Welcome back to part two of what the internet community is already calling ‘another blog about a road trip’. But enough about me, babes. Sooooo spill, what’s the latest goss with you?

Fair enough, I’ll crack on then.

We rolled into The Dandenongs (a range of low mountains and sweeping hills named after a largely forgotten indie band from Sheffield) at about 3pm in the midst of an epic downpour. Our outdoor-based plans were rather scuppered by the apocalyptic weather but we were quite happy to stay in once we discovered our cosy accommodation. After our recent heavy schedule of drinking wine and lolling about in pools we deserved a treat so kicked back with a pizza and a DVD. We chose to watch ‘Slumdog Milliner’ – the heartwarming tale of a boy from Mumbai who makes fabulous hats.

At 5am the next morning, a bright new dawn blazed across an infinite sky quite probably although we were asleep at the time. Five short hours later though, we headed to the nearby William Ricketts Sanctuary. The sanctuary is a ferny glade that for many years was home to the eponymous artist who furnished his woodland crib with numerous sculptures of sinewy, entwined, muscular male torsos. Now don’t get me wrong, I likes me homoerotic imagery as much as the next bloke but there was something about the way many of these pieces portrayed him as a christ-like saviour to the Aboriginals that left me feeling a little queasy.

Dude, have you been working out? Seriously man, you're looking ripped.

Our next stop was a cafe with a dedicated bird feeding area. This sounds pleasantly sedate and conjures up images of gaily coloured feather puffballs, flitting hither and thither, landing gently on the tip of upturned noses as they delicately remove seed, balanced lightly between lips in an interspecies food-kiss.

This however, was very much not the case. It was a talon filled, beak gouging battlefield of winged hatred. The moment anyone so much as rustled a packet of bird nosh they were assaulted by a gang of foot high cockatoos intent on bloodshed. As these fowl assassins lunged at faces and slashed at wrists, I was expecting anarchy to break out and braced myself for screams and panicked tears.

Not so, I saw faces illuminated with delight, children gurgling with happiness and the elderly excitedly comparing bloodstained trousers. I was totally baffled but managed to curb my natural instinct to phone the police for assistance. Instead I plastered on a smile as I flailed my arms around in as calm and dignified manner as possible.

It was almost a relief when a bird landed on Susie and she reacted by squealing and running around in giddy circles. 

As Susie was visciously attacked, Steve was almost paralysed with brotherly concern.

Pretty Vacant ------------------------------------------ Pretty Polly

I urge you to return for the third and please God, final part of our adventurous tale. For those of you that have written in, the full length – ‘Road Trip – Beyond the Precipice of Damnation’ audio cassette (narrated by Al Gore in a high-pitched giggle) will be released in time for Christmas 2014.

Lydon telling BBC 6Music:

” … Radiohead bug the hell out of me because it’s so soulless. They don’t care about you. They care about lining their coffers.”

This seems completely ridiculous — considering Radiohead’s track record. And, truthfully, I thought the same thing about Lydon and the boys when they brought the Sex Pistols back to life.

Besides, what does John Lydon like?!

[Creem's] point of view was vulgar, belligerent, often less respectful to rock’s major institutions . . . with the result that all of us—and especially me—were frequently assaulted with the epithet:  “You are such a punk.”  I decided this insult would be better construed as a compliment . . . in order to emphasize our delight in rock’s essential barbarism.
—Dave Marsh [1]

“Punk” is a bad thing.  A punk is a loser—not just underendowed but a self-defeater—an ugly, skinny kid, probably carrying a nasty little weapon like a switchblade, someone you wouldn’t trust with anything.  “Punk” isn’t “spunk”; a punk may be a savage, but not the noble kind.

Do you disagree?  I admit “punk” is a word very variously used.  But I want to remind you of a deep provocation in what the great punks themselves meant:  not to stir us up as spunky rebels, but to make us sick.

Given this premise, I was shocked when I heard myself shout “What a punk!” while listening to my new-bought CD The Essential Earl Scruggs. Scruggs is a legendary banjo player and Grand Ole Opry type best known for playing on the “Beverly Hillbillies” theme song, not usually considered a milestone of radical music.  I was checking out his Essentials because I love bluegrass in general and the folk-festival staple “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” in particular.  But I ran into something unexpected on Track 12 of Disc 1, “Earl’s Breakdown,” recorded in 1951 in Flatt and Scruggs’ first set for Columbia Records.  An amazingly ugly note bursts out in the middle of a lick, something like the sound of a string breaking, a major clam.  Scruggs does it on purpose by manually detuning the string.  Breaking down indeed!

The banjo’s sound in general is already so brash and sour that it’s only borderline-acceptable in musical society; it’s the guest at the party that makes the rest of the instruments nervous.  It must be kept within bounds, used for rhythm chords or else, on what might be called the car-racing side of bluegrass, given its own little fast lane for pickin’ à la Scruggs.  We learn to accept the sound and forget what a punk the banjo itself is.  But then Scruggs violently reminds us with his punk note.  (Gene Krupa does something like that for the drums with his shocking snare strike in “Sing, Sing, Sing.”)

Of course the Scruggs note is really nothing more than a downward bend, just one of the tricky licks a slick picker would pick, and it sounds smoothly integrated when I hear it again on some of his later essentials.  To tell you the truth, it sounds okay now on “Earl’s Breakdown.”  The punk moment has passed.

So?  Did I have a point?

According to Dave Marsh, who influentially embraced the label “punk rock,” for a rock ‘n’ roll lover the alternative to “punkish behavior” is “acting like a dignified asshole.”[2]  I admit it seems unpunkishly pretentious to sit around connoisseuring punk.  (Where would that be headed?  Would we try to determine whether Johnny Rotten or Patti Smith is the better punk vocalist by rating each one for Vitriol, Irreverence, Nonchalance, Nauseating Tunelessness, and Falling-Apartness?)  Above all, punk is an event.  As Pete Townsend said, “what immediately strikes you [in listening to the Sex Pistols] is that this is actually happening . . . It’s like somebody saying, ‘The Germans are coming! And there’s no way we’re gonna stop ‘em.’”[3]  This is an event in which you are skewered.

Beyond being immediately threatened by the punk musician’s act, however, you still get to decide, on reflection, what kind of gesture that act is.  You get to organize your response and pursue your thoughts.

I don’t regret calling Scruggs a punk in “Earl’s Breakdown.”  I know it’s only a single odd note, not a massive assault on convention, but I know I felt skewered when I heard it.  More important, this sets me wondering about relationships of styles—in this case, the relationship between the more aggressive manifestations of “old-time music,” including bluegrass, and rock (and their supporting cultures).

To construe an essence is to convene a community of things, to get on board with something, to share with someone.  The bluegrass genre was created by other bands copying the sound of the late 40s Bill Monroe line-up that included Scruggs.  Rock in its most definitive form grew out of young British guitarists sharing the blues with African-Americans, starting bands in the early 1960s with names like “Blues Inc.” and “The Blues Syndicate”—it depended on the essence, theme, and affinity of blues.  So too with punk later.  As ridiculous as the notion of an “essence of punk” is, an enormous amount has been said about it (google and see).  And you know where you can find your paradigm instance:  the needling essence of Johnny Rotten is available on a Sex Pistols recording like Chanel No. 5 is available in a bottle.

