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The Material Girl Goes Punk: Listen to Madonna’s Rare Demo Tape From 1979

08.23.2022
04:53 pm
Topics:
Music
Punk
Tags:
Madonna
1979
Breakfast Club


Madonna just wants to be punk. Doesn’t everybody?

In 1979 Madonna was dating musician Dan Gilroy of the Breakfast Club. The pair
were living in a converted synagogue in Queens, New York, poor but happy
pursuing their respective careers which at the time for Madonna was her quest to
be a dancer. Things weren’t exactly going great in that department for Madonna
so Gilroy taught her how to play the drums, which she took to pretty quickly.
This led to an explosion of creativity from the 21-year-old pre-Material Girl
Madonna—she wrote lyrics, and the music to accompany them. She learned to play a
few chords on the guitar and sing. In 2008, The Daily Beast released tapes
recorded by Gilroy back in the day when he and Madonna were together. He also
spoke about some of the first songs she wrote and recorded on his old cassette
player. The article itself refers to this work as the “lost Madonna tapes.” And
that description feels accurate as the songs you are about to listen to,
written, performed, and recorded by Madonna along with Gilroy, Angie Smit on
bass, and Dan’s brother Ed on guitar, come from her short time fronting the
Breakfast Club. They were self-released by Madonna on cassette in 1979. She had
only been in New York for about a year beforehand. She would, with Gilroy’s
encouragement and help, travel to France to work as a dancer and backup singer
in a Parisian disco. By 1981 she was singing her first record contract with
Gotham and, as they say, the rest is history.


Madonna (center) and the Breakfast Club. Photos via Youtube.
 

 

A photo of dark-haired Madonna during her time in the Breakfast Club.
 




Hardcore Madonna fans are likely aware of this period of Madonna’s development
as a pop star thanks to the 2019 documentary, Madonna and the Breakfast Club
(it’s out there streaming on multiple platforms if you’re interested in checking
it out). Hardcore fans will also know Madonna has been known to perform versions
of these songs (and other early material) live. Here’s the thing—much like the
early days of the Go-Go’s, Madonna is definitely flexing her affinity for punk
rock while mixing it with her own brand of spirited pop which the entire world
would soon embrace and others would emulate. Now, if you’ve never heard this
version of Madonna, and dig your punk with a side of pop, you are going to love
these raw jams. It’s also quite compelling to hear them, knowing what was to
come from Madonna in a few short years. The demo itself (which contains other
recordings), went to auction in 2009 and sold for an astonishing $6400.

So before it disappears online (as it does from time to time), listen to four
songs from the demo right here.

Four songs from Madonna’s self-released demo cassette with the Breakfast Club,
1979. Includes ‘Shit on the Ground/Safe Neighborhood,’ ‘Shine a Light,’ ‘Little
Boy,’ and ‘Love Express.’

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
French and Saunders read a poorly translated Hungarian interview with Madonna
The Devil’s discotheque: Madonna’s half-time show a Satanic Ritual
When Madonna met William S. Burroughs
Young Madonna performing at Danceteria, 1982
Unknown Madonna opens for The Smiths, completely fails to impress them, New
Year’s Eve, 1983
Nirvana and Steve Albini prank Evan Dando about working with Madonna, 1993



Posted by Cherrybomb
|
08.23.2022
04:53 pm
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Watch teaser for ‘Lost Futures: A Film About Mark Fisher’ with music by Mark
Stewart

07.26.2022
05:44 am
Topics:
Movies
Music
Politics
Tags:
Mark Stewart
Mark Fisher
Niall McCann


Photo of Mark Stewart by Chiara Meattelli and Dominic Lee

Mark Stewart on Mark Fisher:
“HE CAME FROM THE PRESENT TO SAVE THE FUTURE AND CHANGE THE PAST.”




The question Mark, is this: Where to begin the discussion of the great
free-thinker and theorist that was Mark Fisher – when the object was somebody
who dealt with the ambiguity of time itself?

Can I outdo the last intellectual missive on the matter? I very much doubt it.
Should I want to? If I learnt anything about Mark, I can wholeheartedly say no,
I shouldn’t.  He would much rather I invest my time reaching the audiences, who
as yet, are entirely unaware of both him and his work.  Or, better still,
devising methods of my own, capable of derailing the deluge of despair, that
dictates your cyclical resignation to “whatever will be, will be”, as Doris once
sang.  Mark’s switching of the baton to me, is not a position of privilege that
I, and I alone hold, you understand? Mark made the case for all to seize it –
and in turn pass it on – if we are to achieve what is required to tack through
the ill-wind that blows. And that is poignant. For it was Raymond Briggs, who,
with his graphic novel When The Wind Blows (pub. 1982), made his much needed
anti-nuclear narrative, accessible to children.  Briggs, like Fisher and other
great writers, recognised that in order to avert what is seen by some as the
inevitable future – one must reach the youngest of audiences.  Far too many of
those – now in their 40s and 50s – are fully accepting of all that their
political ‘leaders’ feed them. 

Mark’s work, as well as being a call to arms, is an open invitation to be
challenged in order to instil agency, and ignite – with a ferociousness like I
have never seen before – an anarchical phenomenon that has reached even the eye
of Chile’s president, Gabriel Boric. Therefore, proving itself capable of
playing an entirely different game, and winning. Which, in itself, brings me to
my penning this and contributing to Niall McCann’s forthcoming film about Mark
Fisher’s life & work – Lost Futures.  Niall is committed to making Mark
accessible to as many and varied an audience as possible. Let’s assist. For
every person who’s aware of Mark Fisher’s work, there are infinite others who
aren’t.  If his unparalleled discourse is to hold the status of his ‘lasting
legacy’, which we, his devotees rightly bestow upon him, then it is us – those
already well-versed in his vision – who carry the honour of the arduous task of
spreading his word. And yes, it will be arduous, but that’s the least we, who
claim to admire Fisher, should be prepared to shoulder, if we are worthy of
declaring ourselves to be forever changed and inspired by his work. It’s worth
remembering the integral role that the blessing and a curse – that is the
internet – has to play, in facilitating these necessary connections.  When
Fisher cast his critique of the net, so ably identifying all its holes, he did
so in the hope that it would all be stitched up with better solutions. After
all, there is no catch to be had, without the means to captivate what lies
beneath. He plunged us to the depths in helping us to understand the effects of
social media, so as to provide us with the determination to surface, with all
manner of attached material coming up for air with us.

