterfield Blues Band was one of those rare performing ensembles that could leave audiences dumb-founded by the sheer force of charismatic stage performances. Butterfield was "authentic" because he refused to accept the stereotypes of white blues performers and his passion and magnetism changed the rules about who can, and cannot play, authentic blues. Butterfield's harmonica playing was more refined and sophisticated than Sonny Boy Williamson or Little Walter. Buttterfield also had the advantage of amplifying his harmonica with a modern high performance studio microphone which allowed him to modulate the tone and volume of his harmonica. When Butterfield played his turbo-charged version of "Walking Blues", it was pointless to debate the merits the Robert Johnson original, because the Butterfield treatment of "Walking Blues" is so electrifying, that the racial identity of the singer is a moot point. It was almost serendipity that Michael Bloomfield ended up in the same band with Butterfield. There really wasn't room enough in the same band two performers with such monumental talents and unshakable opinions of music. Bloomfield was a Columbia Record Company studio musician and a budding 21 year old guitar prodigy, when the brilliant producer, Jac Holtzman suggested that Bloomfield be added to the band to fill out the band's recording sound. In addition to the Butterfield Blues Band; Holtzman discovered, signed and produced such ground breaking artists as Tim Buckley, the Doors, Love, the Stooges, and MC5 to his Eleckra record label. Elecktra was the leading independently owned rock label of the Sixties. Butterfield reluctantly added Bloomfield to the band and thus began a turbulent partnership in which the two musical wunderkinds fought like a pair of panthers in a bamboo cage. It was the musical rivalry between Butterfield and Bloomfield that generated the high octane stage performances of the Butterfield Blues Band. I've heard demos of the Butterfield Blues Band before Michael Bloomfield was added as guitarist and the improvement in the band's sound with the addition of Bloomfield is striking contrast to the demos.  Michael Bloomfield Bloomfield's musical signature was his tension and release guitar technique: He began with slow knotty phrases building into an almost unbearable tension which he released in a blazing cascade of notes. Bloomfield was a master of feedback sustain, learning those techniques from blues guitarist Albert King. Bloomfield's playing was such a highly stylized pastiche of jazz, blues, and world music that only a musical scholar could discern the diverse sources his guitar techniques. In a musical age that produced guitar gods like Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Jerry Garcia, Carlos Santana, Duane Allman and Johnny Winter, Bloomfield was arguably those most technically proficient and emotionally explosive guitar player of his generation. Bloomfield's career was cut short by his prodigious consumption of heroin. By the end of the Sixties, Bloomfield refused to travel outside of San Francisco (where he procured his drugs) to record or tour. Over the next 10 years he recorded a few uninspired solo albums and was written off by the music industry and his fans as a hopeless junkie. Bloomfield was found dead of a drug overdose in his car on February 15, 1981. Shortly after joining the Butterfield Band in 1965, Bloomfield began writing experimental compositions using Eastern musical modalities that were radically different from the familiar major-minor tonal system of Western music. Late in 1965, Bloomfield presented a piece to the band that he had been working on for well over a year which he titled East-West. There was no precedent for the composition. It was a jazz piece, in the sense that Bloomfield's constructed themes were jump-off points for long improvisational solos by members of the Butterfield Blues Band. What was unprecedented about East-West was the dizzying array of musical styles encompassing blues, jazz, samba and other exotic musical themes. The center piece of tension was a blues themed jam that segued into an eastern influenced Indian raga jam where Bloomfield manipulated the tone his Les Paul guitar and used feedback sustain to imitate the sound of a sitar. East-West broke open a whole new musical space that was previously occupied by nothingness . East-West was arguably the first recorded psychedelic jam and influenced countless rock musicians to test their own improvisational skills. A year later, in 1967 dozens of bands like Cream, the Jimi Hendrix Experience and the Grateful Dead were performing their own epic improvisational jams inspired by the psychedelic sounds of East-West. 46 years later East-West has endured as a musical milestone in pop music. After 1966, Butterfield and Bloomfield parted ways but both stuck pretty close to their blues roots. Each musician recorded a few songs that fused blues with psychedelic music... but none of those songs had the universal impact of East-West.