But you can listen for it in 1951, too, on a larger scale of community.

_________________________________________________________
[1] Dave Marsh column in Creem, May 1971, quoted by Jim DeRogatis in Let It Blurt (New York: Broadway Books, 2000), p. 119.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Quoted by Greil Marcus in Lipstick Traces:  A Secret History of the Twentieth Century (Cambridge:  Harvard University Press, 1989), p. 1.

“hello to you hello to me
yeah i really care
i’ll see you all around sometime
i hope that i’m not there
today’s news is yesterday’s news
you don’t remember you forget
that’s the way the stories all go”

Here I am sitting at my desk thinking about what to pontificate about when it dawned on me. Since I listen to music just about every chance I can (which seems to be all the time), I should talk about a song that’s got me all doe-eyed at the present time. Right now, that song would be Goodbye by the one and only Psychedelic Furs. Easily one of my top five favourite songs from an all-time great band.

It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly what it is about this song that makes me swoon. The saxophone? The perfect unison between Tim Butler’s bass and Vince Ely’s drumming? Richard Butler’s Bowie/Rotten lovechild-esque vocals are always a given so that element doesn’t count. Maybe it’s simply the way simply comes together to form an underrated new wave classic. What’s more Goodbye follows the seminal 80s classic Love My Way on what is my favourite Furs record, the Todd Rundgren-produced Forever Now. What better way to follow up such a timeless single than with an absolute stomper such as this?

I think I’m going to listen to this again…

“Goodbye (Dance Mix)”, taken from the Columbia release, “Here Came The Psychedelic Furs”

Sid Vicious and Johnny Rotten interview from 1977.

Johnny Rotten, 1978, by Lynn Goldsmith

In a rare moment of thoughtfulness, John Lydon told The Independent:

“I’m sorry, God, for the day I brought Sid into the band. He felt so isolated, poor old Sid, because he wasn’t the sharpest knife on the block. The best aspect of his character, which was his humour, just vanished the day he joined the Pistols.“

That’s an excellent point about Sid’s change in character. But was it really John who made Sid stay in the band for the amount of time he did?

Then Lydon found in in himself to take a shot at Oasis and singer Liam Gallagher:

“I’m still hearing records coming out that mimic our style, but they don’t give us credit. I’m a bit annoyed, because I’ve never done anything in my life to be like somebody else. Oasis annoy me, you know? The voice annoys me. He could’ve come up with his own thing.”

Oasis ‘mimics’ the Sex Pistols style?! He has to be kidding. That’s like saying the Sex Pistols copied The Beatles. It’s insane. Even if it were true, Lydon should be somewhat flattered. I guess that would be asking too much.

kim gordon

Originally uploaded by m g a

Kim Gordon, best known as a rock icon from Sonic Youth, has crossed over into the fashion world. Urban Outfitters will definitely have more costumers cuing behind the doors, but was it a right thing for a bass goddess to do?

There’s a weird tendency taking over the world – music idols, which had always been about attitude (attitude that made the bands big and the songs epic), are becoming as mainstream and “poppsy” as possible.

It is honestly scary that Johnny Rotten is spotted on TV saying: “Do I buy Country Life because it’s British? No I buy it because it’s great butter”, while Iggy Pop, the king of punk is now performing a role of car insurance salesman, advertising Swiftcover Company.

Kim Gordon is one of them too – fashion line is not the only cliché and “Britney Spearsish” thing she’s done. We could close our eyes and try not to think about this one. But what was the fact of appearing in a most mainstream show Gossip Girl and even saying a little pathetic line there (oh my God, now she’s an actress too)? – pure humiliation and nothing more.

You can’t help yourself, but stop for a moment and grieve for these poor musicians who are dying from starvation and have no choice but to refuse all the ideals they have fought for during the decades, but is that the motive? It is not very believable that they are in lack of money or fame. The problem is in not knowing when to stop, always wanting more and not caring where this extra comes from. In the 21st century musicians have definitely lost their selves, their dignity
to corporate greed.

Rock and attitude come hand in hand (as do attitude and women). Now, as attitude is burning out, it seems that rock is already standing on the brink of emptiness, struggling for life.
You can only wonder how long it has left to stand.

Read more about Kim Gordon and Sonic Youth in “70 Minutes of Spunk Prawl and White Noise” in Cherry Lips magazine

They are celebrated as great vocalists, but can the likes of Bob Dylan and Tom Waits really sing? Neil McCormick writes in the Daily Telegraph:

Bob Dylan: “A voice like sand and glue” in Bowie’s memorable phrase. Contrary to what many of his critics would assert, Dylan actually sings in tune but his harsh, barbed-wire timbre & attacking delivery has been inspiration for every tone deaf poet with a guitar. But with songs like these, who cares whether he can really sing or not?

Lou Reed: His half talking, half singing drawl with the Velvet Underground created a new rock template.

Tom Waits: Started out gruff and soulful but deliberately ravaged his vocal chords with whiskey and cigarettes to sound older and more lived in. In the history of vocals, I am not sure anyone has ever done more with less.

Johnny Cash: Even as a youngster, his voice was shaky and low, but he sang in time and in tune and like he had lived every word.

John Lydon (Johnny Rotten): His ranting style, high and tuneless, led the attack of the Sex Pistols then took us on dub metal journeys with Public Image Limited.

Ian Dury: Unrepentantly cockney speak-singing, frequently completely flat but utterly alive in the playful lyrics.

Leonard Cohen: A low, shaky monotone that has, somehow, grown in authority even as it reduces in range.

Nick Cave: A stiff baritone beset by tuning problems, Cave invests his apocalyptic blues with spine chilling conviction.

Siouxsie Sioux: A lone female entrant on our chart of errant singing stars, Siouxsie’s limited range and gravelly tone only added to her lustre as la grande dame of punk and goth.

Jarvis Cocker: OK when he keeps it to a whisper but as soon as he sings out he turns into some tuneless geek in a karaoke bar, which perfectly suits his vignettes of ordinary life.

It came as a surprise to me when I realised, sifting through our reviews one fine day, we hadn’t done a single Punk band! I’ve only heard a little bit of it, and Baba T is a huge fan of the Punk aesthetic and ethic, so I set out to review the Pistols, and their only album ever.

The Pistols aren’t the first punk rock band, but they pulled massively in two different directions, compared to the Ramones. Firstly, they distilled all the lyrics down to the pure anarchist manifesto that is the sum of the lyrics of this album. Secondly, they added a bit more dynamics to the music and a little bit more technical proficiency in their instrumentalists. Only a bit. Except for Sid Vicious, of course, who couldn’t really play bass, yet is surely one of the greatest bassists of all time, if only for sheer attitude.

