Black and White

Today I want to feature Wynn Bullock and his photographs. He was born early last century and became a well recognized American master photographer of the 20th century. After school he was hired to the Irving Berlin Music Box Revue as a chorus member. During the mid-20s he settled over to Europe to studying voice in giving concerts in France, Germany and Italy. In Paris he got fascinated of the Impressionist and the post-Impressionists. He discovered the works of Man Rey and experienced a strong affinity with photography. 

Back in the United States while the great depression he settled down in West-Virginia to rule his wife's family interest. Short time later he moved with her to California to study law like his mother (who was the first Californian female jurist). After a couple of month he quit study law and became a student of photography at the nearby Art School.

Throughout the decade of the 1950s, he devoted himself to developing his own vision, establishing deep, direct connections with nature. He was one of the pioneers of making black and white slides - long before they were used a stylistic form of photography.

Todays music is taken from the 1980 record Bass Culture and shows the dub-poet at his best.

Enjoy and have a good week.

Linton Kwesi Johnson - Inglan Is A Bitch

I'm not calling you a liar

Within the scope of my data protection I have bumped into the first record of Florence + the Machine. I didn't listen to it in full length for a long time and nearly forgot how complete it is. Still love her voice to her fragile songs.

Florence + the Machine - I'm not calling you a liar

To victories means to see suffering you

was the title of a chapter about a documentary about the Israeli domestic Secret Service called Schin Bet or Schabak I watched this week on TV. It was a sentence spoken from an Palestine diplomat to the boss of the Secret Service during the second Intifada to demonstrate his basic thoughts to the relationship between Israel and Palestine.

In this documentary all the bosses from the last decades of the domestic Secret Service given interviews for the first time ever. They told about the history of nearly the last 50 years in Israel starting from the six-day war 1967 until present time.

Israeli soldiers conquer the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem

I grew up with the history of Israel, but until now I heard details about what happened in the Secret Service at this time and why they killed and tortured people over so long time in their own words. To hear an old boss talking about torture like he he would explain his last vacation makes me angry again against the Secret Services all over the world - also the government in this countries that allowed them to act this way.

Not even the headline of this post makes me wonder why this 'problem' in near east could be set to an end it's one more some sentences from a former boss when he explained why the agreement from Camp David according to the Oslo account (creation of a Palestine Nation Authority and granting partial control to them about Gaza Strip and West Bank) was beaten down by the fundamentalists in Israel. A very big wave of hate came over Yitzhak Rabin, Prime Minister of Israel in this time. Rabin was assassinated by Yigal Amir, a right-wing Orthodox Jew who opposed the signing of the Oslo accounts in November 1995.

Knowing that the ultra right-wing orthodox Jews will never accept any restrictions in them Settlement politic and that they hate Palestine people from the ground I give up any hope to peace in near east.

btw: today's the world woman day. The main aim of an ultra orthodox Jew is to study the holy words and not to work. This has to be done by women.
Intaferon - Get out of London

Pictures of War

Always I was impressed by the pictures of Robert Capa. He was a Jewish-Hungarian combat photographer photojournalist who covered five wars: the Spanish Civil War, the second Sino-Japanese War, World War II across Europe, the 1948 Arabic-Israeli War and the first Indochina War. Capa documented the course of World War II in London, North Africa, Italy, the battle on Omaha Beach and also the liberation of Paris. His action photographs, such as those taken through the 1944 Normandy invasion, uniquely portray the violence of war.

If you take a look at the pictures of the Normandy invasion you will know where Steven Spielberg got the set decoration for the first 20 minutes of his move 'Saving Private Ryan'. 

In 1936, Capa became well known all over the globe for the 'Falling Soldier' photo long thought have been taken in Cerro Muriano on the Cordoba front in the Spanish Civil war. It was thought to be of a Workers' Party of Marxist Unification militia man who had just be shot and falling to his death, and was long considered as an iconic image of the war. In the last decade a lot of people found out that this picture doesn't show a real shooting. But anyway - even if this picture is a fake by Cape it shows exactly the cruelness of war.

Robert Capa: If you picture isn't good enough, you weren't close enough.

Florence and the Machine - Kiss with a fist

Raw and Rough

By searching in my archives I found the record from the Beat band. Formed in the early 60s by several GI's in Germany they made - as far as I know - only one record. But this is still one of the greatest pieces of Beat music you can find. Maybe the birth of raw music.

Enjoy and have a good weekend people.

 The Monks - Monk Theme

The Monks - Shut Up

Happy Birthday Mr. Hitchcock

Today Robyn Hitchcock gets 60 years old. He was, together with Kimberley Rew, the head of the Soft Boys, a group that brought neo-psychedelia and folk into punk and New Wave. After their superb record 'Underwater Moonlight' the Soft Boys broke. Since then Robyn Hitchcock is still on the road, made a lot of records and look more and more as a double of Nick Lowe.

Influenced by Bob Dylan, John Lennon and especially Syd Barret he introduced me to the psychedelic sounds of the late 60s. I saw him in the late 80s in a small club in southern Germany and was still impressed, what spectrum he's able to play. It's good to see him well on stage.

I don't have their songs in digital versions - so today only the versions I found on you tube:

The Soft Boys - Kingdom of love

The Soft Boys - Underwater Moonlight

The Soft Boys - I Got The Hot For You

Robyn Hitchcock - Goodnight Oslo (live at Glasgow ABC)

Robyn Hitchcock & Venus 3 - Trains

Kongo - Suffering of a nation

These days I read a book about historical development of the state Congo during the last 150 years. It written by a Belgian documentary author and it shows again how European imperialism can ruin a country by the years.

In the years starting from 1870 the Congo was the property of the Belgian King Leopold II. The main reason why he got the country, was that he had promised, that trading is free for all without taxes. Main thing they traded was ebony against some pointless objects. After the traders came nearly at the same time the church which has sent out her missionaries.  

Missionaries weren't the big problem - they just broke up family life and traditions and owned young black people to work for their benefit. The main problem is (until now) that the Congo is the wealth of plants and mineral resources.

First the invention of the tyre and then the India rubber required for this. When these resources were nearly ruined, one rushed at the nearly inexhaustible raw materials which lay underground. Therefor they pressed a lot of Africans in them so called Force publique. They built a very brutal regime to pour out everything from the natives. After the end of the rubber area it quickly turned into mining with the only difference that the mining companies didn't use soldiers to treat the people. That's how capitalism works. The result of bringing western standards to foreign nations is mostly the chance of some warlords to built a dictatorship on terror against their own people.

Reverend Horton Heat - Watusi Rodeo