Tosh Berman's Blog, page 180
July 7, 2016
Lun*na Menoh Premiere Performance : Maurice Ravel's BOLERO at The Velaslavasay Panorama on July 30, 2016
The Velaslavasay Panorama presentsLun*na Menoh premiere performance Maurice Ravel's BOLERO classical music created with sampled noise from sewing machinesopening act: Les Sewing Sisters with Atsuko Yoo and Saori Mitome- experimental sewing pop “we as a sewing machine”
Saturday, July 30th, 2016 7:00 PM $12 ($10 for current VPES members) http://lunnabolero.bpt.me/Velaslavasay Panorama, 1122 W. 24th St. LA, CA 90007 (Downtown LA/West Adams)
July 4, 2016
David Bowie 2002 `America´
One of the many great performances by David Bowie. It's a great song already, but Bowie adds that magic touch to make it even greater.
July 2, 2016
June 30, 2016
"Like Cattle Towards Glow" by Dennis Cooper and Zac Farley
Great film. In a sexual landscape that is half awake with a strong hold on a dream world. Five segments where characters are all at an emotional or sexual (or both) heights. Beautifully textured with layers of sadness, yet with perfect dialogue. A great sense of pacing, with overtures to Robert Bresson and Michelangelo Antonioni in that sense, yet, Dennis and Zac made a film that is very much their world - both in a style and in its vision. Fantastic work.
- Tosh Berman
"Sign and Images" by Roland Barthes (Seagull Books)
ISBN 978-0857422415 Seagull Books"Signs and Images" by Roland Barthes Translated by Chris Turner (Seagull Books)Seagull Books (out of India) has been putting out these bite-size hardcover editions of Roland Barthes's writings. What I have read so far, all wonderful. This new one, "Signs and Images," is very well-titled. A collection of essays, introductions, and brief writings on the image and what it represents to the world. Here we get commentary on art, the cinema, and how a country like Japan deals with the issue of 'image, ' and how that reads to their citizens as well as to the western world (or at least in France). Barthes is one of the very few foreign writers (Donald Richie is the other) who understands Japanese culture. For him, it is almost a science with respect to researching the representation of images and how that translates into a form of reality, or at the very least, an interpretation of something - whatever it's in the cinema, an artwork, or a whole culture like Japan. Reading Barthes work is wonderful, because it is thought-in-action. It's not the conclusion, but the journey that is important.
-Tosh Berman
June 15, 2016
"The History of Rock: 1967" by Uncut Magazine
"The History of Rock/1967" by Uncut Magazine
How can anyone who is not touched by pop music, can possibly avoid the publications edited by Uncut, that focuses on one year in rock, via the original articles from Melody Maker and New Musical Express. The issue I have just read, "1967," is simply fascinating. It was the year of "Smiley Smile," "Sgt. Pepper" and "Magical Mystery Tour," along with the dark psych sounds of the Stones' "Their Santanic Majesties Request." On one level, it is like traveling back in time, but for me, it is being in the 'now, ' and looking back to the past. The two previous issues "1965" and "1966" one sees a progression of the old style of pop writing, which is basically a PR for the music business. "1966" you start getting more journalistic approach to the music world, as it got more serious and baroque like. "1967" is the first year of Technocolor for the pop world. The previous years were very much like a black and white film.
Jimi Hendrix, who is the cover figure for "1967" is the perfect example of color (not only skin) becoming prominent in that culture. A lot of clothing from that period looks like left-over designs from the turn of the century, but now in living color. The Stones were always either in muted or dark colors or black and white, but "Santanic" album is one of bright colors. Scott Walker with the Walker Brothers featured greatly in '65 and '66, but one would think of them as black and white as well. So overall, pop in the 60's became one of color, when before, it was dark shades of gray or stark black and white. Also one notice that the major Dylan presence in '65 and '66 is non-existent in 1967. Yet, his sense of adventure is everywhere in pop music at the time.
And singles are still important, but albums are making a strong aesthetic stand in 1967. "Pepper" is like a novel, and so is the Stones "Santanic" album, and if one reads carefully, the death of Brian Epstein sort of brings in the end of the manager superstar. "1965" was sort of a new world, and '66 was a time of exploring, but 1967 was a year of spiritual awareness or curiosity (especially for the Fab Four), and one gets the impression by reading this publication that everything was about to end. In what way, no one knew. One thing that is interesting, is that questioning in the interviews with the many artists are in a serious vein. Some on war, but a lot of chatting among the press and the artist on the subject matter of drugs (mostly due to the Stones being busted that year) as well as God.
In "1967" we are introduced to The Monkees, Bee Gees, Cream, Traffic, The Who, The Move, Syd's Pink Floyd and the first pop festival, Monterey. . A touch of flower power as well. Everything was peaking, but then, it dimmed quickly.
June 13, 2016
"The Magic Circle: On The Beatles, Pop Art, Art-Rock and Records" by Jan Tumlir (Onomatopee)
ISBN: 978-94-91677-43-4 OnomatopeeThe 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