Mark wanted everyone to be in on the act.  He was more than capable of
disproving his most ardent ‘academic’ critics, but he’d sooner awaken the
opposition than rebuke them. He never favoured wallowing in one-upmanship over
the wonderment of a new inductee to the cause.  Mark knew full well that the
most vital respondents to his cries, were not those with enviable résumés they’d
had the privilege of designing themselves, but instead those that had theirs
dictated to them. The people who’ve spent a life being underestimated for all
manner of reasons beyond their control, but most of all, their lack of access to
a formal licence to question EVERYTHING. We need them. 

Mark talked much about his belief of the links between mental health and
circumstance, so if little blue pills that help get it up, or surgeries that
leave patients feeling fuller, less flat, are made readily available on the NHS
prescriptions list, then shouldn’t Fisher’s back catalogue be on it too? He
stabs right at the heart of the mental health plague. No amount of therapy slugs
or anti-depressants can better arm the depressed with the tools they need to
understand their plight, than Mark Fisher, surely?  And where better to reach
the afflicted, than the environments that see very little material that speaks
to our contemporary natural condition.

I spoke to Niall McCann (director of ‘Lost Futures’) about my writing this piece
and he made reference to a quote that Fisher had once said of prisons: “Only
prisoners have time to read, and if you want to engage in a twenty year long
research project funded by the state, you will have to kill someone.” No greater
truth. And right there, lies one of our biggest opportunities, staring us in the
face.  For as well as the need to reach the youngest of audiences with thought
provoking material to avoid the continuation of the status quo, is it not
equally important to reach all – who, by definition of their circumstances – are
a ‘captive audience’? Prisoners; long-term hospital patients, mental health ward
patients; ATU admissions; care home residents? After all, it is they, who tend
to have unrivalled lived experience of the effects of privatisation. None of the
settings in which these potential audiences reside are considered hip so get
overlooked – and so too does the opportunity to learn from those within. 




Surely this has to change?  How to achieve that? Answers on a postcard to the
usual address please, or perhaps better still, a deleted one. See it as a random
act of kindness. Remember those? It’s time for retiring ‘radicals’ everywhere,
to cast aside the copies of Keep Calm And Colour In Unicorns and instead
inundate the mail boxes of anybody and everybody you would ordinarily deem to
‘have nothing in common with’. What’s the alternative? That you continue with a
life of blinkered, onanistic self-assurance, immune to the truth of the
surrounding landscape? Is this who you want to be? Only satisfied when you’ve
fulfilled your own needs, regardless of who or what it denies in the process?
It’s time to diversify and digress from the barely tolerated diet, and instead
force yourself to swallow your most unpalatable hypocrisies. Break them down
with a good glug of acid and permit your imagination to transform them into
first class fertile matter, to enable new life to flourish in pastures new. 

I asked Bobby Gillespie and Obsolete Capitalism to summarise what they believe
to be the essence of Mark Fisher’s work for inclusion in this piece.

Bobby Gillespie:

> “The beauty of Mark Fisher’s laser sharp critique of the destructive effects
> of life under Neoliberalism, was that it spoke to ordinary people in plain
> language that went beyond the often-hermetic intellectual world of academia. 
> He is greatly missed. We need more voices like Mark’s, more than ever.”

So, let’s assist in courting the audience Mark craved to reach the most. In
another conversation with a friend I’ve recently introduced to Mark’s work, they
said: “It feels to me like there is a feast of fawning over Mark’s theories and
a famine of practice out there.” A valid point.  There are people pushing
themselves to continue his praxis – one such example that comes to mind is
Oneohtrix Point Never. There are numerous others, but why stop there?  What can
be gained by knowing much of what is wrong and how it occurred, if we just hoard
the horrors in the hope that somebody else will pick up the slack in remedying
them? It ain’t gonna happen. Meanwhile, the tendency to promote oneself as one
of Fisher’s dedicated disciples to the already switched on, on social media,
prevails.  Perhaps a sin we are all guilty of to a greater or lesser degree I
expect, but as the expression goes: about as much use as an ashtray on a
motorbike.  If you’re already familiar with Mark Fisher’s work, by now, you
might be vexed that I’ve made little or no reference to Capitalist Realism, or
Hauntology…etc. Maybe that’s because primarily Mark was my mate. I miss him. And
for me, promoting the generosity of Mark Fisher the person, will always come
first before his works. Mark gave you those. They are all available to be
devoured and shared. Please do. The last word goes to Obsolete Capitalism,
proving that although Mark wanted to appeal to everyone, he had a habit of
impressing upon some of us an acuity that felt special, and unique to our
innermost thoughts and experiences.

Obsolete Capitalism, June 2022:




> “Like other great thinkers of the past – Nietzsche and Deleuze among others –
> Mark Fisher is a writer with “no mediation”. What is left when he tears away
> with a simple and definitive gesture, the enveloping screen on which the great
> epic fable of ‘capitalist realism’ is projected?  Only emptiness.  Instead of
> living in an age ‘saturated with history’ as Nietzsche wrote, Fisher has
> clearly and capably described our age as ‘saturated with emptiness’.  While
> this “emptiness” expands into every corner of capitalism, it also discharges
> the supposed systemic alternatives opposing it.  Helping us in liberation from
> ‘horror vacui’ and recognising the emptiness in the false fullness of the
> Real, is his most generous and enduring intellectual legacy.”

A statement about film-in-progress Lost Futures from director Niall McCann:

> The video we have produced for “Storm Crow” is an attempt to visualise Mark
> Fisher’s ideas and combine them with music which comes from a similar place.
> An experiment in matching his ideas to Mark Stewart’s music in a playful way,
> recontextualizing old TV advertisements—which both Marks would have grown up
> watching—zombie movies, along with pivotal social and political moments which
> helped bring us to what Fisher called “Capitalist Realism” which is the idea
> that it is now easier to imagine the end of the world, than the end of
> capitalism.
> 
> The vast body of work Fisher left behind explores capitalism’s unassailable
> role in our lives, the closing off of any sense of a future different from the
> present, and the effects of this on us as individuals. His writings lifted up
> the veil and showed the world afresh to his readers, and that’s the core idea
> in the music video.
> 
> The film itself revolves around something which is central to Mark Fisher’s
> work: the future. When I was young the future was everywhere. It could be
> anything, it seemed rife with possibilities, for something better. Now, it’s
> only talked about as a more terrifying version of the present. This is a film
> about the futures we have lost and how we might start imagining new ones
> again.
> 
> We will use Mark Fisher’s life and his brilliant ideas as a guide through some
> of the most urgent questions of our time.

