New Books of Note: Suicide, Elvis Costello, Patti Smith, Lou Reed & Flexipop!

The season of consumption is fast approaching, so I have some catching up to do. Here are some book of interest that have recently come across my radar, and may interest you.  First up is Suicide: Dream Baby Dream, A New York Story by old Bleecker Bob's running mate, and long time UK journalist, Kris Needs. I'm looking forward to this one as there's only been one prior Suicide bio, and it really sucked. I won't even mention the title here. Read an excerpt from Needs' book, and an interview with him over at the Quietus now.

Next up are a couple that you very well may know about already. We have Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink by Elvis Costello. The review from the NY Times is tentative but curious, and makes the book sound interesting.

And of course there's Patti Smith's new one, M Train, which the NY Times gushed over. I'm not the world's biggest fan of Smith's but I absolutely loved Just Kids, so I'm looking forward to this one as well.

Dirty Blvd: The Life and Music of Lou Reed, by Aiden Levy, is a brand new title I only found out about by coming across it in my local book shop. After leafing through it, I decided to take a chance on it, and brought it home. I haven't gotten to it, but my hopes remain optimistic. 

Lastly, we have Flexipop! The Book brought to us by the same folks who published the magazine back in the early 80's. It was always a fun magazine as each issue came with an exclusive flexi-disc, and bands like Kajagoogoo sat comfortably next to Infa Riot. It was all over the place, and definitely didn't take anything too seriously. Mail order from their website, and receive a special bonus issue, as well as a brand new flexi-disc with music from Spandau Ballet and Marc Almond. 

Reqiuem For A Dream: Patti Smith Inducts Lou Reed 4.18.15

If you're reading this in an email, click the headline above to listen to Patti Smith's Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction speech for Lou Reed.

On The Scene: Patti Smith at Webster Hall, 12.30.14

Thanks to Richard Boch.

Lou Reed's Private Memorial, Apollo Theater, NYC 12.16.13

Lou by David Gahr

This past Monday, friends & family of Lou Reed gathered at the Apollo Theater in Harlem for a private, invite-only memorial service. Jim Fouratt was kind enough to tape it, and its an incredible document. 

Jim writes: THIS A IS A LOW RES GOOD AUDIO DOCUMENTATION OF MOST THE PERFORMANCES AT THE Memorial. Includes Laurie Anderson, Mo Tucker, John Cale, Patti Smith, Debbie Harry, Paul Simon, Antony, John Zorn, Jenny Muldar, Lenny Kaye, Mark Ribot, Hal Wilner + others. I made it for myself and share it with all LOU fans who were not able to attend. Let me put the memorial into context: In the Buddhist tradition it takes days 49 days for the spirit to leave the body. It is called "bardo." Like Jewish Shiva, Irish wakes and different cultural rituals, it is a time for the living to share stories and simply just sit together to help each other and most importantly help the spirit be fully freed into into the Cosmos, December 16 was the fiftieth day and at the Apollo Theater a celebration of Lou Reed's life and work took place with his friends and family gathered with his wife the artist Laurie Andersen all saying goodbye, good speed Lou.

Forty Years Ago This Month: CBGB Opens...

...And a little over a year later the hipper elements of the UK music press were taking notice. Charles Shaar Murray of the NME paid a visit to the Bowery in the Spring of '75, and wrote the following article. I can't say for certain, but this might have been the highest profile press the club had received (outside of the Village Voice) up to that point. Anyway, its a fantastic story and worth a read. (Story courtesy of The Guardian & Rock's Backpages. Show ads courtesy of TATSOL.)

Scroll to the bottom for a complete recorded set by Patti Smith at CB's on April 17, 1975, which includes "We're Going To Have A Real Good Time Together," "Redondo Beach," "Birdland," "Space Monkey," "Distant Fingers," and "Gloria". And also a March 23, 1975, recording of Television performing "Fire Engine" by the 13th Floor Elevators. Perhaps Mr. Murray was at one of these shows?