Doesn't get 'Punker' than this

No matter, Glen Matlock recorded these studio lines. They are just OK. As is the guitar playing(whoa, guitar solos!). As is the drumming. They are more proficient than the Ramones, but The Ramones really were about all four members there, whereas The Pistols reek of Johnny Rotten + 3 guys playing Punk Rock. Great as the Pistols are, I prefer The Ramones any day of the week.

The one thing that really strikes you about the Pistols though, is Johnny Rotten’s ’singing’. He sounds like he is barely tolerant of the establishment and is doing them a huge favour by pointing out that which is bleeding obvious to him. Brilliant.

I know the Sex Pistols were massively influential, but frankly I’m not sure how much their music had to do it. We all know about Malcolm Mclaren, who did a fantastic (if opportunistic) job of promoting the Sex Pistols as bonafide outlaws. And then there is Sid Vicious and that hooker chick he was dating whose name escapes me. See what I mean? Most of the stuff related to the Pistols that got a lot of attention is their behaviour than their music. I mean, the songs themselves aren’t too consistent. Of course, ‘God Save the Queen’ is an absolutely fantastic. ‘EMI’ is great too. But the real Anarchist manifesto here is ‘Anarchy in the UK’. Brilliant. But the other songs? I’m afraid they’re not too hot.

Punk Rock is music boiled down to its bare bones in all its glory. And this here is the only sort of a politics that bare-bones music could adjust itself to: anarchy. It’s fantastic as far as the big perspective is taken, looking at the Pistols as a response to stuffy middle class comfort. Despite the massive influence this album has had, I wish it had had a couple of other great songs. Four out of twelve isn’t enough. This doesn’t quite sound right.

- El Bajista

For more PUNK ROCK reviews, click HERE.

Here’s my 3rd show, that  looked at the work of dub/ambient/world music pioneer and ex-Public Image Limited bass player, Jah Wobble.

Picture: courtesy 30Hertzrecords

The show is called “From the Other Side of the Mirror” and will be broadcast every Monday at 3pm. You can find KOOP radio at 91.7 Fm in the Austin area, or stream it online at www.koop.org

The idea behind the show is pretty simple. Each week the show will focus on a song, producer, label, musician(s), venue, etc. that has a major influence on music, their fingerprints are everywhere, but are forgotten or under most people’s radar. I will help listeners connect the musical dots. Like a documentary for your ears if you will. I will tell their story and showcase the various music they have created or been involved with.

Subject was Jah Wobble. Playlist is below;

1. Swan Lake – Public Image Limited/2nd Edition
2. Invaders from the Heart – Jah Wobble/The Early Years
3. What Will you Say – Jah Wobble/Without Judgement
4. Visions of You – Jah Wobble/Rising Above Bedlam
5. Hit Me – Jah Wobble/Heaven and Earth
6. Solitude – Jah Wobble/Chinese Dub

Link to all archived shows

Johnny Rotten in London, 1976, by Bob Gruen

Vivien Goldman: “Though past his Rotten, Sex Pistol days, and into his avant-dub, progressive era with Public Image Ltd., Lydon still liked being a Rotten – that night in the local Indian restaurant, he pissed into a beer glass that he thankfully held under the tablecloth. JB and I still feel bad for that poor waiter.”

Robert Smith un ejemplo de rocker a seguir con mucho maquillaje

Cuántas veces he escuchado que el rock es un estilo de vida, que de repente me entró la necesidad de cuestionarme hasta qué punto este enunciado puede ser una realidad en una persona común y corriente, fuera de lo que es un rock-star, que sin duda alguna vive de esa música y todo se lo debe a ese género.

Por ejemplo, hay gente que por su ropa, ya sea una camiseta de una banda, su forma de hablar, caminar o incluso su cabellera, te podría dar indicios de que lleva el estilo de vida del rock, pero ¿cuál es ese estilo? o  ¿cuáles son los requisitos para entrar en esa vida?

Quizás algunos me podrían contestar que te conviertes en rockero por llevar la cabellera larga o los pelos parados o una chamarra de cuero al estilo de los Ramones, pero eso sólo entraría en lo que es el mundo vanidoso de la moda.  Desde mi perspectiva personal, en mi época de músico, muchas veces toqué en bares con gente que se veía rockera, pero terminaban cantando a Los Tigres del Norte, como cualquier fan de música regional.

De hecho esa actitud de ver personas que podían cambiar de forma extrema de gusto musical, me hizo reflexionar y concluir que no valía la pena seguir armando una banda para tocar ante  gente que no tenía ni idea de lo que era realmente el rock y sólo iban a emborracharse viendote tocar, dándoles lo mismo si tocabas a Metallica y de inmediato ponían en las bocinas a La Sonora Santanera.

Pero….¡ alto! No caigamos en traumas personales,  mejor recordemos lo que alguna vez dijo Johnny Rotten de los Sex Pistols, cuando lo cuestionaron sobre el boom punk que hubo a finales de los 70’s y concluyó que traer pelos de punta como él, no te convertía precisamente en un punketo, sino que tenías que crear un estilo propio para protestar por todo lo establecido, incluso contra el mismo rock, y a él no le caía nada bien la música que hacían  súper estrellas como Queen o David Bowie. Es decir, todo se basaba en ser honesto y criticar abiertamente todo lo que no te parecía, por eso es que siempre etiquetó a su extinto bajista  Sid Vicious como una caricatura del punk.

Y si lo analizamos, The Clash, The Ramones y The Damned, no se parecían en nada, ni en su música ni en su imagen, pero seguían siendo punks, además hicieron la música más honesta de la que se tenga memoria en el rock. A final de cuentas mostraban que tenían un estilo de vida real, que no sólo se basaba en el dinero, por eso es que cuando Green Day aparecen como nuevos punketos de los 90’s, fueron inmediatamente etiquetados como happy punks.

El punk recuperó un poco la rebeldía que dio origen al nacimiento del rock, donde el chico blanco cuestionaba a sus padres racistas por prohibirles que disfrutaran y escucharan música hecha por los negros. Esa maravillosa combinación de gustos de diferentes razas, fue lo que hizo al rock, pero en esencia era un protesta.

Así que llevar un estilo de vida del rock, podría quizás confundirse con que ser uno de esos tipos que hacen manifestaciones por todo para exigir respuestas del gobierno, pero tampoco va por ahí, quizás lo más cercano sea el cuestionamiento intelectual ante la propia vida que llevas o los problemas que ves a tu alrededor. Es como una denuncia constante, pero sin querer realmente hacerte el héroe.

Suena hermoso, pero también está el lado del fanático del rock que sólo quiere divertirse con buenas dosis de volumen con sus mejores bandas, asistiendo a todos los conciertos que pueda, devorando todas las revistas rockeras, comentando todos los sitios que hablen de sus grupos, además de crear su propia colección privada de música para presumirla al primer amigo que lleve a casa, pero corre el riesgo de quedar en sólo una víctima más del consumismo, con la diferencia de que en vez de que compre zapatos, gasta su dinero en rock.