 








 
‘Storm Crow’ by Mark Stewart also features on On-U Sound’s Pay It All Back Vol 8
compilation. Listen / Order Pay It All Back Vol 8.
For more information about Lost Futures, a film about Mark Fisher currently in
development, head here.
Niall McCann (Redemption Films)
Mark Stewart Official Website
Repeater Books
Obsolete Capitalism

Words by Mark Stewart, June 2022 ©


Posted by Richard Metzger
|
07.26.2022
05:44 am
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The Baker Street Regulars: The Obscure ‘70s band that featured former members of
Big Star

07.25.2022
05:53 am
Topics:
Books
Music
Tags:
Big Star
Chris Bell


Big Star’s original lineup. L-R: Andy Hummel, Chris Bell, Alex Chilton, and Jody
Stephens.
 
Listen to the second part of my appearance on the Discograffiti podcast,
reviewing the Big Star catalog, at the end of this article. Part one is here.

The following post was first published in 2018; it’s been lightly edited.

Being a big fan of Big Star, I was excited to receive an advance copy of the
oral history book, There Was a Light: The Cosmic History of Chris Bell and the
Rise of Big Star (HoZac Books). I started flipping through it and was
immediately drawn to the story of the Baker Street Regulars. The band existed
for a brief period in 1976, and featured two former members of Big Star, Chris
Bell and Jody Stephens. Considering this was a seldom discussed part of the Big
Star story, I asked HoZac Books if we could run the Baker Street Regulars
passages in the book. They not only said “Yes,” but provided us with the
majority of the images here—many of which have rarely been seen before. There
Was a Light author, Rich Tupica, has even written an introduction just for us.
 

Chris Bell in Ardent Studios, pre-Big Star.

> Often overshadowed by his iconic Big Star bandmate Alex Chilton, the genius of
> the late Chris Bell wasn’t truly uncovered until years after he was tragically
> killed in a car wreck in December 1978. The 27-year old remained in obscurity
> until 1992, when I Am the Cosmos, his posthumously released solo album was
> finally released to much praise.
> 
> Today, Beck and Wilco cover the enigmatic songwriter’s works, while members of
> R.E.M. still praise his work when asked about their favorite bands—yet at the
> time of his death, Bell was anything but a rock ’n roll legend. After the
> release of 1972’s #1 Record, Big Star’s debut LP on Ardent/Stax Records, Chris
> suffered a bout a clinical depression and heatedly exited the Memphis-based
> group—the band he masterminded from the ground up. He also had a falling out
> with Ardent Studios owner and Big Star producer John Fry. His life was in
> shambles and he realized his dream of breaking Big Star into the mainstream
> wasn’t going to happen.

 

Big Star in Alex Chilton’s bedroom, posing for a ‘#1 Record’ promo photo.
(Courtesy of Carole Manning)

> With Bell out of the picture, Alex Chilton and John Fry took the reins and
> kept Big Star going for two more equally acclaimed albums, Radio City and
> Third/Sister Lovers—but with little financial successes, the band fully
> dissolved.
> 
> Meanwhile, Bell not only became a devout born again Christian, he also
> attempted to launch a solo career. He even moved to London with his older
> brother David Bell for much of 1975 and pitched his reels of solo material to
> any A&R rep who’d meet with them. They were ultimately turned down by every
> label. By 1976, America’s Bicentennial, Chris was back in Memphis living at
> his parent’s upper-class estate in Germantown.
> 
> For money, Bell flipped burgers at his successful father’s fast food chain,
> while in the evenings he played as a sideman guitar slinger alongside fellow
> Memphians Van Duren in a short-lived band called the Baker Street Regulars.
> The band would never record a single track, but its short list of dates at low
> key Memphis bars would be the only time a full band would ever play Chris
> Bell’s solo material in front of an audience.

 

Chris Bell on stage during a Baker Street Regulars gig. (Courtesy of Van Duren)

The following excerpt is a portion of Chapter 20 from There Was a Light: The
Cosmic History of Chris Bell and the Rise of Big Star (HoZac Books), which
details this period of Bell’s life.




> Chapter 20: Baker Street Regulars: 1976
> Within weeks of his return from England, Chris connected with Van Duren and
> promptly formed the Baker Street Regulars—a Memphis-based bar band named after
> the Sherlock Holmes characters. The group—which also comprised former Big Star
> drummer Jody Stephens and guitarist Mike Brignardello—played Van’s and Chris’s
> original tunes along with some semi-obscure covers. For the first time since
> his pre-Big Star days, Chris played music just for fun.
> 
> Mike Brignardello — Bassist, Baker Street Regulars, Nashville session player:
> I grew up in Memphis, then hit the road immediately after high school in the
> early ’70s. I was in a little club band and learning about being a musician,
> then I came back in the mid-’70s. Big Star had come and gone in my absence,
> but I heard about them when I got back. They were local heroes, already a
> semi-cult band. One of the first guys I met when I came back to Memphis was
> Van Duren. We hit it off and started playing together. He was the guy who
> hooked us up with Chris and Jody.
> 
> Van Duren — Musician, songwriter, solo, Baker Street Regulars: The Baker
> Street Regulars was the name when the band first started—Chris thought of it.
> In December of ’75, we started to get together and rehearse, but we had been
> kicking around the idea of forming a band for months before that. The first
> time I went out to the Bells’ house, Jody took me over there for our first
> rehearsal. We turn off down this street and it turned into this winding
> driveway. You couldn’t even see the house from the street, the property was so
> huge.

 

Chris Bell poses in front of his parents’ home, Christmas 1977. (Courtesy of
Bell Family Archive)

> Mike Brignardello: Chris lived in, to my eyes—at least back in the day—a
> full-blown mansion. I remember turning down the driveway and driving, and
> driving, and driving and thinking, “You’ve got to be kidding me! He lives on
> this estate?” I had grown up as a poor kid in Memphis. He had us set up and
> play in the living room because his parents were overseas for like a month. I
> was like, “Who goes overseas for a month?”
> 
> Van Duren: Chris was different, obviously upper crust. I come from a
> blue-collar background, so that was a new world for me. He was from privilege
> and he acted that way sometimes, but he could also be quite humble. He always
> had a twinkle in his eye, much like Alex in a way. Sometimes you couldn’t tell
> if he was putting you on or being serious.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Mike Brignardello: We practiced in a corrugated-metal storage room—it wasn’t
> insulated or anything like that. We’d just roll the door up on hot, humid
> Memphis days and rehearse. My girlfriend got that photo of us in there. I
> thought it perfectly summed up where we were at. We were hungry to play. We
> sweat through those rehearsals.

