biography

Instant Ono!

Ian Alterman — Mon, 09 Jun 2025 21:08:24 +0000

Instant Ono! Ian Alterman June 9, 2025 - 17:08

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[N.B. Ninety-five percent of this review is sourced directly from the book. The other 5% is sourced from two or three other authoritative books about the Beatles, which were necessary for one or two explications in the review.]

I cannot think of any woman in any profession -- from the arts to sciences, from politics to religion, and beyond -- more vilified, dismissed, denigrated, demeaned, and even outright hated than Yoko Ono. Sadly, all of this is the result of a toxic brew of ignorance (general, musical, historical, artistic) and racism. It is also borne of myths (and sometimes outright lies) that still remain remarkably broad-based despite an overwhelming body of facts and evidence to the contrary -- even when that evidence is provided by those to whom the myths and/or lies are ascribed. I have heard everything from "she broke up the Beatles" (a tick-like persistent myth) to "she can't sing worth a damn," to "she had no influence or particular fame in the art world" to "she was only ever famous because she married John." All of this, coming mostly from people who have no particularly deep knowledge of either music (beyond pop/rock) or art (at all), particularly vis-à-vis history, and even less knowledge of Yoko and her own life story.

Certainly, people have a right to like and listen to what they want, and to most Western (read American) ears, dissonance of any sort can be difficult, if not off-putting. So what has often been called Yoko's "caterwauling" vocals can be jarring to the Western ear, particularly when you are not a musician trained in theory and history and/or have little or no background in either -- particularly the various avant-garde music movements, primarily of the 50s, 60s, and 70s. For example, pick 50 random people on the street and I would bet a dollar to a dime that 49 of them have never heard of either 12-tone music or Arnold Schoenberg. Or John Cage. Or Edgar Varese. And names like Karlheinz Stockhausen, Iannis Xenakis, and Arvo Part would simply make them laugh.

That said, some of the modern composers who were aware of Yoko's vocalizations (even prior to her meeting John), recognized them as more than just "caterwauling" or "screaming," and understood them in the context of modern and avant-garde music include John Cage (with whom she worked several times), Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Arvo Part, and Brian Eno. Even Igor Stravinsky and Krzysztof Penderecki were aware of and appreciated the chance she was taking in bringing aleatoric (chance) elements to her vocalizing. And John came to understand this fairly early on as well (though it took the other Beatles much longer).

By the time she was recording albums with John (and then solo) some of the popular music artists who saw her as an inspiration, influence and/or a pioneer -- many of whom collaborated with her and/or covered songs from her albums -- include Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth (both of whom recognized the importance of what she was doing long before any other "pop/rock" music artists), Patti Smith, Laurie Anderson, Frank Zappa, Lady Gaga, RZA and Wu-Tang Clan, Kate Pierson and the B-52s (the background vocals in "Rock Lobster" are essentially what Yoko had been doing for years), David Byrne and Talking Heads, Lene Lovich, Ringo Starr, David Bowie, Elton John, Madonna, Roberta Flack, Harry Nilsson, Elvis Costello, Rosanna Cash, Cyndi Lauper, Joey Ramone, Lou Reed, The Melvins, Mike D and the Beastie Boys, Kurt Cobain and Nirvana, Courtney Love, Redd Kross, Eric Clapton, Jim Keltner, Klaus Voorman, Paul Simon, Peaches, Michael Stipe, Rufus and Martha Wainwright, Iggy Pop and the Stooges, Savages, Boy George, Pussy Riot, Siouxsie Sioux, Marianne Faithful, Questlove, Death Cab for Cutie, Flaming Lips, US Girls, Sudan Archives, Japanese Breakfast, and Yo La Tengo. And that is not even an exhaustive list.

Even Paul McCartney -- after "getting over himself" (post-Beatles) and his concerns about having Yoko in the studio, and actually listening to and learning about what Yoko had been doing, by that time for decades -- came around. In a 2013 interview in Rolling Stone -- when asked about Yoko vis-à-vis both her music and her art -- his simple two-word answer was "She's badass!" McCartney, who had been a fan of modern composers (particularly John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen) since 1967, finally realized that what Yoko had been doing vocally was beyond even the Beatles' knowledge and understanding of music theory, music history, and the avant-garde movements she was either contributing to or helping to pioneer.

The average person has even less knowledge or understanding of the many avant-garde art movements, primarily of the 50s, 60s, and 70s, ranging from non-art to interactive art, from Dada to Primitivism, and from Imagism and Minimal Art to Fluxus and beyond.

Some of the artists who recognized the importance of Yoko's work -- and, again, some of whom considered her a pioneer in some of those avant-garde art movements, and many of whom either collaborated with her or participated in shared exhibitions -- include Victor Vaserely, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Louise Nevelson, Keith Haring, Frank Stella, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Robert Mapplethorpe, Kenny Scharf, Ai Weiwei, Guerilla Girls, and Laura Bates. This, too, is far from an exhaustive list. It should also be noted that Yoko is listed among the 100 most important modern artists by Contemporary Art Magazine, in a grouping that includes Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso, Nam June Paik, Richard Serra, Marcel Duchamp, David Hockney, Paul Klee, Joan Miro, Max Ernst, Alexander Calder, Damien Hirst, Cy Twombly, Claes Oldenburg, Louise Bourgeois, and Cindy Sherman.

The biography is written by friend and "insider" David Sheff, who was literally "in the room" beginning in September 1980 (just prior to John's assassination), and in, out, and/or around for almost the entirety of Yoko's life after John was killed. So he is perfectly positioned to write this book: he has no interest in the salaciousness, sensationalism, myth-making, or gossip of other books about John and/or The Beatles, particularly vis-à-vis Yoko. Rather, this is a beautiful, well-written, fair-minded, yet not fawning* portrait of a woman who has seen her share of heartache, accomplished extraordinary things in both music and art, adding to the lexicons of both, and yet has been vilified continuously for over 60 years. *(E.g., he takes her greatly to task for her reliance on divination, astrology, numerology, tarot, and other "occult" obsessions).

