Up to page 700-odd in Tilbury's biog., he's just about to cover Stockhausen Serves Imperialism. Crazy how these whimsical good-.natured bohos turned into icy Maoist robots... and so rapidly too.
― Anyway, it's not a three, it's a yogh. (Tom D.), Wednesday, 6 January 2016 11:01 (eight years ago) link
Sounds like you are enjoying yourself.
Can't remember reading a good review of this.
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 6 January 2016 11:08 (eight years ago) link
love this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fm3SNk3ffoA
― ogmor, Wednesday, 6 January 2016 11:27 (eight years ago) link
1071 pages
― oppen gangland style (nakhchivan), Wednesday, 6 January 2016 11:29 (eight years ago) link
You only live once.
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 6 January 2016 11:40 (eight years ago) link
Pretty much my thinking, got the chance to read it, beats working etc. Tell you what though, it was all that Keith Rowe's fault... and Chairman Mao's.
― Anyway, it's not a three, it's a yogh. (Tom D.), Wednesday, 6 January 2016 11:54 (eight years ago) link
Hard not to snigger @ the Scratch Orchestra changing its name to the Red Flame Proletarian Propaganda Team, to name but one of the increasing absurdities as the page numbers pile up.
― Anyway, it's not a three, it's a yogh. (Tom D.), Wednesday, 6 January 2016 11:56 (eight years ago) link
Past the 850 mark and, in timely fashion, David Bowie has popped up, story recounted here.
― Narayan Superman (Tom D.), Tuesday, 12 January 2016 18:58 (eight years ago) link
950+. Cardew has just been to a Marxist-Leninist cultural festival in West Germany as one of three members of the Stalin Youth Group, he was 43 at the time.
― Narayan Superman (Tom D.), Friday, 15 January 2016 23:21 (eight years ago) link
lol
― emil.y, Friday, 15 January 2016 23:30 (eight years ago) link
hahahaha
― Man Bun B (jim in glasgow), Friday, 15 January 2016 23:49 (eight years ago) link
Figured out how to live.
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 17 January 2016 10:43 (eight years ago) link
man I really need this book
― grant holt (prettylikealaindelon), Sunday, 17 January 2016 14:06 (eight years ago) link
I'm more than happy with Tom D's updates tbh.
― Fizzles, Sunday, 17 January 2016 14:52 (eight years ago) link
Finished. You'll thank me for it one day. The last third was a long grind, or a Long March.
― The Return of the Thin White Pope (Tom D.), Tuesday, 19 January 2016 21:40 (eight years ago) link
great updates, "Red Flame Proletarian Propaganda Team" pretty much ended me.
― Cornelius Pardew (jim in glasgow), Tuesday, 19 January 2016 21:42 (eight years ago) link
In honour of the CPGB(ML)'s Progressive Cultural Association's Punk Rock Is Fascist! slogan, I'm working on a punk version of one of Cardew's later I HEART MAO pieces. To be fair, the comrades were never entirely convinced of the wisdom of the Punk Rock Is Fascist! campaign, apart from Cardew (of course) and, er, John Tilbury!
Some stuff for you rock fans out there:
The Scratch Orchestra apparently did a 45 minute version of "Sister Ray" at a concert in '69/'70 - even longer than the Velvets were doing themselves at the time. (Also, in a footnote earlier in the book, Tilbury attributes the composition of the music in "Sister Ray" solely to John Cale - which seems very bourgeois of him.)
Cardew supposedly 'jammed' onstage with Tangerine Dream in Berlin in 1973, though Tilbury speculates that it might have been with Agitation Free instead.
― The Return of the Thin White Pope (Tom D.), Tuesday, 19 January 2016 21:58 (eight years ago) link
want the book but its like 80$ on amazon.
― Option ARMs and de Man (s.clover), Tuesday, 19 January 2016 22:20 (eight years ago) link
i hunted down some of his later stuff that was performed at his memorial, i think? and i liked it quite a bit
― Option ARMs and de Man (s.clover), Tuesday, 19 January 2016 22:22 (eight years ago) link
I am fond of some of the later piano pieces, but the few proletarian rock songs I've heard are dreadful.
― The Return of the Thin White Pope (Tom D.), Tuesday, 19 January 2016 23:33 (eight years ago) link
Was just saying to a friend over the weekend the only biog I remember reading in the last 10 years was Jean Genet by Edmund White.