 

The Baker Street Regulars in the metal storage unit. L-R: Chris Bell, Mike
Brignardello, Jody Stephens, and Van Duren. (Courtesy of Beverly Baxter Ross)

> Van Duren: It was pretty miserable in that twenty-foot-by-ten-foot mini
> storage—those things were brand-new in 1976. It was on Lamar Avenue and was
> the first of its kind in Memphis. One day, Chris showed up two hours late for
> rehearsal out there. He walks in wearing these tennis togs with the sweater
> wrapped around his neck and says, “Sorry I’m late, Tommy Hoehn and I had a
> vision on the tennis courts.” I didn’t know if it had to do with his religious
> beliefs, or if I was supposed to take him seriously or not. I was a little
> bent out of shape, but I just laughed when he said that. It wasn’t the first
> or the last time he was late. He operated on Chris time. Even so, by January
> of ’76, we were out playing.
> 
> The Baker Street Regulars landed shows at now-defunct venues, like Aligahpo’s
> on Highland Street by the University of Memphis, Procapé Gardens in Midtown on
> Madison, and the High Cotton Club, just south of Overton Square.
> 
> Van Duren: We played those three clubs about three times each, but the first
> gig was in the springtime in Oxford, Mississippi at Ole Miss at a fraternity
> party. We did originals and some cover material—but the covers were Beatles,
> Bee Gees and a lot of fairly obscure things at the time, like Todd Rundgren.
> We played things nobody had picked up on yet, especially in Mississippi. We
> threw in my songs, some Big Star songs and a few of Chris’s songs. We’d do “I
> Am the Cosmos,” “Make a Scene” and “Fight at the Table.” We learned Chris’s
> songs by listening to what he was calling demos—what later emerged as his solo
> album. It was a wonderful experience, even though when we played gigs we were
> pretty much ignored. That’s probably why we didn’t play much in the six months
> we were together.

 
Continues after the jump…



READ ON▸


Posted by Bart Bealmear
|
07.25.2022
05:53 am
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The classic Big Star songs that aren’t Big Star, but a studio project dubbed the
Dolby F*ckers

07.18.2022
06:00 am
Topics:
Music
Tags:
Alex Chilton
Big Star


 
I’m the guest on the latest episode of the fabulous Discograffiti podcast
discussing the work of ‘70s cult band, Big Star. Host Dave Gebroe and I recently
had a splendid chat about the group, and the conversation was so epic it’s been
divided into two parts. Check out the first installment at the conclusion of
this post.

While I love all three of the Big Star albums released in the 1970s, I’ve always
had a soft spot for Radio City. It’s the first one I bought, and I instantly
fell for the tight-yet-loose, catchy rock ‘n’ roll embedded in the LP’s grooves.
Years after becoming a huge fan of the band, I was surprised to discover that
three of the songs on Radio City aren’t really Big Star at all.

The Dolby Fuckers were a studio project that consisted of Big Star’s Alex
Chilton, drummer Richard Rosebrough, and bassist Danny Jones. Chilton and
Rosebrough first met back when the former was fronting the Box Tops, and at the
time of the recordings Rosebrough was working full-time as an engineer at Ardent
Studios. Jones, a local musician, roomed with Chilton after Alex’s marriage fell
apart.

There’s a lot of uncertainty surrounding the Dolby Fuckers tracks, but one thing
is for sure—no one remembers, exactly, when they were recorded. It seems most
likely that the sessions took place during the months-long stretch in 1973 when
Big Star were inactive. After they played a series of January shows at
Lafayette’s Music Room in Memphis, which were Big Star’s first public
performances following the departure of Chris Bell in late 1972, the group
effectively went on hiatus. They reconvened for a now legendary concert at the
first and only Rock Writers’ Convention, held on May 25-26 at Lafayette’s. The
band received such a positive response from notables like Lester Bangs, Nick
Tosches, and a teenage Cameron Crowe, that they decided to keep Big Star going.
In the fall of 1973, the group went into Ardent to cut what would become Radio
City.
 

Big Star: Jody Stephens, Andy Hummel, and Alex Chilton in the William Eggleston
photo that appears on the back cover of ‘Radio City.’

Here’s Richard Rosebrough on the wild late night sessions at Ardent that
produced two of the songs that wound up on Radio City—“She’s a Mover” and “Mod
Lang”:

> The Dolby Fuckers were just some sessions we did. There was a period when I
> was hanging out with Alex and I may have been working all day, then we’d meet
> at the bar later that night. The bar was just two doors down from the studio
> and we’d go in the studio at 2 a.m. and just start going crazy and making
> these recordings…Alex at that point was starting to fall into chaos. It got to
> be anything could happen. (from Big Star’s Radio City (33 1/3))

 

Richard Rosebrough.

A third Dolby Fuckers track, “What’s Goin’ Ahn,” was recorded during a formal
Chilton session at Ardent. 

Big Star recorded everything in their arsenal for Radio City, but it wasn’t
enough for a full LP, so the Dolby Fuckers tracks were added to round out the
record. The only information on the album related to the Chilton-led project is
this credit: “Danny Jones and Richard Rosebrough played too.”

The British Invasion-sounding “She’s a Mover” is probably the oldest track on
Radio City, possibly dating as far back as mid-to-late 1972. The looseness of
the evening it was captured in is preserved in the recording, which ends with a
jam. The odd feedback sounds came from waving a pair of headphones over a
microphone. Andy Hummel later overdubbed a bass part, so he’s on the final
version. Big Star took a stab at the song, but their rendering was shelved, as
it was felt it didn’t have the spirit of the Dolby Fuckers’ take.
 





 
Chilton was reportedly so pleased with how “She’s a Mover” turned out that he
booked a session at Ardent with Rosebrough and Jones. The result was the
achingly lovely “What’s Goin’ Ahn.” The song was written by Hummel and Chilton
in Alex’s bedroom, many moons before Radio City was conceived.
 








 
The rocker “Mod Lang,” credited to Chilton and Rosebrough, comes from another
debaucherous evening session at Ardent. Its title is an abbreviation for “Modern
Languages,” a Memphis State department. Chilton later admitted he stole the
lyrics from a bunch of old blues songs.
 





 
Despite the fact that they aren’t actually Big Star songs, the Dolby Fuckers
recordings fit seamlessly with the rest of the tracks, contributing to the
album’s greatness.

And where to they get “Dolby Fuckers” from anyway? During one of the sessions,
Alex, wondering what the point of Dolby Noise Reduction was, asked Richard,
“What’s this Dolby fucker do?” Needing a way to label the recordings, that’s the
name they wrote on the tape boxes.

