Essays

Even the ludicrous doctrine of Duchamp and Beuys that it’s art because an artist says so has been discarded as a needless nicety, and now it’s art because it’s in an art gallery – obviously what the curators really wanted all along.

Charles Thomson‘s new column for 3:AM on Billy Childish, Kylie and slides at the Tate.

Neon Bible is unashamedly epic and therein lies the real appeal of Arcade Fire. It’s not just the beauty of their music rather it’s the intensity, the fearless passions of the band, pointing a way out of the numbness, cowardice and post-modern gimmickry all too prevalent in modern music. Cause we’re tired mama, tired and full of dust and the time has come for sincerity. When the power’s out in the heart of man, someone must have the nerve to start it up again.

Darran Anderson reviews Arcade Fire‘s Neon Bible.

If music can be about seeing the conjuring of memories, images, in “Toy Boat” I see Yoko in a vast empty landscape (Eternity?) sitting, singing, at a toy piano. Her songs for me are like psychic bulletins from the future, or freak outs from the past. Yoko has always been ahead of her time; either at the epicenter of things or else right at the very edge of the ledge. And what this record does, is make her work, new, now, and utterly contemporary.

Bertie Marshall says “Oh, yes, Ono.”

Just because Rosemary fit quite neatly into the popular post-punk revival genre doesn’t mean they’re not worth a second glance. Third single ‘If I Had My Way’ is a kinetic rush of assault-pop, where floaty guitars get chased down a dark alley by relentless drums looking to beat a solo out of them.

Richard O’Brien reviews Rosemary‘s new single.

Hackney has a fabulous anthology of graffiti from anarchists, Kurdish political groups, Marxists, and just ‘taggers’ — often middle-class kids. The whole landscape was awash with these things, which people would treat as eyesores and as a disgrace the city should do something about. On the other hand, it is a sign of diversity and energy.

Iain Sinclair‘s account of strategically trying to survive in London, for 3:AM.

Elsewhere, I’ve noted the tendency of certain middle-class leftists to publicly decry material possessions and the capitalist infrastructure on which their own livelihoods and status depend. The general intent of such demonstrations seems to be to affect a superior tone while deflecting the potential envy of those who actually like material possessions and who may wish to possess more — perhaps even as much as is possessed by certain well-heeled Guardian columnists.

David Thompson ponders Phantom Guilt Syndrome and other odd conditions.

When you get The Hold Steady, it’s like suddenly seeing your own reflection in the tenth shotglass of the evening. They ply their trade in gruff Kerouac-rock about drugs and drinking, and occasionally fucking, but mainly just the drugs. Finn’s atonal voice shouldn’t work but it does, and once you get hold of the lyrics there’s no going back. The lyrics are the key to the entire sound — a sound of manly heartland rock guitars and stadium-filling keyboards.

Richard O’Brien reviews The Hold Steady‘s Boys and Girls in America.

His pen writes like the eye of a camera, melding surreal fragmented mindscapes of a totalitarian past with the reality of a monotone present : shiny new shopping malls; concrete block housing estates with graffitied walkways; derelict factories and chemical plants; shattered statues of Stalin and those of Lenin and other communist leaders on display in statue parks; railway stations that are now crossing points for sex industry women…

Georgia de Chamberet‘s latest column for 3:AM.

It became my solace; my own nostalgic haven to recall my own past and the many years I spent biking those same dusty streets as a schoolgirl with my own battered copies of pilfered Beat Literature under my armpit as the desert winds whipped my wheels forward.

Kimberly Nichols is back after a three-year absence. And not a minute too soon.

Every January the magazine previews the big albums of the coming twelve months and every year Kerrang! is told on good authority that Axl’s long-awaited Chinese Democracy album is in the bag and on the way and a preview piece is subsequently penned. But it never arrives. It’s the Waiting for Godot of the hard rock world, an endless act played across the stage of the gossip columns and rock rag new round-up’s, where our anticipation of this unseen entity far exceeds its actual arrival.

Ben Myers discovers the missing link between Beckett and Guns N’ Roses in his latest column for 3:AM.

The Stuckists have demonstrated annually since 2000 outside Tate Britain against the Turner Prize, initially dressed as clowns (as the Tate was run by them). These events have become almost an integral part of the Prize, to the extent that they received more coverage on the Channel 4 programme Twenty Years of the Turner Prize than most of the nominees. They have been broadcast worldwide as well as on radio and TV in this country, and are regularly included in press reports. On one occasion The Guardian headlined their write-up ‘Turner winner riles the Stuckists’, which doubtless in turn riled the Turner winner.

Charles Thomson, co-founder of the Stuckists writes for 3:AM.

With every such betrayal, the limply looming general and council erections look more and more likely to subside to a symbolically damp fart, resulting from (among other things like Blair’s five wars, not out) the lack of governmental, er, integrity, in general and (can they be serious?) from postal ballots in particular.

An appeal from the poet Michael Horovitz.