Iggy interview (1 Viewer)

Iggy's a perfect example of one of these guys/bands that RUSHES through the classics (i.e. GOOD stuff), and brings you down with the HORRIBLE new songs. David Bowie and The Stones are really guilty of this as well... I guess it's TOUGH to admit/realize you've lost it, it's gone. Iggy really aged well, huh!?
:)
 
I suppose if you live long enough to see your music come around as nostalgia or PoMo hipster insti-cred currency, you have to do what you can to capitalize on that.

Used to be that times changed, and music changed, but the time that has to pass for something to be seen as nostalgic is constantly shrinking, so much so that people are "nostalgic" for the 90's already. So it's all become one blurry blob of sound and blinking lights and youtube and there is nothing for a kid now to jam a stick into and say, "this is my time, motherfuckers!" When you've got everything at your fingertips, you've really got nothing, because there is no perspective.

Iggy or the Rolling Stones or any other pre-internet band or musician had a time, and they were relevant or exciting in that time, then they either tried to change to remain relevant, had the decency to just go away, or reinvented themselves as actors or writers or politicians or pedophiles. Now a kid says, "Yeah, I went to the Stooges concert the other night," and all I can say is, "What?"

In ten years some kid will probably tell you that he went to the holo-plex the night before and saw Bukowski read. And at the end, as a special surprise feature, Harold Norse came out and the two of them finally had the steamy man love everyone whispered questions about 50 years before. Then Groucho Marx walked out to pull the curtain closed, said, "Goodnight folks!" and everyone shuffled off to their hovercars.

Time has turned in on itself like all the science fiction writers warned us it would! Now what?





And what the hell does what I just typed even mean? I don't know.
 
very glib, mjp - I don't know what you said either but I agree...I think (that's the scarier part)

I have the same sense of when you've got everything...you've got nothing. My kids (college age now) have had it all at their fingertips through the internet and technology...what are they doing listening to Jimi Hendrix, using Jim Morrison on the MySpace page? Nothing wrong with Hendrix and Morrison (just wondering where their contemporary 'heroes' are?)

My parents were listening to the Andrew Sisters and sing along with Mitch... Lawerence Welk was cutting edge...what a horror that would have been, I couldn't get away from that stuff quick enough in the 60's and 70's :)

I'm not complaining...just observing...now what, is right!!

BD
 
Aging is Interesting isn't it.
I recently was security at my step daughters hip hop concert. (which was a joke) how imposing can a 40's something long hair weighing 150 pounds be to a 17 year old kid with attitude a baseball cap baggy jeans and 10 Canadian beers in him.

And heres the kicker whenever they wanted my attention they would yell hey Zeppellin.
It was then that I realized I was no longer one of us but one of them-the old the not 16-25 and heres the most interesting part I didn't want to be if that was the music that would provide direction influence or inspiration.
Personally I like Keef's attitude. Don't get pissed at me cause I'm not retiring or dying or living off past glories I'm a musician it's what I do. Old blues guys toured all their lives so why can't rock and rollers too.
I know too many acts become charactures of themselves but I dont think I would put Iggy the Stones and even Bob Dylan in that catagory but I would place Donovan the Beach Boys and the Sex Pistols Van Halen in the characture catagory.
By being old (or at least older than others) we are nostalgia. Yeah a lot of kids listen to the classic rock but there are also many beneth the belly of the underdog waiting looking creating something their own-unique you know like Donovan the Beach Boys and the Sex Pistols Van Halen did when they came out. The irony is they too will have a choice once the 15 minutes has passed.
 
Yeah a lot of kids listen to the classic rock but there are also many beneth the belly of the underdog waiting looking creating something their own-unique you know like Donovan the Beach Boys and the Sex Pistols Van Halen did when they came out.
If they are out there, I don't see them. But then maybe I'm not supposed to see them. I'm not their target audience.

I would have to disagree that the Sex Pistols or Van Halen were unique or blazed any trails. They were both noteworthy and had recognizable sounds, but operated well within established forms of rawk. You really have to go back to the era of the Beatles and the time when popular musicians took a whole lot of drugs to find anyone attempting to expand the idea of what rock music could be. Otherwise, everything we consider rock and roll can be traced back to guys like Little Richard and Bo Diddley. The form really has not changed since then, just the package.

I'm not sure there is anything new to be created. Even the most recent "new" kinds of music, punk and hip hop, were not new. Punk was just rock from a different angle and with a different attitude, and hip hop is a natural and unbroken evolution of Jamaican "toasting," which goes back to the 1960's, made by people who were influenced by American R&B they heard on the radio.

