“It’s never been about ‘Watch me,’ said Taj Mahal during an interview from his home in Berkeley. “The audience is part of the performance. It’s not like I’m up here on stage and they’re all down there. I’m just one man trying to make a global connection that anyone can plug in to.”
“I’ve always seen the bigger picture, that a majority of people in this world don’t know that the Top 10, Top 20, or Top 100 even exist,” said Mahal, who cites Freddie King, T-Bone Walker, Sleepy John Estes, Jesse Ed Davis, Mississippi John Hurt and Blind Willie McTell as his biggest musical influences. “There are 7 billion people on this planet and what’s considered commercially viable doesn’t interest the majority of them. So why would I limit myself to what record executives think will sell?”
“I’m in this thing for the long haul,” Mahal declared, “and for me, that means ignoring conventional wisdom and just playing music for the love of it. I’m hard-headed and will continue doing this for as long as I’m breathing. Just like Lightnin’ Hopkins, I learned early on (that) playing music is what I do.”
Much like Mark O’Brien I hadn’t see this clip either but heck RTE don’t half feature some great stuff and I had seen the wonderful actor Jesse Buckley (yes yes another favourite) sing before (check out her cover of Boulder to Birmingham ) but this is extraordinary!
Whatever people think of Salvador Dali, from the man to hisart, wasn’t left to chance.
"Dali was obsessed with his own branding. His eccentricities weren’t spontaneous acts of surrealism that his own imagination drew from the ether. Neither, really, were they good-hearted ways of spreading joy around people who needed them most. Acts like performing an entire lecture wearing a vintage diving suit or taking an anteater on a walk through the streets of Paris might have brought joy to people, and they were definitely surreal, but they were about heightening his own profile over everything else.
This was because, above all else, Dali was calculated. Doing strange things wouldn’t just get people talking about him, which would heighten the value of his art and heighten the value of him. It would also mean that whatever people said about him was on his terms. Which was important when so many people, from George Orwell to Andre Breton, were adamant that the great surrealist was a fascist.
Dali did no favours for himself here. The man spent the entire early 1930s quite simply not shutting up about his admiration for Adolf Hitler. Context is important here, though not so important that it makes his statements appropriate or understandable. On the one hand, Dali wasn’t expressing admiration for Hitler’s politics. On the other hand, he was absolutely expressing other kinds of admiration for the wannabe dictator, including several weirdly sexual statements about him.
Dali went so far as to say, “I often dreamed of Hitler as a woman. His flesh, which I had imagined whiter than white, ravished me… There was no reason for me to stop telling one and all that to me Hitler embodied the perfect image of the great masochist who would unleash a world war solely for the pleasure of losing and burying himself beneath the rubble of an empire; the gratuitous action par excellence that should indeed have warranted the admiration of the Surrealists.”
It’s important to note that Dali would go on to paint two other works depicting Hitler. One a typically surreal work called The Enigma of Hitler in 1939, and another, much more straightforward work called Hitler Masturbating in 1973. Dali, as he did for his whole life, would strenuously defend his right to be fascinated with fascists and to depict them in his work. Stating that he was politically neutral and that depicting them in his work was a neutral act.
The majority of the other surrealists were Marxists and thus had the sense to point out that remaining neutral in the face of a rising fascist threat is inherently fascist. They also pointed to the extremely non-neutral act of praising and congratulating Francisco Franco after he rose to power in Spain. These actions caused Breton to officially expel Dali from the Surrealist movement in 1939, a year in which it became abundantly clear that if you weren’t willing to fight against, or at least speak out against fascists, you were in league with them.
Salvador Dali may have been a great artist, but in 1939, he was still unable to outright condemn fascism, which might just say all you need to know about him. "
I (of course!) don’t agree. I understand but vehemently disagree, They all get it wrong like Andre Breton (never the most enlightened man!) If you are at all political then I can see how this might stick in the craw but if from the arts then you will (or may) iff you understand or have studied Surrealism than you understand Dali’s stand point. Such monstrosity as Fascism was anathema and to the great man ridiculous and worthy solely of exploitation. Hence Hitler as sex object. These were as powerful a statement in my opinion as Picasso’s Guernica. Yet told differently
In a world of ants Dali was an elephant! Such brutal monsters beneath him. The only thing for anyone studying Freud [as they all did at that time] was to understand man’s insignificant world of dreams and preposterous behaviour as killing others, slaughtering the innocents in such vast numbers was ‘beyond belief’ literally and that only made you worthy of ridicule. As John Lennon knew well the only defence is laughter and ridicule. Dali stands as one of the greatest painters to ever live and as a pater families of Surrealism it needs to be seen in that context ALL THE TIME! His attitude to religion, money, sex and drugs and politics was to ridicule it all at every given opportunity
When asked in Warhol’s Interview magazine about whether he had ever taken hallucinogens Dali promptly replied
Ultravox: A box of... (50th Anniversary 1977-2027 Super Deluxe Edition) (37CD) (2027)
In celebration of 50 years since Ultravox released their debut single 'Dangerous Rhythm' on 4 February 1977, here is a splendid overview of their extraordinary work.
