Some more music by one of the more dependable sources in New York: beatsinspace, the peeps behind the famous AllDisco parties. Girish, for you, here are their playlists with all the streams, and here is an excellent (really) eighties mix by crazy rhythms, which sadly appears to be sold out.
The latest show by beats in space:
October 17th (part 1 with Headman ) :: [stream] [download]
October 17th (part 2 with Tim Sweeney) :: [stream] [download]
A Year In The Mix : 1987 : Part 1
This mix focuses purely on house tracks from 1987,
including classics from M/A/R/R/S, Rhythim Is Rhythim, The Beatmasters and more.
A Year In The Mix : 1987 : Part 2
This mix focuses on club tracks from 1987,
including classics from Janet Jackson, Alexander O’Neal, New Order and more.
From : http://www.historicalbeats.com/themixes.htm
See also: 1987 music – eighties groove (music)
Punk Rock: So What? (1999) – Roger Sabin
[Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
From the publisher
It’s now over twenty years since punk first pogoed its way into our consciousness. Punk Rock: So What? brings together a new generation of writers, journalists and scholars to provide the first comprehensive assessment of punk and its place in popular music history, culture and myth. Combining new research, methodologies and exclusive interviews, Punk Rock: So What? brings a fresh perspective to the analysis of punk culture, and kicks over many of the established beliefs about the meaning of punk.
Punk Rock: So What? re-situates punk in its historical context, analyzing the possible origins of punk in the New York art scene and Manchester clubs as well as in Malcolm McClaren’s brain. The contributors question whether punk deserves its reputation as an anti-fascist, anti-sexist movement, challenging standard views of punk prevalent since the 1970s, and discussing the role played by such key figures as Johnny Rotten, Richard Hell, Malcolm McLaren.
Tracing punk’s legacy in comics, literature, art and cinema as well as music and fashion–from films such as Sid and Nancy and The Great Rock `n’ Roll Swindle to the work of contemporary artists such as Gavin Turk and Sarah Lucas–the contributors establish that, if anything, punk was more culturally significant than anyone has yet suggested.
Contributors: Frank Cartledge, Paul Cobley, Robert Garnett, David Huxley, David Kerekes, Guy Lawley, George McKay, Andy Medhurst, Suzanne Moore, Lucy O’Brien, Bill Osgerby, Miriam Rivett, Roger Sabin, Mark Sinker. Roger Sabin is a Lecturer in Cultural Studies at Central St. Martin’s College of Art and Design.
Roger Sabin also edited Below Critical Radar : Fanzines and Alternative Comics from 1976 to Now (2001) – Roger Sabin [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK] and Adult Comics: An Introduction (1993) – Roger Sabin [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Sonic Alchemy: Visionary Music Producers and Their Maverick Recordings (2004) – David N. Howard
[Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
I read the chapter on Lee Perry and King Tubby and liked it. Howard compares Bunny Lee’s ‘flying cymbal’ sound with the ‘Philly Bump’ American soul beat.
From the publisher
You may not have heard of them, but you have certainly heard their songs! From the lo-fidelity origins of early pioneers to today’s dazzling technocrats, the role of the music producer is as murkily undefined as it is wholly essential. Sonic Alchemy: Visionary Music Producers and Their Maverick Recordings is an exploration of the influence of the often colorful, idiosyncratic and visionary music producers through popular music and the fascinatingly crucial role they have played in shaping the way we hear pop music today. Sonic Alchemy is nothing short of the secret history of the music producer.
See also: music production – 2004
8 Women (2002) – François Ozon
[Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
I saw this on Belgian TV yesterday evening, for about 20 minutes before I fell asleep (not out of boredom). I liked what I saw (but I like nearly everything by Ozon) and it reminded me of Agatha Christie (see quote below) and Todd Haynes’s Far From Heaven (the clothes and general fifties styling).
