Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Germs- GI (1979)
Germs Incognito, the sole LP offering of the Los Angeles band. Singer Darby Crash committed suicide by heroin overdose on December 7, 1980.
Darby Crash- vocals
Pat Smear- guitars, backing vocals
Lorna Doom- bass, backing vocals
Don Bolles- drums, backing vocals
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
History of the Makhnovist Movement, 1918-1921 - Peter Arshinov
Peter Arshinov (1887 - c 1937) first met Nestor Makhno in Butyrki prison in Moscow.
Arshinov was serving 20 years for smuggling arms into Russia, having earlier escaped whilst awaiting hanging for the shooting of the boss of the railway workshops of Alexandrovska.
Makhno was serving life imprisonment with hard labour (commuted from the death penalty) for political assassinations. Both men were liberated by the Revolution, and in 1919, Arshinov joined Makhno in Ukraine, where he became involved in cultural and educational work in the area controlled by the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine. He was also the leader of the Confederation of the Anarchist Organizations of Ukraine.
He wrote his History of the Makhnovist Movement in 1921.
Here's a link to the text , courtesy of Libcom:
http://libcom.org/history/history-makhnovist-movement-1918-1921-peter-arshinov
Monday, September 27, 2010
Stereolab- Peel Session, September 8th 1991
Stereolab's first session for John Peel, transmitted September 1991.
Joe Dilworth - drums
Martin Kean - bass
Tim Gane - guitar
Lætitia Sadier -lead vocals
Gina Morris -vocals
Friday, September 24, 2010
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Spectacular Times- Larry Law
Then, when I started college I met a lot of old heads from the sixties who had seen it all before. In 1983 1968 seemed to me an impossibly long time ago, but to these guys it was just the other day.
So I came to be aware of The Situationists, and stuff like this.
Copies of Spectacular Times are available to read online here...
Monday, September 20, 2010
The Jesus and Mary Chain- Barbed Wire Kisses (1988)
Friday, September 17, 2010
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Billy Bragg- Peel Sessions (1984-1988)
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Eye of the Devil (aka 13)
I disagree. True, there was a time when I could perform prodigious feats of memory. Party tricks.
My memories of real life events however, tend to be sketchy collages of fact and fancy. I know for a fact that some of my memories are memories of dreams.
I was convinced, however, that when I was a child I had seen this film.
It would have been in the early seventies and I would have seen it on TV with my nutty 'babysitters', late on a Saturday night.
I could remember only tantalizing details; The Marquis' moustache, the somnambulism, the bow and arrow, the candles...
It's taken about 25 years for me to track it down. You can download it from this blog.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Matisyahu- Youth (2006)
Matthew Miller grew up in White Plains, New York.
In 2001 he became a Baal Teshuva, adopting Orthodox Judaism and taking the Hebrew version of his name-Matisyahu.
This is his second studio album, produced by Bill Laswell and featuring Roots Tonic (Aaron Dugan- guitar , sounds; Josh Werner -bass, keyboard; Jonah David -drums, percussion).
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
The Defective Record
Cut the bank for the fill.
Dump sand
pumped out of the river
into the old swale
killing whatever was
there before—including
even the muskrats. Who did it?
There's the guy.
Him in the blue shirt and
turquoise skullcap.
Level it down
for him to build a house
on to build a
house on to build a house on
to build a house
on to build a house on to . . .
William Carlos Williams (1883 – 1963)
Visit to W.C.W. circa 1957, poets Kerouac Corso Orlovsky on sofa in living room inquired wise words, stricken Williams pointed thru window curtained on Main Street: "There's a lot of bastards out there!" Allen Ginsberg- Death News (1963)
Monday, August 30, 2010
John Jacob Niles
This is another departure. John Jacob Niles (1892— 1980) was known as The Dean of American Balladeers. As a collector of traditional songs he was very influential on the folk music revival of the 1960's.
I saw John Jacob Niles on TV when I was a child. I had nightmares afterwards. I was convinced that I had been watching a ghost.
There was an other wordliness about his undulating falsetto, eerie strained expression and his huge Appalachian dulcimer. Add to this the subject matter of his songs- murder ballads and songs of doomed love and death- and the haunting effect was complete...
Friday, August 27, 2010
Nat Tate
My local library's copy of Nat Tate, An American Artist 1928-1960 by William Boyd is still in pristine condition. The last time I checked I think it had been taken out four times, and it's glossy spine occupies an almost permanent position amongst the books on Modern Art.
Of course, when the book was launched, (readings by David Bowie, no less...) not one art critic actually came out and said 'Nat Tate? Never heard of him...'