“Fuchsia Floyd?”
“No.”
“Salmon Floyd?”
“Nah.”
“Roseate Floyd?”
“Don’t think so.”
“Coral Floyd?”
“Sounds like a girl folksinger.”
“Blush Floyd?”
“Bleh.”
“Flush Floyd?”
“No way.”
“I don’t know, Syd. I give up.”
“Damn it! Band names shouldn’t be so bloody hard!”

David Bowie - Aladdin Sane (1973)

"The famous red and blue lightning bolt which is painted across Bowie’s face was, in fact, inspired by the logo on a rice cooker in the studio kitchen. ‘In the studio we had a sort of mobile make-up table with mirrors on it, and on wheels,’ [Brian] Duffy's studio manager Francis Newman recalls. ‘I remember David sitting in front of that with Pierre Laroche, and they had obviously talked about using this flash. Well, Pierre started to apply this tiny little flash on his face and when Duffy saw it he said, ‘No, not fucking like that, like this.’ He literally drew it right across his face and said to Pierre, 'Now, fill that in.' It was actually Duffy who did the initial shape – I’m not saying he did the actual make-up. It then took Pierre about an hour to apply properly. The red flash is so shiny because it was actually lipstick.’

The decision to get Duffy in to shoot the Aladdin Sane album cover was made by Bowie’s then manager, Tony Defries. ‘I was looking for an iconic cover image and artwork that would help me to persuade RCA that Bowie was sufficiently important to warrant megastar treatment and funding, in order to propel him to exactly that status,’ Tony Defries remembers in the book Duffy/Bowie. ‘Engaging a master, world-class photographer to shoot the product/brand and to design the artwork was the best way to send that message. Brian had the ability to make the mundane image interesting and the interesting image fascinating.’"

From AnOther.com, "Flash of Genius: Photographing Aladdin Sane." Check it out for more information and other pictures from the photo shoot.


The original LP inside cover, when unfolded.

Thelonious Monk - Monk's Music (1957)

"The image of Monk sitting in a little red wagon wearing a suit, sunglasses, and a plaid hat is one of the most memorable in all of jazz. The photograph is credited to Paul Weller and the cover design [to Paul] Bacon, but there is reason to believe that Monk was quite involved in the creation of this image. According to Monk, the original cover design included a photograph of himself in a cowl, standing at a pulpit and holding a glass of liquor. Monk objected to the image for reasons that are not altogether clear, and [Orrin] Keepnews, who was producing the session, agreed to change the cover. Monk claimed that the idea for the final image was his, although, of course, the staging, lighting, and other technical aspects of the photograph are no doubt the work of Weller. In any case, Monk clearly took an interest in the album cover and how it represented him. Perhaps it was a clever rejoinder to critics who had by then made a habit of describing him as childlike, the photo displaying the incongruity of a man, with nothing childish about him, sitting in a child’s wagon. Perhaps it was, as Monk himself claimed, simply an image he liked that represented his intensity: he was so involved with his music that when it struck him, he could compose anywhere, even in his son’s wagon."

Solis, Gabriel. Monk's music: Thelonious Monk and jazz history in the making, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2008.

Alice in den Städten (1974)

