I think I’ll let the book breathe before watching the feature film I just don’t know how the depth of the novel could be translated and condensed into 2-3 hours
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Funnily enough I’m reading them at the moment. Great books, and very far from your usual pop/rock star autobiographies where any character deficit has to be completely justified.
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Travel/social writing of the highest order. Bit of a downer, certainly, but very clear-eyed look at where we are finding ourselves now in the US…
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Someone here recommended a book about Yuogoslavia’s slide towards civil war - Impossible Country by Brian Hall. It’s taken me all year to read, but I’ve really enjoyed it. Thank you. I’d recommend it anytime, but seems really apt at the moment. And it’s not really dark and depressing, but gives historical perspective on the different communities as events creep closer to the point of no return. Great book.
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Just got back from vacation. Among others, I read Jonathan Lethem - Gun, With Occasional Music (weird, quirky Noir satire) and Gabriel Garcia Marquez - One Hundred Years Of Solitude (magical realism). Enjoyed both of them.
Now I’m reading Willie Nelson - My Life: It’s A Long Story. Not a Country fan whatsoever, but he seems like a fun, interesting guy.
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10 years after it was published, but i read Viv Albertine’s ‘Clothes, Music, Boys (x3)’ in a couple of sittings. Compellingly honest, often funny and surprising and unsettling. Shes ten years older than me but one thing really struck me was the pre internet idea that you could do something ‘new’ that no one else is doing. And that there was space to do that - even if that space was a squat and you had to steal loo rolls and live on beans to do it.
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And here’s Stewart Lee, on that very topic - where has the counter culture gone?
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It was a great series that, very thoughtful, and ends with a good discussion of whether tech liberates or destroys countercultures
Enjoying it now.
A few days ago I stumbled across a documentary series on iplayer called The Death of Yugoslavia.
First person interviews with pretty much every main player, the good, the bad and the ugly, so all perspectives covered.
Was clearly made a long time ago but it’s very informative.
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Brilliant isn’t it?
made by the redoubtable Norma Percy. Now 89 and still making those big historical documentaries.
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My wife and I are learning Italian (I managed to get an passport a few years ago thanks to the heritage laws). One of the podcasts we listen to in our language-learning journey is “Libri Brutti” which means “bad books” but it’s more looking at the oddball or curio rather than simply bad. The podcaster’s favourite book is “Dove andiamo a ballare questa sera?” (Where should we go dancing tonight). Gianni de Michelis was a southern Italian/later EU politician who wrote essentially a Michelin guide to discotheques. More below in Italian, but google translate could sort you out…
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“Calls to balance lineups and present a fairer, more truthful view of cultural history don’t have unlimited purchase; it’s possible the other side didn’t know that was going on at all.”
It’s cool to have progressive ambitions for your own events/businesses, and even try and convince the wider community that it should be “so”. But to assume everyone ‘knows’, let alone ‘cares’. For every person I’ve met who had a decent inkling of dance music’s history, legacy and politics I’ve met 50 people who were just there to try and have a good time, or just hanging with friends or whatever. It was just a form of entertainment when they were young and had the energy. I’ve always felt the community of a dancefloor, and it’s felt important to me, but you can’t force anyone to see or feel things like you. People preen, show off, get high, are solely concerned with picking up etc etc.
You’ll be chatting with someone and music will come up and they’ll deadpan tell you that you ‘should go’ to Electric Daisy Carnival or Tomorrowland. What are you gonna do about ‘people’? Mock them? Hate them? Lecture them?
(Good article BTW I’ve always enjoyed that type of analysis, tricky ideas to tackle so fair play to those that have a reasonable go).
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I feel like &me particularly made some really emotional music early on (in your eyes and fairchild), I still enjoy some of those early records. Crazy how quickly that changed, now it’s definitely a content spectacle coming out of Keinemusik.
Is it that different to what has happened to any dance music stars in the past, albeit a more tepid version? The same thing was happening in Ibiza in the 2000s with prog. Hungry and passionate DJs turning into uninspiring megastars. History repeats.
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