Showing posts with label Sparks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sparks. Show all posts
Wednesday, 7 August 2013
Friday, 19 July 2013
Once there is an illustration of one's self, I feel I made the big time. Illustration by Amy Hagemeier http://akhhka.blogspot.com/ for L.A. Record, which by the way has a fantastic interview with yours truly regarding "Sparks-Tastic" and other subject matters.
Thursday, 4 July 2013
Los Angeles Review of Books did a focus on "In The Words Of Sparks... Selected Lyrics" With three lyrics plus a short introduction by yours truly for this specific great website.
read it here: http://lareviewofbooks.org/
Friday, 28 June 2013
 |
| Painting by Lun*na Menoh |
Thank you Colin and the Los Angeles Review of Books:
http://lareviewofbooks.org/
Wednesday, 29 May 2013
A review from City Lights from Garrett Caples:
When I last wrote I was previewing Tosh Berman’s upcoming appearance at City Lights in support of his brand-new memoir, Sparks-Tastic: Twenty-One Nights with Sparks in London (A Barnacle Book, 2013). Given the exigencies of scheduling—copies wouldn’t arrive from the printer until the night of the reading—I didn’t have the chance to read the book beforehand, so I took the opportunity to quiz Tosh on its contents based on my own recently acquired knowledge of the band, combined with the experience of having caught the opening night of the US leg of their Two Hands, One Mouth tour only a week or so earlier. Anyway, Tosh gave his reading and killed it, and I longed to read the entire thing by the end. And I did and holy shit, is this a great book! Berman has done an enviable thing. In the casual guise of a pop cultural meditation—a memoir about attending Sparks’ recreation of their entire catalog, album by album, including bonus tracks as encores, over the course of 21 nights in London in 2008, culminating in the debut of their new album, Exotic Creatures of the Deep—he has written one of those great French memoirs of desire like Breton’s Nadja (1928), and the fact that the object of desire in this case is a pop group in no way diminishes or trivializes Sparks-Tastic as an example of such writing. Certainly I can relate to the intense adolescent identification with one’s favorite music, and the fact that Sparks continually evolves made the group something that carried over into Berman’s adulthood. Because they all live in L.A., Tosh eventually meets both Ron and Russell Mael of Sparks separately, by chance, and becomes their friend. Thus Sparks’ decision to spend the better part of a month in London playing their entire corpus triggers something like a mid-life crisis in Berman; he can’t afford to, but he must go, and he vows to write a book about the experience to give this irrational decision just the slightest sheen of rationality. But too this adds the burden of expectation in order to court the fear of failure, and in this he confronts the essential creative/psychological demon of his existence: being the son of a famous artist, Wallace Berman. Tosh negotiates all this with a light touch, and there’s a passage concerning his failed attempt to learn the hairdressing trade at his worried father’s insistence that’s both poignant and hysterical, and has little overt relation to Sparks; yet Sparks provide a constant parallel across the length of his life, even as other choice bands (The Doors, Them, The NY Dolls) make fleeting cameos.
Only Sparks could have provoked the crisis in him that results in this book.
In honor of Berman’s achievement, I conducted a second interview, where I probe some of his biases about the Sparks oeuvre as revealed by Sparks-Tastic and air some of my own ongoing obsessions with the group.
And you can read the rest of the interview here:
http://www.blogcitylights.com/2013/05/29/blog-that-sucker-more-on-tosh-berman-and-sparks-tastic-by-garrett-caples/
When I last wrote I was previewing Tosh Berman’s upcoming appearance at City Lights in support of his brand-new memoir, Sparks-Tastic: Twenty-One Nights with Sparks in London (A Barnacle Book, 2013). Given the exigencies of scheduling—copies wouldn’t arrive from the printer until the night of the reading—I didn’t have the chance to read the book beforehand, so I took the opportunity to quiz Tosh on its contents based on my own recently acquired knowledge of the band, combined with the experience of having caught the opening night of the US leg of their Two Hands, One Mouth tour only a week or so earlier. Anyway, Tosh gave his reading and killed it, and I longed to read the entire thing by the end. And I did and holy shit, is this a great book! Berman has done an enviable thing. In the casual guise of a pop cultural meditation—a memoir about attending Sparks’ recreation of their entire catalog, album by album, including bonus tracks as encores, over the course of 21 nights in London in 2008, culminating in the debut of their new album, Exotic Creatures of the Deep—he has written one of those great French memoirs of desire like Breton’s Nadja (1928), and the fact that the object of desire in this case is a pop group in no way diminishes or trivializes Sparks-Tastic as an example of such writing. Certainly I can relate to the intense adolescent identification with one’s favorite music, and the fact that Sparks continually evolves made the group something that carried over into Berman’s adulthood. Because they all live in L.A., Tosh eventually meets both Ron and Russell Mael of Sparks separately, by chance, and becomes their friend. Thus Sparks’ decision to spend the better part of a month in London playing their entire corpus triggers something like a mid-life crisis in Berman; he can’t afford to, but he must go, and he vows to write a book about the experience to give this irrational decision just the slightest sheen of rationality. But too this adds the burden of expectation in order to court the fear of failure, and in this he confronts the essential creative/psychological demon of his existence: being the son of a famous artist, Wallace Berman. Tosh negotiates all this with a light touch, and there’s a passage concerning his failed attempt to learn the hairdressing trade at his worried father’s insistence that’s both poignant and hysterical, and has little overt relation to Sparks; yet Sparks provide a constant parallel across the length of his life, even as other choice bands (The Doors, Them, The NY Dolls) make fleeting cameos.
