Doing this. (Ok fine, it’s just my class notes, heh.)
9:35: This is a story of how undergrounds emerge into the mainstream and have to deal with the burden of popularity. Talking about shift of authority in terms of the space of culture, Village to East Village, term used by Real Estate agents who are following Ginsberg and others. Real estate brokers quick to pounce on neighborhood’s literary merit and capitalize. The “Dubai-ification of the Bowery,” we are on the tail end of a 40-year process of gentrification in this neighborhood. Much of what we lament is the passing of the Bohemian neighborhood. In the 60s, the Bohemian neighborhood transforms poor hood into Johnny Varvatos.
9:38: Song by a kid named Jeff Lewis. “A History of Punk Rock on the LES 1950 to 1975.” Harry Smith, wants to change America, creates Smithsonian Anthology of Am Folk. Little children lost their lives, gr8 ship went down, etc.
9:39: Dylan/Baez do the classics. Holy Modal Rounders were weirdos. Lou Reed and Jone Cale do early Velvet stuff. This is kinda fun, kinda lol.
9:40: The Fugs do lo-fi punky shit about sex and drugs. “Take drugs y’all. Rah rah rah.” Poetry and proto-punk crossover. Ed Sanders publishes mimeographed literary journal, “Fuck You: A Mag of the Arts.” Faced crackdowns like Ginsberg from ‘tha man.’ They ran a bookstore, etc. Some of those journals had artwork by Andy Warhol, etc.
9:41: More Fugs. “Saturday, more nothing…a lot of nothing. Nothing nothing nothing.” The Fugs are real poets with real topics to speak out. Punk idea that people can do this w/ little to no talent.
9:42: The Godz, mad avant-garde y’all. NY underground is intellectual. Folk-punk.
9:43: The duo Silver Apples, doesn’t sound like punk or anything else, but it’s great.
9:44: The Stooges pushed the raw and aggressive, FYI. Iggy Pop introduced to NYC by Danny Fields. Yah.
9:45: David Peel’s second album comes, electric punk rock starts. “We are from the LES, we don’t give a damn if we live or die.” It was 7 years before the Clash but he mixed punk with reggae. Tension starts to creep in between English punk and American punk. NY punks doing this first. We’re creating genealogies of cultural authority.
9:46: Lester Bangs, critic, is first to use ‘punk’ in a review.
9:47: Patti Smith fuses high and low culture. New York Dolls, ‘stupid on purpose becomes the new smart.’
9:48: Richard Hell is awesome y’all. I was screaming get me outta here! Blank Generation. In ‘74 CBGB starts shows, in ‘75 Punk zine starts, then England steals all the cred, the end.
9:49: Waterman has given up on trying to get Lewis to come to class. Suggests we think about this exercise — creating an archeology of cultural forms. Motivated by desire to locate himself in relation to these artists, NYC chauvinism, he’s stretching history of punk further back than most people do. Bohemian narrative of decline. Lament of the passing of authentic culture. By stopping it at ‘75.
9:51: Waterman knows more about NYC punk than probs ne1.
9:51: Lewis says this is a legacy that’s been stolen by England. Think about that — what does it mean to trace out histories, genealogies. This is counter-intuitive by linking folk to punk as they have opposing values. How do we get from one sensibility to the other? One thing that carries over — Dylan’s departure from folk scene, creation of new sensibility, picked up by other people who weren’t as mainstream.
9:52: “Happening” in Soho, let’s talk about these, hell yeah, so stoked on this. Before the phrase, what’s happening? Is this hip and happening? Before it’s used as that sort of adjective, it’s a noun, we start theorizing in 60s. Art professor… brings term into Downtown arts scene, to Judson church and lofts in Soho. Cast iron district starts to become populated by artists squatting in areas not zoned for living, creating performance spaces. “Happenings” — demolished traditional boundaries between life spaces and art spaces.
9:54: Burden placed on spectator to perform, might have to arrive at an usual locale. Sometimes given instructions. Audiences asked to move through tunnels. Not everyone willing to comply.
9:55: Oldenburg, a pop sculptor, had a happening called Autobodys, the spectators sat in their cars in a parking lot, illuminating the action with their headlights. Audience’s actibity was always understood as part of the total experience of the Happening.
9:56: Yoko Ono is part of this scene. Her book Grapefruit is SO FUCKING AWESOME go read the whole thing. It was a set of instructions for Happenings, DIY, prob only possible in realm of imagination. Waterman says to go look her up on Twitter. Her role as an artist is to bring you to another level of awareness of yourself.
