Hi folks,
Patti Smith was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this week and it once again has made me start thinking about these kind of industry awards and what they are all about. (Chubby Checker threw a twister when they wouldn't invite him in.) Patti Smith questioned whether it is even appropriate for someone as contrary to the traditional music industry as she is to even accept such an establishment 'induction'. She came to the decision that it was OK and that she was accepting it - not for herself - but on behalf of all those battlers who would never be allowed anywhere near this Hallowed Hallway.
Although I admire Patti Smith very much, especially
her recent social and political activism, I don't agree with her
reasoning. John Lennon gave back his medal from the Queen. Paul
McCartney accepted his. Both could have argued that they were
accepting or rejecting the honour for the same reason. On behalf
of someone else. But they weren't offered the awards on behalf
of someone else. In fifty years, no one will know or care that
Dolly Parton might have accepted her induction into the Country
Music Hall of Fame on behalf of her old grandmother, who was
a hog farmer in Tennessee and sang traditional Scottish quilting
songs, in the back shed, and only recorded on beeswax cylinders.
They will come to the Hall of Fame and stare at Dolly's wig.
So unless one demands that they put a big SIGN up next to your
wig explaining WHY you accepted the award and tell them . . .
'either I get to put the sign up or else I don't want to do it
. .' - you accept this kind of award because you want it. Or don't
want it. Because you believe in Fame . . . in the Hall. Or you
don't.
In 1981, when I was honoured with the 3XY Radio Silver Chart Award for 'Shaddap You Face', I put on a nice suit, and my finest black reading glasses, and in my most pronounced American accent, told radio dj, Gavin Wood, up at the podium, in front of the entire Melbourne music industry, that I declined the award as a protest for the way ethnic people had been treated in Australia for the past fifty years. I turned up my nose, very British, and walked off the stage. There was a stunned silence. You could have heard a Gold Record drop. Someone whispered, 'fuck, there goes his career'. Backstage, I quickly changed my jacket, put on my white fedora, grabbed my mandolin and ran back out to the podium, fell on my knees grovelling in front of Gavin Wood, who was still standing there with his mouth open. I apologized in a broken-english Italian accent, for the 'rude behaviour of my American manager', who was the one who had declined the award, not me, as he didn't discuss it with me, and I still wanted it. It was pretty funny. (I didn't make this idea up, by the way. I adapted it from something I once saw Andy Kaufman do live.)
Thirty years ago, when I still lived in the States, I wrote a country song called, 'My Home Ain't in the Hall of Fame'. For some reason, this song has continued to resonate with many country artists in the States and it has been covered a dozen times, most recently by Texan superstar, Robert Earl Keen Jr. One of the key lines in the song though is: 'My songs don't belong on your Top Forty radio, I'll keep that old Back Forty, for my home.' Now what I never have been able to understand is this: many of the people who covered my song, released it as a SINGLE, hoping it would get Top Forty airplay and chart! What were they thinking?
Many American artists have an almost unbearable penchant for saccharin sentimentality in matters of social protest, that almost borders on depression; good folks who want to stand up and take a contrary position about things they don't agree with - but are also struggling with wanting to be LIKED and a deep desire to be accepted by the very people and institutions they are criticizing. The Dixie Chicks originally apologised for their negative rant about President Bush when outraged radio stations refused to play their music. Only recently have they re-embraced their original views as it's now more acceptable to take a public stand against the Bush administration. (Good on 'em. It's still vital to get George W Bozo off the Circus Grounds.)
Let me give another example of two recent interviews with Australian musician, Nick Cave:
"My muse is not a horse and I am in no
horse race. And if, indeed, she was, still I would not harness
her to this tumbrel - this bloody cart of severed heads and glittering
prizes. My muse may spook! May bolt! May abandon me completely!"
