https://castbox.fm/channel/NIRVANA-Podcast-id2115615?country=nl
Was intrigued to come across the Nirvana podcast on my Twitter feed yesterday – wanted to spread the word if anyone wants an in-depth and well put together telling of the Nirvana story.
https://castbox.fm/episode/Nirvana-Podcast-00-Teaser-id2115615-id163561079?country=nl
All credit and a heap of praise for the video above goes to Brett R, he invested $100 plus postage for what he – indeed many Nirvana fans, including myself – hoped would be a serious volume gathering together and curating the art works of Kurt Cobain. The card accompanying the collection states that the intention behind the book is to “celebrate his legacy” which seems strange given the book is the most gross and egregiously exploitative item of Cobain/Nirvana merchandise so far released.
Watching through the six minute clip it’s immediately obvious that the book is not in any way a serious study of Cobain’s art. There’s no attempt to contextualise the material in relation to Cobain’s life or experience, or to share any information about how/when/where any of it was created. There’s an occasion mention of materials and blandly literal ‘titles’ given to each piece. Oh, plus occasionally there’s a wildly unnecessary description, for example, “winged puppet with ghostly figure, small puppet, pixie, cat” – yes, we can see the picture too. It’s part of an apparently determined belief that anyone buying the book must be an idiot therefore they should be spoken to as such.
What the book is very clearly serious about is acting as overpriced sales collateral pitching a similarly overpriced Cobain t-shirt line. The book looks substantial on the outside but for every page of art, there’s a corresponding page showing the same image, just printed onto a t-shirt – a 50% reduction in content, purpose and interest. Better still, to keep the purposeless duplication as high as possible, if a t-shirt has been created in slightly different colouring then that version is printed too. I’m being unfair saying that this is purposeless, it has a purpose…If you’re trying to market t-shirts to the kinds of vapid fashion-victims who, in 1993, would have shelled out on Marc Jacob’s grunge collection for Perry Ellis because buying thrift store clothing was beneath them and they wouldn’t wear something that didn’t have a brag-worthy brand label.
The quantity of dead white space is extraordinary: every single image, regardless of whether it contains any intriguing detail, is blown up to fill a page. The 10-15 words needed to give the title/materials/description is printed in a corner of an otherwise blank page. Each t-shirt, duplicating the artwork seen on another page, takes up an entire page. Velum page inserts exist just to give random whimsical section titles. And because we haven’t had enough white space other pages are simply blank. In an art volume, one might give a sketch or painting room to breathe; space so the details stand out; a paper equivalent of a gallery wall so the image can be contemplated. Nothing here seems to warrant the space – it’s massive padding of a slender quantity of actual material.
Having billed the book as a volume of Cobain’s artwork, an entire section would fail any investigation under false trade description regulation. The book abandons visual art and simply reproduces random word scribbles and exercise book graffiti: ‘Sad And Ugly’ ‘Cold And Wet’ Bliss’ ‘Fun With Clay’ ‘Pen Cap Chew’. The absence of context to the words rob them of any meaning (i.e., the above seems to be one of Cobain’s various attempts to pick potential band names for what became Nirvana): there’s nothing visually intriguing or entertaining at all about them.
Leaving that section to one side, Brett notes significant issues with the other content selected. Various felt tip doodles were apparently drawn as part of psychological evaluation rather than as any attempt at art – clustered together across a two page spread they might have some interest but as standalone pieces they’re just tedious. The most elaborate and fully realised art pieces, meanwhile, have been seen before in other books (Come As You Are, Cobain Unseen, Journals, etc.) or in the Montage Of Heck film. That wouldn’t necessarily mean they couldn’t be reprinted but this particular volume doesn’t position them with other pieces that bring fresh enlightenment, or with information that would flesh out the ‘it is what it is’ air.
It has to be said, Cobain’s collection of mutilated dolls does form a curious segment. Doll faces are discoloured, figures are laid out like corpses, a skeleton has it’s face blanked, baby dolls are scored and marked. It’s irksome that it has to be in a section called ‘Kurt Makes Contact’: the titles regularly tip over from casual into the realm of infantilisation, the kind of cooing one might associate with a baby sensory class rather than with an attempt to position someone as an outsider folk artist.
