"Forest of Tears, Forest of Pain"
by Tosh Berman
http://www.mediafire.com/?l15d3hunc3u5vx0
Sunday, 31 July 2011
Saturday, 30 July 2011
The first "other" book one would think of is "Please Kill Me," but this is different because Hermes pulls the camera back to expose all that was happening in NYC in those years. So here you get a mixture of Salsa, disco, punk, and avant-garde jazz/classical artists. Great snapshot of a particular time and thank (whoever) there are at least recordings that still exist. And yeah, this book as well.
Oh and this is a galley, and the book is coming out sometime in November 2011.
Thursday, 28 July 2011
Sunday, 24 July 2011
Two words, David Bowie. And its two words that i say to myself for the past 40 years or so. I wouldn't say I was obsessive about the man and his work, but for sure a fan. And I don't think he's a genius. I think he is a highly motivated hard worker who had to study his craft to become what he had become. Which, of course, is a great pop star - and an incredible singer. But also a wow gee songwriter. In other words he has the whole package. The theater world, the black american music world, the gay world, and of course the pure showbiz of it all that is one thing that separates Bowie from other rock artists - his love and respect for showbiz. He may grown to hate it, but he will never deny its special power over himself and his audience.
My favorite part of the Bowie story is his young years trying to break into the pop music world. And he tried for at least 12 years before the Ziggy Stardust thing happened. No overnight success story here, but just a lot of hard work and hustling. And speaking of hustling, this bio really shines on the gay British pop music world of the early 60's. Bowie knew who was spreading the butter - and he played up to the expectations of that world.
There are a lot of good books on Bowie and there will be more. But this is an exceptionally good biography on the man, and one still after reading it, wants to know more. And that is why he's a star.
http://www.mediafire.com/?hfh3c16999ln8vp
Saturday, 23 July 2011
Press Release
“To Hell With The Ugly”
(ET ON TUERA TOUS LES AFFREUX)
Boris Vian (Vernon Sullivan)
978-0-9662346-6-4 $15.95
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| Boris Vian, 1949 copyright afp |
Translated from the French and Introduction by Paul Knobloch
Artwork and interior Illustrations by Jessica Mnckley
Book Design by Tom Recchion
Boris Vian was the leading light of the Post-War years in Paris. 'The Prince of Saint-Germain' knew everyone that was culturally important in those rich years. From Miles Davis to Jean-Paul Sartre to Jean Cocteau to Juliette Gréco.
Besides being one of the great French novelists of the 20th Century, Vian was also a translator of hard-boiled Amercian crime novels (Raymond Chandler among others), songwriter, singer, A&R man at a record company, engineer, playwrite, jazz critic, screenwriter and sometimes actor. And the leading light of the Saint Germain-des-Prés social scene. A man who knew everyone that was interesting, and yet always stood apart from any organized movement.
“To Hell With The Ugly” is a novel Vian wrote under the name Vernon Sullivan, who had a very serious scandal history with his first Sullivan novel “I Spit On Your Graves.” “To Hell With The Ugly” according to its translator Paul Knobloch is 'like a pornographic Hardy Boys novel set on the Island of Dr. Moreau to a be-bop soundtrack.'
The narration is a mixture of Young Adult adventure novel, science fiction, Los Angeles Noir, and sex romp. A group of adventursome teenagers get involved in a case where a mad doctor has an island of nothing but beautiful looking people. Clones whose purpose is to have sex with good looking people to bring more good looking people on this earth. Utopian dream or nightmare? This novel written in 1948 brings up issues that are proment in today's world. Like an early J.G. Ballard, Vian held the pulse of a culture that was about to embrace the future with teptation, fear and wonder.
Here are the critical blurbs:
“Boris Vian was a rascal, a chameleon, and a visionary. In his crime novles –channeling the elusive Vernon Sullivan—he displays America as a Left Bank fever dream, a place where Dashiell Hammett is president of the Academie and Sartre splits philosophical hairs with Frankie Yale. Go there, and you might not return.”
- Luc Sante
“Imagine being aught in a dream in which you're still you – with all your complex cmotions, thoughts, and tastes- but the only way you can express them is through the language of a noir novel. Also, your ability to direct your own actions has been removed so the noir begins to tell your story for you, almost against your will. The end result? You are simultaneously a hero and a victim of a genre you never intended to inhabit. Such is the amazing effect of Vian's “To Hell With The Ugly, a novel about – among other things – perfection.”
- Jim Krusoe
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| cover by Tom Recchion |
Saturday, 16 July 2011
Monday, 11 July 2011
This is the extended 12 mintute re-mix of my "Do The Marinetti." What I had in mind was a soundtrack to a sexual orgy - or the start of one. A lot of my ideas are cinematic or has a loose narrative. But then again as a listener, you can add your own aesthetic or thoughts with the song.
Download the song for free here:
http://www.divshare.com/download/15287237-9d6
Sunday, 10 July 2011
http://www.divshare.com/download/15280190-17f
Here's the link: http://www.divshare.com/download/15280190-17f
Saturday, 9 July 2011
I want to share some of my music with you. This is my first 45 single:
http://www.divshare.com/download/15270418-2ae
http://www.divshare.com/download/15270418-2ae
Friday, 8 July 2011
Wednesday, 6 July 2011
And now we have their "The Record Players" and it too is fascinating, but it is a weaker book due that we don't have the dynamic narrative to go with it. Yet, who gives a shit. This is an essential group of interviews with important and very top DJ's. Everything from late 50's British DJ's to Techno and beyond. What is conveyed in this book is the love of the recording and its music. A lot of the key people are interviewed such as John Peel, Tom Moulton, Jimmy Savile (yes even him!), Frankie Knuckles, Afrika Bambaaataa, Francois Kevorkian, and so on. So yeah get "Last Night A DJ Saved My Life" first, but then go to this one. One can smell the DJ Booth off the page.
Sunday, 3 July 2011
Friday, 1 July 2011
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