This Sunday (Nov 6th), at 9pm, you’re invited to share a listening session with some likeminded souls, wherever you might be. This can be experienced either alone or communally, and you don’t need to leave the comfort of your own home to participate. Full lowdown here: https://blog.gregwilson.co.uk/2010/06/living-to-music/
In many respects we’ve come a long way from the overt racism I remember in the 60’s and 70’s, but every now and again I feel a shudder that keeps me aware that it still resides not far beneath the surface. I don’t normally comment about football related issues, but this has a wider social context. Football has recently become the focus of some high-profile accusations of racism, but with investigations on-going with regards to the Evra / Suarez and Ferdinand / Terry cases, applying the premise of innocent until proven guilty, I don’t want to opine directly about these instances. However, there have been a couple of newspaper quotes I’ve read during the past week that beggar belief.
Seminal British Disc-Jockey Sir Jimmy Savile died today, two days before his 85th birthday. Leeds born Savile claimed to be the first DJ to use two turntables, in the late 40’s. Although this remains disputed, there’s no doubt that Savile was a pioneer when it came to playing records in dance halls, most notably in his home city and across the Pennines in Manchester.
Earlier this month Leftside Wobble shared an edit of Man Friday’s ‘Love Honey, Love Heartache’ on his SoundCloud. I left a comment highlighting the history of this track, which read as follows:
Without ever properly considering this question I’ve heard myself instinctively tell people, on more than one occasion, that mine is ‘Double Barrel’ by Dave & Ansil Collins, which claimed the top spot on the UK chart for 2 weeks in May 1971, when I was 11. Like everyone else, I assumed Dave & Ansil were brothers, but Dave was Dave Barker, who’d had previous success in Jamaica as a solo artist working with the great producer Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry. For ‘Double Barrel’ he’d been brought into the studio by another producer, Winston Riley, and asked to add a talking voice to Ansil’s backing track (Ansil was really Ansell, also sometimes credited as Ansel – I’ll stick to the spelling on the single I owned). Dave was encouraged, as he told Lloyd Bradley in ‘Bass Culture’, to “t’ink big like some big giant man. Like Hercules or James Bond, Double-O-Seven, or somet’ing”. Taking up the challenge he toasted the unforgettable line “I am the magnificent, I'm backed by the shack of a soul boss most turnin' stormin' sound o'soul…”
Just wanted to make you aware of a project my former Invisible Players colleague, Don Letts, has been commissioned to produce, focusing on the clothing brand, Fred Perry, and its cultural relevance in the UK from the Mods in the 60’s to Britpop in the 90’s, and right up to date via their association with Amy Winehouse, whose designs for the brand continue to be released, with the full blessing of her family, following her untimely death last July.
Last April the city was once again where I went to try out a new idea - Reels Of Steel, where a further visual element is introduced whilst I DJ , the chosen venue being the recently refurbished Band On The Wall. I’ve since presented Reels Of Steel at Glastonbury and Bestival, and I’m back at Band On The Wall for a second instalment this Friday. This quartet of appearances are the prelude to the full launch of Reels Of Steel next year, giving me the opportunity to further develop the idea and iron out any rough spots in the process. Here’s some footage from last time that’s just been uploaded onto YouTube:
LA based Mr. Brainwash has really got the art world in a whirl – some still believe he’s a lucky man who made the grade, whilst others suspect a puppet who can see the strings? Behind all the smoke and mirrors you’ll find the Bristolian street art enigma himself, Banksy, whose wonderful Academy Award nominated documentary ‘Exit Through The Gift Shop’ (2010), casts Thierry Guetta / Mr. Brainwash as an unexpected cause célèbre.
With the recent ‘Astrid And The Exis’ piece I came the realisation that this was, over 100 posts in, the first time I’d focused on a photographer. I thought I’d better begin to address this accidental omission, and pay more props to the still image, starting off with the controversial Tokyo photographer Nobuyoshi Araki, now in his seventies, whose medium ranges from global art galleries to the pages of readers wives type porno mags (which brings to mind what Alan Moore said about the difference between erotica and pornography being largely dependent on the income bracket of the buyer).
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