Which takes us back to Little Richard. He may be the Patient Zero of modern pop music. ;)

I really think the internet will turn out to be the dividing line in the history of popular music. It has obliterated the regional aspect of the development of trends and sounds. Frankfurt and Des Moines are on the same page now. What will become of that remains to be seen. Maybe it will be amazing, but right now it's just a massive homogenization. It's up to the next pioneer to make something of it. Maybe s/he hasn't been born yet.
 
very little innovation has been done in modern popular music since Kraftwerk. not rock and roll, but the rock world wasn't long in incorporating the electronic sounds into their music.
now and again you'll hear something when it first comes out that sounds different, but you can trace its' roots easily (I'm thinkg of people like Beck, post "OK Computer" Radiohead, Godspeed You Black Emperor!, and Explosions in the Sky and many many others). people like these are the ones that keep me buying new music. I don't think I'm going to find anything new, but I'm always looking to see how young people can put together new combinations.
on the flip side, a lot of the things that I consider crap that clog the airwaves now are what made me look to jazz and improvised music for new sounds.
I swear that TIME has not caught up with the sounds of Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Albert Ayler, Lennie Tristano or Anthony Braxton.
and Miles Davis was never stagnant, even at the expense of burning bridges to the past. and sometimes failing,with half of the jazz world tearing their hair out at the sight of Miles in gold lame parachute pants doing Cyndi Lauper covers.
oh, and on that note, the hell with Wynton Marsalis. I mean, I love Louis Armstrong, but that doesn't mean I want to hear note by note reproductions by young trumpeters today.
ah well.
 
As far as musicians aging, they have the right to keep on doing their thing. It would just help if people looked at them in a more realistic light. The Stones cannot be the evil band coming to your town like they were in the sixties. And Iggy, though way past his writing prime, still puts on a great show. I have the dvd on his reformed Stooges playing in Detroit and it's great, and I'm sure the show next month I'll see will be worth it, too.

Besides musicians, if you look at styles of music, they are only really strong for about 5 years, i.e. the classic hippie rock 67-72, classic punk 77-82, classic rock'nroll 56-61, classic grunge 91-96. You can see this in jazz styles as well, it doesn't mean something good can't be produced after in a style but that it's rare and the great stuff will always be early in the form.

I think what will happen in music with all the access and internet to all eras of music, which has already happened to an extent, is there won't be prevailing styles or they will be much more focused on previous eras because "time" will be irrevelant to new music listeners.
 
As far as musicians aging, they have the right to keep on doing their thing. It would just help if people looked at them in a more realistic light. The Stones cannot be the evil band coming to your town like they were in the sixties. And Iggy, though way past his writing prime, still puts on a great show.
Sure. But we live in a new time now where it is a great show for some and nostalgia for others. A Stooges or Led Zeppelin concert now would only be nostalgia for me, and for that reason I'm not interested. It doesn't mean they are irrelevant or can't be entertaining to a new generation. The main difference now is that past generations tended to reject the music of their parents era and set out to make new sounds all their own. I don't see that happening anymore. Especially in rock, which has devolved into little more than an unapologetic paint-by-numbers formula for extracting money from kids pockets.

But then I don't think it's possible for a 15 year old hearing someone like Jimi Hendrix for the first time today to have the same visceral experience that a 15 year old hearing Hendrix in the 60's might have had. So much has come down the line since then that Hendrix (or Iggy or the Ramones or Bob Dylan) doesn't sound revolutionary now. Context is everything. How do you give today's 15 year old that "Oh shit! What the hell it THIS?!" experience that my friends and I had when we dropped the needle on that first Ramones album back in '76?

Seems difficult to come up with anything at this stage of the game that will turn on the kids and repulse the adults equally, and that, of course, is the litmus test for great rock. ;)
 
I'm not supposed to see them. I'm not their target audience.

Perhaps we need terms of reference
to know we're using words the same way.
I think we do see new attempts. Obviously what the Ramones did wasn't new musically but the approach the style certainly was-at least to me.
Let's use Buk as an example.
His approach to poetry wasn't unique but the subject matter and perspective placed on the subject was if not new, new to a wider audience who were use to that which was not Buk.

I would have to disagree that the Sex Pistols or Van Halen were unique or blazed any trails. They were both noteworthy and had recognizable sounds, but operated well within established forms of rawk.

True-but heres where definitions become important, Eddie's guitar
playing was new while the songs themselves were not.
We or at least I herd an approach never revealed to me before

The Sex Pistol swagger and Johnny's anger was new to the public watching his interviews. Even the song titles were meant to offend. I know the whole SP thing was a MM marketing farce, but what a farce-again I've slipped from discussing music to the culture of music.




