Tuesday, 17 January 2012
Nick Tosches: A baby wolf with neon bones (Patti Smith interview 'Penthouse' April 1976)
Patricia Lee Smith hit the linen on December 30, 1946, in Chicago, and was raised, the eldest of four children, in Deptford Township, New Jersey. She had been slapped about by tuberculosis; she was a frail-seeming punkling, skinny and daydreamy. She attended Glassboro State College, briefly, and tried doing piecework at a toy factory. Both made her carsick. In 1967 she came to New York. From there she went to Paris with her sister Linda. She wanted to be an artist, but her drawing became poems. She returned to New Jersey, then to New York, where she slowly but steadily became arch moll of rhythm'd word.
Patti coauthored a book with playwright Sam Shepard, Mad Dog Blues & Other Plays. She appeared in a film, Robert Mapplethorpe Gets His Nipple Pierced. Late in 1971, Telegraph Books published her first volume of poems, Seventh Heaven, which she dedicated to Mickey Spillane and Anita Pallenberg. She began to publish prose-poem essays about rock 'n' roll in such magazines as Rolling Stone and CREEM. A second book of poems, Kodak, appeared in 1972. By the time Gotham Book Mart published her Witt in 1973, Patti had become a legend on the New York poetry circuit. She was feared, revered, and her public readings elicited the sort of gut response that had been alien to poetry for more than a few decades. Word spread, and people who avoided poetry as the stuff of four-eyed pedants found themselves oohing and howling at what came out of Patti's mouth. Established poets feared for their credence. Many well-known poets refused to go on after Patti at a reading, she was that awesome.
The music, too. It had started with just Lenny Kaye on guitar, intuitively the two reinvented melic poetry. The band grew; piano, another guitar, then later drums. Finally, after all those years, rock 'n' roll had a poet.
In early spring on 1974, financed by her friend, artist Robert Mapplethorpe, Patti issued two thousand copies of a record, "Piss Factory" coupled with "Hey, Joe," on the Mer label. The rhythmics were coarse and truculent, the images were alternately raw and aflash with hallucination. In "Hey, Joe" she transmuted a sixties rock classic into an Iliad of subliminal violence that culminated with a fantasy image of Patty Hearst worshipping black revolutionaries in a world ruled by phantom guitars and confused girl-things.
Poetry readings became concerts, audiences grew. Patti spewed forth a mix of sheer rock 'n' roll power and delicately wrought poetry. She sang a Marvelettes song, "The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game," or sometimes Van Morrison's "Gloria," and then, somehow, she was in some ineffable dream-closet:
yum yum the stars are out. I'll never forget you how you smelled that night. like cheddar cheese melting under fluorescent light. like a day old rainbow fish. what a dish. gotta lick my lips. gotta dream I daydream. thorozine brain cloud. rain rain comes coming down.The music ebbed to feedback sounds and low piano:
I'm gonna peep in bo's bodice. lay down darling don't be modest let me slip my hand in. ohhh that's soft that's nice that's not used up. ohh don't cry. wet whats wet? oh that. heh heh. that's just the rain lambie pie. now don't squirm. let me put my rubber on . . .The record companies came to sniff and hedge. Finally, she signed with Arista, and her debut album, Horses, was released late in 1975. Everyone from Rolling Stone to the New York Times showered it with petals. Still, some said, Patti was too weird to sweep the masses. The ever underestimated masses, however, proved otherwise, and Patti and her album rose to the top of the national charts.
This interview was conducted by Nick Tosches in New York City. It begins with the one question with which all interviews should begin...
HERE
(Thanx Stan!)
David Hockney at the RA
Woldgate Woods, East Yorkshire, 2006
Under the Trees, Bigger, 2010-11
A Closer Winter Tunnel, Feb-Mar, 2006
MORE
Shigeru Mizuki: Yokai Monsters
Via
HA!
