'DANGEROUS' WOMEN

An Occasional Series

JEAN SEBERG

Jean Seberg was an actor and starred in films like Jean-Luc Godard’s ‘Breathless' (À Bout de Souffle) she was actively interested in the civil rights movement and became involved with groups like the Black Panther Party.

with Jean-Paul Belmondo in À Bout de Souffle

filming Bernard Shaw's St Joan

 As a result of her activities, the FBI targeted her for 'neutralisation'  under the FBI’s COINTELPRO program. During this time, Seberg was stalked and harassed on a daily basis by FBI agents, repeated break-ins of her apartments were made by the FBI, she was wiretapped, she was blacklisted by Hollywood due to FBI pressure, and the FBI began circulating fraudulent and defamatory articles about her through the American press (falsely claiming that Seberg, a married white woman, was having an affair with a Black Panther Party leader. Seberg, who was pregnant at the time, was put under such public duress that she went into premature labour and her child died two days later resulting in Seberg slipping into a fierce depression). 

The eventual outcome of years of constant intimidation and harassment, which had long-term effects on Seberg’s mental health and well-being, was Seberg’s suicide.

just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you

 (The FBI admitted to its campaign against Seberg in 1979 weeks after her death.)

Fascinating article from Aquarium Drunkard interviewing Jah Wobble 

Unwelcome Jazz :: Jah Wobble Talks Bass, Brian Eno and 25 Years of “Spinner”

Posted on August 18, 2020 

We’ve had 25 years to reflect on the strange, oscillating chasm of Eno/Wobble’s collaboration, which in many ways feels as relevant now as it did in 1995. The music feels as cold and mesmerizing as the surrounding atmosphere of the moon, its synthetic ripples swelling into great oceans of sound. Wobble brought a zealousness to Eno’s ambience, one that stirred a great fire in the belly of an ether otherwise shapeless and benign.

Jah Wobble talks Unwelcome Jazz, bass, Brian Eno etc - Aquarium Drunkard

BBC RADIO 2 'The Blues Show'

Rhiannon Giddens was the guest host on BBC Radio 2's 'The Blues Show.' She shared an hour of favorite blues songs by women artists like Geeshie Wiley, Bessie Smith, Ethel Waters, Big Mama Thornton, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Nina Simone, Odetta, Aretha Franklin, Leyla McCalla, Amythyst Kiah, and others. Listen again at

BBC.CO.UK

BBC Radio 2 - The Blues Show with Cerys Matthews, Rhiannon Giddens sits in

The Grammy-winning musician shares an hour of her favourite blues.

SHIRLEY COLLINS

Aquarium Drunkard chose this album by the legendary Shirley Collins to feature and we understand why

There are voices. And then there are Voices. With “Wondrous Love,” Shirley Collins reminds us she’s in the latter category, bringing fresh humanity this early 1800s Sacred Harp hymn (with roots stretching back even further to the British isles).

Aquarium Drunkard - Shirley Collins : Wondrous Love

PICTURE OF THE WEEK

Pete Townshend and his dog Towser, 1971, putting on a show for Pete’s stuffed animals, 

by legendary pop photographer Barrie Wentzell.

SUNDAY BLUES

So one of the guys over at Voodoo Wagon ( a new fellah I think!? goes by the name of uh, one Mitchell Lopate) done posted some fine, fine blues this morning with the legendary Brownie McGhee. Now it is only relatively recently I discovered that towards the middle of their association they began to disclose they didn't get on at all which shattered this po' white boy's dreams as I loved those guys together . . . . . but I guess I love them apart too! This is a beauty! And sadly the year before he died . . . . he still cooks that Piedmont style mind you. With Sugar Blue on harmonica. Great quality too. Have at it! [well done Mitch!]

