I had no real idea who dunnit, but I came across it while 'shopping' for spoils from Allen Ginsberg's "Howl". This is not it.
From Wiki:
"[Eric] Drooker grew up in Manhattan's Stuyvesant Town, relatively close to the Lower East Side, which was then a working-class immigrant neighborhood with a tradition of left-wing political activism. Drooker developed an early interest in graphic arts and cartoons, particularly the woodcut novels of Frans Masereel and Lynd Ward and the underground comics of Robert Crumb."
The illustration - a woodcut, I believe, or something in lino with real fur trim - is from his 1992 collaboration with Ginsberg, "Illuminated Poems", published by Four Walls Eight Windows, NYC.
The last time I dallied with Ginsberg, Punk Rock and Old Pond, and the Nova Connection, it accompanied a line or two on tired facial hair. The pressing need to abolish the ugly. These days, I am a prickly peach. A potato gone to seed.
I f@cking hate telephones.
▼ ALLEN GINSBERG: I'M A VICTIM OF TELEPHONES (DEC. 1968) from "Disconnected: Dial-a-Poem Poets" LP (Giorno Poetry Systems) 1974 (US)
17 comments:
Heard Ginsberg live around '79 at the famous St. Marks Church, seemed almost saintly up there improvising and reading with Kenneth Koch. Are you familiar with his Punk Rock Yer My Big Crybaby? A real Howl, which he did not read that night, but there are some real good contemporary ('50s) records of him doing so. Of course he can also be found on The Clash's Combat Rock, although most of that record is quite dreadful in my book.
Like your new frontispiece, by the way.
Warden, I have never seen Ginsberg perform. But I have seen The Clash.
I don't know "Punk Rock Yer My Big Crybaby" either, but it sounds promising. I like the way he stumbles on this one. As a gutter poet, I don't think he comes close to Bukowski, but then. Who does ?
I like "Ghetto Defendant".
Actually. "Combat Rock", too, as a whole. "Sean Flynn" and "Death is a Star" are down there with the best, although "Should I Stay or Should I Go" and a couple of other tracks - I agree - invite something approaching narcolepsy. Still.
Thanks for the vote of confidence on the masthead, by the way; after some misgivings about the pomp and juvenile stupisity of it, I am a little more comfortable with it. It just might linger for a while.
Now. As for fucking telephones... I have an account to settle by tomorrow, or SiBLINGSHOT will bite the dust. I can live without the intrusiveness, but I don't think I could hack falling back into the dark ages.
Everything is in hand.
I'll try to find my copy of Ginsberg's Punk Rock and get it to you; it's a short ditty.
Funny how we disagree on things Clash: remember how we diverged on Give Em Enough Rope back a while ago. Know Yer Rights is just a tuneless press release masquerading as a song, for instance. I do like the song on Combat with the line, I thought I saw Lauren Bacall; I think it's Car Jamming. Straight to Hell of course is a full-blown Strummer masterpiece. I guess I'm talking myself out of my own argument here.
London Calling at present I find a little too familiar, but will probably revisit it as a whole shortly.
The sprawling "unfocused" Sandinista is so unwieldy as to never allow itself to be played out. The first album is so brief and tight that it roars through one's auditory canal like a subway train threatening to careen off the tracks.
Glad that everything is at hand, seeing how the end is upon us. After all this time, to believe in Jesus, after all those drugs, I thought I was him.
Sib: found the Ginsberg poem from me very own blog 3 years ago. 'Ere's the bleedin' link, mate:
http://wardensworld.blogspot.com/2006/11/punk-president-eat-up-fbi-w-yr-big.html
And no I 'ave no idea why I'm affectin' a bloody Cockney accent.
Hey. Thanks for digging out the original post and providing a link.
Pretty good.
The autograph thing is a dilemma. I side with you on that one. These days I have far less pride; it's like maturity in reverse.
As for the Clash thing, I am just a cantankerous fuck. When somebody whispers black, I tend to shot white. Or vice versa. "Sandinista" is my favourite. Along with I the first LP. I think the two sound very similar. Both records sport the best sleeves to ever grace a Clash release. Long player, that is. I don't know if this is entirely coincidental, or a portent of substance. For all the sprawl of "Sandinsta!", I think its songs have the same direct energy of their first. Not as tight, perhaps, but that is more to do with their maturing enough as a unit enough to pen their own "Police & Thieves" this time around. And roll with the dub.
I payed my fucking phone bill. Just in time.
I noticed your cantankerousness but I don't find it a negative quality necessarily so I felt no need to mention it.
I like what you say about the Clash writing their own Police & Thieves by the time Sandinista arrived. Spot on as you Brits are wont to say. Surprised you didn't include the uber-iconic London Calling shot in your roll call of amazing Clash cover shots. Of course it's a direct ripoff of / homage to the 1st Elvis Presley. None of the 45 covers are standing out at the moment. English Civil War did have the cool Animal Farm reference... I liked the color schemata of Bankrobber as well... White Riot if I recall had the Clash up against the wall a la an arrest scene, part of a constant theme or just a manifestation of their cultivated persecution complex, who can say...
