Wearing Pina

A wearable acknowledgement to the Goddess of dance.

Personal response to Pina

Personal response to Pina

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Personal response to Pina

Jackson Browne Chairs

At last I have found an outlet for my obsession for the lyrics of Jackson Browne in the only way I know – for now…Chairs!

The words had all been spoken

No matter where I am…

Jackson Browne words

 

Chichester Art

These are the images I have referred to in my book:The bullet point book of Chichester Art

Richard Hamilton ‘Swingeing London’

A Dream

Words and music: Lou Reed & John Cale
It was a very cold clear fall night
I had a terrible dream
Billy Name and Brigid were playing under my stair case on the second floor about two o’clock in the morning
I woke up because Amos and Archie had started barking
That made me very angry because I wasn’t feeling well and I told them I was very cross the real me that they just better remember what happened to Sam the bad cat that was left at home and got sick and went pussy heaven
It was a very cold clear fall night
Some snowflakes were falling
Gee, it was so beautiful
and so I went to get my camera to take some pictures
And then I was taking the pictures
but the exposure thing wasn’t right
and I was going to call Fred

or Gerry
to find out how to get set it
I was too late
and then I remembered they were still probably at dinner
and anyway
I felt really bad and didn’t want to talk to anybody
but the snowflakes were so beautiful and real looking
and I really wanted to hold them
And that’s when I heard the voices
from down the hall near the stairs
So I got a flashlight
and I was scared and I went out into the hallway
There’s been all kinds of troubles
lately in the neighborhood
and someone’s got to bring home the bacon and anyway
there were Brigid and Billy playing
And under the stair case
was a little meadow sort of like the park at 23rd street
where all the young kids go and play frisbee
Gee, that must be fun
maybe we should do an article on that in the magazine
but they’ll just tell me I’m stupid and it won’t sell
but I’ll just hold my ground this time, I mean
it’s my magazine, isn’t it?
So I was thinking that as the snowflakes fell
and I heard those voices having so much fun
Gee, it would be so great to have some fun
So I called Billy
but either he didn’t hear me or he didn’t want to answer
which was so strange
because
even if I don’t like reunions I’ve always loved Billy
I’m so glad he’s working
I mean it’s different than Ondine
He keeps touring with those movies
and he doesn’t even pay us and the film
I mean the film’s just going to disintegrate and then what
I mean he’s so normal off of drugs
I just don’t get it
And then I saw John Cale
he’s been looking really great
He’s been coming by the office to exercise with me
Ronnie said I have a muscle
but he’s been really mean since he went to AA
I mean what does it mean
when you give up drinking and then you’re still so mean
He says I’m being lazy but I’m not
I’m just can’t find any ideas
I mean I’m just not
let’s face it
going to get any ideas up at the office
And seeing John made me think of the Velvets
and I had been thinking about them
when I was on St. Marks Place
going to that new gallery those sweet new kids have opened
but the thought I was old
and then I saw the old DOM
the old club where we did our first shows
It was so great
And I don’t understand about that Velvet’s first album
I mean I did the cover
I was the producer
and I always see it repackaged
and I’ve never gotten a penny from it
How could that be
I should call Henry
but it was good seeing John
I did a cover for him
but I did in black and white and he change it to color
It would have been worth more if he’d left it my way
but you can never tell any body anything I’ve leaned that
I tried calling again to Billy and John
they wouldn’t recognize me it was like I wasn’t there
Why won’t they let me in
And then I saw Lou
I’m so mad at him
Lou Reed got married and didn’t invite me
I mean is it because he thought I’d bring too many people
I don’t get it
could have at least called
I mean he’s doing so great
Why doesn’t he call me?
I saw him at the MTV show
and he was one row away and he didn’t even say hello
I don’t get it
You know I hate Lou
I really do
He won’t even hire us for his videos
And I was proud of him
I was so scared today
There was blood leaking thought my shirt
from those old scars from being shot
And the corset I wear to keep my insides in was hurting
And I did three sets of fifteen pushups
and four sets of ten setups
But then my insides hurt
and I saw drops of blood on my shirt and I remember
the doctors saying I was dead
And then later they had to take blood out of my hand
‘couse they ran out or veins
but then
all this thinking was making me an old grouch
and you can’t do anything anyway so
if they wouldn’t let me play with them in my own dream
I was just going to have to make another
and another
and another
Gee, wouldn’t it be funny if I died in this dream
before I could make another one up
And nobody called
And nobody came