(Click to enlarge)
Not a driver so I would have missed this otherwise...Via
(Thanx Dangerous Minds!)
Monday, 16 January 2012
Funny that...
Linwood wins 'dismal' town award
As a kid going past the tower of 'dead' Hillman Imps...Linwood has a place in my heart forever!
I'm kidding - of course it doesn't...
REpost: The Life and Crimes of Lenny Bruce
"You almost hear the smoke above the jazz and the jokes. Sad and very funny. And proof that it can be cool to listen to Radio 3?"
So here is Steve's show (MP3).
Via the late, lamented
I was there too...
...but at my usual spot right in front of the left hand PA. Which will explain my tinnitus no doubt...
The Flaming Lips + Bon Iver = ???
- one cabin in the wilderness of Wisconsin
- enough confetti to thoroughly pollute the atmosphere
- all stars that have fallen to the ground
- four CD players
- five skulls
- a pinch or two of Autotune
- jagged vacance, thick with ice
- one giant plastic bubble
- snow
- swarm (herd? pack? gaggle?) of pink robots
Directions:
Stuff all ingredients into the cabin and see what happens. Gather other Lips’ concoctions (with Death Cab For Cutie, Nick Cave, Ghostland Observatory, Yoko Ono, Neon Indian, and maybe with Lykke Li, Erykah Badu, and Ke$ha as well). Let simmer until April (Record Store Day-ish).
Enjoy!
• The Flaming Lips: http://www.flaminglips.com
• Bon Iver: http://boniver.org
Via
Soul Coughing's Mike Doughty on sobriety and life as a solo artist
MORE
(Thanx Dirk!)
(21st 'Holy' Shroud (inna JG Ballard stylee!)
Via
@vaughanbell
(Thanx Keith!)
Sunday, 15 January 2012
PressPausePlay
The digital revolution of the last decade has unleashed creativity and talent in an unprecedented way, with unlimited opportunities.
But does democratized culture mean better art or is true talent instead drowned out? This is the question addressed by PressPausePlay, a documentary film containing interviews with some of the world's most influential creators of the digital era. presspauseplay.com @presspauseplay Facebook: on.fb.me/y4gEK1
But does democratized culture mean better art or is true talent instead drowned out? This is the question addressed by PressPausePlay, a documentary film containing interviews with some of the world's most influential creators of the digital era. presspauseplay.com @presspauseplay Facebook: on.fb.me/y4gEK1
What a tragic wasted opportunity to present a true portrait of the Iron Lady
llustration: David FoldvariLee Ranaldo - Off The Wall
Matthew Shipp On Piano Jazz
At the beginning of the session he tells Marian McPartland, "I like to be felt. If I'm successful ... it hits people on many different levels."
There are many different emotional strands in Shipp's music, and one can hear his roots quite clearly, ranging from his interest in the organ music played at the Episcopal Church of his youth, to the classical lessons he began at age five, the diverse jazz recordings his parents collected (which Shipp started devouring when he was 12) and his studies at the New England Conservatory of Music.
The session features three of Shipp's compositions. He solos on "Module," as well as "Patmos," a tune that paints a very clear scene for McPartland: "I actually get a picture of some people in a forest, walking through the trees." Their duet on "Gamma Ray" is something of a departure from Shipp's often dramatic style, with its playfulness and Thelonius Monk-like angularity.
When Shipp plays the standards he offers startling revelations. "Angel Eyes" expands with thick chords and rumbling arpeggios, creating dramatic tension and release. He inspires McPartland to take a page from his notebook when she plays Duke Ellington's "Warm Valley," her solid left hand often providing counterpoint to the melodic inventions she hangs on what Shipp calls Ellington's "rock-solid backbone."
McPartland's "Portrait of Matthew" also incorporates some of Shipp's style, painting a complex and thoughtful portrait of him. Afterwards, she tells him, "It's inspiring to hear someone like you play, because it does make me sort of think differently."