Nick Cave, declining to attend the
MTV Awards, Sunday Age, Mar 11th, 2007
But two days earlier, Cave said this:
"They should have given us a fuckin' AFI
Award [note: for 'The Proposition' - Cave wrote
the screenplay]. That was kind of fucked up. But Russell Crowe
really liked it, which was good."
Nick Cave, The Age, March 9th, 2007
Judge Judy has captured Nick Cave's inner equestrian conflict succinctly with this homily: 'He doesn't know whether he's on foot or horseback!" (I suppose we can now look forward to a duet between Nick and Russell : 'Where the Wild Brumbies Grunt.')
The German poet, Rainer Maria Rilke once said that many great artists make it through adolescence keeping to the mark, head down, focused on their work, their ideals, despite protests and criticism of parents, teachers, and peers who cannot understand why they choose to live like they do. They grow into adults, being rejected by magazines, publishers, record companies, galleries . . . . . lovers. Still they keep their head down and focused. Not compromising. Then, one day far off in the future, recognition and fortune come to them. And most of them look up and are distracted.
SOME OF MY FAVOURITE THINGS . . . . .
Favourite Reader Letters of the Week
Dear Joe,
Your CD ['The Wind Cries Mary'] arrived this morning, along
with five or six others from other folk . . . did you know CDs,
when placed touching each other overnight, make another CD by
morning. The buggers breed! . . . I'm looking forward to hearing
it, and I do thank you for sending it . . . Very best regards,
Richard Flohil
www.richardflohil.com
- "You learn very quickly there's no point moaning about the music business. We have an expression in this band: 'I do believe this was your chosen profession.' It's our way of saying, 'Shut the fuck up, you could be driving an ice-cream van.'" - Francis Rossi, Status Quo
Joe,
DO NOT REMOVE. Yes you read that correctly. Keep sending your
far ranging thoughts. Leo
Hi Joe,
As ever I have been enjoying your newsletter ...there have been
myriads of anti-war songs written . . but thought you might like
this one by another English song-writer Ron Trueman-Border. If
you have the time .. perhaps you could give it a listen. Ta ,
Suzi
Ron
Trueman-Border Website
Favourite Newsletter Removal Request of the Week
Subject: Delete
Apologies but i'm not sure how i got on this list and today's
the day for cleaning house... Rachel
Favourite Spam Ad of the Week
"The Last Hole" - $US 2995.- designer casket,
with golf scenes.
Favourite Porn Spam Subject Heading of the Week
Sender: Mable Subject: You of Butt
DIFFICULT WOMEN is appearing this Saturday, Mar 17th, 9 pm at Don't Tell Tom Cafe & Bar, in East Brunswick, Melbourne. Our special guest support, JO JO SMITH, is an incredibly evocative blues singer, in one of her rare Melbourne appearances. Special night!
Limited Seating so Bookings are Essential:
(03) 93881460 or email: bookbmf@vic.net.au
DifficultWomen
Website
Australia: the 51st State
1 Mar 2007
In his latest article for the New Statesman,
John Pilger describes the remarkable servility of John Howard's
government in Australia to the Bush administration - Howard is
known as Bush's 'deputy sheriff' - and how this is eroding the
country's freedoms.
In June this year, 26,000 US and Australian troops will take part
in bombarding the ancient fragile landscape of Australia. They
will storm the Great Barrier Reef, gun down "terrorists"
and fire laser-guided missiles at some of the most pristine wilderness
on earth. Stealth, B-1 and B-52 bombers (the latter alone each
carry 30 tonnes of bombs) will finish the job, along with a naval
onslaught. Underwater depth charges will explode where endangered
species of turtle breed. Nuclear submarines will discharge their
high-level sonar, which destroy the hearing of seals and other
marine mammals.
Run via satellite from Australia and Hawaii, Operation Talisman
Sabre 2007 is warfare by remote control, designed for "pre-emptive"
attacks on other countries. Australians know little about this.