As with #1 Record, Radio City (released in early 1974), wasn’t properly
distributed, playing a large role in its failure. Their final LP, Third (a/k/a
Sister Lovers), is comprised of material taken from a Chilton/Stephens project.
Released years after it was recorded, it’s a Big Star album in name only.

On April 25th, 1993, Chilton and Stephens reunited, along with Jon Auer and Ken
Stringfellow of the Posies, for the first Big Star show in nearly two decades.
From that gig, here they are, playing the majestic Radio City track “September
Gurls.”
 








 





 
Discograffiti is on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Spotfiy.

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Found Alex Chilton demo reveals final team-up with Big Star bandmate, Chris Bell
(a DM premiere)
What’s Your Sign?: Big Star’s Alex Chilton and his obsession with astrology
William Eggleston’s photos of Big Star



Posted by Bart Bealmear
|
07.18.2022
06:00 am
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Exclusive: Hand-carved Marionettes of the Rolling Stones, Howlin’ Wolf, Michael
Caine and more

07.13.2022
10:05 am
Topics:
Art
Music
Tags:
The Rolling Stones
George Miller
marionettes
KGM


George Miller’s marionette studio in Glasgow.
 
George Miller aka Kaiser George is an artist, musician, and leader of the cult
band The Kaisers—hence the moniker Kaiser George.




Miller is also the talent behind KGM Marionettes - the home of quality rock ‘n’
roll and R ‘n’ B pop merchandise. Two years ago, Dangerous Minds introduced you
Miller’s marvellous marionettes, prints, and trading cards. Since then, Miller
has expanded KGM’s output to include some British rock ‘n’ roll legends like
Johnny Kidd and Wee Willie Harris and more famous ones like the Rolling Stones.

Miller’s work is more than just fun. It is culturally important artwork which
brings the joys of the Golden Age of rock ‘n’ roll and some of its greatest
(though often neglected) stars to the Spotify generation.

What have you been working on since last we spoke?

George Miller: Initially the plan was to make a Top Trumps style card set, so
the puppet making went into overdrive for quite a while in order to have enough
cards for the game to work properly. The String Stars set featured only stars
from the US, but we made the decision to include some of the more notable UK
artists, which meant a fair bit more work, but good fun nonetheless. Johnny Kidd
was particularly enjoyable to make and think I may have the only Wee Willie
Harris marionette in the world, but I’d love to be wrong about that.

We now have enough characters for the Top Trumps style set, but that particular
project has been put on hold for now, meaning I have a cupboard full of idle
puppets, but they’ll be put to work eventually.

What has the response been to your marionettes and KGM merchandise?




GM: The response has been incredibly positive to the point where I feel I have
to keep making the marionettes for as long as is humanly possible. Reading the
comments folk put on Facebook and seeing the photographs of KGM merchandise on
display in their homes is a real thrill. People really do seem to love the
puppets and the merchandise, which makes all of us at KGM feel mighty good.

The puppets have been featured in a few national newspapers and a chap by the
name of Austin Vince came to Glasgow to make a short documentary which will be
shown at the Adventure Travel Film Festival in the Cotswolds in August. I’ll be
there to give a kind of ‘Confessions of a Rock ‘n’ Roll Puppet Maker’ talk.

I was also asked to make a marionette of the artist John Byrne for his
foundation’s charity auction, which I was delighted to do as I’m a big fan and
he’s a brilliant subject for sculpting. Also he was a Teddy Boy in the 1950s,
which makes me like him even more.
 

Playwright (‘The Slab Boys’) and artist John Byrne who is also known for his
album covers for the Beatles, Donovan, Stealer’s Wheel, and Gerry Rafferty.
 
GM: The KGM team got pretty excited when the new owners of Sun Records asked us
if we could make a bubble gum card set of Sun artists, but unfortunately US
image copyright law scuppered the project. Thank goodness we don’t have that in
this country.

What new wonders have you for sale and are working on?

Currently we are still selling the original String Stars card set, plus
greetings cards/post cards and also ‘String Stars Stand-ups’ which are cardboard
cut-out figures of a select few of the marionettes - in full colour and
attractively packaged, folks.

The current major KGM project features five young men you may not want your
daughter to marry.
 

KGM Cards: The Rolling Stones.
 
Ah, the Stones! Tell me about the Rolling Stones marionettes and what your plans
are for them. Why the studio? why the van?




GM: The Rolling Stones marionettes have rather elbowed the Top Trumps project
out of the way, which seems apt somehow. I thought it would be fun to do a band
for a change and the Stones seemed the perfect choice, given that they all have
tremendous facial features and also it was an interesting challenge to try to
capture their ‘bad boy attitude’ while retaining enough toy-like charm to make
people smile.

When they were completed and dressed in Ursula [Cleary]‘s wonderful outfits,
they seemed so alive that we decided we just had to do a bubble gum card set,
similar to the A&BC Stones set from 1965. The set will take the form of a loose
visual narrative based on a typically busy day in the life of a successful
British R & B group, in which they cram in a photo shoot, TV appearance,
recording session etc before a riotous gig in the evening. As with all the other
KGM stuff, it’s basically an art project masquerading as pastiche pop
memorabilia. It feels like we’re somehow giving the concept of celebrity an
inquisitive poke with a reasonably sharp stick.

Naturally, we have no desire to infringe anybody’s copyright, so the set will be
called simply ‘England’s Newest Hitmakers’ and it’ll be up to the viewer to join
the dots.
 

 

READ ON▸


Posted by Paul Gallagher
|
07.13.2022
10:05 am
|
1 Comment

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‘The Las Vegas Story’ story: Interview with Gun Club producer Jeff Eyrich

06.17.2022
07:52 am
Topics:
Music
Tags:
Gun Club


 
Because I love all of their albums so very much, it’s difficult for me to say
which is my favorite Gun Club album—it’s Mother Juno, but just by a hair—and
much easier to pick out my favorite Gun Club song. That would be “Walking with
the Beast” from The Las Vegas Story.  (“Lupita Screams,” “Death Party” and “The
Lie” run close behind.)

“Walking with the Beast” is a motherfucking motherfucker of a song. It grabs you
by the throat and and shakes you until you are limp. Patricia Morrison’s
rumbling bass, Kid Congo Powers’ feedback-driven power chords, and Terry
Graham’s POUNDING drums almost attack the listener. It’s heavier than any heavy
metal. For those of you reading this who have never had the pleasure, “Walking
with the Beast” is simply the musical equivalent to looking up at the sky and
realizing that a violent tornado is about to overtake you.