The book is separated into three parts. The first tells of Yoko's childhood and early life, up to the time she met John. It relates how she survived the bombing of Tokyo as a very young child; of having emotionally (and sometimes physically) distant parents; of having to not only engage in primary and continual self-care (as opposed to parental care), but also care of her younger brother, and many other (often depressing) aspects that made Yoko the quiet, mostly introverted, and seemingly inscrutable person she became. It was in her late single and early double digits that she first started (unwittingly) forming the philosophy that would guide her for the rest of her life: "imagine" -- a word and concept she used continuously throughout her life and art, long before she met John and he co-opted the word for the song. [N.B. John finally admitted that the song was not simply co-written by Yoko, but was inspired by her ideas, and for which Yoko was finally given official co-writing credit.] The explanation of her use of "imagine" as a broad-based life-long philosophy is not just a high point of the book, but arguably the single most important thing we learn about her art, music, and approach to life.

The second part takes us from her first meeting John in 1966 to his assassination in 1980. Not only does Sheff finally and absolutely debunk the myth of her "breaking up The Beatles," placing the blame for that primarily on John (for good and proven reasons), but also on the "bigger picture" of what was happening at the time among the Beatles -- musically, legally and otherwise.

As an aside, regarding the break-up of the band, Sheff "ups the ante" and makes a remarkably cogent case for Yoko having saved the Beatles -- and that, without her, we might not have had the White Album, Yellow Submarine, Let It Be, or Abbey Road. This is because John first began seriously considering quitting the group after the release of Magical Mystery Tour. This was when tensions in the band began to grow exponentially, and John was becoming increasingly morose in the studio during the writing and recording of the White Album (a fact confirmed by George Martin) -- an album that was less a collaboration of four musicians (though some songs were) than the Beatles serving as studio musicians for each others' songs. We learn that the only reason John was willing to remain in the band was that he had Yoko with him at all times, and that her love and calming presence (for him) overrode his greatly increasing unhappiness, dissatisfaction and frustration with the band and the growing tensions among them (those not related to Yoko's presence). In this regard, Sheff suggests, had she not been there (and rarely mentioned is that the first time she was present in the studio was not for the Let It Be sessions, but the "Fool on the Hill" session, almost two years before), it is entirely possible that John would have quit the Beatles in early 1968 -- leaving us without the group's last four albums.

So, Yoko not only did not cause the break-up of the band (and again, the facts show that the primary cause was John, even if Yoko was a quasi-catalyst), but may well have prevented it from breaking up for an additional two years by "preventing" John from leaving earlier.

Importantly, perhaps even critically, Sheff also provides an in-depth context of the growing relationship between John and Yoko that has been sorely missing from any published work about John. It is contradictorily simple and complex, with both enormous love and serious tensions, but with both of them always "erring" on the side of love, acceptance, and progression.

The third part is Yoko's life after John's death -- and is so much more interesting, informative, and eye-opening than I am guessing anyone could possibly…imagine. While focusing primarily on her art and music -- as well as her relationship with Sean, and her understandable ongoing heartbreak over John's death -- it also tells of death threats, thefts, betrayals by people close to her, and the hiring of bodyguards, among many other (sadly) necessary aspects of her post-John life.

But it is her growing contributions to music and art during this period -- and the growing realization by a much greater number of people (particularly those in the arts, but also the public at large) -- that continues to be the main point: she never stopped creating, never stopped experimenting, never stopped adding to the lexicons of both music and art. She was relentless in the face of sexism, racism, and any other "isms" that attempted to get in her way. In this regard, Paul McCartney was more correct than even he knows when he said: "She's badass!"

It's a damn shame that the people who really should read this book -- the Yoko-haters, those who still believe she "broke up the Beatles" (a myth that has been debunked countless times by everyone including the Beatles themselves, but simply refuses to die), those who believe that her vocals were nothing more than dissonant caterwauling, those who claim she made no contributions to the art world and only became famous because she was married to a Beatle, etc. -- are the very people who are not going to read it. And even if they did, it probably would not change very many minds -- so ingrained is their hatred, ignorance and/or racism -- nor would many (most?) understand the significant degree to which she contributed to both the art and music worlds -- in the latter case, both rock/pop and avant-garde -- and that she had been doing so for more than a decade before she met John Lennon.

David Sheff has written an informative, substantive, readable, and important biography of one of the 20th century's most wrongly maligned but most important and talented women -- a woman who never stopped creating and pushing artistic boundaries, and expressing love, peace, and acceptance even in the face of nearly continuous vilification and vitriol. A woman who combined art and activism, and in doing so progressed both into new and important places, and who refused to give in to the negativity that often surrounded her. Sheff has given us the Yoko we never knew -- the true, real, "exposed" woman of love, peace, and art -- but the Yoko we needed to know. And in doing so, he has done an enormous service; one that goes well beyond the printed words on the pages, sometimes even getting right to the soul of this sad but magnificent woman.

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Immediate Rays

Gary Lucas — Mon, 09 Dec 2024 17:06:21 +0000

Immediate Rays Gary Lucas December 9, 2024 - 12:06

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Shredded Cover By My Dog Rosita

Just finishing up Simon Spence's fascinating account of my favorite label back in my anglophile days, IMMEDIATE RECORDS. Entitled (what else?): Immediate: The Rise and Fall of the UK's First Independent Record Label: FUCK THEM ALL (Backstage Books). This is a recently updated version of Simon's previous coffee-table-size book about Immediate Records, first published in 2008. And it is perhaps the best book ever about that insane moment in the mid to late '60s when it looked like young, gifted, and hip revolutionaries were taking over EVERYTHING (but especially the Music Biz)—and none so young, hip, or revolutionary in outlook than Rolling Stones manager/producer Andrew Loog Oldham.

With his partner Tony Calder, Andrew re-drew the map of what an indie record label could look like and get away with—with glorious signings of the caliber of the Small Faces, The Nice, Humble Pie, Fleetwood Mac, Christa Päffgen aka Nico, John Mayall, Rod Stewart and other luminaries; plus house producers and songwriters including Jimmy Page and Mick Jagger.