Hace poco U2 cuestionó que su disco no se estaba vendiendo como hubieran deseado y comprobaron -lo que se ha dicho antes- el consumidor de música ya no le interesa tener un CD, sino más bien el archivo para combinarlo con otras bandas. Aunque no lo afirmaron, el cuestionamiento de Bono y compañía iba dirigido hacía que probablemente se estén viviendo los últimos días de popularidad del rock, porque si ellos ya no venden, pues ¿cómo le irá a los demás?

Curiosamente es ahí donde entraría el estilo de vida del rock, ya que en una época donde todos escuchan hip-hop, reggeaton, norteñas, duranguense, pop bailable y otros ritmos, seguir escuchando la música que creó Chuck Berry, Little Richard o Elvis Presley, te hace prácticamente un sobreviviente o hasta un elitista musical y la élite, sin duda, es una forma de vivir.

Ya no importa que no uses pelo largo, incluso puedes usar tu saco y corbata diariamente, vestir traje sastre, y tener la imagen de un padre o madre de familia cualquiera, pero en tus bocinas seguirá sonando Black Sabbath, The Cure, Santana o Def Leppard.

Y mantendrás una actitud rebelde siempre contra lo establecido,  porque seguramente, serás el que más se enfrenta al jefe, el que más ha renunciado a un trabajo, el que más vive apasionadamente, el que sigue soltero, el que más se ha divorciado o hasta el más fiel del mundo cuando encuentras a la compañera que escucha a Testament.

O quizás eres el que se emociona cuando un niño baila con Mötley Crüe, el que vive su vida acompañado siempre con una rola de una banda de rock, el que hace el blog de su estrella favorita sin que la paguen nada, o el que recomienda siempre a un grupo para que te hagas fan de ellos.

Casi puedo apostar  y sino que se me aparezca el diablo ahorita, tú solamente pones a Siouxsie o a Megadeth, a todo volumen en tu vecindario, ya que eres el único en tu calle que escucha rock del bueno, del chingón.

Y eso es un estilo de vida y no depende de tu imagen, sino de lo que sientas y de la pasión que tengas por el rock. Por eso muchas veces me pregunto de dónde sale tanta gente en los conciertos, cuando en tu cuadra todos están escuchando a Wisin y Yandel. Tristemente creo que son los mismos que fueron a ver a Metallica, porque su pareja los llevó.

Mejor relajémonos, pero creo que en pocos años el rock se volverá tan elitista como el jazz, y sólo será para unos miles, ya no para millones, es así donde verdaderamente se volverá un estilo de vida sin ningún cuestionamiento.

SALUD Y LARGA VIDA AL ROCK.

Jemina Pearl, frontwoman of the late punk outfit Be Your Own Pet, had a couple of good records over the past few years, and I was poised to pounce all over this solo effort and tear it to shreds, as I was certain it was going to be pretty piss-poor; I imagined fake punk studio stand-in instrumentation that was completely devoid of any trace of legitimacy. Everyone has that love-to-hate tendency about something or another, music critics doubly so. Needless to say, as this is a short review and the score is already visible (not that the reader doesn’t often check the score before reading, anyway), I was pleasantly surprised to find a somewhat convincing depth behind this young lady’s solo writing. She crosses the melody of Debbie Harry with the poise and resounding yelp of Johnny Rotten, but never leans too far toward ripping either one off.

Jemina actually pulled some all-star talent here, even though it sounds like a laundry list of name-drops straight out of Juno: Iggy Pop sings with her on “I Hate People” and Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore was in the video for it. Her swagger alone makes her ten times more believable than Katy Perry, and though she lacks the insane vocal talent of Hayley Williams, she’s got a rough-hewn tangibility that neither of the other two can replicate; the choruses are fantastic to sing along to, the guitars are loud, and the lyrics are lovelorn and burnt at the edges. The kind of focus you get from having a unified group with a developed sound is somewhat diminished without her former bandmates, but the album is something of a modest success.

The exaggerated coughing outro for “So Sick!” is only enough of a subtle nod to AC/DC’s “The Jack” as to make you question whether it’s just coincidence, and therein lies the some of the charm. Miss Pearl obviously isn’t breaking any new ground, either in her own career or in the punk aesthetic, but it’s a pretty fun record, and undoubtedly an equally engaging live show.

Jemina Pearl’s “Looking For Trouble,” from Break It Up.

- JB

The Sex Pistols tour America in 1978, much to the dismay of most of civilisation.

Sid Vicious on an airport bus in Baton Rouge, LA, by Bob Gruen

Sid, your standard drooling idiot, in Memphis, by Bob Gruen

Johnny Rotten and Sid in San Francisco, by Bob Gruen

Sid learns something, by Bob Gruen

Sid and Johnny performing at Cains in Tulsa, by Lynn Goldsmith

Johnny in Tulsa, by Lynn Goldsmith

By the time the tour hit San Francisco, the band was in complete disarray – Johnny Rotten being ill, disgusted by Sid Vicious’ antics and alienated by the rest of the band. He broke up the Pistols onstage at the Winterland Ballroom by trawling through The Stooges’ “No Fun” and then firing the legendary parting shot: “Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?”

Today is the thirty-second anniversary of the release of Never Mind the Bollocks, the Sex Pistols’ most famous, highly influential, and ONLY official studio album. So to commemorate the anniversary, this week’s playlist is a compilation of songs paying homage to the Sex Pistols and their affiliates.

FEATURED PLAYLIST: Never Mind the Bollocks. M.s Playlist for 28 Oct 2009

1. *World Destruction – Time Zone feat. John Lydon & Afrika Bambaataa

2.   My Way – Nina Hagen

3.   Madame Butterfly – Malcolm McLaren

4. *This is Not a Love Song – Nouvelle Vague

5.   From Beyond the Grave – Sid Vicious

6. *Submission – Sex Pistols

7.   Who Killed Bambi? – Edward Tudor-Pole

8.    Order of Death – Public Image Limited

9.   *I Wanna be Your Dog – Mephisto Walz

10. *New York – Opium Jukebox

*Available on iTunes

M’s Prior Musical Chairs Playlists: M.’s Halloween Playlist 14 October 2009 playlist

Musical Chairs’ Playlist Library: LITTLE MAGAZINE’s Music Page
Musical Chairs’ Video Playlist Library: LITTLE MAGAZINE’s Video Page

Enjoy!

Musical Chairs is a collection of weekly playlists created by selected artists, DJs, and musicians for LITTLE MAGAZINE. For guest DJ inquires, please send M.LittleMagazine@gmail.com a description of yourself, including a bio and musical tastes.

I just love the sound of that phrase “Sex Pistols’ lawyers.” Classic.

According to NME and Guardian UK, The Sex Pistols are suing an ice-cream shop for using the above God Save the Cream image in ads on their website and in a local department store.