You really have to go back to the era of the Beatles and the time when popular musicians took a whole lot of drugs to find anyone attempting to expand the idea of what rock music could be. Otherwise, everything we consider rock and roll can be traced back to guys like Little Richard and Bo Diddley. The form really has not changed since then,

just the package._and heres the rub-the package is now more important to those intent on presenting any music to an audience beyond those who went to the bar to hear a particular act on a snow filled Wednesday

I'm not sure there is anything new to be created. Even the most recent "new" kinds of music, punk and hip hop, were not new. Punk was just rock from a different angle and with a different attitude, and hip hop is a natural and unbroken evolution of Jamaican "toasting," which goes back to the 1960's, made by people who were influenced by American R&B they heard on the radio.

Maybe the phrase new music is the stumbling block. Maybe recent music
doesn't give me the listener a new aha feeling like I experienced (like the ramones first listen). Perhaps the trouble with being a connoisseur of wine music art literature is that "new feelings become more difficult to have.

Which takes us back to Little Richard. He may be the Patient Zero of modern pop music. ;) And the DJ's who went to jail lost careers playing that stuff-just like Ferlinghetti

I think you have to add Woody Guthrie's influence over Bob Dylan to the above too. Bob (in the beginning) sang songs of social and political import and they made the radio which allowed a whole new number of people to hear think and feel new awkward and maybe revelatory feelings even though the foundation was a 3 chord ballad that had been around for decades.




I really think the internet will turn out to be the dividing line in the history of popular music. It has obliterated the regional aspect of the development of trends and sounds. Frankfurt and Des Moines are on the same page now. What will become of that remains to be seen. Maybe it will be amazing, but right now it's just a massive homogenization. It's up to the next pioneer to make something of it. Maybe s/he hasn't been born yet.[/QUOTE]
Yes! I think you've hit the vehicle.
Just like maverick DJ's in the 50's inspired managers in the 60's cut throat execs in the 70-90's the internet host uses their medium to promote their passion.
Perhaps the success of the artic Monkeys is a good glimpse into the future as is American Idol.
The Monkeys became known through downloads before a contract. The internet medium was used in a way I think we would applaud-kids chose because they liked it not because it was marketed to them
(unless of course AM
has a MCClaren type Svengali in the background-either way I'm sure they do now)
And of course at the other end is American Idol where kids are given slick stars by media savvy agents who's only motivation is cash.


Perhaps this site MJP and similar sites is the New experience. Where the concert the appreciation is not in front of the artist but because of the artist.

It is a vehicle to promote and in some ways interact "in concert" with not only he that inspired but also with like minded fans.
I'm sorry to have totally digressed but I think it's relevant before we discuss new music
Sort of reminds me of Bill Clinton phrase that depends on what your defintition of is is..
 
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Sure.
[...]

I think experiencing music for nostalgia reasons is pretty bogus but sometimes old bands can still kick ass and believe me the Stooges can. As an old Boston boy I saw Mission of Burma back in the day and now they still put on a great show. I see new local bands, also, it's all good to me.

The problem with rock music or any art form ,it seems, is once it gets accepted all the life is sucked out of it. If you look at jazz for the longest time is was not accepted and once it did it was all downhill from there. In the art world or in writing it's similiar, maybe what's kept Bukowski vital is that non-acceptance. In rock and jazz their are still interesting things going on kind of below the radar. I'm not a fan of rap or techno but I believe they're more vital now and again, critically they're not accepted.

I was 21 when the first Ramones album came out and I have never had such a strange musical experience as hearing that for the first time. I'm sure younger people can't fathom that. I do run into young people who've decided to focus on a particular music era, myabe they like Led Zepplin or 80's Power Pop and I think that's kind of neat that people have more of a choice instead of aligning with whatever the current trend is. But unfortunately don't expect new things in Rock.
 
I was 21 when the first Ramones album came out and I have never had such a strange musical experience as hearing that for the first time. I'm sure younger people can't fathom that.
I think that's the big (and interesting) point here.

Pop music used to exist in the context of it's time. Back in the day the average person didn't have access to records that weren't current. Trying to find a Stooges or New York Dolls album only five or six years after they were released was next to impossible. You had to go to a specialty shop or go blind reading 50 page lists of tiny type from mail order sellers (and then pay a premium if they did have what you wanted).

Now practically every song ever recorded is a few clicks away from any kid with average larcenous internet skills, so it's different world for them. The shock of the new is much more rare, and may well eventually disappear.







Oh yeah, and steam engines and buggy whips were great! What every happened to them?!
 
What freaks me out is that young people have more experience with bands of my era than I do myself. Unless you were willing to spend money on unheard music or were lucky enough to catch a band on college radio, very important bands slipped through your fingers. I was on the east coast so bands from the west coast was hit and miss. Now I'm seeing bands that I read so much about, like the Screamers, but never heard or saw.

Every band now has a website, my space, a cd. In 1980 very few bands even had singles. But with all the advantages you do have the drawback of bands and scenes not developing on their own because they really don't know what's going on elsewhere. I believe progress and knowledge is the right way to go but with that you loose innocense and surprise.
 
Welcome to the Society of the Spectacle!