Other artists associated with Immediate, such as Duncan Browne, Chris Farlowe, and P.P. Arnold, are not as well known—but they turned in quality music, especially Duncan Browne, whose debut album was a lush, sensitive Pre-Raphaelite delight.

And then there was their ground-breaking British Blues Archive series.

This really was a full-spectrum, full-service label—"Happy To Be A Part of the Industry of Human Happiness," as one of their full-page ads (and sampler albums) stated.

It's a wild tale and definitely an addendum to Andrew's three books of autobiography and musings: Stoned, 2 Stoned, and Stone Free, which are also highly recommended.

"Oldham, without doubt, was the most flash personality that British pop has ever had, the most anarchic and obsessive and imaginative hustler of all. He loathed slowness and drabness, age and caution and incompetence, mediocrity of all kinds, and he could not stand to work his way up steadily like anyone else. Instead, he barnstormed, he came on quite outrageous. I think his talent and impact have been very, very underestimated."—Nik Cohn, Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: The Golden Age of Rock

Below is one of Humble Pie's best tracks, featuring Peter Frampton on vocals—which never did see an official release in the US— one of the reasons the label eventually collapsed (basically, non-cooperation from my former employers at Black Rock).

I don't want to spoil the thrills and chills herein too much, so please check out IMMEDIATE immediately.

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The Name's Bond

Gary Lucas — Thu, 07 Apr 2022 14:41:35 +0000

The Name's Bond Gary Lucas April 7, 2022 - 10:41

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Just finished reading Bond Behind the Iron Curtain by Ian Fleming's nephew James Fleming -- a fascinating discursive book handsomely illustrated and published by The Book Collector (UK) -- which gathers, translates, analyzes and lovingly reproduces several major Soviet-era hit pieces in print on Bond published in Pravda, Izvestya and Novy Mir, no less -- all of them denouncing Bond as a typical Western sexist swine / capitalist stooge and thug in the service of British royalist and imperialist ambitions to overthrow glorious Mother Russia.

The best one of these hit pieces published (almost at the same time as the film of From Russia With Love came out in 1963) is an extremely well-written attack in Izvestya by Jewish intellectual Maya Turovskaya, obviously on the KGB's payroll (Rosa Klebb's doppelgänger?) Now none of Ian Fleming's books had been published in Soviet Russia officially of course at that time (nowadays, they are available freely there in Russian translations).

In fact, both the books and films were banned in the Soviet Union for years. Pravda, the official newspaper of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League, denounced them by saying:

"James Bond lives in a nightmarish world where laws are written at the point of a gun, where coercion and rape is considered valour and murder is a funny trick."

From Russia With Love

But samizdat copies had been circulating for years in Russia -- as did prints of the early films -- and anyone lucky enough to travel out of the country was instantly made aware of the worldwide Bond-mania (way bigger than Beatlemania) exploding in the global culture, courtesy of hit screenings of the films in cinemas around the world, which reached its fullest efflorescence with the release of the movie Goldfinger in 1964, followed by 1965's Thunderball.

Also in this little gem of a book is an attack on Bond by Karel Zeman (hard to believe that this is the celebrated Czech film director and animation pioneer of the same name -- but it well could be), published in Prague magazine MY in their March '67 issue -- as well as an amusing account of a 1989 attack on Bond in Polish communist journal Trybuna Ludu (People's Tribunal), just happening to coincide with the appearance of a bootleg translation of Moonraker in Polish aimed at the Polish market (no publishing royalties were paid to either Ian Fleming, or to the Polish communist government, apparently -- hence their attack).

In light of the current geopolitical situation, this book is a scintillating read and elucidation of the Soviet mindset, which seems to be back with us in full effect (unfortunately).

Where is James Bond now when we really need him ???

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Walk on the Wilder Side

Dusty Wright — Wed, 13 Sep 2017 11:37:10 +0000

Walk on the Wilder Side Dusty Wright September 13, 2017 - 07:37

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Lou Reed: A Life

Anthony DeCurtis (Little, Brown and Company)

Lou Reed has to be one of the most audacious and iconic rockers to have committed his dark muses to his music and poetry. And writer/professor Anthony DeCurtis's new must-read bio of Mr. Reed perfectly captures the ethos of this misanthropic rocker. Let's be clear, Lou's outrageous life story is truly stranger than fiction. But then again, so are many of our most celebrated artists, especially those who not only create but also live on the edge/fringe of society, pushing their artistic vision on, for the most part, a rather pedestrian audience.

From Lou's humble middle-class upbringing on Long Island that included his life altering electro-shock treatments to his dying breath, his life was filled with passion and for pushing people, fans and critics alike, to explore the darker side of life; to if not to "walk on the wild side," at least explore it. Make no mistake, Lou's work was groundbreaking. His art-rock band The Velvet Underground remains one of the most influential bands ever. The music is timeless, the subject matter startling and disturbing; it's easy to understand why many consider them the true originators of the entire alt-rock genre.

Mr. DeCurtis was one of the few critics that Lou actually respected. To his credit, he's dug deep. He's interviewed Lou's childhood friends, past lovers and wives, former managers, many of the musicians he played with, et al. In doing so, he exposes how Lou operated -- how he created his music, how he lived his life, who he deeply loved, and how he maintained his artistic vision until his final days. Most Lou fans know of his relationship with his Syracuse University mentor and creative writing professor Delmore Schwartz, but who knew that Lou had pet dachshunds? That he loved doo wop music. Or that he was a hopeless romantic and, even at his worst social behaviour, longed to maintain a sense of "home" life with a "wife" when he wasn't on stage. I didni't know that Lou's cherished transsexual lover Rachel was referred to as "Lou's babysitter" by those close to him.

Long Island lawyer Alan Hyman, one of his oldest friends and the drummer in his college band L.A. and the Eldorados, states, "One of the things about my relationship with him is that he liked to shock me. He really liked to say provocative things and see what my reaction would be." That would certainly define Lou for the rest of his days. Five decades earlier, songs such as "Heroin," "Waiting for My Man," or "Walk on the Wild Side" were obviousily shocking when they were released. And yet five decades later, those lyrics and music can still produce strong reactions. In fact, few rock bands today are this bold and dynamic. In today's sanitized PC culture, one would have to look at rap music to witness such brutal honesty.

