Tuesday, March 11th, 2014

This Is Why First Impressions Are Often Correct

Does my Byrne look big in this? Image: agildedplanet.blogspot.co.uk

If for nothing else, Talking Heads’ reputation rests largely on their having been such a noticeably clever band. These are the people who once recorded a song – The Overload, which closes Remain in Light – composed from a mere description of Joy Division’s music, unheard at that time by any of the band. While on the one hand this might seem slightly incredible, given the Manchester band’s meteoric rise during the preceding two years; on the other it does sound like the kind of intellectual exercise Byrne and Co. might have undertaken; a haughty, undergraduate amusement. But being clever doesn’t seem to have stopped them from falling into that great rock cliché of internecine discord. Indeed, it may have contributed to it, by sparking creative jealousies where there ought merely to have been common satisfaction. David Byrne, remember, informed Talking Heads that they had in fact disbanded by letting it slip during an interview, four years after their final (as it turned out) record together.

For me, Remain in Light is not only the best in their canon, but a personal highlight; a record which, upon first hearing for an impressionable fifteen year old, was one of those moments when the dawning possibilities of music and the unbeatable immediacy and lyricism of pop culture became suddenly clearer. I didn’t read the music press at the time, so I hadn’t heard any of the stories about the Fela Kuti influence; neither did I know who Brian Eno was, nor understand the significance of his presence at the controls. I think that only became clear with the subsequent release of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, which brought the creative moment of the Byrne-Eno axis out into the open.

Remain in Light itself has a remarkably modern durability: it still sounds fresh, clean and alive thirty-four years later, stuck as it is on my generic MP3 player. Upon first hearing, it was a record which compelled you to stay in its presence, its title’s urgent imperative almost a moral command. I have never quite been able to separate those three long tracks on the first side (of the vinyl release) because each seemed to me to build upon and rack up the impact and power of its predecessor, as if to say “look what we’ve found we can do with this sound”. By contrast, the second side was Talking Heads saying “we can still do this too: we still sound like us, but in a completely novel and different way”. I never – simply never – tire of listening to this record.

However, with every classic LP comes a good story. Admiration for the the record’s monumentality aside, we cannot allow its cover to pass without comment. Story has it that the artwork represented the culmination of yet another power struggle within the band. Tina Weymouth, in particular, had long-standing issues with Byrne’s controlling tendencies and these played out over cover art too. Ultimately, the red computer-generated splodges were implemented by MIT under Weymouth’s direction. At first sight, they have a random quality, but looking again over the years, we can see this isn’t so. In no particular order, we find that:

Remain in LightImage: Warner Music Group

Jerry Harrison = The character from the song who “landed on the runway like a splat of strawberry jam”; an annihilation of his face and personality.
Chris Frantz = The kid next door – a Spielbergian archetype – who couldn’t resist burying his face in the strawberry pie while Mom was out of the room. He’s covered in red stuff, but it’s still him.
David Byrne = Hannibal Lecter: an image which explicitly labels Byrne as mad and dangerous.
Tina Weymouth = Brigitte Bardot.

Permalink >>

Saturday, March 8th, 2014

From Sparkling Eaves When All The Storm Has Fled

Dante Gabriel Rosetti: a man who dug erotic poetryImage: wikipedia.org

Sotheby’s are trailing a portrait of William Morris’s wife Jane, painted by Dante Gabriel Rosetti, who it seems knew the lady rather well. According to Sotheby’s, the auction estimate is in the region of £7m. Another painting of the same muse by Rosetti was sold last year for £3.3m. Now I like this current painting, mainly because of the artist’s accomplishment in transforming her long-faced beauty into a kind of Bride of Dracula pastiche, but I’ll be hanging on to my £7m in case I need to buy a house in London.

Smoking: Jane MorrisImage: sothebys.com

In the years after the death of his wife, Rosetti spent his time knocking off the wives of his best mates, then painting them with the kind of misty, swooning sadness only a fully fledged Pre-Raphaelite shagger could muster. But if his paintings are imbued with fetishised sexuality, they seem positively coy in comparison to his poetry. So grief-stricken was he upon her death, he buried most of it with his wife, but later changed his mind and allowed it to be exhumed, eventually publishing it in several collections. One piece, found in the middle of his sonnet cycle The House of Life, is Nuptial Sleep, an erotic remembrance of extraordinary power:

At length their long kiss severed, with sweet smart:
And as the last slow sudden drops are shed
From sparkling eaves when all the storm has fled,
So singly flagged the pulses of each heart.
Their bosoms sundered, with the opening start
Of married flowers to either side outspread
From the knit stem; yet still their mouths, burnt red,
Fawned on each other where they lay apart.

Sleep sank them lower than the tide of dreams,
And their dreams watched them sink, and slid away.
Slowly their souls swam up again, through gleams
Of watered light and dull drowned waifs of day;
Till from some wonder of new woods and streams
He woke, and wondered more: for there she lay.

