Last week I read a review of a new album by Johnny Dowd, whom I had never heard off, but I liked the sound of it. Lo and behold, my good friend the disgrace that is Richie Lamy lent me three of his albums.
It’s great when you get excited by music and Johnny Dowd is awesome, I love finding new artists to listen to, but there isn’t many people that have even heard of most the music I possess, let alone introduce me to something new.
I love having friends that constantly help you push the boundaries.
Just a thank you to all my friends who have given me the confidence to write this blog, especially Ian Bone who helped me get the point of it all back! Does it make a difference, is it just some narcissistic way of entering the viral world, or can I change things. I don’t know but I have always believed in the domino effect. I may not change the world but several generations later might and if I can make one simple impact on someone to help create that initial ripple, then I will be happy. I have always classed myself as an anarchist – not with the black smoke stereotypical death & destruction imagery – but a belief in no form state just simple ‘mutual aid’, to quote the title of the book that literally changed my viewpoint of life (Peter Kropotkin). The nuts and bolts of how we get there will always be debatable but the simple view of how we could live is indisputable. When you start reading Antonio Gramsci, Michel Foucault & Hayden White, you become completely aware of how you can be controlled by the simple discourse that is used by the media, politicians, celebrities etc etc – everyone needs a filter to understand what is really being said.
I have always enjoyed listening to music, especially that that tries to break boundaries – sadly this appeared to be more rife in the 80’s – perhaps Thatcher was good for one thing! I came across this wonderful live footage of Stump the other day and it somehow reminded me of how I view life!
Stop, download it now whatever, but you must listen to Death Grips.
On October 1, the band self-released their sophomore effort via a website which they linked to from Twitter and Soundcloud, and various filesharing services includingBitTorrent. This was apparently an effort to bypass the fact that their record label was unwilling to release the album until 2013. The band was dropped by Epic Records on November 1 due to the issues surrounding this incident, including the release of private emails on Facebook.
Guru Guru’s live performances in the late 1960s and early 1970s were politically left-oriented. They organized concerts together with the Socialist German Student Union, read political texts between the songs, and sometime played at the jails. Their shows were extravagant and anarchistic, some of the musicians lived together in a commune in German Odenwald region, experimented with hallucinogens (one of their songs is titled The LSD March/German: Der LSD-Marsch). Mani Neumeier is one of the organizers of the annual Krautrock-Festival Finkenbach.
Jason E Cooper 