tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-49327529071989332652024-02-18T19:36:50.042-08:00The Misread CitySCOTT TIMBERG ON WEST COAST CULTURE AND BEYONDScott Timberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02018827087884225579noreply@blogger.comBlogger490125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4932752907198933265.post-9290738543389337442014-02-05T09:01:00.001-08:002014-02-05T09:01:51.459-08:00Announcing CultureCrashMY ardor for and fascination with the West Coast are undiminished. But recently I've put most of my blogging energies into my new project, <i><a href="http://www.artsjournal.com/culturecrash/">CultureCrash</a>: Scott Timberg on Creative Destruction</i>. It's part of the ArtsJournal family, and I began it on the invitation of the site's founder, Doug McLennan.<br />
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On CultureCrash I'll be looking mostly at the plight of the arts, media culture in the 21st century: What are the forces arrayed against a healthy culture and a robust creative class, and what can we do to make things better? These are crucial issues that I'll get into more deeply into my book, which comes out on Yale University Press later this year.<br />
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Re. West Coast culture: As I said, my interest in these topics continues. I'll be moderating a panel at the Writing From California conference later this month: Watch this space.<br />
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And hope to see you all on CultureCrash.Scott Timberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02018827087884225579noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4932752907198933265.post-70567877049024203572014-01-27T13:44:00.003-08:002014-01-30T17:33:09.774-08:00The Life and Death of Classical Music<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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MANY – perhaps most – of the people who follow the state of
culture get tired of stories about the graying of the arts audience, the decline
of arts education, the falling off of record sales, etc. I used to be among
them, until it became clear to me a few years ago that the problems were real
and that ignoring them did us (and the arts) absolutely no good.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmPYokdC5dvH9azUbqPTQy1Pvpl74bzDrkU0GBvXi5owPcB61cAV12wJkexFlpfWnwWs2TmQcdDVI9hyphenhyphenjspoUCbG9sofTXo_CT6F51meHsD4N-EZ-0fypVPDJhVcBLCyHJr_aXO8mSazc/s1600/Servais_Stradivarius.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmPYokdC5dvH9azUbqPTQy1Pvpl74bzDrkU0GBvXi5owPcB61cAV12wJkexFlpfWnwWs2TmQcdDVI9hyphenhyphenjspoUCbG9sofTXo_CT6F51meHsD4N-EZ-0fypVPDJhVcBLCyHJr_aXO8mSazc/s1600/Servais_Stradivarius.jpg" height="320" width="154" /></a>So I’m well aware that many of us – who love music, reading,
and visual art, and don’t quite understand why other people don’t share our ardor – will reject
or ignore <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2014/01/classical_music_sales_decline_is_classical_on_death_s_door.html">this</a> Slate story about the “death” of classical music. (The headline,
I’ll admit, is a bit cartoonish – go to see my local group, the Los Angeles
Philharmonic, most nights and classical music will seem quite alive and its
audience quite robust. There are also a great number of substantial musicians
these days, young and old.)</div>
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But there’s much of value in this piece by Mark Vanhoenacker,
which looks at the pitiful state of classical record sales (2.8 percent of a fairly small pie), the fading out of classical radio, the fact that donations
have since 2005 exceeded orchestra ticket revenues, and the way the audience is
not renewing itself. The story employs some valuable data by music critic and
ArtsJournal blogger Greg Sandow:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #1e1419; font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Sandow
notes that back in 1937, the median age at orchestra concerts in Los Angeles
was 28. Think of that! That was the year, by the way, that </span><a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/12/travel/la-tr-tanglewood-20120712"><span style="color: #530027; font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Tanglewood, the Boston Symphony’s summer festival</span></a><span style="color: #1e1419; font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">, was
founded. I grew up near Tanglewood and had various summer jobs there in the
1990s. When I worked at the beer and wine stand, I almost never carded anyone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1e1419; font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Sandow
and NEA data largely back up what I saw on Tanglewood’s fabled lawns two
decades ago. Between 1982 and 2002, the </span><a href="http://sites.duke.edu/fightsongs/2010/04/20/culture-clash-the-decline-of-classical-music-in-modern-america/"><span style="color: #530027; font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">portion of concertgoers</span></a><span style="color: #1e1419; font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"> under 30
fell from 27 percent to 9 percent; the share over age 60 rose from 16 percent
to 30 percent. In 1982 the median age of a classical concertgoer was 40; by
2008 it was 49.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1e1419; font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">… Younger fans are <i>not</i>
converting to classical music as they age. The last generation to broadly love
classical music may simply be aging, like World War I veterans, out of existence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Some of my view on this whole thing comes from the fact that
I find most of my generational peers – I am 44 – fairly indifferent to
classical music. I’ve also watched as the press – newspapers, magazines, alt
weeklies – cuts back on its coverage, which has a centrifugal effect.</div>
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<o:p></o:p><br />
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It doesn’t surprise me that the Slate piece has already drawn
angry denunciations. Former Naxos and iTunes executive Andy Doe clearly loves classical music, and makes some good points in his retort. But I find the
shoot-the-messenger tone <a href="http://properdiscord.com/2014/01/24/mark-vanhoenacker-i-have-a-bone-to-pick-with-you/">here</a> a bit odd. I guess part of me thinks that those of us who care about non-corporate culture and want to see it survive are on the same (shrinking) team and should work together as best we can. That requires admitting that we're in a crisis -- and plenty of people aren't ready to admit that yet. </div>
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Of course, I welcome comments on this fraught complicated
issue.<o:p></o:p></div>
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UPDATE: A very intelligent and less defensive refutation to the Slate piece went up <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/style/wp/2014/01/30/classical-music-dead-or-alive/">here</a>, by the Washington Post's estimable Anne Midgette.<br />
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<!--EndFragment-->Scott Timberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02018827087884225579noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4932752907198933265.post-23985719463950787282014-01-24T12:11:00.001-08:002014-01-24T12:13:06.696-08:00The Sorrows of Gene ClarkHERE at The Misread City, we're huge Byrds fans, and Gene Clark is, some days, our favorite member of that great L.A. band. With the Byrds he wrote and sang songs like "I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better" and "Set You Free This Time"; his country-tinged solo career was rich and varied, and included Tried So Hard" (covered by Fairport Convention and Yo La Tengo), "Why Not Your Baby" (covered by Velvet Crush) and some soulful collaborations with Byrd Chris Hillman.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3xrip4rgZVHky7KTdCqcdR_LA-0GoVACn3AZopY43Spma2NFWZUrdubN7UG4_DTcXTE5SZaQ08KuivaJbFNyPTI_U0Th2MHZuLe-uVUmrt3qBVngY9WJZu0r2ZjA6_7n1Dlp_qumZFL4/s1600/GeneClarkImg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3xrip4rgZVHky7KTdCqcdR_LA-0GoVACn3AZopY43Spma2NFWZUrdubN7UG4_DTcXTE5SZaQ08KuivaJbFNyPTI_U0Th2MHZuLe-uVUmrt3qBVngY9WJZu0r2ZjA6_7n1Dlp_qumZFL4/s1600/GeneClarkImg.jpg" height="320" width="310" /></a>But there's always been a sense that the Missouri-born Clark, who left the Byrds during their heyday, in 1966, because of his refusal to fly, never quite arrived. (This is the guy, of course, who co-wrote "Eight Miles High.") There is a strong Clark cult among musicians and fans of country rock, but it's not nearly as large as that commanded by Gram Parsons. Much of the poignant work of his solo career remains largely unheard.<br />
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Clark was reticent, often anxious, sometimes self-destructive and did not love the attention the group's fame brought. And he felt deep disappointment that his 1974 record, <i>No Other</i>, which he recorded in Mendocino and was intended comeback, never hit. It was a lasting sorrow for a musician whose best work is about loss and missed connections.<br />
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So it gives us great pleasure to see a number of indie musicians -- Beach House (pictured), the Walkmen, Grizzly Bear -- performing a handful of <a href="http://www.beachhousebaltimore.com/indexgene.html">tribute concerts</a> to Clark and this oft-overlooked album. They're at the 9:30 Club in D.C. (a club important to me as a teenager, for what it's worth) and in Brooklyn this weekend.<br />
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/24/arts/music/an-ex-byrds-album-is-given-new-flight.html?src=me">Here's </a>the New York Times' Jon Pareles:<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: nyt-cheltenham, georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px;"></span><br />
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A British Invasion beat carried Clark’s early songs with the Byrds, like “I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better” — which, in a typical Clark touch, brings uncertainty to its chorus, “I’ll probably feel a whole lot better when you’re gone.”</div>
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But rock often gave way, during his solo career, to something closer to the country music he had grown up on, transformed by his lyrics. His songs have been recognized as a foundation for what would later be called alt-country or Americana. Clark wrote story songs as stark as traditional ballads, and deeply haunted mood songs like the two chosen by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss — “Polly Come Home” and “Through the Morning, Through the Night” — for their 2007 album “Raising Sand.”</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="678" data-total-count="5494" itemprop="articleBody" style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 1rem; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.4375rem; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 120px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; max-width: 540px; width: 540px;">