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There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff. Townes Van Zandt Last edited by Gavin B.; 06-27-2013 at 08:01 PM. |
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06-29-2013, 09:22 AM
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#44 (permalink) |
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Model Worker
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Seldom-Told Tales of Rock & Roll
Electric Ladyland Album Cover Controversy Seldom-Told Tales of Rock and Roll will be a periodical feature of my Warehouse of Music journal. Each seldom-told tale will feature a back story about a notable artist that few people have previously heard. Over the years, I've accumulated dozens of these stories and I've fact checked all my available sources to confirm the validity of each story. We kick off the Seldom Told Tales with the story of the 1968 controversy over the album cover art for the third and final studio recording of the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Electric Ladyland. The original cover for Electric Ladyland on Jimi Hendrix's UK label Polydor was the god-awful photo of 9 naked ladies photographed against a black back-drop. Moderator cut: image removed Electric Ladyland cover for UK release Jimi despised the cover and rightfully so... over the years the " 9 naked ladies" cover art for Electric Ladyland was a perennial selection on several "all time worst album cover" lists. In the United States, Hendrix's label Reprise Records nixed the Polydor cover simply on the grounds of nudity. It was the year 1968, the United States was still prudish and record stores in many communties were required to sell any albums with "adult" covers under the counter. Selling Electric Ladyland as an under the counter item would have large negative impact on sales in the United States. The worst case scenario was any group of self appointed guardians of the morality could file lawsuit and get a restraining order to get Electric Ladyland in banned from retail stores as "obscene." John and Yoko's album Two Virgins was banned in many communities for the cover art nudity and the first three albums by the Fugs were also banned in many communities for the sexually graphic nature of some of the songs. The highly anticipated double album promised to be the first Hendrix album to accomplish blockbuster chart sales in the United States. Ever mindful of the bottom line, Reprise didn't want to jeopardize the sales of Electric Ladyland with a controversial album cover. Instead of the 9 naked ladies UK album cover, Reprise decided to use a blurry red and yellow headshot of Hendrix photographed by Karl Ferris as the album cover for American issue of Electric Ladyland. The Ferris cover is shown below.  Electric Ladyland cover for United States release As it turns out Jimi didn't like the Ferris cover on the American edition either. In fact, Jimi had sent letters to both Reprise and Polydor records telling them exactly what he wanted for the Electric Ladyland album cover. He expressly asked for a color photo taken by Linda Eastman (the future Mrs. Paul McCartney) of Jimi and the group sitting with children on a sculpture from Alice in Wonderland in Central Park, NY. Both labels ignored Jimi's proposed album cover, which is shown below:  Electric Ladyland cover proposed by Jimi Hendrix In the early Nineties when the family of Jimi Hendrix gained control of the Hendrix estate after a long court battle with Jimi's record labels and music publishers. The Hendrix estate dropped the "9 naked ladies" original UK album cover and designated the Karl Ferris photo as the "official" album cover for all future Electric Ladyland releases, worldwide. But what about the perfectly charming Linda Eastman photo that Jimi fought so hard to have as the official Electric Ladyland album cover? I'd certainly buy a vinyl issue edition of with the Eastman photo as the cover, even though I own both the original vinyl 1968 American edition and the brilliantly rendered 1997 remastered edition of Electric Ladyland on compact disc. A second, even more consequential artistic dispute about Electric Ladyland erupted in the final production stages. Upon completion of the final mix of the album, a studio technician erroneously mislabeled the master tapes "Electric Landlady." The clueless record company executives went with the mislabeled title and nearly released the album as Electric Landlady until Hendrix threw an 11th hour tantrum and managed to correct the mistake before hundreds of thousands of copies were pressed with the wrong album title.