9:57: Waterman says maybe she wrote these thought pieces while on pills. Like the piece, “HIDE PIECE,” which reads, “Hide.” Waterman making the class perform Yoko Ono’s piece. Warm up exercise. Famous piece, first performed at Carnegie Recital Hall in 1961 by completely turning off the light in the hall including the stage and a girl hiding in a large canvas sheet on the stage while two men made soft voice accompaniment. And more! Waterman says this is why we think of Ono and thing “crazy lady” or “nutso!” not just “ruined the Beatles,” she is meditative, asks you to come to a certain level of awareness with your surroundings.
10:00: Might have audiences asked to participate in a sculpture, etc. Breakdown or combination of media is common. Story of how we get to this form is long and complicated. One place to start is Marcel DuChamp, there’s something going on Downtown in the 60s that resonates with old Dadaist. Other stopping points: John Cage, creates conceptual piece for piano, then everyday objects in production of music or noise. Indebted to Duchamp.
10:01: Andy Warhol also indebted to Duchamp. Convergence of forces. Breakdown of high and low culture, all starts to converge Downtown in the early 60s.
10:02: How do we deal with merging of poetry and rock and roll? Waterman wants to show us a clip of Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues, wanted to point out Ginsberg in the background.
10:03: Think abt Ginsberg’s arrival back in New York Downtown, plus think of Dylan, think of all of this producing the Velvets.
10:03: “God, reporters all over, all asking the same questions and no end in sight, it’s getting stranger and stranger, life….invites from TV programs…holding out for a scene where I can read poetry rather than discuss Beatnikism. The world is really mad.” -Ginsberg. Media and tourists looking for Beatnikism, bars and shit trying to capitalize on it, another instance of Village perpetuating a story, then cultivating tourist energy, etc.
10:05: The term “a scene” in Ginsberg’s quote… Waterman posting OED definitions of “scene” on the board. One meaning of term emerges with U.S. Jazz and Beatniks. Notion of ‘scene’ is setting us up for a ‘happenings.’ Going ‘on the scene’ is more a state of mind, taking drugs can bring you ‘on the scene.’
10:06: Melody Maker, ‘I decided I wanted to go on the scene.’
10:07: “The Subterraneans,” idea of creating an underground society, the trope of being underground spatializes the city, idea of embracing a scene that’s removed from gaze of mainstream culture. Ginsberg is anxious for this, wants somewhere to just read poetry. Something about production of personality over the course of the late 50s/early 60s, making mainstream culture really interested in these weirdos, which carries over to age of Warhol.
10:08: Dylan comes to city in ‘61. Coming in search of Woody Guthrie, inserting self in folk/protest folk song genealogy etc. Renames himself, creates a tension between performance and authenticity. “Bringing it All Back Home” etc etc etc #entrylevel
10:10: Waterman has posted cover of Freewheelin on the screen, I feel sad. RIP Suze Rotolo. <3.
10:11: Waterman skims story of Newport Folk, “highly mythologized moment in rock n roll history.” Cannot believe we are attempting to cover all of this in one lecture, kinda funny, kinda awesome. “Dylan fully shifts from folk scene to a hipster performance of cool. He is reinventing a rock and roll sensibility. The performance of cool is something Dylan does perfectly. He is drawing on jazz culture, too, with black shades, Beat influence, hipster persona crafted for jazz culture, shows up in RnR culture from this point on, The Velvets borrow it from Dylan, though they won’t admit it.”
10:12: Watching a clip from “I’m Not There,” the part where he plugs in at Newport. Haven’t seen this in over a year, hell yeah hell yeah. “Then I wrote it. It was like swimming in lava, skipping, kicking, catching a nail with your foot, seeing your victim hanging from a tree.”
10:14: Forgot how weird and melodramatic and creepy that gun-shot scene is before they play “Maggie’s Farm.” Loling at how Liz interviewed this guy for our blog once, the dude who started Newport.
10:16: “He’s just prostituting himself! He’s just changed completely! He’s not the same as he was at first!”
10:17: “Positively 4th Street,” just remembered I never finished that book, must do that ASAP.
10:17: Prof. Waterman, you can’t claim Milton Glaser’s Dylan for a tattoo!
10:18: Analyzing Dylan lyrics. “To become emaciated” is the new thing in vogue. Waterman says it may have something to do with MINIMALISM!
10:18: New York Minimalism!!