The Australian parliament has not debated it; the media is not
interested. The result of a secret treaty signed by John Howard's
government with the Bush administration in 2004, it includes the
establishment of a vast, new military base in Western Australia,
which will bring the total of known US bases around the world
to 738. No matter the setback in Iraq, the US military empire
and its ambitions are growing.
Australia is important because of a remarkable degree of servility
that Howard has taken beyond even that of Tony Blair. Once described
in the Sydney Bulletin as Bush's "deputy sheriff", Howard
did not demur when Bush, on hearing this, promoted him to "sheriff
for south-east Asia". With Washington's approval, he has
sent Australian troops and federal police to intervene in the
Pacific island nations; in 2006, he effected "regime change"
in East Timor, whose prime minister, Mari Alkatiri, had the nerve
to demand a proper share of his country's oil and gas resources.
Indonesia's repression in West Papua, where American mining interests
are described as "a great prize", is endorsed by Howard.
This sub-imperial role has a history. When the six Australian
states federated as a nation in 1901, "a Commonwealth . .
. independent and proud", said the headlines, the Australian
colonists made clear that independence was the last thing they
wanted. They wanted Mother England to be more protective of her
most distant colony which, they pleaded, was threatened by a host
of demons, not least the "Asiatic hordes" who would
fall down on them as if by the force of gravity. "The whole
performance," wrote the historian Manning Clark, "stank
in the nostrils. Australians had once again grovelled before the
English. There were Fatman politicians who hungered for a foreign
title just as their wives hungered after a smile of recognition
from the Governor-General's wife, who was said to be a most accomplished
snubber." article
(thank to Terry Dwyer)
(Note: The title of John Pilger's article also happens to be the title of a song I wrote back in the early 80s called 'If Australia Was the 51st State,' when Jimmy Carter was President, Joh Bjelke was Premier of Queensland and Australia had just won the America's Cup. It's a little bit dated now but the sentiment is still the same:)
If Australia Was The Fifty-First State
If Australia was the fifty-first state,
As American citizens, wouldn't we all be great?
There'd be mom and apple pies,
As American flags would rise,
And a Disneyland in Canberra, I can't wait,
If Australia was the fifty-first state.
There'll be Digger Hats, Vegemite and Meat Pies,
And Koalas, Kookaburras, and Wallabyes.
But they'll be there for the world to see 'em,
At the Australiana Museum,
With admission only Five dollars U.S. at the gate,
If Australia was the fifty-first state.
The President could have a summer home in Cairns,
And the U.S. Army would sure look good with tans,
Football would be the fad,
Only with helmets and shoulder pads,
And tourism would certainly escalate,
If Australia was the fifty-first state.
Jimmy Carter and Joh Bjelke, arm-in-arm,
Swappin' stories about their good 'ol peanut farms,
Australian movies would gain,
With an American actor at the rein,
And America's Cup wouldn't have to emigrate,
If Australia was the fifty-first state.
If Australia was the fifty-first state,
As American citizens, wouldn't we all be great?
There'd be mom and apple pies,
As American flags would rise,
And a Disneyland in Canberra, (or is it TOO LATE?)
If Australia was the fifty-first state.
MUSIC
PRUSSIAN BLUE
(Musical aberration from America)
They've been called 'The Olsen Twins for Racists'. Prussian Blue are Lamb and Lynx Gaede, 12-year-old blonde twin sisters who play guitar and violin, and sing folk songs about white pride. Examples of some of their song titles:: "I Will Bleed for You", 'Weiss Weiss Wiess" ('White White White'), "Road to Vahalla" and "Aryan Man Awake".
The kids released a cover of a song called "Ocean of Warriors", dedicated to white participants in the 2005 Sydney race rioting.
They were homeschooled by their mother, April Gaede, an activist and writer for the white nationalist organization, National Vanguard. The twins' grandfather wears a swastika belt buckle, uses the Nazi symbol on his truck, and has registered it as a cattle brand.