Only Sparks could have provoked the crisis in him that results in this book.
In honor of Berman’s achievement, I conducted a second interview, where I probe some of his biases about the Sparks oeuvre as revealed by Sparks-Tastic and air some of my own ongoing obsessions with the group.
And you can read the rest of the interview here:
http://www.blogcitylights.com/2013/05/29/blog-that-sucker-more-on-tosh-berman-and-sparks-tastic-by-garrett-caples/
Sunday, 5 May 2013
Saturday, 4 May 2013
For those who want to read an excerpt of my book "Sparks-Tastic" and interview do go here:
http://denniscooper-theweaklings.blogspot.com/2013/05/spotlight-on-tosh-berman-sparks-tastic.html?zx=3b5bc82080685e2c
http://denniscooper-theweaklings.blogspot.com/2013/05/spotlight-on-tosh-berman-sparks-tastic.html?zx=3b5bc82080685e2c
Wednesday, 1 May 2013
ISBN: 9780983925583
$14.00
Published by A Barnacle Book (Distribution by Publishers Group West)
Publication Date: May 14, 2013
In 2008, Tosh Berman--author and publisher of TamTam Books--got on a plane with a single motive: "Sparks Spectacular." It had been announced that the band Sparks would perform all twenty-one of their albums in a succession of twenty-one nights in London...a monumental experience for any Sparks fanatic. Part travel journal, part personal memoir, Berman takes us through the streets of London and Paris, observing both cities' history and culture through the eye of an obsessive Sparks fan's lens. Including album-by-album reviews of all twenty-one albums and beyond, "Sparks-Tastic" defines a place and time in music history that's too defining to be ignored.
And at the moment, Book Soup, Stories, Powell's Books, and City Lights have signed copies in their stock. Do contact them (easily findable on the Internet) and they will mail it out to you.
Sunday, 28 April 2013
Ladies and Gentlemen (and anyone else) of Los Angeles, I will be doing a reading/signing/chit-chat for my book "Sparks-Tastic" at Book Soup on Monday April 29th at 7:00 PM. For those who can't make it to the reading or from some other part of the world, one can contact the store at 310-659-3110 to pre-order a book. Do enjoy.
Thursday, 18 April 2013
ISBN: 9780983925583
$14.00
Published by A Barnacle Book (Distribution by Publishers Group West)
Publication Date: May 14, 2013
In 2008, Tosh Berman--author and publisher of TamTam Books--got on a plane with a single motive: "Sparks Spectacular." It had been announced that the band Sparks would perform all twenty-one of their albums in a succession of twenty-one nights in London...a monumental experience for any Sparks fanatic. Part travel journal, part personal memoir, Berman takes us through the streets of London and Paris, observing both cities' history and culture through the eye of an obsessive Sparks fan's lens. Including album-by-album reviews of all twenty-one albums and beyond, "Sparks-Tastic" defines a place and time in music history that's too defining to be ignored.
2013 Book Tour:
April 21: Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. Rare Bird Booth No. 065. Signing books from 12:30 to 1:00 P.M.
April 23: Stories Books in Los Angeles (Echo Park)
April 24: City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco
April 25: Powell's Bookstore in Portland, OR
April 29: Book Soup in West Hollywood (Los Angeles)
More to come.....
Right now due to the reading tour that will soon take place, the book "Sparks-Tastic" is available at the above independent bookstores. Feel free to contact them if you want to pre-order a signed copy of the book by yours truly.
On May 14, "Sparks-Tastic" will be officially released and one can get it on their favorite online shops as well as Independent bookstores through out the U.S.A and the U.K. Also I imagine various music stores will be carrying this title as well. And remember, if you can shop at your favorite neighborhood bookstore or music shop please do so.
