Tuli’s Archives
Gothamist has a pretty incredible story about some newly discovered Bob Dylan lyrics, to a song-never-recorded about Robert Moses. It’s easy to assume that the lyrics sheet is a hoax. But, because, it was discovered in the Tuli Kupferberg files, I’m inclined to regard it as legit.
Tuli was a true American character. He was a member of the musical avant garde jug-band the Fugs, an early progenitor of the Village underground, a leftist and a proto-zinester. I first learned of him when, accompanied by a (paid!) intern, I poured through David McReynolds’ archives to find suitable material for the Socialist Party’s 100th anniversary conference journal.
McReynolds was a long time leader of the SP, a pacifist and student of Bayard Rustin and A.J. Muste, a two-time candidate for President (I managed his second campaign in 2000; his first, in 1980, is purportedly the first time that an openly gay man ran for the office) and a long-time bohemian and Village resident. Before David complains about this post, I use the past tense because I am describing an event from 2001, not because he is dead. He is very much still alive (and blogging!).
David’s archives included many incredible photographic negatives of Socialist Party and War Resisters League events from the prior 40 years, including some of the last “new” pictures of Martin Luther King – from a WRL (or possibly Fellowship of Reconciliation?) – awards dinner in the early 1960’s.
It also included a shot from that same dinner night that I has developed into a 11″ x 14″ print that has adorned the walls of every home I have since called my own, of A.J. Must and Norman Thomas locked in an intense yet casual conversation at that same awards dinner, (I think) with the glass reflection of MLK’s back behind them.
So, what convinces me of the authenticity of these new Dylan lyrics because they were found in Tuli’s archives? Well, many of Tuli’s archives wound up in McReynolds’ archives – most notably a zine called “FUCK GOD!” When we came across that one, McReynolds chuckled and said, “That was pretty controversial back in its day. I don’t know how Tuli got away with that one!”
A few minutes later, I came across Tuli’s sequel to that particular opus, a mimeographed volume entitled, “FUCK GOD IN THE ASS!,” its cover adorned by a crude line drawing of a be-robed man with long grey hair, from behind, spreading his butt cheeks. “Yeah,” I said, “I think this would still be pretty controversial today.”
So, do I think it’s possible that young Bob Dylan threw a lyrics sheet of a song taking the piss out of “master builder” Robert Moses Tuli Kupferberg’s way? Yeah, you betcha.
“What’s next here, Jay-Z?”
The reunited semi-replaced Replacements are coming to NYC. I feel slightly uneasy about that fact, but I’m quite excited about the venue: the Forest Hills Tennis Stadium!
The old home of the US Open is a legendary rock concert venue. It’s legendary mostly for time and place. The sound system was apparently awful, the aisles and backstage cramped and the streets and train stations overwhelmed by the throngs of rampaging kids. But at a time that rock-n-roll and youth culture were surging and there wasn’t much in the way of non-classical concert venues, the stadium served as a useful home for some of the first big New York concerts by The Beatles, Dylan, the Doors, the Stones – you name it.
When I lived a few blocks away, the stadium had long been supplanted by Arthur Ashe at Flushing Meadows. It was a quiet relic. I’m not sure what went on behind its ivy walls in that sleepy neighborhood. There were nights when I would try to imagine what it would be like to hear the distorted tinny amplified sounds of Keef’s clarion-call riff kicking off “Satisfaction,” fighting to be heard over the screams of a thousand girls wafting through the air like a bad block party.
So, the opportunity to see a show there? I’m in (if the scalpers don’t beat me to it). But it got me wondering, when did they start running rock concerts in Forest Hills again?. And then I found this gem, from the Queens Chronicle:
Last year’s sold-out Mumford & Sons concert at the iconic Forest Hills Tennis Stadium may have been declared an impressive success by elected officials and community leaders, but some area residents hope the curtain comes down on any future shows.
[snip]
“I can’t tell you what torture it was that day, getting back and forth,” Tola said to the crowd of around 70 people. “What’s in it for us?”
Tola, a resident of Exeter Street in Forest Hills for the last two years, defended his stance against concerts being held at the venue by claiming the shows booked by Madison House Presents will bring disruptive noise and open drug use by spectators to the immediate area.
“You’re bringing that element. You’re inviting them in,” he said. “What’s next here, Jay-Z?”
Stay classy, Queens. The NIMBYism, well, you can get that just about anywhere. But the dog-whistling racist NIMBYism? Well, that’s a Queens art form. And until the return of rock-n-roll to Forest Hills Tennis Stadium was one of the better known art forms in the borough. It’s time for new art in Queens. Even if it is an oldies concert.
Something Pointless About Generation X
It’s been a while since we Gen X’ers had a good, long stare at our collective navels. The occasion of the 20th anniversary of our invention by the media is begging for more of this “are we becoming them?” kind of nonsense. Count me in!
Nirvana marks this auspicious anniversary with a reissue of “Nevermind” so bloated with extras and marked up in price that even Mick Jagger would blush. Pearl Jam team with Cameron Crowe for a career-retrospective documentary that makes a compelling argument that Eddie Vedder did the right thing by not blowing his brains out too. And R.E.M. trumps everybody by quietly, gracefully calling it a career, provoking pangs of nostalgia in, well, just about everyone I know.
Here and there, you see the media-bait question, “Wait, aren’t all these Generation X people waxing nostalgic about the rock-n-roll of their youth just doing what they angrily accused Baby Boomers of doing twenty years ago?” Well, yes and no. Look, we’re all entitled to mourn our youth. And this was a hell of a week to remind anyone who was a teenager twenty years ago that we’re not young anymore; that our heroes are dead or dying and that nothing – no song, no record, no band – will ever speak to us like the music of our youth. Not because Nirvana, Pearl Jam and R.E.M. were better than Elvis, the Beatles or the Rolling Stones, or better than…whatever the hell the kids are listening to today. But because music that speaks to you when you are 15, does so on a much deeper level than when you are older. Every crush, every kiss, every three week romance just kills you and the music that helps you understand it all tattoos your brain permanently. Everybody Hurts, if you will. And that is the feeling that we mourn this month. And we are entitled to this period of mourning and to the sense of outrage we will feel when our beloved songs inevitably get sold out and are used to sell cars, hamburgers and life insurance.
One key difference between this round of Gen X nostalgia and all the previous decades of Boomer nostalgia: twenty years ago, we still had a mass media. This meant we all had to share Rolling Stone magazine with its endless “greatest ever” lists that always placed the Beatles at the top; we all COULD NOT AVOID that Beatles documentary that took over ABC for a year and OMG the Elvis stamp! Fat Elvis! Skinny Elvis! And that is largely what makes “Nevermind” so noteworthy. They pierced through. They made it to the Top of the Pops and dozens of great bands got to follow them, for, like, two years. Now, who cares what is the best selling record in the country? We download music and share it on blogs. Don’t like Rolling Stone? You can actually read the NME online and immerse yourself in a weird little world where Oasis’ recent break-up is, like, the biggest news ever. Don’t like that? Migrate over to Pitchfork, where the LCD Soundsystem break-up is the biggest thing ever. My friends and I aren’t clogging up the TV airwaves with our nostalgia; only our own Facebook newsfeeds. Which is important, because we are not the world. Hell, we’re not even the generation. Half our generation could give two shits about R.E.M. They were too busy listening to hip hop back in the day.
“…If He Died In Memphis, That’d Be Cool”
Alex Chilton died of a heart attack today, at a too-young 59 years of age. While it’s sad, it’s not too surprising. I’d already written an obit about him five years ago, when he went missing in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
I still never travel far without a little Big Star.