Brownie McGhee - Chicago Blues Festival 1995 - Voodoo Wagon

There are a few references to Brownie using the Piedmont style guitar playing and for anyone unfamiliar there is a helpful explanation here, simply it is a finger style with its roots in Ragtime with alternating thumb picking on the bass strings and syncopated with the forefinger on the higher strings as mastered by many but notable perhaps to two blind boys, Blind Willie McTell and Blind Blake. Brownie McGhee was a master too and it included my earliest favourite Josh White, Blind Boy Fuller and search out many more if you wish . . . . 

What in the heck is Piedmont Style Blues?

B ★ O ★ W ★ I ★ E 

Even Big O is taking the Bowie fest to heart and band wagon jumping . . . . . (as long as that's the Voodoo Wagon hey?!)  It says it's a good audience recording which I don't usually bother with but it could be a matrix tape . . . . . .there is clear audible audience cheering but the bass and bottom end sounds like a soundboard . . . . . it is however really listenable despite whether it is one or the other . . . . . worth a listen at least. You decide . . . . . . 

David Bowie Yokohama 1983 - Big O 

The Thin White Duke?                     . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .                          we miss him! 

EMILY BARKER

Emily has released another track from her forthcoming alum and I detect a new kind of depth somehow to her storytelling. . . . .this song vid is a 'FILM' in my opinion and it makes a great story, a haunting future vision of the world switching from Sci-Fi to reality with all it's Eco/Green Planet implications  . . . . . 





Don't believe me? Then check out this glowing review from 'Uncut' magazine (a favourite) and being compared with PJ Harvey is praise indeed . . . . . . . . . . 

Order the album here . . . . . . .

KATE RUSBY

Did I mention the new Kate Rusby album of covers 'Hand Me Down' is available now? Well it is and she has mentioned on her Facebook page:

Our own shop

https://purerecords.net/collections/kate-rusby/products/hand-me-down

Amazon

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hand-Me-Down-Kate-Rusby/dp/B08DSYSJZ6/

Digital

https://ffm.to/handmedown-katerusby

More 

LAND ART

Connections

THE PARIS REVIEW

in The Paris Review and it is totally fascinating . . . . . . enjoy. More wide ranging then mere art and artists but I really enjoyed it.

Peter Smithson - Spiral Jetty 1970


This is worth a read. I have been interested in Land Art (so called) since being a student in the seventies and Smithson's 'Spiral Jetty' was one of the first to inspire me and I found the scale of which staggering (util later when fid the work of Michael Heizer et al) The natural elements re-arranged to follow the rules of sculpture always intrigued and held allure for me. I found this article 

On Henri Bergson, disasters, and the human perception of time.

THE PARIS REVIEW

‘There’s the matter of perspective, and there’s also the matter of scale. A young poet I know noticed that I often write about the self watching the self. He quoted an es­say in which I wrote that I fantasize in the third person, connecting this to another piece, which mentions Robert Smithson’s earthwork sculpture Spiral Jetty. “Do you think land artists more so desired their work to be experienced within (standing on the rocks, beside the hole) or from above (via camera, airplane)?” he asked me in an email. My mind spiraled off. It’s very hard for me, I told him, to be “present in the moment”—I’m always going meta, narrativ­izing, thinking about what I’m thinking about, imagining the future—and then in my specious present, I’m com­paring what is happening to what I had imagined would happen, my souvenir du présent to my memoire de l’avenir.I didn’t say that Smithson didn’t mean for Spiral Jetty to be seen at all, or at least not for long—he built it when the water levels in Great Salt Lake were unusually low: a comment on ephemerality at epic scales. Finished in 1970, the jetty had disappeared by the time he died, in 1973, in a plane crash while surveying sites for a new piece. It stayed hidden for thirty years. Since 2002, drought has kept the water levels low, so it is now usually visible. The ephem­erality doubles back: The design exposed, it’s Smithson’s intention, human intention, that’s ephemeral.’ The Unreality of Time By Elisa Gabbert

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2020/08/11/the-unreality-of-time/