Permalink >>

Saturday, March 1st, 2014

The Immodest Airlander

The beautifully conceived, but morally confused gas platform AirlanderImage: airlander.co.uk

There are many impressive sites to be taken in from British motorways, not the least of which are the two gigantic aircraft hangars at Cardington in Bedfordshire. I must have first seen these as a child on the journey north to some holiday or other, and I remember my father telling me the history of the R100 and R101 as we drove on. It was the kind of story impossible for a young boy not to be captivated by, considering the scale of the vehicles involved. Inevitably, in its dramatic demise, R101 entered aviation folklore – and lodged itself in my memory – with a power with which the rather more mundanely disposed of R100 never could.

Emerging this week from the hangars, a new type of vehicle: an airship-aeroplane hybrid, the Airlander. Originally conceived and designed as a surveillance platform for use by the US military in Afghanistan, but since de-budgeted, it’s new sponsors are attempting to rebrand it as a potential civilian transport, and more importantly, as a humanitarian relief vehicle. The rebranding is somewhat undermined by their own PR video, which still references its surveillance potential, a silly and regrettable faux pas: from humanitarian deliverance to military hardware, the Airlander apparently gives life in one part of the world, while taking it away in another, all in one versatile package. ‘Twas ever thus, I suspect, with aviation design.

The vehicle, as presented to the press this week, seems to consist of several sausage-like sections glued together. An unfortunate consequence of its construction is that from behind – without the modesty skirt depicted in other PR shots, which smooths out its form and lends it a more futuristic, integrated look – it resembles a grotesque, Jeff Koons-style human backside. Moreover, it’s the backside of somebody bending over, and all that would be needed to complete this indiscretion would be some crosswind-induced tail-end waggling. Nobody seems to have thought this through before inviting in the press photographers for their tour of inspection.

A Little Too Much InformationImage: usatoday.com

Permalink >>

Sunday, February 23rd, 2014

Bill Drummond Channels Florian Schneider

Kraftwerk: silent on the matterImage: factmag.com

I finally remembered today to search for details of Kraftwerk’s decades-old invocation to spend “one day a week without music”. The only reference I can find which makes me believe it isn’t a figment is one which describes them working “six days a week” on their music , but even that doesn’t constitute proof ₁. After all, maybe they were just tired, or wanted to go cycling. My recollection is that Florian Schneider avoided generated sound altogether on that 7th day, because his brain needed a rest; to allow time for “the fibres to recover”, as my father might say. A little further down that same article (right at the bottom, actually), this:

“Questioned about the group’s long silences in the 1980s, Schneider once retorted shyly that there was too much sound pollution.”

So it seems odd that Bill Drummond’s No Music Day should make no mention of this antecedent, particularly when KLF are so often cited as descendants of the masters. Can someone as broadly informed and erudite really have forgotten the modern origins of what is – I freely concede – an excellent idea?

But then again, Drummond has form when it comes to unabashed headuptheassery. Here’s a quote from a 2006 article:

“I have tried different tactics to re-engage with music. In 2002 I decided to listen only to albums made by artists who had never released an album before. As soon as a second one came out, I would stop listening to them.” ₂

Well that makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? And with one or two minor tweaks – such as stopping only at the, say, 9th long-player – you could even crowbar Beethoven into the mix without losing Ode to Joy.

Bill Drummond: A Serious ManImage: neurope.eu

To be fair – and it doesn’t entirely pain me to be fair – Drummond’s emphasis leans more towards consumption of culture than it does its production. Whereas Schneider was extolling the virtues of such a hiatus because he felt it refreshed his creative energies, Drummond is more focused on the sense of bombardment; the superficiality of ubiquitous sound, music as veneer, or even less substantial than that, an aerosol, settling randomly on our perceptual surfaces.

“We can have this non-stop soundtrack as we sit on the bus, do the shopping, go on holiday. And whether it’s music from Bali, Bach’s Cantatas or the latest R&B, the experience is somehow the same.” ₃

And so, he went out and bought a domain, and set up No Music Day, thus making a big noise about his silence evangelism. Bravo, Bill. And thank you Florian.

Permalink >>

Friday, May 31st, 2013

We Need To Talk About Men Who Wear Red Trousers

Everday examples of men in red trousers.Image: pinterest.com

Pinterest – the website for people with too many pins on their hands – has its own ‘red trousers’ page. Notice the almost complete absence of real people. If pushed, I would concede that there is one on a bike, another casually standing on the bonnet of a car (as you do), and a third who looks suspiciously like Justin Bieber, though he’s not a real person, and doesn’t count. So, for the most part these are models. Which says it all.

In the blogosphere, self appointed red-trouser monitor “Henri de la Pantalon Rouge” is still on the case. He does seem to have amassed an impressive collection of real-world examples, and one can only admire his dedication to this important cause, lest the disturbing trend spiral out of control. Rio Ferdinand features, of course.

And apparently in Holland, land of Total Trousers, red is the new orange.

Permalink >>