WOEBOT

Dissensus.

I'd been thinking recently that "we" could do with a really decent "culture" discussion forum, an impartial zone, and decided to do something about it. It's pretty much established wisdom that ilm has become at once monstrous (the largest music forum on the web?) and not as fun as it once was. I for one have always been a bit timorous of posting there, it's roamed by some well-known savage egos, unchecked by the even the slightest formal beauracracy. Two recent threads spring to mind as examples of it's corruption, where individuals have been needlessly picked apart by vultures. Of course disagreement is essential, but (and call me a wet liberal if you like) ugly inconsiderate behaviour the like of which is fairly commonplace there is totally unacceptable.

There have been some sparks of inspiration let fly recently at ilm, the Kraftwerk Romance thread for one, but by and large I scroll down the New Answers column and fail to alight on anything I want to read. I went out with Tom Ewing the other night, the architect of the forum, which started life as the Freaky Trigger comments box, and he confessed he never posted there anymore (with the exception of occasional points in the Comics forum and on a recent rolling "Best of 2004" thread).

There are other forums in "our" immediate area, John Eden and Paul Meme are veterans of both uk-dance and the Blood & Fire Message board (the former of which, if not uncivilised, can become intensely combatative) but neither of which really have the simple breadth to encompass the range of topics it seems people want to discuss. Forgive me when I remark that uk-dance actually feels a wee bit anacronistic these days. It's also interesting to note that some of the bloggers who form a part of this particular network cut their teeth online on message boards, Mark Fisher played a large part in the theoretical fireworks at alt.movies.kubrick and it might surprise you to know that before I was writing solely about music I was most often found at a variety of intensely technical Digital Video Forums like Creative Cow, Postforum, DMN Forums, 2-Pop and the Newtek boards. Indeed it's my years of experience at these places which lead me to suspect that boards needn't be hell-holes, that it's possible to have a forum where people don't go around behaving like cunts to one another, rather where people can exchange ideas and information.

Without further ado I'd like to draw your attention to Dissensus. Mark Fisher came up with the name and has come on board as a joint Administrator with me. In the very loosest sense it's a WOEBOT/k-punk joint production, although I hope that doesn't mean you know EXACTLY where to go when you want to slag either of us off ;-) It's taken me some energy to set up (and a lot more hard cash!) and at the moment it looks a bit like a naff training shoe (though I'll probably streamline it in time). I'm not expecting it will be enormous, indeed I hope if it grows at all (!) it stays small and intense like a tangerine. Absolutely everyone is welcome to go there, and I mean EVERYONE, with the caveat that if people don't treat others with a certain amount of respect they will be unceremoniously struck off the register; the software's ability to trace people's IP addresses will mean they'll be unable to sidle in with another avatar. If there's anything I'm dreading it's this. Hopefully the thing will run peaceably by itself and I wont have to bother playing god, cos it's not about me. Enjoy.

The Inner Sleeve.

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(splutters) What is this crap? Inner sleeves advertising other records. I've met people who actually collect them, record shop owners who ask me if I'm happy for them to keep the original lining. Yeah of course mate. Whatever turns you on. But I suppose they're the mementos of a forgotten time, when the music business wasn't so hopelessly cynical, or perhaps when it was more cynical. Why wouldn't this be possible nowadays? Perhaps now each pop moment is swollen in it's own watertight concept. Companies have worked out that for the magic to really work, for the punter to feel like the band are whispering sweet nothings into their ears alone (Isn't that what The Beatles pioneered, a sense of total intimacy with the group?) then the illusion mustn't be so obviously ruptured. Today's covers are so fucking 'orrible that to tile them up like "thumbs" would be repulsive rather than seductive anyway.

Here's my obvious favourite. A whole sleeve devoted to Andy Williams inside a Mahavishnu Orchestra LP! How did the record company work out that selling William's LPs to heavy fusion heads was a cracking idea. Yet that's one of the things that these inner sleeves illustrate so clearly, how much smaller the market was, how it was arranged in an utterly different manner. UA is one of the best examples: Shirley Bassey on the bumper, and Neu! under the hood.