The twins explain their name: "Part of our heritage is Prussian German. Also our eyes are blue, and Prussian Blue is just a really pretty color. There is also the discussion of the lack of "Prussian Blue" coloring (Zyklon B residue) in the so-called gas chambers in the concentration camps. We think it might make people question some of the inaccuracies of the "Holocaust myth." (more below - but less would probably be better:)
'I Will Bleed 4 U'
(7 mb .mp3
Takes awhile to download but it's . . . . . . . worst it! Musical
child abuse.)
Further WIKIPEDIA
information:
(thanks to Fiona Scott-Norman)
Superman and the Ku Klux Klan
" [mid-1940s] . . . After just a few weeks
inside the Klan, [Stetson] Kennedy was eager to hurt it any way
he could. . . None of Kennedy's efforts produced the desired effect.
The Klan was so entrenched and broad-based that Kennedy felt as
if he were tossing pebbles at a giant. And even if he could somehow
damage the Klan in Atlanta, the thousands of other chapters around
the country - the Klan was now in the middle of a serious revival
- would go untouched.
Kennedy was supremely frustrated, and out of this frustration
was born a stroke of brilliance. He had noticed one day a group
of young boys playing some kind of spy game in which they exchanged
silly passwords. It reminded him of the Klan. Wouldn't it be nice,
he thought, to get the Klan's passwords and the rest of its secrets
into the hands of kids all across the country? What better way
to defang a secret society than to infantilise - and make public
- its most secret information? . .
Kennedy thought of the ideal outlet for this mission: the Adventures
of Superman radio show, broadcast each night at dinnertime
to millions of listeners nationwide. He contacted the show's producers
and asked if they would like to write some episodes about the
Ku Klux Klan. The producers were enthusiastic. Superman had spent
years fighting Hitler and Mussolini and Hirohito, but with the
war over, he was in need of fresh villains.
Kennedy began feeding his best Klan information to the Superman
producers. He told them about Mr. Ayak and Mr. Akai, and he passed
along overheated passages from the Klan's bible, which was called
the Kloran. (Kennedy never did learn why a white Christian supremacist
group would give its bible essentially the same name as the most
holy book of Islam.) He explained the role of Klan officers in
any local Klavern: the Klaliff (vice president), Klokard (lecturer),
Kludd (chaplain), Kligrapp (secretary), Klabee (treasurer), Kladd
(conductor), Klarogo (inner guard), Klexter (outer guard), the
Klokann ( five man investigative committee), and the Klaviers
(the strong arm group to which Kennedy himself belonged, and whose
captain was called Chief Ass Tearer.) He spelled out the Klan
hierarchy as it proceeded from the local to the national level:
an Exalted Cyclops and his twelve Terrors; a Great Titan and his
twelve Furies; a Grand Dragon and his nine Hydras; and the Imperial
Wizard and his fifteen Genii. And Kennedy told the producers the
current passwords, agenda, and gossip emanating from his own Klan
chapter, Nathan Bedford Forrest Klavern No. 1, Atlanta, Realm
of Georgia. The radio producers began to write four weeks worth
of programs in which Superman would wipe out the Ku Klux Klan.
Kennedy couldn't wait for the first Klan meeting after the show
hit the air. Sure enough, the Klavern was in distress. The Grand
Dragon tried to run a normal meeting but the rank and file shouted
him down.
"When I came home from work the other night," one of
them complained, "there was my kid and a bunch of others,
some with towels tied around their necks like capes and some with
pillowcases over their heads. The ones with capes was chasing
the ones with pillowcases all over the lot. When I asked them
what they were doing, they said they were playing a new kind of
cops and robbers called Superman against the Klan. Gangbusting,
they called it! Knew all our secret passwords and everything.
I never felt so ridiculous in all my life! Suppose my kids find
my Klan robe some day?"
. . . The Dragon suggested they change their password immediately
from 'red-blooded' to 'death to traitors'.