Forever Changed

Words and music: Lou Reed & John Cale
Train entering the city – I lost myself and never come back
Took a trip around the world and never came back
Black silhouettes, crisscrossed tracks never came back
Forever changed, forever changed
You might think I’m frivolous, uncaring and cold
You might think I’m frivolous – depends on your point of view
Society Andy who paints and records them – the high and the low
I left my all life behind me and never went back
Forever changed, forever changed
Got to get to the city – get a job
Got to get some work to see me through
My old life’s disappearing from view
Hong Kong – and I was changed
Burma and India – and I was changed
Only art to see me through
Only heart to see me through
My old life disappearing from my view

Brigid and Pat – please see me through
The whole thing quickly receding
My life disappearing – disappearing from view
Forever changed, forever changed
I left my old life behind and was forever changed
Forever changed

Hello It’s Me -illustrated

Hello It’s Me
Words and music: Lou Reed & John Cale
Andy it’s me, haven’t seen you in a while
I wished I talked to you more when you were alive
I thought you were self-assured when you acted shy
Hello it’s me
I really miss you, I really miss your mind
I haven’t heard ideas like that in such a long, long time
I loved to watch you draw and and watch you paint
But when I saw you last I turned away
When Billy Name was sick and locked up in his room

You asked me for some speed, I though it was for you
I’m sorry that I doubted your good heart
Things always seem to end before they start
Hello it’s me, that was a great gallery show
Your cow wallpaper and your floating silver pillows
I wish I paid more attention when they laughed at you
Hello it’s me
“Pop goes pop artist,” the headline said
“Is shooting a put-on, is Warhol really dead?”
You get less time for stealing a car
I remember thinking as I heard my own record in a bar
They really hated you, now all that’s changed
But I have some resentments that can never be unmade
You hit me where it hurt I didn’t laugh
Your Diaries  are not a worthy epitaph
Oh well now Andy – guess we’ve got to go
I hope some way somehow you like this little show
I know it’s late in coming but it’s the only way I know
Hello it’s me – goodnight Andy…
Goodbye, Andy

Dedication to Martha

Spring

It wasn’t until a friend showed me a picture of Martha Graham in Lamentation – I guess in 1990 that I started to

look at dance in a different way. I had really got into dance in the mid 80’s when there seemed to be a massive explosion of energy and with a proliferation of contemporary dance companies. Rombert, Michael Clarke (who had studied Cunningham) and due to a friends’ connection, an introduction to the work of DV8. The Place was going strong in London and the work was fresh and exciting with a great venue and the BIG tee-shirts. However, looking back on all that energy, the piece I remember most at The Place involved a guy in a smart suit who suddenly slowed right down from a fast pace to a stop, then slowly walked a line. It was the most moving thing I had ever seen in dance, and for the life of me I can’t remember what piece it was from. Yet much later when I saw Graham wrapped in Lamentation that I got the same feeling that ‘wow’ feeling.

During my degree I wrote about and deconstructed Grahams’ Lamentation until it lay like the cogs and coils of a cuckoo clock spread out on a table – but that’s all it was.  Of course you can’t find ‘it’ – it’s not there on the table, only existing in those watching. That inescapable grieving is in us all, and Graham formed an object for us to project our own pain.  That’s the great thing about Graham, she lets you connect and compose the structure then create your own inner picture.

Along with friends Annie and Josie, we tried to emulate Grahams’ Lamination ‘struggle’ during a choreography module. Even with being filmed contained in a claustrophobic box with the dense music of Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit, the best we could say about the work was that it was a heart-felt, well-meant homage, but came nowhere near to matching the emotion of the piece. Perhaps that’s the point, you can’t make ‘it’, only construct a composition of cogs and wheels and hope it shows the time to yourself or others, let alone make the birds sing.

I didn’t think anything could beat Lamination but I have to go for Appalachian Spring.  It would be easy to say they are completely different, and ostensibly they are, yet contain that same mercurial ‘thing’. Love, loss, grief, they all come from the same place, and exist in the swaying tides of emotion of self. That place is an untouchable alchemy, a depth of feeling that Graham can convey so well.  I carry that feeling me, and can still sense that togetherness of the bride and groom.  For me it is the whole thing; the set, (which always reminds me of the court scene in the Crucible,) Coplands’ music, the costumes, choreography, the dancers, Cunningham, that strange light – and last but not least Graham. Like many  things, I didn’t know what I wanted until I found it, yet Lamentation and Appalachian Spring go a long way to giving form to something beyond words. With that I shall shut up, and apologise for the quality of some the photos. Again I photographed off a videos, leaving the film running as I shot to get the movement, and the images I wanted and couldn’t find.

