Donna Summer - The Nation's Conscience?

December 31^st – There’s much that the music industry has to be proud of but, like life, the worthwhile work that goes on is often overshadowed by foolish events that others indulge in seemingly at the behest of the central character but usually for their own selfish and ill-educated reasons.

Goodness that was a damning comment to end the year on. I’ll try and explain and leave my bucket of vitriol at the door.

Conspicuous consumption is one of modern society’s illnesses that seem to show no signs of abating. Never fails to amaze me how the appetite for buying isn’t even slightly assuaged by the run-up to Christmas. For something like ten weeks before the arrival of Santa the shopping drive gradually increases into frenzy and then, after a breather of one day in order to fill the body with food and drink, the hordes return to the front and shop their way into the following year. I understand all the workings of the engine of reasoning that drives this seeming unquenchable thirst to buy and possess, I just genuinely don’t understand it. Can someone explain to me why a dress is worth £150 before Christmas and yet only worth £50 after it; why an electric shaver is worth £220 before Christmas but only £120 after it; why a DVD box set is worth £40 before Christmas but only £9.99 after it? I mean either an item is worth the pre-Christmas price or it’s worth the post-Christmas price, and if it’s only worth the post-Christmas price then, two things; 1) some greedy bugger’s making an awful lot of selfish profit off’f the backs of the populace and 2) why not wait until January; sort of have our Christmas then?

I often blame Margaret Thatcher for many of the ills of present-day society but, in honesty, she was probably only latching onto the trend kick-started in the 70’s for hedonism and selfishness. Not that I’m seeking to find excuses for her appalling behaviour and that of her cabinet colleagues; I still think they laid the foundation for the collapsed building of finance and fairness that we stand on today and, as I’ve mentioned before, courtesy of Malcolm Tucker, if she or they were allergic to piss I wouldn’t piss on her or them. What they hitched onto and found such an eager market for was the trend of disco.

Every generation has had its shady areas of entertainment where folk dress and behave in a way that is outside the mainstream so I’m not singling out disco as evil personified, it was just around at the time. The musical Cabaret documents, in an entertaining fashion, a similar rise of decadence that preceded the rise of Nazism and the onset of WW2 based on Christopher Isherwood’s factional novel Goodbye to Berlin.

There are many reasons that contributed to the fall of Rome and its once world-wide dominance and some of those reasons can be traced in a direct line to what we’re undergoing now in our modern society. Fundamentalist religion grew and the levels of disinterest by the population as to the here and now meant that, just as now with the spend now, pay later ideology promulgated by banks and conglomerates, the lunatics are being given the keys to the asylum. The Romans abdicated their civic responsibilities and gave them over to the barbarians to run (an early version of hiving out public services into private hands and calling in teams of specialists to handle what should be inter-departmental trouble-shooting roles). At the same time the level of available entertainment increased (the bread-and-circuses mentality that amused the mob) and the debauchery and largesse indulged in by the ruling classes, the slebs of the day, became a focus rather than a diversion. As with the modern day when we are all wrapped in our cocoon of earphones and mobile ’phones, where we live our lives not through reality but through the lens of a camera, the Roman nation was sufficiently divided (the divide and rule tactics used by Mrs. Thatcher) and so, when the challenge came, when the slave turned on the master, the people paid the price…well not all of them, of course. The masters, of course, having the money and the early-warning system to get the fuck out of it before it all kicked off and the main slaughter began meant they could gather themselves up to do it all over again in a couple of generations’ time.

Not that I’m positing we’re all bound for hell in a handcart and disco is to blame for the evils of our modern world. Like the paragraph above that’s too simplistic. What contributes to decay and waste are a series of decisions often made by outsiders to the event and who serve only themselves.

Donna Summer, born on this day in 1948, became the epitome of the disco movement and her influence is being felt even today. Considering how she courted controversy by supposedly making anti-gay remarks (which she strenuously denied throughout her short life) it was ironic that she should become the gay icon she did and that her music and outward show became a template for the excesses indulged in by the club-community during the 70’s, particularly the excesses of what were classed as the hedonist crowd. Straight, gay, transsexual, bestial, sadist, masochist, drugs, booze, gambling, costumes, themes on questionable adventures all could be catered for and were, and the soundtrack of the times was that recorded and released by Ms. Summer. Now any self-respecting gay cabaret will include at least one of her recordings in both sound and costume. This OTT attitude was reflected in the clothes and hair of the day as the growing acceptability of looking and being fey became mainstream. The brake applied on these excesses, in both the hetero and homosexual worlds, was the upsurge of AIDS but up ’til then, sexually, there really was no limit to what you could and couldn’t do.

