Singer-songwriter Carlene Carter has posted a touching memoir of her mother, the country giant June Carter Cash who would have been 86 this week, at online music ‘zine Innocent Words.
In the 21st century, when digital downloads displaced compact discs as the format of consumer choice, music went naked into the world, unadorned by design or packaging. Yet this in turn gave rise to vigorous rear-guard action in the growing appreciation of what was fast disappearing. As if from the dead, vinyl made a comeback and the fan in Wilkins places him in a key position to cogitate this phenomenon.
From my text for the Lost In Music catalogue
Love the clip from Jah Wobble for his cracking new song Merry Go Round.
Continue reading It’s a cracker: Jah Wobble x 4 in promo for new song Merry Go Round
One of the most joyous releases of the year so far is the compilation Early Pakistani Dance Music from Germany’s Ovular. I found out about it via Instagram friend and DJ Martin “Soul Stew” Geise.
Continue reading Hipshaking vinyl – Early Pakistani Dance Music: 1967-1975
I received a message from Richard Hell: “Check out this wildness.”
So I did.
It’s I Can’t Breathe, Pussy Riot’s first English-language release, about the furore surrounding the death last year of Eric Garner. Hell recites Garner’s final words on the track.
“It felt weird to speak the words of a black man killed by the police, when I’m this privileged white guy,” Hell told Pitchfork. “At the same time, I believe in Pussy Riot. I have faith in them. I think they’re for real.”
Read all about the recording of I Can’t Breathe here.
I highly recommend John Pidgeon’s blog; Pidgeon is another of those unpindownable figures in the cultural landscape. His considerable talents have been expressed from music journalism and magazine publishing through roadie-ing for The Faces and composing songs with their recently departed and already much missed keyboard maestro Ian McLagan to commissioning stunning design work from Barney Bubbles and producing BBC documentaries and radio comedy (and in the process promoting the talents behind hit series such as Dead Ringers, Little Britain and The Mighty Boosh).
Continue reading Highly recommended: The unpindownable John Pidgeon’s blog
What is Metamodernism?
In the 90s and the early 2000s it’s fair to say we grew up with a particular outlook on life, one of irony, of deconstruction and cynicism. This was noticeable in the music of Nirvana and Radiohead, in the books of Michel Houellebecq and Bret Easton Ellis, and we saw it in the arts with the YBAs and Jeff Koons. This is very much a sensibility that spoke to us, that we embraced.
That time was summed up by a sense of boredom in culture. This is it? And what now?
Throughout the 2000s we began noticing – as many people did and many have written about this – slight changes. First you get the complete reappraisal of writers such as David Foster Wallace, who started in the 90s but suddenly became big in the early 2000s. And you had sincere movies by Wes Anderson and Michel Gondry. This was all very different from the kind of stuff we grew up with. Something was changing. The irony of Nirvana, the desperation of Radiohead, the cynicism of Michel Houellebecq were replaced by something that was at once still cynical, still ironic and had an acknowledgement of how the world worked, but at the same time seemed to want more.
Continue reading Metamodernism: Post-irony, new forms of sincerity and informed naivety
Following my post of photos from the free music festival at Windsor Great Park to the west of London in 1973, attendee Dave Walkling has sent a couple of sharp images which capture the anticipation in the crowd just before Hawkwind’s set.
This album is titled Fans. It’s about wearing your emotion on your sleeve, just as fans scream out from the audience or want to get on stage so they can kiss him or are terrified they’re going to have a nervous breakdown if he don’t come round the corner and sit beside them. They all bear the frustration… we’re all fans waiting to jump out.
A rare design by the late graphics master Barney Bubbles has come to light after four decades; the psychedelic sci-fi drumhead was painted for Hawkwind when the space rocking Sonic Assassins undertook tours around the world following their success with the Silver Machine single in 1972.
Continue reading Astounding Barney Bubbles rarity: An amazing Hawkwind drumhead