‘The breakthrough music on 𝘗𝘦𝘵 𝘚𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘴 isn’t tethered to the customary bass, guitar and drums; it doesn’t stick with straightforward repetitive patterns; it stops, starts, pauses, reflects.’
Ian Penman on the Beach Boys.
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
The best sounding stereo + mono versions my ears have witnessed, plus a mess of alt mixes and a resurrected ‘67 live set from the Houston Music Theater. 🐇
in this week's newsletter! I've written a long - and I mean long - essay on my weird relationship with New York, a place I both love and don't, but also about what grief does to you, and it's free to read, and maybe you will like it? youngvulgarian.substack.com/p/a-really-b...
Yep, that’s a great piece. Spent a lot of time in NYC at one time and still like to keep my hand in but it’s *so* different to late 90s / early 2000s and so much has disappeared that it feels sometimes like a weird haunted dream of a bleak rich-people-kill-everything future that I’m having in 1998.
My class, aged about 11 too I think, visited a canal lock, and I’m sure were told and shown a lot about canals and the industrial heritage of the East Midlands but all I or anyone else recall of the day is that one kid was pecked in the cock by a goose.
Ivan Julian. Not on the records but in the touring band. Also played with The Clash I think.
Much more complicated than I’m making this sound but: one of The Foundations was in The Voidoids. That’s a strong refutation to the punk year zero bores.
Love : ‘Maybe The People Would Be The Times Or Between Clark & Hilldale’
An old lecturer of mine told me that his theatre company, Impact, worked a lot with RH on an adaptation of RW. Never happened - they used aspects of it in their show Carrier Frequency, and he went on to trying to get a film made which eventually stole and simplified his ideas and became Mad Max.
God but Orange Crate Art is a lovely album, especially when played at room-filling volume. Just a really comforting record.
I love this! Includes a lovely setting of a James Joyce poem, from the same collection as ‘Golden Hair’, set by Barrett for Madcap Laughs a couple of years before.
I had just arrived in NYC in I think 1993, and was checking in to the Carlton Hotel. I asked the desk guy for a light and he said “I got one match motherfucker and that’s for me”
Ok, hello again! Yeah he’s an undergrad at Sussex so I’ll just point him at the library. (Or at you I guess!)
I’m sorry I missed this! I’m not in Cambridge but a friend of mine is doing some work on the KLF million pound thing, and destruction - is your talk published anywhere? (Did I meet you with Daniel Kane in Brighton this year?)
Canned French onion soup. You could add porcini or miso or yeast extract but honestly it’s pretty much good to go right out of the can.
What was at one time the home of the British left, a flawed organisation I was nevertheless proud to be part of, is now collapsing into this malign stupidity, having been, on this issue, captured by a tiny cadre of un-satisfiable maniacs. Disgusting.
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD USE HYPHENS
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5B2Y...
40 years ago today, right about now i.e. after school, I was listening to Psychocandy for the first time, as was anyone within fifty feet of my bedroom. Still one of the most exciting things ever to have happened to me.
I think it’s more that people enjoyed bombing about on Raleigh Choppers and watching The Tomorrow People 50 years ago.
youtu.be/s13YC7RsimE?...
A fantastic episode. Loads of gaps in my understanding filled, side quests initiated, bar facts stored away. Bless you Andrew, this is brilliant work.
Two seemingly contradictory facts about Coming On The Scene by Johnny & The Attractions: 1. Everyone I know who's heard it absolutely loves it & original copies go for up to £850; 2. Almost nothing has ever been written about it. I've been thinking about why that is. www.patreon.com/posts/it-cou...
Sometimes those records have a bit of magic to them that is really hard to explain. Another example is A Deh Pon Dem by The Soulettes (Rita Marley plus some Wailers I think) made out of The Miracles’ Choosey Beggar. There’s a tone - not melancholy, not sweet - that I don’t think we have a word for.
did the sitwells sit well? an investigation
A dream trip on any UK waterway you say? Well... 50 years ago almost to the day, I was with my parents on an autumn half term holiday trip along the Grand Union towards Leicester when I came across a bridge that someone had painted BALLS TO ENOCH POWELL on. I still dream about this moment. -
Have no idea who put this pristine copy of 11 late-career Frank O’Hara poems—copyrighted by the estate and compiled by Ted Berrigan in 1974—in a little free library box on Cooper Square. But, I think I’m going to hold onto this one…
Define your musical taste in eight artists:
Incredible String Band
Beatles
Arthur Russell
Judee Sill
Shangri Las
The Equals
The Velvet Underground
13th Floor Elevators
