BOOK 177: GIRL IN A BAND: A MEMOIR: KIM GORDON

Kim Gordon, founding member of Sonic Youth, fashion icon, and role model for a generation of women, now tells her story—a memoir of life as an artist, of music, marriage, motherhood, independence, and as one of the first women of rock and roll, written with the lyricism and haunting beauty of Patti Smith's Just Kids.

Often described as aloof, Kim Gordon opens up as never before in Girl in a Band. Telling the story of her family, growing up in California in the '60s and '70s, her life in visual art, her move to New York City, the men in her life, her marriage, her relationship with her daughter, her music, and her band, Girl in a Band is a rich and beautifully written memoir.

Gordon takes us back to the lost New York of the 1980s and '90s that gave rise to Sonic Youth, and the Alternative revolution in popular music. The band helped build a vocabulary of music—paving the way for Nirvana, Hole, Smashing Pumpkins and many other acts. But at its core, Girl in a Band examines the route from girl to woman in uncharted territory, music, art career, what partnership means—and what happens when that identity dissolves.

Evocative and edgy, filled with the sights and sounds of a changing world and a transformative life, Girl in a Band is the fascinating chronicle of a remarkable journey and an extraordinary artist.

MY VERDICT: I loved reading this book.  I was not reading as a fan of Sonic Youth (I don’t dislike them, I’ve just never really listened to their music), but rather as someone who was interested in what it was like to be a girl in a band and the scene in New York in the 1980s onwards.

I was not disappointed, there were so many people that Kim Gordon got to hang out with that I would love to meet, people from the art world and the world of the Punk Rock, No Wave and Grunge scenes. She got to tour with Nirvana and REM, she lived with Cindy Sherman, made a music video with Spike Jonze and a skateboarding Jason Lee and designed clothes with Sophia Coppola.

It’s safe to say, I envy her life.

Kim is very open and honest, she doesn’t hold back, but also this isn’t a sensationalist piece. She is clear on whom she likes and doesn’t like and gives us reasons rather than talking in gossipy tones. 

And this book’s greatest legacy, one that makes me hold certain texts in even higher esteem, it made me want to be more creative, a big bonus for any great book.

BOOK 144: HAIRSTYLES OF THE DAMNED: JOE MENO

The third novel by Chicago author Joe Meno. Released by Punk Planet Books in 2004, it has sold over 80,000 copies in ten printings. It has been optioned for film by Focus Features.

The novel follows Brian Oswald, a typical high school outcast, through his sophomore and junior year of Catholic high school. Brian and his friends, Gretchen and Kim, were geeky misfits in middle school but the explosion of the punk music scene allowed them to craft new, tough attitudes to protect themselves against the world. Brian is hopelessly in love with his best friend Gretchen, a foul-mouthed fat girl with a penchant for getting into fights. Unfortunately for him, Gretchen is in love with a handsome Neo-Nazi named Tony Degan.

FILM 1318: THE PUNK SINGER

The Punk Singer is a 2013 documentary film directed by filmmaker Sini Anderson and produced by Anderson and Tamra Davis. The film is about feminist singer Kathleen Hanna who fronted the bands Bikini Kill and Le Tigre, and who was a central figure in the riot grrrl movement. The title of the film is taken from Julie Ruin song "The Punk Singer", from Hanna's 1998 solo effort. Using a combination of interviews and archival footage including live band performances, the film traces the life and career of Hanna from her troubled upbringing and her start in spoken word performance poetry, through her riot grrrl zines, her prominent punk and dance-punk bands, her coining of the phrase "Smells Like Teen Spirit" for Kurt Cobain, her solo career as Julie Ruin, her feminist activism, her marriage to Beastie Boys member Adam Horovitz, and ending with Hanna's 2010 diagnosis of late-stage Lyme disease and the severe treatments she endures to combat it.

(Wikipedia)

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/13581236351848205/

FILM 1161: WHO KILLED NANCY?

On October 12th 1978 New York Police discovered the lifeless body of a 20 year-old woman, slumped under the bathroom sink in a hotel room. She was dressed in her underwear and had bled to death from a stab wound. The woman was Nancy Spungen, an ex-prostitute, sometimes stripper, heroin addict, and girlfriend of Sex Pistols' bassist Sid Vicious. In a trial by tabloid newspapers Vicious was pronounced guilty before noon the following day. But the case never had the chance to be brought to trial, and a number of New York cops weren't convinced. Less than six months later in a flat in New York's Greenwich Village, Sid, himself aged only 21, died of a heroin overdose. For the next 28 years the assumption was that Sid did it - case closed. Over time, the death of Sid and Nancy has passed into rock legend and has only added to the controversial and notorious image of the Sex Pistols and punk music. At the request of Sid's mother, who committed suicide in 1996, rock author and punk expert Alan Parker has devoted himself to discovering what really happened in room 100. Parker has re-interviewed 182 people, re-examined NYPD evidence, and gone back to his original interviews with Sid's mother.

On This Day…

Iggy Pop was born on this day in 1947

Iggy Pop (born James Newell Osterberg, Jr.; April 21, 1947) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Though widely known as an innovator and "godfather" of punk rock, Pop's music has encompassed a number of styles over the years, including pop, hard rock, jazz and blues.[2] Pop became known as 'Iggy' in high school, during which time he served as drummer for local blues band The Iguanas. He is vocalist of influential protopunk band The Stooges (Pop and the other surviving members of the group reunited in 2003), having become known, since the late 1960s, for his outrageous and unpredictable stage antics.

Trivia: The character "Funboy" in the original The Crow (1994) was modeled after him, and he was supposed to be cast as "Funboy", but scheduling prohibited him from being in the movie. He instead appeared as "Curve" in its sequel, The Crow: City of Angels (1996).

Computer animators on Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) used his movement and body as a basis for the character Gollum.

His group, The Stooges, although never a huge commercial success, was essential in the development of punk rock. In fact, the unifying trait of all the members of what were arguably the two greatest "punk" bands, Ramones and The Sex Pistols, was their idolizing of Iggy and The Stooges.

The Stooges were voted the 78th Greatest Rock 'n' Roll Artists of all time by Rolling Stone.

David Bowie produced The Stooges' "Raw Power" album as well as Iggy's first two solo albums, "The Idiot" & "Lust For Life". "The Idiot" Contains the original version of the song "China Girl", later covered famously by Bowie.