seeline

Not accepting returns from bookstores is just as screwy...

The idea is completely insane - and (to be honest) just plain stupid. signed, longtime (former) bookstore employee

Only in Tinseltown!

per his Wiki bio., he was not exactly well-to-do.

I think you could put him in the Lord Byron category - "mad, bad and dangerous to know" - in general, but... Hubert Selby Jr.was just as notorious for Last Exit to Brooklyn, Norman Mailer was notorious for (in large part) his public behavior when drunk (like hitting Gore Vidal), and... Celebrities, all of them. I've never understood the cachet of heroin addiction, myself.

I'm no fan of the Beats, either - though Ginsberg and Kerouac had a lot of appeal for many of the guys I went to school with. Kerouac's last interview (at least, I believe it was his last) was broadcast on Dick Cavett's talk show here in the US. He was very drunk, and it was hard to watch him, as he couldn't answer questions in a rational way. My guess is that some of the Beats were popular with white middle-class kids, but that they've never had much appeal outside those circles. (Like many of the writers and musicians who were idolized by my generation.)

To be really honest.... I think he became famous mainly because of the company he kept.

I think I knew that already, 7/4. (not meant in a snarky way; he's never had *any* appeal for me at all.)

I was a studio art major in undergrad school, and think that if Laurie Anderson had been touring at the time, I would have been crazy about her work - the same, I'm sure, would have been true of most of my fellow students. I missed out by just a few years. By 1984 (the year she did her Home of the Brave tour), I'd become jaded.

I guess I should add that I still don't care for her recitation. But the visuals and music were/are nicely done. Re. Burroughts, yeah - he did pose with a lot of people. I've never understood why his name has such cachet.

Of course it's "dated" - just like the special effects used back in the day (whatever decade "the day" might be). But those projections (etc.) were unlike anything I'd seen at the time, and I still like them.

Here's a clip from Home of the Brave (the tour she was doing when I saw her) - this was the one piece that I really liked:

Weird - because I watched some June Taylor Dancers vids on YouTube last week.

The computer animations and staging were pretty cool!

Touché!

I honestly don't think she's "avant-garde," except in the eyes of some critics, and - maybe - her own. She does seem to be a good pop performer (though not, I think, a very good songwriter), and I have a feeling that she doesn't necessarily seek to attract attention. I also think (just my opinion, like the rest of my posts!) that the NYT writers have consistently made her out to be something that she's not - a "performance artist." When I went to see her, she was cracking silly jokes (really silly) in between songs - essentially, doing mini-stand up sets - and having hats lowered from the ceiling and... very show-biz, kinda vaudevilleish. (I mean that in a good way, BTW.) If she'd done that kind of thing on her albums, she might just have become popular. One other thing (not exactly an original thought): her show reminded me of David Byrne, right down to the white suit and soul singers doing backup. Maybe there was something in the water in Manhattan at the time?!

I honestly believe she takes herself too seriously. There's material on her site about the reissue of her album Big Science - includes something about "the political context." Kinda sums up why I didn't like her live show, back when. (And I really wanted to enjoy it, but...)

Back to the mid-80s, etc. - this number was at the end of the show; people went wild for it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FeyGTmw0I0...feature=related

I saw Anderson once, in the mid-80s, and was very disappointed (and bored) - it just seemed like she was trying so hard to be hip and cutting-edge and... She was very earnest, but there wasn't anything terribly exciting or "new" about the show. I have this feeling that if the NYT critics (at the time) had written about her as a pop singer rather than as an avant-garde performance artist, my expectations would have been different, and I might actually have enjoyed her show. Edited to add: A lot of the things she did (in terms of altering the sound of her voice and of various instruments) struck me as being gimmicky and very show-biz - not at all like Kozinn describes them. Again, if I'd seen this as something lighthearted and fun, I'd probably have enjoyed it, but I took it over-seriously, as Kozinn and his predecessors have done, and... In a lot of ways, her onstage demeanor reminded me of Borscht Belt comedians, which was (I think) deliberate.

Hee - I used to work at a place where genealogical societies had some influence. They have to be loving the pr in this! (Seriously.)

I haven't read every post here, but.... being prone to over-analysis myself, I'm more aware than I'd like to be that there is such a thing as too much of it (analysis, that is). One of the things that I love about playing is that the critical part of my brain gets switched off when I'm doing it, even when I'm practicing and (often) having to think about the various parts of a rhythm or rhythmic cycle. I used to write reviews, and found that I thought about the music so hard that i had difficulty actually writing about it. so I quit (for other reasons, too, though over-analysis is probably the chiefest). There really is no way to describe music adequately in words, so... Just my .02-worth.

Shameless plug for this album - Great band, incredible repertoire (ranges from older sambas to serenade waltzes to contemporary pieces). Zélia is a rocker, and never thought she'd get green-lighted for this project. Incredibly, it became a hit. Everyone involved is playing because they love the music, and it shows.

Clementina is amazing - you know, her singing career didn't start until she was getting up there. Check here for more - unfortunately, most all of the albums they list are o.p. right now (and have been for some time). Novos Baianos: I first learned about them here, and haven't actually heard that much by them, so I'm not the person to ask. All I can tell you is that I want to hear more; also that guitarist Pepeu Gomes is fast becoming a fave of mine. BTW, there are *lots* of Brazilian music vids on YouTube... And thanks so much for your kind words re. my blog - glad you're finding new music through it!

There are actually a number of Spanish musicians working on a jazz/flamenco thing - pianists Chano Domiguez and Diego Amador, reed player Jorge Pardo (who was with Paco de Lucia for a long time), drummer Guillermo McGill and... dang, there are more people, but I'm drawing a complete blank! Chano D.'s performance in the film Calle 54 (you can get it on DVD) is very nice. Bebo Valdés has been doing some fusion (Cuba-jazz-flamenco), too - his album Lagrimas Negras (with Diego "El Cigala") is the one to get. My favorite out of everything that I've heard is the Jerry Gonzalez disc mentioned above. (Might be my fave recording by Jerry, too...)

EMI Brasil had that nasty rootkit thing on their discs for a while, but I got around them via the Shift key and J River Media Center.