Icecreamists is a London-based boutique ice-cream maker who uses iconic wordplay and imagery to have a bit of fun, calling themselves “More Sid & Nancy than Ben & Jerry. ” They also have an ice-cream “cocktail” called the Sex Pistol, which comes with a shot of absinthe.

I think it’s all funny, and cute, but evidentally The Sex Pistols have a huge stick up their collective ass on this one. It’s innocuous, really. Harmless. After all, it’s a small f*ckin’ ice cream shop trying to be hip and relevant! I could see if Nike were using it for their global ad campaign, but, please …

The Guardian reports that the band has a “demand for damages for allegedly ‘passing off and copyright infringement’ based on the fees the band is able to get for licensing its imagery.”

Talk about corporate maneuvering. Pretty vacant. If you already didn’t know it, The Sex Pistols have become a corporate brand. We’re not in England circa 1975 anymore.

And, who knows, to top it off maybe Johnny doesn’t like ice cream.

As the Icecreamists put it:

“We are a bit dumbfounded that a group that made its reputation for being banned is trying to ban one of our ice creams.”

Si estoy en una fiesta y digo cualquier cosa sobre Einstein, quarks o la mecánica cuántica (ó, siendo holandés, la naranja mecánica, pero esto es otro asunto), lo más probable es que alguien se pondrá a mi lado y empezará hablar sobre el budismo. Los físicos, hoy en día, somos populares. Primero porque somos tímidos. Y segundo, porque somos capaces de destruir el mundo en menos que 7 segundos. Es una combinación super-sexy: la timidez y la destrucción masiva.

Total que, de una manera, la física nos llega, inevitablemente, al budismo, holismo, y todo ese sarta de chorradas de la gran obra de arte “y tú que sabes?”. Si yo me atrevo a decir que esa pelicula es una sarta de chorradas, la respuesta normalmente es que “los físicos tenéis suficiente imaginación!” Sea verdad o no, pero entonces por qué justifican sus creencias espirituales justamente con lo que según ellos es la física moderna? ¿Por qué fundar sus ideas irracionales en una ciencia de por una parte no saben nada y que por otra parte no han entendido?

Es como hacer una paella, pero al final hacerla con espagettis porque te gusta el arroz. ¡No lo llames paella, pues!

Es por eso que en un otro articulo, mencioné las cuatro maneras de mirar a la luna.

Primero, hay los que la miran y sencillamente disfrutan mirarla. Según algunos eso es más bien estupido pero no estoy de acuerdo. Sencillamente disfrutar las cosas es una de las cosas más dificiles en la vida, así que cualquier que sea capaz de hacerlo merece mi admiración. Igual un día me pueda explicar cómo lo haga.

Luego, hay los que lo convierten en arte. No me molestan mientras no sean plastas que hablen sobre el contexto de la sociedad o metáforos simbólicos (los que suelo llamar “franceses” por razones obvias).

También hay los científicos. Miran a la luna y se preguntan a dónde va durante el día. Con una combinación de observaciones y deducciones llegan a la conclusión que mientras la luna gire alrededor de la tierra, la tierra misma gira alrededor del sol y en realidad es las posiciones relativas del sol, la tierra y la luna que establece cómo es el aspecto de dicha luna. A partir de estas observaciones, pueden hacer más observaciones que llegan a un sistema de ecuaciones que describan las relaciones entre fuerzas, masas, distancias, velocidades y una gran etceterá. Luego, descubren que estas relaciones se repiten otras situaciones medibles en la naturaleza y mediante estas generalizaciones se llega a conceptos más abstractos como energía, entropía o tiempo-espacio. Conste que todas estas relaciones y observaciones son expresadas en algo que es mucho más y mucho menos que un lenguaje: la matemática. Es menos que un lenguaje porque no expresa opiniones, moral, sentimientos. Y mucho más que un lenguaje porque en vez de expresar opiniones, moral, sentimientos, expresa conceptos lógicos. Conste que la matemática no sólo describe lo que ya conocemos o lo que ya pensamos. Cualquier relación entre entidades, conocida o no, se puede expresar en matemática. Luego, es la física que toma la matemática y escoge qué parte es aplicable a la naturaleza y qué parte no. O sea: toda las leyes que gobernan el comportamiento de la naturaleza es matemática, pero no todo la matemática es naturaleza. El proceso de medir, describir matemáticamente los resultados, diseñar nuevos medidas que verifican o ponen en duda las descripciones anteriores…, este proceso es lo que hacen los físicos. Es este proceso que crea el Gran Catedral de la Física.

Si el parágrafo anterior te ha aburrido, no pasa nada. Tómese un té. Cante una mantra abajo un arbol. Pero déjese la física en paz. Si la física no es la tuya, acéptelo, y no hables sobre la física.

Por que ahora hemos llegado a la gente que aunque no tienen ni la más remota idea sobre la física, sin embargo piensan que es la física que les da razón en sus creencias “espirituales”. Saben que tienen razón, “porque Dios se los ha susurrado”, “lo han soñado” o lo han leido en un libro escrito hace muchos siglos por uno u otro tribu vagando en el desierto. Y, porque la física cuántica “lo muestra”.

Esa gente admiran los torrecitos de la Gran Catedral de la Física mientras piensen que los muros pilares abajo son aburridos y sin importancia.

La gran verdad que sin entender la matemática, es imposible entender la mecánica cuántica. Es imposible entender Kafka si no sabes leer. No tiene sentido, sin conocer la matemática, comparar las leyes que gobernan el comportamiento de las partículas elementales con las sabidurías de gurus de India (o Mayas sabias, Incas nobles, Egiptos místicos, …)

Es la gente religiosa.

No me refiero a los engañadores. Los que no creen pero se aprovechan de los que crean. Los papas, curas, imanes, gurus, medicos homeopáticos y los “consultants” de empresas internacionales que enseñan a los “proyect managers” que el camino al éxito va por medio de la alma. Esa gente son como la gente que simplemente disfrutan la luna. Sólo, en vez de la luna, prefieren al sexo, el dinero, el poder, la fama. Atacar a ellos, es más bien un trabajo para Johnny Rotten ( Religion II ). Personalmente, no me molesta tanto la gente que quiere mucho sexo, dinero y poder. No sé si serán felizes, pero, en realidad, quién lo es?

Prefiero atacar a los que de verdad crean las tonterías. Especialmente los que piensan (en realidad “pensar” no es la palabra) que la ciencia moderna justifica sus creencias. Quizás parezcan nada peligrosos, pero al final es la misma ignorancia que a menuda lleva a las masas facistas o comunistas (¿qué diferencia hay?) o a conversaciones aburidas en fiestas.