If you enjoy this I highly suggest any of Charles' other work which can be found easily on Amazon - especially the compendium of his 70's music press work, Shots From The Hip.

CBGB is a toilet. An impossibly scuzzy little club buried somewhere in the sections of the Village that the cabdrivers don't like to drive through.

It looks as if the proprietors kick holes in the walls and piss in the corners before they let the customers in; fo' the atmosphere, you dig. None of the low-budget would-be elegance of Max's Kansas City in the final agonies of its death throes but carefully-choreographed movie-set sleaze.

The audience, who consist mainly of nondescript urban hippies, a smattering of heav-vy street bro's, rock intelligentsia and the occasional confused tourist, are revelling in the tack and basking in their own hipness just for being there.

Tonight, y'see, is Patti Smith and Television, two of the most droppable names on the New York rock circuit.

Patti Smith is a Heavy Cult Figure who attracts the Cool Four Hundred, and Television are still on the verge of becoming Heavy Cult Figures, which is even more attractive.

The fastest and most concise way to describe Television is that they're New York's equivalent to the Feelgoods. They're a lot younger, perform original material and Tom Verlaine, the leader, was evidently severely traumatised by Lou Reed at an impressionable age; but outside of the obvious cultural differences between the Manhattan and Canvey Islands, the similarities are astounding.

Both bands play chopped-down, hard-edged, no-bullshit rock and roll, totally eschewing the preening Mickey-Mouse decadence that poleaxed the previous new wave of NY bands.

Television don't dress up and they don't even move much. The rhythm guitarist is spraddle-legged and blank-eyed, chopping at his Telecaster like some deranged piece of machinery, braced so that he can lurch in any direction without falling over. He's wearing a Fillmore East T-shirt, which is the ultimate in dressing down.

The bass player wears his shades on every other number, and Verlaine, frozen-faced and zombie-eyed, alternately clutches his mic stand with both hands and blazes away at off-balance methedrine speed-fingers lead guitar marathons on a gold-topped Les Paul.

Television are a total product of New York, but like the Feelgoods they embody both the traditional and the revolutionary, and they represent an escape from the roller-coaster to oblivion into which rock is currently strait-jacketed – i.e, an imaginative return to basics – and what they lose to the Feelgoods in energy and pacing, they gain in imagination.

That a band like Television are currently happening and that people are listening to them is indisputable proof that rock is a hardier beast than much of the more depressing evidence would suggest.

Which brings us, quite logically, to Patti Smith, who has Just Signed A Big Contract and is therefore about to be massively publicised and fed into the start machine.

Right now, though, she and Television are still on display fairly regularly to anybody with three or four dollars to hand over as CBGB's price of admission.

Her performing environment is a stage smaller than Greg Lake's carpet, which places her less than two feet away from the nearest customer and gives her less than a foot's height advantage. The lighting is, to say the least, elementary.

Which means that, in a club the size of CBGB, the tricks of the trade that the big guys use to duplicate or replace real charisma are technically impossible, and so the act has to either do it all by themselves or else it doesn't get done at all.

Patti Smith has an aura that'd probably show up under ultraviolet light. She can generate more intensity with a single movement of one hand than most rock performers can produce in an entire set.

On the face of it, it's an unlikely act to team with a chopped-hog, hell-driven band like Television. A lady poet, backed by a band who doesn't even have a drummer sounds like an improbable expression for any kind of definitive rock consciousness. But Patti Smith is in the rock 'n' roll marketplace and she knows the ground rules. More important, she knows how it works.

She's an odd little waif figure in a grubby black suit and black satin shirt, so skinny that her clothes hang baggily all over her, with chopped-off black hair and a face like Keith Richards' kid sister would have if she'd gotten as wasted by age seventeen as Keith is now.

