[Houdini]

I can agree with much of what Grimer thinks about OFTC. 

I prefer JR for the funny, and the absurdity.  He's recorded an interesting period in Welsh climbing well.  The book has its faults and he can wind himself in knots but it's still a fine achievement: privately published (always hard), the shots: while some of them are overly posed they are at least quality shots in print - none of them are duff.  Books like this are rare - people don't do this kind of thing very often.  Look how it differs from the other climbing books published over the last decade, it's bizarre and unique.  I doubt anyone will write a climbing orientated book in such a weird way ever again.

[Monolith]

What a review!?

'...he presents us with a bible of death from which he continually survives, without any apparent meaning except disbelief in the value of life.'

That's dark man. That's dark. Continuing on the Beefheart comparison front, Beefhearts poetry is also pretty junk.

[Pantontino]

I agree with Grimer, I really disliked the images in that book. I would have preferred it if he had used genuine historical shots, however blurry and fucked up they might've been. I'm guessing that he felt there wasn't enough of these though?

[Sam]

I really disliked the images in that book. I would have preferred it if he had used genuine historical shots, however blurry and fucked up they might've been. I'm guessing that he felt there wasn't enough of these though?

I imagine that it's a result of them not existing from the FA's? I thought they were good climbing shots even if staged, for example, the Raped by Affection shot adequately demonstrates the terrifying nature of the route do you not think? You know how it was climbed from the ground and the first bolt at 20m and so on, but the photo sears it into your mind. Compare this to glossy logo'd magazine fodder shots which are pretty souless and objectively less about climbing than selling gear. Its unfortunate that the essay accompanying the chapter is possibly the worst in the book, a virtual soft pr0n reference to JR's obsession with his cock.

[Houdini]

I'm not so sure about Don Van Vliet.  His art looks like it was made by spastics.  Not in a good way (say Willem de Kooning/Pollock). 







I prefer abstract to figurative - and I don't see much going on here.  Meh.  However, Trout Mask Replica (including the artwork, which DVV made I think) is a masterpiece in all repects.


Burroughs said (when he made the change from literature to painting):  You gotta play the cards you've been dealt.  Meaning: so what if I used to write and now paint (and am using my name to promote my new direction).

Well, DVV played the cards he was dealt.  They were Bottom Trumps.  JR certainly has the edge on the canvas, if not in weirdness. Methinks.

On the whole it's a shame about the cocks/vaginas/whatever.  All very Common Denominator.  He can do better.


*rubs fully corn-rowed, hot-gelled and highlighted Laughing Cavalier mustache/goatee combo*

[Monolith]

Nice observations there Houdini. I have to agree with your analogy of musicians or artists hitting their bottom trump cards. The last I heard of DVV was that he is living in a desert on his own. It's said he has some sort of degenerative mental condition. Whether there is an ounce of truth in this I don't know. It sounds like a myth any tormented genius would like to have perpetuated about them.
I have to drag up a funny picture I came across recently of Paris Hilton brandishing a copy of Trout Mask Replica on the red carpet. My internet connection is pathetic at the minute, but I'll get it up.

Not sure how this thread got from Liverpool Cathedral to Captain Beefheart, but it's a good transition anyhow!

[Houdini]

It's simple:  I pointed out that he'd climbed the Cathedral & it went on from there....

  The bassist never fails to make me smile.  Non sequiturs rock!

[Monolith]

That's le bassist from the Mothers of Invention, but I can never remember his name? He's on Zappa's Baby Snakes DVD, and usually seen playing with some sort of weird mixed-item toy.

[Pantontino]

Beefheart is a god. And call me a tune hungry lightweight, but I think Clearspot is the best album - twisted soulful genius from start to finish.

[Houdini]

I seem to remember the BF/MOV bassist as having a hugely unsettling contralto (castrati) voice.  He also looks like Magical Trevor.

Beefheart used to do be a ruthless bastard to his band, like spending all day with his drummer wanting/teaching/trying to make him play some horrific über skiffle beat from Hell - and when he finally cracks it, saying:   Good.  Now play it backwards!

Learned so much about Beefheart from John Peel.  He always spun some mean Beefheart.  I love Lick My Decals Off, Baby.  for it's oddness. Never mind the yellow snow - Zappa kisses Beafhearts' butt!

Remember Pretentious Music Journalist on Steve Wright in the Afternoon years ago?  He'd describe Beefheart as a sonic cathedral of sound I'm sure.

