"Maybe The People Would Be The Times" by Luc Sante (VCP)

 

I identify with Luc Sante's writings because we seem to share an interest in urban street history and its culture and music, films, French crime books & literature. He's a superb essayist with very sharp intelligence, and I love how he approaches his subject matters by making it personal.  Born in 1954,  he was born in Belgium and moved to the United States. His sensitivity is that he's very much aware that he lives in a duo-cultural existence. He's both an American and a European. Through his writing, I get the impression that he feels like an alien in a different world. Sante approaches to culture as buying a nice winter coat in the cold. The very essence of music, art, and literature is deadly important to him. 

"Maybe The People Would Be The Times" is a compilation of Luc's writings from the 21st-century. It includes essays on music, cultural history, writers (great article on Richard Stark), Punk Rock & Reggae, and life in Manhattan during the 1970s. The book's title came from an Arthur Lee song, "Maybe the People Would Be the Times or Between Clark and Hilldale," a classic tune from Love's "Forever Changes" album. I can tell that Sante wrote poetry due to his dense but straight forward prose, but not a wasted word in these essays. Reading some of the chapters in this book is like a physical presence in one's conscious. I can feel Georges Simenon, Patti Smith, Ricard Stark, and others in this volume as if they are sitting across from me. 

Tosh's Favorite Books: 2020

 I've been doing a lot of reading in 2020, and mostly books on music for our podcast BOOK MUSIK. Still, here is the list of my favorite books I read this year, and I recommend that you too, give these books a read. Not in any special order:

1) "Self-Portrait with Russian Piano" Wolf Wondratschek (Fiction)

2) "Maybe the People Would Be the Times" Luc Sante (essays)

3) "A Sound Mind" Paul Morley (Music History/Essays)

4) "Peter and the Wolves" Adele Bertei (Memoir)

5) "Recombo DNA: The Story of DEVO, or how the 60s become the 80s" Kevin C. Smith (Music & Culture)

6)"Sweet Dreams" Dylan Jones (Music History)

7) "Suppose a Sentence" Brian Dillon (essays)

8) "William N. Copley: Selected Writings" (art history)

9)"Wagnerism" Alex Ross (music history)

10) "Written in Invisible Ink" Hervé Guibert (Fiction)

11) "Niche" Momus (memoir)

12) "Felix Fénéon: The Anarchist and the Avant-Garde" (art/literature history)

13) "Wrong: A Critical Biography of Dennis Cooper" Diarmuid Hester

14) "Figure It Out" Wayne Koestenbaum (essays)

15) "Cecil Beaton's Bright Young Things" Robin Muir (Social History)

16) "Tapping the Source" Kem Nunn (Surf-Noir)

17) "The Kinks: Songs of the Semi-Detached" Mark Doyle (music history/London)

18) "Stockhausen Serves Imperialism" Cornelius Cardew (Music & Politics)

19) "Gidget" Frederick Kohner (Surf biography)

20) "Dora Lives: The Autobiography of Miki Dora" (Surf art/Memior)

21) "French New Wave: A Revolution in Design" Tony Nourmand (Film and graphic design history)

22) "It Gets Me Home, This Curving Track" Ian Penman (music essays)

23) "Parallel Play" Tim Page (memoir)

24) "The Subversion of Images" Paul Nougé (art/surrealism)

25) "Tony Conrad Writings" Andrew Lampert (essays)

BOOK MUSIK: Interview with Paul Morley on his book "A Sound Mind" (Bloomsbury)

 

Book Musik 035 – A Sound Mind discussion with author Paul Morley

Posted on December 1, 2020 by Book Musik

Tosh and Kimley are joined by writer Paul Morley to discuss his latest book A Sound Mind: How I Fell in Love with Classical Music (and Decided to Rewrite Its Entire History). Paul is a man after our own heart with wildly eclectic taste in music, an insatiable curiosity and a willingness to challenge his own assumptions. He is a well-established and highly respected pop/rock writer who’s been covering the scene since the 70s. In his 50s he realized that pop music wasn’t giving him the jolt it once did and decided to explore classical music. He discovered that its newness to himself made it as exciting if not more so than the latest pop phenomenon. It’s a fascinating adventure and the book is a passionate call to never stop expanding one’s horizons.

Theme music: “Behind Our Efforts, Let There Be Found Our Efforts” by LG17

Book Musik · Book Musik 035

"Into The Maelstrom: Music, Improvisation and the Dream of Freedom" by David Toop

ISBN: 978-1-5013-1451-3 Bloomsbury

David Toop, for me, is the ideal artist who also writes profound and inspiring books on music culture and its history.   To read any of his books is like having the greatest driver take you to unannounced routes through cultural history.  "Into the Maelstrom..." is a book that addresses the nature of musicians and composers dealing with the issue of improvisation.   The range of artists that are written about in this book is absolutely amazing.  The beautiful thing is Toop was also in the height of the scene during the 1960s - so his views are both personal as well as a history of music being made and recorded throughout the 20th century.  Technically "Into the Maelstrom" deals with improvised music made before 1970 - but reading this, I don't feel the book is contained by an era or a set of years.  It's more about the spirit of making such music, and what it means to its audience/listeners as well as the musicians themselves.  Also one gathers the limits/issues/and politics of making improvised music.  It's not only music, but it is also how humans interact with others, and making art out of chaos.  

David Toop

Toop has an encyclopedic knowledge of literature and music.   What makes him a great writer is that he is able to use those tools to tell a remarkable narrative, but also smart (and entertaining) writer in that he can bounce off one idea from another.   Here in astonishing detail you get the band Cream to Nuova Consonanza (Morricone is/was in this group) to Ornette Coleman and beyond.  Also a focus on Fluxus music making as well as various visual artists/musicians from Europe/Japan.  There are so many obscure artists mentioned, but the great thing there is also a fantastic discography in the back of the book for future investigations.    Perfect book. 

AMM

Nuova Consonanza (Morricone)

Spontaneous Music Ensemble

S

Spontaneous Music Ensemble

Yoko Ono