Since then I have read about two biogs I want to read and this is one of them. Well done for finishing it.
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 21 January 2016 09:08 (eight years ago) link
Stupidly, I've started reading the BS Johnson biog, having promised myself only to read novels for the foreseeable future.
― The Return of the Thin White Pope (Tom D.), Thursday, 21 January 2016 12:01 (eight years ago) link
I love Treatise and like some of his later piano music but I'm only now just listening to the album: 'Consciously', wow lol, sounds like a parody.
― grant holt (prettylikealaindelon), Thursday, 21 January 2016 13:16 (eight years ago) link
It's hilarious but, if you excuse the pun, not consciously so.
― The Return of the Thin White Pope (Tom D.), Thursday, 21 January 2016 13:23 (eight years ago) link
1970. Pre-Mao.
https://collectionimages.npg.org.uk/large/mw283312/Cornelius-Cardew.jpg
― Are Animated Dads Getting Hotter? (Tom D.), Saturday, 5 June 2021 13:35 (three years ago) link
cute
― Left, Saturday, 5 June 2021 15:07 (three years ago) link
"Consciously" sounds like the worst imaginable result of Art Bears trying to go commercial.
― Halfway there but for you, Saturday, 5 June 2021 15:23 (three years ago) link
I've got to imagine "condescension" wasn't in his lexicon.
― Halfway there but for you, Saturday, 5 June 2021 15:25 (three years ago) link
From the "Bits of songs that sound like bits of other songs" thread:
Chorus of "Smash the Social Contract" by Cornelius Cardew and chorus of "Funky Gibbon" by the Goodies.― Saturated with working class intelligence and not afraid to show it (Tom D.), Tuesday, December 3, 2013 11:44 AM (seven years ago) bookmarkflaglink
― Saturated with working class intelligence and not afraid to show it (Tom D.), Tuesday, December 3, 2013 11:44 AM (seven years ago) bookmarkflaglink
Was this ever resolved? So basically the Goodies mowed CC down on their trusty trandem, outraged at his blatant looting of their hit single, all as part of a fiendish plot to seize the means of black pudding production from the proletariat? Correct me if I'm wrong.
― Best regards, HM Revenue & Customs (Matt #2), Saturday, 5 June 2021 15:33 (three years ago) link
this stuff is endlessly fascinating to me in the ways it both fails and sort-of succeeds at pop. catchy, kitschy, hilarious and tragic all at oncehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXEDZy4Z8os
― Left, Saturday, 5 June 2021 15:35 (three years ago) link
(xp) As I think I said on this thread or some other thread, Dave McRae from Matching Mole (of 'Little Red Record' er, fame) played on (arranged?) the Goodies records, and I can very well imagine him being familiar with Cardew's work - so maybe the Goodies ripped off Cardew?
― Are Animated Dads Getting Hotter? (Tom D.), Saturday, 5 June 2021 15:37 (three years ago) link
The songs are terrible but, tbf to Cardew, he was expected to churn out dozens of musical settings of the proclamations and thoughts of Hardial Bains as his contribution to the victory of the proletariat. Now, if only he'd realized that "Mouldy Old Dough" could have been re-written as "Hardial Bains".
― Are Animated Dads Getting Hotter? (Tom D.), Saturday, 5 June 2021 15:47 (three years ago) link
the last time we discussed this (on a monty python thread, to morbs's huge irritation lol) i raised the possiblity that this shared tune has been repurposed from some common-property chant that pre-exists both: i referred to it as the "vote vote vote for nigel barton" song -- apparently in the belief that this 1965 dennis potter play includes this line being chanted (presumably by barton's political followers?) to this tune
obviously it would fit well, but does this actually happen? i was very confident previously but i now have no idea why
― mark s, Saturday, 5 June 2021 16:20 (three years ago) link
Oh yes, I remember that discussion.