As for the influences of the movie, they are numerous. Of course, this film is an adaptation from a play that evokes the Agatha Christie universe but Ozon felt like scattering his movie with all kinds of allusions: Vincente Minelli, Douglas Sirk (the deer in the garden). These allusions are especially linked to French culture: the French TV program “au théâtre ce soir” but also Jacques Demy (the bright colors, the songs) and French cinema before the “new wave”. More than allusions, they are tributes from a director who once said “I don’t care about new-wave”. –dbdumonteil via http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0283832/usercomments [Oct 2006]
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8_femmes
See also: Ozon – film – 2002 films – French cinema
The Nonesuch Guide to Electronic Music (1968) – Beaver and Krause
[Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Part of the enjoyment of the web is tracking down stuff you know absolutely nothing about. Of course it helps having good guides, and I stumbled on this via Simon Reynolds blissblog who refers to an excellent survey on this scene by the stupendous woebot.
Discogs says:
Variously called electronic music, modern classical, contemporary classical or experimental music this collection was originally released as a 2-LP boxed set as in introduction to and survey of electronic music, circa late 1960s. All work realised on the Moog Series III Synthesiser.
Wikipedia on Nonesuch:
Nonesuch Records is currently allied with Warner Bros. Records even though it is an Elektra Records subsidiary. Jac Holzman, founder of Elektra Records in 1950, founded Nonesuch in 1964 to license European classical music. He sold Elektra and Nonesuch to Kinney National Company in 1970. —http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonesuch_Records
Nonesuch also released Silver Apples of the Moon.
See also: art music – experimental music
I Am the Upsetter: The Story of Lee “Scratch” Perry: Golden Years (2005) – Lee “Scratch” Perry
[Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
This came out in 2005, it is the first important Perry compilation since the 1997 Arkology box set. It is chronologically ordered and features singles that were previously only available on very hard-to-find and expensive vinyl originals.
For the first time ever Lee Perry’s golden years – from his groundbreaking 1968 single “I Am The Upsetter” to the final tracks that emerged from his fabled Black Ark studio – are documented, in this lavishly illustrated four disc set. Three of the discs focus on productions from 1968 to 1971, from 1972 to 1974, and 1975 to 1978 with the fourth disc focusing on dub and instrumental recordings from 1974 to 1978. Each disc features the top tunes from that period and include little known gems that have previously been the preserve of the serious collector. 88 tracks in all from such artists as U Roy, Bob Marley and the Wailers, Max Romero, Augustus Pablo, Dillinger, The Mighty Diamonds, and many more. –from the publisher
From my Google reader:
Dadanoias on Penguin covers, The Laughing Bone on Don Quixote, with illustrations by Peter Howson, Honoré Daumier and Gustave Doré, Eva Deadbeat on a new female Youtube comic duo and Mr. Dante Fontana with Indeep’s 1983 Last Night a DJ Saved My Life.
Enjoy
Yesterday evening I landed on Arte TV (a Franco-German TV network, which aims to promote quality programming related to the world of arts and culture) and today I found out that I was watching Mozart’s Don Giovanni which Arte describes as:
Revisité par René Jacobs et mis en scène par Vincent Boussard, le chef-d’oeuvre de Mozart renvoie singulièrement à notre époque. Un Don Giovanni qui mêle sensualité et violence, humour et tragédie.
The reason I kept on watching (I normally don’t go for opera) is twofold: 1. I have been listening since six months to state-run Belgian art/classical music/jazz radio station Klara so my ears have gotten used to these sounds; 2. the striking appearance of the decors (very reminiscent of the Dr. Caligari film of the 1920s) with the slanted angles and unusual lighting.
Wikipedia has this on Don Giovanni :
Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte. It was premiered in Estates Theatre in Prague on October 29, 1787.
Don Juan is a legendary fictional libertine, whose story has been told many times by different authors. The name is sometimes used figuratively, as a synonym for “seducer“.
The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard wrote a large essay in his book Either/Or in which he – or at least one of his pseudonyms – defends the claim that Mozart’s Don Giovanni is the greatest work of art ever made.
The finale in which Don Giovanni refuses to repent has been a captivating philosophical and artistic topic for many writers including George Bernard Shaw, who in Man and Superman, parodied the opera.
Mark Pringle and Martin Colyer are directors of Rock’s Backpages – http://www.rocksbackpages.com – the online library of music journalism
With a cheap subscription fee, you can read articles by The Wire, NME etcetera. A good business model, especially if many offline music magazine and newspaper publishers participate. Hosted are for example David Toop’s article on Arthur Russell.