Her band (Richard Sohl on guitar and bass, Lenny Kaye on guitar and a kid known as D.N.V. – an abbreviation of "Death In Venice") play like a garage band who've learned a few '30s licks to go with the mutated AM rock.

She stands there machine-gunning out her lines, singing a bit and talking a bit, in total control, riding it and steering it with a twist of a shoulder here, a flick of a wrist there – scaled down bird-like movements that carry an almost unbelievable degree of power, an instinctive grasp of the principles of mime that teach that the quality and timing of a gesture is infinitely more important than its size.

Her closing tour de force, an inspired juxtaposition of Land Of 1000 Dances with a rock poem about a kid getting beaten up in a locker room, was undoubtedly the most gripping performance that I've seen by a white act since the last time I saw The Who.

For the duration of her set that night, Patti Smith embodied and equalled everybody that I've ever dug on a rock'n'roll stage. Whether her records will be any good or not (or for that matter, whether Television will be able to get it down on record) is another kettle of swordfish altogether.

All that really needs to be said is that watching Television and Patti Smith that evening was one of the most exciting rock experiences I've had for a long, long time, and that both acts have something that rock 'n' roll desperately needs.

One more thing. In the audience at the Alice Cooper gig in Detroit was a kid done up exactly like Patti Smith. Something's happening.

Daily Travels: New Brunswick NJ

Patti Smith setlist, New Brunswick NJ, 10.26.12. Thanks to RB.

Nightclubbing gets gaga over Frankie

This week, Pat & Emily go slumming with Sinatra, and discuss Ol' Blue Eyes' influence on the punk generation...the results may surprise you.

Time’s a funny thing, especially where musicians are concerned. If the upcoming 50th anniversary of the Rolling Stones doesn’t scare you, perhaps the realization that we’ve shared nearly 36 years with Bono and 29 with Madonna will.

Still, it’s a little surprising that a mere 21 years separates the release of “Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely” in 1958 and the above video of Iggy Pop covering the LP’s iconic track, “One for My Baby,” at Hurrah’s in 1979. At first glance, the culture wars of the ’60s would seem to render irrelevant the bars, broads and bruisers ethos that Ol’ Blue Eyes represented. But for the generation that made up the original punks, those childhood memories of cigarette smoke, parents’ late nights and Sinatra’s music ran deep. Continued here.

As always, visit Go Nightclubbing.

Friday Epehemera - Bowery Ballroom

Patti Smith, The Bowery Ballroom, NYC, 12.29.11. Big thank you to RB for the photo.

Norman Seeff photography

Ramones

Jimmy Cliff

Smith / Mapplethorpe

Norman Seeff official site

Via

Exclusive: Godlis photos from Castle Clinton Patti Smith show 7.14.11

  

Huge thanks to Godlis for this exclusive set of shots he snapped Thursday night at Castle Clinton's River To River Patti Smith show.  As you can see, the show spanned daylight to darkness, and according to Godlis, was "amazing". He would know. 

She did a cover of the current Adele song ("Rolling In The Deep") and had backing vocals from Suzzy Roche, Lucy Wainright and Jesse her (Patti's) daughter. He also reports that Emma Watson was in attendance (you know, the actress who plays Hermione in Harry Potter), and Laurie Anderson (no Lou Reed). Besides the Adele cover, they did a great version of "Perfect Day," and a great version of "People Who Died" too. 

All photos ©GODLIS @ LMCC . Please do not use without permission...ask us - we're nice!

Godlis: "They soundchecked Summer Cannibals but x'd it out."

Friday Ephemera - Patti Smith setlist

Patti Smith setlist, Castle Clinton NYC, 7.14.11 (special thanks to RB)

HOP FARM UK - Iggy, Patti (acoustic), Lou and Morrissey (headline)

 
2 JULY Line up at HOP FARM festival in the UK includes Lou Reed, Patti Smith (acoustic), Iggy AND the Stooges, and Morrissey, who will headline.

The day before you can catch The Eagles, and Bryan Ferry.

