This is an interesting addition to the Bootleg Series from the much maligned Self Portrait period. I always thought there was more to it than many critics allowed.Time for a reappraisal!
This is a tricky one. I’ve never been that impressed with ‘best of’ lists but I found myself sitting in a hotel room listening to music on my phone and I began thinking about what my favourite (and most influential) albums of all-time were. I say influential because, as some of you know, I am a musician and song-writer who has followed in the footsteps of numerous greats. It’s a hard choice but here’s my favourite 10. I’ve limited myself to two albums by the same artist or else they would probably be all by Bob Dylan ! I also realise, having completed the list, that, with the exception of the first 5, the rest are in no particular order. I’m also aware that there are countless others that could, and probably should, be included. Alright, it’s a stupid idea but here it is!
Okay, what can I say about this album apart from the fact that it is probably the most inspired piece of work I have EVER heard (notice the Dylanesque emphasis) and I’m not just talking about music! I have read reports about the session and all participants agree that something very special happened here. It contains, in my opinion, the greatest rock song of all time “Like a Rolling Stone” but this is not really the essence of the album. It stands apart and, indeed, was produced by a different person from the rest of the record. The remainder contains Dylan at his most aggressive and elusive best. The most interesting song, again in my opinion, is Desolation Row, a surreal trawl through 20th Century culture and ideas. “Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot fighting in the captain’s tower, while calypso singers laugh at them and fishermen hold flowers”. This isn’t just poetry and music it is an assault on the senses and intellect! “The Agents” and “The Superhuman Crew” check to see that no one is escaping to Desolation Row. The famous voice that people either love or hate is at it’s expressive best. Like many albums on my list this one is unique. There was nothing like it before and there’s been nothing like it since. Even the titles of the songs were a new departure with weird names like “Queen Jane Approximately”, “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues” and “Ballad of a Thin Man” that seemed to have nothing to do with the lyrics of the songs but probably did have. Pop music had found Symbolist poetry and the kids loved it!! (Well, this one did). It stands alone and sounds forever modern and archaic at the same time. Dylan himself has said that he had no idea how he wrote the songs and wouldn’t be able to do them now. The musicianship is impeccable especially the electric guitar playing of Mike Bloomfield and the acoustic lead of Charlie McCoy imported especially from Nashville for just one track!
If Bob Dylan in the mid sixties was on an amphetamine fueled creative voyage into oblivion Leonard Cohen was on a quietly mannered journey back from it. This album emerged in 1968 and gradually became a bedsit legend as many sad young men and women took the songs to heart. Okay, it has been called music to slit your wrists to and Cohen’s voice has probably been even less complimented than Dylan’s but to those in the know this is an album of beautifully crafted songs whose underlying message is surprisingly optimistic completely unlike the eternal whinging of say Morrissey and the Smiths who actually DID create music to slit your wrists to. Cohen’s songs deal with ideas that had seldom been dealt with by popular music before. Despair, spirituality, sexual love and he wrote like a real poet which of course is what he was. He was also a well known novelist before he became a singer and a songwriter. A very different pedigree to most of the pop singers and rock and rollers at the time. He was a remarkable performer though and managed to follow Jimi Hendrix at 4 in the morning at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival and still get a standing ovation. Producer Bob Johnson was so impressed with him that he gave up producing and joined his band as a keyboardist. This was his first album and contains classics like “Suzanne” and “Hey That’s No Way to Say Goodbye”. My favourite is “The Stranger Song” that manages to evoke feelings of loss, alienation and redemption. ” And then sweeping up the jokers that he left behind you find he did not leave you very much not even laughter. Like any dealer he was watching for the card that is so high and wild he’ll never need to deal another.He was just some Joseph looking for a manger”. It also has his trade mark guitar ripple which is quite difficult to do. The perfect song for existentialists.
The Warhol Banana cover is more well known but this was the original cover in the UK. The record label is wrong. It should be black.
