The Gates Of Eden

Photograph: Bruce Davidson, 1969.

¡Hasta La Victoria Siempre!

"We want control of our communities by our people and programs to guarantee that all institutions serve the needs of our people."

Photograph: Lee Greenfeld © 2021

Words from The Young Lords Party 13-Point Program And Platform, 1969

Death Is God

"But what is the philosophy of this generation? Not God is dead, that point was passed long ago. Perhaps it should be stated Death is God. This generation thinks – and this is its thought of thoughts – that nothing faithful, vulnerable, fragile can be durable or have any true power. Death waits for these things as a cement floor waits for a dropping light bulb. The brittle shell of glass loses its tiny vacuum with a burst, and that is that."

Words: Saul Bellow from Herzog, 1964

Birth, Life, And Death

 

I'm very selective when it comes to free jazz — having a homebody roommate in the '90s who played Peter Brötzmann on what felt like a constant loop dimmed my appreciation — but I recently discovered this stunning D.I.Y. private press release* from 1969 and am truly blown away. There's a real balance between chaos and melody, played with passion by what sounds like a full group not a trio. And despite it being instrumental there's a real lyricism in the grooves.

The album was reissued in 2020, with a recent repress by Gotta Groove.

On The Horizon

"The state can only be what it is, the defender of privilege and the exploitation of the masses, the creator of new classes and monopolies. Whoever does not know the role of the state does not grasp the essence of the current social order and is incapable of showing humanity the new horizons of its evolution."

Words: Rudolf Rocker, 1921

I Know Where You Live

Fare thee well to the great Yaphet Kotto. He had a long career with so many memorable roles, but the one that sticks with me was Al Giardello on Homicide: Life On The Streets, one of my all-time favorite TV shows. He also cut this fantastic 45 (produced by Hugh Masekela!) in 1967. Rest In Peace.

White Sheets

"Love me the way you do now, forever."

Empty white sheets and a propped pillow.
Black underwear and fallen golden hair.

Tomorrow is hope

Against hope.

"You are the best man I have ever met.
I love you like nothing I've ever known"

Eyes closed tight,

Temple throbs.

"Please be with me."

Little Lover Does A Midnight Shift

Lou Ottens

Rest In Peace 

I don't know that there's a single invention that had more of an impact on my life and the directions it took than the cassette tape. And that's no exaggeration. My love for tapes started in the early '80s with live Dead shows passed on to me by older cats from uptown and my own recordings of DJ Red Alert and Marley Marl's weekend radio shows (as well as my endless quest to capture a complete "Hey Hey What Can I Do" off of WNEW), and the game-changing homemade hardcore and punk mixes that seemingly travelled across the five boroughs in increasingly lower quality. Then came the bootleg hip hop tapes I'd cop in Times Square, and most importantly the mixed tapes I made for friends, pen-pals, and of course, my crushes (I miss the long afternoons in front of the stereo, dropping the needle and hitting record at just the right time, naively thinking about how the songs I chose would change my life ). In the '90s my love of a good mixed-tape was still going strong, with the international punk-rock and 1960s rarities mixes I'd eagerly wait for, obsessively checking the mail. Thanks you Mr. Ottens for your life-changing invention.

The Things That We Said

Wonderful 1973 cover of the Small Faces soaring mod classic. The album the single was pulled from was produced by Alice Cooper producer Bob Ezrin, in time for Flo & Eddie's opening slot on Cooper's Billion Dollar Babies world tour. (The album also features a beautiful cover of the Kinks' "Days.")

Life In The Time of Corona

 

“No more time to tell how, this is the season of what. Now is the time of returning with our thought. Jewels polished and gleaming.”

Artwork: Mr. Natutal by Robert Crumb

Words: Robert Hunter from "The Eleven"

One Minute Born — One Minute Doomed

Less is oftentimes more.

The Sky Is Empty

"I think our overriding message is one of hope even in the darkest of times, which we all suffer from at times. An amazing amount of people have told me over the years how our music has helped them through really difficult times." -Mark Wilson, The Mob

During the pandemic I discovered a handful of blogs that were compiling and posting their own albums for download, with music culled from across the spectrum of genres and ranging from singles collections to rumored "lost albums." Thus inspired I decided to create a few collections myself (under the Create To Exist moniker*), starting with a band that surely wouldn't mind their old sounds being shared**, The Mob (UK). To my ears, their music is the perfect soundtrack for a global pandemic and shutdown.

The Mob formed in 1977 and within a few years were part of England's anarcho-punk/peace-punk movement of the early '80s, but their sound was slower and drew from darker post-punk sources. Despite not sounding like the bands they often shared stages with (Crass, Conflict, Rudimentary Peni, Dirt), they still embraced radical politics, played loads of benefits, and in a proper D.I.Y. vein released all but two of their own records via their All The Madman label.

This collection, which I dubbed No Doves Fly Here (named for most famous song), includes all of their singles in chronological order, including their remarkable comeback from 2013. The singles are followed by two alternate versions, most notably the original stunning take of the aforementioned "No Doves Fly Here," an apocalyptic classic in the vein of Bonnie Dobson's "Morning Dew." The collection is completed with their primal Ching cassette from 1981, which features a clutch of songs not heard elsewhere.

If you dig these sounds, be sure to track down their sole proper long-player May The The Tribe Increase, a timeless classic which has been reissued a few times over the years.

DOWNLOAD

* Dig the first proto-Create To Exist "release" here.

** If the band does in fact mind, the link will of course be promptly deleted.

The Fire Down Below

"Like conceptual art and pop, graffiti questions the context in which art is appreciated. It renews the dream of work for its own sake, the idea of creation as a democratic process — in short, radical humanism."

Photography: Steven Mark Needham

Words: Richard Goldstein in The Village Voice, 1980

Pharaoh's Dance

 

"As I listened, leaning over the amps with my jaw hanging agape, trying to comprehend the forces that Miles was unleashing onstage, I was thinking, 'What’s the use? How can we possibly play after this? We should just go home and try to digest this unbelievable sh!t.' This was our first encounter with Miles’ new direction. Bitches Brew had only just been released, but I know I hadn’t yet heard any of it. In some ways, it was similar to what we were trying to do in our free jamming, but ever so much more dense with ideas, and seemingly controlled with an iron first, even at its most alarmingly intense moments. Of us all, only Jerry had the nerve to go back and meet Miles, with whom he struck up a warm conversation. Miles was surprised and delighted to know that we knew and loved his music."

Words: Phil Lesh from Searching For Sound: My Life WIth The Grateful Dead