As much as I love the Clash, and not that there's any real reason to but if i had to pick an alltime favorite band, I don't see The Clash wouldn't be it in a landslide. Maybe the Byrds, maybe Dylan (a band all unto himself he shifted shape so much), maybe the Kinks, but the Clash were more my generation. What a yawning gap in the history of pop culture if you take them out -- but there was a fair share of the poseur in all of them, the self mythologizing could get a bit much, and was there ever a band who took more posed publicity shots in all their various stages than this band? I guess it's partly because the Punks knew the power of the image was just as important as whatever sound was coming out at any given moment.
Never got into Ginsberg - the shining path: discovering Burroughs and seeing Warhol's Trash before finalizing the forming of this man: hitting Stooges' Raw Power early 1973. Reading Nick Kent's review in NME: putting it all into place.
Actually, not sure about what came first - the order of the factors is indifferent anyway: the effect was always the guiding light - low point years later: missing Burroughs first and only performance in my hometown: too wasted on dissolved pure flakes to walk those 5 minutes to be confronted by the Exterminator - but that was the 80-ies - fuck those years.
Great to find other veterans alive and kicking - Ib: thanks for keeping the fire burning through this cold times!
Still Anonymous
The 80's, still anonymous, what a creative wasteland; the decade which wasn't.
While cinematographers, it seemed, were intent on visualizing Orwell's 1984 to 'entertain', the music industry was busy peddling it to the fashionistas as a cultural modus operandi.
It was a small leap indeed from the pantalooned bollocks of New Romantics to the politicized gasp of Eurythmics. Grotesque.
I missed out on reading Kent's inaugural "Raw Power" review firsthand. From the generation caught between, I was - a throwback - skipping school to catch up on on my homework. And see The Damned.
Ah, well. Cold times. Always cold times.
BTW: NEVER DID TALK TO YOU DID I? SO, WOW, YOU DONT KNOW ME!!!
WE KNOW ALL ABOUT YOU NOW DONT WE? ITS NOT ALL ABOUT YOU YOU KNOW
"ITS NOT ALL ABOUT YOU YOU KNOW"
Listen up, you anonymous cunt. And listen good.
I have no real intention of drilling down through online traffic data to get a handle on your IP address or your location. But don't push it.
Speaking of traffic. Do me a favour. Go play in some; and don't come back without a sickline.
You have been warned.
Ooops, problem with being anonymous: we're not alone - and can be anyone -
You're right - the anonymous is not the same as Still Anonymous.
The wanker with the keyboard above may be some drive-by surfer, getting off on dirty words, or a stalker as you suggest. Any reason for that?
Smoke'em out and burn them! Or is that my coming of age reacton to anything I don't like? Either way, I am intrigued by tracking down these arseholes (a Scanner Darkly, anyone) - even if I strongly appreciate that you don't bother doing so. Trash like this is maybe something we have to live with…..
There could be any reason under the sun, 'still anonymous'. One or two in extremis.
I have an idea or two. But getting all Poirot about it is probably just what this sick fuck wants.
Besides, I might just be paranoid.
Best call ? Just give the cretin enough rope. Hopefully it will wrap so much off it around its scrawny neck that it will silence itself in a turgid gurgle.
I have sent out the ghost of Philip K. Dick to transmit back some 'data'.
no you dont know me at all. so much rage on youtube. no point getting all worked up about it. i like that wood cut btw but yyyou are a very angry person
enough with anonymous douche-speak... whats important is The Clash:
As a New Yawk born and bred brudder, I have nothing but pure love for Give Em Enough Rope... I absolutely LOVE the much-malighned production... have you ever heard the demo's? What Perlman did with those tracks was a masterpiece!!!!!!!!
The first lp (I prefer the US mix and the track selection)- brilliant
London Calling- brilliant
Sandanista- a disappointing mess that crushed me on release. Though over the years I have gained appreciation for some songs I hated on purchase. Still, it does NOT ROCK.
Combat Crock - yecccch. Rock the fucking Casbah was the nitemare song of my college daze... disco clash (no caps). Although, Know Your Rights (especially covered by others) is a true classic.
Cut The Crap wasn't a real Clash album... so I would have no opinion about it.
Have a nice day.
Heh. Nathan ?
"A NANNY MOOSE". I like that.
Nazz:
The Clash 1st should strictly be listened to according to its original (UK) running order. The US version of "White Riot" is the 45 version. The one with the siren.
BTW. "Complete Control", the 45, sports my favourite sleeve design.
"Rock the Casbah" is mediocre Clash fare, certainly. But I don't care if it does NOT ROCK. It fuckin' rolls, and that's OK with me.
Post a Comment