Cut Down

   Perhaps a compounding factor in my reaction to the sad event of ex-Gang Starr rapper Guru's death is that he passed on whilst still hugging his grudge against his former partner, hip hop creative legend DJ Premier

   There's a natural disappointment to seeing such fertile partnerships dissolve into acrimonious ruin; nevertheless, everything has its time and Gang Starr certainly had theirs. Premier's prolific approach to furnishing artists with his output will certainly fly the group's flag for time to come, whether indirectly or not

   There is a hint of artistic ruin to Guru's end, unfortunately - the alleged amount of control over his affairs that was entrusted to MC Solar has more than a tinge of addle-minded desperation that also suggests some paranoia. I don't like to speculate on the personal circumstances of the newly dead, however

   Rhyming skills are in a dearth of supply today; hip hop is assuredly lesser without his capabilities. Find peace, fellow; we'll always have Jazzmatazz

Supergrass - 'We Still Need More (Than Anyone Can Give)' (1998)

"Because here it comes

Here it comes"

   Last week delivered the news that Supergrass, previously enjoying a certain veneration within the canon of Britpop survivors turned good, had opted to part ways. And so, I opt to remember them in song; one of their own, of course

   I'm perennially drawn to any form of underdog and so my choice is one not fondly recalled by the band itself, although that opinion may also be symptomatic of an unfondly remembered experience. A rerecording of a b-side during their second album's campaign, behind the boards are the Dust Brothers - John King and Michael Simpson - helmers of the ever-memorable Paul's Boutique by the Beastie Boys and Odelay! by Beck. Bearing the provenance of two of my favourite albums, this song would always receive an open-minded first listen from me. When last viewed, my iTunes displayed a listening count in the 50s - considering my mp3 files number in the thousands, that represents an addiction by my standards. Of course, optimistic itinerancy as fetching, upbeat song does easily fixate me

   'We Still Need More...' has place of pride with the various listeners of the soundtrack to the MTV Films-produced black comedy Dead Man On Campus, for which it was commissioned. The Dust Brothers irregularly supplied various films with original music around this period and produced around half of the soundtrack, for which they also served as executive producers. The following year, their facility for pop cultural anthropology through hip hop and electronic music would deliver one of my favourite ever scores for one of my favourite ever films, Fight Club

   The juxtaposition of vocalist Gaz Coombes' glam rock propensities with the surf rock flirtations of the backing exemplify the Dust Brothers' easy approach to recombinant genre play; it's to their advantage that the band had already written a strong enough song that could paper over any potential production missteps. However, responsible as King and Simpson were for encouraging scores of white men to sing over any "classic" hip hop breakbeat, indirectly or otherwise, their own approach was always far more nuanced, unprejudiced and witty than the obvious and capricious takes offered by their followers

   Its greatest trick is not that it is a Beck-like song that sounds expressly like a Supergrass one but that it sounds like a song produced by the Dust Brothers and still - due to the fact that it is augmented rather than outright altered - very much the creation of a band; a pleasing irregularity when Supergrass' own feeling was that they lacked control over its recording. Besides, all sounds better with strings

   As for Supergrass, a reunion would not be unanticipated

A Dream Within a Dream

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow—
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand—
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep—while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem

But a dream within a dream? 

- "for Orpheus. Eurydice. Hermes. And Barbara with infinite love as I falter on the road to Ithaka." Edgar Allan Poe, 1849 

Salon Music - 'Chew it in a Bite' (1996)

   Salon Music is Yoshida Zin and Takenaka Hitomi. In operation since 1981, their career encompasses intricate synth pop, full bore rock'n'roll, ethereal shoegaze, krautrock and breakbeat-impelled psychedelia

   I'm specifically fond of their version of 'Say Hello, Wave Goodbye,' recorded with Sparks

Colour Wheel Spins

   Kaleidoscopically speaking, this is a year-round ensemble. The sobriety of the deep navy (in person) double breasted and the grey-green of the trousers is enlivened by the exuberance of the accessorising. It's waggishness meets temperance. As I prefer it

   The laces are only for the playful

How to Show Up Your Friends

   Ahmet Ertegun, late founder and chairman of the revered and iconoclastic Atlantic Records, had a penchant for correct dressing to the extent that he made other grown men, such as Paolo Nutini and Kid Rock, who flank him above, appear even younger than their Wikipedia entries would have you believe

   Of course, whilst this appears to be a mere clash of refinement and unruliness, one cannot dismiss the twinkle in Ertegun's eyes that implies a capacity to be as indelicate as his companions, at least once upon a time. Nutini was a great admirer of Ertegun's sartorial sense, likening it to that of his own grandfather, but also reminisced that when it came to retaining a finger on the pulse, he was more like a 25-year old. Indeed, one would expect nothing less than precise attunement to the zeitgeist from Ertegun, the man who wrote 'Mess Around' for Ray Charles, signed Led Zeppelin and fell asleep in a nightclub whilst finalising negotiations with The Rolling Stones

