Forgot to add, the film you write about reminds me of The Boy and the Heron, which I viewed with my 10 year old granddaughter recently, giving us hours of conversation in the attempt to untangle its meaning. Gorgeous stuff.
I think that the story writers behind 'Kubo And The Two Strings' were inspired by Miyazaki's films. I agree, that "The Boy and the Heron" was wonderful!
Michael, love your thoughts on Rothko. I too have felt similar things immersed in his paintings and other color field artists. But then I can get lost in the deep folds of pink rose, or a turquoise sea. It's color that makes me want to paint. Have you seen the art of Solan Qadri? Amazing. I had a religious experience entering his work, which is what he aims for it appears, what sparks his creativity.
Thank you, Deborah. I love Sohan Qadri's art! They are incredibly mysterious. The color invites you in, making it hard to remove oneself from them. His marks, textures and motifs are always balanced in a way that helps me feel centered when I look at them. I agree that there is a deeply spiritual and meditative quality to them. Aboriginal Dreamtime painting evokes similar emotions and thoughts within me.
Mike, do you know the musical composition called 'Rothko Chapel' by Morton Feldman? It's one of my all time favourites since I first heard it in my teens and it was a source of inspiration for one of projects I hold most dearly in my memory, which was a collaboration with an art student from the RAA when I was at the Guildhall School of Music. We called the work 'Tramontane Parchments '. Maybe I told you about it years ago. The name itself gives quite a lot of insight into the project and, I think, connects with the contemplation you write about. It was a large-scale, one time only presentation. Sadly, the large art works made largely of natural materials we rolled for storage, got 'rigor mortis' and had to be burned. Maybe one day I will rework the music into a concert piece.
I have heard it, but I would love to hear it whilst sitting in the Chapel itself. It's not quite the same experience when hearing it played on a dodgy cassette by my Art History teacher who talked throughout it!
I would have loved to have experienced your collaborative piece. I remember when we first visited your apartment years ago and you mentioned it. And now, in a way, things have come full circle - I'm living in Portland, the same city where Rothko lived when he moved to the US (and our kids even graduated from the same High School that he did).
This will motivate me to dig my radio recording cassettes out of the loft and fix my cassette player. The recording I have is of a live broadcast. Hopefully, the tape hasn't degraded.
That 2019 Sad About The Times compilation was really something special. For me, there’s not a bad track on there and I rated it my #5 album of the year, which is saying something as I rarely include compilations or reissues on my AOTY list.
The melody of the Stoner song to me has shades of Mountain’s Theme From An Imaginary Western, a very different song but one I’ve enjoyed since hearing it for the first time on the soundtrack to the Woodstock documentary (can’t remember if the video of the performance was included in the movie).
Thank you for reading and commenting, Mark. There is a follow-up to 'Sad About The Times' called 'Still Sad.' Have you heard it? I have given it a couple of spins, but only via streaming. I don't know it well enough to comment on it, however.
Wow, what a fantastic and out-of-the-box connection you make with the Mountain song! I never would have thought of that track or that band, tbh. But, you did inspire me to pull out and dust down my copy of 'Climbing' and play it again for the first time in quite a while! 😊
I did listen to the ‘Still Sad’ follow up compilation. I enjoyed it but it didn’t come close to the first compilation to me and I don’t go back to it often.
I’m glad I inspired you to go back and listen to Mountain. They’re not a band I know well at all. I’ll check that album out.
I really like the way you tie these experiences together, Michael. I listened to the Dennis Stoner (great song) and was also inspired to dig out the Loren Connors LP Blues: The Dark Paintings of Mark Rothko. I’ve been soaking up its washes of sound and reading the liner notes.
I don't own that Loren Connors album, but I am familiar with it via Thurston Moore. Are you familiar with '60s folk guitarist & musician of all things stringed, Sandy Bull? Folk doesn't really do him justice as his music has a lot of eastern elements as well as blues and even heroin drone. They are very far out for their time. His albums, 'Fantasias,' 'Inventions,' and 'E Pluribus Unum,' must have inspired Loren Connors.
I do know Sandy Bull's work, but not as well as I should. I'm a fan of those guitar compilations like the Imaginational Anthem series that Tompkins Square put out. But I haven't explored Bull's work to the extent of Fahey, Basho, or, in a UK context, Davey Graham. There's a task for my Spring break!
I'd love to hear your thoughts on any of those three Sandy Bull records. The one I actually go back to the most is 'E Pluribus Unum.' It's such a deep, thick, improvisational raga record and the one that you can probably hear the heroin drone of his addiction coming out the most. I'm not saying that in a positive sense nor to glamorize or even make light of his serious addiction, but it's so evident in the album's vibe. Bands like Velvet Underground and decades later, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, must have known this album as it sounds like the blueprint to 'White Light/White Heat' and early BJM.
"SF Sorrow" was one of the label's kick-off albums in '69, as Rare Earth released a 5-album promo box set to announce the label's birth! Others in the set included Love Sculpture, and a Rare Earth album! I was late to the PT bandwagon.