Lou Reed had a very "rich" life, and Mr. DeCurtis shares just how remarkably rich it was.

Dean Dixon: Negro at Home, Maestro Abroad by Rufus Jones Jr.

Steve Holtje — Wed, 09 Dec 2015 18:27:23 +0000

Dean Dixon: Negro at Home, Maestro Abroad by Rufus Jones Jr. Steve Holtje December 9, 2015 - 13:27

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Dean Dixon: Negro at Home, Maestro Abroad

by Rufus Jones Jr.

(Rowman & Littlefield)

This is, I'm pretty sure, the first book-length biography of conductor Dean Dixon (1915-1976), the first African American to conduct the New York Philharmonic, and his story is so interesting yet largely unknown that it makes for a fascinating read.

Born and raised in New York City by immigrant parents (from Jamaica and Barbados), he started playing violin when he was three, at his mother's instigation, studying technique with a Russian teacher; by nine, he was playing on WNEW. He was also encountering racism; one prospective teacher cut off his lessons after Dean's second appearance, apparently because the building's residents didn't want a black child there.

Dixon was a good enough (if sometimes reluctant, it seems) student that he was consistently accepted into progressive, integrated schools. Once he determined to make music his career (after his mother was persuaded not to push him into studying to be a doctor), he passed an audition with Frank Damrosch to enter the Institute of Musical Arts.

Dixon's mother did, however, insist that he study to be a music teacher, as that seemed to offer the promise of steady work. It resulted in double the workload, but also set him on a path to form his own Harlem-based orchestra. He also got into the graduate programs at Teacher's College and Juilliard -- and attended both, simultaneously.

In the wake of the 1939 Marian Anderson/Daughters of the American Revolution contretemps, Eleanor Roosevelt lent a promotional hand to Dixon as well, which allowed him to lead his orchestra outside of Harlem for the first time in 1941 -- a concert which was attended, partly because of Mrs. Roosevelt's presence, by NBC's Music Director and the head of RCA, resulting in Dixon being hired to conduct the NBC Summer Symphony in two nationally broadcast concerts. His success at these concerts led to a regular-season engagement leading the NBC Symphony and a summer concert slot conducting the New York Philharmonic. And he was still in graduate school.

You would think this describes the start of a highly successful career arc, but that's not how it turned out. He got more guest appearances (one with the Philadelphia Orchestra soon followed), but no permanent conducting jobs, and he was unable to continue to financially support his Harlem group. Dixon then founded the American Youth Orchestra. Between that, his music-appreciation classes both in the city and on radio, and the lack of permanent conducting positions, he found himself typecast as more of an educator (the "baby specialist," as he put it derisively).

By this point, Dixon was married with a family to support. Lacking an American conducting post, he took an offer to go to France for two concerts with the French National Radio Orchestra near the end of 1949. Europe wasn't working out much better for Dixon until December 1951, when he stood in for the ailing Igor Markevitch at a Helsinki Orchestra concert radio broadcast, conducting Sibelius's Fifth Symphony (among other works). The composer heard the broadcast and praised the performance, and Dixon was invited to meet him, which he did. In Helsinki, Dixon also met the woman who would become his second wife.

Not only did the number of guest spots Dixon was offered shoot way up after he'd received the Sibelius seal of approval, he got a recording deal as well, and in 1953 he finally was hired as a principal conductor, of the Gothenberg Symphony Orchestra in Sweden. He remained a resident of Europe for the rest of his life, better received there (and in Australia, where he also got a conducting post) than in the U.S.

Heroes are supposed to be simple, not complex or flawed, especially not in the age of gossip columnists, but as the ancient Greeks had already noticed millennia earlier, heroes do have flaws, and Dixon was not perfect. He had three wives, his time with them (which is not to say the marriages) overlapped, and he did not treat his first wife well post-divorce. Jones does not ignore these facts, but he does downplay them to a certain extent, preferring throughout to keep the book's focus on Dixon's career. He thus notes that Dixon's lack of appearances in the U.S. after his move to Europe were, at least for a while, partly because he turned down invitations, ostensibly because they didn't fit his schedule, but really because he could be in legal trouble if he returned to the U.S. while being sued by his first wife for being delinquent in his alimony and child support payments. At first his delinquency is excused by pointing out his still-precarious financial state, but this non-payment issue persisted into a period during which Dixon owned two homes in Europe. Kudos to Jones for including some discussion of Dixon's legal difficulties with this issue and acknowledging the connection, but we do not get any explanations or documentation of Dixon's emotions regarding his marriages and the endings of two of them. When the legal situation was resolved --not by Dixon paying off the debt, but by a friend of his doing so for him -- suddenly Dixon's schedule did allow him to accept relatively short-notice guest conducting invitations in the States, including a triumphant return to New York in 1970 at the helm of the Philharmonic for a summer concert.

I could criticize Jones's talents as a writer -- the book's tone is sometimes a bit gee-whiz -- but first, he's a conductor who wrote this book because he saw the need for this biography and nobody else was doing it, and second, I'm guessing he deliberately kept it at a reading level that young readers could be comfortable with, and that non-musicians could understand, in order to get this story out to the masses. Despite Dixon's regrettable issues with his first wife, his life is an inspirational story of a man overcoming the linked adversities of poverty and racism to rise to heights in his profession that no black man before him had reached in the United States, and within that framework, Jones tells the story well, and certainly more thoroughly than anybody before him, which is why this book is both needed and recommended.

All This And Something More...

Robert Cochrane — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 17:52:14 +0000

All This And Something More... Robert Cochrane November 22, 2012 - 12:52

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Tony Fletcher

A Light That Never Goes Out: The Enduring Saga of the Smiths

(Crown Archetype)

For a band whose dying gasp came over two decades ago, the Smiths' brief, entire career has been barely scrutinized. Initially there was the stodgy Severed Alliance by Johnny Rogan, which has long just about sufficed in the absence of anything more, and there has been a ceaseless, incoming tide of books about the songs, and the aura which surrounds their apostle-like leader, Morrissey, when all that was really required was a clear-headed history, a factual consideration, as to why they sprang into life. Tony Fletcher has finally created that with A Light That Never Goes Out, a reasoned, logical, and unhurried recreation of their initially unlikely route to fame.

