| So here’s a few things
that have been rockin’ my retinas & snapping my synapses
over the past couple of weeks.
As you’ve probably noticed, I ‘m particularly interested
in music & musicians that follow the beat of a different drum,
the outsiders, those who sound the way that they do, not as a career
option, but simply that they have no choice, it just has to come
out that way. These days there’s virtually a genre for people
like Devendra Banhart, Wesley Willis & Daniel Johnson, but throughout
music history there have been numerous unsung & virtually forgotten
eccentrics who never “made it” in the accepted sense
& have been relegated to the deletion bins of the music industry
in spite of their unique approach to their art. It’s always
fun to put on your musical archeologist headphones & uncover
those moments of musical brilliance that may have only burned brightly
for a brief magical moment before being too often ignored &
forgotten.
Co editor of the authoritative All Music Guide To Rock & Option
magazine, RICHIE UNTERBERGER has written 2 indispensable guide books
to assist those on such musicological digs to locate the treasures
& artifacts that might otherwise might languish in obscurity.
”UNKNOWN LEGENDS OF ROCK ‘N’ ROLL “ is his
first hefty 400 page volume that unearths 60 such artists in 13
different sections such as psychedelic unknowns, mad geniuses, punk
pioneers & lo fi mavericks, giving brief musical biographies,
photographs & "where are they now?" information. Syd
Barret is probably the most famous name that you’ll find here
& even though I was familiar with a handful of people like The
Chocolate Watchband, The Misunderstood, Scott Walker, Roky Erickson,
Can, The Raincoats, X Ray Spex & Robert Wyatt amongst others,
for most of us the book will be a revelation, bringing new names
& styles to light. Unlike mags like Mojo Magazine that focus
on the tragedy, misfortune & self inflicted problems of such
people, Unterberger focuses on the music & celebrates their
difference rather than lamenting it.
His second volume, URBAN SPACEMEN AND WAYFARING
STRANGERS, subtitled Overlooked Innovators and Eccentric Visionaries
of 60s Rock excavates 20 more hipster heroes that will have you
digging deep into your record collection or the more obscure racks
at your local record emporium. Once again, names like The Pretty
Things, The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, The Fugs & Tim Buckley may
be relatively familiar to some, but the wealth of detail, research
& empathy Unterberger brings to his subjects illuminates even
those performers, as well as the previously unearthed, in the book’s
information dense 300 pages. Both are large format paperback books,
relatively inexpensive & even more so given that each includes
a CD sampler that might be the first & only time that many of
us get to hear many of the performers included.
Equally as invigorating but a totally different
read is the large format 300 page book of 20 essays on music, UNDERCURRENTS
subtitled The Hidden Wiring Of Modern Music an intellect stretching,
reach for the dictionary read, but never dry & academic, it’s
actually quite exciting to dive in to headfirst. To have the “how”
you think about music not just the “what” changed, is
like having your brain rewired with new potentials .Subjects include
the microphone & the human voice, sound sculpture & improvisation,
use & abuse of turntables, Futurism, drones, glitch, rituals,
electronica, new jazz, Harry Smith & Surrealism to name but
a few, don’t expect a mention of virtually anyone you know,
all written with enthusiasm & integrity by an assortment of
experts including many from the roster at The Wire, the book being
printed by that magazine. Needless to say the book design, layout
& format are all uniformly excellent, with enough ideas &
imagination to occupy many an upcoming night around the warmth of
the stereo.
Has there ever been a more maligned, lampooned,
subject of revisionist history subculture than the so called Hippie
movement? Perhaps this art book sized photograph, document &
text jammed 400 paged book HIPPIE compiled, edited & written
by BARRY MILES, author of many beat texts including biographies
of Ginsberg, Kerouac & Burroughs as well as being present at
many cultural zeitgeist moments himself, may at last right the balance.
By the time the notion of “hippie” infiltrated or was
co opted by the consumer nightmare, it had long lost relevance.
Sure some the fashion excesses of the time can look pretty odd to
now eyes, but have you seen a photo of the front row at a Sex Pistols
gig lately? And don’t ever let anyone tell that you that it
was a mass social movement, it was always outmanned, outgunned &
out monied, everyone but for a valiant few sat it out & waited.
The book focuses on the years 1965 to 1971, a cathartic period for
the planet & the people on it, incredibly intense & socially
seismographical events all converged in that narrow passage of human
history. An intense period that Miles follows chronologically, tracking
the factors that led from the remnants of Beat culture to the racial,
political, social, sexual & personal liberation movements, the
ecology movement, the anti war movement, creative explosions in
every direction at once in music & media, everything changed,
it was like going from black & white television to colour, everything
monochrome became technicolour. Oh yeah & some great sex &
drugs. Miles brings great integrity to the project tapping new primary
sources, many of the photos & documents I’ve never seen
before & believe me I’ve seen a lot of this stuff over
the years (might even have been in some of them). It was an incredibly
interesting period, a lot happened in a very narrow time line, the
book itself has a certain propulsion to it, as the reader moves
from one year to another, it looks exhausting in an elevated kind
of way. If you weren’t there at the time, this book will make
you wish that you were. Might even take you there.
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