- Tosh Berman
Wednesday, 17 April 2013
Tuesday, 16 April 2013
Sunday, 14 April 2013
Friday, 12 April 2013
Tuesday, 9 April 2013
Sparks keep on re-inventing themselves by looking back and then going forward. Here they look at their classic material with new eyes and ears. At the moment they're in the middle of their “Two Hands One Mouth” tour, which also comes with a live album, recorded in Europe. Its a remarkable document/sound on many levels. For one, Sparks never take the easy route. It seems like whenever they do something they go for the hard road – and I am not sure if its a hardcore work ethic or a way for them to honor the process of discovery and seeing if they can pull it off.
Artists tries to bring something new to the table. And for the 21st Century Sparks have been focusing on a theatrical presentation of their music. Either by theater-set performances to actually doing an old-fashioned musical. Here on “Two Hands One Mouth” Sparks become an unusual version of a classic cabaret act. Maybe the bigger picture is them playing at a cave in Saint-Germain des Prés in the 40's or in the middle of Manhattan at a piano bar in the classic mid-century 1950's. But their music is more suited for Carnegie Hall (and with practice they will...) because the work itself is a superb collection of classic American songwriting. I easily put their songs up to the standards of Cole Porter, Gershwin, Stephen Sondheim, and Rogers & Hart.
A live album can work as a souvenir to a show or a memory of an event. Sparks I feel sees this as 'new' work. And it is. “The Number One Song in Heaven” is totally re-worked, but the melody is intact. More hypnotic than the original recording, and also has a strong minimal bent to the arrangement. Its a fresh take on this classic song and it is also my favorite recorded version. Taking the whole album in, one is struck by the sound -which is full bodied. They're playing live (of course) but with no over-dubbing or computer magic on the stage. So in a way its a challenge to work with the limitations. Ron and Russell didn't want to see this as a songwriting showcase or an unplugged performance. The interest is using the limitations and making it into a new listening experience. As well as re-visiting the classic Sparks songbook, for not the sake of giving it a fresh airing, but how far one can take the material and set it in a new landscape.
“Two Hands, One Mouth” should not be seen as a 'live' album of hits. The album is not about a single performance, but how the new arrangements plays with the medium of doing the songs live. To re-think, re-model, and re-do is part of the process, and the finished album is the experiment at work. I call it an experiment because I think their songs can be re-thought on many levels. I am reminded of hearing various Thelonous Monk live albums, where one can hear the process of Monk's thoughts as he plays one of his familiar tunes. And that's the beauty of a performance, where the artist uses his material as a springboard to another level. Sparks' approach is more conceptual, in that they want to tear into their music and re-make it as a new piece of sorts. And the process is important, the fact that they perform these songs live without a band, and having the keyboards doing the keys, and the voice doing the voice – with no additional trickery, except using the skills of a sound-man.
Their “21 Albums in 21 Days” spectacular in London was to me the same thing as Marcel Duchamp taking his life's work and shrinking it to fit in a suitcase. Those series of shows was about capturing not a moment, but to preserve their catalog and if they can possibly do it live with respect to the original recordings. And they succeeded in doing that. For “Two Hands One Mouth” its a work that is not about capturing their songs, but to open them up to see what they are made of, and how the story can be told in a new setting or light. And what they have done with this new album is not only celebrate their songwriting skills, but also to take another journey to see how the works would react to a format that is very structural, yet at the same time it allows the songs to open up in their own fashion.
So yeah, a great album. And I can't wait till I see the show.
Sparks on tour starting tonight in San Francisco.
The remarkable and always wonderful Sparks will be doing their long-awaited U.S. Tour. Starting tonight in San Francisco. Also watch out for their book "In The Words of Sparks... Selected Lyrics." Coming out this Summer.
Sparks Tour Dates
04/09/13 Tue The Chapel San Francisco, CA
04/10/13 Wed The Chapel San Francisco, CA
04/12/13 Fri Coachella Indio, CA
04/16/13 Tue Masonic Lodge At Hollywood Forever Los Angeles, CA
04/17/13 Wed Masonic Lodge At Hollywood Forever Los Angeles, CA
04/19/13 Fri Coachella Indio, CA
04/21/13 Sun Aladdin Theater Portland, OR
04/22/13 Mon Neptune Theatre Seattle, WA
04/24/13 Wed The Trocadero Philadelphia, PA
04/25/13 Thu Highline Ballroom New York, NY
Sparks Tour Dates
04/09/13 Tue The Chapel San Francisco, CA
04/10/13 Wed The Chapel San Francisco, CA
04/12/13 Fri Coachella Indio, CA
04/16/13 Tue Masonic Lodge At Hollywood Forever Los Angeles, CA
04/17/13 Wed Masonic Lodge At Hollywood Forever Los Angeles, CA
04/19/13 Fri Coachella Indio, CA
04/21/13 Sun Aladdin Theater Portland, OR
04/22/13 Mon Neptune Theatre Seattle, WA
04/24/13 Wed The Trocadero Philadelphia, PA
04/25/13 Thu Highline Ballroom New York, NY
Wednesday, 27 March 2013
COMING MAY 14TH FROM RARE BIRD BOOKS!