But anything that’s perceived to be on the dark side starts to get tricky when the music industry gets heavily involved. In many cases the performers are from a background that will short-change them when it comes to self-control and moderation. Childhoods steeped in religion, in poverty and hustling, in a deprivation of the intellect, education, social understanding; those living them are happy to pick up and run with this preferred lifestyle as if it’s going out of fashion. Often as not these folk are surrounded by life-coach leeches and management blood-suckers transfused with the blood of avarice that are only too willing to ride the gravy train. So a head-in-sand (as opposed to up your own arse) attitude prevails and instead of actually being aware of what’s going on around one and just how badly one is being fucked over (by others as well as yourself) the never-gonna-die-gimmie-gimmie mantra was the rhythm section that accompanied many to an early grave. It ran on through the 80’s to a point where one (that’s as in 1) member of the band Fleetwood Mac could blow $8m worth of cocaine in a two year stint.

Now the the focus has changed somewhat. Now a band’s carbon footprint when on tour is carefully monitored as it not only fits in with many modern musicians’ ethos but also cuts the cost of the tour, but it wasn’t always the way.

On this day in 1975 the centrepiece of a party thrown to celebrate the release of Donna Summers’ debut single (that’s as in release of a debut single) Love To Love You Baby, a life-size cake modelled on the singer was flown from Los Angeles to New York (that’s a flight of almost 3,000 miles) so’s it could be eaten by the assembled label execs and hangers-on. Carbon-shmarbon, let them eat cake. Whatever 2014 gave you I sincerely hope 2015 will be ten times better…unless you’re an arms dealer in which case go fuck yourself… X!

 Just as an addition to the last 365 days of music comment (rant) from me I’ve been asked to repost my DESERT ISLAND DISC selections:– Not one to disappoint, here they are again, and thank you for reading X!X!

1) Machine Gun – Jimi Hendrix – From the album Band of Gypsies – Live at the Filmore East – Recorded 1970 – Jimi Hendrix/Lead Guitar – Billy Cox/ Bass Guitar – Buddy Miles/ Drums & B.V.

2) Keep On Rockin’ in the Free World – Neil Young – From the album Freedom – Recorded 1989 – Neil Young/Lead Guitar & Vocals – Chad Cromwell/Drums – Rick Rosas/ Bass Guitar – Frank Sampedro/Guitar & BV – Ben Keith/BV

3) The Lark Ascending – Composer – Ralph Vaughan-Williams – David Nolan/Violin – London Symphony Orchestra – Conductor/Vernon Handley

4) Waltzing Matilda – Composed by Eric Bogle 1971 – Recorded by June Tabor 1976 as part of her album Airs and Graces.

5) The Mob Rules – Black Sabbath – From the album Mob Rules – Recorded 1981 – Vocal/Ronnie James Dio – Lead Guitar/Tony Iommi – Bass Guitar/Geezer Butler – Drums/Vinnie Appice

6) Dead Cell – Papa Roach – From the album Infest – Recorded 2000 – Lead Vocal/Jacoby Shaddix – Lead Guitar & BV/Jerry Horton – Bass Guitar & BV/Tobin Esperance – Drums/Dave Buckner

7) Just Because – Jane’s Addiction – From the album Strays – Recorded 2003 – Lead Vocal & Programming/Perry Farrell – Guitars & Piano/Dave Navarro – Drums & Percussion/Stephen Perkins – Bass Guitar/Chris Chaney

8) Landslide – Fleetwood Mac – From the album Fleetwood Mac – Recorded 1975 – Songwriter/ Stevie Nicks – Vocals/Stevie Nicks/ Guitar/ Lindsey Buckingham – Keyboard/Christine McVie

Book and Luxury:

Book: - An identification guide to the birds of wherever it is I end up which is boxed with a pair of Carl Zeiss Jena 8 x 40 Binoculars.

Luxury: - A Ludwig drum kit consisting of: Two Bass Drum (One 22-inch, One 24-inch) both with hide Batter and Plastic Undersides – Four DW9000 Bass Drum Pedals – Two Snare Drum (One 14-inch, One 12-inch) with Plastic Batter and Undersides – Six, Rack-Mounted Tom-Tom Drum (Size Range 16-inch to 9-inch) all with hide Batter and Plastic Undersides – Two Floor-Mounted Tom-Tom Drum (One 18-inch, One 20-inch) Both with hide Batter and Plastic Undersides – 10 Zildjian Cymbal consisting of: 1 x 16-inch Sizzle, 1 x 12-inch Sizzle, 4 x Crash Size Range 18 to 12-inch, 1 x 12-inch China, 1 x 14-inch Inverted China, 1 x 14-inch Hi-Hat Top, 1 x 14-inch Hi-Hat Bottom – 10 Mapex Roadtour Cymbal Stands of Various Heights – 100 spare skins for each drum, Batter and Underside – Five sets of spares for each cymbal stand – 5,000 Premier ‘E’ Drumsticks – Cases for all the above.