Hmmm. What to pack? I guess the flared trousers for friday and the black leather pants for Saturday. Oh, and the air mattress (for my old aching back) and the binoculars (for my old fading eye sight).

Seeing how old all these bands are, do you suppose the lights on the farm will go out around midnight and the "trance disco" tent might be a bit empty?

Probably not.

That's probably my imagination, running away with me.

I'll bet the yoof are going to want to see these Mega Stars before they burn out.


-posted by daisy

Ephemera Crazy! Rude and Reckless: Punk/Post-Punk Graphics, 1976-82

Along with the latest catalog from Beatbooks, it seems there is no slowing the beast known as punk & new wave ephemera. This just in:

Rude and Reckless: Punk/Post-Punk Graphics, 1976-82
Exhibition: July 14th through August 19th, 2011
Opening Reception: July 14th, 6-9 PM

Rude and Reckless: Punk/Post-Punk Graphics, 1976-82 is the first New York exhibition surveying the extraordinary diversity of Punk and Post-Punk graphic design. The exhibition showcases a wide range of American and British artistry, with influences that include the Bauhaus, Futurism, Dadaism, Pop Art, Constructivism and Expressionism. The exhibition presents features over 150 rare posters, along with fanzines, flyers, clothing, badges and stickers.

Rude and Reckless documents an era that produced a great burst of applied graphic-design creativity, one of the most subversive of the 20th Century. Vivid, violent and frequently acid tongued, the works in Rude and Reckless represent one of the truly authentic DIY youth culture movements of the Western World.

The exhibition is timed to coincide with the 35th anniversary of Punk Rock; both the release of the first Ramones album, and the mythical (and notorious) Anarchy in the UK Tour were seminal punk events in 1976. The exhibition is based on the collection Andrew Krivine, who began collecting in 1977. Curated by Krivine and Steven Kasher, the selection comprises the rarest and finest examples culled from an archive of more than 800 punk/new wave/post-punk posters and ephemera. Coincidentally, Rude and Reckless happens to open on Bastille Day, July 14th. Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité!

Beyond the “Holy Trinity” of Punk Rock (Ramones, Clash, Sex Pistols), Rude and Reckless includes materials covering over 70 Punk, New Wave, Post-Punk and No Wave performers. The collection on display constitutes a comprehensive A to Z of both iconic and obscure groups, including: A Certain Ratio, the Adverts, Alternative TV, the B52s, Bauhaus, Blondie, the Buzzcocks, Chrome, the Circle Jerks, the Cramps, the Cure, the Damned, Devo, Eater, Eddie & the Hot Rods, Elvis Costello, the Fall, Fear, Fire Engines, the Flying Lizards, Gang of Four, GBH, Generation X, Gun Club, Ian Dury & the Blockheads, Iggy Pop, the Jam, Jim Carroll Band, Johnny Thunders, Joy Division, Killing Joke, Kraftwerk, Lou Reed, the Lurkers, Malcolm McLaren, the Misfits, New Order, Nick Lowe, Nina Hagen, the Only Ones, 999, Patti Smith, Penetration, PIL, the Police, the Pop Group, the Pork Dukes, Pylon, the Rings, Sham 69, Siouxsie & the Banshees, Snakefinger, the Slits, the Stranglers, Suicide, Talking Heads, Teenage Jesus & the Jerks, Television, Wayne County, X-Ray Spex and XTC.

The exhibition includes designs from the most illustrious graphic artists of the period, such as Peter Saville, Malcolm Garrett, Barney Bubbles, Gee Vaucher, Linder Sterling, Keith Haring, Robert Williams, and, of course, Jamie Reid. On the other hand, several bands (some fronted by art-school dropouts) designed their own graphics.