If Leonard Cohen was the poet laureate of despair and alienation the Velvet Underground were like a sound track to the heroin drenched ravings of William Burroughs in “The Naked Lunch”. Here we have tracks like “Heroin”, “The Black Angel’s Death Song” and “Waiting for the Man” complete with drones and excruciating feed back. This is like the antithesis of pop music, both disturbed and deranged. Not surprisingly it was neither played on the radio nor bought in any quantity by the general public at the time. It has since of course been cited as one of the greatest records of all time and was a massive influence on punk rock. Famously produced by Andy Warhol (or should that be non-produced as he knew nothing about music or record production!) it also contained some sweet ballads dealing with wholesome events like “All Tomorrow’s Parties”, “Femme Fatale” and “Venus in Furs” that reference both mental insecurity and sado-masochistic sex. Not your typical pop song.! This is a truly adorable record that managed to both scare and make me smile. Lou Reed thinks that if it had NOT been produced by Warhol it might have sold a lot more as he was so universally detested at the time (Warhol that is. Lou Reed has only become detested more recently!) and his name on the record put people off. On the other hand it would never have been released as it is without his influence. Some PROPER record producer would have cleaned it up and totally ruined it.
You may wonder why this record by the Doors is so high up the chart and not their dazzling first LP. Well, the answer is simple. Apart from a couple of singles like “Light My Fire” I missed the first one and went straight into “Strange Days” which I think is absolutely brilliant. The sound of the Doors is wonderful and the quality of Jim Morrison’s voice is just perfect. He described it as “sick crooning” as he had based it on the sound of Frank Sinatra. Mind you, he doesn’t sound much like Frank when he bellows out “Cancel my subscription to the Resurrection!!” He was a great lyricist who raided the poems of William Blake and created something new. The final song “When the Music’s Over” is monumental and gives the impression of spontaneity and improvisation. Morrison introduced performance poetry to pop music and created the way for great artists like Patti Smith. I just love the line “Before I sink into the big sleep, I want to hear the scream of the butterfly”. It has been said by some critics that this album is not as good as the first and they used up all their best songs on that one. I disagree, I think this is just as good and,in my mind, perhaps even better. Mind you, I also love “Waiting for the Sun” and even the song “Hello, I Love You” which attracted some derision at the time because it was seen as cynically commercial (and plagiarised The Kinks)! I guess the Doors can do no wrong for me!
In a similar way that I missed the first Doors album I also missed “Rubber Soul” by the Beatles. If I hadn’t have done it would probably have been my favourite Beatles record. As it is, I didn’t listen to it in it’s entirety until years later! However, “Revolver” still stands up as the most ambitious Beatles record until that date. “Sgt. Pepper” is probably more ambitious but it is not as interesting, in my opinion, with the exception perhaps of “Day in the Life”. “Revolver” totally knocked my socks off. From the opening count-in of “Taxman” to the wailing drones of “Tomorrow Never Knows” I was captivated. This was music I had never heard before and I loved it! It also had the first real use of Indian music. Sure, George had used the sitar on “Rubber Soul” but here we have a full Indian ensemble including tabla with George crooning mystically over the top of it. Totally brilliant!! There is also the first use of experimentation with the recording of reverse guitar tracks and tape loops. The Beatles are growing up and trying new things! This record probably has the Beatles playing together at their best. George’s lead guitar playing has improved and changed considerably. Ringo’s drumming has never been better. John and Paul’s voices are perfectly matched. It is interesting that in the same year that they gave up playing live they produced their tightest recordings ever. Songs like “And Your Bird Can Sing” and “She Said, She Said” are miniature gems of great writing and playing. Oh, and the sleeve’s pretty cool as well!
Well, I spent Wednesday to Friday last week in Liverpool staying with my old school friend Nev, and what a fascinating place it is. Apart from visiting theInternational Slavery Museum for a short time several years back it is the first time I’ve been in the city. I don’t know why really. What with the Beatles and the sea and the docks and the culture I should have been there lots of times, but I haven’t. Time to make up for it now!
First impressions were good. Nev picked me up from the station and took me back to his house where I settled in pretty quickly. We then went to the Casbah Coffee Club which according to Trip Adviseris the number one attraction in Liverpool. This may come as a surprise to many Liverpudlians who have never heard of it!
