Communist Realism – kpunk election post #2
New post on the elections by Mark Fisher, (cross-posted from his blog, k-punk ) – TS Normal capitalist realist service was resumed on Thursday, on the BBC Question Time Leaders Special. With the SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Greens absent, horizons contracted, expectations lowered, we
On Enemies Within – Rhian E. Jones on memories and myths of the Miners’ Strike
This piece was originally posted on Rhian E. Jones' excellent blog, Velvet Coalmine. Reposted here, with thanks. “We’re secure in the knowledge that we already lost a long time ago.” – Richey James, 1992 I knew the death of Margaret Thatcher wasn’t likely
Limbo is Over – kpunk election post #1
New post on the elections, capitalist realism and left populism, by Mark Fisher, (cross-posted from his blog, k-punk ) LIMBO IS OVER Tony Blair’s brief appearance in this election campaign, offering tepid support for a tepid Ed Miliband, ought to have been irrelevant. In many
“Materialistic arseholes and suburban dreamers”: Bowie and the 1960s.
As a big fan of both Bowie and Chris O’Leary, it was as hard to select an extract from Rebel Rebel as it is to choose a favourite Bowie song; each song is covered in a self-contained entry, and they’re all fascinating.
In the end I chose a series of 3 posts which make chronological/conceptual sense, and shed entertaining light on Bowie’s complicated relationship with late ‘60s hippy culture. Also contains The Prettiest Star, which is far from his best track but which, for sentimental reasons, remains one of my all-time favourites.Rebel Rebel (Zer0, 2015) is out on March 27th, there’s a list of stockists here.
Cygnet Committee [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKMSgZo9c8s&w=420&h=315] Recorded: (demo, “Lover to the Dawn,” unreleased) ca. mid-April 1969, 24 Foxgrove Road. Bowie: 12-string acoustic guitar, harmony vocal; Hutchinson: lead vocal, acoustic guitar; (album) ca. late August-early September 1969, Trident. Bowie: lead vocal; Christmas: 12-string acoustic guitar; Wayne: lead guitar; Renwick: rhythm guitar; Wakeman: electric harpsichord; Lodge: bass; Cambridge: drums. Produced: Visconti; engineered: Sheffield, Scott or Toft. First release: 14 November 1969, Space Oddity. Broadcast: 5 February 1970, The Sunday Show. Live: 1969-70. “Cygnet Committee” was, consecutively, a break-up letter to a communal arts center Bowie co-founded, a scattershot attack on the counterculture and a desperate self-affirmation. Deep in this gnomic, nearly ten-minute screed was a struggle to find a workable design for the years ahead, Bowie pledging himself to a life of creative destruction while keeping clear of professional revolutionaries. It was the sound of Bowie willing himself to become a stronger artist, hollowing himself out to let a greater creative force, for good or ill, take hold in him. The possession took. In fleeting moments, you can hear the apocalyptic, utopian voice of “Five Years” and “Sweet Thing,” of “Station to Station” and “‘Heroes.’” The man who was able to write those songs had to go through the crucible of “Cygnet Committee” first.Monsters, Tricksters, Stranglers: an extract from Phil Knight’s Strangled
Extract from Phil Knight's brilliant new book, Strangled: Identity, Status, Structure and The Stranglers, out now, investigating "the greatest punk band", their overlooked mysticism, and their erasure from punk's history. *** Picture for a moment a world in which the most significant
Camden: Last Survivor of a Dead Epoch
This is an extract from Uncommon London, a new title in the excellent Uncommon Guide Books series, which will be published in June 2015. Camden: Last Survivor of a Dead Epoch — Tariq Goddard I wanted to be a writer at a
Dark, the Dim Hear – Daniela Cascella
This is an edited extract from the forthcoming F.M.R.L: Footnotes, Mirages, Refrains + Leftovers of Writing Sound, by Daniela Cascella (author of the blog/book En Abime) - "Ephemeral. F.M.R.L. (frenzy-madness-reverie-love), a fame really, ever merrily, Effie marry Lee: there are words that
Page 3 was the least offensive thing in The Sun
We're cross-posting (with permission) this great piece by desiredxthings on the demise of Page 3 — T.S.
A FEW THOUGHTS ON THE DEMISE OF PAGE 3
Well, the tits are gone and now all of our lives are meaningless. Wherever will feminism go now the patriarchy is crushed? The No More Page 3 campaign has been a mess from the beginning – it was the online milieu of the middle class, white feminists who have been stomping all over minorities for decades. Anti slut-shaming has become trendy, so rather than telling other women not to get their breasts out in the first place, mainstream feminism is dictating how and when to get your breasts out – and evidently getting your breasts out for payment is verboten. But this is okay, of course. It initially came across as a fairly benign campaign, to keep boobs out of a family paper. We can’t have kiddies staring at norks, can we? But… to try and position The Sun as a family newspaper, a main argument of NMP3, is laughable. If you want your children to have access to misogyny, homophobia, racism, antagonism towards those on state welfare, ableism, xenophobia, whorephobia and a whole host of other oppressive bullshit, that’s your own bad parenting; but don’t call it a family newspaper. Let’s get this straight, I don’t really care about the titillation of men and I’m not even going to trouble myself analysing this as a free speech issue – those aren’t what I’m concerned about. I’m concerned as a sex-worker in a time where the well-funded face of feminism sees us, at best, as an inconvenience on the journey to the gender equal utopia and, at worst, despicable gender traitors. No More Page 3 has tried to deny claims that they are opposed to sex workers or nudity; that’s all well and good, but why does what they do completely counteract that? Their claim is that other glamour modelling opportunities exist; but they either fail to grasp or completely ignore the importance of page 3 to a glamour model. The Sun is the most popular publication in the country and high circulation means higher exposure. One photo in The Sun can lead to countless other opportunities. NMP3 have removed a stepping stone for many glamour models (many of which do not have agents and have to navigate the industry alone) and hacked away at a career route.Ambient House: “This was the sound of that future”
Among other things, including presenting a radio show (The Mystery Lesson) Daniel Spicer will be doing a book on Turkish Psychedelia for Repeater. This is his review of the Ambient House: The Compilation by DFC. — P.J. How often does a compilation