Yet “No Other” is no one’s idea of down-home roots-rock. Mr. Clark and its producer, Thomas Jefferson Kaye, gave it a far more lavish palette, and even the songs that start out countryish end up in realms of their own. There are gospelly female choruses, horns, synthesizers, Latin percussion, wah-wah violin and, in “No Other,” a bruising fuzz-toned bass line played by a phalanx of overdubbed basses. The head of Elektra/Asylum Records, David Geffen, was furious that a $100,000 studio budget had yielded only eight finished songs, and the label barely promoted the album. In a notorious Hollywood incident, Clark and Mr. Geffen <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=ZZUHknGVGx4C&pg=PA193&lpg=PA193%22%20%5Cl%20%22v=onepage&q&f=false" style="color: #326891; text-decoration: underline;">nearly came to blows</a>at a restaurant.</div>
<br />
Now, let's have a Gene Clark tribute in the state he called home for much of his career. Let's start with the city in which his old band was formed -- Los Angeles.<br />
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<br />Scott Timberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02018827087884225579noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4932752907198933265.post-11115468577017658602014-01-18T14:58:00.001-08:002014-01-18T14:59:39.039-08:00Catching Up with Stephen MalkmusTHE other day I spoke to the former leader of what may've been the greatest band of the '90s -- Stephen Malkmus of Pavement. Their mix of melody and noise electrified me during my misspent youth, and it was gratifying to see the band reunite a few years ago and actually play like they meant it.<br />
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Malkmus, who recently returned to Portland after a couple years in Berlin, has a fine new record out on Matador. He'll be touring soon. <a href="http://www.salon.com/2014/01/18/stephen_malkmus_i_still_hate_the_eagles/">Here's</a> my interview. Just don't expect straight answers from him. I've spoken to him several times over the years -- on each occasion he gets a bit friendlier and a bit more cryptic.Scott Timberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02018827087884225579noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4932752907198933265.post-76121180815639516502013-12-29T16:39:00.000-08:002013-12-29T16:39:57.499-08:00The Life and Death of the Alternative PressIF it weren't for the '80s Village Voice, I probably would not be a journalist. (The world, I expect, would be a better place.)<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPJrHd0n7ySilJX_DQTHg75HrIdjsE6O6W9VWZJXRtOyYJpxpuOjuJ7soeyIeTswzHQOz5bT9Fk2gexzoIYVTamnuUpnPNW_KfyBU5444Sv2I919TBGGZxHIOAHqkG6B7mhdpwMInlXqM/s1600/1955_October_cover_The_Village_Voice.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPJrHd0n7ySilJX_DQTHg75HrIdjsE6O6W9VWZJXRtOyYJpxpuOjuJ7soeyIeTswzHQOz5bT9Fk2gexzoIYVTamnuUpnPNW_KfyBU5444Sv2I919TBGGZxHIOAHqkG6B7mhdpwMInlXqM/s320/1955_October_cover_The_Village_Voice.jpg" width="231" /></a>This weekend I have a <a href="http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/12/28/how-the-village-voiceandotheraltweeklieslosttheirvoicein2013.html">story</a> in Al Jazeera America about good times and bad for alternative weeklies. I talk about the crystalline sense of mission these publications had during conservative times, and the troubles they've had more recently. And I try to shine a light on the good and important work they still do.<br />
<br />
In the piece I get into my youthful infatuation with the alt-press -- I interned at the Voice, freelanced for the now-defunct Boston Phoenix soon after leaving college, later worked for New Times Los Angeles. As nasty as that company could be, we had a blast there, some of the time, and I'm still proud of the work my colleagues and I did there. (Even if New Times responded by killing the paper and destroying its online archive.) Where is the alt press now?<br />
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And I try to sketch out what various weeklies have meant to the city of Los Angeles, which remains the Misread City.<br />
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Happy holidays to all my readers.Scott Timberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02018827087884225579noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4932752907198933265.post-67369163857836481662013-12-15T10:47:00.001-08:002013-12-15T10:47:40.895-08:00Richard Rodriguez on Religion, Atheism and PoliticsSOMETIMES I wonder why the words -- especially the personal essays -- of Richard Rodriguez hit me so directly. He is a gay Latino born in the '40s, a devout if conflicted Catholic, and on many issues a political or social conservative. My origins and allegiances are very different and coincide with none of those categories (I have long thought of myself, for instance, as a Protestant agnostic on religious matters.)<br />
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Part of my connection to Rodriguez's work, I think, is that he writes so well about California, a major concern for The Misread City. But mainly, our mismatched alliance comes simply from the power of great writing, and deep thinking. I'm always curious what he has to say, even when we (frequently) disagree. <br />
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His elegant new book <i>Darling</i> is on religion after 9/11, and it's his first in a decade. It's my favorite work of his going back even longer.<br />
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<a href="http://www.salon.com/2013/12/15/richard_rodriguez_new_atheism_has_a_distinctly_neo_colonial_aspect/">Here</a> is my Salon interview with Richard Rodriguez.Scott Timberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02018827087884225579noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4932752907198933265.post-46173126016768536562013-12-11T17:09:00.001-08:002013-12-11T17:25:59.286-08:00Dave Allen on Rock Music and the Internet RECENTLY I've been corresponding with Dave Allen, bassist for the British post-punk group Gang of Four. His ideas on digital culture -- mostly strongly opposed to those of David Lowery and David Byrne -- are as forceful as his bass playing on <i>Entertainment!</i><br />
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I'll point out that I disagree with Mr. Allen on much of what he says; I'm less optimistic that the new system will work out for musicians (and I have seen from quite a close perspective how it works out for most journalists.) </div>
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For example, he argues that there has been no golden age for musicians, that making a living has always been hard, and so on. Well, of course, that's all literally true, but just because a system was not perfect does not mean it has not gotten substantially worse.<br />
<br />
I could argue to anyone who tells me, say, that Congress has run aground that we've always had conflicts in Washington, going back to the 18th century, and that Ted Cruz is just a latter-day version of whoever... Same with arguments about income inequality, or anything that matters. This argument does not help clarify where we are at present: You do not have to acknowledge the existence of a golden age to want things to be better or to resist and criticize the way they have gone. </div>
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But Allen's an extremely sharp guy, a lively writer, and he deserves to be heard. <a href="http://www.salon.com/2013/12/12/dave_allen_stop_blaming_the_internet_it_has_always_been_hard_for_musicians/">Here's</a> our Salon conversation. </div>
Scott Timberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02018827087884225579noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4932752907198933265.post-47464725770494824332013-12-11T16:08:00.002-08:002013-12-13T12:53:19.631-08:00Returning to Charlie Haden, Jazz and Transcendence<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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TODAY I have been trying to move on to other things, but
can’t get the memory of last night’s Charlie Haden/ Liberation Music Orchestra
concert out of my mind. There are too many things to contemplate here, but let
me offer a few stray thoughts.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Overall: While this night was by no means perfect – there
were minor technical problems early on, the musician most of us had come to see
was in such poor health he only played one song, there was a point or two where
I was not sure ANYONE was going to play anything – it was also as powerful a
jazz show as I’ve seen in almost 25 years of eagerly attending them.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7c1V_jybnoMWg0Uo6LpWiwUdMyZ-6w4x61twRQ8lJwfBNpgd-8k2Eqf6pOzBn6MM2BO_8WFmbg4HYSotW5QAujaN-r7l4ZiyBlQF1IpBYW77kfEchkFk_tqTSe93jtznDLhwu8G73BPY/s1600/LMO+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7c1V_jybnoMWg0Uo6LpWiwUdMyZ-6w4x61twRQ8lJwfBNpgd-8k2Eqf6pOzBn6MM2BO_8WFmbg4HYSotW5QAujaN-r7l4ZiyBlQF1IpBYW77kfEchkFk_tqTSe93jtznDLhwu8G73BPY/s400/LMO+3.jpg" height="395" width="400" /></a>The concert, which included only a few pieces, including a
long “America” medley accidentally chopped into two pieces, offered great
songs, great solos, and perhaps the finest arrangements I have ever seen at a
jazz show. (These, with a full range of horns, were by Carla Bley, who sadly
did not attend.) It was a show in which almost every note was played by someone
you’d never heard of – the group was made up of students and alums from the jazz
program Haden founded at CalArts – but nearly all of his was moving and
persuasive. Some of it truly kicked ass.</div>
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Soon after I moved to Los Angeles in 1997, I attended a show
at the old Jazz Bakery. I’m not sure who the artist was, maybe Brad Mehldau. In
any case, I saw Haden casually standing around the audience that night and
thought, Wow, I have really arrived at a major cultural center. (I was too
cowed to introduce myself.) My friend the jazz critic Ted Gioia had a similar
experience a few decades before. “<span style="color: #1a1a1a; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">I still recall the first time I heard him, when I was a college
freshman,” Ted told me. “He was playing with Keith Jarrett at Oakland's
Paramount Theater. I thought then (and still believe it): Haden has the
most beautiful bass tone in the history of jazz.”</span> <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzc9A5yMcasFj83wzxSgwSJq-7tesv6oWt6yIeKr-v0swfLgP87XpYx3njwpwWA1xFtALUXhokaJTaZE28Dijy-Xzg-gIZn1tAo2mWOMM2sMpgxuH-lFjiIULOkq7tt0h1Utjujpu8vdQ/s1600/LMO+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzc9A5yMcasFj83wzxSgwSJq-7tesv6oWt6yIeKr-v0swfLgP87XpYx3njwpwWA1xFtALUXhokaJTaZE28Dijy-Xzg-gIZn1tAo2mWOMM2sMpgxuH-lFjiIULOkq7tt0h1Utjujpu8vdQ/s400/LMO+1.jpg" height="400" width="266" /></a>It’s impossible, of course, to separate musical performances
from the circumstances around them, and that goes double for last night’s gig.
Live shows are always “you had to be there” events; this sense of the fleeting
moment is amplified when you have a major artist who we may never see perform
again, as may be the case with Haden. When I said as much yesterday, he tweeted
back, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">Thanks 4 the nod Scott,but<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I'm gonna make sure it's not my last hurrah
but another hurrah in a long life! Hope u'll b there.</span></i><span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"> Of course, this is
a prediction about which I will very happily be proven wrong. But Haden’s
health problems – a return of his childhood polio – are serious. (He has
neither performed live nor eaten solid food in two years, I think.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">Haden came out at the beginning of the show, along with his
young group. There was a bit of fussing with mic placement and other things.