Casbah Coffee Club
It was not that easy to find and it looked like it was closed but we finally managed to attract someone’s attention! Roag Best, the brother of Pete who was the original drummer of the Beatles, gave us a highly entertaining tour of the club which closed in 1962 but is remarkably well-preserved. It is where the Beatles first played and many of the paintings and decorations were done by them. A truly remarkable place.
An early picture of the Beatles at the Casbah Club. Not enough room to swing a cat!
As the Beatles got more popular a bigger stage was built with security rails!
Ceiling decorated by John Lennon. Fake Egyptian style!
It is amazing the amount of interest the Beatles attract worldwide. They truly were a phenomenon and fifty years later they are even more popular than they were then! It’s almost unbelievable.
Anyway, I bought a tee-shirt from the Casbah and went back to Nev’s where Francine cooked a fantastic pasta dish. Mmm, delicious. The rhubarb crumble was also pretty fantastic! Here’s a picture of the table with fruit.
Table with fruit. Very colourful!
That night we all went out to discover the live music scene. First stop was the open mic at Bier bar. It was busy with a mainly young crowd. Nice atmosphere and I did three songs early on that went down pretty well AND I got a free beer. Jolly good!
View out the window of Bier bar.
We then went to another bar Osqa’s Arena Bar where the Everyman Folk Clubmeets. This is a club that has been running for years with a mainly older crowd. The music and singing were really good and I did two songs there. Very enjoyable.
Next day we went to town on the bus and had a look round town and saw an interesting exhibition of Beatles photographs (you can’t get away from them!) and had a fantastic trip on theMersey ferry. There are some amazing views of Liverpool from the ferry reminiscent in some ways of the New York skyline.
Liverpool from the ferry
A bit like New York from the Hudson!
That night I hit town on my own and went first to the open mic at the Lomax. I walked pastMathew Street on the way and had a look outside the Cavern but I didn’t go in. Seemed a bit commercial and by now I was suffering from Beatles overkill! The Lomax is a live music club that reminds me of the Shed in Leicester. The open mic was in a basement with live groups upstairs. There weren’t many in but I had a good time and got a free drink. The life of a star!! I then crossed town and went to Pogue Mahone. This was pretty good until it got invaded by a student pub crawl. Ended up doing loads of Irish singalongs which was fun but not what I was really looking for!
Pogue Mahone pub.
Pogue Mahone open mic
Next day I booked a guided tour with Eric Lynch of the Liverpool Slavery Trail. This was both fascinating and disturbing. He made it quite clear about the importance of the slave trade to Liverpool and how many of the landmarks referred to it. Slavery is a very emotive subject. It’s hard to be objective about something that is so abhorrent and inhumane. Eric Lynch often used the phrase “arrogance of power” in his talk. I know what he means but what came to mind with me was the phrase “banality of evil”.The merchants who were involved in the slave trade just saw things on a business level. All they were bothered about was making a profit. They approached slavery in a similar way to the Nazis exterminating Jews; in an efficient and business- like way. This is what is so terrifying about it! It was a very good tour that I would recommend.
African children holding bags of gold representing the wealth of Africa on a bank building!
Streets named after slave traders. There are many more than this including the famous Bold Street!
Monument at the Exchange showing French prisoners of war. They built Albert Docks one of the main slaving ports. An inscription on it says “England expects that every man will do his duty” a quote from Nelson at the battle of Trafalgar.
Until recently I knew about Marcel Duchamp but not very much. I knew he was an iconoclast who presented a porcelain urinal as a work of art but I had no idea of his profound influence on others like John Cage and Merce Cunningham. Visiting this exhibition at the Barbican changed all that. It is apparent how important Duchamp’s ideas were. In fact, it has filled in quite a few gaps for me.
It is perhaps not suprising to have not seen many of his works in the past. It seems that most of them are in Philadelphia and there aren’t really that many of them. Also, many of his art works were conceptual and the original pieces were lost. It was the idea that was important. This was especially true of his readymades. The famous urinal piece Fountain was presented for exhibition to the Society of Independent Artists exhibit in 1917. “Artworks in the Independent Artists shows were not selected by jury, and all pieces submitted were displayed. However, the show committee insisted that Fountain was not art, and rejected it from the show. This caused an uproar amongst the Dadaists, and led Duchamp to resign from the board of the Independent Artists.”(Wikipedia)
Duchamp Fountain. This is the only known photograph of the original urinal that was lost. Signed by R.Mutt! It was turning it on it’s side and signing it that made it art!