I had heard about them, and read about them (I was 15 in '70) to the point I knew they really "weren't for me"....i.e. blues-based, Stones-like rockers. It was a mid-'70s double-LP compilation that I finally heard them for myself that only just reinforced the opinion I had (non-musically) formed!
I had to "let" the rock press supplement my musical knowledge back in that day, Michael....I had so many promos coming in (alas, PT was never one of them!), that to fill out my world of music, I learned to trust the rock writers I was reading, and learned how to filter their words to a point (they'll be happy to know!) where I could "tell" what an artist sounded like by how a critic described them and their music.
One example I gave recently on Keith R. Higgons' "Abandoned Albums Podcast" (not released yet): In 1985, upon the release of Scritti Politti's "Cupid & Psyche 85" album, Robert Hilburn's L.A. Times review described Green's (and Scritti's) music on the album as "precious"! That's all it took. I had to get an album Hilburn (whose writing I'd come to know for a few years) called "precious." I knew I'd like whatever it sounded like, and I did....Scritti instantly became a new favorite band!
I think The Pretty Things 1969 single, "Private Sorrow," was also Rare Earth's first 45 by a non-North American band.
The inner sleeve of Dennis Stoner's album has a trip down memory lane of promotional art for many of Rare Earth's bands including The Pretty Things, Love Sculpture, Rare Earth, Rustix, The Messengers, Toe Fat, etc.
Hi Simon, what you said about not feeling quite real, untethered, as if about to float away really struck me. I've felt that way myself so many times, and wrote a story about it called Fine and Shimmering, describing the fragile thread that connected the woman in the story to the earth, her feeling always that she floated at a distance from all others, feeling that precarious disconnection. Someday I may put that story up here on Substack. But in the meantime I wanted you to know you are not alone in that feeling. How rare it is to meet someone else who has experienced that. I'm so glad you shared that.
Thank you, Simon, for reading, listening and taking the time to comment. I think Stoner's song speaks to the essence of your thoughts, yet, 53 years later, our society is even more superficial and people hide behind even more masks than they did in 1971.
Your thoughts on Rothko are wonderful, deep, and expressed with elegance. All the more profound considering his paintings can evoke such thoughts and emotions using only color and blurred geometry.
Forgot to add, the film you write about reminds me of The Boy and the Heron, which I viewed with my 10 year old granddaughter recently, giving us hours of conversation in the attempt to untangle its meaning. Gorgeous stuff.
I think that the story writers behind 'Kubo And The Two Strings' were inspired by Miyazaki's films. I agree, that "The Boy and the Heron" was wonderful!
Michael, love your thoughts on Rothko. I too have felt similar things immersed in his paintings and other color field artists. But then I can get lost in the deep folds of pink rose, or a turquoise sea. It's color that makes me want to paint. Have you seen the art of Solan Qadri? Amazing. I had a religious experience entering his work, which is what he aims for it appears, what sparks his creativity.
Thank you, Deborah. I love Sohan Qadri's art! They are incredibly mysterious. The color invites you in, making it hard to remove oneself from them. His marks, textures and motifs are always balanced in a way that helps me feel centered when I look at them. I agree that there is a deeply spiritual and meditative quality to them. Aboriginal Dreamtime painting evokes similar emotions and thoughts within me.
Mike, do you know the musical composition called 'Rothko Chapel' by Morton Feldman? It's one of my all time favourites since I first heard it in my teens and it was a source of inspiration for one of projects I hold most dearly in my memory, which was a collaboration with an art student from the RAA when I was at the Guildhall School of Music. We called the work 'Tramontane Parchments '. Maybe I told you about it years ago. The name itself gives quite a lot of insight into the project and, I think, connects with the contemplation you write about. It was a large-scale, one time only presentation. Sadly, the large art works made largely of natural materials we rolled for storage, got 'rigor mortis' and had to be burned. Maybe one day I will rework the music into a concert piece.
I have heard it, but I would love to hear it whilst sitting in the Chapel itself. It's not quite the same experience when hearing it played on a dodgy cassette by my Art History teacher who talked throughout it!
I would have loved to have experienced your collaborative piece. I remember when we first visited your apartment years ago and you mentioned it. And now, in a way, things have come full circle - I'm living in Portland, the same city where Rothko lived when he moved to the US (and our kids even graduated from the same High School that he did).
This will motivate me to dig my radio recording cassettes out of the loft and fix my cassette player. The recording I have is of a live broadcast. Hopefully, the tape hasn't degraded.
That 2019 Sad About The Times compilation was really something special. For me, there’s not a bad track on there and I rated it my #5 album of the year, which is saying something as I rarely include compilations or reissues on my AOTY list.
The melody of the Stoner song to me has shades of Mountain’s Theme From An Imaginary Western, a very different song but one I’ve enjoyed since hearing it for the first time on the soundtrack to the Woodstock documentary (can’t remember if the video of the performance was included in the movie).
