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3,116

 

3,116 by Tosh Berman

Tosh Berman on the band Sparks and the meaning of being a fan by David L. Ulin (Los Angeles Times, Aug 7, 2013)

 

Tosh Berman on the band Sparks and the meaning of being a fan by David L. Ulin (Los Angeles Times, Aug 7, 2013)

662 Posts from Tosh Berman

 

662 Posts (essays, fiction, reviews, philosophy, etc) by Tosh Berman.  Read them here for free and subscribe at 

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To Know Him Is To Love Him by Tosh Berman

 

To Know Him Is To Love Him by Tosh Berman

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 Subscribe to the writings by Tosh Berman. Fiction/non-fiction, essays, and on the poetic edge of all things literature, pop culture, and vision. Photo by Manuel Chavarria at Alias Books East in Atwater Village.

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Buy "Sparks-Tastic" by Tosh Berman here!

 

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, which Tosh certainly is. Part travel journal, part personal memoir, Berman takes us through the streets of London and Paris, observing each city's history and culture through the eye of an obsessive Sparks fan. Including album-by-album reviews of all twenty-one shows and beyond, Sparks-Tastic defines a place and time in music history that's too defining to be ignored.  

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"The Magic Circle: On The Beatles, Pop Art, Art-Rock and Records" by Jan Tumlir (Onomatopee)

ISBN: 978-94-91677-43-4 Onomatopee

The Magic Circle: On The Beatles, Pop Art, Art-Rock and Records” by Jan Tumlir (Onomatopee)

Like it or not, The Beatles will always be the dividing line between acceptance and non-acceptance.  Those who hate The Fab Four, do so, just because they exist.  In a way, the issue is brought up in Yukio Mishima’s novel “The Temple of the Golden Pavilion.” Not specifically mind you, but the fact that the main character had to destroy and burn down the Golden Pavillion, because it such an iconic beauty, that he felt it restricted his life.  The Anti-Beatle people I suspect, feel the same way.   Not me, by the way.  I love the band.  Although I have to admit that I really don’t listen to them that much anymore, because their music is pretty much etched into my DNA.  I can just look at a Beatles album cover, and the melodies come right into my head via eyesight straight to the brain.  Jan Tumlir’s book on the later Beatle works and its culture sort of works in that same frame of mind.  It is a culture that one can’t escape from, and here, in great detail, he approaches the Beatle world via the visual arts as well as how they are placed in our world culturally.  

For instance, it is fascinating when Tunlir writes about the Beatle album covers from Sgt. Pepper to the so-called “White Album.” It’s fascinating how Peter Blake and Jann Haworth’s design for the Pepper cover is totally maximum but the White Album, designed by Richard Hamilton, is totally minimal.  It’s interesting to look at The Beatles music and product, and how in-tuned they were with the arts of the time.  In a sense, all roads led to the Beatles.  Tunlir uses John, George, Paul & Ringo as signs or sign posts to a culture that expanded, and yet, very important to its local (Liverpool, America) region.  Which in turn becomes the world. 

- Tosh Berman

Tony Conrad - The Interview

A fascinating interview with Tony Conrad.

"Real Life Rock" by Greil Marcus (Yale University Press)

ISBN: 978-0-300-19664-1 Yale University Press

"Real Life Rock" is Greil Marcus' long-term column of top-ten items per month.   Written for various publications and websites.  What is impressive is not his taste or opinion, but his ability to wander through pop culture and pick up the pieces that interest him the most.  I don't always agree with his opinions, but I do admire the thought and writing skill that he uses to support his vision of culture on the run.  

 For instance, he took the title "Real Life" from Magazine's first album.   He loved the title of the album, but not the album itself.  I, on the other hand feel that it is one of the great musical moments of the 1970s.  And on top of that, he admires my father's (Wallace Berman) artwork, but thought the writing/essays were dull in the book "Support the Revolution" about my dad, which is silly, because I wrote an essay for that... Hey!   Nevertheless, he is a superb writer, and I like how he thinks about music and how it relates to the bigger picture.   The book is a collection of his columns from 1986 to 2014.  "Real Life Rock"  does not constitute a snapshot of the late 20th century, but more how Marcus sees the world around him, and his critical writing is very personal, as well as his taste, which is very consistent throughout the years.  One sees Bob Dylan, The Doors, Joy Division, Gang of Four, The Mekons, Guy Debord, David Lynch, Robert Johnson, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Eleanor Friedberger, Bryan Ferry, over and over again, but no David Bowie!  No Sparks!  In fact, there are a lot of music and musicians that he doesn't mention in any shape or form. 

  Which is OK, because this is Greil Marcus' world and we're allowed to go in, but we shouldn't bring in additional (critical or musical) guests.   It's interesting to read his columns in one volume, instead of reading "Real Life" on a monthly basis.   I would have often looked at Artforum Magazine on the newsstand, and the first thing I would look at is his column.   I never get pissed off with his viewpoint, but I'm fascinated in how he uses music as a springboard into the other arts.  The majority here is music, but there is theater, politics, film, and even TV commercials that he comments on.  "Real Life Rock" is a good way to go into Marcus' brain to see how it works, and what comes up in his world.  If you are a long-time reader of his column, there is usually nothing surprising, but on the other hand you do get his sense of aesthetic, and that is what I try to find in a critic.  Not if he or she likes a work, but how they "see" that art.    "Mystery Train" was my introduction, and "Lipstick Traces" made me a card-carrying fan, but I don't follow him blindly into the alley, but still, the adventure to go with him is quite good. 

