Category Archives: death

RIP Teo Macero and Joe Gibbs

RIP Teo Macero [1] and Joe Gibbs

Teo Macero (October 30 1925 – February 19 2008), was an American jazz saxophonist, composer, and record producer. He was a producer at Columbia Records for twenty years, and most notably produced the Miles Davis album Bitches Brew[2], one of the first albums to apply the studio as a musical instrument, featuring edits and studio effects that were an integral part of the music.

Joe Gibbs (1943 – 21 February 2008) was a Jamaican reggae producer, best-known for producing “Uptown Top Ranking”.

“Uptown Top Ranking” [3] (1978) is a single by Althea and Donna, produced by Joe Gibbs based on the riddim of the Alton Ellis’s song “I’m Still In Love” of 1967.

Alton Ellis‘ song “I’m Still In Love” [4] is a 1967 single previously popularized by Marcia Aitken’s cover “I’m Still In Love With You Boy” and the dub track “Three Piece Suit” by Trinity. It’s still a popular riddim today.

Via Simon Reynolds [5].

A last farewell to Grillet

The French paper Le Monde reports [1] on the cremation of Alain Robbe-Grillet, who died last week. The attendance was small, about 80 people and members of the literary establishment were absent.

A text was read, a text that had been written by Robbe-Grillet for the occasion of Roland Barthes‘s death.

My translation from French:

“I love life, I do not like death. I like cats, I do not like dogs. I like little girls, especially when they are pretty, I do not care very much for little boys. (…) I dislike journalist gossip. I distrust psychiatrists. I like to irritate people. I don’t like people who annoy me.”

Via Papieren Man

Alain Robbe-Grillet (1922 – 2008)

Alain Robbe-Grillet (1922 - 2008)

Poster for Trans-Europe-Express, a film by Grillet

Via De Papieren Man and Esotika comes the sad news that Alain Robbe-Grillet has died age 85 of a heart failure.

Alain Robbe-Grillet (August 18 1922 – February 18 2008), was a French writer and filmmaker; main exponent of the nouveau roman, best-known for his screenplay for the film Last Year at Marienbad, an extended meditation on the unreliable narrator. He was married to Catherine Robbe-Grillet. His frequent use of sadomasochist imagery caused him to be compared to that other French rebel, Marquis de Sade. His last novel is Un roman sentimental. A frequent translator of Grillet’s novels was Christine Brooke-Rose. Plenty of biographical details can be found in his widow’s 2004 private journals, published by Fayard in 2004 as Jeune mariée: Journal, 1957-1962.

Le Temple aux miroirs by Ionesco and Grillet

Le temple aux miroirs (1977), with Irina Ionesco

One of the more obscure works of Grillet, Le temple aux miroirs, photography by Irina Ionesco of her daughter, augmented with philosophical texts by Grillet published by Seghers, very rare and expensive.

Eye candy #6

Pinson, Femme Assise, on the cover of Monsieur Vénus by Rachilde

I had been intrigued by this cover of French decadent author Rachilde’s Monsieur Vénus for a while, and I always wondered what the cover was, even asking the blog Morbid Anatomy, which specializes in this kind of material, what it was.

Pinson, Femme Assise

It turns out that this is the origin of the photograph. The anatomical sculpture was produced by André Pierre Pinson (1746-1828), a French ‘medical artist’, who made the sculpture called La Femme assise (the seated woman). Voila. Case closed.

Previously on Eye Candy.

RIP Ron Murphy (1948 – 2008), audio engineer of Detroit techno

Ron Murphy (March 3, 1948 – January 13, 2008) was an American audio engineer at Detroit’s NSC/Sound Enterprises. Murphy was responsible for the mastering of some of the most respected Detroit techno vinyl releases, for such labels as Underground Resistance, KMS, Metroplex, Black Nation, Direct Beat, Axis, Planet E, Basic Channel and many others.

Ron Murphy was the reason that the Detroit techno records sounded crisp and clear, in contrast to contemporary Chicago house music, whose records were mastered under the direction of Larry Sherman, and which sounded like they were recorded on sandpaper, due to his use of recycled vinyl.

New York house music’s records were mastered and pressed by Herb Powers, Jr., much to everyone’s satisfaction.

Along with Chicago house, Detroit techno was my earliest musical love all of my own, a love that was probably fueled when first seeing Farley Jackmaster Funk’s 1986 “Love Can’t Turn Around” [Youtube] on Dutch television.

Via phinnweb

Carnography #4

No particular narrative …

A.-A. Préault, Tuerie (Slaughter)

Preault_Tuerie

 Antoine-Augustin Préault‘s  La Tuerie (The Killing) (1834) is a relief sculpture first exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1834. Its thematic violence and stylistic daring shocked conventional taste at the Salon, one of whose visitors characterized the work as an “incredible farrago of every horror, wretchedness, misery, extravagance, monstrosity.” Tuerie was supposedly admitted to the Salon of 1834 at the insistence of the academician Jean-Pierre Cortot. Since no particular narrative was associated with the work, it was perceived by contemporaries as gratuitous carnography.

See previous carnographies

I. M. Mel Cheren

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxCJFvduu_8]

Marty Thomas sings “I Was Born This Way” (Carl Bean)

Mel Cheren ( – December 7, 2007) was a New York gay entrepreneur and owner of West End Records. Mel was romantically involved with Michael Brody, the owner of the famous Paradise Garage club, for which Mel also provided financial backing. He died of complications of AIDS.

West End Records was co-founded by Mel Cheren and Ed Kushins in New York City in 1976 and published disco music. It was closely associated with the Paradise Garage and Larry Levan. Mel Cheren and Ed Kushins had met a few years earlier, when they were employed by Scepter Records. In 2002 Kevin Hedge (half of BLAZE) became Mel Cheren’s partner in West End, as well as the President of West End Records. Much of their music has been sampled for use in other dance and hip-hop tracks. The label employed musicians, mixers and remixers such as Larry Levan, Arthur Russell, Walter Gibbons, Tee Scott and Nick Martinelli.

They released such hits as:

Other notable tracks include

  • Inez Brooks Chillin’ Out(1981)
  • Taana Gardner – Work That Body (1979)
  • Ednah Holt – ‘Serious, Sirious Space Party (1981)
  • Taana Gardner ‘When You Touch Me’ 1979
  • Debbie Trusty – Searchin’ For Some Lovin’/1982
  • Raw Silk ‘Do It To The Music’ (1982)
  • Brenda Taylor ‘You Can’t Have Your Cake And Eat It Too’ (1982)

I Was Born This Way (see Youtube clip above) is one of the most respected gay dance music anthems.

Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928 – 2007)

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Sbs6wb2Fnc&]

Clickable version

Superb juxtapoem of image-to-music by Youtuber Zapple 101

Does anyone know which Karlheinz Stockhausen piece is on the audio track?

Update: regarding my previous question, the piece is “Mikrophonie 0.1”, here is more from Mikrophonie. (Studie II, 1954)