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I nearly saw that Piper show, we were on holiday near Brighton (when we visited Pallant House) and went to Eastbourne and by chance saw the posters - but the gallery was shut. In fact, strangely, Eastbourne itself was kind of shut - lots of the shops along the front were closed, and this in late August.. Nearby at Charleston Farmhouse there was a small exhibit of Paul Nash's wood engravings. Hope to see the Magritte before it closes

Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera at Pallant House in Chichester last month... very impressive - like some reviews said, at this scale Kahlo stands out (I'd love to see Rivera's murals) but this Portrait of Natasha Gelman by Rivera was gorgeous in EVERY way (she must have been chuffed with it!)

me too about Big Joe Williams - and Sleepy John Estes aswell - amazing, subtle vocals (There was such a rich variety of voices - how about Joe Pullum?, or Alice Moore, two of my faves who had that kind of creeping menace about their sound.)

damn - how do I insert a video like those above? ok I did it in Firefox (thanks Neal)

A couple of great piano pieces - Cow Cow Davenport's 'State Street Jive' (not sure which version it is) with Ivy Smith chatting over the top: "...get me some good corn liquor and have a whoppin' good time" Lee Green's 'Running Drunk' - IMO the best drunken-sounding blues!

I just looked up self-loathing on wikipedia and it says above the entry: "This article needs attention from an expert on the subject"

Yes- I just read an anthology of writings on the topic - 'Primitivism and Twentieth Century Art' - in which Jean Dubuffet says a similar thing about the modern reversal of those values which held sway since the renaissance. but I think at least for a while the word stayed around and became a positive rather than a negative (but not without controversy) i agree it's hard to find another word that fits - even the writers who criticize it often seem to employ it sneakily - "so-called primitive" etc. To my understanding it's purely an aesthetic thing, so Othar Turner definitely fits, and to me, the steady, quick rhythmic pulse of Patton's playing with the slower, drawn out vocal over the top sounds 'primitive' to my ears - or 'primal' in some way, even if the music is actually complex (though I'd hesitate to use the word, purely out of anxiety about being misunderstood I think)

Thanks for the suggestions - some really great stuff! Leo Watson - perfect, will be my next purchase The Mills Brothers' version of Caravan on Youtube which I just checked is fantastic ...and Phil Minton I can honestly say I never saw anything like it lol - would be ideal to annoy people at work, along with Freeman Stowers' dog impressions - (but actually 'The Cutty Wren' on Youtube I love!) Can't play the previews of 'Sorrow Is Not Forever' on my ancient Mac so will have to wait til work...

just curious - do you regard the word 'primitive' as problematic when used to describe music or art? Obviously it depends on the context but, for example John Fahey's 'American Primitive' CDs featuring Charlie Patton, Jaybird Coleman etc... does it suggest that something has been absorbed and 'improved' upon since, or else that something has qualities which transcend its origins - like 'primal'... ?

Can anyone point me towards some vocal stylings that are kind of ferocious, wild, spontaneous, - but nevertheless focussed, driven and determined... stuff that sounds a little unhinged maybe with barking, yelps etc - an example I have in mind is St James Infirmary as done by Alphonso Trent, or 'Sing You Sinners' or Tiger Rag by the Phillips Louisville Jug band, where I cannot tell where the voice ends and the muted trumpet begins. Doesn't have to be 'vintage' but that's where I hear the stuff mainly. I like it when the singer sounds impelled to break into this stuff by the sheer thrust of the music... but I only know a very few examples really

that kid is Marilyn Manson

Thank you very much. The top one is Flamborough near Bridlington and the other two are Huddersfield

I'm drawn to scenes that are kind of mundane, I usually use the photos to make paintings from but sometimes I just like the photos, when they already have the desired mood

erm... George Melly did an entertaining radio show a few years ago on the BBC about homosexuality in the jazz and blues world (I think it's an interesting subject re. blues, inasmuch as the sexual openness of earlier blues lyrics can be contrasted with some of the more homophobic lyrics you get in SOME contemporary hip hop or reggae music...) Melly didn't 'reveal' anything (no surprise that Frankie Half-Pint Jaxon was gay!) but he said in the show that a well known jazz expert had often argued with him that there were NO gay jazz musicians! - He went on to play stuff like "stick out your can, here comes the garbage man..."