- Tosh Berman

September 5, 2014

September 5, 2014

It is hard work to do nothing.  I’m always filling my day with things to do, to avoid the nothing.   Once I wake up in the morning, there are the few minutes of dread where nothing is happening.  I’m trying to set my mind on what the day will be like.  I check my calendar, and like a lot of people, I’m obsessed with making lists. If I have less than five things to do that day, I feel depressed.  Then slowly the feeling of guilt that you should be producing something, even if it’s not important.  I open up my computer and look at the blank screen.  Nothing is happening.  I then look out my front window, facing Waverly Drive, and I see no one. Usually there are people walking their dogs at this time in the morning, but alas, I see only a fat furry cat walking down the sidewalk by he or her self.  A dog when is either on a leash or free from it, always walks without a purpose or direction.  A cat walks going to a specific direction in mind, and is rarely side-tracked by anything, unless someone approaches it.  There is one moment which becomes tense, when I see the cat walk behind a parked car, and I wonder if I will see it again exiting that car.  The moment I see the cat again, I feel a sense of relief.  He or she then enters into an opening of the bush, and disappears.

For me, there is no feeling of the cat being cute, or beautiful.  I simply like to see it walking down the sidewalk with a sense of purpose or plan.  This actually inspires me to get back to my writing.  There is a piece of music that causes me a great deal of anxiety and it’s John Cage’s “4’33.” It has a strict format where the piano player sits behind his keyboard and doesn’t play anything for the duration of four minutes and thirty-three seconds.   People think this is a work of silence, but in fact it is totally the opposite of silence.  When you are in a concert hall or theater “hearing” this piece, you are immediately aware of the sounds around you - perhaps a nervous cough, a clearing of the throat, a fart, or the fear of making a farting noise, air conditioner, heating vent, shuffling of feet, and so forth.

When I write I need consistent sound around me.  Either music or outside ambient sounds, for instance traffic noise, as well as a child screaming down the block from me.  Each sound is like someone hitting me with an live electric wire, which gets my brain to jump. I work in a lonely place, which is pretty much my head.  This is no longer a bad thing at all.  To actually feel the space between yours truly and the world is an area that I can measure and fill up images with, but I also can subtract imagery as well.  The thing is you just have to control the noise around you, and something like “4’33” is actually chaos. Because you can’t really control the noise level or silence in one’s life.  So setting everything aside, you sit there for “4’33” in quietness that is impossible, and also the anxiety or blissfulness knowing that things will happen again at 4 minutes and thirty-four seconds.  It has a beginning and an end.

It’s very work-orientated.  We usually have 8 hours a day to work.  Within those 8 hours, we have two fifteen minutes breaks, and usually an half-n-hour lunch.  Or it could be an hour lunch.  Nevertheless this sets a schedule for the entire day that one can’t really question or get out of, unless you call in sick.  Or like me, unemployed.  When you don’t have a job, you’re facing a series of moments that cannot be filled.  So one is left with the anxiety of confronting ‘nothing.' Drinking is a very simple way of dealing with the sense of time wasting away.  Because at least you are taking something that sort of comments on time passing, and you reflect on the failure or happiness of those moments.

I’m trying to do away with my vices, so I just focus on being on the entrance to nothing.  I want to face that void, and be contented with the blankness that will come upon me.  That, hasn’t happened yet. I remember seeing a performance by Yves Klein called “Monotone-Silence Symphony” in New York, and what the piece consists of is an orchestra of 70 musicians and singers performing a D major chord for 20 minutes, followed by 20 minutes of silence.  The members of the orchestra are instructed not to move and just sit on their seats.  It’s a tougher piece than “4’33” because we know that the silence will last exactly 20 minutes. So one is getting around 16 minutes of more silence.  But we do get the contrast between sound and silence in this work.  I have met someone who went to one of the performances and felt that the work failed, because the silence part was not done properly.

Daniel Moquay, who is in charge of the Yves Klein archive and estate was quoted regarding a performance of the piece that took place in a Parisian church:  ““The door of the church was open, and a pigeon came in and sat where everyone could see him,” he said. “During the 20-minute silence, he did not move at all. It was kind of incredible. And then when the silence was over, he left. ”

"1,247" by Tosh Berman (Part 3)

"Here She Comes" by Tosh Berman

Here She Comes

"Here She Comes" is a romantic thought that may or may not happen. The image i get is someone at the make-up counter at a large department store - and you're waiting for her to show up - which again may not happen. It is sort of a Proust moment of thinking of that moment and how that moment plays itself out.

- Tosh Berman

"The History of NME" by Pat Long

And to think it all started with accordion music.  The flame that started the fire that was heard all around the world.  Well Polka is not that far from punk really, but nevertheless New Music Express (NME) started off as a newspaper focusing on the accordion music scene that was happening in the early 1950's  - and of course one has to presume that it lead to the pop music of its era.   And strange enough NME, in 2012, is still with us.  In fact its the second thing i see on the Internet.  First is Dennis Cooper's blog, then NME, after that the Guradian for news.  So you can see what's important in my life!

Pat Long's book on NME is really good, and being designed orientated, this is a  perfectly designed book with respect to its subject.  A lot has happened in Pop music over the years, and its amazing that a press can still exist after so many generations.  And without a doubt NME had or has its dives into the underworld as well as its highs - but as a paper it had some remarkable writers  - to be specifically the wonderful Nick Kent.   The rock n' roll writer who didn't have a guitar to throw around, but his pen was pretty mighty.  

This book by its very nature of its subject matter also has ties to England's pop culture history -and really, this book could have been five or six books.  One on the fifties, one on the sixties and so forth.  But beyond that this is a really good introduction to pop history and more important the presses that were beyond and supported such pop movements.   Buy it for the beauty of it all!

And here's a fantastic documentary on the History of NME.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4