Here’s a post about Karl Ove Knausgaard and the Beatles. Come Together is an excerpt from Knausgaard’s My Struggle: Book Three, Boyhood.
It is the story of a first love, sort of, and gives a good idea of the flavor of these books.
The Beatles song that’s quoted in the story and gives it its name is one of my favorites from the band’s later period.
The recording is the studio version, even though it is cut to live visuals.
The story ends citing a tune called No Way Back (Ingen Vei Tilbake) by the Norwegian band, The Aller Værste. Here’s a live version of the song, from 1980, which is about the time when the story takes place. You can listen (and sing) along when you get to that part.
Indulge me a little bit here, as this entry has virtually nothing to do with music.
However, like my mate Peter, this site, though primarily focused on music–specifically rock’n’roll–is also about art and culture.
Hence this entry, which involves my favorite TV show at present, Mr. Pickles, which appears on the Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim.
In contextualizing Mr. Pickles, it is important to note the brilliant concept Adult Swim has for a lot of their shows, not all of which are cartoons, but all of which represent some of the truly original and creative work anywhere.
A lot of the network’s (Adult Swim operates from 10 P.M. to 5 A.M. EST, daily, after which some very creative younger humans programming takes back over) brilliance comes from packaging. Shows generally run about 11 minutes, so, a Mr. Pickles that begins at say 9:30 P.M. will run for that time span, without commercials, and then be followed by three-to-four minutes of breaks, followed by another 15-minute program running under the same format.
Mr. Pickles, specifically, is about the Goodman family, their community (“Old Town”) and their “lovable” dog, Mr. Pickles. Mr. Pickles is beyond loyal to his owner, Tommy (who legs are inexplicably in braces) and the Goodman family, but Mr. Pickles also has a satanic streak, where he has some magic dominion over other animals, and can control them accordingly.
Mr. Pickles also has a serious sense of justice to go with that evil, if you will, streak. The thing is no one knows about Mr. Pickles’ dark side save the Goodman’s grandpa, who is always maintaining the dog is indeed evil, but is always disproved by the episode’s end, leaving the elder man with a wild tale that makes everyone know he is crazy.
I tend to describe the show as Leave it to Beaver, meets Scooby Doo, meets Dexter. The storylines get complex, but by the end of the 11 minutes, all the crazy loose ends are indeed tied up. But, in addition to the wild plots, there are all kinds of great things the creators have tossed in.
For example, Mr. Goodman is always reading the paper and the news of the story is often reflected in the headlines of his daily news, or within the sherrif’s office, the same can be said about the wanted posters.
Similarly, there is a lot happening in the background, with a lot of very off-the-wall stuff–particularly sex, as Mr. Pickles does indeed like to hump and grope almost anything, especially Mrs. Goodman–going on all over the place.
Mind you, this is a cartoon, but don’t let your kids watch, at least not without checking it out first, because this show is hysterical and as creative as it gets, but it could also be disturbing.
There are 10 episodes available (my favorite is The Lair) but what I linked to below is the Pilot as it gives a pretty good overview of the whole melange of craziness. But, if you go to the Adult Swim website, you can stream all of them (yay, they have been renewed for a second season!).
I was trying to find links to other Swiss punk rockers, not Chin-Chin, and this logical link popped up in Google: Swiss Punk Rock Posters. Click to get the full array.
It’s really funny. Pretty much an advertisement for Helvetica, and why not? And not punk, obviously, in any way.
A guy named Mario Wienerroither stripped the Beastie Boys Fight For Your Right (to Party) video of the music. In the process he dropped the shots where the boys are singing, so you can’t just fill in with your head.
Some time back we posted about the Internet K Hole, a collection of photos from the 70s and 80s curated by a woman named Babs from time to time, featuring shots of rockers, skateboarders, bikers, the drunk, the sitting around, the naked and the dressed up, among other things. That post featured a shot of early Devo, while this Devo shot is of somewhat later, um, vintage, along with a few of the hundreds of kaptivating photos, in honor of the new Internet K-Hole Tumbler. Set aside some time and enjoy.
Another nugget that popped up for me while assembling Lindsay’s holiday disc was this absolute gem from Devo.
In fact, it is such a great cut, that I was sure someone (maybe even me?) had written about the band or song before, so I was surprised to see only indirect references to Devo within the Remnants archives.
I think history will prove Devo–particularly Mark Mothersbaugh and Jerry (Gerald) Casale, the band’s driving forces–vastly underated, as a band, as songwriters, and as artists. For, what Devo did was much closer to rock and roll (I guess actually New Wave) theater than most bands. But, they were also very tight musically, as you shall see.
I found these two live versions of the ever intense Gut Feeling/Slap Your Mammy while looking for a good representation of the song, and they are both great, and interesting.
The first is from 1977, when the band was still pretty new on the forefront of Devolution. The film is rugged and jumpy, but the sound is ok, and the opening bass solo from Casale–who adds the great stage look of having a lefty player–is really great. You can see Mothersbaugh, as a singer/performer/front definitely has some chops.
But, check out how much tighter and polished the whole thing was three years later, after a serious cult following and a couple of discs and big time touring. By then Mothersbaugh was pretty well realized with this really mesmerizing performance.
Danny Fields holding a book with a photo of Nico he took.
Danny Fields was the manager of the Ramones, but he also signed Iggy and the Stooges and the MC5 to Elektra records (on the same day), and published the story in which John Lennon said the Beatles were bigger than Jesus, which caused a ruckus. A story in the New York Times visits Fields as he packs his trove of recordings and papers (and maybe some home made porn) for the Beinecke Library at Yale, which has acquired it.
One highlight is a clip from one of Fields’ audio cassettes of Lou Reed after first hearing a recording of the Ramones (even though he is bleeped).
Here’s a post about Karl Ove Knausgaard and the Beatles. Come Together is an excerpt from Knausgaard’s My Struggle: Book Three, Boyhood.
