Buzzcocks tonight. One of the cornerstone bands of Punk, who went on to influence a number of other genres, including Indie and the Manchester Scene.
Getting started in 1976 with singer-songwriter/guitarist Pete Shelley and singer-songwriter vocalist Howard Devoto, they achieved success early-on with a series of singles which fused craftsmanship with rapid-fire Punk energy. In 1977, Devoto left the band, going on to form Magazine, which became highly influential during the New Wave period.
This session, the third for John Peel, was recorded on May 21st and broadcast on the 28th, it features songs from their then-new album release, A Different Kind Of Tension. It charted at number 26 in the UK and 163 on the US album charts.
A band who toured considerably between their beginnings and their first break-up in 1981, Buzzcocks made a dent in the US market at a time when American audiences were just beginning to notice Punk as a viable genre. Prior to that, Punk was known primarily in underground circles and via College radio stations. But for their part, American bands like Blondie and The Ramones helped take it out of the underground and, even though you would be hard pressed to call any of it mainstream, it earned a degree of respectability on the charts and on AOR Stations. And it was around this time that Buzzcocks started getting played and known in the U.S.
Sadly, A Different Kind Of Tension would be the last album released by Buzzcocks before their break-up in 1981. The group splintered off in several directions, with Pete Shelley embarking on a successful solo career.
Over the years there have been reunions which have lasted for varying degrees of time. The latest reunion comes in time for the 40th anniversary of their forming, and a tour this past Spring.
But as a reminder of what they were like early-on, have a listen to this, their third Peel session from May of 1979.
Swedish Radio Symphony – Esa-Pekka Salonen, Cond – Mitskuo Uchida, Piano – July 21, 1986 – Part 1
Swedish Radio Symphony – Esa-Pekka Salonen, Cond. – Mitsuko Uchida, Piano – July 21, 1986 – Part 2
Another historic concert this week, featuring The Swedish Radio Symphony, conducted by then-Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen and featuring the legendary Mitsuko Uchida, piano in a concert given on July 21, 1986 at Berwald Hall in Stockholm.
Opening the concert is a performance of Greetings From An Old World by the Swedish composer Ingvar Lidholm. Then Mitsuko Uchida joins the orchestra in a performance of the Beethoven Piano Concert number 3 in C Minor. And the second half of the concert is devoted to a single work; Symphony Number 1 by Gustav Mahler.
Both Esa-Pekka Salonen and Mitsuko Uchida are no strangers to the concert hall. Anyone who has lived in Los Angeles in the 1990s remembers when Salonen took over as Music Director of the orchestra, and literally changed it overnight. He was a much needed energy boost for an orchestra sagging under the loss of Carlo Maria Giulini and one which needed some new blood and new music coursing through its veins. When he left the orchestra in 2009, replaced by the dynamic Gustavo Dudamel, it was a world-class orchestra with a wide ranging repertoire in its pocket and a steadily growing audience, particularly an audience of younger concert-goers (i.e. the life’s blood of any in-for-the-long-haul orchestra). And it’s been on a high ever since.
Dame Mitsuko Uchida has been a keyboard phenomenon going on five decades now and has branched out into conducting, leading the Marlboro Music festival since 2013 as its sole Music director. Her list of awards, accolades and honors extends into being made a Dame Commander Of The Order Of The British Empire in 2009. And her recordings are celebrated and prized by collectors all over the world.
So there you have it – a Wednesday Anti-Road Rage concert to prepare you for the weekend and a historic concert to remind yourself of the phenomenal talents we have in our midst.
November 2, 2000 – it was coming down to the wire; the Bush-Gore election campaigns of 2000. Last minute sweeps throughout the country, hoarse pleas for votes – it was going to be a tight race and both camps were confident of victory, come Tuesday. But there was still a lot of ground to cover, a lot of charges and counter-charges to make – a lot of promises to offer. Neither side was losing any opportunity to present their case. Gore addressed a rally in Chicago to an overflow crowd in Daly Plaza. Even with Illinois solidly in the Gore column, they weren’t taking any chances, just five days before the election. The Bush Camp was also busy campaigning in Illinois, hoping to dislodge Gore’s projected lead. Vice-Presidential nomineeDick Cheney also joined Bush on this swing through Illinois, focusing on Health reform and the Gore plan for Prescription dugs for Seniors.
