history of art.

POP

In February when I started this blog I bought the February 2007 Spring/Summer Pop magazine.

The front cover is neon green and has 'RAVE' written down it.

Inside it was exactly what I wanted- the background and the words to what I had already found out- but it's written by someone else, which can confirm (?) what I think and say, and make me feel that it's not just my opinion.

On page 244 of the glossy, bright, trendy-vogue type magazine is an article, titled 'One nation under a glitterball'.

I quote from the article (by Paul Flynn):

"Something slightly manical in London's margins has been afoot for the past 18 months. Its patrons are bold and bright and excessive and refusing to go to bed at bedtime. Some of them are making clothes, some pictures, some music and all of them are throwing parties...

Facilitated by clanestine, word-of-mouth MySpace bulletin boards and soundtracked by a riveting amalgam of disorganised, futuristic chos, New Rave has taken one small leap out of the suburbs and into the next millenium... A brilliantly idiotic new youth culture has emerged from the kids that want fashion, music, are and popular culture formulated their way.

The unofficial opening of New Rave happened four years ago, in the City Cars squar in east London. NIYI, on the first of his two expulsions from Central St Martins, put the party together. He was 18 years old and the party was called Gauche Chic. 'It's weird,' he says now, 'because the nights were so empty at first, but everyone was there. Patrick Wolf, Carri Mundane,' (Cassette Playa) 'Mei Hui Liu.'

Matthew Stone, figurehead for southeast London art terrorists !WOWOW! is a little more sanguine on the matter. 'I don't think that it even matters what you want to call this thing. New rave is just a buzzword that has stuck. This is about creative people doing thing they're absolutely passionate about.'

For the more cerebrally inclined, Matthew Stone's !WOWOW! parties have become a gateway drug between New Rave and high art. They began in the back room of The Joiner's Arms, between Camberwell Green and The Maudsley Hopital in southeast London, 'as a joke. I hired a PA and 30-odd people came down. It was a bizarre mix od the local community and art students. Alongside painters, video installation and performance artists we had a woman who sand show tunes mostly from My Fair Lady, and a man called Melvin who'd campaigned against the Euro from a shopping trolley in Camberwell. Instantly the parties were about new ideas and optimism. Everyone was playing electro at the time and we'd play a little bit of that, but with everything else we wanted to hear: weird charity shop finds, movie scores, Baltimore club music."

Over the page is a 'crash course for the ravers'. It is a diagram- similar to the one I did earlier, but this shows the links between 'old rave' and 'new rave'.
This is it:

(Again I apologise for the size of it and difficulty in reading it)

It includes people which I have included on my diagram, and has names which are related to names on my diagram. Really this whole thing could go on forever, there seems to be more and more to talk about- everyone knows and relates back to someone.

Networking the 'scene'- easier than you think.

After a brief discussion of my blog earlier, I realised that this whole 'scene' which I have tried to explain, and being a part of it is a lot easier as it may seem. Obviously like a lot of things there are founders and important members, who spend a lot more time than others within this 'scene' doing the things which put them there.

It seems to me, that to be a part of a network all you must neccessarily do is be at a certain place at a certain time.
There are millions of other 'scenes' around- it's just that they have phases, and it seems that whatever is 'Shoreditch' is what is 'cool'. These are the hyped scenes- often the ones that can be made to be more and more obscure. They seem to be what people aspire to be, part of this scene. Like I say, there are the extreme cases, which can grab themselves as much good as bad publicity, and there are the rest, which may perhaps stumle accross this 'scene'.

Foals are not nu-rave, they're not glowsticks and neon themselves- but their fans seem to be. It's what I think has to do with the 'network'. Bands get asked to play nights- i.e The Insomniacs Ball night- Foals will play, along side The Young Knives (Indie, Oxford friendly pop) and Queens of Noize (Neon and big hair). This immediately associates them within this group of bands, particularly if they play along side them more than once, thus forming a network just from this.

'Here we glo again'

I found the following article which is from The Sunday Times Style magazine on November 12, 2006 by Paul Flynn. It seems to have said everything I have been trying to say in my previous blog, only ten times better.