Ultravox (previously styled as Ultravox!) were a British new wave band, formed in London in April 1974 as Tiger Lily. Between 1980 and 1986, they scored seven top ten albums and seventeen top 40 singles in the UK, the most successful of which was their 1981 hit "Vienna".
From 1974 until 1979, singer John Foxx was the frontman and the main driving force behind Ultravox. Foxx left the band in March 1979 to embark on a solo career. Midge Ure took over as lead singer, guitarist and frontman after he and keyboardist Billy Currie worked on the studio project Visage. Ure revitalised the band and steered it to commercial chart success lasting until 1987, at which time the group disbanded.
A new line-up, led by Currie, was formed in 1992, but achieved limited success with two albums failing to chart and one solitary single reaching No. 90 on the UK Singles Chart. The band's best-known line-up of Currie, Ure, bassist Chris Cross and drummer Warren Cann re-formed in 2008 and performed a series of shows in 2009 and 2010 before releasing a new studio album, Brill!ant, in May 2012 which reached No. 21 on the UK Albums Chart. In November 2013, Ultravox performed as special guests on a four-date UK arena tour with Simple Minds. These shows proved to be Ultravox's last, as in 2017 both Currie and Ure indicated that Ultravox had run its course.
Ultravox performing at Live Aid in front of 72,000 people in Wembley Stadium, London on the 13th July, 1985. The event was organised by Sir Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to raise funds for the Ethiopian famine disaster. Broadcast across the world via one of the largest satellite link-ups of all time, the concerts were seen by around 40% of the global population.
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#LiveAid#Live8#BandAid
BAND AID - How the Money is Spent
In the financial year to 30 November 2024 Band Aid has awarded grants of £3m across 16 projects to date.
Activities in 2024 include:
Provision of life saving medicines and medical supplies
Access to basic healthcare for rural communities
Strengthening the support of health services in Tigray
Therapeutic food for malnourished children and vulnerable adults
Emergency grain supplies
Drought resistant crops
Income generating activities and vocational training
Construction of basic housing to support old and vulnerable people
Construction of emergency shelters for refugees
Provision of clean water and sanitation training across multiple refugee camps in Ethiopia
Training to prevent gender-based violence in communities
Hygiene and sanitation support for adolescent girls
Construction of schools and libraries, and provision of classroom furniture
Cash distributions for vulnerable households
Rehabilitation of boreholes and wells for schools and communities
School feeding programmes in Tigray to support children returning to education
The estimated number of beneficiaries totals more than 350,000 people.
Money raised from BandAid40 will continue to fund similar activities in Ethiopia and the surrounding countries.
More information can be found at
https://register-of-charities.charity...
I am really enjoying this series from Paul over at ATSE! I confess I wasn’t ever the biggest fan, I mean I found her really interesting but post David Byrne p[roject stopped checking her out for a bit but these covers’ project are really fun! Including the originals is a stroke of genius!
Here's the third and final album of cover versions by singer-songwriter St. Vincent. Once again, a big thanks to musical friend Lil Panda for coming up with the idea and helping to put this together.
This time, the vast majority of the songs are unreleased versions, usually from concert bootlegs. The only officially released ones are the first three tracks, plus track 7. As usual, consult the mp3 tags for more sourcing details.
Also, if you think her version of "Running Up That Hill" sounds remarkably similar to the original by Kate Bush, that's because it's St. Vincent's vocals added to the instrumentation of the original.
Even though most of the songs come from bootlegs, the sound quality is generally excellent.
This album is 50 minutes long.
Here's a list of the original artists for each song:
01 Funkytown - Lipps, Inc. 02 Dig Me Out - Sleater-Kinney 03 Piggy - Nine Inch Nails 04 You Still Believe in Me - Beach Boys 05 Glory Box - Portishead 06 Running Up That Hill [A Deal with God] - Kate Bush 07 Pain for Fun - Willow 08 Breed - Nirvana 09 Lush Life - Iggy Pop 10 Young Americans - David Bowie 11 Grace - Jeff Buckley 12 Poses - Rufus Wainwright
Here's the usual song list:
01 Funkytown (St. Vincent) 02 Dig Me Out (St. Vincent) 03 Piggy (St. Vincent) 04 You Still Believe in Me (St. Vincent) 05 Glory Box (St. Vincent with the Roots) 06 Running Up That Hill [A Deal with God] [Live Vocals Only] (St. Vincent) 07 Pain for Fun (Willow & St. Vincent) 08 Breed (Nirvana & St. Vincent) 09 Lush Life (St. Vincent) 10 Young Americans (St. Vincent) 11 Grace (St. Vincent) 12 Poses (St. Vincent)