Nowadays the whole panoply is organised in a much more tribal fashion, so even if Sony do own Underground Resistance, the smaller cells remain autonymous. In the old days the vertical knit was much tighter, a colleague gave the example of Enoch Light (of "Persuasive Percussion" fame). The easy listening pioneer turned his hand to producing underground psychedelia on his Project 3 label. Bands like The Free Design got airy string sections. If there's one reason why underground music is less sexier than it's ever been this might be it. It's been allowed to drift away from the some of imperative, glamourous values of the market which the major labels insist upon.

Look at the Moondog LP nestled in amongst the Simon and Garfunkel and Bob Dylan sleeves on this CBS liner sleeve! Oh and there's the Trees cover and Laura Nyro's "New York Tenderberry." That's quite a sewage flowing out of the gutter. But to foreground another condition of the "scene" take a look at this sleeve by Atlantic:

Wilson Pickett, Roland Kirk, Ornette Coleman, Dusty Springfield and Led Zepellin all sharing the same billboard.

Some wiseguys at CBS clearly thought that the Inner Sleeve was the future in breaking their artists into new markets. These three examples of the "Inner Sleeve" magazine taken from Miles Davis's "Bitches Brew" and a Edgar Varese LP even have an editor in the form of one Paul Merry! It's all so guileless. Nowadays we have music journalism which is insiduous "advertorial" Surprisingly, the blue "Inner Sleeve" throws up quite an interesting column in the form of a piece on "Black Composers Series on Columbia Records." Presumably no magazine would write about it so.....

The major labels had a bit of fun with the form from the mid fifties up until the dawn of the seventies, I guess those Island records sleeves with pictures of Robert Palmer sleeves beside ones by LKJ, John Martyn and the B52s are an anachronism, as are the appallingly tacky Rams Horn electro reissues with their voluminous lists of disco tracks available on the same imprint on the back cover.

It's quite charming to see how elephantine the recording industry was in adapting to the times. All the following records have their idiosyncracies, and this is another area which is highlighted by these Inner Sleeves. The following are amongst the oldest in my collection. The first is from Walt Dickerson and Sun Ra's "A Patch of Blue" LP, the latter the inner sleeve to Julie London's "Julie is her name" and so actually pretty representative of those eras.

But look at this one from the inner sleeve of John Coltrane's "Coltrane"!!! Er hello! The Black and White Minstrel show! The Band of HM Royal Marines "Beating Retreat and Tattoo"! Trane must have dropped like an atom bomb into this environment.

Here's a few more major label efforts. The green Warners one is a complete time capsule.

And the smaller imprints got in on the act too, and funnily enough with greater efficacy. I can quite believe that people purchasing records by Nonesuch, Motown, Elektra, Impulse and Vanguard would be interested in getting hold of other records on those labels, be curious to scope out what else was on offer.

Blah blah blah. Bor-ring. Even worse, deliberately so.

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I quite specifically wanted to round off this auspicious post with a few ruminations about the state of blogs, the state of the network if you like. It's with great sadness that I reflect that that small part of my brain where I'd go looking for the blogging thrill, the part of my cortex which glows in excitement when I ponder the fun I'm going to have writing here, feels like a spent ember. If this particular neck of the woods had a demi-semi-historic moment it lay between the dominance of NYPLM and the ascendancy of the mp3 blogs, pretty much coinciding with the rise of blissblog.

I haven't really remarked on the passing of heronbone, in part because I thought Luke was probably driven away by bloggers praising him to the skies, treating him like a poster boy (even going as far as posting pictures of him!!!!!), that and people biting his style when he's just a punk kid like you and me. I did a fair amount of that myself, praising the dude, but I do believe with a certain amount of tongue in my cheek, and even though I held his writing in as high esteem as anyone else did.