"Here we glo again
A bunch of crazy kids in crazy outfits is shaking up the zeitgeist. Paul Flynn reports on the rebirth of rave for the Noughties
In the summer of 2005, at their ad hoc London club night Gauche Chic, the party people Niyi and K-tron pulled out a best-of-1990s-rave-hits CD and played it to a crowd of teenagers and twentysomethings. The kids were too young to have felt the full force of Let Me Be Your Fantasy the first time around. But they liked what they heard. Playing old rave tracks alongside demented new disco, ragga, crunk and arch pop music chimed with the nightlife lunacy that was building. Rave felt like a fresh source of inspiration in an emerging club culture.
From its inception at the end of the 1980s, “old rave” (as it is now called) gradually degenerated into a dreary free-party scene, where men of a certain age cavort to increasingly chin-stroking dance music. But the early spirit of rave never died; it was just waiting for its time to come round again. New rave is a second coming: not just a throwback to the lawless euphoria of its golden age, but an aesthetic focus for a new generation of club kids, artists, fashion students and night-time celebrities who just want to dress up and get down.
New rave was publicly christened by the singer of its fluoro-coloured flagship band, Klaxons, who are at the tipping point of crossover success. The scene has thrown up a raft of great, slightly idiotic new pop groups and DJs, including Trash Fashion, Shitdisco, Silverlink, WarBoy and Namalee ’n’ the Namazonz. It has its own pin-up — Jet Storm, the singer from Trash Fashion — and its own couturiers, in Gareth Pugh, fashion’s current golden boy and an architect of out-there clubwear, and the directional designer Carri “Cassette Playa” Mundane, who borrows the cartoon style of Sega, Pac-Man and all manner of gaudy neon ephemera and turns it into joyous club clobber. Her manic designs can be seen in the London retail palaces of Kokon To Zai and Dover Street Market. The movement also has an in-house publication, the fashion zine Super Super, and a Factory-style creative collective, !Wowow!, whose unofficial leader, Matthew Stone, has been described as a walking zeitgeist. “We think about new rave on a daily basis here,” says Steve Slocombe, founder of Super Super. “I can look at a plant pot and think, ‘How new rave is that? And can I wear it?’” To which the answer is? “Yes, clearly.”
Not everyone is so enthusiastic, however. The clubbing magazine Mixmag has dismissed new rave as just being about a few silly kids in east London. But they are missing the point. All radical shifts in nightclub culture are about silly kids somewhere. The Haçienda was about a few silly kids in Manchester, Taboo was about a bunch of silly west London woofters in the early 1980s, and Studio 54 in New York was about Bianca Jagger, Liza Minnelli, Michael Jackson and Andy Warhol mostly being a bit silly. This group of silly creative mates is no different. A new club moment is upon us.
“New rave is about absurdity, comedy and randomness,” Slocombe says. “Everyone commenting on it is getting a bit overconcerned about the rave element and forgetting about the newness. But this is the beginning of a new way of looking at pop culture.” He believes that culture needs a shake-up, and that new rave, with all its potty styling and weird music, might just be the thing to do it. “There is so much rigid conformity to culture. We will look back at the fake smiles of celebrities on magazine covers in 10 years’ time and think, ‘God, they looked weird.’ Music and fashion are pillars of British culture. And they’re up for grabs again.”
It is not difficult to spot the similarities between the end of the 1980s, when old rave emerged, and the current socioeconomic climate. It’s all there: the demonisation of teenagers; the imminent end of a political era; a trenchant fear of global collapse. If the Great British youth knows how to do one thing, it is how to throw a good party at a time of tension and fear. If it is going down, it is going down smiling, in neon, with one unholy racket playing behind it.
In east London, a succession of collapsible parties — All You Can Eat, Anti-Social, Teens of Thailand, Young Turks, Boom Box — have given the scene its magnetic new playgrounds. Some play rave records. Some don’t. But the spirit remains the same. The !Wowow! art gatherings in New Cross have became a thing of legend, and Stone has emerged as the enigmatic, Warhol-ish figurehead for it all, with Mundane his acid Nico. “What I love about these people is that they have followed their dreams,” says Ben Reardon, the editor of i-D magazine. “They have made something happen. They squatted, had no money, sometimes didn’t eat, but all with the purpose of making art, making clothes, making parties — and they have done it all off their own backs.”
“There is something tangible and spontaneous going on here,” says Alex Needham, of NME. “We haven’t had that for a long time. Club culture had got so tied up with the superannuation of everything — superclubs, superstar DJs — it needed to let a new generation take over. It isn’t about neatly packaged nightclub spaces any more. And everyone looks brilliant.”
What is happening in east London has parallels with what happened in the East Village of New York in the 1980s — a youthful convergence of art, club, fashion and music people collecting under an outré (and cheap) umbrella. “It is about a magpie approach to creative theft,” Slocombe says. “A £400 coat is not going to make you look stylish any more. The new-rave ethos is about going to some weird shop in Finsbury Park where they sell 1980s sportswear. Everyone wants to look more Day-Glo and loonified than the next person.”
But can new rave survive the transition into the mainstream? After all, once a scene goes overground, the people who started it often lose interest. “It isn’t about owning it and fencing it off,” Slocombe says. “It’s about steering what is essentially the next wave. It hasn’t reached mass uniformity yet.” Needham agrees: “You’ve yet to get a hit record from Klaxons. But the time feels totally right for it.” Reardon sums it up, saying: “Leigh Bowery and Rachel Auburn were laughed at in the 1980s for trying something new, and now they are heralded as icons of an era. Why not herald the people we have now and their scene while it’s happening? We shouldn’t have to wait for things to be over before we celebrate them.” Grab your glowsticks before it’s too late."

