A pair of Huysmans covers from 1978 designed by Gérard Deshayes.
• Friends of the great composer/musician Jon Hassell set up a GoFundMe account a few days ago to help raise money for Jon’s medical costs. It’s always dispiriting having to link to these fund-generators when they shouldn’t be required at all but until America sorts out its health situation this is how things are. For those who’d prefer to help Jon by buying his music, there’s a Bandcamp page with a handful of releases, and more available at Bleep, the online distributor of Warp Records who helped produce his last release, Listening To Pictures (Pentimento Volume One). Related: Words With The Shaman: Jon Hassell interviewed by Chris May.
• Every time I think I must have heard all the best of the early Kraftwerk concerts another one turns up. This new posting at YouTube is taken from a recent file upload at the concert-swapping site Dimedozen, and is believed to be a radio recording of the group playing in Vancouver, Canada, in 1975. It’s very good quality (some slight bleed from other stations) and features excellent versions of their concert repertoire at that time. The version of Autobahn is especially good.
• in 2009 Dana Mattocks built a machine he called Steampunk Frankenstein, a construction which was attended by a frame containing my first piece of steampunk art. Dana’s latest creation is TILT, the Robot with Rocket Jet-Pack.
• RIP Tony Allen, the drummer about whom Fela Kuti said “without Tony Allen, there would be no Afrobeat”. Allen was interviewed by John Doran in 2012. Related: Tony Allen: the Afrobeat pioneer’s 10 finest recordings.
• “Robert Fripp’s ‘Music for Quiet Moments’ series. We will be releasing an ambient instrumental soundscape online every week for 50 weeks. Something to nourish us, and help us through these Uncertain Times.”
• How to avoid Amazon: the definitive guide to online shopping – without the retail titan; Hilary Osborne & Poppy Noor have some suggestions. I favour eBay for many of my purchases, large or small.
• Adam Scovell on A Cinematic Lockdown: Confinement in the films of Alfred Hitchcock.
• Liberty Realm, a book of art by Cathy Ward, is coming soon from Strange Attractor.
• One Great Reader: Luc Sante talks to Wes del Val about his favourite books.
• Oscar Wilde and the mystery of the scarab ring by Eleanor Fitzsimons.
• Unica Zürn at Musée D’art Et D’histoire De L’hôpital Sainte-Anne.
• Mix of the week: Secret Thirteen Mix 302 by Avizohar.
• Another concert: Tuxedomoon live in Rome in 1988.
• Rarefilmm | The Cave of Forgotten Films.
• At Dennis Cooper’s: Ghosts.
• Ghost Song (1978) by Jim Morrison & The Doors | Ghost Song (2000) by Air | Ghost Song (2005) by Patrick Wolf
John,
Thanks for drawing attention to the campaign to help Jon Hassell – donated. Dispiriting as you say. I naively thought that someone as well known and widely acknowledged as an originator as JH wouldn’t need crowdfunding to basically live and survive. How little I know.
Thanks also for the Kraftwerk link. In lieu of anything new, these nuggets from the past are the only thing keeping a fan going. Every so often something interesting turns up. I don’t know if you recently saw the photographs of a young Ralf modelling for a watch company, shirtless and with an owl on his arm? Maybe this is partly why he wants to erase everything pre-Autobahn.
Sad news about both Jon Hassell and Tony Allen. I feel very lucky to have seen Allen play the other year with Jeff Mills at the Barbican, it was a wonderful Afro-futurist experience. I wish they’d managed to produce more than just the four track EP that was released.
Hello G Drumm, hah, I’ve not seen those photos. I’ve never understood why there’s a problem with Ralf and Florian curating their back-catalogue. They made the work, they have that right, surely? We can all still hear the earlier work by hook or by crook :-). I don’t expect Ralf to release anything new and respect that decision. Having said that, although I’m a lifelong Kraftwerk fan, I finally bought the Catalogue 3-D box on sale last month and regretfully feel it’s an inessential addition to their oeuvre.
G Drumm: I’ve not seen the Ralf photos either.
As to the early Kraftwerk albums, they’ve been subject to several posts in the past (at least, Ralf & Florian has), including one where I made suggestions for a redesign of their covers in line with the streamlined graphics of the most recent reissues:
http://www.johncoulthart.com/feuilleton/2015/02/19/reworking-kraftwerk-again/
I still anticipate a reissue of the non-canon works since there now seems little else the group can do aside from call it a day. Ralf will soon be too old to tour any longer (although he could be replaced by a robot…), and the release of the live albums means that the canon has now been thoroughly explored and reworked. Where else can they go?