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In Reply to: interesting, veeeeeeeeeeery interesting posted by dave c on November 28, 2006 at 05:03:39:
I knew the guy a bit because years ago I used to sublease some space in an amazing old building in Little Italy, where on three sub-basement levels below the street, there were rehearsal, storage, and occasional recording spaces that were occupied by various local NYC rock bands, some of them notable (Sonic Youth), most not, but with some people tied into the avant-skronk jazz-rock scene of the Knitting Factory, the remnants of No Wave, contemporaries of Glenn Branca, people like that. Moby lived there, still might. The Beastie Boys shot a video there once. It was an old morgue, research showed, and one of my favorite buildings in the city. I don't know how many years bands were there, but they were all out by the late 90s, I believe. Anyway, I knew Jonathan a bit through that space & paid attention to his work, as he & others would come back & decorate the space with gig flyers from various avant-garde music festivals in Europe, stuff like that. So while I'd never listen to that stuff, I was aware of it.It's not so much that I think of the work/art/performance art/film/whatever produced by the likes of Ono or Warhol as a 'con,' what I said was that on some levels it could be taken that way, and for reasons that separate what they did from more traditional 'artists' or 'sculptors' or whatever. I love Pollock's drip paintings. But he was the one who apparently had a problem with his work on the basis that he thought it was a con...which ate him up because he did indeed take it seriously...to a point, where he looked at it in a different way, got loaded & bitched about how it was all a con. At least that's the impression I've gotten in my meager research on him. I do believe it's pretty solid to point to his streaks of loathing & self-loathing. I find him to be a fascinating character, and I do dig quite a bit of his work. But I do think it's telling that if you look at the stuff he did prior to getting into the drip paintings, a lot of it looks like, well, 3rd-rate Picasso-type stuff to me. That it's not well-known doesn't give me any reason to feel otherwise. I think his drip paintings are the part of his legacy that's celebrated for a reason; his early stuff is just not that good. And I think he knew it, and he was disgusted that he'd managed to find a way to captivate people's attention when he sorta wished he could've been more successful at what he'd worked at earlier on. And he either didn't see that he'd become his own Picasso, or just refused to embrace it, for whatever insecure reason. And I'm sure the drinking didn't help matters.
But I'm not anti-"art," I'm just more interested in music. But it's always good to remember that Lennon was an art student. Which means that the 'arty world' was absolutely NOT something that Yoko introduced him to. I'm not sure how much attention he paid to it while living as a Beatle in London during Beatlemania, but obviously by 1966 he was going to friends' galleries to see what was going on. He was clearly drawn back to the art world he'd turned away from to become a pop star. And Stuart Sutcliffe's death hit him pretty hard, since he knew how gifted that guy was, at least according to what we're told today. And that was his best friend. Actually, it's kind of remarkable that he focused on pop songs as much as he did, let alone cleaning up for Brian Epstein & eschewing drunken brawling (which some have suggested may have been at the root of an incident where Sutcliffe got his head kicked in, which in turn may very well have contributed to his premature death). As for Paul...you kidding around here? His woman introduced him to the art world, but not Linda? Not sure you can make that case for Jane Asher; I take it you're familiar with her background. Linda McCartney's photography? I don't know, I missed a gallery show a few years ago on the Upper East Side. I could probably find some stuff online, or perhaps at the Morrison Hotel on Prince St. in SoHo. But I'm not sure what you're driving at there.
I'm not big on Give Peace A Chance, either. If anything, the Live Peace In Toronto stands up as a better reading of the tune, in my estimation. But I just don't think Lennon did that sort of protest stuff very well. His best, to me, had nothing to do with that--I Am The Walrus, Happiness Is A Warm Gun, Come Together, In My Life, You're Going To Lose That Girl, A Day In The Life, You've Got To Hide Your Love Away, Baby's In Black, Remember, God, Isolation...I could go on. Give Peace A Chance ain't it. Cold Turkey's more like it. But then I've always felt politics & rock music mix extremely poorly in most cases. There are so few exceptions, and everyone points to Dylan, who did it so much less than he seems to be given credit for. Some of the punk bands did it well, particularly the Minutemen, who were certainly less obvious than an outfit like the Dead Kennedys. Phil Ochs, perhaps. I love the sound of the first Crosby, Stills, & Nash record, but boy do I hate their hippie BS. The Clash did this well, and the most recent Green Day record. No Nukes? Feh. And I just don't hear Give Peace A Chance as being much better.
Then there's Gimme Some Truth...oh, brother. They don't write 'em like THAT anymore, now, do they. Geez, I'm starting to sound like an old person. Too bad, on that particular track I'll have to take the fogey position that I loathe. Puh.
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Follow Ups
- Re: interesting, veeeeeeeeeeery interesting - J 02:11:08 11/29/06 (1)
- Re: interesting, veeeeeeeeeeery interesting - dave c 03:58:19 11/29/06 (0)
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