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There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff. Townes Van Zandt Last edited by Gavin B.; 06-29-2013 at 03:21 PM. |
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07-02-2013, 12:23 PM
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#45 (permalink) |
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Model Worker
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Lost Album Classics Volume IV
 Title: Gun Shy Artist: The Screaming Blue Messiahs Release Date: 1986 1986 marked the end of an era for me. In January 1986, the two remaining members of the Clash, Joe Strummer and Paul Simonon announced the Clash was calling it quits after a decade in the vanguard of both the punk and post-punk music movements. By 1986, many of my favorite bands like Gang of Four, Mission of Burma, Blondie, the Specials, the Beat, Devo, the Talking Heads and Stiff Little Fingers had either pulled the plug or were in the final stages of disintegration. Madonna and Michael Jackson had become the most influential artists of the Eighties and MTV became the dominant force in shaping the direction of pop music. One band gave me hope amid the mediocrity of MTV's new world order. The Screaming Blue Messiahs, a London based power trio released it's American debut album, Gun Shy. SBM played a hybrid of punk and pub rock that recalled the glory days of rock and roll. The album opened up with the rockabilly influenced Wild Blue Yonder. Guitarist and vocalist Bill Carter developed a reputation for his high volume energetic live performances. On stage Carter was an imposing figure, suited and booted, bald head dripping sweat, and spitting out the words with venom. Screaming Blue Messiahs toured the United States in 1986 to rave reviews. One American critic wrote, "The Screaming Blue Messiahs play rockabilly from hell and have a strong passion for Americana, cars, motorcycles, guns, airplanes and broadcast evangelism." On the 20 March 1987 edition of the Channel 4 TV show The Tube, David Bowie announced that his favorite band of the moment was The Screaming Blue Messiahs. An avid fan of the group, Bowie repeated his affection of the group on other occasions. What many reviewers missed was the radical political views of the band. Smash the Market Place was a scathing attack on Margaret Thatcher's yuppie vision of Britain. Smash the Market Place was the equal of any of the Clash's incendiary anthems against the evils of Thatcher's predatory capitalism. Unfortunately Bill Carter got sick of the music business and the group broke up in 1989, three short years after Gun Shy was released. Bill Carter's whereabouts have been the subject of frequent speculation, since there's hardly a trace of his existence after that. I may have answer to that "whatever happened to question." In 2002 I wrote a short piece on the Screaming Blue Messiahs for the online edition of the UK music publication Mojo. My article prompted an email from the Screaming Blue Messiah's former manager who gave me an update on Bill Carter. He said Bill was "hiding in plain sight" in London and was the owner and operator of a motorcycle repair shop. He told me Bill Carter's first love has always been fast cars and motor bikes. The former SBM manager told me that Bill was exhausted from having to prepare himself all day ahead of the gig for the sheer emotional and physical onslaught. Bill was sick of coming back from touring and having to sell autographed guitars in order to live. After 1989, Bill Carter burned his bridges and wanted nothing more to do with the music business. Bill is quite content to live anonymously earning a steady income tinkering with motorcycles .
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There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff. Townes Van Zandt |
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07-03-2013, 09:47 AM
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#46 (permalink) |
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Model Worker
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New Album Review
 Album Title: Places Artist: Lou Doillon Release Date: September 3, 2012 Musical Genres: Indie Pop, Folk, French Pop Reviewer Rating: 4 and a half stars out of 5 Lou Doillon's debut album, Places has been out for 10 months but I didn't come across a copy of it until about a week ago because it's release has gone unnoticed in the United States. Lou Doillion is largely unknown in the United States, but she's practically royalty in her native France. Lou's French notoriety comes from being the daughter of the famous French singer/actress Jane Birkin and the acclaimed film director Jacques Doillon. She’s also the half-sister of actress/singer Charlotte Gainsbourg and step-daughter of the late French singer/songwriter Serge Gainsbourg.   Left photo: Lou Doillon circa 2012/ Right photo: Doillon's mother Jane Birkin circa 1972 As evidenced by the photos above, the 30 year old Lou Doillon has an eerie physical resemblance to her famous mother in her prime, four decades earlier. Early on, Lou Doillon avoided a music career feeling she couldn't possibly live up to the expectations created by the musical accomplishments of her mother and step-sister. A big stumbling block was unlike her half sister Charlotte Gainsbourg, she was not the biological daughter of the brilliant master of French pop, Serge Gainsbourg. For most of her twenties, Lou Doillion was a well paid fashion model who was also building the foundation of a career as a film actress. From 1998 until 2012 Doillon appeared as an actress in 19 feature films and two different French television series. After years of playing and writing music privately, Lou gave into encouragement from her mother and friend singer/musician Étienne Daho and decided to record her music. Her first single release, ICU created a stir in Europe. There was a big controversy France because she chose to sing in English unlike her mother and sister-in-law. There's an unwritten taboo in ethnocentric France that forbids native pop artists from singing in English. Doillion was straight forward in her response to the language criticism: " “English has this wonderful capacity to be blurry. In French if I write one sentence you instantly know if you’re talking about a man or a woman, whereas in English you have more freedom.” ICU which opens the album blind-sided me because her music is completely different from mother Jane Birkin and step-sister Charlotte Gainsbourg. She has smoky full bodied mezzo-soprano voice which is a striking contrast to the breathy and delicately ethereal vocal styles of Jane and Charlotte who often sing as if they're whispering in your ear. Lou is also an accomplished songwriter, unlike her notable mother and step sisters, both of whom have admitted their own inability to compose music. Lou has clearly been influenced by a wide variety of female confessional style singer/songwriters like Joni Mitchell, Nico, Hope Sandoval and Tanita Tikaram. Her music has been favorably compared to some of the quieter compositions by the Velvet Underground and she's declared her freedom from the cultural restrictions imposed upon French pop artists that have limited the music Jane Birkin and Charlotte Gainsbourg to an audience of primarily French speaking fans. On Devil or Angel, the second cut on the album, Ms. Doillon expresses her frustration with the duality of romantic relationships. The embedded YouTube performance of Devil or Angel and her cover of the Clash song Should I Stay or Should I Go are a showcase Lou Doillon's strengths as a highly original vocal stylist. The 11 songs on Places add up to the finest debut album I've heard in the past year and Lou Doillon shouldn't worry about the inevitable comparisons to her famous family. Lou Doillon will become a significant artist, on her own terms and has already begun to follow own unique musical path which is far outside of the Gainsbourg/Birkin French pop tradition.