This was the point at which Duchamp rejected retinal (roughly, things you can see) art and developed ideas of “art at the service of the mind.” In fact, he is probably the first conceptual artist. He liked the idea of being an artist but was not so convinced by art.He was a big influence on the Dadaists of the early 20s who rejected mainstream art.
Dada was born out of negative reaction to the horrors of World War I. This international movement was begun by a group of artists and poets associated with the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich. Dada rejected reason and logic, prizing nonsense, irrationality and intuition. The origin of the name Dada is unclear; some believe that it is a nonsensical word. Others maintain that it originates from the Romanian artistsTristan Tzara and Marcel Janco‘s frequent use of the words da, da, meaning yes, yes in the Romanian language. Another theory says that the name “Dada” came during a meeting of the group when a paper knife stuck into a French-German dictionary happened to point to ‘dada’, a French word for ‘hobbyhorse’.(Dona Budd “The Language of Art Knowledge”)
This exhibition deals with Duchamp’s ideas but also looks at his influence on other artists particularly John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. As I found earlier on this year he was also a big influence on Richard Hamilton who created his own picture of Nude Descending a Staircase which you can see in a previous post. The Nude by Duchamp was painted at a time when he was influenced by both Cubism and Futurism and he tries to convey movement in the picture which I think he succeeds in. The Hamilton picture on the other hand seems very static. Was that intentional?
Hamilton’s version of Duchamp
John Cage is someone I know a lot more about. Like Duchamp and other members of the American avant garde in the 1940s and 50s he was often seen as a dilettante, a kind of fool but after the publication of his book Silence in the early 1960s opinion of him radically changed and he is now seen as one of the most important composers of the 20th Century. Yes, he is the composer of the infamous 4’33” that so many have heard of but so few have actually heard. It consists of silence in three parts. Of course, he used it to prove there was no such thing as silence. He was influenced by Duchamp but his readymades were found sounds. He put forward the theory that all sound is and can be music. He also introduced chance into his compositions by using the I Ching (a Chinese divination book of wisdom) and other methods. Artist Robert Rauschenberg created paintings that were pure white to show that visual events still happened with shadows, blemishes etc. Choreographer Merce Cunningham created dances in collaboration with Cage and Rauschenberg that used similar chance methods. All of this happened because of the ideas and influence of Duchamp. His position in history is assured.
John Cage score for Strings 20 created by dropping ink stained pieces of string on to a page.
White Painting by Robert Rauschenberg
The exhibition was fascinating and definitely worth visiting. There is music playing and the recorded sounds of dancers (and sometimes real dancers). There is a strange kind of peacefulness in the air, probably helped by the fact the gallery wasn’t that full when I was there! It raises and in some ways answers the question “what is art for?”. On the other hand the pieces are still displayed in a pristine white gallery and they are still worth millions of dollars to collectors. It’s ironic that 50 years after Duchamp questioned Art and announced the readymade that Andy Warhol could take a Brillo box or a soup can and call it art and it now sells for tens of thousands of dollars. Either someone didn’t get the joke or they never really understood what was being said in the first place. And in the post modern world of Damian Hirst and Tracey Emin there is no longer even any irony in it.
Duchamp with his bicycle wheel mounted on a stool. Apparently this was never exhibited. He liked having it in his studio and spin the wheel round!
Jasper Johns Figure 8. Creating art from the mundane!
Bowie Mania has come to town – and I like it. Record advance ticket sales (an astounding 47 thousand) for the V&A’s exhibition and a number one album highlight this 66-year old superstar’s enduring appeal. From the Ziggy Stardust neon flash in the foyer, to the floor-to-ceiling surround-sound Bowie Fest in the penultimate room, this exhibition documents the artist’s life, sound and vision-style. And if there’s one artist who’s life is worth documenting in a world-class museum, here he is. Stereo headphones for the soundtrack – thankfully there’s no Tin Machine – and banks of video screens for the Man Who Fell To Earth visuals, immerse visitors in the World of Bowie.