Nu- rave?

It seems that my blogs have become more of an update of gossip and news recently. I've tried to keep them connected in some way or another, using the gossip to link people who I know, who they know and so on. I've become very interested in this idea of 'networking', especially when it has something in it to benefit both sides of the partnership.

It seems networking can just happen. I guess it's a lot to do with being in the right place at the right time, and knowing the right people, which often comes up in shared and similar interests.

Some of the links I've tried to make haven't been as direct as others, but what I have tried to do is draw a picture of links which have created some what of a new 'scene' and almost a new era (is that too strong?) in popular and underground culture.

This culture, I would say has stemmed from what's been left behind, britpop- an influence from indie bands and the indie scene from before. There seemed to be a strong party scene. I'd say a less glamorous one, but one where having a good time was the focus of life. Drug taking and alcohol binges happened and there was a kind of 'care-free' atmosphere.
Everything that happens now is never going to be 'original', everything has been done before, and obviously influences and links will be made to history.

The scene that I say is happening now, is linked to 90s rave. Electro music, parties, drugs but a lot more 'posing' and in a way- showing off with it.
They call it 'nu-rave'- 10-6a.m clubs, with various stages of bands- electro and indie followed by electro d.j's. It seems, as everything does- that it has all stemmed from London. In the depths of Hoxton- clubs like antisocial at Shoreditch bar music hall, and boombox at 333 seem to be the place where people would go to first to show off their 'new look', often bright neon colours, glitter, big hair, make-up and glowsticks. The ones which were the 'coolest' seemed to be the ones who had either gone to the extreme/ looked like they had walked out of American Apparrel in their latest silver láme leggings and body suits. Along with this there seems to be a lifestyle, other than one of clubs and nightlife that accompanies it. A lot of these people are art students, the ones who are 'different' and 'individual' (not really when everyone in the club is wearing the same leggings as you).

I've read some articles about it all which I am going to refer to in a seperate blog now. Hopefully this can back-up and explain what I have been saying some more.

Transgressive Records

Because of the headliners, Larrikin Love's split, the Transgressive record roadshow has been cancelled.
Foals were to play these dates with them.

Larrikin Love, Foals and The Young Knives, among others all signed to Transgressive records- part of and funded by the massive record label of Warner bros.

Foals do Zane Lowe

Foals were on Radio one on Wednesday 9th May, they recorded three live tracks at Maida Vale studios, and Edwin and Yannis did an interview.

!!! Larrikin love split/ Patrick sacks drummer & other gossip.

