where are they now, v. 1 — Toronto, anyone?

Greetings from radio K-SAT! I’m still waiting for a single hour in the 2-day forecast that doesn’t include a chance of rain, but in the meantime the tomato plants look awesome! (Speaking of tomatoes (and potatoes), does anyone else yearn for those bygone days when Dan Quayle was the most polarizing figure in US politics?)

As some of you know, Stealing All Transmissions tidies up a limited number of loose ends, and I figure it’s about time I apprise you of the whereabouts of a handful of the protagonists, aides, and abettors. Meg Griffin, of course, is still spinning discs for Sirius-XM Radio, and is also one of the key subjects of a new documentary, I Am What I Play. (Roger King is one of the masterminds of this project, and he’s a good guy, so do check this out when it arrives in your city.) Here she is with rock photographer extraordinaire (and insanely sweet guy) Bob Gruen, who still keeps busy on the other side of the camera. They’re pictured, of course, with Mr. G.’s book on John Lennon.

Joe Piasek, Meg’s partner-in-crime at WPIX, followed up their “Elvis-to-Elvis” experiment to work at Nickelodeon, where the management better understood the ethos he fomented at WPIX. As of August 2010, Piasek is behind the scenes (and occasionally on the air) at radio station WIOX-FM, out of Roxbury, New York. The station is this odd public-private partnership that broadcasts 24/7, with roughly 19 hours a day of live programming made possible by more than 80 volunteers. The facility is a former Masonic Lodge with plenty of space for in-studio performances, dances–the works. I had the chance to visit Joe there in 2012, and he’s still as properly restless as he was circa 1980 when it comes to business-as-usual. If you’re looking for a good cause to support, tune into WIOX, and consider joining their underwriting forces. (I’m presently tuned into Lizzie Douglas, who’s just schooled listeners that the inspiration for The Beatles’ “Good Morning, Good Morning” was a Corn Flakes commercial in the UK–just the thing that US historians might miss.) The transmission is analog and digital, and you can download the WIOX App for free at the iTunes Store. Given the struggles of radio in general, watch for this model to spread–all it takes is a few more mavericks who are willing and able.

Two more items of note: check out this lovely Clash fan site, which hosts over 3000 photos of the lads and descriptions in French.

Toronto, of course, played a big role in Clash history. As the tour bus readied in September 1979 to return to the US, Mick staged a sit-down strike until someone secured some marijuana. Luckily, some fan procured the necessary goods, and I’d like to offer my thanks to that person, as the legendary shows at the Palladium a few nights later might have otherwise never commenced. In case there’s interest: I am making a quick visit to Toronto on Thursday, 18 July, and while I wasn’t diligent enough to arrange a reading/signing that evening, I’d be delighted to meet folks for lunch and a chat about The Clash, the book, aging with punk and dignity, etc. If you’re interested (or know someone who’s interested), please e-mail me by 12 July, so we can make arrangements at a downtown eatery. Cheers!

McLaren, New York Dolls, Walter Benjamin, New Music Rules in 82

Happy Sunday, music people, and thanks for tuning in to Radio K-SAT!

In my efforts to get the word out about Stealing All Transmissions, I have had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of former Clash associates, one of whom recently suggested that I hadn’t give Malcolm McLaren his due in terms of the New York-London connection. Granted, McLaren arrived to elaborate the abject qualities of The New York Dolls (see below), by dressing them up in red leather, providing a Soviet-inspired stage backdrop, and thereby extended by a few months their demise. As Jerry Nolan noted, “Malcolm caught us at a very vulnerable moment” (Please Kill Me, p. 191).

McLaren, likewise, tried in vain to recruit Sylvain Sylvain to front an early line-up of The Sex Pistols, and he stepped in to perform one-man interventions with Johnny Thunders, Jerry Nolan, and Arthur Kane. According to Bob Gruen, McLaren saved their lives.

Still, I like to imagine McLaren as a poacher of the New York scene, rather than either a shaker or a mover. He inserted himself into the ebb and flow of proto-punk life on the mean streets of New York, but he did little to sway the tide.

McLaren’s post-Pistols’ success with Bow Wow Wow and on his own reflect a real vision of mass/pop culture, as exemplified in the clips below from the July 31, 1982 of Billboard.

If McLaren drew liberally upon the politics and aesthetics of the Situationists for the Pistols, he channeled here his inner Walter Benjamin. Benjamin’s writings from the Weimar years, including “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” inspired the generation of intellectuals coming of age during punk and after. In “Work of Art,” Benjamin sees the aura of the unique objet d’art under assault, and posits “the reactionary attitude toward a Picasso painting changes into the progressive reaction toward a Chaplin movie” (Illuminations, p. 234).

Likewise, Benjamin notes,

 “The characteristics of the film lie not only in the manner in which man presents himself to mechanical equipment but also in the manner in which, by means of this apparatus, man can represent his environment” (Ibid., p. 235).

 McLaren, as noted in the clip on the left, celebrates the boom-box-toting kid in New York City, and the virtues of the cassette. “That fellow can become, in his own right, his own DJ … they can collate their music without the added neurosis of having to go out and purchase musical instrument or records of expensive studio time.”  The shift is on, from reproduction to composition, and with music in its digital form, consumers can produce in a rich variety of creative ways–if those ways do, in many cases, minimize the physical movement once entailed in making music.

(If these images appear too small, you can find them here, on pp. 3 & 58.)

I’ve included below more coverage from the New Music Seminar of 1982 on the matter of marketing (dig the pic of X in the upper right), which includes notes on the importance of record shop workers knowing the actual music (!). “People would come in asking about the song with the waitress in the cocktail bar when the Human League song first came out,” recalled Bruce Godwin, from the Record Rack, in Houston. (See p. 14 from the link included above.)

 

And, now that you’re thinking about The Human League …

Thanks for checking out the whole set here at Radio K-SAT! Do let me know if there are sections of the book that you think deserve elaboration here, or related subjects you’d like to see taken up here.