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There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff. Townes Van Zandt |
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07-04-2013, 08:26 AM
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#48 (permalink) | |
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Model Worker
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Quote:
My ears were ringing for three days and after that I started wearing earplugs to live shows to protect my ears against tinnitus. An old friend who used to laugh at me for using earplugs at live shows is now deaf as a stone, but my hearing is still as sharp and as crystal clear as it was in my twenties.
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There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff. Townes Van Zandt |
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07-05-2013, 04:04 PM
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#49 (permalink) | ||
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Model Worker
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Look Back In Anarchy:
The No Wave Story Part I  Entrance to the 8th Street subway station in downtown New York with a Contortions/DNA concert flyer (1978) From the Urban Dictionary: Quote:
Eno convinced Island records to sign on to the project which he titled No New York an anthology of what he termed "no wave" music. All my sources indicate that it was Eno who first introduced the term "No Wave" into the musical vernacular, with his groundbreaking No New York anthology.  Album cover of Eno's No New York anthology No New York was released in the spring of 1978 on on the Island Records susidiary label Antilles Records without any notice on the Billboard charts and generally negative reviews from the mainstream media. Critic Richard C. Walls writing for Creem : Quote:
  Neo-expressionist visual artist John-Michael Basquiat (left) and film director Jim Jarmusch (right) both identified themselves as members of the No Wave movement The size of the No Wave genre was microscopic and centered on a small group of bands who played on the downtown New York rock music scene in the late Seventies and early Eighties. There was an additional component of of downtown based visual artists, performance artists and film makers who embraced the Dadaist style and the nihilistic attitude of No Wave. Film maker Jim Jarmusch and primitivist painter Jean-Michel Basquiat both self identified as members of the No Wave movement. Below is a fairly comprehensive list of bands that were associated with the No Wave movement. A few No Wave bands on my list came to be associated with experimental indie rock after the hey day of No Wave was over. However all the artists on my list were considered No Wave bands when they first appeared on the downtown scene:
Like jazz musicians, No Wave artists frequently jumped from band to band and the entire scene was incestuous. For instance Jody Harris played guitar in four different No Wave bands and Arto Lindsay played in three different No Wave bands. More No Wave in My Next Journal Entry Part II of Look Back In Anarchy: The No Wave Story will include a list of important No Wave albums and reviews of live shows by Contortions, 8 Eyed Spy and the Bush Tetras that I attended in 1979. Those three No Wave shows were among the earliest live music shows I attended when I moved to the East Coast in late 1978.
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There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff. Townes Van Zandt Last edited by Gavin B.; 07-07-2013 at 09:16 PM. |
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07-06-2013, 12:06 PM
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#50 (permalink) |
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Nick Cave Falls Off Stage In Iceland
Nick Cave fell off a stage in Iceland while performing last week. As he was singing, Cave abruptly turns and falls off the narrow runway, feet first. The band keeps on playing for a nearly a minute without Cave and suddenly Cave returns to the stage apparently unhurt. He goes on like a real trooper for a rousing finish to the song. Those Aussies are tough as nails! The fall occurs at 8:44 on the YouTube video. Thanks to Þorgeir Ragnarsson who captured the fall on camera.
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There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff. Townes Van Zandt Last edited by Gavin B.; 07-06-2013 at 04:13 PM. |
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Linear Mode