I miss engaging with Luke, likewise I miss engaging with Mark K-Punk who now has such a strong coterie of theorists around him that he doesn't have to muck in and talk music in order to join the party. Sad to report but at the moment I feel like I've had my moment, that at least right now it all seems pretty wearisome. I'm not asking for entreaties to continue (please please no) I'll probably just keep on posting boring shit without much theoretical backbone just for the hell of it. You wonder why bands split up, why scenes crumble, then you find out for yourself.

The show goes on.

Two correspondants (Marcus and Julio) who caught the show this Friday assure me that Logan Sama is still on Friday 7-9pm. Apparently at 100.3 I'm at the right spot on the dial (hits radio EXTREMELY hard) but the station is Rinse FM not Desire. Sighs. Maybe next week then.

Whither?

So what's happened to Logan Sama's show then? It used to be on a Friday on Desire 100.3 FM between 7 and 9 and now it's nowhere to be found. And don't ask Simon Hampson because he doesn't know either. Email me if you know.

Brazil Extra.

Nick Wrigley

Have you seen Veloso's sublime appearance in Almodovar's TALK TO HER? (performing).

No I haven't!

Seb Morlu

you should also get 'Caetano Veloso' (1971), his 'Exile on Notting Hill' LP, with that sublime song 'Maria Bêthania", or Lou Reed meets Joao Gilberto ! And his most beautiful might be 'Joia' (1975). Check also Gilberto Gil's second LP and also third ; Gal Costa's second too, 'Gal' (1969), and also her first (also Cae's First), 'Domingo' (1967).

OK (ticking off records) so I've got 'Caetano Veloso' (1971) and Gilberto Gil's Second, but not the rest. Morlu's promised to sort me out in return for some stuff.

Bernardo

Much appreciated the rundown of brilliant long-players buried in my country's soil! However, I must present a few discs also worthy of inclusion:

TOM ZE
Todos os Olhos and/or Estudando o Samba
Two masterpieces from this tropical surrealist, horns arranged like long division. Also notable is the flawed, but insanely dark, "Correio da Estacao de Bras"

OS MUTANTES
Any of the first three albums from these kitchensink psychedelicists ...also worth noting is A e o Z from MUTANTES. It's a "lost" album that finds the band hammering through songs in full Yes-mode, though it bristles with red-eyed resignation to over-ornate doodlage...

RITA LEE
Hoje e o Primeiro Dia do Resto da Sua Vida / ARNALDO BAPTISTA Loki?
Second and first solo albums, respectively, from 2/3 of OS MUTANTES. Lee is joined by the full band and delivers a deliciously wobbly psych gem while Arnaldo, lonesome on the keys, sounds exhausted as he pounds and tinkles his way through these stark cracked cabaret ballads and lysergic showtunes.

Bernado's blog at National Dust Blogspot

Cheers Bernardo.

Kodwo Eshun

RE Your Araca Azul scan- very lush - vinyl gatefold as I only have the CD- As you know Araca Azul (Blue Guavas) was the last flourish of Tropicalia in its pop meets tape meets concrete meets bossa mode thanks to Rogerio Duprat, the George martinesque producer mastermind behind the Bread and Circuses Manifesto Lp( he's the guy with the big white teapot and the serious glasses on the cover) who reappears here and who had some connection to Smetak)

The white album you refer to by Caetano - Do you mean Joia-which is white, with a small image of Caetano+ his wife,looking more fey than ever. That’s Very good

Surprised you didn't mention Gilberto Gil's 2 60s album s as well-the first I've got with a brilliant cover of Gil in a Edwardian costume has some lovely tracks, one that sounds a lot like Start/Taxman,and lots of concrete jumpcuts and break ins

But the bomb I think, I'm guessing, though is his 2nd album -which I've never heard but has tracks like Cerebro Electrico and 2001- keen to hear that

Also don't underestimate Milton Nascimento- Minas is awesome- better than any Tropicalia record in many ways, not so jumpy and jerky -- more orchestral , lush children's choirs, amazing arrangements, spiritual in the best sense, really, really good a la Jungle Book by Weather Report -do you know that- Tim Gane of the 'Lab 's a Nascimento freak, didcha know that. Everyone says Milton's Club d'Esquino double album is the best - so I'm keen to hear that -now its reissued.