McPartland and Shipp play three other duets, including the Gershwin classic "Summertime," which transforms into a classically-inspired fantasia, as well as John Coltrane's "Naima." They close with an inspired "C-Jam Blues," an almost baroque, bluesy fugue that alternately walks, skips, strolls and struts.
Originally recorded March 7, 2006.
Alfred Turner @'npr'
Listen Now
Architeuthis Rex - Spacemetal #1
From "Urania" (Utech, 2011)
Video excerpts from "Cosmos War of the Planets" by Alfonso Brescia (1977)
Montage by Crisne
Video excerpts from "Cosmos War of the Planets" by Alfonso Brescia (1977)
Montage by Crisne
India: obscene pics of gods require massive human censorship of Google, Facebook
It's hardly the sort of Internet policy statement one hopes to hear from judges in major democracies. "Like China, we can block all such websites [who don't comply]," Justice Suresh Cait told Facebook and Google lawyers in India yesterday. "But let us not go to that situation."
No, let's not. But it's what the government wants if Internet companies won't start screening and censoring all user-generated material on social network and user-generated content sites. And they'd better do their screening by hand, not with machines.
The New York Times reported last December that India's Telecommunications and Human Resources Development Minister, Kapil Sibal, has been battling hard with Internet companies on pre-emptive screening and censorship.
About six weeks ago, Mr. Sibal called legal representatives from the top Internet service providers and Facebook into his New Delhi office, said one of the executives who was briefed on the meeting.The Internet companies insist that they can't possibly pre-screen everything that goes up. If something truly is illegal under local laws, they are generally willing to take it down when a court rules.
At the meeting, Mr. Sibal showed attendees a Facebook page that maligned the Congress Party’s president, Sonia Gandhi. “This is unacceptable,” he told attendees, the executive said, and he asked them to find a way to monitor what is posted on their sites.
In the second meeting with the same executives in late November, Mr. Sibal told them that he expected them to use human beings to screen content, not technology, the executive said.
The main concern is obscenity (though criticism of government officials appears to touch a sore spot, too); in the current case against Facebook, Google, and others, the obscenity involves pictures of gods, goddesses, and Mohammed.
"At present it's obscene images of Gods and Goddesses, tomorrow it can be an image of someone in your family posted online. There has to be some control," Justice Cait said at yesterday's hearing. He allowed the case against the Internet companies to proceed.
Who's pressing for the court case? A journalist. NDTV has a new interview with him, in which the man presses for quick action. (Note: the actual interview portion is not in English.)
Can we censor dissent while we're at it?
Between January and June 2011, India requested that Google remove 358 bits of content by filing 68 different complaints. One was from Google Maps (for "national security"); almost every other was from YouTube, social network Orkut, and Google's Blogger platform. Almost none came with a court order.
"We received requests from state and local law enforcement agencies to remove YouTube videos that displayed protests against social leaders or used offensive language in reference to religious leaders," Google explained.
"We declined the majority of these requests and only locally restricted videos that appeared to violate local laws prohibiting speech that could incite enmity between communities. In addition, we received a request from a local law enforcement agency to remove 236 communities and profiles from Orkut that were critical of a local politician. We did not comply with this request."
This is hardly an inspiring track record. While in public the companies are criticized for obscenity, Google's most recent records show only 3 requests to remove pornographic material. Government criticism and defamation were actually the two largest categories of requested material.
As the Financial Times "beyondbrics" blog notes, the Internet companies are coming under increasing attack for content they host, despite the vagueness of the demands for censorship. For instance, "Last month, a lower court had ordered the sites to remove all 'anti-social' or 'anti-religious' content by February 6. As Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet & Society, told beyondbrics last month, it’s difficult to establish exactly what is anti-religious: for example, the Hindu profession of belief in multiple gods is blasphemous to Muslims, Christians and Jews."
Nate Anderson @'ars technica'
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