UK Guardian on US Geniuses: Roky Erikson plays festival, etc.

According to the June 8th Guardian, Roky has a full set of store teeth, his voice is strong, and he’s headed to England.

On June 18, one month before he turns 60, he will play his first ever UK show at Jarvis Cocker’s Meltdown festival. Erickson is only dimly aware of the man he calls “Jarvis Coker“, but he is pleased to be coming to England for the first time since 1980…Most days he gets up around 2pm and spends his time watching the Cartoon Network. Every Friday, he sees a psychiatrist or a Feldenkrais movement therapist. Although he is oddly passive and childlike, Roky does not seem fragile…

On May 25th, Daniel Johnston played the Comedy Store in Manchester “No longer performing two songs and then trying to flee through a window, he plays for an exhaustive 75 minutes and delivers all his “greatest hits” – from a wonderfully childlike Walking the Cow to an astonishing rendition of Go, as covered by the Flaming Lips.”

Lou Reed, who is only irritable to the Rotarian music journalism corps, “…flashes his eyes at me, then relaxes and says: “I would see these ads on the back of fancy magazines for Dubonnet on ice, and it sounded so expensive and had a nice ring to it. But I’ve never been near it.” As he takes Berlin on the road. He first revived the album as a performance at St. Ann’s Warehouse in August 2006. He trots off at the end of the interview without pleasantries, which is refreshingly stoic.

The man was as at home on stage as you are in your kitchen.

James Brown let slip the surly bonds of earth and ascended to his reward last night.

If you have it, put the 4 CD box set “Startime!” on shuffle. Doesn’t matter if you read this eight years after the fact. Jam on it.

If you don’t, or are otherwise James deprived, here’s a 6 (six!) hour James Brown X-mas special from 2001 on WFMU (link opens in Real Player). The playlist for the set is here,

Here’s a slightly more managable 3-hour memorial show, also from WFMU, playable in
Real Player and in
MP3 stream. The setlist is here

BBC 6 will play James Brown’s October 2006 Electric Proms concert on Tuesday December 26. The link will be good for one week.

If you require visual accompaniment, youtube has lots of JB.

There was a New Yorker profile of Mr. Brown a few years ago where the interview apologized for failing to connect with his subject. The man lived so far inside his own head, all the erudite correspondent could do was quote him at length. What you got was a totally paranoid performer, locked in a groove he’d worked out. He didn’t know what other people thought of him – at that time, he couldn’t even respond to a direct question – but he really wanted to be liked.

The most thoughtful obituary I’ve seen, manages to suggest just how complicated the man was. He bossed his bands around, made some interesting political choices, pointed a shotgun at his neighbors while accusing them of using his personal bathroom before leading police on an interstate chase, and wrote Sex Machine, about which a lot of shit has been written:

Theorists since Adorno and Horkheimer have insisted that the popular arts only reconcile people to a cruel and inhuman system. This may be true, but it is still enough of a reconciliation to make life tolerable …

[T]hose who have the luxury of maintaining a critical distance from the world of capital shouldn’t condemn those who have nothing else handy to get them through the night. The songs worked. People listened to them, sang along, and felt heard and appreciated in small ways. They walked a little more proudly.

Structureless, static music works differently. It provides an escapism that is both deeper and more shallow at the same time. Deeper, because it evokes a state of physical arousal and heightened awareness; and more shallow, because that state exists on its own and can’t be connected with the story of anyone’s life.

- The Architecture of Dreamworld:Like a Sex Machine Michael Steinberg MR Zine 10-31-05

Yeah, but … if it can’t be connected to the story of anyone’s life in particular, it can be applied equally well to everyone’s life in general. Word. The leftist blogger at Fire on the Mountain actually appreciates the music, while noting that JB’s politics reconciliation-loving politics were hardly consistent. An incarnationof black captialism, black pride, and the DIY esthetic. No obituary is any more coherent than his subject.

Peace out, Mr. Brown.