His cherubic smile is still there, and his storytelling is undiminished. (I
meant this both to his anecdotes and his ability to “tell my story,” as he
described it, on his double bass.) He walks with a cane, conducted the pieces
rather than played them, and seemed to lose his place while speaking a few
times. Nonetheless, we got a sense of a very strong personality, and someone
whose love of music burns as strong as ever. He spoke about his friendship with
Scott LaFaro, the Bill Evans Trio bassist who died very young in a car accident
(one of very few bassists whose solos could be as lyrical as Haden’s) and Jim
Hall, the graceful and understated guitarist who had died earlier in the day,
and the difficulty of making sense of death. He also described his condition a
bit, offering “Fuck polio!”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">Chris Barton of the LA Times wrote in his <a href="http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/posts/la-et-ms-charlie-haden-speaks-volumes-at-redcat-20131211,0,1094818.story#ixzz2nDesWFG0">review</a> that it was "</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;">a night so fraught with the shadow of that unwelcome guest artist who can sit in at any moment: Time."</span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">There is another aspect to the legacy of Charlie Haden: When he
moved out to Los Angeles in the 1950s to seek out the jazz pianist Hampton
Hawes, he made a permanent difference in the musical life of this city. CalArts
jazz program is part of it. But the whole Haden clan adds up to about as
substantial a musical family as we’ve ever seen. Haden’s kids – Rachel, Tanya,
Petra and Josh – have, between them been part of That Dog, The Decemberists,
the Rentals, Spain, and a good number of solo projects. (There are probably
only a handful of us who listen with equal ardor to Haden’s playing with
Ornette Coleman, Petra’s all-vocal reimagining of the early Who, Josh’s “slowcore”
band Spain, and so on, but I am glad to have them all part of Southland musical
life. Let me add: Spain, which recently reformed, shows how the aesthetics of
jazz and a certain kind of nuanced, VU-ish rock can be combined in a way far
richer than most over-emphatic, jive-ass fusion: They remain gripping and majorly
underrated.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #262626;">The night, in short, left me feeling that jazz has a future, a subject I go back and forth on. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #262626;">The Liberation Music Orchestra organized for the show should
stay together and, if possible, tour. Any kind of big band, perhaps especially
an unconventional one, is hard to sustain economically. The show also reminded
me how conducive a space to acoustic jazz REDCAT can be – with great acoustics
and 230 or so seats, it’s the perfect size. The numbers are hard when you have
a dozen or so people onstage and only a few hundred in the audience. But
musically it was pure heaven.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAw6fbVb6neXXMX8cMsRdPvikbViLeQOqCnVp6_pLEevxD9fCd22d9mrpcK2GkSiQvhAhoHGqaPionqkVpNfDMPZyEXQerIZlIF2WS2DStPliqRrOOSR7JcFucHrVGq-odVu_KXmd9XNg/s1600/LMO+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAw6fbVb6neXXMX8cMsRdPvikbViLeQOqCnVp6_pLEevxD9fCd22d9mrpcK2GkSiQvhAhoHGqaPionqkVpNfDMPZyEXQerIZlIF2WS2DStPliqRrOOSR7JcFucHrVGq-odVu_KXmd9XNg/s320/LMO+2.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a><span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">The concert opened with the anthem of the African National
Congress (in honor of Mandela), included the Bowie/Metheny “This is Not America”
(which has never sounded so good), Coleman’s “Skies of America,” “Amazing
Grace,” and closed with an encore of the Miles/Evans tune “Blue in Green.” For
the final tune, Haden picked up his bass – we’d been told not to expect this –
and played as deep and soulful a bass part as I can imagine. Despite being
physically rickety, the music is still coursing through him and seemed to give
him new strength.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">Despite having listened to many Haden performances from the last
half-century, and having seen him play a bunch of times, I don’t think I’ve
ever heard him speak. Given my genial image of him, it was startling to hear
his political rants – he’s a longtime lefty and anti-racist -- onstage anecdotes
and thoughts on nature and music: He came across like a ‘50s Beat crossed with
an ornery mountain man, appropriately enough for a guy from the Ozarks. His
vocal chords are paralyzed, so at times it was hard to make out what he was
saying, but I hope Haden has been taking notes on his life and music. There is
clearly much fight left in this country boy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">Let me close with a rant of my own, or rather, by an art critic
I admire. Jed Perl’s <a href="http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115823/record-auction-prices-show-moneys-victory-over-art">recent piece</a> in The New Republic describes a process that
is reshaping the world of visual art, or at least, its meaning during the
market boom. It is not the neglect of the art, but rather the wrong kind of
attention. As he writes:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .25in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Among the most
revolting sports favored by the super-rich is the devaluation of any reasonable
sense of value. At Christie’s and Sotheby’s some of the wealthiest members of
society, the people who can’t believe in anything until it’s been monetized,
are trashing one of our last hopes for transcendence. They don’t know the
difference between avidity and avarice. Why drink an excellent $30 or $50
bottle of wine when you can pour a $500 or $1000 bottle down your throat? Why
buy a magnificent $20,000 or $1 million painting when you can spend $50 or $100
million and really impress friends and enemies alike?</span><span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">I think Perl is right, by the way, and my book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Creative Destruction</i>, which comes out
next year, concerns itself with some of these matters. And it’s not just the
plutocracy: The cultural left, which is where I usually find myself, has run
down the possibility of the arts as a holy space at least as far back as Warhol
and Derrida. The irrelevance or “complicity” of culture has become an
unexpected spot where right and left often meet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">But I must also add: Whether this is the last time any of us see
Charlie Haden pick up the bass, or if he plays for another decade, and whatever
the concert’s little rough spots, last night was quite clearly -- for many of
us assembled -- a night of transcendence achieved.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">(Photo credits: First by Steve Hochman, others by Steve Gunther, all REDCAT 10 December 2013)</span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Scott Timberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02018827087884225579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4932752907198933265.post-15043340738393429632013-12-09T16:37:00.001-08:002013-12-09T16:39:56.810-08:00Celebrating Charlie Haden<style>
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TUESDAY night in Los Angeles will see both a celebratory and
a sad occasion: The jazz titan Charlie Haden – the lyrical bass player,
free-jazz pioneer, crucial collaborator to Ornette Coleman and others, father
to a four Los Angeles indie rockers, founder of CalArts jazz program – will
lead his Liberation Music Orchestra at <a href="http://www.redcat.org/event/charlie-haden-1">REDCAT</a>. It has special music since this
group – which Haden began in 1969 – was dedicated to music of the Spanish Civil
War, Latin American independence and South Africa’s fight for justice. The
REDCAT show’s arrangements were made by the jazz composer Carla Bley, who
played a major role in the original group.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrO1D0hyphenhyphen3QwidNnwPNT3xONSZC3lydO5Zta4bFhMOD_xoGj1OqgIIyeZw05l3ugBqL4jL-r4PXV-voU1efMex1_Qb7jJaHmVfS3lX48nbvBs5Ort3eeBDhJuaJtLO0XhideZMbBomBp0o/s1600/Liberation_Music_Orchestra.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrO1D0hyphenhyphen3QwidNnwPNT3xONSZC3lydO5Zta4bFhMOD_xoGj1OqgIIyeZw05l3ugBqL4jL-r4PXV-voU1efMex1_Qb7jJaHmVfS3lX48nbvBs5Ort3eeBDhJuaJtLO0XhideZMbBomBp0o/s320/Liberation_Music_Orchestra.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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The bad news is that this may be the last-ever public
appearance by Haden, whohas been very sick. He will pay with the group if he is physically able, but he
may simply appear for a last hurrah from the Southland’s jazz community.</div>
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I’ve been listening to Haden – first, I think, on Coleman’s
Change of the Century, then on dates he led, like his Quartet West LPs and his
Montreal dates – since I got into jazz two decades ago. He’s collaborated with
more of my favorite artists – Keith Jarrett, Brad Mehldau, Paul Motian, Lee
Konitz, Hank Jones, Kenny Barron, many others – than just about anyone I can
think of. He’s taught a number of young musicians I know and admire, and the
Haden triplets and Josh Haden (leader of the ethereal band Spain) are among the
cream of LA’s rock subculture.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Haden, who grew up in a country-music family in the Ozark
Mountains, and whose basslines still offer songlike lines and a country twang,
contracted polio as a teenager, and he is now <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-01-29/entertainment/ct-ent-0130-jazz-charlie-haden-20130130_1_charlie-haden-polio-cases-polio-epidemic">suffering</a>, in his 70s, from
post-polio syndrome.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd-dyF2QomKh3cDAEQsQCAs737JGoLy-6qIr5Ixqty9wIuPRji0PV8XCZEZEzZW5tIxYVTrwinNXyi7PxyyhcMycmGyp0m4yg3ykEIuPauXfp6fGCcPAo24-6o6Sbb-ZjoVQyzg7qfrgo/s1600/The_Montreal_Tapes_with_Don_Cherry_and_Ed_Blackwell.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd-dyF2QomKh3cDAEQsQCAs737JGoLy-6qIr5Ixqty9wIuPRji0PV8XCZEZEzZW5tIxYVTrwinNXyi7PxyyhcMycmGyp0m4yg3ykEIuPauXfp6fGCcPAo24-6o6Sbb-ZjoVQyzg7qfrgo/s1600/The_Montreal_Tapes_with_Don_Cherry_and_Ed_Blackwell.jpg" /></a></div>
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At this point, it’s hard for me to contemplate the Southland
jazzworld without Charlie Haden. So I won’t. I urge everyone who loves Haden’s
music, and the numerous traditions that intersect in his work and life, to come
out to REDCAT tomorrow and blow the roof off the place.</div>
Scott Timberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02018827087884225579noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4932752907198933265.post-71995087641677009572013-12-04T17:10:00.002-08:002013-12-04T18:23:14.327-08:00Print, Online and the Creative Class<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">TODAY I have another piece in Salon, this one about
the folding of New York magazine into a biweekly, and the resulting
conversation about where the media is (and isn't going.) <a href="http://www.salon.com/2013/12/04/new_york_magazines_bad_bet/">HERE</a> it is.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">People trying to be "counterintuitive"
are framing this as a win for journalists and journalism, since more people
will read New York related copy on the blogs (some of which are quite
good.) It's like saying musicians -- or music -- are thriving because
more people listen to their songs on Spotify than ever did in the old record
label-and-album model.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_FI5VCUUkq7v744NfLhxGDieDOpF5I-dsmNVvxHLrh6AiS6wYY0r_4vbwrHATd3xpr3oKv3Hhtpuy-TFwqRYBAw9tdWK6gXiExhKCqdtZ4gVR0qvZ7K-k15EBlToClIRDCWPgD2sPPNk/s1600/New_York_magazine_June_8_1970_cover.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_FI5VCUUkq7v744NfLhxGDieDOpF5I-dsmNVvxHLrh6AiS6wYY0r_4vbwrHATd3xpr3oKv3Hhtpuy-TFwqRYBAw9tdWK6gXiExhKCqdtZ4gVR0qvZ7K-k15EBlToClIRDCWPgD2sPPNk/s320/New_York_magazine_June_8_1970_cover.png" width="237" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">If you work in journalism, or the media business, you
know that the phrase, "we've moving online" is typically a code word
for de-professionalization -- something the creative class has gotten awfully
familiar with. David Carr in the New York Times had the right take, I think.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">The magazine also plans to bulk up its print
publication with more fashion and luxury coverage, at a time when most
Americans – among them, the new mayor tells us, a lot of New Yorkers --
continue to emerge only gradually from the Great Recession. (The Bloomberg
operation will reportedly cover the arts, despite firing its arts staff, as a
subset of luxury.) </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">New York magazine – which has always combined the smartly serious with conspicuous consumerism, Frank Rich alongside frivolity – is not the only
publication that is upping its fashion and luxury “content.” The way high-end
fashion coverage, celebrity-worship and house porn continues to replicate in
magazines three decades into flat middle-class wages is a paradox a greater
critic than I will have to tackle. But whatever is driving this, it’s not
something most Americans should celebrate, especially journalists, who
increasingly toil to remain in the middle-class instead of buying $50,000
watches.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Like the David Lowery piece that ran yesterday, this gets into stuff I