Thank you for reading and commenting, Mark. There is a follow-up to 'Sad About The Times' called 'Still Sad.' Have you heard it? I have given it a couple of spins, but only via streaming. I don't know it well enough to comment on it, however.
Wow, what a fantastic and out-of-the-box connection you make with the Mountain song! I never would have thought of that track or that band, tbh. But, you did inspire me to pull out and dust down my copy of 'Climbing' and play it again for the first time in quite a while! 😊
I did listen to the ‘Still Sad’ follow up compilation. I enjoyed it but it didn’t come close to the first compilation to me and I don’t go back to it often.
I’m glad I inspired you to go back and listen to Mountain. They’re not a band I know well at all. I’ll check that album out.
I really like the way you tie these experiences together, Michael. I listened to the Dennis Stoner (great song) and was also inspired to dig out the Loren Connors LP Blues: The Dark Paintings of Mark Rothko. I’ve been soaking up its washes of sound and reading the liner notes.
Thank you, Richard! That means a lot to me.
I don't own that Loren Connors album, but I am familiar with it via Thurston Moore. Are you familiar with '60s folk guitarist & musician of all things stringed, Sandy Bull? Folk doesn't really do him justice as his music has a lot of eastern elements as well as blues and even heroin drone. They are very far out for their time. His albums, 'Fantasias,' 'Inventions,' and 'E Pluribus Unum,' must have inspired Loren Connors.
I do know Sandy Bull's work, but not as well as I should. I'm a fan of those guitar compilations like the Imaginational Anthem series that Tompkins Square put out. But I haven't explored Bull's work to the extent of Fahey, Basho, or, in a UK context, Davey Graham. There's a task for my Spring break!
I'd love to hear your thoughts on any of those three Sandy Bull records. The one I actually go back to the most is 'E Pluribus Unum.' It's such a deep, thick, improvisational raga record and the one that you can probably hear the heroin drone of his addiction coming out the most. I'm not saying that in a positive sense nor to glamorize or even make light of his serious addiction, but it's so evident in the album's vibe. Bands like Velvet Underground and decades later, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, must have known this album as it sounds like the blueprint to 'White Light/White Heat' and early BJM.
Rare Earth Records was a subsidiary of Motown (named for the band of the same name which recorded for it).
A label that is very close to my heart thanks to their North American release of The Pretty Things, 'SF Sorrow' and 'Parachute' albums!
"SF Sorrow" was one of the label's kick-off albums in '69, as Rare Earth released a 5-album promo box set to announce the label's birth! Others in the set included Love Sculpture, and a Rare Earth album! I was late to the PT bandwagon.
I had heard about them, and read about them (I was 15 in '70) to the point I knew they really "weren't for me"....i.e. blues-based, Stones-like rockers. It was a mid-'70s double-LP compilation that I finally heard them for myself that only just reinforced the opinion I had (non-musically) formed!
I had to "let" the rock press supplement my musical knowledge back in that day, Michael....I had so many promos coming in (alas, PT was never one of them!), that to fill out my world of music, I learned to trust the rock writers I was reading, and learned how to filter their words to a point (they'll be happy to know!) where I could "tell" what an artist sounded like by how a critic described them and their music.
One example I gave recently on Keith R. Higgons' "Abandoned Albums Podcast" (not released yet): In 1985, upon the release of Scritti Politti's "Cupid & Psyche 85" album, Robert Hilburn's L.A. Times review described Green's (and Scritti's) music on the album as "precious"! That's all it took. I had to get an album Hilburn (whose writing I'd come to know for a few years) called "precious." I knew I'd like whatever it sounded like, and I did....Scritti instantly became a new favorite band!
I think The Pretty Things 1969 single, "Private Sorrow," was also Rare Earth's first 45 by a non-North American band.
The inner sleeve of Dennis Stoner's album has a trip down memory lane of promotional art for many of Rare Earth's bands including The Pretty Things, Love Sculpture, Rare Earth, Rustix, The Messengers, Toe Fat, etc.
And, from what I can gather, David, Vantage was a local/regional PA label, until Motown picked it up for their Rare Earth imprint, founded in '69.
Hi Simon, what you said about not feeling quite real, untethered, as if about to float away really struck me. I've felt that way myself so many times, and wrote a story about it called Fine and Shimmering, describing the fragile thread that connected the woman in the story to the earth, her feeling always that she floated at a distance from all others, feeling that precarious disconnection. Someday I may put that story up here on Substack. But in the meantime I wanted you to know you are not alone in that feeling. How rare it is to meet someone else who has experienced that. I'm so glad you shared that.
Thank you, Simon, for reading, listening and taking the time to comment. I think Stoner's song speaks to the essence of your thoughts, yet, 53 years later, our society is even more superficial and people hide behind even more masks than they did in 1971.
Your thoughts on Rothko are wonderful, deep, and expressed with elegance. All the more profound considering his paintings can evoke such thoughts and emotions using only color and blurred geometry.
I value and appreciate you being here and reading, Simon!