He compilado una lista (nada completa) de unos errores típicos que hace esa gente:

1. “Los científicos piensan que saben todo”. No!. Es exactamente la gran diferencia entre los científicos y cualquier otra disciplina. La ciencia exista gracias a las dudas que los cientificos siempre ponen en sus teorias. Son estas dudas que justifican sus experimentos tras experimentos. También, son por estas dudas que al final confiamos más en un avion que una alfombra mágica cuando viajamos a India. Sabemos que este avion ha sido un producto de un proceso de pruebas, dudas y más pruebas, mientras que la alfombra, bonita que sea, no nos lleva a ningun sitio.
2. “Einstein mostró que Newton no tenía razón”. No!. Es imposible mostrar que una teoría es falsa, si ya ha sido comprobada. Sólo se puede mostrar que una teoría no es completa. Entonces, ¿Einstrein mostró que faltaba algo en las teorías de Newton? Sí, pero esto ya lo sabía el mismissimo Newton. Las leyes que desarrolló Newton funcionan muy bien con velocidades bajas y sistemas macroscópicos. En otros entornos ha de usar la teoría de relatividad o la mecanica cuántica, pero conste, que estas nuevas teorías siempre tienen que estar en acuerdo con lo que dijo Newton. Son mas amplias, nada más.
3. “Einstein dijo que todo es relativo.” No!. Einstein dijo que la velocididad de la luz es absoluta. Dijo que las leyes físicas son absolutas. Normalmente, una velocidad sólo tiene sentido con respecto a un observador. Una pelotita de ping-pong tiene una velocidad con respecto a la mesa de ping-pong. LLamemos esta velocidad “X”. Pero si ponemos esta mesa de ping-pong dentro un tren que viaja con 200 km/hora, entonces, este pelotita de ping-pong tendrá una velocidad de 200 km/hora más “X”, con respecto a un observador fuera de tren. Sin embargo, con la luz, resulta que su velocidad es igual para un observador que se mueva con respecto a la raya de luz como para un observador que no se mueve. Tiene un valor absoluto. Claro, si llamaramos a la teoría de Einstein “la Teoría de Absolutos”, los místicos no le citarían tanto.
4. “La mecánica cuántica dice que todo es conectado.” No!. Dice que el resultado de una medida a uno de una pareja de partículas enredadas dentro un sistema aislado depende del resultado de una medida al otro de la misma pareja. En inglés eso se llama “entanglement”. Hay, sin embargo, una diferencia obvia entre “dos particulas de una pareja enredada” y “todo”.

Dejo para otra día el gato de Schrödinger, ese imbécil japonés que hace fotos de agua, el calendario Maya, y el idea que nunca han habido gente en la luna. Es que no hay fin a las supersticiones.

Discord, anarchy, bedlam…I sing thy praises.
Give me the detuned, the sweat stained and warped. Give me the broken and off-kilter. Give me Chaos. In other words give me Rock and Roll like it’s god damn meant to be played.
Open a window on the night, stick your head out, and what do you hear? Chaos, children, the world over: Horns and sirens, jackhammers and garbage trucks, the soft mutterings of the insane and the rabid squeals of the young; cicadas in ecstasy and bullfrogs in heat, lifting their scaled eyelids from ditches filled with the boiling detritus of summer. Do you remember that sound, from the womb perhaps, or from the approaching grave? Some of us do. We long for it in our very cells like a remembrance of the morning our fathers brought us before the pale and ceaseless ocean for the first time; a great unknowable chasm that flowed and roared through the very chambers of our flesh.
But enough of memory. I speak of the present and the needs of the living. Surely this music that today calls itself Rock, in whatever fractured or mutated state, is not of the same gene pool which gave rise to the great warlord-freaks and poet-savages which once stalked our land. Surely these automated Stepford Crooners house not the flame of those who trod the awesome Buckets of Blood and infamous Night Stomps that ravaged the minds and spirits of this nation’s freedom-fighting musical alchemists. Oh, great snivelers, pale whiney rodents: Was it you I saw whimpering before the great Golden Calf wrapped in your Bugs Bunny blankey?  Surely, it was no other I spied shivering beneath your mother’s skirt when Joshua blew his great horn of death and triumph.
Let it be written: The stiff and the overly measured have no place in the dank underworld of rock. The calculated and soulless, the dull breath of complacency and tepid pulse of reason, each be damned to your individual ice-encased limbos. The world has had its fill of your soft-coma trilling.
Great devouring Shiva, is it any wonder the youth are no longer passionate about this music? Where are the killers; the manic, red-eyed dream catchers and animal skin aficionados? Where are the artists?
I dream a simple dream: A band that can wobble to the precipice, peek over the edge into the abyss with one leg dangling over, then turn on its platform heels laughing like a banshee and slowly ease its way back and…well, how the hell else do you tell what a band’s capable of, whether its member’s hearts, guts and balls are all mixed up in the sound and glory of the thing?
I’m not talking about sloppiness; I’m talking about momentum, friction, courage — musicians who have such trust in one another that they don’t panic when someone goes careening off-script or falls flat on their face; who understand it’s not about perfect pitch or choreographed dance moves or auto-tuned vocals and it sounds something like this: Oozing black loam, grease and razor wire and then all at once a wounded panther trapped in a cave at midnight as the fog rolls across the river and carries its screams into the valley amongst the little ones nestled safe in their mother’s bosoms. Listen. Listen.
It comes down to this: Who’s brave enough to risk it all, to not just flirt with danger but openly court disaster? I speak of the glory of (in no particular order) — Exile-era Stones, Drive–by Truckers, a psychotic slice of 60’s garage rock by the One Way Streets called “Jack the Ripper” (a cover of the Screaming Lord Sutch classic), Jerry Lee Lewis’ Sun Records recordings, “Wine, Wine, Wine” by James Luther Dickinson; The Replacements; Howling Wolf and the great Chess session band; Sly and the Family Stone; Neil Young and Crazy Horse circa “Tonight’s the Night;” Hound Dog Taylor; the immortal R.L. Burnside blowing the joint out with his “adopted son,” redneck guitarist Kenny Brown, backing him up, pushing and pulling the rhythm like taffy through a fun house of rib-thumping bass and jailhouse slide guitar that somehow manages to work itself into one big ass-shaking scream while its individual components lurch and dawdle off in directions not found on any modern-day compass.
Lest I forget the early Kinks sides; Otis Redding with Booker T. and the MG’s at the Monterey Pop Festival; Bob Dylan’s first electric shows with The Hawks; “Fulsome Prison Blues;” “Search and Destroy;” The Mercy Seat RocksOffWaitingfortheManTheWandererTuttiFruttiIFYOUWANT BLOODYOUGOTITWHODOYOULOVE?PILLSBURNINGHELLGOINGOUTWEST, LEESCRATCHPERRY NICKCAVEANDTHEBADSEEDS X THE GERMS GANGOFFOUR GENEVINCENTANDTHEBLUECAPSJAILHOUSEROCKUPYOURARSE…Damn, it can be done. Wild and wonderful shards of barely- coherent racket can be brought back kicking and screaming from the Great Void. Racket…that’s a fine word:  It’s what your momma told you to stop doing when you were a youngen and broke into the kitchen cabinets to beat hell out of a steel frying pan with a butter knife or maybe a grease-smeared wrench. You craved a little chaos, a little tempest to undo all that control and shiny, shiny, shiny. You wanted to fling a little shit on the walls and crawl through the neighbor’s drainage pipes, didn’t ya?  Don’t lie to me, dammit.
But here’s the thing some of these so-called avante garde noise birds don’t seem to fathom: There’s more to the art of Chaos than mere noise. You have to hold hands with her and caress her neck, right there, in the sweet spot so she’ll close her blue-velvet eyes and smile and her fangs will start to show, just a little.
As anyone acquainted with the latest physics theorems and equations understands, Chaos, though seemingly random, always has a hidden design, a barely discernible pattern weaving its way amongst the shattered glass, flames and tsunamis. Ask any scientist worth his salt and he’ll tell you: There’s all kind of beauty hidden down there in the dark and out there amongst the colliding, shimmering mass of stars and impossible vortexes of creation. That’s why it takes skilled musicians of exquisitely sensitive dispositions to handle this music, to ride its razor-edged crests and navigate the black forests of its hidden grottos. It’s a job for the criminally inclined and the terminally obsessed – you have to be in love and insane. You gotta swing that bitch. You have to listen.
Speaking of which, lend your ears to some of rocks most inspired moments and what you’ll hear is musicians barely in control of the great, all-engulfing YAWP they’ve somehow managed to conjure into being: Is that really our shy, retiring hippie hero, Neil Young, leading his drug-addled compadres in Crazy Horse through the crazed, shambling lurch of “Come on Baby, Let’s Go Downtown,” from the aforementioned “Tonight’s the Night?” Is that horrid little squirt Johnny Rotten actually espousing far-right, anti-abortion sentiments in the vengeful, swarming junk-rock of “Bodies?” How the hell is Keith Richards even remaining vertical long enough to grind and grate his way through the tortured euphoria of “Happy,” located at the pivotal mid-point of “Exile on Main St.” Knock back a few shots, run naked through the dancing pines — I promise it will all make sense. Contradiction is central to this grandiosely simple, majestically complex symphony. It can’t help itself:  It bleeds and pleads; promises and rebukes. It spits in your eye and kisses your ass and you love it, at least some of us do.
Give me the inspired mistake, the idiot savant, the dark-blue gallop of hooves on human bone. There: Watch as the hyena lifts its throat and serenades the world’s decay; as children pounce on one another and roll entangled in the soft fields of autumn. Listen: The sound of that midnight train must have scared the living shit out of the natives when it first drifted across their mud huts and dismal cabins; but they learned to love the thing — that billowing sorrow redolent of freedom and power that sank into their very being and found a second life amongst the blood and viscera and dreams. They made love to that sound; raised children in its midst and their whelps grew with a hunger for slow death and lunging sex; struck out amongst the cities and filth and made their own music of rust and rat droppings. So what?
The fact is, fellow travelers, in order to unlock the treasure you’ve got to dig in the dirt; daub mud under your eyes and run with the cannibals. You’ve got to stare into the eyes of the great gray ape.
He’ll tell you: The god’s favor the mad.  And Chaos is their favorite son.