(I’d have embedded the song here, but YouTube currently lacks even a single
upload of the studio version. I direct you then to your favorite streaming
service. PLAY IT LOUD.)




When an album starts off that strong, you would think that it’s all downhill
from there, but there’s one classic Gun Club winner after another, including two
leftfield cover versions. At the start of side two, a skronky snippet of Pharoah
Sanders’ “The Creator Was A Master Plan” segues into a plaintiff take on “My
Man’s Gone Now,” the widow Serena’s aria from from George Gershwin’s classic
opera Porgy and Bess. On paper, that shouldn’t work, but it does, spectacularly
so.

I’ve bragged on this blog many times about seeing Gun Club live—one of the best,
most exciting live shows I’ve ever seen in a long career of concert going—but
what I didn’t realize until recently is that the band that I saw—Morrison,
Graham, Kid Congo—didn’t last but a few more shows, when drummer Graham snuck
out in the middle of the night and returned to America after discovering he
wasn’t going to be paid for the tour. The incarnation of the Gun Club that
recorded The Las Vegas Story, that everyone tends to see as the most iconic era
of Jeffrey Lee Pierce’s revolving door of a band, lasted but a single year.

I got to see one of my all-time favorite bands, supporting one of my all-time
favorite albums, but just by the skin of my teeth. Five days later Graham would
leave the band, for the third and final time.

There is a new “super deluxe” release today of The Las Vegas Story on double
vinyl and as a two CD set along with a DVD of “home movies” from some American
tour dates of 1984 (shot by Terry Graham and his girlfriend) from Blixa Sounds.

I asked The Las Vegas Story‘s producer Jeff Eyrich some questions via email.

How did you get involved with the Gun Club?

I’m from L.A. and was aware of the band from the L.A. scene at that time — from
working with (producing) the Plimsouls and the Blasters. I had never seen the
Gun Club play live but I knew them by name, maybe heard a track or two on the
radio. I got a call from Ron Faire who was a young A&R guy at Chrysalis records
and he asked if I’d be interested in producing Gun Club — that he really didn’t
understand or ‘get’ their music but that they sold a lot of records overseas. He
added that the budget was minimal and that he’d like to get it done in 2 weeks, 
start to finish. I was between projects at the time so I met with Jeffrey Lee
and Kid Congo to get an idea of what they wanted to do, what the songs were —
they played me some stuff on a cassette — I liked what I heard and I was
impressed by how serious Jeffrey Lee was about his music, his vision, and how
supportive Kid was about helping Jeffrey Lee see his vision through. I sensed
that there was somewhat of a ‘risk’ factor involved but I was up for the
challenge, especially given the budget and time constraints but I felt we could
pull it off.

What was your take on Jeffrey Lee?




Jeffrey Lee was very serious about his music and he had a vision for the record…
so much so that I felt that my role as producer on this project was basically to
facilitate Jeffrey’s vision — for me to set the stage, make sure everybody was
comfortable in the studio (sightlines were very important since this was a live
band), that the sounds were happening right away so we could capture the
spontaneity of the moment, and to keep things moving forward. We recorded the
record at Ocean Way’s studio B. I mention ‘sightlines’ being crucial, as studio
B is like two basketball courts side by side separated by a floor-to-ceiling
glass wall. I had Terry and Patricia on one side and Jeffrey Lee and Kid Congo
on the other. Jeffrey Lee and Kid had their amps turned up real loud.

We had one pre-production rehearsal that was somewhat chaotic but the one thing
I took from it was how solid, simple and groovin’ Terry and Patricia were as a
rhythm section. I knew from experience that whatever Jeffrey Lee and Kid did on
top of that rhythm section we were going to have something that felt great.

What was he like to work with?

I found Jeffrey Lee, and everybody in the band — Terry, Patricia, and Kid Congo
— very easy to work with… reasonable, communicative, respectful. No problems… on
time… there to work and to make music.

What was the drug situation like in the studio?

I wasn’t aware of any drugs in the studio. The vibe in the studio was really
good, the sounds happening (thank you mark ettel) — everything was happening so
easily. Any drugs would’ve just fucked that up. That being said… I don’t do
drugs and didn’t at that time so maybe I was just oblivious but nobody seemed
drunk or stoned to me.

Did everyone realize at the time what a seminal album had been created?

I think that everybody was happy with the result and that everybody hoped for
the best for the record — mission accomplished — on time and on budget. Maybe
not the kind of record Chrysalis was adept at promoting, unfortunately. After I
finished the mastering and turned the record in I was off to the next project —
I believe it was T-bone Burnett’s Proof Through the Night— and I lost touch with
the band.

But I remember about six months later running into the Gun Club in Paris — they
were on tour over there — and they invited me to the show. I went and wound up
mixing their sound that night. It was crazy, loud, and primal… but really good.
 








This performance was taped in Newcastle on October 19th, 1984 for ‘The Tube’ and
is probably the best video representation of this short-lived classic Gun Club
line-up
 





The new “super deluxe” expanded reissue includes a DVD of ‘1984 Home Movie: The
Gun Club On The Road’


Posted by Richard Metzger
|
06.17.2022
07:52 am
|
2 Comments

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R.I.P. Cathal Coughlan: Microdisney and Fatima Mansions frontman dead at 61

05.23.2022
12:30 pm
Topics:
Music
R.I.P.
Tags:
Cathal Coughlan


 
I just read the sad news that the great Irish vocalist Cathal Coughlan has died.
The frontman of both Microdisney and Fatima Mansions was 61 and died in the
hospital after what was described only as a long illness. He was one of the very
finest vocalists of his generation.

I am a really huge fan of his music. Microdisney’s “Mrs. Simpson” is a desert
island disc for me, and his unjustly ignored solo record Black River Falls is
one of my top favorite albums of all time. (It’s the album I wish Scott Walker
had made instead of Tilt. Yes, it’s really that good and you should go stream it
now.)

During the course of the past few years, I’d become friendly with Cathal over
email. Not that long ago I sent him a copy of Nico and Phillippe Garrel’s film
La Cicatrice Intérieure, which he seemed highly amused by. We were planning to
meet up in London in late Summer. Now that will never happen. I’m glad I got to
tell him how much I love his music.




The world of music has lost a truly great talent. RIP Cathal Coughlan.
 





“Black River Falls”
 





“Payday”
 





“Witches in the Water”
 








“Are You Happy?”
 