investigate deeper in my book <i>Creative Destruction</i>, which comes out next year.</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />Scott Timberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02018827087884225579noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4932752907198933265.post-19835804885280340882013-12-03T20:28:00.000-08:002013-12-04T10:00:24.524-08:00David Lowery vs. Silicon ValleyCAMPER Van Beethoven's singer David Lowery has become the most ornery of those fighting for musician's rights. He's erupted over piracy, Spotify, lyric websites, and the battle between the surviving Beastie Boys (with the ghost of Adam Yauch) and GoldieBlox.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHmASL3Z4kHtwVpJXvknKAoUMJhdupOtGJKMn3stSDs_oEmWXtTgOxU-b3yh2YgANM4kMQ7_kw66dv8NpEssY4TrkrWv0NH9rVO8_UMqN9JwjBrxqfjN1sdTbffkkjCE8L2QvI2KxffvA/s1600/David_Lowery_03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHmASL3Z4kHtwVpJXvknKAoUMJhdupOtGJKMn3stSDs_oEmWXtTgOxU-b3yh2YgANM4kMQ7_kw66dv8NpEssY4TrkrWv0NH9rVO8_UMqN9JwjBrxqfjN1sdTbffkkjCE8L2QvI2KxffvA/s320/David_Lowery_03.jpg" width="320" /></a>I speak to him for Salon <a href="http://www.salon.com/2013/12/04/david_lowery_silicon_valley_must_be_stopped_or_creativity_will_be_destroyed/">here</a>.<br />
<br />
He makes a pretty good case for what's wrong with Silicon Valley techno-utopianism, which leaves artists out of the revenue stream.<br />
<br />
(Lowery and his argument also make an appearance in my book <i>Creative Destruction</i>, which comes out next year.)<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBGzgowrrfwScR-tqu5lJ7ZI2igi5vbzl7D3p6ZQFGGohXOHI2FdckpYNtb5QqqzNGWLYSu9uMgXkpjYwzlDyEWgLr97YmM3jL_8kaQzQCzvnnpZ_fTjCNM0UdQWLiWkpoe6TTD7LVexY/s1600/Adam_Yauch_crop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBGzgowrrfwScR-tqu5lJ7ZI2igi5vbzl7D3p6ZQFGGohXOHI2FdckpYNtb5QqqzNGWLYSu9uMgXkpjYwzlDyEWgLr97YmM3jL_8kaQzQCzvnnpZ_fTjCNM0UdQWLiWkpoe6TTD7LVexY/s1600/Adam_Yauch_crop.jpg" /></a></div>
Scott Timberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02018827087884225579noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4932752907198933265.post-46335210719152039212013-11-21T12:51:00.002-08:002013-11-21T15:08:02.961-08:00Cheering George Packer's "The Unwinding"<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">LORD know this book does not need any more praise, but I want to wave the tattered American flag for George Packer's <i>The Unwinding</i>, which just won the National Book Award. The book is not perfect -- more on that in a minute -- but it is lyrical, powerfully reported, passionately written, and lives up to its subtitle: "An Inner History of the New America."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">As research for my own <i>Creative Destruction</i>, I've spent the last year or two reading numerous books of social criticism, going back to the mid-century American generation of Vance Packard, and up through Barbara Ehrenreich and others, and this book makes an excellent extension of that tradition. (It is also self-consciously in the oft-overlooked tradition of Dos Passos's U.S.A. trilogy.)</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEito1kB_wmBhPMvuyUCWzHdnx1bFA_XXMYCdWDFQH3YQUJsagrNtpIUW7gJ62ZfmrTq9gdBJ1KuyQh2l6XtANEoivSd1kO26APEiyn9FBbYvn0MjMIXq8zUYAhyphenhyphen08MMo-W72HXpZccMtCE/s1600/TheUnwinding.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEito1kB_wmBhPMvuyUCWzHdnx1bFA_XXMYCdWDFQH3YQUJsagrNtpIUW7gJ62ZfmrTq9gdBJ1KuyQh2l6XtANEoivSd1kO26APEiyn9FBbYvn0MjMIXq8zUYAhyphenhyphen08MMo-W72HXpZccMtCE/s320/TheUnwinding.jpg" width="210" /></a></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Dwight Garner, in the New York Times, wrote about the potentially unwieldy number of piece that make up <i>The Unwinding</i>, some of which originated in The New Yorker. Here's Garner:</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It is Mr. Packer’s achievement in “The Unwinding” that these pieces, freshly shuffled and assembled, have speed and power to burn. This book hums — with sorrow, with outrage and with compassion for those who are caught in the gears of America’s increasingly complicated (and increasingly poorly calibrated) financial machinery.</span></i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The larger discussion of the book hinges not on its skillful portraits of Florida real-estate busts, political life in Washington, Silicon Valley libertarians, or sketches of Newt Gingrich and Oprah Winfrey (who turn out to the the same person), but on its big picture -- or lack thereof. Here's David Brooks:</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">When John Dos Passos wrote the “U.S.A.” trilogy, the left had Marxism. It had a rigorous intellectual structure that provided an undergirding theory of society — how social change happens, which forces matter and which don’t, how society works and who causes it not to work. Dos Passos’ literary approach could rely on that structure, fleshing it out with story and prose.</span></i></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> The left no longer has Marxism or any other coherent intellectual structure. Packer’s work has no rigorous foundation to rely on, no ideology to give it organization and shape.</span></i></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Brooks, with whom I sometimes disagree, is onto something here, and several of my friends on the left have expressed similar reservations. Why is it that a journalist more-or-less on the left is uncomfortable/unwilling to frame his work with an overarching theory of society or history, the way similar scribes did in the 19th or 20th century? The reasons are long and complex, and I hope to get into this another time. (For what it's worth, Salon's <a href="http://www.salon.com/2013/11/21/the_national_book_awards_get_it_right/">Laura Miller</a>, a critic I like a lot, praises the book because it "pointedly refrains from making sweeping polemical arguments about 'what’s gone wrong.'... In a culture in which everyone is perpetually shrieking their political opinions, it’s hard to convey just how refreshing this is.")</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">For now, let me acknowledge Brooks' criticism, but assert whole-heartedly that <i>The Unwinding</i> is an incredible piece of work, something that everyone who wants to understand the crisis in America today should pick up pronto.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">+++</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Postscript: As a reader, and an Angeleno, I am disappointed that Rachel Kushner's <i>The Flame Throwers</i>, a captivating novel about the New York art scene and '70s Italy, did not take the fiction prize. Both of Rachel's novels (The Other is <i>Telex From Cuba</i>) have been greeted with great acclaim (I am lucky enough to have written about both of them), she is as sharp a person as we know, and here at The Misread City we are confident that she will live to write and fight again. </span><br />
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Scott Timberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02018827087884225579noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4932752907198933265.post-57026277276210334492013-11-13T16:24:00.001-08:002013-11-15T15:31:58.822-08:00Digging the New Dean Wareham<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="color: #3e0040; font-size: 14pt;">DESPITE our well-documented bias for things West Coast, the Misread City gang has a deep and abiding love for the work of Dean Wareham going back to the Galaxie 500 and Luna eras. The day after seeing Luna on its first US tour (opening for the Sundays, if memory serves, and before the first LP), we walked to the local record store in Chapel Hill to pick up the band's <i>Slide</i> EP. (It was what we imagine kids in the '50s used to do.)</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSBDwBHaMU13zV38fEvnPjE2RoTadCya-TGwSF_dp21cFIO0R4ElzgYJVh7scAAfpvjS-l1p5YMlP1ZHHQJrg0tZq9MN-MSYqGvtf_Uczk-6COGC3Vbv69L6FmOc_wsbFHudiZpAjGFHE/s1600/black+postcards.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSBDwBHaMU13zV38fEvnPjE2RoTadCya-TGwSF_dp21cFIO0R4ElzgYJVh7scAAfpvjS-l1p5YMlP1ZHHQJrg0tZq9MN-MSYqGvtf_Uczk-6COGC3Vbv69L6FmOc_wsbFHudiZpAjGFHE/s320/black+postcards.JPG" width="210" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #3e0040; font-size: 14pt;">Dean -- whose roots are in Australia and New Zealand and whose early bands were based in Boston and New York -- </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #3e0040; font-size: 19px;">has recently moved to Los Angeles. He's also just released his first solo record, an EP called <i>Emancipated Hearts</i>. (Check out the track called Air.) </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #3e0040; font-size: 19px;">We spoke to Dean about his new work, the state of the music business, and his feelings for California.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #3e0040; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #3e0040; font-size: 14pt;">Dean Wareham plays Thursday night at Largo at the Coronet, one of LA's best clubs. We'll be there. Here's our Q & A with him.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #3e0040;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #3e0040; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">You’ve been
in a number of semi-famous indie bands – Galaxie 500, Luna, Dean & Britta –
and are now releasing what I take to be your first solo recording. How is it
different from leading a band, and is it strange feeling to be on your own?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> To tell you the truth it still feels like a band effort,
these are musicians I have been playing with for some years now: Britta
Phillips on bass and Anthony LaMarca on drums, and augmented on this mini-LP by
producer Jason Quever, who played keyboards and electric guitar. So anyway,
technically yes it’s a “solo” release because it says so on the front of the
record. I’m doing all the singing, and I write all the lyrics and melodies, but
I depend on those around me to help figure out the arrangements. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">That’s not so different from how I’ve been recording my whole
career. Perhaps the difference was at the mixing stage, Jason Quever mixed it,
and I was there too, but we didn’t have a whole band sitting behind him making
comments. Last night the four of us had a rehearsal at Jason's studio in San
Francisco and the band sounds really good, both on the new songs we recorded
together but also on the Galaxie 500 and Luna songs we are doing.<span style="mso-font-kerning: .5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #3e0040; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-font-kerning: .5pt;">You’re known for songwriting, but you’ve always had a great knack for
covers – Wire’s Outdoor Miner, Jonathan Richman, Sweet Child of Mine, and so
on. What makes a song right for you to play, besides, you know, liking it?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Picking covers is hit and miss. Just because I love a particular
song does not mean I can pull it off vocally. I covered
"Distractions" by Bobby Darin, a sly anti-war song from his folk
period. But my rendition was not quite successful. Nor was Luna's rendition of
"Dancing Days" by Led Zeppelin, though at least there is a bit of
comedy in my singing that. Anyway I do look for songs that are
under-appreciated, lost even. </span><br />
<span style="color: #3e0040; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-font-kerning: .5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #3e0040; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-font-kerning: .5pt;">One of my favorite tracks on here is the digital-only number, Living Too
Close to the Ground, an Every Bros song significantly less well-known that,
say, Cathy’s Clown. How did you stumble upon this one and what made it seem
right for you?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd0TB7E-rWNB4JuytU9gqNaI0_kFRV_A5-J2frS67ciEDERrsg3zrr9aqe3PtQdxeih712hKJlTrdXx3r93mffVq10uLuhb48Y44e_vqsYC6pUS0-Im7fLmyKlvjJZTmg6hnBKYD4Yc0I/s1600/Emancipated.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="177" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd0TB7E-rWNB4JuytU9gqNaI0_kFRV_A5-J2frS67ciEDERrsg3zrr9aqe3PtQdxeih712hKJlTrdXx3r93mffVq10uLuhb48Y44e_vqsYC6pUS0-Im7fLmyKlvjJZTmg6hnBKYD4Yc0I/s200/Emancipated.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The Everly Brothers are amazing, first for their rhythm guitar
playing (and this is more evident in the ‘50s songs), but there is also this
‘60s period where they recorded a number of great albums for Warner Brothers,
albums that didn’t do well at radio (at least in the States, they were more popular
in England). They were probably out of fashion, but they kept making records.
“Living Too Close to the Ground” I think was written by their bassist (though
I’m not positive about that, I’ve read a couple different things); anyway it is
a great lyric and their recording is haunting and weird. I’m happy with how
mine turned out too — there’s a delicious slide guitar solo in there — played
by Jason.<span style="mso-font-kerning: .5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #3e0040; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-font-kerning: .5pt;">You’ve written in your memoir </span></i><span style="color: #3e0040; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-font-kerning: .5pt;">Black Postcards</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #3e0040; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-font-kerning: .5pt;"> one of the best assessments of the shift from the label era of the ‘80s
and ‘90s to our current post-Napster musical universe. Lots of raging debate
right now on Pandora, piracy, the joys of going it alone with Kickstarter, etc.