Overall, this is truly a “wow” moment – I’m stunned it proved possible to put so little effort, homework, attentiveness or simple pride into the making of this book and to care so little who knows it that it’s obvious from start-to-finish. One doesn’t have to be a fanatical fan to take issue with a book that is as exploitative as this – and, of course, the only people even vaguely likely to pay $100 for such a book are going to be fans. No expense has been spared in terms of spitting in the faces of those fans – you’re paying for nice paper, stuff you’ve seen before, two-three copies of the same picture but one or two happen to be on a t-shirt.
There was a paranoid theory at the time of Montage Of Heck (which I personally enjoyed very deeply as film and as record release) that there was a concerted campaign, by people associated with the deceased rock star, to denigrate his work, destroy his reputation, undermine his posthumous status and trample respect for him into the dirt. I filed it away in the mental trash can alongside the (still) preposterous and incoherent murder rants. This book is the first time I’ve seen something come out with the Cobain or Nirvana name on it, that is so bad, that I seriously wondered if it was a prank by Frances Bean Cobain aimed at showing fans how stupid they are to give a hoot about Cobain/Nirvana so long after his death in 1994. I’m still undecided.
What I am decided on is that this book is irredeemably rubbish.
https://www.popmatters.com/spectra-ex-machina-vol1-2639670753.html
Apparently there are two more volumes in the works. I’d love to understand more about how they constructed the compilation, selected the material, decided how to put it all together… Original audio recordings from the thirties and earlier of seances and medium trances – then a second side focused on recordings from hauntings…What’s not to like?
Someone has painstakingly pieced together, from extant audio/video of the ’93-’94 In Utero tour performances, every time Cobain screams while performing Drain You.
It’s a ten minute scream-athon – fantastic! The cuts in sound quality, prominence of the different instruments, the visual shifts, it’s all enthralling. The way the sound might soften or punch differently dependent on where the person recording happened to be located made it impossible to not pay rapt attention throughout.
That led me to watch the Canal+ footage from ’94 too with the Beatles-esque bows to the audience at the end of each song – hilarious. Plus it’s funny watching Cobain, at the end of Drain You, tied to the microphone without the guitar:
Final thing I did this past week was whip out a quick review of an album I’ve been loving these past few months…
https://www.popmatters.com/nodding-god-play-wooden-child-2639519454.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1
One of the (substantially true) cliches about the British is that we’re fixated on the two world wars of the early-to-mid 20th century. Certainly the subject comes up remarkably often and is a surprisingly constant source of reference given there are so few living participants or witnesses remaining (someone who was five years’ old in 1945 is now 78-79, someone who was five years’ old in 1918 is now vying for position as one of Britain’s oldest residents.) In some ways it’s understandable: to be British is to live in a relatively crowded country where most streets follow courses laid down hundreds of years ago, where digging down any depth reveals we’re walking on past settlement, where we’re rarely far from a physical remembrance of decisions hundreds of years old. The British character seems to have drawn something from this shrouding in memory – we mostly live in the property and belongings of past generations. I can’t help but think of that when I listen to Ghost Box, Trunk Records, The Caretaker, Burial – it’s a very British musical form, this eerie invocation of relatively recent cultural heritage: rave, jungle, the BBC – things that once sounded like the future and, of course, faded to become just an accepted and steady present before acquiring a dusty vibe that marked them as the past. Maybe it’s an aspect of life in a wet climate, that crispness and sharp decisive lines become mildewed, warped and mangled.
Anyways, ramble over. I had the pleasure of seeing Bikini Kill over in Brixton on Tuesday evening supported by the deeply cool Big Joannie and The Tuts.
Remarkable seeing how Bikini Kill’s significance as a band that meant something more than music has given them the ability to fill a venue of this size so many years later. My friend was disappointed there was no music from any of the participants’ later bands (Julie Ruin? Le Tigre?), but maybe that’ll come (perhaps accompanied by new music) if the band stays together – there’s surely only so many times Bikini Kill’s nineties catalogue can be reiterated. Musically, it’s very much of it’s time and there’s a fairly stable and relatively unvaried palette at the centre of it all – sounded great on a big stage though.
Kathleen Hanna is such a wicked front person: a whirl of movement, eye-catching body language and captivating anti-rock god posture. She’s also a voice of rationality taking the chance to share her observations on the state of modern politics, then/now comparison, positivity and forward motion. Definitely not a ‘holier than thou’ figure, what I heard was both someone committed to their beliefs but equally committed to be humane and celebrating common humanity too – to not lauding herself over anyone.