What do you long for?

Pina in Winter

After what seems ages, I went back and watched ‘The’ Pina DVD -again.If like me you limit the times you watch it in the fear of never turning it off,
I thought I would just skim it for a while to take the edge off.  But of course you get caught up in it and see new things -Pina in ‘extension’, the music more beautiful than ever, the troupe even more cohesive than I remembered, so I thought I had better capture a bit on camera. Of course the choreography, composition, and beautiful elegance, but is it the long dresses and formal attire of the troupe that give the whole thing a fresh feel to the dance and that translates so well to film?

I wanted to catch the woman on a rope, the woman being buried alive, Spring, Summer, Autumn, and WINTER, the dancer having to be held up, the full troupe on the large stage, Pina looking brilliant, and ‘rain’. – next time I hope to put on ‘diving through the chair’. I didn’t stop the DVD to
photograph I just let it run and see what happened, so if they look a bit blurry –that’s why.Why did Wenders make such a brilliant film, and then go and record his interview in what sounds like a swimming pool changing room?

Personal best Sex Pistols and punk looks

These are my personal best Pistols and punk looks. I never got the leather jacket thing and the Mohawk hair – really? The best look was when there was no look, an individual free-for-all, full of ideas and personal expression – some so straight they were subversive. So let’s get into the top 5 in reverse order

5. Rotten’s drape suit.

5 The Drape Suit

I guess that had something to do with Mclaren , as he was wearing one way back in the early 70’s. There was a great interview with the pistols when rotten was in the drape and he had had his hair tinted pink and the other members were saying he looked like an old woman.

 

4. Matlock’s jumper.

Round-necked navy blue jumper – mostly worn with shirt underneath and collar up. He had worked in Sex/Seditionaries, knew the score, but secure enough not to have to parade the histrionic rags of the day. In fact many of Matlock’s ‘looks’ were so against the herd mentality it was Subversive. 

3. The Parachute blue shirt

Blue Parachute top

-Superb first rate design and tailoring by Mclaren and Westwood. Real confirmation that something different was going on, this was beyond the bin-bags and transience of one hit wonder. This incorporated all the elements of pistols/punk image; sex, politics, subversion, art, and used the tools of the trade: stencilled slogans : ‘No Future’, ‘We are not in the least afraid of Ruins’, and ‘Only Anarchists Are Pretty’.  Military paraphernalia , S&M type straps/restrains,  and that lovely heavy blue shirt.

2 The Anarchy Karl Marx shirt.

Front of the Karl Marx shirt

Another perfect example of the visual art accompanying the music of the pistols. This dates from 1976, though there were many versions that followed. It is a simpler design that the Parachute shirt and somehow gives it harder edge, with the large Karl Marx patch on the back, hand stencilled slogans ;

Back of Karl Marx shirt

Dangerously close to Love’ ‘TRY SUBVERSION’, together with Nazi eagle. I would have had these two shirt as a tie but the blue and white shirt is so reminiscent of the early 70’s British prison/borstal shirt,  it piped the para to the post.

 

1.  Rotten’s ripped/torn jumper.

Shock of the new!

When I saw him in that jumper- the first one I saw him in was a tight green number in which it looked as if the side seem had come undone. It was the most wonderful, different thing I had ever seen. That jumper came embodied with confidence, a smattering of ‘why bother?’ and fun! For me it was a new day- the first day, we were not in Kansas anymore, and as Strummer said of how he felt when seeing the Pistols ‘like yesterdays papers’. Nothing would be/look/feel/sound the same again.

 

 

 

Thank you to Paul Burgess and Alan Parker’s and their beautiful book ‘Satellite’. For all the wonderful images and information, it shows those guys loved it all as much as I did.    

 

 

 

 

THE LAW OF LEATHER

The great Billy Duffy

 Following on the [high] heels of the Chanel ‘Little Black Jacket (LBJ) exhibition with its beautiful space, hang and of course the wonderful jacket images, it got me thinking about that other icon of wearable cultural aesthetic. I speak of the other LBJ – the ‘Little ‘Biker’ Jacket’ celebrated by Mick Farren, iconised by Brando, and worn by any [wanna-be] outsider. As All Saints  presents the Biker Jacket as the ‘must wear’ item for the Autumn/winter season, the LBJ will once again carry the cultural package from over 50 years of ‘cool’.

