Music at the Armory

[imomus]

On Monday I saw The Armory Show, a vast and rather exciting art trade fair held annually on two piers on the Hudson. Ran into all sorts of people I knew from Berlin and Tokyo. Here's a selection of photos of artworks relating to music. Brian Dewan and his brother make primitive electronic sequencers that look like grandfather clocks. (Dewan is also a brilliant composer of folk songs about idol-worship and maker of slide presentations illustrating the prohibitions of the Book of Leviticus.) The highpoint of the show for me, though, was getting to watch Luke Fowler's brilliant film about composer (and communist) Cornelius Cardew. I'd already enjoyed Fowler's film about R.D. Laing, which I saw at the ICA in London. Fowler makes documentaries about counter-cultural figures from the 1960s and 70s. They work as documentaries you might see on TV, but his techniques are much more radical, his textures much more aesthetic.

Comments

[cap-scaleman.livejournal.com]

Those multicoloured things stapled on eachother in the upper right picture looks like they could be used as working/warning signs.

[(Anonymous)]

Have you read Cardew's "Stockhausen Serves Imperialism"? It's an interesting (though sometimes cumbersom) text on the 20th century Avant-Garde "Institution", documentimng Cardew's opinions and thought's on his capitalist contemporarys. (I think you can download it in pdf format at ubu web).-Jed

Punk Rock Is Fascist!

[tassellrealm.livejournal.com]

I first heard of Cornelius Cardew from a Brian Eno "Under The Influence" in a 1973 NME, when I was twelve.

The second time I heard of Cornelius Cardew was in 1977 (in the NME again) when he'd published a hysterical manifesto entitled "Punk Rock is Fascist."

I quite like some of those Scratch Orchestra things but my reading of everything he's ever done is coloured by: "Punk Rock is Fascist."

I knew his wife for a while.

Re: Punk Rock Is Fascist!

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I'm inclined to agree with him about punk rock! Who could deny that, by switching to reggae, the Slits made a less "fascist" debut album than they would otherwise have done?

two worlds

[(Anonymous)]

I think the juxtapostition of images between this post and the last are interesting. Both seem rather racially homogeneous. At the Armory show, there seems to be an obsession with the past - I don't know the nature of the piece, but do I really need to look at 1960s-70s rock stars again? It seems the creative class is ever more insular - perhaps they need a good hit with a zen master's stick to bring them into contact with the present moment. I'll just keep enjoying my Western Union billboard and dumplings, thank you.

Just curious, as I am far from the area - any interesting asian or asian-american artists in either show perhaps bridging these two worlds?

Re: Punk Rock Is Fascist!

[tassellrealm.livejournal.com]

Oh I disagree, entirely!

The Slits Peel Session, the bootleg I've got (Live at G'bus Jan 1978), The Don Letts film of them doing the gig at Dee Generates Comprehensive School (This is the most fantastic thing I've seen in my life - please somebody put it on the You-Tube!) has far more of the organically incendiary divine she-spark about it than the essentially male-led and critic appeasing "Cut" and "The Return of The Giant Slits."

It was a real shame that they fell in with that Bristol gang.

Like all the best punk rock groups, (Rob Myers era Subway Sect, X-Ray Spex etc) by the time they got to record, it was in the slipstream of such a gargantuan waterfall of entropy that their records were strained, forced rubbish - this is why the Peel sessions all sound so good.

I knew Viv and Ari (in different eras). Viv married a friend of mine.

I don't think Punk Rock is any more fascist than Cornelius Cardew was.

But it depends what you mean by fascist, doesn't it?

If a symptom of fascism is the panic-obsessive burning up of human resources to reach some kind of point-zero purity thing, then perhaps that's right, perhaps punk rock is fascist - but if that is right, then so is Maoism.

There was a programme on TV a while ago about The Red Guard era in China - it really reminded me a lot of Punk Rock.

Re: Punk Rock Is Fascist!

[henryperri.livejournal.com]

Rather than than anarchist or fascist, I think punk is the most populist-democratic form of music; even more so than folk. This is why I dislike punk for the most part. It brought everything down to the level of the common man. Music that takes skill to create is unfair, elitist and oppressive.

[thefirstman.livejournal.com]

Shit. I almost went to this. Damn thesis!

Re: Punk Rock Is Fascist!

[tassellrealm.livejournal.com]

Multi-dimensional argument though, isn't it?

Fr'instance, it would be very difficult to call The Desperate Bicycles fascists. Despite the lyrics and Johnny Ramones Bush fetish - it would be very difficult to call The Ramones fascists.

Music that takes skill to create is unfair, elitist and oppressive.

Oh, I don't agree at all. I think it's best to judge something on its qualities.

To me, music should have the quality of a gift.

Something that I often experience when I have the misfortune to hear an Elton John record is that it 'sucks the life out of me' as opposed to something that nourishes me.

High art, low art, I don't care. It's got to have the quality of a gift.

Re: Punk Rock Is Fascist!

[charleshatcher.livejournal.com]

Yes, but some gifts are better made than others. I, for one, can't imagine a worse gift than a punk rock record.

war heroes

[(Anonymous)]

yeah, go listen to war heroes and then come back and talk to daddy. jimi cleans clock. the sequencer clock is like peter blasser's (gongs am patch kids) hanging macrame sequencer, but not as pretty.

Re: Punk Rock Is Fascist!

[tassellrealm.livejournal.com]

There aren't that many good ones.

Re: Punk Rock Is Fascist!

[tassellrealm.livejournal.com]

This is my favoutite record at the moment...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=do_yIsg8CF0&search=sacha%20distel

...

[firstlastalways.livejournal.com]

I was wondering how much longer you're going to be in Manhattan for, and where you'll be, and what you'll be doing where you are, because I'd like to check it out - I vaguely remember your having mentioned some sort of performance art you were going to be doing in an entry a few months ago, but the details have slipped my mind...

[tassellrealm.livejournal.com]

Is that the one about Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice?

I had to study that for my music O' Level.

It was the Kathleen Ferrier one, which is a corker.

[kojapan.livejournal.com]

It's too bad I can't find any of Luke Fowler's films. I'd like to see them.

[cap-scaleman.livejournal.com]

If you're talking to me: No, I haven't.

[thefirstman.livejournal.com]

No, that's one that I'm presenting for an Honors conference. My thesis is on virtue ethics and copyright law.

pre-america

[(Anonymous)]

http://www.hintmag.com/artcrawl/artcrawl.php

not much of an interview. but Philippe Vergne mentions post-america, pre-america in there at the end. momus i had a chance to stop in at sakagura. w o n d e r f u l. the black sesame creme brulee!

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

http://www.dewanatron.com/

[paletree.livejournal.com]

could you tell us about things before they happen? i am off work all week.

[desant012.livejournal.com]

That stuff looks like it was ripped-off from the set of a 60s hippiesploitation movie.

[framework.livejournal.com]

I just got your email (to my account that I rarely check) and I wish I had gotten it in time to have joined you at the Armory Show. I responded with my more-frequently-used email address and phone number. Just wanted to make sure you knew I wasn't dissing!