The Spectacle is not a philosophical concept - it is a practical reality.

And we are it's slaves: that it - it's Consumers....and there is no escape...

The past, the present and the future - have been submerged into a common stream - and that stream is: the society of the spectacle.

Everything that was once lived = is now merely represented.

We live inside a bubble - tha bubble: is the society of the spectacle, which is the same everywhere and at all times: it is a totality - It must exist everywhere and at all times, or not at all.

In the society of the spectacle = forms of rebellion are repackaged and sold back to us as consumer products - as a conforming non-conformity.

In the Society of the Spectacle - a moment of truth is a moment of falsehood.

In the Society of the Spectacle - Every City is the same City.

Welcome to the Spectacle is requires nothing more than your own submission - and even your refusal to submit: is nothing more than the seduction of refusal.

The Society of the Spectacle IS concrete reality and cannot be escaped unless you are willing to die of starvation.
 
It was indeed - Guy Debord from The Situationist movement in France.

It's not exactly intentional Quotation as much as it was a hodge podge mash-up I vomitted onto the screen. I have a copy of 'The Society of The Spectacle' despite it's wild ideas and oxymoronic dogma - it remains a fasincating - destruction of Modern Living Conditions.

MEATY!!
 
I have that too, and I agree. I knew you weren't direct quoting but you did a very good job of expressing his ideas.

As far as the Arts are involved I think it's good that people can jump around a bit from eras. But that idea of repackaging rebellion is quite evident in the current punk scene and the homogenization of cities, at least in America that I know of, is a shame.
 
In defence of Iggy, all he has is three options. Retire, die or keep playing. Whether or not his past output from the Stooges or even his early solo efforts compare to his more recent releases is irrelevant. You have to give him credit alone for his durability.

As for the Debord quoting. Situationism is part of 'punk' marketing. From McClaren and Rhodes in the late 70's to Refused in the late 90's. It is redundant philosophy turned into consumer rhetoric.
 
The Situationist movement, started in late 50's, has very little to do with Punk Marketing at all but I know it is often associated with it.

It is not a redundant critique of modern society....it is highly relevant piece of writing...as a deconsturction of modern living conditions, as well as, an imaginative theory that views the progress of society as a kind of 'Leviathan' always outside of control.

It is not a philosophy - it is a critique of practical reality: it is perhaps one of the most devastating pieces of rhetoric against consumer society. It is also HIGHLY dogmatic and provides no solutions.

Sure, in many senses, The Situationist Ideas have become part of the anti-globalist, global resistance movement, ecological movement, and forms of social rebellion, crime and generally youthful discontent. This is partly because the situationist movement died on it's feet...but it's ideas remian pertinent...particularly in anarchist, communitarian and antidisestablishment groups.

Iggy Pop - haha! Now, HE is more readily a piece of punk marketing than The Situationists ever will (How many Punks even know of The Situationist), of pop marketing....Iggy is more Punk Packaging than a group of French tweed wearing cigarette smoking intellectuals....The Society of The Spectacle is the book Jonny Rotten, Sid Vicious, should have read...if they could read...

:D:D Viva le Revolution in your own bedroom!
 
I'm not that up and the whole philosophy of the Situationists but I have read that Malcolm McClaren, the Sex Pistols manager, admits to be being very influenced by them. The lettering on their album was taken from a style the Situationists used.
 
Interesting article on that very issue slimedog: http://www.furious.com/Perfect/situationism.html

I know there is a connection between the suppoedly Revolutionary Ideas of Guy debord and the antidisestbalishment ethos of punks and rock.

But, Guy debord, who killed himself - was looking for Art and Life - to come together in one big FESTIVAL STYLE REALITY. (dreamer)

When asked what the situationists where about:

Audience member: "Can you explain what situationism is all about?'

He replied:

Guy Debord: "We're not here to answer cuntish questions'

Which is odd. If you read 'The Society of The Spectacle' it's written in this highly abstract, highly complex, theoretical language.

The Situationists may well be the first breed of punks...but if they seen Sex Pistols and The Ramones...I'm not sure what they would think...nor do I care...I know Guy Debord was always going on about - 'Forms of rebellion being commodified (i.e. as punk) and sold as commodities (i.e. saying fuck you to the police, getting a punk hair style). Art becoming a commodity...

I'm confident he would see Punk and all Arts if Rebellion as quickly becoming subsumed under the mighty dynamics of The Society of The Spectacle....there is no escape...rebellion soon becomes a laughable hari cut...or a drunk fool kicking over bins...that's probably why he killed himself...silly man...!

O yes...and Iggy Pop! 'Satellite of Love' - gotta love it!
 
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Thanks a lot olaf,for setting me on the trail of the "situationists", i always liked DADAism and this seems to be a similar concept.

.. appreciate your input.
 

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