RE Gal Costa : saw her in Sao Paulo 2 years ago doing a bossa set - whole audience singing and clapping, all in tune, in sync, knew every word, a great night. Also Gal Costa's India, I think its called , close up of her wearing red bikini briefs and a grass skirt - is one of the most vividly sexy album cover shots anywhere.. Woah... Megawatt WomanPower style.

Bow scrape. Always an honour sir!

eBay item

Sacha brought this record to my attention, which is a KPM record called "Brazilian Suite" by Rogerio Duprat.

Slipcue Brazilian Records Guide

Oh and you shouldn't miss this!

Black President.

Went to see the "Black President" exhibition with Sacha and Lulu. Sacha is a reformed conceptual artist (reformed meaning precisely nothing in this context), so like me has an informed perspective on Modern Art. Lulu also has distinct ideas about what she likes too. We all thought it was rubbish. It looked like a very bad graduate show, the only thing worth clocking was a Chris Ofili picture and this piece of cover art:

In fact Sacha and I had been expecting the exhibition was going to be nothing BUT sleeve design and 'objets' from The Shrine, rather than an opportunity to assemble a load of African-themed off-cuts. Miss this.

More Lester.

I'd slowly come to dismiss Lester Bangs. I went back to the Greil Marcus compiled anthology "Psychotic Reactions and Carburettor Dung", practically my bible when I first was reading it, and was pretty disappointed by what I thought was it's tone of suspended adolescence. Lester's nihilism came across like that of a stroppy teenager, and the depiction of his musical taste (here Marcus's responsibility in part) was at heart rootsy, situated between the poles of Free Jazz and Garage Punk, neither of which really carry you beyond 1991.

Just the other day I picked up "Mainlines, Blood Feasts and Bad Taste" and I was quite delighted to come across a much broader vision of what kind of character and critic he was. I've only skimmed the volume but already some chapters stick out. Lester takes on Bob Dylan for his uncritical romantisiation of Gangster culture; which reads like a (there's no getting around it) a vindictive blog post, an "assasination" of a fellow artist, the kind of piece of writing you'd NEVER EVER IN A MILLION YEARS find in today's music press. Lester's hilarious Black Sabbath piece which starts out epic and portentous and slowly dissolves when faced with the reality of Ozzy and the crew on the road (Bangs disappointed to discover he's the least clean-cut member of their audience, ha ha).

Best of all (of the stuff I've discovered) is a long description of his press visit to Jamaica, "Innocents in Babylon." This is really quite extraordinary. Lester driving around the island with John Martyn (then doing sessions for "One World") where they meet Countryman shambling up a dirt track. Lester hanging out in the Black Ark studios (Lee Perry goes straight up to him and says "You wine man!"). Lester hearing Ras Michael and the Sons of Negus perform (not) a Grounation in a corrugated iron hut. Lester meets U Roy. Lester foaming at the mouth over the wonders of dub to Chris Blackwell. It's all so utterly improbable and larger than life, Lester's own already oversized self-mythology rubbing up against this purely essential historic moment and it's own godlike figures.

And he acquits himself so magically, feeling half the time like a total imposter, but also (the large-hearted soothsayer he is) completely aware of the webs spun by the Jamaican magi (on Lee Perry: this man is no Rasta, he's a hipster) You won't find a more honest level-headed description of that scene anywhere. It's a salutary reminder too that a writer is first and foremost a human being, and that his writing is only as strong as the validity sentiments he's conveying.