On Tuesday 8th May I got an invite from my friend Craig 'Template' to be in his video which he was recording that night, at 143 The Strand, in a place called The Continental.
I went down for the recording. The people present included Ingrid Z of Residence Gallery and Patrick Wolf ex girlfriend fame, Ed Larrikin, Alice- his girlfriend, Russ- who recorded Craig plus fay and i of 'The Lovecats'.
We just had to be part of an audience in the background, sitting around, conversing.
Someone there told me about Patrick's performance where he sacked his drummer- Zach. He had passed out on stage, and Patrick had got quite furious about this, ending in hitting him around the face with his cymbal and sacking him on stage. My source told me to watch the You tube video of it.
These can be found here:
an interview before the show, clips from during the show and the clip of Zach passing out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHdU7IZXzvU
Patrick sacking him on stage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TR2TCcXddeo


Larrikin Love have split up. On Friday 4th May they left the following announcement, via a myspace(http://myspace.com/larrikinlove) blog:

"Larrikin Love have announced today that they have split up. The band would like to thank all their fans for their support and love over the last two years and assure them that all is amicable between the four members.
Further details of ongoing projects from all members will be announced in the fullness of time.
Love The Larrikins"

Music/Art Artist/Musician

Musicians who are fine artists, and fine artists who are musicians that I know of the top of my head, include:
Brian Eno, whose work was/is (?) on show at the I.C.A, The Secret Public exhibition,
Devandra Banhart, whose work I've seen exhibited in 'Uncertain states of America',
Patrick Wolf, uses his own art work in his music releases,
as does Bat for Lashes, singer Natasha Kahn who studied film and music at art school, and early influences on her work led her to sound installations, performance and animations.
Bat for Lashes have played alongside Devandra Banhart and CocoRosie. CocoRosie has been joined by Antony, of Antony and the Johnsons and Patrick Wolf, who sang Antony's part at a London show.

It seems the links are endless, musicians/artists seem to form a group, through shows and colloborations, the links grow and grow.
The musicians I talk of are artists in my eyes. I don't know if there is a criteria which makes music art, I think art is a blur, peoples perceptions of it are different and there is no real definition of 'art'.
Music paints a picture in our minds, it uses words and melodies to form a picture for us, is it another language of art? Another one of expressing ourselves in an 'artistic nature'.

Foals- YMSS- ATP festival.

Foals are a band, originating from Oxford.
The five members have been friends for a while, Jimmy and Walter, the bassist and one of the guitarists, were at school together and had a previous band together. Jack and Yannis were in the band 'The Edmund Fitzgerald', when Jack met Walter at Oxford Brookes University, where they both did their Art foundation together (I studied my Art Foundation at Oxford Brookes the following year and met Walter there, as he studied his first year of a BA hons in Fine art at Brookes), and Edwin, studied at Oxford university, with Yannis, which is where they met, after Foals were formed. Edwin joined the band as the 'one that plays the synth/ the one with the gay moustache/ the one with the young gentleman outfits'. He joined, Andrew, who was the singer for a while, left and Yannis took on the role of lead vocals, and guitar.

Andrew left Foals to concentrate on his other band Youthmovie Soundtrack Strategies- another Oxford band, who were formed in 2002, and have created quite a stir, possibly not so much as Foals though. I'm not sure if you can compare their successes. I know neither band would really like that very much.

Their Myspace can be found at http://www.myspace.com/youthmovies, from it I found the following which I found interesting:

'To date they have released two mini-albums, three singles and three limited edition tour-only CDRs.
Amongst others Youthmovies have toured with iForward, Russia!, 65daysofstatic, Hope of the States, Oxes, Redjetson, Adam Gnade and Blood Red Shoes... Played shows with the likes of Mission of Burma, Biffy Clyro, Bloc Party, Death Cab for Cutie, Trans Am and Cursive... As well as playing both improvised and regular sets at Leeds (as Saul Williams backing band), Reading, Bestival, All Tomorrows Parties, Truck and Latitude festivals, earning them a reputation as one of Britains most exciting live bands.
Youthmovies are currently writing their full-length debut, to be recorded in April and released in late 2007. '

Al, the bands guitarist has his own record label; Try Harder Records (http://www.myspace.com/tryharderrecords), releases on the label include:
Foals, Blood red shoes, Red Jetson, Tired Irie and Jonquil.

Al and Ham from the band are quite involved with the festival ATP (All tomorrows Parties), which is a music festival which happens 3/4 times a year. Youthmovies played after headliner Yoko Ono before, and are playing the fesitval this May, alongside Patti Smith, Echo and the bunnymen, Mogwai and Explosions in the sky. The festival takes place at a Butlins/ Pontins and is a lot of fun. I've been to the festival three times. 'The nightmare before Christmas in December of 2005 which is where I infact spoke to Walter and Jimmy (Foals) for the first time. The time after this I went in the Summer of 2006 and the December of 2006.