   His instincts were not only used to make Atlantic one of the most hallowed of record labels - as an exemplar of the conservative mode, he sought little more than quiet perfection - and achieved it

Lustre

   This recent addition to my eveningwear rig has crossed at least three timezones to reach me. Of course, it was worth it. A relic of the Peacock Revolution's influence on conservative Savile Row outfits perhaps, it's a silk brocade paisley evening jacket tailored for a client of the merged tailoring houses J. Hoare & Co. / E. Tautz & Sons. Latterly, Norton & Sons own both houses; indeed, Tautz has already been put back to work as a ready to wear tailoring line since last year under the aegis of Norton's leader, Patrick Grant, breaking with all three firms' ampersand traditions in the process

   The amount of handwork is commendably extensive. The photographs belong to the seller; despite appearances to the contrary, the jacket is jet black though the brocade does respond as seen to illuminating stimuli. For now, the sleeve length is the main aspect of contention; however, I've long been curious about turnback cuffs and the alteration possibilities within

   A pure joy to wear

It's Peter O'Toole Sunday

“Oh, it’s painful seeing [film] all there on the screen, solidified, embalmed. I love the theatre, because it's the art of the moment. I’m in love with ephemera and I hate permanence. Acting is making words into flesh. And I love classical acting, because you need the vocal range of an opera singer, the movement of a ballet dancer and the ability to act - as you turn your whole body into the musical instrument on which you play. It's more than behaviourism, which is what you get in the movies. Chrissake, what are movies anyway? Just fucking moving photographs - that’s all. But the theatre! Ah, there you have the impermanence that I love. It’s a reflection of life somehow. It’s… it’s like… building a statue of snow”

   Very possibly history's most feted Academy Award bridesmaid - honorary conferment notwithstanding - Peter Seamus Lorcan O'Toole is in many ways a great man. Even his middle names fortify this assertion

   An aesthete with a mental repository for each of the Shakespearean sonnets and the proclivities for liver degradation and mental abuse, O'Toole habitually welded self-destruction to self-expressive talent. As a role model starring in the cautionary tale of his own life, he is near peerless, particularly as he has made it as far as his late 70s, subverting the traditional early existence failure of the likes of Basquiat, Dean and Beardsley

   Mercurial, ingenious, naughty, natty and soaked in esprit and other spirits. Sober conservative style sported by one with little other attuning to sobriety for a great deal of his life. I'd have demanded him for a godfather if the possibility was forthcoming. Apparently, he once spirited valuable earrings out of Egypt through a drug mule-esque concealment within his foreskin

   Such a dissembler may not be instantly apparent as an inspiration but for the right mind, fault and positives can be discerned - one only has to ponder our enduring appreciation for Capitalism, ultra violence and McDonald's

   I'm on the side of the man with the self awareness to visualise a career and a future beyond his own damage, the raconteur who named his biographies Loitering With Intent, the star whose aspect of disreputability saturates his garments of such propriety but remains so far above a mere lounge lizard by dint of ability. Who needs a perfect gentleman?

"I'm the most gregarious of men and love good company, but never less alone when alone"

All Earthlings

   This is a post about the photographer Richard Kalvar

   In a 1990s issue of DC Comics' Supergirl written by Peter David, one character, anti- heroic demonic rogue Buzz, questions humanity's received wisdom of our own capacity for enlightenment, spiritual purity and self-glorification when we're essentially ridiculous beings lumbered with embarrassing functions such as ablutions. The gag's on us. I received quite an evocation of that insight when I first saw Richard Kalvar's Earthlings

   Kalvar does not so much pose questions with his unposed photographs as he invites the viewer to complete the sentences - the necessary elucidation is entirely up to us. In a sense, his preference for titling his subjects "earthlings" is explication in itself. We have as much a clue of the workings of each scene as its participants; indeed, as its creator, purportedly, at least. Not all that we do is clarifiable; think of the discomfort of strangers at a random look cast askance by another and suddenly anything we do could be construed as downright weird. The absurdity of such happenings cannot be minimised

   Kalvar does not stray often from black and white, which fuels the intrinsic abstraction of his work. The images are not titled, rather filed by date and location. They are seemingly built around the disconnect that occurs when a moment is immortalised on camera, removing that moment from the flow of natural events in a freeze framed second. And it proposes a view of life in which all human activity can be thought of as opaque and unordinary and bizarrely comic given the right pair of eyes. Naturally, such views and practices resonate with me

   I don't have to walk too far to cross the looking glass of the absurd these days - there are enough men and women here at all times of day openly pissing in the streets with the conspicuous abandon of the average 3am urbanite drunkard, enough people who are apparently disinterested in raping me yet will not take no for an answer if they believe that they can get something out of one of my pockets, enough transpicuous philandering that polygamy may as well be legalised for the non-nobles

   It's not our fault; we were just made this way, no?

Richard Kalvar is represented by Magnum Photos. Interviews may be perused here and there. All material is copyright