Be brief if you like, but how are you enjoying our brave new world?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="color: #001c69; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">I didn’t quite realize as I was writing my book, that it was
about something that was disappearing, a world of compact discs and tour
support and even indie labels giving healthy advances to bands. The book ends
in 2005, since then of course many more changes. Back then it was the early
days of piracy (or filesharing), now people are just as concerned about
streaming.</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-font-kerning: .5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #001c69; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">As you say, there have been some interesting discussions online
lately, David Lowery arguing that the internet revolution has been terrible for
musicians, and others writing about the dangers of Spotify — and on the other
side Dave Allen, formerly of the Gang of Four, arguing that “the internet
doesn’t care” and that we are simply in a transitional phase between
technologies, with new markets being formed. Maybe that's true; certainly
the old marketplaces are disappearing and we can see that with our eyes. Dave
Allen also points to artists like Amanda Palmer and Trent Reznor and says
they’ve got it figured out -- so what’s wrong with the rest of us? Which sounds
like an updated <i>bootstrap</i> argument to me, something Dickens would make
fun of. We hear similar thoughts from Thomas Friedman, that if we can
continually reinvent ourselves and learn new technologies, we’ll be fine. </span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-font-kerning: .5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #001c69; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">At any rate there have always been challenges, being a recording
artist or musician has never been a very reliable job. I know the 1990s were
good times for the music business as a whole, it was a golden age where they
convinced everyone to replace their vinyl collection with compact discs, how
great was that? And if your band had a hit at radio, then maybe you did
well. </span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-font-kerning: .5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #001c69; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">It is an interesting time to be in a band; there are certain
advantages — it’s cheaper than ever to make recordings and distribute them all
over the world, via the miracle of Internet and social media. It's easier than
ever to reach your audience. The problem now is it’s more difficult to <i>sell </i>music.
We hear a lot that music should be free. Sure, it should be free, and so should
health care and education, and recording studios, and my rent should be
controlled too. But unfortunately we don't live in that world.</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-font-kerning: .5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #3e0040; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-font-kerning: .5pt;">You moved to Los Angeles earlier this year. What’s it like for a longtime
New Yorker, originally from down under, to land in California? What do you like
here and what do you miss about the East?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">I lived in Sydney, Australia, from age 7 to 14. I only know
Sydney from a child’s perspective, but Los Angeles reminds me of that city —
the sprawl, the perfect weather, the Eucalpytus and Jacaranda trees. I have
only been here six months but Los Angeles certainly has its charms, its rich
history, good food, plenty of culture. But I miss some of the freedom of New
York, where it is much easier to go out at night, easier to wander the streets
or ride a bicycle. Life in Los Angeles, as John Cassavetes said, is life by
appointment. But the truth is I spend most of my time at home, avoiding
traffic, playing guitar, running my record label, making sure the social media
is updated — pulling myself up by my bootstraps.<span style="mso-font-kerning: .5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<!--EndFragment-->Scott Timberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02018827087884225579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4932752907198933265.post-76279804295897531092013-11-12T20:49:00.002-08:002013-11-13T08:30:16.282-08:00Disappearing Into "Invisible Cities"<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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THERE’s a phrase of John Cage’s I think about once in a
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuYwRFLd8JkQpSA32fpr2H-xt4hkn8VoYHXaGoYVqYNRuDdWiclvkxDuhGQXwD9F9k0mWdKc8MOAK7w42TrPjfekJbmAViguW19a5upG4ao017aF104tRQWbwr2EFvdupuaLKdEH_tJjo/s1600/InvisibleCities.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuYwRFLd8JkQpSA32fpr2H-xt4hkn8VoYHXaGoYVqYNRuDdWiclvkxDuhGQXwD9F9k0mWdKc8MOAK7w42TrPjfekJbmAViguW19a5upG4ao017aF104tRQWbwr2EFvdupuaLKdEH_tJjo/s320/InvisibleCities.jpg" width="230" /></a><span style="color: #343434; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">This
notion came alive for me the other night as I caught one of the last
performances of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Invisible Cities</i>, the
wild-ass, Calvino-inspired opera that took place at LA’s Union Station. I’d
been looking forward to seeing more work by Yuval Sharon – the youngish opera
conductor who co-founded a group called The Industry – since his work on Anne
LeBaron’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Crescent City</i>. That
“hyperopera,” put on at Atwater Crossing, showed the arrival of something new
and exciting in Southland arts life. It was also, for all its ambition and
beauty, a bit undigested – some of it was daring, some of it just didn’t come
together. (Mark Swed, on the other hand, was almost unalloyed in his praise.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #343434; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Invisible Cities</span></i><span style="color: #343434; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> showed me everything that
Sharon and his co-conspirators (which seems to include, in the orchestra,
members of local radical-classicalists wild Up, and dancers from Benjamin
Millepied’s LA Dance Project) have tried to cook up resolving almost
completely. Or rather, coming together but remaining mysterious and open. As my
wife, a recovering rock critic who briefly studied opera as an college student,
said to me at its conclusion, “Well, that’s about the coolest thing I think
I’ve ever seen.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #343434; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">As
local culture vultures have surely heard, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Invisible
Cities</i> (music and libretto by Christopher Cerrone) involved a reasonably formal
show taking place in a working train station, so the audience drifted from
place to place, through the historical core and the station’s lovely
courtyards. You walked past travelers rushing to make their train, homeless
people collapsed in chairs, sleeping, and locals enjoying cocktails at the
station bars. Suddenly, a woman in a blue coat begins speaking into a prewar telephone, and you hear nothing. Or a </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #343434;">heavyset man in a baseball cap enjoying a drink at
Traxx begans to sing, and only audience members – because of wireless
headphones – can hear him. It was both an example of heightened, structured
reality and as close as I’ve gotten to seeing art in the everyday. When, in the
middle of a dramatic scene, an announcement came on about train departures it
felt like not like an interruption but like a part of the play’s narrative of
loss, discovery and dislocation.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #343434; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">A few
weeks after seeing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Einstein on the Beach</i>,
I must say that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Invisible Cities</i> made
the Glass/Wilson extravaganza look conventional.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #343434; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Architecture
hounds know the glories of 1939’s Union Station – some of which is Steamline Moderne,
some Mission Revival – but many Californians have never been there. (One of my
most architecturally savvy friends held her wedding there.) And somehow <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Invisible Cities</i> framed everything in a
way that seemed fresh. It’s remarkable enough to have the whole station to
roam, but another thing to have it aestheticized by the workings of real
artists.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #343434; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">I
could go on about how much I loved the whole thing -- and my amazement that
given all the opportunities for things to go wrong, it seemed to run pretty smoothly.
But I’ll just add: I attended a free showing of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Invisible Cities</i>, and it was full of people – especially teenagers
and other young’uns – I never see at the LA Opera or the LA Phil. There were
even more lined up who wanted to see it. At the production’s end, nearly
everyone – including some who probably could not tell Cage from Verdi – seemed
as taken by the whole thing as I was. (And this is a work in which the audience
really is part of the whole thing.) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #343434; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2012/may/09/entertainment/la-et-crescent-city-20120509">Here</a>
is my piece on the elfin Yuval Sharon that preceded his earlier project. And <a href="http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/culture/la-et-cm-invisible-cities-review-20131022,0,1096665.story">here</a> is Mark
Swed’s review of <i>Invisible Cities</i>. (As Mark points out, much of this opera takes place in your head.)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #343434; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #343434; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Looking forward to more great work from The Industry and LA
Dance Project. Please forgive the unqualified rave, but this was the kind of
thing – production, audience, setting – that made me proud to be an Angeleno.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Scott Timberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02018827087884225579noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4932752907198933265.post-36700552983855604112013-11-08T12:16:00.000-08:002013-11-08T12:29:33.454-08:00Arts Journalism Summit 2013RECENTLY I went to the Annenberg Beach House -- the same spot on which William Randolph Hearst once built a 110-room love nest for his affairs with Marion Davies -- to try to figure out the future of cultural journalism. This summit on the crisis of the arts press was put together by the Getty and USC folks.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhTkoJpl2DWeS8bCi1NkJzC6d_qGDpwcBPXwWQ6-rExGiaiHjTORbBmqQtYq2mwJHqFeC3GOb4XhDNwbBGgKB8PDRzFPWnG7wJ-ph47KgJ4lZkCpHfeqLky4bgxJAdvwKpgaA0QfnTwAM/s1600/Mariondavies.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhTkoJpl2DWeS8bCi1NkJzC6d_qGDpwcBPXwWQ6-rExGiaiHjTORbBmqQtYq2mwJHqFeC3GOb4XhDNwbBGgKB8PDRzFPWnG7wJ-ph47KgJ4lZkCpHfeqLky4bgxJAdvwKpgaA0QfnTwAM/s320/Mariondavies.jpg" width="230" /></a></div>
<br />
On that cloudy day in Santa Monica, the Getty's arts fellows -- a very sharp bunch -- from the US and UK spoke and argued with some local artists and arts leaders, media scholars, tech-kids and foundation types. Some fascinating conversation, some depressing, some encouraging.<br />
<br />
I wrote two <a href="http://www.ajsummit.org/2013/10/a-critical-response/">essays</a> on how the whole thing worked out. In the first, "A Day Full of Questions," tried to document the day's debates as accurately as I could. The second piece, "Some Unanswered Questions," looks at the issues that didn't come up, or didn't seem substantially resolved. (In the first piece, perhaps, I am playing reporter, in the second, a critic.) That one concludes with what ended up being an intriguing dinner at director Peter Sellars' house.<br />
<br />
For anyone with an interest in these things, I encourage you to take a good look at the rest of the site, which Doug McLennan, the ArtsJournal.com founder who put it together, calls a virtual summit. There's a lot of spark and intelligence on the site, though no easy answers.Scott Timberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02018827087884225579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4932752907198933265.post-18981379696884010662013-11-06T12:02:00.000-08:002013-11-07T09:57:33.003-08:00The Genius of James Booker<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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IT'S long been something of a cliché to talk about what a head-spinning
musical and cultural melting pot New Orleans is. But there’s no other way to frame
the protean New Orleans pianist James Booker (1939-‘83), who is very near the
top of my list of most individual/ accomplished musician who very few people
know about. His musical vocabulary was an odd blend of bordello and concert
hall: He didn’t sit squarely in any tradition but drew from the blues, gospel,
funk, jazz and classical piano (especially Chopin; an 18-year-old Booker met
Arthur Rubinstein and knocked him out with his playing). Booker’s long,
improvised piece went in all kinds of directions and reminds me of the old
phrase, “the sound of surprise.”</div>
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My all-time favorite of his is a solo live album recorded at his hometown's Maple Club in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Resurrection of the Bayou Maharajah</i>. (If I may sound 20th century for a moment, I looked for that record in half the store -- in blues, R&B, jazz, etc. -- before a helpful clerk told me it was in the "New Orleans" section.)<br />
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But
nearly as good – and to some, the great Booker album – is the 1982 studio release
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Classified</i>, which Rounder has just reissued
with a bunch of lost material.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Classified: Remixed
and Expanded</i> is not quite as rambling and ornery as the live stuff, but he
shows off his tremendous range and the weird melange he made of it all. You get
Doc Pomus’ “Lonely Avenue,” Allen Toussaint’s “All These Things,” a (new)
medley that includes “Papa Was a Rascal,” a lovely interpretation of the jazz
standard “Angel Eyes,” Roger Miller’s “King of the Road,” and on and on. You
hear his roots in Professor Longhair, and you hear how deep he went on his own
trip.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Much of it is solo, with a saxophone, bass and drums on some
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His life is a very long story as well, and a new
documentary, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.bayoumaharajah.com/">Bayou Maharajah</a>: The Tragic
Genius of James Booker</i>, has started to appear on the festival circuit.