More than 300 objects from His Majesty’s personal archive – wonky handwritten lyrics, naive sketches, even a crumpled up tissue with Bowie’s lipstick on it (much redder than you’d imagine) – are on show for the first time. I’m not a fan of blockbuster shows, Art Rage is something I can live without, but it was worth being jostled by journalists and clobbered by cameramen at this exclusive preview. I loved seeing the stage costumes, over 60 of them – the teeny tiny waisted, pale blue suit from his Life On Mars video, the Aladdin Sane knitted all-in-one, designer gear from McQueen, Mugler and Slimane – plus photos and videos of the artist’s many guises, are a reminder of Bowie’s radical individualism and his massive influence on fashion, style and popular culture. Not that we ever needed one.
Towards the end of the show there’s a ‘David Bowie is all around you’ installation, highlighting his impact on musicians/artists/fashion designers/Tilda Swinton, and The Periodic Table of Bowie by Paul Robertson (poster available in the museum shop).
As the Jon Savage quote goes, ‘David Bowie has lasted. To the public he is beyond a pop star.’
And now I’m off for a lie down. I’ll be dreaming of BBC2’s feature length profile on Bowie scheduled for May.
I particularly like this song because it references places I know in Berlin and has such an atmosphere of longing and even dread. An example is that Pottsdammer Platz was a bleak ‘no mans land’ in the 70s. This is a very touching song about something more than nostalgia.
I went to see the movie Zero Dark Thirty last week and it made me think a lot. All I knew before I went was that it was about the search for Bin Laden and was nominated for several Oscars (which it didn’t get apart from an award for sound editing shared with Skyfall). Mind you, before the award ceremony the film was mired in controversy and even managed to unite Democrats and Republicans against it (although for different reasons).
I didn’t realise any of this until after I’d seen it but I can say I was pretty shocked by what I saw. I found the depiction of torture at the beginning of the film deeply shocking but as the main character, Maya, also appears very uncomfortable with it I assumed that it was something of an exposé and taking a moral position against the use of torture. As the film progresses this is not at all certain. Maya seems to get use to the idea of it and it continues unabated until President Obama is seen speaking against it’s use on a TV in the background. We then move into more “conventional” areas of intelligence.
To be fair, this has been talked about a lot and there is a Guardian review that fits quite closely to my view of the film:
The film purports to be based on truth i.e. it is a docudrama or a dramatized documentary. It has been said that the American government released classified information to help the film makers and real footage and sound has been used. In a very effective sound montage of the events of 9/11 at the beginning of the film real phone calls and other live recordings are used without the participants approval or permission. The main character, Maya, is a composite character to help the film’s narrative. It meant she was often in places that she couldn’t have been to give the film coherence.
Here is a report from Jon Boone of the Guardian about inaccuracies in the film:
Although it was described by Bigelow as a “reported film”, Zero Dark Thirty offers a feast for fact-checkers. Inaccuracies abound, largely due to the need to compress the decade-long hunt, create composite characters and make the whole thing work as a piece of drama.
A single character, Maya, is used to carry the film. She is portrayed as a lone voice challenging the CIA’s bureaucratic inertia after Bin Laden trail goes cold and she is placed at the centre of the action. She is shown dining in a poor imitation of Islamabad’s Marriott hotel even though it was blown up in 2008. Her car is attacked by gunmen as she drives out of her house – something that has happened more than once to US government employees in Peshawar, but not to anyone’s knowledge in Islamabad.
One of the CIA’s overseas “black sites” used for interrogating members of al-Qaida is shown in Pakistan itself, presumably to place Maya in both the torture scenes and where the action was in the CIA’s Islamabad station.
Her character appears to be based on a real CIA agent named as Jen in an account of the Bin Laden raid written by former Navy Seal Matt Bissonnette. But Peter Bergen, a journalist and author who has researched Bin Laden more deeply than anyone else, claims the CIA officer who worked on the search for eight years up until his death and was convinced he was hiding in the Abbottabad compound was actually a man.