― Are Animated Dads Getting Hotter? (Tom D.), Saturday, 5 June 2021 16:25 (three years ago) link
first appearance also of matt #2's mysterious-tricycle solution to the cardew hit-and-run
― mark s, Saturday, 5 June 2021 16:28 (three years ago) link
xps would have helped if he was open to actually learning anything from actual (black) popular music & its connection with already existing struggles instead of trying to reinvent the wheel like a typical vanguardist. he’s obviously a unique figure but in that & so many other ways (the confused anti-imperialism, class guilt, hopeless attempts at populism) he feels like such a familiar “type” on the UK left, he’s painful & fascinating to hear/read/read about
― Left, Saturday, 5 June 2021 16:29 (three years ago) link
This is quite a light hearted encounter between Cardew and some stuffy Radio 3 guy (from 1972 probably?) which shows he hadn't quite lost his sense of humour yet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oksUcVauHXM
― Are Animated Dads Getting Hotter? (Tom D.), Saturday, 5 June 2021 16:38 (three years ago) link
the last time we discussed this (on a monty python thread, to morbs's huge irritation lol) i raised the possiblity that this shared tune has been repurposed from some common-property chant that pre-exists both: i referred to it as the "vote vote vote for nigel barton"
Yeah, this.There's an episode of "the odd couple" where tony randall reminisces about his time in the army and sings "let's hit hitler where he lives" to this tune.I forget what the original is but p. sure it's a British march.
― Fauna Sukkot (Deflatormouse), Saturday, 5 June 2021 17:08 (three years ago) link
I forget what the original is
This is gonna drive me nuts all day
― Fauna Sukkot (Deflatormouse), Saturday, 5 June 2021 17:17 (three years ago) link
I think there might be a scene in "Inherit the wind" which uses it also
― Fauna Sukkot (Deflatormouse), Saturday, 5 June 2021 17:35 (three years ago) link
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tramp!_Tramp!_Tramp!
Think this is the original.
― joni mitchell jarre (anagram), Saturday, 5 June 2021 20:19 (three years ago) link
I think you're right but, just to complicate matters further, I think this also rips off "Tramp! Tramp! Tramp" ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viXBxuSSS6s
― Are Animated Dads Getting Hotter? (Tom D.), Saturday, 5 June 2021 21:04 (three years ago) link
... not a Cornelius Cardew composition.
― Are Animated Dads Getting Hotter? (Tom D.), Saturday, 5 June 2021 21:05 (three years ago) link
Could be linked to on any number of threads but the Cardew doc was finally what sold me on this:
https://artdaily.com/news/137857/New-release-showcases-an-eclectic-trove-of-music--poetry-and-spoken-word-made-between-1978-and-1996#.YQGpHy1Q1Bw
― Ward Fowler, Wednesday, 28 July 2021 19:02 (three years ago) link
Among other things, I was reading his account of collaborating with Stockhausen on "Carré", which he really deserved a co-composer credit for, and he had nicely wry sense of humour which comes across in a lot of his other writings - this was later surgically removed by Mao Tse-Tung. One of the things he mentioned, which kinda blew my mind, is that "Gruppen" was performed in Glasgow and a quick Google revealed that not only was it played in Glasgow but it was the UK premiere and it was broadcast live on the BBC!
― Des Weerelds Dool-om-berg ont-doold op Dool-in-bergh (Tom D.), Sunday, 7 November 2021 19:22 (two years ago) link
OK, this is interesting (to me at least) both of Cardew's sons played with the Pasadenas, Horace on sax and Walter on drums:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Whom_It_May_Concern_(The_Pasadenas_album)
A lot closer to pop music than their dad ever managed!
― Someone left a space telescope out in the rain (Tom D.), Tuesday, 1 February 2022 21:52 (two years ago) link
The Great Learning is sick. I will - maybe - educate myself about Caredew's politics at some point, or I may not bother. But right now this piece is some beautiful fusion of Miles Davis/Herbie Hancock like jazz-rock and Ligetian choral Nirvana.
― glumdalclitch, Sunday, 27 November 2022 17:01 (one year ago) link
sat down to leaf thru the lesson books on my sister's piano -- idle sight-reading practice while everyone else is out doing their final xmas shop -- and came across a howard skempton piece by called "well, well, cornelius" (he studied under cardew; unclear from this piece what he learned aside from parallel thirds in several flats and extended-span bassline ostinati)
― mark s, Friday, 23 December 2022 17:12 (one year ago) link
she tells me she plays it and likes it so well done everyone i guess
― mark s, Friday, 23 December 2022 17:17 (one year ago) link
He was one of the three "founders" of the Scratch Orchestra, with Cardew and Michael Parsons.
― Twa pehs an' an ingin ane an' aw (Tom D.), Friday, 23 December 2022 17:20 (one year ago) link