Johnny Marr wasn't the only kid on the block who wanted to be a guitar hero, but he had immense talent on his side, along with street intellect and charm. The world of popular music is Jackson Pollocked with the exploded guts of grand intentions, and the lingering stench of all that might have been, turned sour. What is amazing was his ability to connect with another, equally ambitious soul, by simply beating a pathway to his door, casually strolling towards it, and knocking with the wish to write some songs. Morrissey, a bookish devotee of Oscar Wilde, the New York Dolls, and Sixties girl singers, had been idly loitering for such a call of fortune. There the fable could have ended, because many have dreamt thus and failed. However, within a matter of months they were releasing songs, garnering a devoted following, as they became akin to a beacon of hope for the eager lost souls of their generation.

Fletcher's success resides within his ability to recognize the value of the band's individual histories. By doing his research, and presenting it in a lively and dynamic way, he presents the almost inevitable route to fame taken by people who might otherwise not have been notable beyond their Manchester confines. One third of his diligent tome concentrates on the petri dish days of occasional letters to the press and other literary ambitions by Morrissey, and precocious sauntering into music on the back of Marr's blossoming abilities, and how along the way another two first-generation Irish Mancunians, Mike Joyce and Andy Rourke, completed the squaring of their circle. What emerges from this is a sense of something waiting for the moment to arrive, and when it did and all aligned, their spark into being, despite many potential disasters, flamed brightly, and whose ember still one quarter of a century later, provokes and inspires.

Morrissey remains one of the most inventive and literary lyricists of any generation, but the freshness of his outlook in a bleak and Thatcher-governed Britain is now almost lost because we have become accustomed to his way with words. His unapologetic vegetarianism influenced a generation via the Meat Is Murder album, and his choice of covers stars, mostly obscure (The Smiths never graced their own front of sleeve), was akin to a sharing of secrets. Being Smiths aware was to be included in a coterie, an education of sorts with a sense of positive exclusivity. Morrissey was the man who sold his world, the perfect and rare conclusion of a fan in waiting who finds himself iconic. Combined with Marr's ceaselessly inventive guitar work, and driven along by the restless powerhouse of Rourke and Joyce, they were a force, and one with a burgeoning influence that could and would not be denied, even though they said it, largely and emotionally, with flowers.

And so it couldn't last, but that it did for so long is in itself a testament to the power of creativity once unleashed. They never had a proper manager, held a quaint and Canute-like disdain for promotional videos, ragged their relationship with their record label Rough Trade, and if Morrissey didn't want to do an interview, or even embark upon a tour, he simply didn't show up. Fletcher steers his way through this and more, without the need to proffer judgment or to take a stand. He presents the narrative, and leaves readers to inform their own opinions. When it all grinds to a halt, Morrissey again in absentia and his three band mates exasperated in a chip shop, it couldn't be a more parochial, nor therefore appropriately English setting, a terribly suitable place for all to end.

With hindsight the creative marriage and friendship between Morrissey and Marr couldn't withstand the outside influences of success and excess. Marr gradually became a victim, albeit a genial and largely rational one, of the rock 'n' roll lifestyle. Morrissey, naturally insular, felt the endless pressure of being a spokesman for his generation, when he was only really expressing himself. Rourke went from a casual user to a near casualty, and only Mike Joyce seemed to remain remotely akin to the person he was upon arrival.

The Smiths had the literacy of the Kinks, the swagger of the Stones, the effeteness of T.Rex, and the eclectic nature of the Beatles, but such attempts to contextualize them fail to grasp their unique quality, or the intoxicating perfume of their genius. They had the luck to exist and connect, and in their wake have bequeathed a genuine treasure trove of inspired youthfulness. That is the light that continues to shine, even as their days succumb to amber.

Still Somewhat Against The Grain

Robert Cochrane — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 13:45:44 +0000

Still Somewhat Against The Grain Robert Cochrane July 21, 2010 - 09:45

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Life Class by Diana Athill (Granta)

Growing Old Disgracefully BBC documentary

Diana Athill published Stet in 2000, her amusing and revealing account of her life as an literary editor, when she was 82. One could have been forgiven for considering it an astute piece of literary housekeeping, the final gasp of a pen that was about to be laid down for good. It was her fourth installment of memoirs.

The first -- Instead of a Letter -- had candidly handled her first love disappointment at the hands of a man, five years her senior, with whom she fell in love when she was fifteen, but who dropped her from afar and was then killed in the Second World War, a blow whose repercussions shadowed her existence with a sadness she found almost impossible to escape. Published in 1965, it was an unusual work for the time, when such cathartic and disarming honesty was far from the norm. Candidness was seen as a loss of face, not a brave serving of truth. She followed it with a brisk and witty novel, Don't Look at Me Like That, about a girl of Bohemian tastes, who has affairs, but none of the guilt one might anticipate in less liberal times. It remains a pithy breath of fresh air, free from apology, modern and astute.

Her second attack of the memoirs, After a Funeral, continued in her theme of personal trauma as means of literary excavation. Appearing in 1986, it was the long view of a momentously sad event. Her friend, the charming, but unstable Egyptian writer Waguih Ghali, with whom she fell in love after publishing his novel Beer in the Snooker Club. Athill provided him with sanctuary and support, but he ended up living with her, mentally abusing her kindness and infatuation by leaving his diary open so she could view his toxic reflections upon her failings in both personality and physical attractiveness. His ultimate act of selfish selflessness, was to commit suicide in her flat in 1969. In her detailing of their emotional tryst and trauma, they slept together once after a drunken collision in her flat, she is terribly unflinching in her dissection of her motives, weaknesses, and the sadly inevitable outcome.