(I’ve not seen it.) </div>
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Booker – a homosexual who lost his eye attacked by a
bodyguard he failed to pay, and whose late-‘60s heroin bust stalled what was a
developing career -- generally thought of himself as an R&B musician:<o:p></o:p></div>
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“There is nothing I don’t like about rhythm and blues,” he
once said. “The rhythm, makes you dance and the blues make you think.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Here is a bit from an odd-seeming documentary (note the early-'80s fonts.)</div>
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What I hear when I listen to Booker is an unbridled and kind
of boundless musical imagination, one in a push-pull of creative tension with
his training and discipline. Long may his flag fly.<o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Scott Timberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02018827087884225579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4932752907198933265.post-60175788817384141602013-10-14T15:39:00.000-07:002013-10-14T15:41:46.673-07:00Radar Bros and Overseas at the SatelliteStill buzzing from some recent cultural highs -- Keith Jarrett's Standards Trio at UCLA Royce Hall, the Glass/Wilson Einstein on the Beach at Los Angeles Opera -- we're looking forward to a smaller but no less welcome event in town this week. That's LA's own Radar Bros -- who we've written about several times -- with Overseas, the new collaboration between Matt Kadane (Bedhead, The New Year) with Daniel Bazan of Pedro the Lion. They'll be at the Satellite on Wednesday.<br />
<br />
The Radar Bros, on Merge Records, are well known to Angeleno indie fans, tho still probably not celebrated enough. With roots in the '90s "slowcore" scene that's also included Spain and Acetone, they've become tougher and a bit harder. (The joke used to be that they were the only band in history that played slower when they performed live.)<br />
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Here's a video from a song on their latest album, Eight.<br />
<br />
Overseas is making its first trip to the West Coast, with a self-titled recording.<br />
<br />
The Kadanes (Matt and his bro Bubba, proud Texans) are on a very small lists of musicians: We (I think) everything they're recorded. The new band extends their old work -- Bedhead and The New Year had the mix of aching melody and mellow instrumental chaos that makes the best indie rock. They appeal to the side of us that wish The Feelies or Luna had made a dozen more albums apiece.<br />
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Here's a video for one of their new songs:<br />
<br />
We'd love to tell you more about how much we love these groups, though since we're completing Creative Destruction, a book about the evisceration of the creative class, we must keep moving.<br />
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Hope to see you at Spaceland, er, the Satellite. Both bands are in San Diego on Thursday.<br />
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<br />Scott Timberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02018827087884225579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4932752907198933265.post-3483898674794667342013-09-12T09:45:00.000-07:002013-09-12T09:49:12.544-07:00Rick Moody and the Wingdale Community Singers<br />
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HERE at The Misread City, we’re longtime fans of Rick Moody’s novels (<i>The Ice Storm</i>), short stories (<i>Demonology</i>) and music writing (collected in <i>On Celestial Music</i> and posted generally on The Rumpus.) His admirers include Lydia Millett, Michael Chabon and fellow Puritan Thomas Pynchon.</div>
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But we’ve only recently caught up with Moody’s folk/modernist band the Wingdale Community Singers, whose latest album, Night, Sleep, Death, splices their music with (among other things) the poetry of Walt Whitman. Moody sings and plays guitar in a band that also includes Hannah Marcus and David Grubbs of Gastr del Sol.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px;">We spoke to Moody about Skip James, his Taylor guitar, Saint Augustine, Brooklyn, Bob Dylan, the sounds in his head, and what the band means to a writer like him.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px;"><o:p></o:p></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span><br />
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<i>Let’s start out with some sense of your favorite artists within this country/folk tradition you guys seem to be plying. Who are a few who shaped your approach?<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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I think it has been revealed over the years that the guy all three of us love in equal measure is Leonard Cohen. Once you get past him, we diverge slightly. Hannah Marcus is really in an Old Time/Irish music kind of way, these days, and can tell you everything about Alice Gerrard or whoever is the hot new fiddler. Dave Grubbs knows a lot about innovative and experimental music, but has lately been doing guitar transcriptions of Gesualdo. He also loves, as I do, Skip James, and often seems to have such a breadth of early recorded music under his belt that one is surprised by his learning. But then he is a very brilliant guy. I probably have more mundane taste by comparison, in that I also like some well-known music in these areas. The Harry Smith anthology. Johnny Cash. John Fahey. Martin Carthy. Fairport Convention. Even Simon and Garfunkel. That guy from Minnesota. And I am not averse to contemporary acoustic music, either, if it is played with the requisite level of dread. Sam Amidon, for me, really gets to the dread sometimes. Jolie Holland. The Be-Good Tanyas.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>We assume that a novelist who is in a band is some kind of showoff, charlatan, dilettante, or opportunist – it’s like the way Letterman used to be able to say “actor-singer” and we’d all bust into derisive laughter. Where did this come from?<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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Do you mean why is it so funny? I dunno! I always played music, lifelong, took voice lessons as a kid and so on. So for me it’s not a footnote in my life, but very central to my life. I just happen not to be as good at it as I am good at novel-writing. I understand this rubs people the wrong way, and I kept my musical interests under wraps for a long while. But I think creativity is sort of a general condition, not a genre-specific condition, and after a while it seemed stupid to me to pretend that I hadn’t given a lot of my life to music. I recommend not dismissing this work out of hand because of my writing, but I also recommend against listening to these records as the work of Rick Moody the novelist. This is the work of a band, with a very group-centered approach, and it’s a band that has been together a long time now (ten years). We know who we are and how we work together, and the individual identities are not as important in the Wingdales as they are outside of the Wingdales.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>You’ve written that being in a band – and especially, singing harmony -- has improved your novel writing. Has it done anything to your music writing?<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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I’m a lot better music writer these days because I actually have experience in the studio and onstage. So I can, in fact, write from songwriting experience, and recording experience. Before I only wrote from listening experience, which, however passionate, is different from trying to write and play the stuff. I am not a sophisticated musician—I will never score parts on a staff—but I am not a total idiot either, and that, I expect, makes me a better music-writer.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>Your band has found an oddly resonant space halfway between the Carter Family and Richard and Linda Thompson. How does fellow Brooklynite Walt Whitman fit into this?<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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Whitman is not the only guest lyricist on the new album. Andy Warhol is source material for Hannah’s song “So What?,” and Augustine of Hippo is cannibalized for “No Rest,” and one song is made entirely out of fortune cookie fortunes. The point was to disrupt the confessional lyric a little bit. We are trying not to be singer-songwriters in the usual way, we are trying to be songwriters in the more broad sense of the thing. Whitman is obviously a great touchstone of Brooklyn identity, and we are from Brooklyn, and we are all big readers, so Whitman is not a stretch. He’s someone we love, as we love Lightnin’ Hopkins or Karen Dalton. And why shouldn’t his songs be set to music? They happen to be very hard to set, because of scansion issues, but that’s part of why it was fun.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>These days, nobody wants to be among those who booed Dylan at Newport. But is there something valuable and irreplaceable about acoustic instruments? (I’m aware that there is an organ or something on this new record and an electric guitar on some of the earlier stuff.)<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKc2ga7itzUEbsrTNTbzqIXpqMTtDIme8Ltn_gbKcyw7IftgCx_h8NmDv7rekoJVFqPqnnXiA6BODvhsqBKwkVRWOI04O9zEbrqY0tczTLDfeg9gG29MI2lLBFNkSIVNP5V8tlCfQNiBk/s1600/Icestormnovel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; color: #5588aa; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKc2ga7itzUEbsrTNTbzqIXpqMTtDIme8Ltn_gbKcyw7IftgCx_h8NmDv7rekoJVFqPqnnXiA6BODvhsqBKwkVRWOI04O9zEbrqY0tczTLDfeg9gG29MI2lLBFNkSIVNP5V8tlCfQNiBk/s320/Icestormnovel.jpg" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; padding-bottom: 4px; padding-left: 4px; padding-right: 4px; padding-top: 4px;" width="212" /></a>Well, here, I’ll say an unpopular thing. I don’t think those Dylan gigs with The Band were so great. I understand it was a brilliant gesture, and I like the electric guitar as much as the next guy, but I think the acoustic Dylan is more masterful in some ways. On the 1966 authorized boot, I thought the “Visions of Johanna” recording was way better than the electric stuff. For me, it’s about how much you can strip away. The more you strip away, the more emotionally resonant the material is. (See,<i>Good As I Been To You, </i>e.g.) This is true on a lot of punk recordings too. I think Suicide, for example, is an extremely emotionally resonant band, and there’s obviously nothing acoustic about that music. The fact is, the more musicians are on the stage, the harder it is to have everyone pulling toward the meaning of the song. When there’s only <i>one person</i>there, then you definitely have a shot. The acoustic instruments are valid because they are really quiet, and they leave a lot of room for singer and song. This seems good to me. But those Billy Bragg albums where he plays solo electric are good. The late John Fahey recordings on electric are good. And very minimal. For me acoustic music is minimal music, and that’s what I like. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>What kind of guitar do you play and how important is it to you? Do you have any kind of models for your guitar playing?