In other news – the crash of Singapore Airlines flight 006 was now the subject of focus on the wrong-runway theory; that the pilot, under reduced visibility, had mistaken the runway under construction for the runway to takeoff from. Investigators were still sifting wreckage of the doomed flight, where some 85 passengers were now listed as dead. As the investigation continued, more evidence was being uncovered that it was, in fact pilot error that caused the plane to attempt an abort on takeoff after hitting heavy construction equipment, skidding off the runway at a reported 145 miles per hour.
And in the Middle East – a car bomb is detonated in East Jerusalem, shattering hopes for a ceasefire. A radical group Islamic Jihad was taking responsibility for the bombing, which killed 2 Jews and injured 11. The car bomb, containing 22 pounds of explosives blew up outside Jerusalem‘s Open air market, just an hour after a new ceasefire was supposed to take effect.
And that was a small slice of what went on, this November 2, 2000 as reported by the CBS World News Roundup: Late Edition
My Thinking Face – Lonely Times – from the ep; Holy – 2016 – My Dear Recordings
More new sounds from Paris this week. My Thinking Face is a French band with a new ep out via My Dear Recordings, the label founded by Pamela Hute. Lonely Times is the fourth track on the ep, and its gentle melancholy, capped with spacious harmonic voices makes this a compelling track for repeated listenings. There is a hint of Sunshine Pop tucked in here – with emphasis on vocal harmonies and rich melodies with a mixture of acoustic guitar and synth to create a warm atmospheric landscape. It is reminiscent of those milestone recordings of Curt Boettcher from the mid-60s where the craft of a finely sculpted piece of music held a listener in suspended animation for the length of the song.
I admit to not knowing very much about the band, other than they are from Paris. Looking at their Soundcloud page, they’ve been around for at least two years, but this ep appears to be the first one for My Dear Recordings and was released only this last September. I would be very interested to hear what they sound like in a club or concert setting.
In the meantime, I would suggest heading over to their Facebook page, as well as their Soundcloud page and their page on My Dear Recordings. Pick up this new ep, Holy and listen to it a few times – sit with it for a bit and let it get under your skin. If this ep is any indication of what they are about, I have the feeling a good word-of-mouth will spread. Fingers crossed the musical powers-that-be via Radio feel the same way and their music gets out to a wider audience. In the present atmosphere of musical confrontation and searing tonal excursions, this quiet and contemplative set of songs is a lovely respite and a welcome addition to the record library.
I don’t believe there are any plans for My Thinking Face to perform in the U.S. anytime soon – I don’t even know what their gig schedule is like in Europe at the moment. All I know is, they are a band to keep tabs on and see what they are up to in the coming months.
The Stranglers tonight. Their first session for John Peel, recorded on March 7, 1977 at The BBC. With a career spanning four decades, The Stranglers are one of the longest surviving and continuously successful bands emerging from the Punk Era. Getting started in 1974 as part of the Pub Rock Scene, The Stranglers found their niche during the beginnings of Punk in 1976, and became associated with the movement by default, primarily because they were an opening band for the UK tours of American acts The Ramones and Patti Smith. But some of Punk’s early champions in the press questioned their authenticity and viewed them with suspicion, as they were older and seemed to be much more accomplished on their instruments, not to mention the intellectual content of their lyrics than other bands from the scene. But as bassist Jean-Jacques Burnel said in an interview: “I thought of myself as part of punk at the time because we were inhabiting the same flora and fauna … I would like to think we were more punk plus, and then some.”
Their initial releases were met with great success, and earmarked them as a band to reckoned with. It established their fan base and built on it over the years. With personnel and direction changes over the years, they have maintained a steady and loyal following. With some 17 studio albums, 15 live albums, 29 compilation albums and over 43 singles, The Stranglers have put together an impressive legacy – and there appears to be no end in sight.
But going back to their formative period, when Punk was getting its legs and bands were coming and going and making noise, The Stranglers were knee-deep and in the middle of it – and this session gives you some idea of how different they seemed, but in a way, fit right in.
President Jimmy Carter, at one of his regular Press Conferences in 1977. Testing the waters on an Energy policy that had Americans relying on less Foreign oil, Carter was preparing proposals to take to Congress. Also up for discussion was the situation in South Africa and the threatened imposition of sanctions stemming from the crisis in Namibia and Zimbabwe and South Africa’s recent clamping down on press freedoms as well as outlawing many of the organizations who were working at achieving some peace in the region.
Here is the opening statement:
President Jimmy Carter: “Good afternoon. I have a brief statement to make before I take questions.
Action on a national energy policy is a test of the ability of our democratic system to respond to a recognized threat before it seriously damages our Nation and our economy, and we will all be measured by the courage which we are able to muster to face up to this energy problem.
The debate that’s now going on concerning the National Energy Plan is not a contest between the executive branch and the Congress nor between the House of Representatives and the Senate. It’s a test of our national will.
We must protect the American people and also avoid unfair windfall profits. We must also meet our stated objectives on conservation, on production, and on the shift of consumption to other sources of energy other than gas and oil. And we must not let the formation of a national energy policy break our budget.
Nothing less is at stake than the ability of our own Nation to act independently as a country. We cannot allow uncertain foreign oil supplies to obtain a stranglehold over the United States. We cannot continue to import ,$45 billion worth of oil annually, almost half the total amount that we consume and about how much we waste that we don’t need to waste.
And we cannot let this excessive dependence on foreign oil continue to increase our trade deficit, to drain off purchasing power of our economy, and also to affect our economic stability.
Both the Congress and I know that enactment of comprehensive energy legislation must be our top priority.
Now, as you know, I had planned to send by now to the Congress a major tax reform package. Although most of the work has already been done, I’ve decided to submit that program after Congress completes its work on both social security and also energy legislation.
The Congress right now needs an opportunity to concentrate its attention more fully on the entire energy package, including the tax proposals.
I will have more time working with my staff and with the Congress and with labor and business leaders to evolve the difficult answers to complicated tax proposals. We have an early need to simplify the tax system, to provide more equity to modify the tax rates and to improve capital formation.
The tax reform proposals will be a major element in a comprehensive economic program designed to promote a strong economy and to deal further with reducing inflation, which has recently been on the way down, to reduce unemployment, which is also going down quite slowly, and to do this both immediately and in the years ahead.
The principal component parts of this program have to be carefully integrated also in our budgetary proposals for fiscal year 1979. I prefer to make these final decisions on the tax reform program after the Congress has completed action on the energy program, particularly its tax components, and social security, which has heavy tax connotations.
Both of these proposals can be assessed, obviously, after the Congress adjourns. By the end of the year we will have more information also on the state of the economy, to know how much of our tax reform proposal should be devoted to stimulating the economy.
We have a full agenda this year, and I have discussed this delay in the tax reform proposal until after the Congress adjourns with the leaders of Congress. And I might say they unanimously agree with this delay.”
The floor is then open to questions from the press and the conference lasts some 30 minutes. Here is that complete press conference from President Jimmy Carter, as broadcast live by National Public Radio on October 27, 1977
The genteel backlash to school integration in the 70s; expulsion on suspicion of doing nothing.
NPR – Options In Education – Pushouts – September 4, 1974 – Gordon Skene Sound Collection –
In the 1970s the prevailing controversy in the area of education was School integration by way of busing. It was a way of complying with Supreme Court rulings in the 1950s that stated segregated schools were no longer legal and that schools needed to be fully integrated in a timely manner. Since there were neighborhoods across the country which were predominately Black and predominately White, the only way to integrate schools was to devise a system of busing – a certain percentage of school-age children from a predominately White neighborhood were bused to schools in predominately Black neighborhoods and vice-versa.
Needless to say, the idea didn’t sit well with a lot of people. Some saw it as forced integration and others saw it as taking children out of familiar surroundings and transporting them, sometimes for hours every day, to places they were unfamiliar with.
But the law was the law and busing programs went into effect in the early 1970s. Some brought violent reactions and others went off without a hitch. But since the violent approach wasn’t working, and in fact only making matters worse, some school officials came up with another, more subtle idea. Pushing “undesirable” students out; expelling them from school, forcing them back into their own neighborhoods and their own schools.
This program, part of the NPR series Options In Education which originally aired in September of 1974, looks at the pattern of “pushouts” and how this new method of backlash was being accomplished. Studies were done, and in many of the ‘problem areas’, school pushouts of Black students was as high as 60% of the bused students. Reasons for expulsion were many and often trivial; waving at someone, singing, talking loudly and they far outnumbered the incidents of violence.
The area of Education and Americas youth have become battlegrounds – not only for courts, but for public opinion and for political motives. It’s interesting to draw parallels between the issues of school integration now and the issues as they unfolded then. To get an idea whether things have really changed or if they are, as always, slow to move or anxious to turn the clock back.
Somewhere, the Three R’s get a bit lost.
Here is that original broadcast, as it was heard on September 4, 1974 from National Public Radio.
