.....................how about some fun-filled war propaganda to kick start the New Year? These cards made to get kiddies in the mood for some China-hating relate to the Second Sino-Japanese War (July 7, 1937 -September 9, 1945)..........they're taken from a 1939 issue of Life magazine.....................................
'Rip means Rip Van Winkle (or Rest in Peace?); it's the way people, even musicians are. They're asleep. Rig means like rigor mortis. That's where a lot of peoples mind are. When they hear me doing things they didn't think I could do they panic in their minds'.
The album's 50 years old. Any excuse....(not that I feel I need one)............................................
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Tribal affinity in 2015...'the lovelier, lighter snack tribe'...we only listen to light music...
On the vinyl consumer kicksometer it's off the scale. This morning I read Bob Stanley's piece in The Guardian about the vinyl revival, came home and found this waiting for me...
...oooh, what could be inside, kids?
I'm the right age to be a '50-quid man', but not the type. I don't have the money they do for starters. Plus they've gone full circle from vinyl to CDs, MP3s and back again whilst I've always bought vinyl, intermittently, mostly old second-hand albums. This is a luxury purchase (I suppose it would be to most) because rather than being able to casually spend loads on vinyl I'm impulsive and, yes, the burn holes in all my trouser pockets tell the tale of what money does to them.
Well wrapped, isn't it?
Bubble wrap peep show...
...I splashed out for two good reasons; one being the fact that I haven't heard some of the material, the other being the focus I know vinyl brings as opposed to files which, due to their abundance and ease of play, frequently get played and not listened to properly.
Look...tasty photos on the sleeves...
...you handsome bastard!
Better unwrap the albums. I haven't been so excited since Chelsea won the Champion League. Perhaps I'll write it on the calendar...'Pierre Henry's Choix D'oeuvres: 1950 - 1985 arrived'. Nah, that would be stupid. Hold on, I'm distracted by Microphone Bien Tempéré...Dimanche Noir...are those church bells? What are those sounds? Yes, the beautiful mystery of musique concrète....now Bach's being wound fast-forward - brilliant! It's the early-50s and Pierre Henry is playing with the Classical tradition like a true iconoclast, like a crazy man, like someone enthralled with what new machines can do to old sounds.
So I'm unwrapping the first disc...
...shiny vinyl thrill...feel the resistance of vinyl against paper the first time it's liberated...
...the ceremonial placing of album on a turntable that it hasn't met before. "Turntable, this is Pierre Henry. Pierre, this is my turntable. I'm sure you'll get on fine."
My hand is shaking...perhaps it's my age, but I suspect it's excitement...it must be, I'm not that old...
...lift off! No, not lift off, touch down...
...doesn't it sound great coming out of this? Robby The Robot likes it, I can tell...the tape future concrète meets the electronic (Forbidden) planet of sound...
...I wonder if J.G.Ballard ever listened to Pierre Henry? Something about the way Henry and Schaeffer crashed sounds together might have appealed. Hold on, distracted by horse whinnying and dog barking on Astrologie (1953)...or Ballard's literary hero, William Burroughs...cut words, cut music...music as cut-up...
Running 'round the room in excitement? No, just an accidental snap...ha-ha.
Sound of needle lifting off the vinyl...though I'm not a purist that very sound seems right for this music...and yes I've enjoyed most Pierre Henry tracks on files up until now...but now, that sound, it makes an instant connection with the times the early pieces were made, reuniting them across time. Old technology as a medium for what were once new ways of composing, which sound totally alive today; impervious to the ageing process. In these pieces we hear not just predictions of things to come, but parallel events, as valid now as they ever were, proving their worth as contemporaries rather than ancient precedents. For all their efforts it feels as if modern music makers in awe of Pierre Henry are still only trying to catch up. I suspect they'll only ever be looking at his heels...
What? He Did? When? Yesterday? He chopped up a photo of a record! What does it look like? I see...
Vinyl, Track 1
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Listening to Lee Perry's Apeman Skank one minute, then Josef Anton Riedl's Komposition No.3 and thinking 'That's a fine combination, the kind I'd like to play at my fantasy music night populated by select punters who could only gain entry by answering three simple questions: What kind of pie did Mingus make a track about? Who directed The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg? And who wrote Endgame?' So I played great music to myself, that's nothing new. I've emptied dance floors...and filled them...such is the life of a DJ...
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Meanwhile, in Nice last year, I dropped acid and stared at a Rauschenberg for three hours...here's what it looked like...
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What am I doing? Do I know where I'm going? Who does? I continue regardless through life, this 'excursion on a wobbly rail', time snipping seconds from however much I have...
Any road followed precisely to its end leads precisely nowhere. Climb the mountain just a little bit to test it's a mountain. From the top of the mountain, you cannot see the mountain. - Frank Herbert
Oh, it's you! Hello, come in, excuse the dressing gown and slippers but I was relaxing in my parlour with an opium pipe and the complete works of Thomas De Quincey. Yes, go in that room...
What? David Goodis? Yes, I haven't read it yet but had to buy it when I found it second-hand. Cut Up! is the one I'm in, three pieces. It's a great collection.
Have you read Paul Morley's book? It's very good, in parts, the parts where he lists music...and talks about music writing...I like him. He should do more TV. He was always good on The Culture Show. I know, they scrapped it...no room for cultural discussion on the box, these days...
...The Liberation Of Sound is excellent, a great primer...I always pick up old books on electronic music, though you don't see many...
Ha-ha! No, I didn't put anything in your coffee, honest...
The William Burroughs word hoard...yes......I inspired someone to start reading him recently but I fear she'll make the mistake of trying to read Nova Express cover-to-cover...I always suggest dipping in, a few pages at a time, especially for beginners...otherwise they flee in terror...unable to comprehend what the hell they're looking at...best to read some sort of guide first...or at the same time...
David Thomson's good...I've got many tips from him...what I like about that is how concise he it, but it's a personal point of view...he makes interesting points without being a film buff bore...the Claude Chabrol collections are brilliant, by the way...no, you can't borrow them...
...yes, the Demy box is a treasure...that's one I'll keep for as long as I live...I should water that plant...LJ's always reminding me...'Plant killer' she calls me...she's right...
...still, I do play them music...that's supposed to be good for them, isn't it? Or is that just hippy shit...probably...not much vinyl left now...that's the Jazz section...
...oh, OK, nice to see you. Pop 'round again sometime...hold on! No, it's all right...I just...thought my Olympia Press copy of The Ticket That Exploded was missing....no, I didn't think you'd stolen it - of course not! I just...couldn't see it for a minute and panicked...goodbye...
...girls...advised...gun-toting is good...especially if you're 'curved'....? although, come the zombie apocalypse, those who aren't will also be very useful...
This collection of articles culled from Keyboard Magazine makes a very fine book. Features on individual artists such as Brian Eno and Wendy Carlos as well as a great piece on the Columbia/Princeton center (Ussachevsky & Luening interviewed).
The history of electronic music goes like this: it was brilliant when it was made by crusty-looking geezers in suits who looked like bank clerks but were actually pioneers producing fantastic music, then t-shirt-wearers with long hair came along and it was still good but things turned Proggy and druggy and went a bit wrong, then the Pop synth boom in the UK happened, which gives me an excuse to say I saw The Human League when there were just three of them (the visual artist, whose name I've forgotten, was considered, radically, to be the third member!)...er...yes...so Thomas Dolby's in this book too, bringing it right up to date, eh? But electronic music's healthy again now, isn't it? Yes. So now you know...
Edouard Coupleux & Joseph Givelet with automatic synthesizer, 1929
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