“Mrs. Simpson”
 





“Singer’s Hampstead Home”
 








Microdisney on ‘The Old Grey Whistle Test’ in 1985, doing two of their best
songs, “Loftholdingswood” and “Birthday Girl.”


Posted by Richard Metzger
|
05.23.2022
12:30 pm
|
2 Comments

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This female-fronted band released one of post-punk’s ‘best’ songs, 1980 (with DM
premieres)

05.23.2022
07:11 am
Topics:
Music
Tags:
Girls at Our Best
post-punk


 
The Leeds band Girls at Our Best! were only around for a couple of years in the
early 1980s, but they left behind some solid tunes, including one of the finest
songs from the post-punk era.

The story of GaOB! begins in 1977, when singer Judy Evans and guitarist James
Alan met while attending art school. Alan was in a punk outfit called SOS, which
Evans eventually joined. The group morphed into another act, the Butterflies, a
purposefully pretty name that was a response to all the negative and/or nasty
monikers from the punk period. The Butterflies got some notice and had at least
one high profile fan in Sid Vicious, but broke up as the decade was coming to an
end.
 

The cover of the first Girls at Our Best! single.

Evans and Alan started Girls at Our Best! simply to document the songs they were
writing, but Rough Trade Records heard one of the tracks, and they encouraged
the duo to put out a 7-inch. In April 1980, the GaOB! debut, “Getting Nowhere
Fast” b/w “Warm Girls,” was released via their own label, Record Records, which
was distributed by Rough Trade. “Getting Nowhere Fast” was named NME’s “Single
of the Week,” and made the top ten of the UK indie chart, but Girls at Our Best!
wasn’t exactly a band; it was still just Evans and Alan. So, with high demand
for a second 45, a bassist and a drummer were brought into the fold.
 

 
After their second 7-inch, Girls at Our Best! signed with Happy Birthday
Records. The label put out a couple more GaOB! singles, as well as what ended up
being the group’s lone full-length, Pleasure, in October 1981 (a pre-fame Thomas
Dolby plays synth on the record).

In late ‘81, GaOB! headed to America for a brief tour, which did not go well.
Seemingly no one knew about the band—they even had a Spinal Tap-like experience
when nobody showed up for a record store appearance—and they grew increasingly
tired of each other. Girls at Our Best! called it a day in 1982.
 

 
“Getting Nowhere Fast” is a perfect post-punk song. Possessing a killer, angular
guitar riff, and a propulsive bassline, the defiant lyrics speak to the
emptiness of capitalism, the passiveness of the masses, and the feeling that
your failing life isn’t what you signed up for. After two exhilarating minutes,
the number ends in an abrupt, dramatic fashion.
 
Much more, including DM premieres, after the jump…



READ ON▸


Posted by Bart Bealmear
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05.23.2022
07:11 am
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A 45-minute ‘God Save the Queen’ for HM Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee!

05.19.2022
03:08 pm
Topics:
Class War
Current Events
Music
Punk
Tags:
Sex Pistols
Queen Elizabeth II
Andrew Liles


 
“A report in 2019 revealed that Queen Elizabeth II and her family cost the
British people £67 million per year,” says grateful subject Andrew Liles,
introducing his elongated version of the Sex Pistols’ “God Save the Queen.” The
monarchy is a sweet deal for Britons, since the royals put on the occasional
horse show starring Tom Cruise to thank the common people for expending their
lives in toil so that their betters may luxuriate among jeweled combs and Sèvres
tea services.

Now, Liles has found a musical way to tell the royals “you’re welcome” for the
generalized misery that supports their year-round debauch: extending Her Maj’s
favorite Pistols choon from a length of about three minutes to 45, one for each
year since 1977. In all likelihood, this is the very melody she will be humming
this morning while she consumes a year of your wages for breakfast.

Unfortunately, there’s still no future, but on the bright side, there’s a lot
more of it!
 





Previously on Dangerous Minds:
There’s a 50-minute version of the Beatles’ ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ for the
song’s 50th anniversary
‘Colossus’: Andrew Liles’ 42-hour opus reimagines 50 years of pop, a DM premiere
The thrilling conclusion of Andrew Liles’ 42-hour musical work, ‘Colossus’
Nodding God: new music from David Tibet and Andrew Liles, a DM premiere
A half-hour version of Slayer’s ‘Angel of Death’ celebrates 30 years of ‘Reign
in Blood’



Posted by Oliver Hall
|
05.19.2022
03:08 pm
|
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13

Laibach on ‘Wir sind das Volk,’ a posthumous collaboration with playwright
Heiner Müller

05.18.2022
06:55 am
Topics:
Art
Literature
Music
Tags:
Laibach
NSK
Heiner Müller


Laibach’s new album ‘Wir sind das Volk (ein Musical aus Deutschland)’




Laibach’s latest project, a musical theater production based on texts by the
German playwright Heiner Müller, has been staged in Berlin, Klagenfurt,
Ljubljana, Zagreb, and Hamburg. As Laibach’s early work was not enthusiastically
greeted by authorities in post-Tito Yugoslavia, so Müller, whose New York Times
obituary described him as an “independent Marxist,” was banned for years from
the East German stage. Indeed, the director of one of his early plays was
rewarded with a trip to the coal mines.

Müller’s association with Laibach dates from 1984, when the group composed music
for a Slovenian production of his Quartet. Laibach and Müller met in Berlin the
following year, and he suggested that they collaborate; but though he apparently
did use Laibach’s music in one of his stage productions, the collaboration did
not come to pass before Müller’s death in 1995.

More than twenty years later, prompted by a suggestion from Anja Quickert, the
head of the Internationale Heiner Müller Gesellschaft (International Heiner
Müller Society), Laibach renewed their collaboration with the dramatist. As
Laibach explains its approach to creating Wir sind das Volk in the press
release:

> We followed Heiner Müller’s own strategy of cutting and rearranging the
> material, taking his text and putting it into another context, rebooting it
> with music, in order to drag the audience into it or alienate them from it.
> Music unlocks the emotions and is therefore a great manipulative tool and a
> powerful propagandistic weapon. And that’s why a combination of Heiner Müller,
> who saw theatre as a political institution, and Laibach, can be nothing else
> but a musical.

Laibach kindly answered a few questions about Wir sind das Volk and related
matters by email.
 

Photo by Valter Leban

Speaking in Dresden in 2014, South Korean President Park Geun-hye proclaimed:
Wir sind ein Volk! What is the difference between this assertion and Laibach’s
Wir sind das Volk?