After that night's meeting, Kennedy phoned in the new password
to the Superman producers, who promised to write it into the next
show. At the following weeks Klan meeting, the room was nearly
empty; applications for new membership had fallen to zero."
(from Freakonomics, by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen
J. Dubner, Harper Torch NY, NY 2005)
WHEN LIFE WAS BLACK AND WHITE
Take a little trip through video memorabilia
land with excerpts from some of the long forgotten TV shows of
the 50s. Be amazed at how many of these obscure programs you remember!
website
(thanks to Frank Dolce)
Running the Numbers
This new series looks at contemporary American
culture through the austere lens of statistics. Each image portrays
a specific quantity of something: fifteen million sheets of office
paper (five minutes of paper use); 106,000 aluminum cans (thirty
seconds of can consumption) and so on. My hope is that images
representing these quantities might have a different effect than
the raw numbers alone, such as we find daily in articles and books.
Statistics tend to feel abstract and anesthetizing, making it
difficult to connect with and make meaning of 3.6 million SUV
sales in one year, for example, or 2.3 million Americans in prison,
or $12.5 million spent every hour on the Iraq war. This project
visually examines these vast and bizarre measures of our society,
in large intricately detailed prints assembled from thousands
of smaller photographs. website
(thanks to Joe Creighton)
RECIPES
Mama's Scalloped Potatoes with Nutmeg
The Laurello Vineyard in Geneva, Ohio, has
just produced a wine, Grace Dolce that they have named
after my mother, who passed away recently. My sister Kathy was
instrumental in making this idea happen. Here are a couple of
dishes I remember my mum making when I was a kid.
(She was quite big on combining nutmeg with milk, as you can also
see by the second recipe that follows. Poached Eggs in Milk
on Toast, which I published back in a 2004 newsletter.) They
used to serve a variation of scalloped potatoes for cafeteria
lunch, during my school years, at Harvey High School, in Painesville,
Ohio, sans the nutmeg, probably, and with good old American cheese.
My opinion? Lose the cheese and try it this way.
Ingredients:
5- 7 potatoes, peeled and sliced in 6 mm slices
400 ml milk
200 ml cream
30 g butter
1 large clove garlic, minced
teasp flour
freshly grated nutmeg
salt and pepper
Method:
Heat oven to hot. Bring milk to a simmer. Mix the flour with the
cream. Use some of the butter to butter a deep gratin dish. Layer
the potatoes in 'scallops'. Between each layer, dot with butter,
salt and pepper, sprinkle some garlic and grate some nutmeg. Add
the cream and flour mixture to the simmering milk and stir well.
Gently pour over the potatoes, put on the middle shelf of the
over and reduce heat to No. 4 or 200 C. Bake slowly at this lower
heat for about an hour. Check regularly. After about a half hour
- 45 minutes, if the top is browning too quickly, cover with some
foil. Great with a grilled t-bone, a small leaf green salad, and
some freshly prepared apple sauce, made with cloves, brown sugar
and cinammon.
POACHED EGGS IN MILK ON TOAST WITH NUTMEG
This recipe is also one of my childhood favourites. I prefer free range eggs for this recipe but if you want an unusual edge, you can use battery chicken eggs. (All that repression, tight cage living, pecking each other's feathers out, and forced feeding and drugs they give the battery chickens, impart to the eggs that extra psychotic 'je ne sais quoi' . . . ) recipe
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
POETRY
(Note: On my new album, 'The Wind Cries Mary', the lyrics to my song, 'Cocaine Lil', are adapted from a traditional 19th century verse that I first found in Carl Sandburg's 'American Songbag' (1927) and later re-discovered in WH Auden's 'Oxford Book of Light Verse' (1938). Many people have erroneously attributed the words to 'Cocaine Lil' as having been written by Auden, but Sandburg was the first to collect this anonymous lyric. Sandburg was also a musician and folksinger and produced several albums of folksongs.)