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Music Books

Dear Pall,
sounds like you are on a journey. Try the Harry Partch path and make your own instruments (and therefore a sound to your liking) even if it is only nailing a taut (taught) wire to a tree.
Harry
and books about Harry
 
This site contains affiliate links for which pink fish media may be compensated.
This site contains affiliate links for which pink fish media may be compensated.
This fine looking and hefty tome is on the way …

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THE 25 PAINTINGS 2014 contains the words:
Artists are flunkies. They are flunkies to Power. Where the Power resides, shifts through history. From the Pharaohs, via the Vatican, to Saatchi and the many stations between and beyond, artists can be found wallowing in their flunky ways…

Power wants what Art has. What the Artist can provide makes Power feel good about themselves, it defines who they are, and it confirms their power not only to themselves but to all the others that they are wanting to impress with their power…

‘Come the revolution Drummond, you and your 25 so called paintings will have no use let alone value. They won’t even be much use as building material for the barricades. At most we could break them up and use them as kindling to keep us true revolutionaries warm at night as we (wo)man those barricades…’

My theory went something like this: all big art was the art of bullies, dictators or dominant cultures, be it Imperial Rome, Stalin’s Russia or the free market economy of the liberal West. For me, there was little difference between the games in the Colosseum, Soviet realism, U2 playing a stadium gig, a Spielberg movie, a Jackson Pollock hanging on the walls of MOMA, or for that matter whatever is currently drawing the crowds in the Turbine Hall.
It is all the big bullying art of the dominant culture telling us who knows best. And all we are expected to do is bow down, grovel, genuflect, take the lashing or just buy the merchandise. It is irrelevant what the artists’ intentions are in making the art; the only thing that really counts is the role the art plays within the culture in which it exists…

Don’t love my baby for her pouting lips
Don’t love my baby for her curvy hips
I love my baby ‘cause she does good sculptures, yeah!


The Rezillos (1977)

http://eastsideprojects.org/shop/the-25-paintings-catalogue
 
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My theory went something like this: all big art was the art of bullies, dictators or dominant cultures, be it Imperial Rome, Stalin’s Russia or the free market economy of the liberal West. For me, there was little difference between the games in the Colosseum, Soviet realism, U2 playing a stadium gig, a Spielberg movie, a Jackson Pollock hanging on the walls of MOMA, or for that matter whatever is currently drawing the crowds in the Turbine Hall.

Well, that's this week's entry for Pseud's Corner taken care of.
 
This came yesterday, I have just jumped in.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1845534050/?tag=pinkfishmedia-21

Trad Dads, Dirty Boppers and Free Fusioneers. British Jazz, 1960-1975 by Duncan Heining.

The nearly 500 pages are packed full of insider information and context, this may take some time.
 
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Just finished 'I'll sleep when I'm dead' - Crystal Zevon account of Warrens' life. The accounts of his behaviours towards his children left me in tears. He was a grade A bastard. He sanctioned this before his death. A warts and all account drawing from those that were there. Some massive names contributed. Has made me revisit some of his music that I had previously skipped.
 
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Just read "Eminent hipsters" by Donald Fagen, good description of early influences and general life until meeting Walter Becker, then skips to a diary of the Dukes of September tour and It's effect on poor Don.
Don is not happy on the tour, moans a lot and stays in his hotel room mostly, worrying and popping pills.
 
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Written by the Curator of the Bach Archiv and an expert on Bach, it not only gives a history of the man himself, but also an insight into his music and what made it special (sometimes in technical terms well beyond my ken). The image with which ones comes away is, Danger; Genius at Work. It makes it clear that this was no dry-as-dust musical mathematician, but someone who was always eager to learn and improve his art, and who was always willing to push the boundaries of established practice, something which frequently brought him into conflict with his bosses. It is also an interesting exposition of the world in which Bach lived and operated.

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The definitive book on one of the greatest bodies of music ever written, written by the authority on the subject. Fascinating dissertations on each and every surviving cantata, with texts and explanations, plus much background on subjects such as the Lutheran church year and its various feast days. which determined to some extent what was to be sung on a particular day.
 
Aye, am part way through it. Excellent stuff so far. Chapter 1 entitled Masturbation...
 
Aye, am part way through it. Excellent stuff so far. Chapter 1 entitled Masturbation...

She writes so well I got through it in just a few days, it landed on Sat IIRC. I'd pre-ordered it months ago (a signed copy from Faber & Faber), I'd actually forgotten about it when it dropped through the door.
 
I'm currently reading this collection of writing about Scott Walker, and bar the David Toop* chapter, it's been pretty good.


I've liked his writing in the past, but this is unbearably pretentious, and tells you very little about the subject.
 
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Am currently in the foothills of Yeah Yeah Yeah - The Story of Modern Pop by Bob Stanley (wasn't he in Kiss? - maybe I'll find out later in the book...) It's a weighty tome, we're almost at page 100 and still no Beatles. It's long on fact and short on theory/opinion. It's very similar in structure to Rip It Up. So far Bob has persuaded me to look at The Everly Brothers and Del Shannon again.
 
This site contains affiliate links for which pink fish media may be compensated.
Am currently in the foothills of Yeah Yeah Yeah - The Story of Modern Pop by Bob Stanley (wasn't he in Kiss? - maybe I'll find out later in the book...) It's a weighty tome, we're almost at page 100 and still no Beatles. It's long on fact and short on theory/opinion. It's very similar in structure to Rip It Up. So far Bob has persuaded me to look at The Everly Brothers and Del Shannon again.

I loved it. Took me an age to get through though. And no, it was St Etienne he was in.
 


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