Laibach: Wir sind das Volk is a more general slogan and Wir sind ein Volk is a
more particular one. When East Germans demanded the change of policy and
reunification of the two Germanies in 1990, one of the slogans of the protesters
at the time was Wir sind das Volk—“We are the people”—which meant that it is the
people who will decide, not the authorities. When the wall between the two
countries actually started to crumble, the slogan on both sides of the wall
quickly changed to Wir sind ein Volk—“We are a people, one people, one nation,
one state…” In this spirit, in 2014, South Korean President Park Geun-hye,
speaking of the idea of reunification of the two Koreas, proclaimed Wir sind ein
Volk!, which, of course, in the context of South and North Korea, means that
they are one nation, violently divided in the Korean War and which, in a certain
perspective of time, should be again reunited, just like Germany was.

Please tell us about the production of Laibach’s posthumous collaboration with
Heiner Müller. Why, for instance, does the album open with the figure of
Philoctetes?

Back in 1984 we contributed music for Heiner Müller’s Quartet, a play that was
presented at the Slovenian National Theatre in Ljubljana, directed by Slovenian
director Eduard Miler. This was at a time when Laibach was officially forbidden
in Slovenia and Yugoslavia, and we were grateful to Eduard Miler for being brave
enough to include Laibach in this theatrical piece, performed by the national
institution. A good year later, in February 1985, we met Heiner Müller by
coincidence in Berlin, where we had a concert at some festival, and it turned
out that he was very enthusiastic about Laibach and he also proposed that we
collaborate on one of his upcoming theatre productions. Unfortunately, that did
not happen (in the meantime we were invited by another legendary theatre and
artistic director and in fact Heiner Müller’s fierce opponent, Peter Zadek, to
work the score for Shakespeare’s Macbeth in 1987—and perform in it—staged at the
Deutsche Schauspielhaus in Hamburg), but we were told that Heiner Müller had
apparently used some of our music in a theatre production that he worked on.
Heiner Müller passed away in 1995 and only a few years ago, in 2019, we finally
received an invitation from Mrs. Anja Quickert, the head of Internationale
Heiner Müller Gesellschaft (H. M. Society), proposing a project based on Heiner
Müller’s texts, to be premiered and performed at the HAU (Hebbel am Ufer)
theatre in Berlin. The premiere of Wir sind das Volk—Ein Musical nach Texten von
Heiner Müller was held on 8 February 2020 and more shows followed after the
pandemic. At this point something like 10,000 people have seen the musical, in
spite of the epidemics.
 

The poster for ‘Wir sind das Volk’

Heiner Müller is one of the most prominent post-WWII German playwrights,
writers, and intellectuals, and one of the main protagonists who radically
practised the denazification of Germany and ruthlessly led German Volk through
the purgatory of collective guilt. Our ‘musical’ speaks of this process of
denazification, but also about Heiner Müller personally, about his observation
of his own life in the postwar reality of this country, divided by the Cold War.
He was very fond of German national traumas as well as of the time of German
patriotism and this is the topic in most of his writings. The texts and songs
for the musical were selected by Anja Quickert, who also was the dramaturge and
director of the show. The musical opens with an extract of Müller’s
interpretation of the Philoctetes, the tragedy where he dramatizes the state’s
predicament as it finds itself adopting inhumane methods in order to achieve a
humane future for its citizens. In presenting the state’s point of view, Müller
boldly challenges Sophocles (Philoctetes) and Gide (Philoctète), who focus their
plays on the individual, not the state. Müller’s radical rewriting of the myth
negotiates the question of belonging: exclusion and inclusion in a society that
wants to destroy the “other” and destroys itself by tolerating only an ability
to function. In the part of the text that we are using in the musical, Müller is
actually talking about his own childhood traumas and that is why this text
stands at the beginning of the album as well.

We hear so much about populism in politics these days. Who are the people, and
what do they want? As Freud might have asked, Was will ein Volk eigentlich?

People are the suppressed majority that occasionally smells the power of victory
and then they want it all.




At least one reliable source reports that Russian propaganda is simultaneously
insisting that Ukranians are racially inferior to Russians and denying that
Ukrainians have a distinct nationality. If citizenship in the NSK State is not
based on language, nationality, ethnicity, or race, what are the criteria?

Possession of at least one Laibach album and a good sense of humor, especially
when inferiority and superiority complexes are in question. For all else we are
quite flexible.
 

‘Epiphany (Adoration of the Magi)’ by Gottfried Helnwein (via Denver Art Museum)

How does Laibach’s approach to working on theatrical productions (Krst pod
Triglavom-Baptism, Macbeth, Also Sprach Zarathustra) differ from its usual
working method? Do any principles of Scipion Nasice Sisters Theatre’s work
persist in Laibach’s approach?

We approach each project in a completely different way. We don’t have any
creative platform or templates to use either for theatrical productions or as
‘usual working method.’ Composing is always different because most of the time
we work with a slightly different combination of people, and we therefore adapt
to a common operating model. Within the theatre projects it is also important
who initiates it, who leads or directs it. For these productions we create the
material in communication and collaboration with directors, and we try to adjust
to their ideas and their vision of how the music and sound should function, as
much as we can. It is true, however, that usually it is best that producers and
directors give us a totally free hand for the best results.

Is it possible to express one’s personality in Schlager music or Volkslieder
without ruining the performance? For instance, giving voice to the German
national character seems to suit Heino so well because he only uses emotions as
signs of filial piety. “Folk music” in the US these days, on the other hand,
consists almost entirely of people crying about their hurt feelings.

They really do it in pop and rock music too, there is a lot of ‘crying’ and
trading in emotions in pop and rock music tradition. In principle we do not see
much difference between pop-rock music and Schlager music or Volkslieder in
Germany. In the context of the German national character, Heino, who deals with
emotions perfectly, as well as Kraftwerk, who actually took a lot of their
inspiration from Volkslieder and Schlager music—their versions are not
contaminated by emotional hyperinflation. In America, on the other hand, it’s
hard to imagine popular music—with the exception of hip hop and rap—without such
emotional exploitations… What would Presley, Prince, Bon Jovi, Bruce
Springsteen, Whitney Houston, Dolly Parton or Taylor Swift (etc., etc.) be
without their hurt feelings? 




Singing in 1985, U.S.A. for Africa proclaimed: “We Are the World.” Is Laibach
the world, too?

We are Africa and the Universe.
 





Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Become a citizen of Laibach’s global state
Laibach’s opening act: a man chopping wood with an axe
Laibach’s nightmarish new short film, ‘So Long, Farewell’: a Dangerous Minds
premiere



Posted by Oliver Hall
|
05.18.2022
06:55 am
|
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