In recent years several Punk-related exhibitions have been mounted in America and Europe, raising the artistic profile of Punk. In 2009 MOMA held an exhibition focused on the New York scene, entitled Looking at Music: Side 2. In May 2010, Boo-Hooray presented selected graphic works of the Secret Public (Linder Sterling and Jon Savage). In the Fall of 2010 the Steven Kasher Gallery presented a show focused on the legendary Punk venue Max’s Kansas City. In October 2010, two Punk/New Wave graphics exhibitions were held in London. Haunch of Venison hosted an exhibition of Punk posters and memorabilia entitled Loud Flash: British Punk on Paper and Chelsea Space presented an exhibition dedicated to the works of Barney Bubbles. In January of this year, a Punk graphics exhibition was mounted by the French Academy in Rome at the prestigious Villa Medici. Finally, in the current Art in the Streets exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles several works by Jamie Reid are displayed. Punk’s presence in the modern art world continues to grow.

Rude and Reckless documents the visual expression of Punk, the continuingly influential subculture infused with a gleeful, undisguised contempt for just about everything. This show seeks to demonstrate that nothing truly anti-commercial, venomous, and loutish has been produced in the field of graphic art over the past 30 years – that the 1975-1982 period signals both the apex and the death knell of modern graphic design – and it was all done without computers! Rude and Reckless is an exhibition that every young artist needs to see!

Rude and Reckless: Punk/Post-Punk Graphics, 1976-82 will be on view from July 14th through August 19th, 2011. Steven Kasher Gallery is located at 521 W. 23rd St., New York, NY 10011. Summer gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 11 am to 6 pm.

Beatbooks

New BeatBooks Catalogue: Andrew Sclanders' latest catalogue (#57) is now online at http://www.beatbooks.com. Sections include: Patti Smith; Punk & Post-Punk; Art & Literature; Electronic, Fluxus & New Music.

Friday Ephemera - White Stuff zine

White Stuff fanzine, UK, 1977, by Sandy Robertson. Via F&C.

Stupefaction Top 12 for 2010

This is never easy for me, but at least I got this together ahead of time year. And in case you're thinking "who gives a crap?", don't worry...I'm under no delusions about anyone wondering what I loved this year (and if you visit regularly you'll know), but I like running it here as a matter of record. In no particular order, and with no further ado:


01. Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings - I Learned The Hard Way (Daptone) (CD, MP3, vinyl)


02. Vic Godard & Subway Sect - We Come As Aliens (Overground) (CD & MP3. Limited edition vinyl available directly from the band)


03. Vic Godard & Irvine Welsh - Blackpool EP (Gnu) (CD-only available directly from the band)


04. Orange Juice - Coals To Newcastle (Domino) (CD & MP3)


05. Edwyn Collins - Losing Sleep (Heavenly) (CD, MP3, vinyl)


06. Paolo Conte - Nelson (Universal) (CD, MP3)


07. Patti Smith - Just Kids (Ecco Publishing) (Book)


08. Sexual Objects - Cucumber (Creeping Bent) (MP3. Limited edition vinyl available here.)


09. Harvest Ministers - Strange Love Letter (Crayon Records) (MP3, CD. CD available to order here)


10. Spoon - Transference (Merge) (CD, MP3, vinyl)


11. The Preservation Hall Jazz Band feat. Tom Waits - Tootie Ma Was A Big Fine Thing b/w Corrine Died On The Battlefield - very limited edition 78 RPM record (Preservation Hall) (also available on Preservation: An Album To Benefit Preservation Hall (CD, MP3)


12. Christian Scott - Yesterday You Said Tomorrow (Concord) (CD, MP3)

From my Last.FM stats - Top 15 listened-to artists, 2010:
01. Tom Waits
02. Willie Mitchell
03. Paolo Conte
04. The Harvest Ministers
05. Lambert, Hendricks & Ross
06. Sufjan Stevens
07. Borscht
08. Sidney Bechet
09. Echo & The Bunnymen
10. Big Star
11. Spoon
12. Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings
13. John Lurie
14. Vic Godard & The Subway Sect
15. Roddy Frame