By the time Make Believe appeared in 1993, a possible theme had become a glaring actuality. Another brief sexual relationship with another vain, but charismatic man, Hakim Jamal, the black American radical. A follower of Malcom X, and lover of the actress Jean Seaberg, he was eventually gunned down in his native Boston in 1972. He also believed himself to be God. His other English lover, Gail Boston, the daughter of an MP, was murdered in Trinidad after following him there; her sorry plight became the basis for V.S Naipaul's novel Guerillas. Again Athill dissected the experience in cool, calculated prose, as much an observer of herself as she is of others.

Her first book, a collection of short stories, An Unavoidable Delay, was published in the early '60s, but only in America. By the time of Stet it seemed that Diana Athill was a six-book wonder, a minor literary figure, a footnote in the lives of famous writers. In the decade since she has become a curious arrival: a major literary figure, a success in her own right, and most definitely on her own terms.

In 2002 she cast a long, affectionate, but unsentimental look at her childhood in Yesterday Morning. The book went through several editions, building upon the interest she had kindled with her previous works which were falling into print again. Her unexpected breakthrough came with an unfashionable topic, and an unprepossessing subject, Somewhwere Towards the End which appeared as the author turned ninety, exploded myths of old-age, and many of the expectations one has of those in the elderly bracket. It became a literary, and a commercial wonder, winning the Costa Prize for biography, the near perfect next installment in a long life, and a happy account of a time we fear. She was soon a regular feature on the literary circuit making "Sold Out" appearances at Festivals in Bath, Cheltenham, and Hay on Wye.

Last year saw the publication of Life Class, a doorstop-sized compendium of her memoirs, and again her audience grew. Diana Athill was on the radio, on TV, and in magazines as both a contributor and an interviewee. At the age of 92, she had arrived. Then she confounded expectations by giving up her flat, winnowing her lifetime of possessions and books, by moving into an old person's home. She also became the subject of a profile by Alan Yentob for BBC television.

Athill has a voice for radio and a face of which the camera approves. The documentary of her life took her back to the places she recreates in words. Her grandmother's palatial house, her school as a student in Oxford, her office at the publishers Andre Deutsch (now an artist's suppliers), the graveyard which holds various family members, even her abandoned flat where Ghali ended his life. Much of hers was spent editing the work of others, a list that reads like a "Who's Who" of current greats and the gone -- John Updike, Jack Kerouac, Norman Mailer, Philip Roth, V.S Naipaul, Cormac McCarthy, Margaret Atwood, and Jean Rhys, to name but a few.

She holds Rhys in particular esteem, because she feels she learnt the most from her reductive approach to refining prose. Given that Andre Deutsch could be mercurial, it was often left to Athill to soothe the ruffled feathers of startled authors. She wryly recalls that some were not so easy to console, and despite the famously cranky V.S Naipaul acknowledging her as the best editor he ever encountered, she admits that in times of trial, she would console herself in the knowledge that at least she wasn't married to him.

Recently she had to write an introduction to a reissue of Ghali's lone novel, which has become a surprise best seller in Egypt. Speaking of him, and his suicidal passing was the only time you saw the veneer of resolution almost crumble, and the sadness she successfully discharges in concise prose, return to almost draw a tear. It was momentary, and once again she is off, remembering, analyzing, clutching her cane. At one point she observes her amusement at sharing the stage with a woman in her sixties to discuss the topic of age. As she correctly states that old age from your nineties is a totally different place. She has lived, a long, unconventional life, but her experiences prove that in affairs of the heart, the route that doesn't follow the footsteps of convention, hold greater, unexpected rewards. Her on going friendship with the lover of her life partner, whom she allowed to reside with them after their physical relationship had dwindled into a sexless companionship, proves that dictum.

Diana Athill has recently been diagnosed with cancer, but because of her age it is being monitored, but not treated. She hopes she can get away without pain or fuss. I share that wish for her, but hope that it comes as she desires, but not for a good while. She is the editor, who became a writer in her own right, but who managed to take the advice she had long given others into her heart, and apply it to her own efforts. She recently cast her eye over my work, and wrote that she liked the themes but that I should make my lines longer, it would make the poems stronger. It was a simple piece of advice, but once applied, I knew I would always carry it with me. A reminder from someone who knows.

She says she is tinkering with another book, but has no desire to discuss what it entails in case it might derail the project and it comes to nothing. Given the strength of her past performances, this seems a rather unlikely outcome.

Purchase her books on Amazon

The Garbo of the Printed Word: J. D. Salinger 1919-2010

Robert Cochrane — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 19:55:05 +0000

The Garbo of the Printed Word: J. D. Salinger 1919-2010 Robert Cochrane February 4, 2010 - 14:55

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For an author who published little, J. D. Salinger had immense influence on successive generations. His literary creation Holden Caulfield became the American Everyboy, a Huckleberry Finn for baby boomers and beyond. Salinger succeeded in encapsulating adolescent distance from the adult world.

It was a literary feat he seemed incapable or reluctant to repeat. Secretive to the point of paranoia, he became a brooding, beguiling enigma, a one-book wonder, the Garbo of the printed word.

Publishing nothing for half of his long life, this secretive individual maintained that he wrote for his own pleasure, without facing the contradiction that The Catcher in the Rye touched the emotional lives of countless millions.

As he aged, a strange Dorian Gray-like relationship evolved between the elderly hermit and the perennially youthful outsider he had breathed life into. He guarded his privacy with ferocious observance, and only last year, successfully sued in order to halt the publication of Sixty Years Later, an unauthorized sequel to his masterpiece. If Salinger wasn't going to bother to add to his slim output, then nobody else was going to do so either.

Salinger was raised in uptown Manhattan; his Jewish father was a successful importer of fine cheeses. J.D. saw active service in the Second World War and was an Intelligence Officer for the Allies. It was during this period that he met and married a German girl, but the union was childless and short-lived. At the age of 31 he took a 16-year-old schoolgirl admirer as his bride. After twelve years and two children, they divorced. It should be no surprise, although it is of more than spurious interest, that all his significant relationships were with younger women who contacted him as fans.