My friend was determined to head to the front so we ducked our way through gaps in the crowd until she was ensconced in the first/second row and I held myself a couple of rows back. It was really enlightening hearing her thoughts afterward: “this is the first time I’ve been to a show and felt safe at the front.” It was so notable that the girls were looking after one another even as the mosh-pit surged as heavily as at any other show. I really value being challenged in day-to-day life and I realised immediately that, as a bloke, I’ve never had to think twice before heading to the front. With my eyesight being less than brilliant I’ve always needed to be fairly close to feel that connection to a performance, plus I actually like seeing not just hearing the creation of music. It felt like a flash of the blindingly obvious to be reminded that it isn’t necessarily such a thoughtless decision for a woman to step in close. Great to attend a show where this was called out and people were asked to make an individual choice – some went forward, many stayed back.
It was funny to see that crowd-surfing has become a bit of an embarrassing relic indulged in only by a tiny number of people: I remember losing the appetite for it at a Feeder gig in 2000 or so when someone’s boot cracked down on a friend’s nose and she had to spend the majority of the show in the toilets trying to stem a substantial flow of blood before we took her home because her head was spinning. Part of me wishes the mosh-pit would follow, I’ve never had much interest in slamming other humans – I bounce, pogo, headbang and vibrate to my heart’s content but I just feel sheepish when my energy collides with someone else’s space.
For me, what was interesting was to be placed in a position of awkwardness, where I couldn’t relax or just be thoughtless – this was NOT a bad thing. A lot of the time, faced with discomfort, the most human reaction is to reassert one’s own righteousness and lash out – it’s worth resisting this and taking time to question oneself. Very quickly, just by virtue of following a friend, I felt I was too close to the front. I was never able to really let go during the show because I was trying my best to not let the mosh-pit crush the front rows, trying to keep my balance and not get hurled onto the people around, passing water back between songs, stepping alongside one girl’s male friend so she had a bit of cover while replacing a contact lens…But, in truth, one’s own perception of one’s gig etiquette isn’t really relevant: it’s all eye of the beholder – I could never be sure what I thought was good behaviour was being thought of that way, my friend’s assertion that “you’re not a dick,” really didn’t cover it.
It was a very positive gig, the spirit was wonderful, it was nice to see girls being able to get together and set the course…But beyond gender, beyond any group identity based on a shared ideology or belief, people are still people. Hanna made a point of stating that the left wing needs to stop spending so much time applying purity tests to fellow travelers, to accept diverse of practice and approach, that individuals needed to stop trumpeting their own righteousness over others. Amen! But still, in the audience, there were authoritarian personalities who were more interested in asserting this opportunity for power by policing those around them. A gentleman had accompanied his girlfriend to the front row – legit! He’s entitled to stand with his partner. One girl took issue with this and used “girls to the front!” to barrack him until he bluntly refused to move. Crazily someone thought it was alright to then punch him in the head. Agh…No, nothing as low stakes as a musical performance should ever justify physical violence and ‘girls to the front’, I’m pretty sure it was meant to be a positive encouragement not a statutory regulation or a club to thud over someone’s head. Certain girls in the moshpit were as keen as any bloke could ever be to hurl themselves, or other human beings, into one another – at one point the back of someone’s head connected with my nose and I saw stars for a bit. I spent a lot of the gig trying to brace so the surging bodies wouldn’t hit others on the outskirts of the pit – equality does mean the right for anyone to be as self-centred as anyone else – as I said earlier I’d still like to see mosh-pits vanish into history.
Another incident erupted close by me and, after the gig, my friend commented “he looked like a typical Incel…” which made me wince – judgment by appearance when, in truth, he just looked like a skinny punk kid. Whatever the argument that sparked it, it was notable how quickly a dozen people had lined up against this guy to force him out. I can’t comment particularly, I didn’t see what occurred so I have no opinion, but mobs make me uncomfortable – I don’t believe for a second that all those people had a clue what had happened or were acting on a thoroughly accurate perception. I took the opportunity to head right to the back and watch the rest from there. A small cluster of guys were definitely going for it in the mosh-pit and I’d been very nervous about being lumped in with them already. People often privilege their own perception over a more rational acceptance of uncertainty or a belief that other people aren’t to be lumped into friend/foe categories and dealt with accordingly.
