Remembering Jimi Hendrix

last.fm

"Who else can be heard, resoundingly, in the music of both Prince and Metallica? Funkadelic and Van Halen?" This is how Ben Cosgrove put it in TIMELightbox's tribute to Jimi Hendrix, as yesterday would have been the legendary guitarist's 70th birthday.  

It is of course true that even if one has not listened to any of Jimi Hendrix's albums, they probably have heard his music filtered through the practically infinite number of musicians he has influenced. For me, however, the most amazing aspect of Jimi Hendrix is the timeless nature of his work; there have been many influential musicians in the 1950s and the 1960s, but there is hardly anyone whose music sounds today as fresh and contemporary as his. 

I was in adolescence when I discovered Hendrix, many years after his death. And to this day, every time someone asks me what type of rock music I like, I begin with a reference to him. The sound of Jimi Hendrix's guitar, heavy as much as sophisticated, rough-edged and simultaneously elegant, is emblematic: not only did it aesthetically manifest the counter-cultural edge of the 1960s, but it also set the terms of reference in what concerns all things defiant and uncompromising in rock music.

And then there is his incredible musicianship; Hendrix's material is of course great in terms of riffs and motifs, rhythms and melodies, but what matters the most is the way he played, rather than what he played. His incredible improvisations made his music unpredictable and unique, as all art that matters happens to be.  

All Along the Watchtower, from the 1968 album Electric Ladyland by The Jimi Hendrix Experience, is a case in point, as well as a great favourite of mine. The song was written by Bob Dylan, who replied as follows when he was asked about how he felt when he first heard Hendrix's interpretation:

It overwhelmed me, really. He had such talent, he could find things inside a song and vigorously develop them. He found things that other people wouldn't think of finding in there. He probably improved upon it by the spaces he was using. I took license with the song from his version, actually, and continue to do it to this day.

 "There must be some kind of way outta here"
Said the joker to the thief
"There's too much confusion
I can't get no relief
Businessmen, they drink my wine
Plowmen dig my earth
None will level on the line
Nobody of it is worth"

"No reason to get exited"
The thief he kindly spoke
"There are many here among us
Who feel that life is but a joke
But you and I, we've been through that
And this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now
The hour's getting late"

All along the watchtower
Princes kept the view
While all the women came and went
Barefoot servants too
Outside in the cold distance
A wildcat did growl
Two riders were aproaching
And the wind began to howl 

 All along the watchtower

The most real, the most beautiful thing: Nazim Hikmet at Occupy Wall Street

Wikipedia

It was such a pleasure to see Nazim Hikmet's pivotal poem On Living in the third issue of tidal, which was published by Occupy Theory in September 2012. Nazim Hikmet was a landmark 20th century poet; his quality as an artist, his gentleness as a person, and his integrity as a revolutionary, which led him to spend a large part of his life in prison and in exile, are evident in his ability to articulate the hardest of experiences in the most meditative of ways. It is this beauty and warmth of his work that I always found incredibly touching; and On Living, written in 1948, is a perfect choice for a contemporary movement like Occupy; I am pasting below the first part of the poem from the tidal issue, which is available  here (p. 30).

                        Living is no laughing matter:  

                              you must live with great seriousness 

                                     like a squirrel, for example–

                              I mean without looking for something beyond and above living, 

                                     I mean living must be your whole occupation.

                        Living is no laughing matter:

                              you must take it seriously, 

                              so much so and to such a degree 

                              that, for example, your hands tied behind your back, 

                                                 your back to the wall, 

                              or else in a laboratory 

                                    in your white coat and safety glasses, 

                                    you can die for people–

                                    even for people whose faces you've never seen, 

                                    even though you know living 

                                    is the most real, the most beautiful thing. 

                              I mean, you must take living so seriously 

                                    that even at seventy, for example, you'll plant olive trees–

                                    and not for your children, either, 

                                    but because although you fear death you don't believe it, 

                                    because living, I mean, weighs heavier.

David Loewenstein, Occupy the Wish, 2012 Occuprint

I refuse to fall down: Piss Factory, by Patti Smith

Photography: Steven Sebring, Tokyo, 1997   vanityfair.com

And speaking of Patti Smith's latest single, how about her earliest? That would be her cover of Hey Joe, which was released in the US back in 1974; interestingly, Tom Verlaine played lead guitar on this song as well. The single featured two of Patti Smith's long-term collaborators, Lenny Kaye on guitar, and Richard Sohl on piano; it is with them, along with Ivan Kral on bass, and Jay Dee Daugherty on drums, that she would create her classic albums, starting with the recording of Horses the following year.  
  
The B-side, Piss Factory, is a rare gem in every respect; it showcases Patti Smith's storming spoken poetry, in this case reflecting upon her experience as a factory worker. Last but not least, Hey Joe (Version)/Piss Factory was an independent production, made with financial help from Patti Smith's life-long friend Robert Mapplethorpe; as Steve Huey puts it in allmusic, the single "helped kickstart the independent D.I.Y. aesthetic that remains punk rock's hallmark even today."

