Disc of the day
Heaven 17 - Penthouse And Pavement
From Sheffield, synth pop and funk to stick it to Thatcher. Currently being played live!
Features Disc of the day
Ramones
NYC 1978
(King Biscuit Flower Hour, 2003)
A work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction.
It's a conundrum that Argentine poet and author Jorge Luis Borges would doubtless enjoy. How can a live Ramones album that is almost identical to another live Ramones album from seven days earlier (1979's landmark It's Alive, recorded at The Rainbow in Finsbury Park, London on New Year's Eve, 1977) be superior to that earlier model in every way, sounding less like a straight copy than something totally fresh?
In May 1939 Borges published an essay in the Spanish journal, Sur, entitled 'Pierre Menard, Author Of Quixote' in which he discussed the work of the (fictional) French author Menard, most notably Menard's 20th Century reproduction of Cervantes' Don Quixote in which every newly crafted line, painstakingly recreated in 17th century Spanish, was word-for-word identical to Cervantes' original. If Borges' point was that so much of a text's meaning depends on time, context and the act of reproduction then he'd doubtless dig NYC 1978.
I first heard this near simulacrum of It's Alive on its release in 2003. By then, my worn vinyl copy of It's Alive had become a little exhausted of meaning, the way overplayed albums often can. It was, by then, twenty-four years old and had accumulated both a wealth of memories and the dusty patina of age. But NYC 1978 sounded (and still sounds) vital and alive, new all over again, like those Beatles' Anthology collections, or the remastered Can albums. In terms of actual sound differences, Johnny's guitar is just that little bit louder, Joey's comments a little different (He says "It's great to be back in New York City..." and jokes about "dressing room food" instead of "chicken vindaloo" before I Wanna Be Well), and the whole set (27 songs in 52 minutes) is possibly that wee bit faster than It's Alive (28 songs in 55 minutes). Plus, moving the near-identical set-list (no Judy Is A Punk) from London's scruffy old Rainbow to New York's scruffy old Palladium can't help but change the whole meaning of the performance. The New Year's Eve Rainbow gig is the end of something, the full-stop on the UK's glorious punk year, a New York band silencing all those mouthy London gobs. The NYC gig feels like the start of something, a triumphant return of the geeky hometown nerds as conquering heroes, pointing the way forward to Blondie's pop-punk sound, the horror comic attack of The Misfits and The Cramps and the relentless dumb speed of US hardcore. It's the same gig, but a different one.
Is it for you? Take this test. Presented with a favourite old jumper, freshly pressed and laundered, would you a) press it to your face and inhale deeply or b) loudly complain 'Who washed my favourite jumper?!' if your answer is b) best stick to It's Alive. If it's a), it's time to do the timewarp, all over again.
Andrew Male
Posted by Ross_Bennett at 6:00 AM GMT 18/12/2009
Further Listening
The Ramones – It’s Alive (Sire, 1979)
The Beatles – Anthology 2 (Apple, 1996)
Can – Tago Mago (Mute, 2008)
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So the Ramones are Art Rockers now are they.This article is just a load of self protentious trype.The Ramones had a lot of energy in a 'garage' sense.Please don't make any arty conetations to this band though.They were just straight ahead stripped down rock - love them or hate them.
Posted by Scratchy7929 at 8:21 AM GMT 18/12/2009 Report Abuse
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Moron! He's not saying Ramones are art music. he;s saying isn';t it great that two different recordings of the same gig can have such a different effect! Go back into your Clarkson idiot-tunnel piss-chalice!
Posted by Carston Bulong at 5:06 PM GMT 21/12/2009 Report Abuse
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Dig their rigour, dig their aesthetic. If the Ramones are not art, I don’t know what is.
Posted by Danny E at 12:04 PM GMT 22/12/2009 Report Abuse
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There must be an art to bashing out 3 chord garage rock. Plenty of bands do it badly. The Ramones, on the other hand, condense everything good about garage rock triumphantly.
Posted by wrecksracer at 10:21 PM GMT 22/12/2009 Report Abuse
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