SPARKS-TASTIC: TWENTY-ONE NIGHTS IN LONDON WITH SPARKS
by Tosh Berman
In 2008, Tosh Berman—author and publisher of TamTam Books—got on a plane with a single motive: "Sparks Spectacular." It had been announced that the band Sparks would perform all twenty-one of their albums in a succession of twenty-one nights in London...a monumental experience for any Sparks fanatic. Part travel journal, part personal memoir, Berman takes us through the streets of London and Paris, observing both cities' history and culture through the eye of an obsessive Sparks fan's lens. Including album-by-album reviews of all twenty-one albums and beyond, Sparks-Tastic defines a place and time in music history that's too defining to be ignored.
(A Barnacle Book)
Wednesday, 16 January 2013
Adding the finishing touches to my book "Sparks-Tastic: Twenty-One Nights With Sparks in London." It is hard to say goodbye to the writing. If I had the choice, I would like to work on this book for the next 20 or so years. But alas, I have a date with destiny by the name of A Barnacle Book - my publisher. The book will come out this Spring 2013.
The cover is a painting by Lun*na Menoh, and it's a portrait of Ron Mael and Russell Mael (Sparks) from the album cover "Big Beat." The painting is one of a series of portraits of rock n' roll figures with dirty white collars. Lun*na collects men's dirty white collars and what she does with them is document the collars by its brand and country. And afterwards she either makes individual sculptures of each shirt collar, or make an oil-paint portrait of them. Lately she has been using her collection of dirty collars and making wearable clothing. For instance she made a formal wedding gown, as well as accessories such as purses, motorcycle helmet, jackets, pants, and so forth. including a bed, tea cups, and furniture - all made my men's dirty white collars.
To see more of her work, go here: www.lunnamenoh.com
The book will have 21 chapters, each one devoted to a specific Sparks' show and album. But keep in mind that this book is not a biography of the band. It is more about my love for their music and culture. Since the shows took place in London, there is a lot of information and commentary on that great city as well as Paris. The book is a journal, but it goes into the world of Sparks as well as my mental state at the time of the shows. More information later!
Ciao,
Tosh
Tuesday, 25 December 2012
Due to time I am only listing three albums at a time. And keep in mind that not all of these releases are new ones - but more what I listened to in the year 2012. As you can gather, I have very little interest in 'new' recordings. But there are of course, exceptions. All the albums are on vinyl.
As a kid, my family hung out with architects at their homes and it seems every one of them had this album. For one, its not wild. This is music that soothes but with a certain amount of sexual tension. Miles is very much a sensual player and his trumpet sways like a dancer with the orchestration. A perfect cocktail type of album where you sipping wine/martini and just floating with the haunted, but somewhat bitter melody. I bought this at Rockaway, during their Black Friday promotion. Its a newly issued Mono version. Really beautiful work.
There are records that you can just throw on the turntable and do something else. Scott Walker's "Bish Bosch" is not such a record. Once the needle hits the first track you are tied down to a chair or floor in front of the speakers, and you are not going to move an inch, because this is work that demands your full attention. Hauntingly beautiful, this is music that takes you into today's world - all the ugliness, the bitterness, and a certain amount of beauty (or some version of it) mostly due to Scott Walker's still-incredible vocals. Rarely do I hear new work that says 2012. Probably the most un-bullshit album ever. To say I love it, is like one needs water. Without a doubt the most essential record released in the 21st Century so far. The silence on this album is just as important as the music.
Hearing Sparks' "No 1 Song in Heaven" on vinyl for the first time is a real 'wow' series of moments. Released in the late 1970's this record is the shot that was heard around the world. Without a doubt a major influence on future electro-duos like Soft Cell, Associates, Pet Shop Boys, etc. I had this album on cassette, CD, and eventually MP3 - but the vinyl kicked me in the rear end so hard. Its an aural masterpiece on the 12th degree. And not one bad or weak moment. Very rarely does one come upon such excellence. Dreamy, hypnotic, and sensual to the core. A Ron and Russell masterpiece. Do get it on vinyl!
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