Sixteen and time to pay off

I get this job in a piss factory inspecting pipe
Forty hours, thirty-six dollars a week
But its a paycheck, Jack
So hot in here, hot like sahara
You could faint in the heat
But these bitches are just too lame to understand
Too goddamned grateful to get this job
To know they're getting screwed up the ass
All these women, they got no teeth, or gum, or cranium
And the way they suck hot sausage
But me, well, I wasn't saying too much neither
I was moral school girl, hard-working asshole
I figured I was speedo motorcycle
I had to earn my dough, had to earn my dough
But no, you gotta, you gotta relate babe
You gotta find the rhythm within
Floor boss slides up to me and he says
Hey, sister, you're just movin' too fast
You screwin' up the quota
You doin' your piece work too fast
Now you get off your mustang, Sally
You ain't goin' nowhere, you ain't goin' nowhere
I lay back, I get my nerve up, I take a swig of Romilar
And walk up to hot shit Dot Hook and I say
Hey, hey sister, it don't matter whether I do labor fast or slow
There's always more labor after
She's real catholic, see, she fingers her cross and she says
There's one reason, there's one reason
You do it my way or I push your face in
We knee you in the John if you don't get off your mustang, Sally
If you don't shake it up baby, shake it up baby, twist and shout
Oh what I could will a radio here, James Brown singing
I Lost Someone, or the Jesters and the Paragons
And Georgie Woods, the guy with the goods, and Guided Missiles
But no, I got nothin', no diversion, no window
Nothing here but a porthole in the plaster, in the plaster
Where I look down, look at Sweet Theresa's convent
All those nurses, all those nuns scattin' 'round
With their bloom hoods like cats in mourning
Oh to me they, you know, to me they look pretty damn free down there
Down there, not having to press those smooth
Not having to smooth those hands against hot steel
Not having to worry about the in-speed, the dogma of in-speed of labor
They look pretty damn free down there
The way they smell, the way they smell
And here, I gotta be up here smellin' Dot Hook's midwife sweat
I would rather smell the way boys smell
Oh those schoolboys, way their legs flap under the desks in study hall
That odor rising roses and ammonia
And way their dicks droop like lilacs
Or the way they smell that forbidden acrid smell
But no, I gotta, I gotta put clammy lady in my nostril
Her against the wheel, me against the wheel
Oh, the in-speed-o, slow motion inspection is drivin' me insane
In steel next to Dot Hook, oh, we may look the same
Shoulder to shoulder, sweatin' 110 degrees
But I will never faint, I will never faint
They laugh and they expect me to faint but I will never faint
I refuse to lose, I refuse to fall down
Because you see it's the monotony that's got to me
Every afternoon like the last one
Every afternoon like a rerun, next to Dot Hook
And yeah, we look the same
Both pumpin' steel, both sweatin'
But you know she got nothin' to hide
And I got something to hide here called desire
I got something to hide here called desire
And I will get out of here
You know the fiery potion is just about to come
In my nose is the taste of sugar
And I got nothin' to hide here, save desire
And I'm gonna go, I'm gonna get out of here
I'm gonna get out of here, I'm gonna get on that train
I'm gonna go on that train and go to New York City
I'm gonna be somebody, I'm gonna get on that train, go to New York City
I'm gonna be so big, I'm gonna be a big star and I will never return
Never return, no, never return, to burn out in this piss factory
And I will travel light
Oh, watch me now

discogs.com

Music & Liberation: an exhibition about music in the Women's Liberation Movement

Women's Liberation Music Archive

Following exhibitions in Cardiff, Manchester, and Glasgow, Music & Liberation: Women’s Liberation Music Making in the UK (1970-1989) now opens in London on November 30. I have been impressed by this project since the launch of its website last year, and I am very happy to see it growing. I am posting the message I received with our best wishes; for more information, please visit the Women's Liberation Music Archive, and the Music and Liberation website and twitter account.

Music & Liberation: Women’s Liberation Music Making in the UK, 1970 -1989 explores how feminists used music as an activist tool to entertain and empower women during the 1970s and ‘80s.

Featuring the work of Jam Today, the Northern Women’s Liberation Rock Band, Feminist Improvising Group, Ova, the Fabulous Dirt Sisters, Abandon Your Tutu, the Mistakes and many more, the exhibition brings together a diverse collection of women’s cultural heritage. Music&  Liberation will inspire and inform contemporary audiences about the politics of music making.

 

The exhibition showcases rare ephemera and artefacts such as posters, songbooks, t-shirts, instruments and fliers. Visitors can watch films, interact with installations, look at photographs and, of course, listen to music. This is a unique opportunity to listen to unreleased recordings of practices, live performances and studio tracks from women musicians yet to be discovered by contemporary audiences.

Ten oral histories, which have been collected especially for the project, are available to listen to and watch. Music&  Liberation: A Compilation of Music from the Women’s Liberation Movement will be sold at the exhibition.