In December the acting director of CIA went public to criticise the film for taking “significant artistic licence, while portraying itself as being historically accurate”.
The film, which claims to be based on “firsthand accounts of actual events” adds tantalising and colourful details that build on what has been reported elsewhere.
But it’s hard to know what to believe when the film makes an astonishing error in portraying one of the gambits used to try and identify whether Bin Laden was hiding in Abbottabad. A controversial hepatitis B vaccination programme run on behalf of the CIA in the town in an attempt to get hold of Bin Laden family DNA is clearly shown as an anti-polio campaign. It’s a truly sloppy mistake given how widely reported the incident was.
And it’s also potentially dangerous. The scandal of the CIA using aid workers as cover for operations has helped to inflame deep mistrust in Pakistan’s tribal areas towards vaccination programmes. Two Taliban commanders have banned polio eradication from their areas of control. In December, six polio vaccinators were murdered by gunmen while going about their work.
Another curious departure from the truth, likely only to be noticed in Pakistan, is the decision to rename the CIA’s station chief in Islamabad who, as accurately depicted in the movie, has to leave the country after anti-drone campaigners blew his cover by naming him in a court action.
For some reason the film-makers name the character Joseph Bradley,not the real-life Jonathan Banks whose name is now irretrievably all over the internet. Could this be some small (but pointless) quid pro quo for the access Boal was granted to CIA officers and White House officials? Or just artistic licence? (Guardian 27th Jan)
However, what really annoys me about this film is the uncritical attitude to the C.I.A. and also the assumption that spending 10 years to capture or assassinate Bin Laden was somehow a worthwhile activity. If it was revenge for 9/11, which certainly was the position George Bush took in his War Against Terror, then I think it’s misplaced. 9/11 produced a wave of sympathy for America from around the World that could have been used to start creating a better and more understanding environment for change. Instead it was squandered in the development of military power and selfish, short term profit and aims. Perhaps the most disturbing fact in this film was when C.I.A analysts assessed that the chances of Bin Laden actually being in the secure compound were less than the possibility of WMDs being in Iraq, and we all know how many of them there were.
The final sequence was extremely well filmed and was quite gripping. However, it showed women and children being traumatised, men and women being shot and when they eventually kill Bin Laden they’re not even sure it’s him. They are frantically sending photos taken with their phones back to base and trying to get the children to say who he is! Well, what if it hadn’t of been him!! What then!! There are plenty of conspiracy theories floating around the internet that say it wasn’t him. In the meantime they managed to blow a helicopter up and all this was counted as a success! Really??
No, this wasn’t a film that left a good taste in my mouth!
This is a poem/song I wrote in 2005. It was inspired by the name and the view of a restaurant on the island of Skiathos in Greece. I was trying to connect with the space between consciousness and sleep, that space when thoughts drift without any idea of rationality, when words just connect with each other and everything makes sense! I composed a backing that I recently rediscovered and will record it again!
The first time that I saw you
I was dressed in black.
The last time that I saw you
You said you won’t be back.
Oh Infinity Blue
There were times
When I thought I could be with you
To be a real lover
And always be true.
Oh Infinity Blue
The angels came down once
And they spoke to me.
They gave me a message
That would set me free.
Oh Infinity Blue
The sun it was setting
It set in the east.
And somewhere inside me
It unleashed the beast.
Oh Infinity Blue
I walked through the centre line
Of what’s right and wrong.
And I tried to find freedom
In the words of a song!
Oh Infinity Blue
The words they controlled me
They forced me to stand.
When I was lost at sea
They showed me the land.
Oh Infinity Blue
And as I was waiting
For wisdom to come.
The words came and showed me
The warmth of the Sun.
Oh Infinity Blue
Between what is lost
And what cannot be
The words are like diamonds,
The words set you free.
Oh Infinity Blue
I was looking for mercy
I was looking for love
The words they came to me
Like a snowy white dove.
Oh Infinity Blue
I looked in your eyes
And I found mystery
And love, peace and mercy
Was our destiny!
Kenny Wilson's Blog 