10:19: Happening alongside Yoko Ono. One of the things that happens in minimalism music is fascination with music technology, becomes part of the music, we’re going to manipulate the medium in order to produce new kinds of noise. People working in this vein take all different stuff. Think: Steve Reich, music for 18 musicians.
10:20: Electronics as instruments, tape loops, etc.
10:20: Minimalists shunned by mainstream classical music, they created their own orchestras and performed in Downtown lofts. The key figures include people who have direct bearing on Downtown rock scene especially La Monte Young who directly impacts John Cale.
10:21: “Draw a straight line and follow it,” writes La Monte Young. Piano Piece for David Tutor #3: Most of them were very old grasshoppers.
10:23: Alex Ross in The Rest is Noise in 2007. La Monte Young’s everlasting fifth (“To be held for a long time” is all over Velvet’s s/t. Hums in back of All Tomorrow’s Parties. Flickers in Black Angels Death Song. Free dissonance periodically saturates the field, leaving listener with uneasy feeling. Might call their music DRONEY because of this LMY influence. Idea of “soundfield” that is continuous and all around you.
10:23: Watching a clip of a doc about the early Velvet Underground. Cale wrote cheap pop songs, etc. Lou sits him down, quizzes him as to what he is “really doing in New York.”
10:25: “Lou created, on the streets.”
10:27: Maureen Tucker emerges.
10:28: Jonas Mekas, “something new in music coming, new sounds, new energy.”
10:28: Andy Warhol adopts the Velvet Underground. “Looked with a leveling eye, his art was built on synergy of talents, wanted to explore all of this together, idea of Factory as a group enterprise, like an assembly line chain, was opposite of what artist was supposed to do.”
10:29: The Factory. Covered in silver foil. Etc.
10:30: Andy Warhol’s Vinyl. A documentary clip like this — participates in its own form of mythologizing.
10:31: Exploding Plastic Inevitable! Band playing, light show, people dancing around, whip dancing, choreography with live music. Lots of energy on stage, etc. “I could sleep, for a thousand years.” Designed by Andy Warhol, starring his girl of the year. “Her vocal style is…unusual.”
10:32: Nico was never part of the band. #entrylevel
10:33: Beginning of thinking of Andy as the creator of the band. Andy as “protector,” for a long time people thought he was the guitar player. In ‘66, the Exploding Plastic Inevitable went to San Fran.
10:33: “At the time, they dressed in black, had an evil overtone, keeping world at a distance.” West Coast couldn’t understand, they were too much: unicorns, mushrooms, etc. Velvets were gritty. Velvets left instruments by stage making noise. “I hated San Fran, I hated hippies, hippies were scum,” said Maureen.
10:35: Continuities between minimalism and punk. Yay, I wrote a paper on this last summer.
10:35: Warhol, taking objects from everyday life, incorporating into an art economy. Commenting on amount of creative work going into that soup can. Also parodying it and celebrating it. Saying everyday life should be conceptualized as art. SO, everything around him becomes an art, a performance. The people around him become famous just for being around him. It’s a performativity by which people around him become superstars.
10:37: Soup cans as art, rock and roll as art, see the similarities. Something that happens in New York’s artistic underground.
10:38: Idea of taking rock and roll and pulling it into the art world is something he did pull off. The persona that they [Velvets] pull off in music and performances become who they are in real life. Think of the Ramones in the 70s, creating their character, that becomes them, they can’t separate themselves from that performance, embedded in Warholian sensibility.
10:39: Interest in trashiest aspects of culture, even just refuse, brings them into the gallery to recognize as art. Move from Duchamp, who is most famous for mounting a urinal on the wall, or taking a bicycle tire and making art. This idea is democratic, anyone can be an artist, do it confidently. Also suggests that something Duchamp and Warhol make….people want that signature. There’s a commodification of art going on. Warhol embraces concepts of “rich” and “famous.”
10:40: Remember, the Velvets are making drug music, but NOT hippie drug music. This is very important.
10:42: Waterman telling story about living Downtown near the Seaport before the Fulton Fish Market closed. He would sit and write at this bar and these Seaport workers would buy beers at 8 a.m. on Fridays. One day the bartender is playing Velvet Underground and Nico. The guys at the bar were like, what the hell is this awful shit. The bartender is like, this is classic rock. And the Seaport dudes are like, no, this is East Village druggie music! Point is: there’s also a local history surrounding this culture. We are twice as removed. This stuff is made “safe” for us. Waterman says to listen to the Velvet Underground and Nico and think about how it’s revolutionary. What were the fish guys hearing?