Where can I find this?... I remember when I saw Honeyboy Edwards play (the only person of that generation I ever did see in person) being struck by the way he made such a physical gesture of holding the guitar, and jutting his elbow sharply backwards... and it reminded me of Monk's way of making such a bodily, deliberate point of jabbing the keys.

I bought Dixon Godrich & Rye's 'Blues & Gospel Records 1890-1943' when I first realised that I was becoming sufficiently interested in the music to warrant the £75 - I'm not a 'researcher', just a fan - and it was the most I had ever paid for a book at the time. But I totally loved it (and still do) - such a fantastic piece of work - it seemed amazing that it even existed, and a beautiful thing really... and it seemed even more great because it was, in a way, ostensibly useless to me! Sheer luxury, I don't think I could get that from the internet.

"Internet chatter about the picture has focused on Braun’s use of blackface, citing it as further evidence of the Nazi leadership’s racism." you think?

If I remember it right... Dr Hans Prinzhorn’s groundbreaking study from the 30s ‘The Artistry of the Mentally Ill’ covered some of these ideas - I think the main thrust of his work was that the creative impulses (which he split into various tendencies - ‘ornamental’, ‘imitative’, ‘playful’, ‘symbolic’ etc) were present in everybody (obviously the quote in the link about Chopin’s vision was pre-Freud) - and that the works of the mentally ill artists do not access ‘mysterious’ realms related to their diagnosis, but normal drives which may be heightened (and so enhanced) by the illness. Later, when the Nazis attempted to discredit the work of expressionist painters by comparing their work with those in Prinzhorn’s collection, they inadvertently demonstrated the validity of the ‘banished’ art from the institutions. Prinzhorn was dealing with creative abilities which he regarded as universal.... Also, maybe the translation of external phenomena (the raindrops) into a delerious personal expression doesn’t have to indicate a mental illness - Dali faked something like this with his paranoid-critical technique - “spontaneous method of irrational knowledge based on the critical and systematic objectivity of the associations and interpretations of delirious phenomena” - surely it could happen unconciously too - ie Chopin needn’t have actually been aware of hearing the rain, doesn’t mean that he didn’t. And I’m sure we’ve all had hallucinations of drowning only to find ourselves playing beautiful melodies on the piano.

I love this woman's collages... her website, and her Flickr account are fabulous Virginia Echeverria Whipple Flickr

well, I must admit, I do come out in a cold sweat every time I see that picture

They do look amazing - though the one pictured above is probably my least favourite... ... but I do worry about how many books he had to trash before he perfected the technique! I used to work for an antiquarian book dealer who described as 'rape' the removal of something from a book (eg an engraving). Don't know what he'd make of this

Where else should a troubled kid sublimate his anger if not in a 'therapy' session, with a pencil and paper! What use is it if he is compelled to repress the rage TOTALLY.

What does that mean? The idea that if you expose yourself to as many different things as possible (music, art, literature, science, etc.) you'll be a better person for having done so. I'm not sure I would limit that to the middle class or to the 50's. It's still true. Isn't that premise of the Renaissance, still in effect from the 1300s to this day? I read something about the German newspaper magnate, August Scherl, circa 1900 he began publishing a series of books under the title 'Read Your Way Up' - with the idea that everyone is born a philistine and you have to advance slowly from cheap action-packed fiction to the literary classics, or else you cannot fully appreciate them... but I think the series never got further than the cheap stuff

1,000 numbered copies. Wait for number 666 to go up on ebay