's's
Dancing About
Architecture
because "....writing about music is like dancing about architecture." -- William
S. Burroughs.
March 2004
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Um, first order of business: our web design program doesn't automatically spell check, like our word processor. Sometimes we here at DAA just forget to push F7 and run it. That was the case last month (a big issue put together in a big hurry, but that's no excuse). Needless to say, Hank's proofreading pals were offended and let us know about it. This issue isn't as big, and we ran the spell checker.
This ish is gonna be somewhat...shorter. What can we say? We blew our load in the middle of February and now, two weeks later, there's just less news. That doesn't mean we've been idle though. There is some exciting stuff going on, so read on and keep dancing.
Hank is getting back to where he once belonged. Thanks to Lou Simon, he has hooked up with Sanctuary Records for a very exciting project: The working title is Party Planet. Hank is busily compiling some of his favorite non-western party music (no reggae, though. Sanctuary distributes RAS and Trojan and has a massive corner on the reggae market). This project makes Hank a record producer for the first time since Ze Records collapsed (which is far too long ago for any of us to want to recall). More as the project progresses.
Dave Marsh has written an outstanding forward for Turning Points of Rock and Roll. An excerpt:
So the value of what Hank Bordowitz does here can’t be measured simply by whether we think he defined all the turning points correctly. I’m not sure there is a correctly, because history rarely turns on such tiny points as whether it was Chuck Berry making ‘Maybellene” or Little Richard squalling “Tutti Frutti” that hurled the stone that felled Goliath. It’s down to the minutae of individual observation, and the two of us, having observed and recounted more than our share, are entitled to disagree, as is the person who thinks that the launching of Sixteen was more important than the founding Crawdaddy! Far more important, Hank not only describes what happens as each of these rocks is hurled onto the surface of the placid stream that we believe is our lives but traces each of their ripples as they spread and collide with those that preceded them and those that followed. What we get to see is not only cause and effect but how difficult it is to keep the individual events separate, the way that they combine to create the meaning of one another, the way one could not have happened without the other and a third happened despite the other two, and how curious it is that MTV launched the most elaborately and determinedly superficial musical phenomenon of our time at almost the same moment that Bob Geldof, to some extent a made-for-MTV pop star, launched a movement that brought to the forefront the music’s deepest political instincts and its most important sociological contradictions.
Thank you, Dave!
The Amazon Page for TPRR is up, and it seems the books release has been pushed up to August. This means hand has a book coming out in June, July and August. Check it out here.
The Amazon page for this is up also. Set to hit the streets in July. You can check it out here.
Hank has been working on setting up interviews with people involved with
Billy. Any Dancing Partner with a story or a connection to Billy, don't
hesitate to email.
The Rutgers Alumni News on the greatest love story ever told!
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| Romance at Rutgers Hundreds of couples responded to our essay contest last month. “A Mid-60’s Love Story,” and “Finding Love on Line for the Keg” tied for first place. Love on Rutgers RadioI had the 8 p.m. until-I-closed-the-station show on WLBS radio for my entire matriculation at Rutgers. During the week of Valentines Day, 1979, the general manager decided that we should spin nothing but love songs for the week. Now, if that wasn’t bad enough on general principles, it was worse because I had broken up with my girlfriend at the end of the previous semester and felt pretty punk about it—as every friend of mine knew.
During the spring term of 1979, my friend John would often smuggle a beer up from the pub (WLBS was on the second floor of Lucy Stone Hall at the time), coming in about an hour and a half into the show, after his Monday evening art class. He’d help pick out the records and kept me company during the show. The Monday before Valentines Day, I’m spinning love songs, mixing in tunes like Tuff Darts’ “Your Love Is Like Nuclear Waste” and Tonio K’s “Why Can’t I See You In The Mirror” just to reflect my mood. John comes into the station with a pitcher of beer he smuggled up, three glasses, and a terrific woman named Caren. Both of them were covered in paint, the result of an artistic dispute earlier in the evening. It seems that he’d been hitting on her in his art class all semester, and she finally told him she only went out with Jewish guys. His response was, “Do I have a boy for you!” During the course of the show, I made an announcement about the Flying Karamazov Brothers appearing the week after at Busch. I asked her out on the air. We were married a year and a half later. We celebrated our 21st anniversary last August. Submitted by Hank Bordowitz LC’80. Hank and Caren live in Suffern, New York, where he is an author, music biz guru, and consultant and she is a graphic designer. They have three children: Michael, Larry, and Billy. Check out Hank’s Web page at www.bordowitz.com to view a list of his recent publications. |
© 2004 Bordowitz Media Werx
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