<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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I play a Taylor acoustic with onboard electronics, so I can plug it in. But I also have a Canadian acoustic that my brother-in-law got for me last year, a cut-rate affair with no particular legend attached, that should be<i>bad, </i>but which is extremely good, with excellent resonance in the lower strings. I really love it a lot. (Its name is Tex.) I am not a gear hound, at all, because I came from punk rock days, when people banged the shit out of their gear, or used really substandard gear. If I think it’s really about the song, then obviously I’m not going to give a shit about the guitar. I have a Mexican Telecaster, but it will not do what I want it to do, at all. I would like to get a Rickenbacker and will some day. My models for guitar playing would be people like Alex Chilton and Chris Stamey, who are rudimentary, but sort of ecstatic at the same time. I love Tom Verlaine too. Or Sonny Sharrock. But I will never be a player like that. For me it’s just about sketching out the chords and letting the band do what needs to be done around me.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>You come from a tradition, at least in part, associated with hostility to music and the arts in general: The Puritans are famous for ripping the singers’ benches out of churches – leaving only “bare ruined choirs” – smashing the stained-glass windows, etc. How do you find yourself a musician 500 years later? Do you ever want to smash everybody’s instruments – Pete Townshend-style -- in rehearsal?<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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I think acoustic music in general, and especially in some of its idioms—gospel, blues, folk—are not immune to a church interior. I think God, if not the fire-and-brimstone God, then some other more sympathetic God, is not antithetical to acoustic music of the kind that we play. Melancholy is kind of numinous. But as for wanting to smash my guitar, SURE. I definitely identify with Pete Townshend’s feeling that there were sounds in his head that he couldn’t get down in song. I feel that way a lot.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Scott Timberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02018827087884225579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4932752907198933265.post-40714055213196249582013-08-26T15:55:00.000-07:002013-08-26T15:56:36.304-07:00Christopher Hayes' Twilight of the ElitesOVER the last year or two, I've given myself a crash course on social criticism -- wonderfully grim and eloquent books by Bell, Ehrenreich, both Packers (Vance and George) and various "mass culture" theorists of the '50s. I hope to get into some of them over the next few months.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI9u16ZLMFA7htvW3qglODFlhP1-kNh5nXG8nK51XRr2D2A3QsxifT4AbjfetViw82ppL-mB_XaVBDGmpNODKDGoTUoZeXNEeD4ibVesJDzTXBaHMk0-in8XMW-A4N9LY3hzV65AkhC3U/s1600/Twilight.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI9u16ZLMFA7htvW3qglODFlhP1-kNh5nXG8nK51XRr2D2A3QsxifT4AbjfetViw82ppL-mB_XaVBDGmpNODKDGoTUoZeXNEeD4ibVesJDzTXBaHMk0-in8XMW-A4N9LY3hzV65AkhC3U/s320/Twilight.jpeg" width="207" /></a>One of the best of them is Christopher Hayes' <i>Twilight of the Elites: American After the Meritocracy</i>. I'm often stirred or intrigued by a book, but it's not often that one really changes the way I think. Hayes's book, which looks at the meritocracy that followed the WASP establishment, is one of a very short list. He considers how a system that supposedly rewarded talent and intelligence helped lead us into the Enron debacle, the mishandled Middle Eastern Wars, the Great Recession, baseball's steroid scandal and the mess that is the Catholic church.<br />
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I should say that the premise of this book very much goes against my grain: I've thought over the years that belief in a meritocracy was what my family had instead of religion or a sense of ethnicity. But reading Hayes argument and reflecting on how nasty the 21st century has been made things look different. (The book has recently been released in paperback.)<br />
<br />
If you still have bitter memories of Judith Miller, Dick Cheney, Bernie Madoff, the cardinals who looked the other way during the pedophile scandal, and so on, <i>Twilight of the Elites</i> will help you make some sense of it all. They're the new "best and brightest," and just as fatuous and dangerous as Halberstam's gang that got us into the Vietnam War.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.salon.com/2013/06/25/chris_hayes_bring_on_the_upper_middle_class_revolution/">HERE</a> is a Salon Q+A with the author by my friend David Daley.<br />
<br />Scott Timberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02018827087884225579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4932752907198933265.post-73812323331210681922013-08-12T14:21:00.002-07:002013-08-12T14:21:51.769-07:00Willie Nelson at the Hollywood BowlSOME years, concerts at the Hollywood Bowl become the highlight of the summer. I know I'll miss a lot of things about Los Angeles whenever we end up departing, but these night with the sun setting and the scent of eucalyptus from the canyon will be very near the top of the list.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiljunRvNjUgRVt33nzW_aoiFgEIQkULV6pc9XBnyAbpBHWMgzLJhq6moM3y1RZAlIz5Ua_cL1WaV25zDGp4pP802FD_oJ_H6KO6JfxPYkT9WVpp8czeyk55cojtYQAVnykw7FaZEeb1QE/s1600/Willie_Nelson_at_Farm_Aid_2009_-_Cropped.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiljunRvNjUgRVt33nzW_aoiFgEIQkULV6pc9XBnyAbpBHWMgzLJhq6moM3y1RZAlIz5Ua_cL1WaV25zDGp4pP802FD_oJ_H6KO6JfxPYkT9WVpp8czeyk55cojtYQAVnykw7FaZEeb1QE/s320/Willie_Nelson_at_Farm_Aid_2009_-_Cropped.jpg" width="266" /></a>This year, we've only been twice so far. We saw the fireworks on the 4th of July, a show at which I learned that Josh Groban is not the anti-Christ (and you can quote me on that.)<br />
<br />
Our second visit was for Willie Nelson's show on Saturday night, which was devoted mostly to 1978's <i>Stardust</i> album. I know I'm not breaking any news to say that the show was damned good -- Willie has long been one of the most consistent major artists. Even with what at times could be heavy orchestration (conducted by Beck's father, who has a smile and body language eerily like that of his son), the richness of Willie's voice came across quite well. (The tones of his battered classical guitar, which makes Glenn Hansard's Takemine look brand new, came and went during the first song or so, but showed up quite well thereafter.)<br />
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<i>Stardust</i>, of course, was Willie's throwback standards record, a real about face after albums like <i>The Red-Headed Stranger</i>. We are now, 35 years after its release, about as far from <i>Stardust</i>'s original appearance as it was from the American songbook -- "Blue Skies," "All of Me" -- that inspired it: It's doubly retro. The highlight for me may've been his reading of "Moonlight in Vermont." Some non-album tracks -- "All the Things You Are" -- were also strong. One of my favorite of his songs -- "Funny How Time Slips Away," the brilliance of which I was recently reminded by the L.A. band Spain -- seemed rushed. This is a number about regret and the perspective time offers. It needs room to breathe.<br />
<br />
This said, that was about as good a show by an 80 year-old as any of us deserve. What a titan.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFafuCPF5CL092Yimy3quIQ61qbPzBXyIPjnDnbj7GuUCYbWr6SheKgLQfURBPkacrNAQPB27Xsphl6WlHAP-9S502kyeONqihkK1_6lmrG4NObgOtLgGcE_M8_6g9JG6MNNUR15P_JWg/s1600/Stardust.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFafuCPF5CL092Yimy3quIQ61qbPzBXyIPjnDnbj7GuUCYbWr6SheKgLQfURBPkacrNAQPB27Xsphl6WlHAP-9S502kyeONqihkK1_6lmrG4NObgOtLgGcE_M8_6g9JG6MNNUR15P_JWg/s320/Stardust.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
Texas troubadour Lyle Lovett opened. Your humble correspondent has been an admirer, in theory, of Lovett for a long time. But I've always wanted to like his recordings -- which represent an attention to detail, a worship of Townes Van Zandt, a literate take on the country-folk tradition, etc. -- more than I do.<br />
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The Bowl show really won me over. Part of it was Lovett's banter and stage presence -- here's someone who really loves doing this, and was especially honored to be opening for St. Willie. I loved his fingerpicking as well. But to large extent it was the way Lovett handled his band -- a bunch of great players, and everyone got room to take a brief solo on almost every song. It was like a great jazz band playing country -- Western swing at its best.<br />
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What the hell happened to the shuttle bus back to the LA Zoo, though? Something clearly went terribly wrong.<br />
Scott Timberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02018827087884225579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4932752907198933265.post-13025778122477107992013-08-09T14:58:00.001-07:002013-08-09T14:58:56.224-07:00The Runaways: Queens of Noise
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #3e0040; font-family: Arial;">THESE days I am digging <i>Queens of
Noise</i>, the new book by Evelyn McDonnell, onetime Village Voice rock critic now
settled in Los Angeles. The book, subtitled <i>The Real Story of the Runaways</i>,
looks at the ‘70s LA punk/hard-rock band best remembered, probably, for a teenaged Joan Jett, the
song "Cherry Bomb," and some pretty amazing feathered hair.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #3e0040; font-family: Arial;">I’ve admired McDonnell’s work for two
decades now, and have since gotten to know her a bit, and for a year taught
more-or-less alongside her at Loyola Marymount University, where she is a professor
of journalism.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #3e0040; font-family: Arial;">Here’s my conversation with McDonnell
about <i>Queens of Noise</i>, which she will discuss at Book Soup on Wednesday.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/pMDn6V7ZLhE?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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<span style="color: #3e0040; font-family: Arial;"><i>What drew you to the story of the
Runaways?<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial;">It's a great rock'n'roll story that
had only been told in parts, and seemed well past due for a complete treatment.
I also saw it as a narrative that's bigger than music: It's a coming of
age story about young women crossing boundaries and expressing themselves —
their sexuality, their anger, their rebellion, their fears — in ways that
hadn't really been done before. There were girl bands before the Runaways, but
none of them had the kind of exposure (so to speak) and global experiences that
these musicians did, at a pretty young age. It's also a peek into a
fascinating, rich time and place: Southern California in the mid-'70s. There
are all the elements of a great story, period, in Queens: tragedy, comedy,
mystery, drama, sex, drugs, crime, etc. With an awesome, under-appreciated
soundtrack. As a woman just a few years younger than the Runaways, with
my own California roots, and a deep love of music, I also personally related to
their saga.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #3e0040; font-family: Arial;"><i>You describe the band members as
creatures of the Sprawl. Give us a sense of what early-70s Southern California
– the world that made the Runaways – was like.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial;"> This was a period when the
California dream epitomized by the Beach Boys was wearing thin — fault lines
were rupturing. Decades of incredible population and economic growth had slowed
precipitously; there was Watts, Manson, smog, overspeculation, etc. The members
of the Runaways lived miles apart from each other in this car-dependent
Exopolis. They were suburban girls, from the Valley, Orange County, Long Beach.
But LA also had Hollywood, which was not just a place of Tinseltown fantasies:
it was a bohemian mecca for all the outcasts and weirdos, for the queer kids
and the runaways (small and big R). It was a place for experimentation (with
drugs and sex), for hedonism, for liberation and libidos, and for exploitation.