The crucial thing for me is that none of this soured me on the righteousness of Bikini Kill or the assertion of female-friendly gigs! It was a privilege to, for once, be the person who had to question whether I was doing the right thing at a show; and the vast majority of people were a courteous and fun-seeking bunch. Like anything, there’s always that 5% who can’t or won’t be decent – ah well. There are people on the right who would likely claim that the behaviour of a tiny percentage of people says something about the wider cause of liberalism, humanitarianism, feminism – rubbish. Pointing out a few difficult people doesn’t say anything at all about a cause that transcends individuals (just as fiscal rectitude, respect for historical/cultural roots, etc. are not bad things at all and the bad behaviour of a few people on the right does not say anything about the wider intellectual currents.) People have great difficulty remembering that they are simultaneously (a) an individual and (b) part of numerous wider impersonal groupings.
There are some hard lives out there. I’m always appreciative of how lucky I’ve been in life – without ever using it as a complacent reason to say “this is good enough, no further, no more.” There always seems to be a pull in much dialogue about the world to either say things are awful, or things aren’t bad – my view is things don’t have to be awful to believe that we can look to the future and say we can make it better. I dislike hysteria on the one hand, and defeatism on the other. It seems to be a very British trait sometimes to declare everything to be crap (all politicians, all business, all of the left/right wing, all classes, all people…) as a defensive posture in which an individual gives themselves permission to not engage, not get involved, not even try. Ah well!
In the nice things of my current year – are we really a third of the way through it already? – I was invited to write an entry for the exhibition catalogue accompanying Chris Gollon: Beyond The Horizon, an exhibition at Huddersfield Art Gallery running from 5 October 2019 to 11 January 2020. My connection to Gollon’s work arose directly from the Thurston Moore book We Sing A New Language. Gollon was one of the invited artists who took part in the ROOT project of 1998 and, interviewing him, I was enthralled by the way he spoke of his creative process, the way ideas merged and combined within an overall work – stellar stuff. One thing led to another, David Tregunna – Gollon’s friend and manager – was kind enough to invite me to a showing in London where Eleanor McEvoy performed pieces from her album Naked Music which was entwined with artworks from Gollon…And at the end of the evening I headed off having agreed I wanted to buy an artwork and the connection continued. My only regret is I was trying to be so polite and respectful of Gollon’s time that I didn’t go over and say hi – a chance I’ve lost forever more, a true shame.
https://www.iapfineart.com/nick-soulsby-thurston-moore-house-of-sleep/
Friday I depart for Lisbon for a long overdue few days away from work where I’ll sit in sunshine, work on the upcoming book on Lydia Lunch – and attend the premiere of Marco Porsia’s movie SWANS: Where Does A Body End?
I’ve seen several cuts of the movie over the past couple years and it’s been amazing watching the shaping and crafting that goes into it, the multiple dimensions being taken into account, the energy that Marco has had to put into it. The other amazing thing has been to see a film that many times and always be enthralled – there’s just so much great material, the story is compelling, the way it’s been constructed is hard to turn away from. I’m really looking forward to see it on the big screen on Friday evening. A week later I’ll then attend the showing in Brussels. Keep watching, lot more showings to come:
https://www.wheredoesabodyend.com/new-events
I’ve also been invited to attend the Pop Kultur Festival in August in Berlin – my first ever visit to the city and, typically, my friend who lives there is going to be trekking in Bavaria! I’ll be taking part in a panel at the festival then giving a workshop on oral history and music – really looking forward to putting the work in ready for that.
Another odd link back to We Sing A New Language came when Oltrarno Recordings got in touch to ask if I would be willing to take a look at Massimo Farjon Pupillo’s first solo album. The answer was a definite yes. I’ve seen Massimo’s work in ZU – love that band – and he’s been a regular collaborator with numerous groups and individuals inhabiting the ‘out there’ realms of music. Glad I did look at it, two gargantuan twenty minute compositions plus a cover of the always beautiful All The Pretty Little Horses:
https://www.popmatters.com/massimo-farjon-pupillo-review-2635385964.html
I also took time to go back through my front-to-back catalogue of Sunn O))), definitely one of my favourite bands of all time. Life Metal, pleasant, definitely nowhere near as glorious as Monoliths & Dimensions – ‘Alice’ is an immaculate composition.
https://www.popmatters.com/sunn-o-life-metal-review-2635722537.html
Anyways, it’s an honour to get the chance to encounter the people and their works – constant delight.