His year-long affair with Joyce Maynard, when he was 51 and she 18, resulted in a memoir written by her. His final marriage was to another fan, forty years his junior, who had also contacted him by letter. In the 1950s, secure in the trappings of success, he withdrew to Cornish, New Hampshire, where he maintained an extraordinary feat of subliminal privacy. Salinger fended off all attempts at engagement. He steadfastly avoided efforts to make his literary world flesh.

Despite overtures from the likes of Billy Wilder, Steven Spielberg, and Elia Kazan, Holden Caulfield, the eternal troubled boy, never appeared in shimmering gray or Technicolor. His depiction remains a wordly creation. A neighbor tantalizingly admitted that Salinger had ten completed novels under wraps a decade ago, and now the literary world waits to see if death proves the unlikely breaker of Salinger's silence. His major contribution to modern literature was his ability to provide misunderstood adolescents with a voice.

Even now The Catcher in the Rye maintains that feat of freshness; although some of the language may seem a little dated, the feelings and emotions beat as true to life in the new century as they did fifty years into the old one. The swearing it contains caused the book to be banned from schools and libraries, a cruel irony that frustrated Salinger because it was placing his work beyond the reach of those he wished to connect with. His collection of stories For Esme-With Love and Squalour (the title in England; in the U.S. it was called Nine Stories) provides a tantalizing taste of a literary feast that barely reached the first course. Whatever his motives, his lingering presence as an absence was at best eccentric, though it eventually came to seem tiresomely cranky. Books abound that try to crack his enigma.

The British poet and critic Ian Hamilton wonderfully annotated his frustrated efforts to interview his subject. The resulting In Search of J.D. Salinger: A Writing Life (1935-65) is a perfect testament to the means the man employed to avoid exposure. In a suitably cryptic remark, Salinger once admitted, "I am a kind of paranoid in reverse: I suspect people of plotting to make me happy."

Hurling Abuse

Robert Cochrane — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 01:29:52 +0000

Hurling Abuse Robert Cochrane January 21, 2010 - 20:29

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Come What May by Donal Og Cusack (Penguin Ireland)

The death of Stephen Gately rang out the bells of irony, but their chimes were absent from the mournful proceedings in Dublin. What occurred amounted to a state funeral, in a Catholic country. The deceased, an openly gay, married pop star, was given respect, the kind of respect he would still have been denied had he not been famous.

Ireland pretends to be a modernist state, but the Catholic Church still casts a disquieting shadow over the lives of those of whom it disapproves. Priests have been routinely exposed as child abusers, money has been paid to the victims, yet their church continues to rail against homosexuality, without ever wondering if truncating the sexuality of young men might not be the major mitigating circumstance in such unhealthy manifestations later on.

Recently it has finally admitted, after years of pressure from the victims who refused to remain silent, the full level of collusion it undertook to protect men who didn't deserve such understanding. It still cannot say why; to do so would require much soul searching from those who are supposedly in the business of saving souls.

A mere smattering of weeks after Gately's pomp and circumstance, the bastions of Irish expectation took another kick to the vulnerable parts when one of their major sporting heroes, hurling star Donal Og Cusack, announced that he preferred the physical company of men. Tea cups rattled, pints of Guinness were spluttered into, and what had been an occasional rumor became an undeniable fact.

Cusack used his autobiography, Come What May, as the vehicle to explain himself. It was serialized in the Daily Mail, the paper that suggested Gately's death was a result of his sexuality and lifestyle but seemingly saw no contradiction in praising the bravery and honesty of its new exclusive.

Cusack has been remarkably direct and unapologetic, appearing on television, giving press interviews; the conventional world momentarily faltered, gawped, then dusted itself down and got on with things. However, when he took to the field in Semple Stadium, Tipperarary, in front of 50,000 fans, a disgruntled idiot with a megaphone kept chanting: "He's gay! He's bent! And his arse is up for rent!"

This sort of treatment has been more difficult for the parents than their son, who retorted:

"A guy like that? I don't really care. If he wants to amuse himself by calling me brokeback, or imagining my arse is up for rent, he has paid to see me play. I'm playing the greatest game in the world in the mecca of the game. I'm playing with my friends and comrades for the place I come from. I'm doing something I love. Fuck it! His little problems don't concern me. I'm obviously far happier for being what I am than he is."

But Cusack's mother no longer goes to watch him play because of the homophobic abuse she hears vented towards him.

The book bristles with passion, but not of the sexual kind. There is little soul searching or sexual pondering. Cusack's heart belongs to hurling, a violent, often brutal sport which in Irish homes rivals Catholicism in the influence and drive it exerts. What gets him through the occasional night isn't much discussed, although what does keep him awake is doing badly in a match, especially losing one.

He was instrumental in fighting against the injustices heaped upon players by self-serving officials, even instigating strikes to improve their facilities and their medical and personal care. The moment he confessed all to his parents and siblings was tactlessly lightened by his brother suggesting that the news would give their father something to broaden his mind with.

Surrounded by the family trappings of a sport he has loved for all his life, I felt for his father; he had little reason not to expect the conventional result from his son's sporting life. Come What May isn't really a gay book, it is a fairly standard sporting memoir -- but one where the author mentions, in a few brief chapters, that he isn't quite what he seems.

Og Cusack remains a hurling icon, his masculinity hasn't been altered from what it was before. If people saw him as such, he remains as such. That he doesn't look gay is part of the fascination and his value as a breaker of conventional stereotypes. He isn't the only gay hurler, or whatever other sport may spring to mind, but he will likely remain the only publicly recognized one for quite some time. His treatment from the stands would suggest that erring on the side of caution might not be a bad idea.

In 1982, only yards from Croke Park, the scene of many of Donal Og Cusack's sporting triumphs, a young gay man, Declan Flynn, was lured to his death. Eventually his killers had their manslaughter sentences suspended, and the local community took it upon themselves to organize a celebratory march through the area. Flynn wasn't protected by the trappings of fame, and his treatment is more telling than the bowing and scraping involving those in the glare of the spotlight. Sport is a forger of powerful emotions, strong bonds, and blurred boundaries. Generally, the news has been greeted with a positive air, and his teammates have been refreshingly supportive. One shocked friend touchingly arrived with a list of handwritten questions.