It was a place to escape those suburbs, and it's where the Runaways came
together.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCS3ZN__1iJKWauHIsTIIF6JOf-Kwi106qnSssYuE-kXN4U4haoN43JfrsiqeWhpkHyjA0rbQHD3PhVxCdvNaVPMxxsWobfrPOTB276gmvZsl-gCxWIS1pn5FdZj8Cj0IU1SdOBPuu0bo/s1600/The_runaways,_queens_of_noise.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCS3ZN__1iJKWauHIsTIIF6JOf-Kwi106qnSssYuE-kXN4U4haoN43JfrsiqeWhpkHyjA0rbQHD3PhVxCdvNaVPMxxsWobfrPOTB276gmvZsl-gCxWIS1pn5FdZj8Cj0IU1SdOBPuu0bo/s320/The_runaways,_queens_of_noise.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #3e0040; font-family: Arial;"><i>How much access did you get to the
musicians and to band manager Kim Fowley? Did all the major characters speak to
you?<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial;">Kim Fowley, Jackie Fox, and Vicki
Blue gave me quite a bit of time explicitly for the book. I also interviewed
Joan and Lita, once each, for the book. Cherie would not do an interview for
the book, but I had interviewed her a couple of times for the Sandy West
thesis/article that was the root of the book. I never interviewed Sandy before
she died but I talked to her family. I also had interviewed Joan and Lita for
other articles over the years, and I was able to draw on that material, some of
it never published before. Plus all the other interviews listed in the back.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #3e0040; font-family: Arial;"><i>Within the first few chapters of the
book, you write about the debate between architecture scholar Reyner Banham and
art critic Peter Plagens on the nature of LA, and get into the work of Joan
Didion, William Gibson, and others. What’s the right amount of context in a
book like this?<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial;">As I said, I saw this as more than
just the story of one band: I also saw it as an important, emblematic piece of
cultural, social and feminist history. Those contextual pages are a tiny sliver
of the book. I think they give the book a bigger, broader meaning and
perspective, but some critics seem to feel you can't take a band like the
Runaways that seriously. It's an anti-intellectualism that seems strange to me
as a fan of Greil Marcus, Ellen Willis, and Jon Savage, but is rampant in
rock-critic criticism.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #3e0040; font-family: Arial;"><i>How do the Runaways fit into the
history of women in rock?<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial;">They were clearly pioneers, in terms
of the scope of their accomplishments at their age and in a relatively short
period of time: five albums, multiple national and international tours,
magazine covers and hit records (in some countries). Obviously, there were girl
vocal groups that preceded and outsold them. And there were other bands where
women played instruments — some great ones, like Fanny and Isis. But the Runaways
achieved a level of at least notoriety, and also genuine success, that had
eluded other bands. Obviously, some of that was based on the fact that they
were not shy in their sexual presentation, and in that sense, their legacy is
mixed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #3e0040; font-family: Arial;"><i>Looking back, almost four decades
later, what is the band's long-term influence or legacy?<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial;">Because of Joan's and Lita's
subsequent success, the Runaways have been taken more seriously in retrospect
than they were during their brief career. Whereas some of the early female
punks repudiated them, later generations — from Riot Grrrls to the Donnas to
Miley Cyrus — have been more sympathetic to the barriers they faced and how
they faced them. They were a key transitional figure in the evolution of both
punk and hair metal, particularly in Los Angeles. They were friends with and
peers of the Sex Pistols and the Ramones. But although those bands were clearly
just as Svengali-driven and gimmicky, they always get taken more seriously. I
think the Runaways' legacy is up there with those bands, and deserves to be
acknowledged.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<!--EndFragment-->Scott Timberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02018827087884225579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4932752907198933265.post-37389006799854999792013-07-31T09:49:00.001-07:002013-08-09T14:46:40.330-07:00Rachel Kushner and Laura OwensRECENTLY I spoke to novelist Rachel Kushner, whose <i>The Flamethrowers</i> is far and away among the most celebrated novels of the year, and artist Laura Owens, whose recent show of recent paintings in her own Boyle Heights space reminds us why she became the youngest artist to have a career retrospective at the MOCA.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuQV_7FW7E4dFDTYBaaiZAtJR2r6PfrJzCruJiko-qHAAAHM3DDpwlwT6uy4pfhAbCQxc9ePS7KhV2D46Dx3dE7KM-Gr8vlITDJQvt6HhBKG2uKEu1YyWdUcur7RbzcPOSbvvOnrTglq8/s1600/Throwers.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuQV_7FW7E4dFDTYBaaiZAtJR2r6PfrJzCruJiko-qHAAAHM3DDpwlwT6uy4pfhAbCQxc9ePS7KhV2D46Dx3dE7KM-Gr8vlITDJQvt6HhBKG2uKEu1YyWdUcur7RbzcPOSbvvOnrTglq8/s320/Throwers.png" width="256" /></a></div>
<br />
The two -- longtime friends and aesthetic allies -- talked about their own work, their respect for each other, and their hopes for the future. The story, <a href="http://www.pasadenamonthly.com/articles/rachel-kushner-laura-owens-culture-jammers-2013-05-29">HERE</a>, is from Pasadena magazine, now helmed by my former LA Times editor, the mighty Maria Russo.Scott Timberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02018827087884225579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4932752907198933265.post-41102552211646603522013-07-22T15:24:00.000-07:002013-07-22T15:30:14.371-07:00Futurebirds Take FlightONE of our favorite newish bands, here at The Misread City's sleekly refurbed listening room, is Futurebirds, from Athens, Ga. Some listeners compare them to My Morning Jacket and Crazy Horse -- I certainly here that, too. But to me they're a mix between the two great chapters of Athens music -- the southern shamble of early R.E.M. (especially the echoey <i>Fables</i>-era band) and the neo-psych Elephant 6 bands like Olivia Tremor Control.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlhwunhF22uxkhPi3te-_bTA77dUoQzhWskLi9b37jnrQV3l3NDRjYI-SJeOXuuEFaY_OXj6IO_bMcAZPg5_D45bKBoARLEB-2yxDk4XeSidPCkD0EOa6fovSscPPEDYLhvSprM9u1Coc/s1600/Futurebirds.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlhwunhF22uxkhPi3te-_bTA77dUoQzhWskLi9b37jnrQV3l3NDRjYI-SJeOXuuEFaY_OXj6IO_bMcAZPg5_D45bKBoARLEB-2yxDk4XeSidPCkD0EOa6fovSscPPEDYLhvSprM9u1Coc/s320/Futurebirds.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo Jason Thrasher</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Of course, a lot of groups have smart influences. But these guys have the songs as well, complete with great melodies and hooks.<br />
<br />
Here's their song, Virginia Slims, from their record <i>Baba Yaga</i> (Fat Possum). It takes a minute to build, but ends up in power-pop heaven.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/X96TgIg7TSs?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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<br />
Catch Futurebirds at the Echo this Tuesday night.Scott Timberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02018827087884225579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4932752907198933265.post-36581264626560121602013-07-21T10:08:00.002-07:002013-07-21T10:09:50.582-07:00Cable TV and the Niche-ing of AmericaTODAY I have a <a href="http://www.salon.com/2013/07/21/cable_tv_to_the_rescue_will_the_quality_subscription_model_work_for_books_movies_music/">story</a> in Salon looking at the golden age of cable TV post-<i>Sopranos</i>, and contrasting this with the economic/technological forces in the culture right now.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-fUQEUXjeXGPLMjwG77hQCFOPS1L_HuhZRGWCANu6wcGgu3gQP_FnGsNCi3qlhtb3Up5FuoX39cYEut56HWPHRzVKcsImJZVQgzjCDmF7gEKiLvkT1CNu8V1BdIEEgXhAaX1g-MZnFzU/s1600/Mad_Men_Season_5,_Promotional_Poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-fUQEUXjeXGPLMjwG77hQCFOPS1L_HuhZRGWCANu6wcGgu3gQP_FnGsNCi3qlhtb3Up5FuoX39cYEut56HWPHRzVKcsImJZVQgzjCDmF7gEKiLvkT1CNu8V1BdIEEgXhAaX1g-MZnFzU/s320/Mad_Men_Season_5,_Promotional_Poster.jpg" width="216" /></a>And I ask: If HBO, or AMC, can find a profitable <i>quality</i> niche -- and stay in business -- can a jazz club? A book publisher? Theater company? I also look at the world of indie rock labels.<br />
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I speak to the authors of two new books, Brett Martin, of television chronicle <i>Difficult Men</i>, and producer Lynda Obst, of <i>Sleepless in Hollywood</i>.Scott Timberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02018827087884225579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4932752907198933265.post-60386809076705226632013-07-03T15:09:00.001-07:002013-07-03T15:12:04.906-07:00The Glory of Big StarTHEY were nearly invisible -- barely even a memory -- during most of my formative years, and you'd never hear 'em on the "classic rock" stations that dominated radio programming in most of America. But when various indie rockers started to sing this band's praises, they became a legend, at least among a passionate few.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz4MmWju5UY-_yf5pk0n3mEO7rtjIF-kYsQL5v0eALh-NbE7nj2mYSSQV4xPhk_MzBM7ZvD7PWGhf7F4QSl-3axMwjUognMOTj2GBrKGKctN7vtorCsYnXTfmYT6QTawk8OnvWZKtxvUM/s202/alex-andy-jody-by-bigstar-tree.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz4MmWju5UY-_yf5pk0n3mEO7rtjIF-kYsQL5v0eALh-NbE7nj2mYSSQV4xPhk_MzBM7ZvD7PWGhf7F4QSl-3axMwjUognMOTj2GBrKGKctN7vtorCsYnXTfmYT6QTawk8OnvWZKtxvUM/s200/alex-andy-jody-by-bigstar-tree.jpg" width="188" /></a>And that mix of injustice, lost opportunity, creative isolation, cult passion and eventual rebirth is all part of the story told in the new documentary <i><a href="http://www.bigstarstory.com/">Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me</a></i>, which opens today. It's our favorite movie about rock music in many moons.<br />
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Big Star, of course, was born in early '70s Memphis, and led by former Box Tops singer Alex Chilton and the troubled/ brilliant Chris Bell. They sang timeless pop songs like September Gurls, Thirteen, the Ballad of El Goodo and In the Street, and made a very complex/ deep/ troubled third album called <i>Sister Lovers</i>. (Strangely, they were signed to Stax, the soul label.) They captured a far wider range of emotions than almost any '70s band I can think of.<br />
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Musicians like the Replacements began to talk them up in the late '80s; the doc shows a bit of their wonderful song Alex Chilton, and includes testimonials by Ira Kaplan of Yo La Tengo, Norman Blake of Teenage Fanclub, Chris Stamey of the dB's and Bobby Gillespie of Primal Scream. And who knew the photographer William Eggleston, one of the pioneers of color photography, was a fellow traveler, and played piano on one of their records?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdePStgRgChk088WIJOzly8krP8uBbgwbawmjfnYRExvy3wYbZeFkLvI7l-NXctEQ2LSGC6pkdcruD-LsDI0yFUrvJGv7Oo6bOqDaIc8H7LvxkmWdyAu84ORy9Zo2xDV8J61MpOYKsWz0/s1600/big-star-barn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdePStgRgChk088WIJOzly8krP8uBbgwbawmjfnYRExvy3wYbZeFkLvI7l-NXctEQ2LSGC6pkdcruD-LsDI0yFUrvJGv7Oo6bOqDaIc8H7LvxkmWdyAu84ORy9Zo2xDV8J61MpOYKsWz0/s320/big-star-barn.jpg" width="320" /></a>The band's music been remastered or something; it's never sounded better.<br />
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For what it's worth, I lead a very impassioned but strictly amateur band in my garage, the Subterraneans, devoted to early indie rock and its roots. We play a lot of VU, Neil Young, early R.E.M., Replacements, and so on. Most nights we kick off with the heavenly chime of September Gurls.<br />
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Tonight, you'll hear that one for sure.Scott Timberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02018827087884225579noreply@blogger.com0