 

The exhibition opens in London on Friday 30 November.

 

OPENING EVENT: 30 November 6.30-8.30 pm

All Welcome

Exhibition runs: 1 December - 13 January

Open Thursday - Sunday 12-6.00 pm

Gallery closed between 17 Dec - 9 January

Space Station Sixty-Five info@spacestationsixtyfive.com

Building One, 373 Kennington Road, London, SE11 4PS

www.spacestationsixtyfive.com

020 7820 1120 www.facebook.com/spacestationsixtyfive

A programme of events will run alongside the exhibition, including live music and a series of talks:

 

• Opening Events - 30 November: Legendary folk singer Frankie Armstrong will sing a few songs and Jude Alderson, founder of cult performance act the Sadista Sisters will share her memories.

• 8 December: The inaugural Queer Zine Fest London, 12-7pm. With its own programme of talks and DJ’s

• 8 December - 13 January: An exhibition of posters from Melanie Maddison’s Shape & Situate fanzine of inspirational women.

• Closing Events - 13 January: A conversation with Barby Asante, founder of the South London Black Music Archive, and exhibition curator Deborah Withers about community memories, generational transmissions and music. Chaired by Tom Perchard, author of Lee Morgan – His Life, Music and Culture.

Plus, screening of a documentary on The Gluts. Comprising Hayley Newman, Gina Birch and Kaffe Matthews, The Gluts are an all-female troupe of activists/artists/musicians. Followed by a Q&A, and the showing of Gluts’ pop videos.

For more information please visit

http://music-and-liberation.tumblr.com

Twitter: @music_liberate

http://womensliberationmusicarchive.wordpress.com

                

Music & Liberation
  

We'll break all the rules: April Fool, by Patti Smith

brooklinebooksmith.blogspot

April Fool is the first single, and my favourite track, from Patti Smith's latest album Banga. It is one of her most mesmerising songs, and it features the smouldering guitar sound of Tom Verlaine, who also appears on the track Nine. April Fool was inspired by the life and work of the pivotal Russian writer Nikolai Gogol; Patti Smith's website includes the following excerpt from his landmark short story The Overcoat:

And St. Petersburg was left without Akakiy Akakievitch, as though he had never lived there. A being disappeared who was protected by none, dear to none, interesting to none, and who never even attracted to himself the attention of those students of human nature who omit no opportunity of thrusting a pin through a common fly, and examining it under the microscope. A being who bore meekly the jibes of the department, and went to his grave without having done one unusual deed, but to whom, nevertheless, at the close of his life appeared a bright visitant in the form of an overcoat, which momentarily cheered his poor life, and upon whom, thereafter, an intolerable misfortune descended, just as it descends upon the mighty of this world!

                                                        Come     be my April Fool
                                                        Come     you're the only one
                                                        Come     on your rusted bike
                                                        Come     we'll break all the rules

                                                        We'll ride like writers ride
                                                        Neither rich nor broke
                                                        We'll race through alleyways
                                                        In our tattered cloaks so

                                                         Come     be my April Fool
                                                         Come     we'll break all the rules

                                                         We'll burn all of our poems
                                                         Add to God's debris
                                                         We'll pray to all of our saints
                                                         Icons of mystery
                                                         We'll tramp through the mire
                                                         When our souls feel dead
                                                         With laughter we'll inspire
                                                         Then back to life again

                                                         Come     you're the only one
                                                         Come     be my April Fool
                                                         Come     come
                                                         Be my April Fool
                                                         We'll break all the rules

Chromophobia, by Raoul Servais

kinozoom.over-blog.com

Chromophobia is an award-winning short film, directed by the animation pioneer Raoul Servais in 1966, and holding up perfectly to this day because of its stunning aesthetics, as well as its strong content. As Raoul Servais said in an interview with Philippe Moins in the Animation World Network, the common theme of all his films is mankind's "longing for freedom, peace and justice." 

And in this respect, Chromophobia is a case in point: a timeless anti-authoritarian manifesto, visualising an army taking over the world, and destroying all things colourful, until it meets resistance by a little girl, an artist, and a jester who is born out of a flower. The imposition of uniformity will be averted by the forces of innocence, creativity, and imagination, and colourful diversity will prevail.

Raoul Servais' designs and use of colour draw upon the expressive codes of the visual arts rather than the conventions of commercial animation. Furthermore, Chromophobia is great cinema, displaying an inventive narrative, unpredictable shots and frames, and an exemplary use of sounds rather than words; and its sharp surrealist edge puts forward an insightful critique of authoritarianism.

Question authority: my old neighbourhood

New Cross Gate, London, 05.11.2012

It's so good to see the neighbourhood alive and kicking as always. Kudos to newcomers and old-timers: Sofia; Mehmet and Contxi, Yilmaz and Erdogan; Melek, Sonia, and Dilruba; everyone at Kismet supermarket; and everyone at ReynA restaurant. And in what concerns those of us who now happen to live elsewhere, well, you already know that the South East has always been, and will always be

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