First things first, where am I going to be on Friday May 3, 2019? Attending the premiere of Marco Porsia’s film “SWANS: Where Does A Body End?” at the Indie Lisboa International Independent Film Festival. And the 6th May? Right back at the same venue for the second screening. How about Friday 10th May? Oh that’s different. I’ll be in Brussels for a weekend break…And watching the third screening of the movie.
Over the past couple of years I’ve had the honour of seeing several rough cuts of the movie at various stages in it’s development and it’s amazing how much has gone into the work – and how powerful I’ve found it each and every time. Breathtaking.
Busy past month beavering away on various endeavours – around which there’s still been time for music. Record Store Day, I visited Specialist Subject Records at The Exchange here in Bristol – it’s on my front door and jeez…This crew make me feel like I’ve only scratched the surface of the current music scenes afoot in the U.K. and around the world. Just a sea of underground and indie vinyl from bands I find myself looking up over and again. I wound up walking out – after a very pleasant chat with the staff – with:
Birds in Row “We Already Lost The World”
https://birdsinrow.bandcamp.com/album/we-already-lost-the-world
Television Personalities “Some Kind of Happening: Singles 1978-1989”
https://recordstoreday.co.uk/releases/rsd-2019/television-personalities/
And, finally: Bossk “Audio Noir”
I had bought the I/II reissue on a previous visit so I was helpless to not wide up with Audio Noir this time around (https://bosskband.bandcamp.com/album/i-ii-reissue-3).
Around that I’ve been taking time to fill in my collection of Burial 12″s and spending time with Leyland Kirby’s latest (final?) utterance as The Caretaker – things of beauty. check out Bliss Signal too!
Reading-wise, I can’t speak highly enough of How To Survive A Plague by David France (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/dec/12/how-to-survive-a-plague-review-david-france-activists-aids-treatment-hiv). By the final chapter, when there’s finally a true chink of light and hope, I found myself tearing up and gulping with relief – totally sucked into this account of people striving to survive, to protect loved ones, to claw their way into the consciousness of a world that wanted to pretend these weren’t real people deserving of care or attention. Amazing.
Well that’s nice. Back in 2015 I put together a brief story based on the ‘I Found My Friends’ oral history I’d put together from the memories of the bands who performed alongside Nirvana 1987-1994.
There’s not much I really have to add about Cobain at a quarter century distance from his death. Amid the clickbait and web-space filler there are plenty of respectful and insightful pieces out there, so much information! In terms of modern figures, Cobain might be one of the most reviewed, video’ed, recorded, written about…What can I say?
https://www.scenepointblank.com/features/regular-columns/guest-column-nick-soulsby-let-sun-come/
Loren and the team at Scene Point Blank were kind enough to let me provide a rambling description of the kinds of thoughts that motivate me when looking at music, musicians, books, life in general – then to point to why I feel SWANS and Michael Gira are so unique in this respect.
Page two offers some cheerful easy-listening tunes to accompany thought time this afternoon. Viva Swans!
https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/new-books-network/e/58779912
This was a bit of an honour and a pleasure. An author called Steve Naish caught me late last year and inquired whether I was open to being interviewed for the New Books Network (it’s also available on iTunes.)
Always a pleasure to have a conversation with someone: as a basic philosophy, I think humans require input in order to process it into meaningful or worthwhile output. That seems simplistic (it is) but what I mean is all the time in the world sitting in a room dreaming and musing doesn’t add up to anything compared to the momentum created by external stimuli and impetus. One would think that writing was a solitary business, something one did alone, but I think it’s swifter and more productive when it involves other people day by day to keep it moving and give something to play with or push against.
Steve’s most recent work is Riffs And Meaning: Manic Street Preachers and Know Your Enemy. It immediately appealed to me personally because, on the first dubbed cassette of Nirvana I ever heard, way back in 1993, the space at the end of Side B had been filled with two Manics songs: ‘Vision Of Dead Desire’ and ‘You Love Us’. Killer tunes. But then I dived so completely into American music that I lost track of them altogether. Worse, MTV played that fecking awful ‘Design For Life’ song over and over for an entire summer of my teenhood and I couldn’t bring myself to touch the band. A few belated attempts to return to The Holy Bible never really picked up pace…
…Which is where I’ve been verrrrrry pleased to find this book and gain a context that made me want to go back and look over Manic Street Preachers. There’s something about reading passionate words and analysis that makes me look again with fresh eyes – gets me every time.
Nirvana Legacy 