The ‘Biker jacket’, that well used generic term, yet this garment has more signifiers than Dan Brown’s Mona, and yet explains nothing of the complexity of visual connotation, – so lets deconstruct it. For a start there is the biker jacket that ‘us’ men wear – the type (though perhaps not the make) that Daniel Craig may care to wear. It has a nice fit and is smart/casual. Most times it never gets to go on or near a motor cycle, nor does it cover a tattoo on our neck. Then there’s the biker ‘gang’ jacket, the ‘club’ jacket is the same but different. The difference between the two is if you are willing to brawl for it. This is what separates the men from the boys, but boy can we sublimate. The gang jacket comes with patch ‘colors’, the club LBJ comes with a logo, our ‘biker’ jacket comes with cleaning instructions.

Early Angel’s patch

Gypsy Jokers patch

Sonny Barger – one time spokesperson for the Hells Angels, recalled his friend Boots (Don Reeves) creating a ‘patch’ by modifying an old air-force patch with a skull wearing an aviators cap with a set of wings back in 57. However, it seems some sort of 100th monkey or critical mass was talking hold across the States, as it wasn’t long before Boots and Barger bumped into other bikers wearing similar ‘colors’, who said they had been wearing them since 48. Some of the most imaginative and stylised jackets came in late 50’s and 60’s including those by the British Rocker. The hand painted images, adorned with studs and gave off a whiff of menace – a must for the image. The yanks didn’t and don’t do a bad job with their designs either, what with the Gypsy Jokers, and other bike gangs who have an artistic freedom, and of course those great early individualised Angel patches. This individualised creativity ended for the Angels around the early seventies with an almost corporate look, I guess they were looking for a global cohesion and a unified front.

There is a ‘type’ that can get away with wearing the biker jacket [well].

Peter Fonda

T. E. Lawrence got away with it with his Belstaff, not quite the classic biker shape but… Lawrence gets [biker] icon status from riding a Brough Superior SS100 motor cycle, then sadly losing his life on it. Of course the LBJ has come stuffed with connotation and meaning for over half a century now, and we know what it means and most times it means business. A large part of this longevity is of course how it looks and feels to wear something with that bit of edge. As with the Chanel LBJ, I’m not sure if it is height, frame, or just the way some people stand that can pull off that cool style, but thank God it’s not just the tall and lean who can get away with it. John Travolta is a tall handsome guy, but he is not Peter Fonda – which just goes to show you don’t have to be tough either – it’s just that ‘thing’. Roger Federer does look good wearing his leather for the Credit Suisse ad, sitting on that fantastic bike, but he tennis racket on his back – really? Hunter S Thompson wrote a wonderful, fair and balanced book about the Hells Angels, which I must say is pretty damn rare, almost put his finger on that elusive charismatic poise. It seems the great Gonzo was touching on that cool pose that can be seen on every catwalk, runway and mag shoot even today, some 40 years after he wrote the book.

He tells of a cool drifter type with a

‘….sulky hostile look ‘

… [and the] long boned bodies that never looked quite natural unless they are leaning on something’.

Cool Bean

We have had Marlon at Hollister, Fonda’s Captain America, and God knows who else wearing the LBJ that sort of hit rock bottom with Fonzie. Why on earth did John Beverley and the Clash ever think they needed to wear such a thing? Plus the fact that Sean Bean (in Caravaggio) didn’t wear one is truly offensive.

Billy Duffy, the guitarist from the Cult wore a great LBJ for the video shoot for Edie [Ciao Baby], and is a top end example of how to this cultural signifier is worn – this guy was made for this look. The main thing about the jacket is that it has that feel of authenticity, and carried off by Duffy with style and confidence – perhaps that’s the key.

The gay community gave rise to the 80’s inversion of the look, which perhaps frightened off any straight guy getting his stud kit out.

So what is the difference between our biker and ‘the’ biker jacket? Well, I guess the answer is the same as what is the difference between painting and art?

That is, if you need to ask you are not going to get it anyway.

So what of us mere mortals who don’t do studs, whose blood races at Born to be Wild, and the growl of an old Indian bike – can we still be cool? –Sure we can. Ok, perhaps we would rather not slug it out with Boots or Barger, but we can always go lean on something.