Positive Noises (Total Blam Blam #3)

By Various Contributors

Positive Noises (Total Blam Blam #3) is a fanzine/ebook hybrid that concentrates mostly on the music of the 1970s, particularly Glam Rock & Punk. This issue includes interviews with Vic Godard of Subway Sect and author Nina Antonia and also reviews Nina’s new book 13 Knots, the David Bowie is exhibition at London’s V&A Museum as well as new albums by Iggy & the Stooges, Primal Scream, The Fall, Edwyn Collins and a new Simple Minds collection and also give our assessment on a book on the rock photography of Harry Papadopoulos. There’s more in our ‘A to Z of Glam’ series and the Midnight Movie Club takes a look back at the directorial debut of Susan Seidelman, her 1982 independent - Smithereens. Finally, in tribute to bassist Trevor Bolder, who died recently aged 62, we select our Top 10 Trevor Bolder songs from the 1970s.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Various Contributors
• Release date: Jul 31, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301468003

Various Contributors

The various contributors to Positive Noises are:Jamie Havlin's glam rock tinged short film 'All Over Brazil' was invited to screen at over one hundred international festivals including Berlin 2004 and at the British Pavilion during the Cannes Film Festival, also in 2004. The following year 'All Over Brazil' accompanied the re-release of 'Born To Boogie' in cinemas across Britain. His next short 'Winning Streak' was shown on BBC1 & CBBC and went on to win a Kenya Screen Silver Mboni award.Annie Dayglo is a writer, researcher and social scientist. A fervent Bowie fan since the age of 12 (in 1972), she has been immersed in the London music and club scene since her mid teens. She has contributed to several journals, books and blogs about the punk period, and is currently working on her own book.Alison Lea has contributed to many fanzines and litzines over the years.Nigey B is a Brighton based photographer. For more - http://www.flickr.com/photos/nigeyb/

Book preview

Positive Noises

Total Blam Blam e-Fanzine #3 (Summer 2013)

By Various Contributors

Smashwords Edition

© Copyright 2013: Jamie Havlin, Annie Dayglo, Alison Lea & Nigey B.

License Notes

Thank you for downloading this free ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. Thank you for your support.

Table of Contents

Intro

An Interview with Vic Godard

David Bowie Is

Nina Antonia Interview

Albums: Iggy & The Stooges, The Fall, Primal Scream & Simple Minds

An A to Z of Glam (Andy’s Chest to Ariel Bender)

Reviews Extra: Edwyn Collins & Harry Papadopoulos

The Midnight Movie Club – Smithereens

Nina Antonia (13 Knots Review)

Top 10: Trevor Bolder in the 1970s

Contact

Introduction

Here we go. Here we go. Here we go. Positive Noises is issue 3 of Total Blam Blam e-Fanzine and each future issue will also have a different one-off title. It’s been designed to be read as an epub but a Kindle (mobi) and a PDF version are available too from Smashwords.

This time around we interview Vic Godard of Subway Sect, one of the most fascinating characters to emerge from the punk era and someone who is still, all these years later, producing compelling new work.

We also spoke with one of the country’s finest music writers Nina Antonia and review her new book 13 Knots, which is definitely recommended.

Albums we’re taking a look include the latest by Iggy and The Stooges, The Fall and Primal Scream and we continue with another instalment of our A to Z of Glam, while in The Midnight Movie Club, we re-evaluate a 1982 film directed by Susan Seidelman that co-starred Richard Hell – Smithereens.

Britain’s obsession with all things David Bowie has continued into the summer months; the David Bowie is exhibition at the V&A keeps packing in the punters on a daily basis and in this issue guest reviewer Annie Dayglo gives us her opinion on the show.

The latest addition to the growing list of Bowie documentaries, Five Years, was shown on the 25th of May on BBC 2. Sadly, just days before its screening, it emerged that one of its contributors, the former Spider from Mars, Trevor Bolder, had died, aged 62, from pancreatic cancer.

Born in Hull, as a youngster Bolder learned trumpet, cornet and trombone, and joined a brass band when he was only seven. Bolder, though, will always be best known for playing bass, especially as a member of David Bowie’s backing band and he played an integral part in three classic Bowie albums, Hunky Dory, Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane.

He additionally appeared on Pin-Ups and Mick Ronson’s Slaughter on 10th Avenue and Play Don’t Worry before, along with Woody Woodmansey, reviving the name Spiders From Mars for a self titled 1976 album. Later he briefly joined Wishbone Ash and most notably became a long term member of Uriah Heep.

‘Trevor was a wonderful musician and a major inspiration for whichever band he was working with,’ David Bowie said in tribute. ‘But he was foremostly a tremendous guy, a great man.’ Uriah Heep released a statement saying: ‘Trevor was an all time great, one of the outstanding musicians of his generation, and one of the finest and most influential bass players that Britain ever produced.’

We round off this issue with a Top Ten Trevor Bolder songs from the 1970s as our own tribute.

Jamie Havlin. July 2013

An Interview with

‘Vic is the great lost soul of the era: his nihilism is more extreme than anyone’s. He seemed to have seen through the circus which he was being enticed into, from day one. He saw all the contradictions and didn’t want to be a pop star.’ Geoff Travis quoted in England’s Dreaming by Jon Savage.

One of the most intriguing individuals in English music over the years has been Vic Godard, a man grandly described by 6 Music’s Marc Riley as ‘the greatest living Englishman’. As a teenager, Vic came to the fore – or at least almost came to the fore – with his band Subway Sect, a scandalously underrated act whose ‘We Oppose All Rock and Roll’ philosophy has, however, proved remarkably influential. This signalled their hope that they might help music find a way out of what they perceived as rock’s cul-de-sac.

So how did Vic and the band go about tackling that?

Well, for starters, they created a (non) image and ditched any onstage macho posturing when they played. Subway Sect dressed in Oxfam clothing which they dyed grey in a bathtub. Live, they would make no visual effort to grab attention – unless their ploy was to prove so intriguing by dressing drably and eschewing any obvious stagecraft that you actually felt compelled to watch.

Interaction with the crowd was obviously negligible. No stagediving into the front rows or even telling everyone how wonderful they were for our Vic. Unusually for a frontman, he didn’t compulsively crave the adulation of audiences, instead he preferred polarising them, favouring unpredictable reactions, good one night, hostile the next.

Likewise, with his Fender Mustang held awkwardly high, Rob Symmons would remain almost static throughout their sets, sometimes staring at amps or random spots on the stage rather than engaging directly with fans. At one point he even suggested the band glue their shoes to the stage, proposing that they walk on wearing socks and then step into the shoes and lace them up. This idea was rejected but not without being discussed seriously first.

Vic n’ Rob from Sniffin’ Glue Nov. 1976

Additionally they hit on the idea of eliminating lazy recycled riffs in their songs; for example, no easy Chuck Berry-isms were allowed and if the chords to any new song reminded them of the