A veces las parejas o musas de los grandes estrellas del rock se convierten en villanas, ya sea porque cometieron actos desleales en contra de sus famosas parejas o porque simplemente el público sintió que no era la mujer adecuada para su ídolo.

Aquí tenemos un listado de esas mujeres que los fans nunca aprobaron ni aprobarán.

Yoko Ono: Cuando John Lennon le anunció al mundo que la mujer de su vida era la artista japonesa de vanguardia Yoko Ono, sus fans, los Beatles y todo Inglaterra puso el grito en el cielo.

La indignación llegó a un punto en que los diarios londinenses calificaban a Yoko como una “mujer fea”, lo que enojó en múltiples ocasiones a Lennon.

Cuando John autorizó a su mujer a dar su opinión musical en las grabaciones de los Beatles, se ganó la enemistad de los otros miembros, en especial de Paul McCartney.

La leyenda cuenta que ella fue la causa de la separación de los Beatles, pero la realidad es que fueron motivos financieros lo que originó la ruptura, además de las ambiciones por crear música en solitario, un anhelo que tenía con más fuerza McCartney.

A Yoko Ono nunca la quisieron los británicos

Courtney Love:  Si pones en un buscador de Internet, en la sección de fotos,  el nombre de la viuda de Kurt Cobain, la mayoría de las imágenes la muestran ebria, drogada o en una actitud desafiante pero llegando al punto del ridículo.

Con esta imagen tan deteriorada, un documental hecho por un ex periodista de la BBC, la ubicó como la presunta causante de la muerte de su famoso esposo, ya que se obtuvieron declaraciones respecto a que ella anduvo buscando un asesino a sueldo para matar al creador de “Smell like teen spirit”,  lo que levantó grandes sospechas contra ella.

Desde que Kurt Cobain abandonó este mundo al suicidarse – es la versión oficial- Love ha gozado de la gran fortuna que dejó el músico.

 Para empañar más su prestigio, una niñera (en el mismo documental) aseguró que Kurt y Courtney llegaron a discutir en muchas ocasiones acaloradamente, porque el músico tenía pensado borrarla de su testamento.    

Courtney Love en una pose de diva

Heather Mills: La hermosa modelo británica que cautivó a Paul McCartney por levantarse ante la adversidad, superando el trauma de perder una pierna, nunca gustó a la prensa británica, ya que siempre fue considerada una arribista y comparada constantemente con la imagen intachable de Linda Eastman, la primera esposa del bajista de los Beatles.

Los hijos de Sir Paul tampoco les gustó la idea de que se casara, pero el cantautor no vio nada de malo en compartir su vida con ella y estaba tan enamorado que tampoco separó sus bienes en su unión matrimonial.

Su vida en pareja fracasó con un divorcio millonario, donde Mills simplemente pedía lo que le correspondía como esposa, por la gran fortuna de McCartney, pero las constantes quejas del músico provocó que todos se pusieran de su parte y vieran a la rubia modelo como una mujer avariciosa que había encontrado en el beatle, la forma de vivir comodamente hasta su muerte. 

Heather Mills es la última villana de un rock-star

Monika Dannemann fue la última persona que vio con vida a Jimi Hendrix,  fans y escritores la han considerado como sospechosa de la muerte de este innovador guitarrista.

Se le cuestionan las diversas versiones que dio, momentos antes de llamar a la ambulancia que llegó por el músico, ya que cayó en constantes contradicciones. A pesar de que la policía volvió a investigar nunca fue detenida por la muerte de Hendrix, que según informes oficiales, murió tras atragantarse con su vómito, luego de mezclar alcohol con pastillas para dormir.

En el libro Rock Roadie, existe la versión de que el manager de Hendrix, Michael Jeffrey, confesó al técnico de guitarra del creador de “Hey Joe”, que  junto a Dannemann hicieron tragar al guitarrista las pastillas para dormir con vino tinto, con la finalidad de provocarle la muerte y con esto cobrar una millonaria póliza de seguro. Tanto Jeffrey como Dannemann ya murieron.