Donal Og Cusack is going to be a subject of speculation and gossip, but the world changes slowly, and his stance will make life easier for others, because he comes from a sport many respect. In a very Irish way, Cusack wasn't in the closet, he didn't confirm nor overtly deny, he went to clubs that suited his nature, and he seems pretty sanguine about needing to make a public issue of something he was merely dealing with. As usual the press had other ideas. Gay or straight, his achievements remain. In the end, that is all it should really come down to. Sadly, as we know, that isn't the case.

In Homage to the Sorrows

Robert Cochrane — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 21:11:12 +0000

In Homage to the Sorrows Robert Cochrane November 7, 2009 - 16:11

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Rock and roll poets are few and far between, and the modifier suggests something less than the genuine article, someone who would never be courted by the literary world, a maverick imposter in the hallowed house of words.

Jim Carroll was that rare, exotic creature, a rock interloper whose talent could not be airily dismissed. A lauded contradiction who was equally at home in a rock band and a literary salon. He had also been a budding basketball player, the handsome embodiment of the American dream, but Carroll's early sporting promise took a turn towards darkness. He would never really emerge from these shadows, but that made him the Rimbaud of Manhattan and beyond.

It wasn't the desire for Hollywood gloss that landed Leonardo DiCaprio the part of Jim Carroll in The Basketball Diaries; he looked very much like the man he portrayed on screen. The movie turned Carroll from a counter-culture icon, and minor Warhol-ite, into a more rounded (and more wealthy) kind of celebrity. It was never a role he'd ever craved, but one that kept falling his way. Talent and looks gave Carroll an incredible allure.

When questioned about the Columbine shootings, he gave short and withering shrift to those who attempted to engage him on the matter.

"Artists have nothing to do with the deranged, vaguely connected actions of a few celebrated nutcases" was how he resisted the requests to appear as a talking head on the matter.

Artistic influence is one thing, but trying to make artists responsible for such events is merely reflexive scapegoating by those who need someone to blame, and Carroll knew that from experience.

James Dennis Carroll was born August 1, 1949 on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where his father owned a bar. His fall from clean-cut teenage sportsman, attending the prestigious and private Trinity School on the Upper West Side, where he'd won a scholarship in 1964, was slow and initially undetected.

He'd discovered hard drugs at the age of thirteen, resulting in a strangely comic double life of male prostitution to fund his heroin habit, and sporting accolades at the National High School All Star Game in 1966.

By the time he turned 18, Carroll had already published a pamphlet of poetry, Organic Trains, having been a regular at the Sts Mark's Poetry Project in Greenwich Village. When extracts from his journals were trailered in the Paris Review in 1970, the The Basketball Diaries were germinated.

He dropped out of Wagner College and Columbia University, which lead to his inevitable inclusion in the Warhol set, where he wrote dialogue for the silver-wigged wonder's experimental films.

In that year he met the budding artist, and then occasional poet, Patti Smith. It was Carroll who advised her to concentrate on her writing more. By the end of that decade she would return the favor by encouraging him to follow her route into music.

Jim and Patti were perfect bookends of masculine and feminine androgyny and downward mobility. Carroll was a strange amalgam of two Davids, Johansen and Bowie, betraying the vulnerable harshness so evident in both men, but adding a strange other-worldliness of his own.

He shared a loft with Smith and the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, a period he brings vividly to life in The Downtown Diaries, 1973, published 1987. He was also a resident of the legendary Hotel Chelsea.

When his first full collection of poems was published by the prestigious Grossman & Co., Carroll had arrived at the age of 23. The collection betrayed a wise and mature eye at odds with the youthfulness of its creator. Drawing praise from the likes of Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, and Jack Kerouac, he became the new kid in town. An attempt to get clean by moving to San Francisco resulted in his marriage in 1978 to Rosemary Klemfuss.

His collection of stories The Book of Nods appeared in 1986. In the late 1970s, Carroll acted on Patti Smith's advice, and with Rolling Stone Keith Richards's help he secured a record deal with Atco, a subsidiary of Atlantic Records.

His debut album, Catholic Boy, was a blistering tour de force that dented the American album charts in 1980. Carroll was photographed standing between his parents by Annie Liebovitz, an iconic visual contradiction of conformity and dissidence; she also provided the cover shot for the follow-up, Dry Dreams, and he became a major draw on the college circuit. At a sell-out show at TRAX in New York, Keith Richards made a guest appearance.

The Jim Carroll Band released the wonderfully focused I Write Your Name in 1983, but despite a snaking version of "Sweet Jane" enhanced by Carroll's junky-yelp phrasing, and tracks that suggested greater things to come, especially the Cramps-like "Black Romance" or the heartbreakingly sad "Dance the Night Away," he'd lost interest in the music side of things. Three albums seemed enough for his short attention span, and although he would collaborate with Blue Oyster Cult and Boz Scaggs in the '80s, his true interest was spoken word recordings.

His Praying Mantis collection means the listener will never be able to think of the assassination of J.F.K, veal fillets, masturbation, and Barbra Streisand without smiling repeatedly.

It is an added irony that Carroll's paean to departed friends, "People Who Died," soundtracked the opening scene of Spielberg's E.T.

Jim Carroll published two further collections of poetry in the 1990s, Fear of Dreaming in 1993 and Void of Course three years later, but the man who'd long ago relished "When I was nine years old, I realised that the real thing was not only to do what you were doing...but to look totally great while you were doing it" became a shambling, skeletal shadow of his once elegantly wasted self.

The Basketball Diaries was a cautionary tale that became an epistle of heroin chic. It still exudes an air of effortless cleverness and poise.

Carroll was a poet of pared-down brilliance, but that attribute of his poetry he also imposed on his own physicality. He seemed a man from another time, someone who embodied a sensibility lost in these quickly changing times, but one who elicited a tremendous respect from his peers.

His is a select but perfectly formed canon of work. In the words of one used them sparingly, his "POEM" requests:

Pay homage to the sorrows

Make your sadness graceful

If possible

Your confessions as well... peace.