[soapy]

sonic cathedral of sound

i see what ya did there, i did 


..but i still haven't received oftc yet, blasted privatised post office

..and at this rate by the time i do receive it all the choice topics will have been put to bed


still, at least i get to fetishise over JR's genitalia o.c.d.


kleenex!

[Houdini]

(Excuse me for pummelling this thread, but).

Mulled the photo issue over and conclude:

1 - Scarcity of pics, period.  No camera present.
2 - Is he likely to give you what you want anyway? (After one of JRs' performances @ Bangor Uni a mate said: I wanted him to tell us about the route, RP winks below and all that.  Told JR this, he replied:  find out for yourself and do the route.  Contrary, but obvious.  Instead he got to see a grown man with spindly limbs in black tights prowl around the stage wearing a huge purple papier mache veiny phallus (with balls) and a chronic mask as some plump lady with p-mash tits/mask moaned and groaned to images from his climbing and painting flash in and out before your eyes - for a fiver!  Great value!  Honestly, he's been around for donkey's years - what on Earth did you expect?!)
3 - Art.  Doesn't paint but image makes, sculpts sound...  Ra ra JR you say tomayto.  It's high brow even in it's bawdry depths and is ambitious/snobbish ie. aims to raise climbing above the physical.  There are occasional retro shots, but given the chance to Redhead-it thru the Woodulator and attempt to offer a lit bit more - I'd say he'd take it.  I love that Shaft of the Dean Man pic - you barely see him, logo?  You find it.  The soup in the valley, the size of that crag.  Romantic?  Gotcha! 
4 - It's unreasonable to ask the guy to climb so many chop E6/7/8's again just for real climbing shots.  At his age?
5 - The Raped shot is odd: there's too much to see in his face, but the cover of Welsh Rock is utterly phenomenal by the bolt or no.
6 - I want to see more people do this.  Private publishing.  Only yourself to please.  No rules.  No ads other than the ad of kit being used.  No Editorial control - you make your bed, you lie in it.  Live by the sword Rah! etc..  It must be hard work.

[Monolith]

Clear Spot is a genuine beauty. I bought it during the early days of ebay's existence off their on original vinyl for very little. I've since come to find it is worth quite a princely sum now, not that I would ever part with it.
Muffin Man is an outstanding song. It's one of my favourite songs and the fact I have a shitty old amp which can emulate the live song pretty closely is good. Such a simple riff, and so good.

[Duma]

monolith piqued my curiosity - this really is a wierd juxtaposition:

[Monolith]

Duma that's it! My bloody connection has finally sorted itself out. I cried with laughter for days when I saw that! Somebody should really be using that as an avatar here.

[soapy]

*thread resurrected*

well, finally i picked it up from the sorting office

mmm, the smell of fresh print as i open each leaf for the first time

yes houdi the rendering of the plates is brilliant, high quality printing here

i pick and choose parts to read, the prose being dense and often stilted

laughed many times at the tomfoolery and clowning

the ascribed female dichotomy; i fail to see it -  a raw pagan subjectiveness yes

as evinced by his inclusion of the palladas epigram (wr paton trans.):

Every woman is a source of annoyance, but she has two good seasons, the one in her bridal chamber [en thalámō] and the other when she is dead [en thanátō].

so far, glad i read this thread and searched out OFTC, a thing of rare beauty

[Johnny Brown]

Damn, why do the best threads always come along when you're away? And One for the Crow, where do you start? One thing I can say is its one of only two or three books that I've read cover to cover on seperate occasions and got totally different 'experiences'.

Yeah the photography is staged, and it got a slagging in one of the mags for 'excessive dodging and burning' but is there any book that can stand next to it with that number of images, and on such a narrow topic? The pictures are great, the cloggy ones particularly, they are a celebration of the places and the experiences. Posed they may be, but its a long way from logos, tight t-shirts, biceps etc. The 'extreme' is forced upon you subtly but far more powerfully.

As for the writing, he doesn't claim to be a writer but its a damn sight more engaging than 90% of most climbing writers. Yeah, on the first read all the cocks and ego and 'JD masturbating like a poodle' seemed a bit shocking for shock's sake. Read it, give yourself a couple of years to get over it, and read it again - suddenly you are in on the joke and the book is hilarious from start to finish. Almost exactly like the Brasseye Paedogeddon in fact, and nearly as funny.

And when he stops trying to shock and really engages with the climbing its superb. The Margins of the mind essay is one of my favourite pieces of climbing writing ever, I re-read it regularly. I can understand its not for everyone, but its a nice ideal of what hard climbing should be about.

Plus its probably worth buying for the tormented ejaculation/ indian face section. Letters from JD to JR? Who doesn't want to read that?