Dannemann fue el último ser humano que vio con vida a Hendrix

Valerie Bertinelli: La actriz que compartió gran parte de su vida con Eddie Van Halen, tuvo un divorcio común y corriente con el virtuoso guitarrista.

Todo estaba tranquilo, hasta que en el show de Oprah Winfrey, confesó que había compartido los mismos excesos de drogas y alcohol con su esposo, llegando a liberarse de la cocaína con duros tratamientos y que además le había sido infiel al compositor de “Eruption”, lo que provocó que la prensa rosa estadounidense la viera como una especie de Courtney Love pero más elegante.

Recuerdo que cuando David Lee Roth salió de Van Halen en 1986, algunas estaciones de radio llegaron a informar que la separación había sido causada por un affair del vocalista con la esposa de Eddie, pero esto jamás fue confirmado. El propio Roth en una entrevista para Rolling Stone en 1985, manifestaba que si había visto a Bertinelli una vez en cinco meses, fue demasiado.

Valerie Bertinelli le fue infiel a Edward Van Halen

 Dionne:  La misteriosa novia -ya que no existe una foto de ella- de Rikki Rocket, baterista de Poison, tuvo un affair  con el guitarrista Ritchie Kotzen, quien había entrado a sustituir a C.C. Deville, lo que provocó que despidieran al virtuoso músico, en plena gira del álbum “Native Tongue”.

 Esta infidelidad le costó caro tanto a Poison como a Ritchie, porque a pesar de que este álbum no estaba vendiendo, ante la explosión del rock alternativo o grunge, las críticas habían sido favorables, porque Kotzen había influido muchísimo en el estilo de la banda,  lo que quizás les hubiera generado una continuidad musical más respetable a largo plazo.

A Ricky Rocket le pusieron los cuernos

Paula Yates: Esta comunicadora inglesa, más que villana entra en la categoría de irresponsable y falta de espíritu. Aún no comprendo cómo decidió quitarse la vida tras el suicidio de Michael Hutchence, cuando tenía cuatro razones por vivir, los tres hijos que tuvo con Bob Geldof,  de los cuales perdió la custodia, ante la falta de atención que les tenía, además de la hija que tuvo con el extinto líder de INXS.

De una vida exitosa pasó a tener una depresión grande que ya no le hizo ver la realidad de las múltiples cosas positivas que tenía en su vida, por lo que hipotéticamente podría manifestar que pudo haber sido una pesadilla para Geldof  o Hutchence, convivir con ella.

Paula Yates tuvo un final lamentable

Nancy Spugen: La novia presuntamente asesinada por el propio Sid Vicious, bajista de los Sex Pistols, siempre fue considerada un parásito por el líder de esta banda, el enojón Johnny Rotten.

Existen versiones de que ella arrastró totalmente al abismo de las drogas a Vicious, aunque él ya era un drogadicto declarado.

La relación entre ambos, aunque se ha querido ver como un gran romance, la realidad es que parecían dos payasos viviendo del rock, con un Sid totalmente influenciable, mientras que Nancy le sacaba todo el dinero que podía. Al final el destino para ambos fue fatal.

Nancy y Sid fueron una pareja fatal

Stevie Nicks: Fue pareja de Lindsey Buckingham, mucho antes de que ambos se unieran a las filas de Fleetwood Mac. Cuando ya estaban dentro de la banda terminaron su relación, pero el momento amargo de este rompimiento llegó cuando Nicks decidió andar con el líder de la banda, Mick Fleetwood.

Stevie Nicks narró en un programa para la cadena VH1 que fue difícil para ella y Mick sentarse ambos  a explicarle a Buckingham, la nueva relación amorosa que tenían. El guitarrista manifestó sobre esta dura confesión, que había vivido tantas cosas en la vida, que no le sorprendió que su pareja lo cambiara por otro músico: “Sabes, uno ya está curtido”. 

A pesar de la incómoda situación, Fleetwood Mac continuó en los setentas sacando exitosos discos, aunque por dentro siempre vivieron momentos personales dramáticos. A final de cuentas, Nicks tampoco hizo vida con el baterista Mick Fleetwood. 

Stevie Nicks pasó de un guitarrista a un baterista

Jonathan Jones, “How Dada Spawned the Art of Anarchy,” Guardian Art and Design Blog 29 September 2009

“…Punk and dada, across the decades, share a savage hostility to the security and luxury of artistic respectability. The true anti-artist is never interested in compromise: for Lydon, to class the Pistols as high art was to tame them, contain them. This same anti-art rage is exemplified by Gustav Metzger, whom I interviewed recently, and whose concept of “auto-destructive art” is yet another variant of modern art’s impulse to smash reality.

This impulse to destruct, efface, obliterate cannot be confined to a single kind of modern art. There is as much negation, as icy a contemplation of the void, in the Rothko Chapel in Houston as in any dada collage.

This is why [Greil] Marcus writes so well about dada and its legacy, because he sees its bitter, liberated heart and does not take for granted what it was. It is also why to dismiss “anti-art” tendencies today is to be blind to the way they permeate the entire history of modernism — in short, to be a stuckist.”

****

Jonathan Jones, “Gustav Metzger: The Liquid Crystal Revolutionary,” The Guardian 29 September 2009 (p. 19 of the Arts section)

“…In the 1960s, his argument that destruction is a form of last-chance creativity in a terminal world had a subterranean influence — not least on Pete Townshend, who was Metzger’s student at art college and credits him with inspiring the Who to destroy their instruments. …

In 1974, Metzger called an Art Strike: for three years, from 1977 to 1980, he refused to make, sell or exhibit art, or to promote himself as an artist in any way. …

Today, at the Serpentine, I ask him why he invented auto-destructive art, what he meant by it. ‘It was a summing up of my entire life until that period,’ he says, in the German accent he has never lost. ‘It was my childhood in Nazi Germany, coming to this country as a refugee, as a survivor. And then when we had peace, the entire planet being transformed by nuclear weapons. That is at the centre of my life.’ …

Of watching the [Nazi] parades, he says now: ‘Certainly the brutality of seeing 10,000 people marching like machines — as a child I must have rejected it.’ Did it make him the artist he is? ‘It could be that I saw so much power that I needed to get rid of it in myself. That’s one way to understand the origins of auto-destructive art. In Judaism there is a tradition of rejecting power: the Prophets rejected power. That was part of my childhood, giving up rather than acquiring.’ …

You could say that Metzger is the Kindertransport’s greatest failure: instead of building a constructive life for himself in postwar Britain, he invented a destructive life — or a destructive art. His art is a refusal to forget, to assimilate, to move on. His anger at the world is almost that of an alienated child: he tells me that, in a photograph he once showed me — of a child holding his hands up during the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto — he sees himself: ‘I identify with this child.’

Violent art is Metzger’s response to a violent world. In his exhibition, that same Warsaw photograph will be shown concealed behind a barrier, like the other images in his series Historic Photographs. These are his most enduring and remarkable works: you crawl on your hands and knees across the images as a way of remembering what happened. …”

Link to the Gustav Metzger exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery.