dagblog - Comments for "The 1970s, 2010s: Who Programmed the Simulation?"

Actually AC/DC played early

PeraclesPlease — Tue, 12 Dec 2017 17:56:00 +0000

In reply to good points about gay, black

Actually AC/DC played early at CBGBs without any problem, Lou Reed was mixing glam, and the NY Dolls were totally camp. The grunge and skinhead thing later was still a lot of mosh pit action, not quite disco-tuned, but not antithesis. Prince came out roughly 1980 and was crossover Hendrix guitar with dance moves, while Chili Peppers were similar funk+heavy guitar, Beasties moved from canned sound back to playing own instruments but still rap. And Madonna & Michael Jackson were all over everything after '84, including playing with Guns 'n Roses guitarist, etc. It was *after* Rick James and Public Enemy and such that the rap & hip-hop scene started to diverge again into black clubs, with the "I hate rap" whiteboy whine replacing the earlier "disco sux". And of course MTV famously marginalized rap and a variety of other harder stuff, so we ended up back with the record code, what was acceptable. One thing that I think changed everything was the new catwalk/supermodel replacement of events and concerts - not only didn't you have to play an instrument, you just looked good and walked down the runway. Canned music became de rigeur, and no one had to be a musician to tie it together, which I think led to a lot of pre-packaged music-dance-as-pure-marketing. Also, probably post-MTV college dominated the money and direction, whereas before it was all ages.
Another factor was the increase in drinking age around 1980, that killed a lot of club scenes. Maybe not as much in New York, but smaller towns was bad to get caught, and you couldn't go into the decent places until 21 - rather sordid, and split the revenues if you were trying to keep clubs open on music + alcohol.

Update: Congress mandated raising the drinking age to 21 in 1984, withholding highway funds. So yeah, the 70's until about 1986 were a special time. You could even drink legally through college, fancy that.

good points about gay, black

artappraiser — Tue, 12 Dec 2017 17:55:27 +0000

In reply to Oh, I imagine AIDS was enough

good points about gay, black and punk. The disco scene was largely gay instigated but not at all dismissive of funkadelic, funkadelic and motown was actually a very welcome part of it and funkadelic and Motown did take part in it. Those in it didn't call it disco, they called it "the club scene" and Motown already had one and they merged across the country. You don't need to even get as gay disco specific as Grace Jones, all the black divas of locomotion were adored, as were their styles from Ella to Diana Ross, played every night on the dance floor as were the more pop unabashed disco queens like the Pointer Sisters, Sade etc.

The most interesting thing about early "punk" in NYC as opposed to its incarnation in the UK. With the latter it really was clearly same old "angry white working class lads and lasses," many could be slotted in today as Trump fans, and they were literally head bangers at times. While in NYC it first grows out of "the club scene", CBGB's and was not at all gay "disco" unfriendly, just a desire to go back to more rock n'roll sound than smooth soul. I think the segue into the glam rock thing is where the real split happens here in the U.S., as angry head bangers go southern and rust belt white trash with punk-like noise and glam rock is targeted elite, dreamlike, more optimism, sophisticated themes, performance and costumes....

Oh, I imagine AIDS was enough

PeraclesPlease — Tue, 12 Dec 2017 15:52:44 +0000

In reply to You be correct, my very bad!.

Oh, I imagine AIDS was enough to take credit all by itself, and Warhol is rather timeless to pin down. 2 things I read recently - one was Lennon hearing B-52's doing Rock Lobster, thinking it was somewhat similar to Yoko's attempts at stage sound. AIDS took that band's guitarist; the other was David Byrne noting his line "This ain't no disco..." was picked up to mean "Disco sux" when the T-Heads toured the South, which of course meant an anti-gay, anti-black vibe as well. Strange for a guy fronting a band getting bigger and more diverse every album, including adding well-known black background singers & funk musicians from James Brown & Parliament-Funkadelic and a steady drift into Kabuki (where Bowie got a a good bit of his androgenous effects) and dance. And of course Byrne was friends with the relocated B-52s who'd become an odd Manhattan fixture and party band pretty quick. Part of it was NYC taking that underground gay scene with NY Dolls & Lou Reed's new glam, etc., pushing it till it came out looking like mad made-up punk, goths, new age and Grace Jones/Nina Hagen types before everyone got too scared to party anymore.