ATP also put on gigs, mainly in London. On the 23rd May they have Modest Mouse playing, with support from Billy Childish.

Here, we can see that there is quite a link between artists, playing for ATP as musicians, this is something I'm interested in looking at. It seems that a lot of artists are infact involved, or strongly passionate about music and vice versa.
A lot of musicians infact do the art work for their records themselves, this includes Patrick Wolf, I think nearly all of his releases have contained drawings which he has done himself.
Devandra Banhart, a folk musician who has played ATP, had his work in the exhibition 'uncertain states of america' at The Serpentine Galley.

I'm going to continue writing about this in another entry, as I don't like the confusion of too many things happening in one blog- for ease of finding entries, etcetera.

Foals review Patrick Wolf.

My friends; Foals, were asked by playlouder (www.playlouder.com) to do a single review for them, on the 10th April, the singles needing to be reviewed included Patrick Wolf's- The Magic Postion. The following is what Edwin and Yannis said about the single

"Patrick Wolf - 'The Magic Position'A bit like the sort of music someone who used to be friends with you would make. Irritatingly, you know girls will love it but you hate him all the more for it. To be honest we have nothing to say about it... It's one of those things that's so beyond worth commenting that I'm actually falling sleep. Not in a bad way though, he does it well. 4/10"

I'm unsure if it's just this song or every thing Patrick Wolf, that they dislike. I introduced Jimmy from Foals to Patrick Wolf a while ago, he really liked him and said something about "You'll have to make me meet him."
Funny how the roles reverse.

!!! Patrick to retire...

Recently there have been rumours that Patrick Wolf was to be retiring.
On the 27th April 2007, Pitchfork (www.http://www.pitchforkmedia.com) published the following interview with him about the alleged 'retirement'.


"Patrick Wolf is not quitting music. Despite his recent post on a fan message board saying, "My final concert will be this November... I am not sure whether there will be anymore public communications after that. In fact, I am pretty sure there will be none," it turns out Wolf just plans to take a little break from the cycle of touring and promoting records.Even Wolf's break looks to be busy, though. He already has two albums' worth of material written for his follow-up to The Magic Position, which doesn't even come out in the U.S. until May 1. His tour has expanded as well, with the addition of Amy Winehouse-free headlining dates in New York and L.A., and a promise of more West Coast gigs.We spoke to Wolf to get the full story on his non-retirement, and we also asked him about the shape of that next record (or two), how he wants to model his career after Gustav Mahler and Liberace, how he became friends with Kelly Osbourne, and why he feels a kinship with Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera.Pitchfork: Will this orchestral concert in November really be your last?Patrick Wolf: Um, yeah. I really want people to know that I never released a press release about this issue. I wasn't trying to get published by anybody. I was just writing a very close community of fans. Somebody took that and turned it into a big story, and it's gotten out of control. I just want people to know that, first of all, I never said I was quitting music, and second of all, I never did it in a public way.I wouldn't know what to do if I didn't have music in my life, and this is going to turn into some kind of horrendous Mariah Carey speech, but the music has led me through many adventures and disasters and good times and total lonely times and for me to say I was going to quit music is like saying I'm going to commit suicide. It's the most extreme thing that could happen in my life. That would make me miserable, so I would never say I was quitting music, because I would never know where to start.Pitchfork: So what did you mean by that message board post?PW: This year's been strange because The Magic Position is about a relationship that happened a year ago, a very serene and magical time, between me and an artist called Ingrid Z. And I'm having to come and be like a vessel for all these songs, but I'm an honest performer as well. I don't even like to use the word "performance." I don't want to be a traveling businessman or salesman for my work. I want to be a musician that sings and feels and makes people feel, and when something becomes too repetitive, then I feel like I'm not doing my job. The bad habit that I've had in the last six years since I released my first EP was to not even think that I'm a human being, that I need to sleep or to eat or to go to the toilet or have sex or anything. I just go, "Okay, I'm going on tour for the next year. Goodbye, everyone." And then I say, "Yeah, sure I'll do seven hours of interviews before a show." I do all this, and I enjoy it, but there's a certain time in every musician's life, you've got to realize-- I'm kind of like Britney Spears in a way. I've been doing it as a teenager, so I'm kind of trying to start thinking about being a human so I can start to make my work again."