You be correct, my very bad!.

artappraiser — Tue, 12 Dec 2017 15:33:24 +0000

In reply to Solanas was '68, AIDS was

You be correct, my very bad!. I was confusing Andy's death in 87, also off track, with the shooting in '68. This is an excellent example why one should never trust oral histories, nor anything a blog commenter says, always verify.

You can however, trust Andy's interpretation of American culture, was a seer.

I was there and lived it. I

artappraiser — Tue, 12 Dec 2017 15:27:23 +0000

In reply to The 1970s, 2010s: Who Programmed the Simulation?

I was there and lived it. I agree with your friend Larry that the general zeitgeist is similar. Everyone was negative about where the country was headed politically and economically. Everyone was also obsessed with the crime rate, it seemed sometimes if urban safety could never be assured again.

So one thumbs up for your talent in cultural history, gleaning from things like comics of the era and oral history from your friend Larry.

But there is one big difference I will add: there was an excitement at the time in the culture that we don't have now, we have just the opposite, with the country suffering almost group depression. Nowadays it's considered de rigeur to dis the whole disco movement, but Studio 54 and it's ilk, the nightlife at the time, was not all as depicted for the mass audience by John Travolta character from Queens. The streets were alive with people going out to have fun. Sex was fun. (Need I say: condoms were not common, birth control was.) Gays were coming out. Women were being freed. Norms were being broken.There was a lot of fun stuff going on. Drugs and rock n roll still going strong too.

And then Valerie Solanas shot Andy Warhol and AIDS reared its ugly head. And things got very dark very quick after that.

Solanas was '68, AIDS was

PeraclesPlease — Tue, 12 Dec 2017 15:26:02 +0000

In reply to I was there and lived it. I

Solanas was '68, AIDS was much later, early 80's. Think your timeline got off track...?

8) dropped US troops in

PeraclesPlease — Sat, 09 Dec 2017 21:24:00 +0000

In reply to 1933, demagogic fascism seems

8) dropped US troops in Vietnam from 520k in 1969 to 20k in 1972 (compare our withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan)

1933, demagogic fascism seems

NCD — Sat, 09 Dec 2017 15:45:56 +0000

In reply to The 1970s, 2010s: Who Programmed the Simulation?

1933, demagogic fascism seems a closer match, below - Lingua Tertii Imperii, by V. Klemperer:

Victor Klemperer's diaries: January 1, 1935 – language tertii imperii: Lutze's New Year message to the SA...Our "fanatical will" twice in a non-pejorative sense. Emphasis on believing without understanding. (1) "fanatical engagement of the SA," (2) "fanatical sense of commitment." Nov 24, 1936 – On the language of the Third Reich:...The Fuhrer must be followed blindly, blindly! They do not need to explain anything at all, since they are accountable to no one. Today it occurred to me: Never has the tension between human power and powerlessness, human knowledge and human stupidity been so overwhelmingly great as now. May 23, 1938 – The aim of education in the Third Reich and of the language of the Third Reich, is to expand the popular stratum in everyone to such an extent that the thinking stratum is suffocated. – language tertii imperii: In Hitler's New Year Order of the Day to the troops again the "victories (Trump -"wins") of unparalleled dimensions," again the American superlative, "The year of 1941 will see the accomplishment of the greatest victory in our history."

Aldous Huxley, 1956:

The aim of the demagogue is to create social coherence under his own leadership...The demagogic propagandist must therefore be consistently dogmatic. All his statements are made without qualification. There are no grays in his picture of the world; everything is either diabolically black or celestially white...He must never admit that he might be wrong or that people with a different point of view might be even partially right. Opponents should not be argued with; they should be attacked, shouted down...

_______________________________________________________________________________

Nixon? Sneaky, liar, yes. Noam Chomsky called him "the last liberal President." Why?

1. 10% across the board increase in Social Security payments all beneficiaries.

2. Indexed Social Security to inflation.

3 Constitutional amendment to give 18 year olds the vote.

4. Founded the EPA.

5. Founded OSHA.

6. Started the requirement for minority and women quotas in hiring for federal contractors.

7. Hated by the Right Wing..?? Time Mag., August, 1971, The Right Wing Disowns Nixon. (pre-Watergate).