9/10 - What a joyous experience watching this again for the first time in many years. It’s such a marvelous piece of cinema. Unavailable for a long time on DVD, partly because it was shot in 16 mm and the original negatives were badly damaged, it’s now out on Criterion. The cinematography by Robby Müller, especially in the opening road-trip sequence through the U.S., has to be some of the most stunning in film history. And that’s saying a lot, considering his opening sequence to _Paris, Texas_ would be another candidate. You could stop on almost any frame in the first ten minutes, and it would make a photograph worthy of hanging in a museum. Just absolutely brilliant. I was so sad to read this morning that Müller has been suffering for some time from vascular dementia, a degenerative disease that has left him unable to walk or talk. He was one of the greatest cinematographers in the last part of the 20th century. He and Wenders, particularly in this film, lead directly to Jim Jarmusch (who used Müller extensively in his own films) and Hal Hartley. (who seemed to cop the score by CAN for his own movies.) There’s such an intimacy in the filmmaking, in the acting, the photography, the writing, and it made me sad that Wenders lost that in his work somewhere along the way. In the commentary that comes with the film, he sounds wistful and nostalgic talking about how simple the film was to make, just him and a few people in the crew, following their instincts and shooting whatever they felt like, and how it would be impossible to do now. And Alexandra and I felt nostalgic watching the film, thinking of what life was like in the early 1970s, with Polaroid cameras (the new technology at the time), neon-lit motels, and the carefree nature of the hippie spirit still in the air.
The story wouldn’t work today – cell phones would resolve the situation immediately, and people would be much more guarded and scared. A somewhat lost German photojournalist wandering aimlessly around the U.S. wouldn’t wind up travelling with a nine-year-old girl back to Germany to find her grandmother. Such a simple story, but Rudy Vogler (a delight to see again) and the young Yella Rottländer give excellent performances. If that’s even the right term. They inhabit the film beautifully. Along with many non-actors that Wenders used. This is post-Godard cinema that was vibrant with wonder and poetry. “What should we do now?” It feels so alive because they were basically living out an experience. You sense the joy of a 28-year-old German who loved rock and roll and American culture drifting around the U.S. taking pictures and making up a story. Just wandering. In several of his earlier films, Wenders captured better, perhaps, than any American director a certain magic and mystery of being on the road. Alexandra said parts of the movie reminded her of W.G. Sebald, and I can see that. Although Peter Handke is the more direct influence. But there’s definitely a literary and poetic quality that seems rare in cinema these days. In any case, it’s a lovely movie. It used to be in my 100 Favorite Films but had dropped out because I hadn’t seen it in so long. It will definitely go back on that list when I do one again.

Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures (1979)

Design by Peter Saville

Scientific American has an interesting story about one woman's obsession with the image and her quest to find the origins of the pulsar data visualization on the cover and the research behind it: Pop Culture Pulsar: Origin Story of Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures Album Cover

Bill Evans and Jim Hall - Undercurrent (1962)

#greatalbumcovers

Three Noirs by Anthony Mann

Renoir Noir

6.5/10 – Jean Renoir fled France in 1940 and spent seven frustrating years in Hollywood making five American films. The Woman on the Beach was his final Hollywood project, usually classified as a film noir, though it feels more like a psychological drama with norish elements. It’s an interesting but flawed endeavor that struck me as being bizarrely edited or even unfinished. It’s only 71 minutes long, for one thing. I began to suspect that there must have been some longer original version that the studio chopped up over Renoir’s objections. Turns out that the story of its production was a little more complicated than that.

There was a lot riding on the project, as Renoir’s earlier Hollywood films hadn’t done that well by commercial standards. Though he had struggled within the confines of the studio system, he enjoyed being in Hollywood and wanted to stay, so he was determined to make a successful movie. The story had a lot of potential. Here’s Richard Brody’s description: “A Second World War veteran (Robert Ryan) who suffers from post-traumatic stress, including nightmares of a torpedoed and sinking ship and his own near-drowning, works as a Coast Guard officer in a small seaside community. In his lonely waterfront wanderings, he meets, amid ruins, a glossy and brooding woman (Joan Bennett). There’s an instant erotic spark between them, and she invites him to her cottage. There, he meets her husband (Charles Bickford), a formerly well-regarded painter who is now blind—and who possessively brings the young man into the household for company. But the brewing romance between the youngsters (not to spoil the plot) is troubled by an ugly element of backstory between husband and wife.”

Renoir got along well with Joan Bennett, who spoke fluent French, and enjoyed working on the film. He felt happy with the results. But in September 1946, the movie was given a preview at the University of Santa Barbra, and the crowd hated it. Evidently, Renoir hadn’t followed the conventions of the mystery genre to their liking. There’s conflicting information now about what happened next, whether studio bosses ordered extensive changes or Renoir himself was responsible. In a later interview with Francois Truffaut, he claimed, “I was the first to advise cut and changes.” Obviously, his previous experiences with producer Daryl Zanuck and Renoir’s own desire to succeed may have prompted him to revise the film in a way he thought would please the studio. In any case, he wound up re-shooting between one-third and one-half of the film and completely re-editing it. Nothing helped. It failed miserably at the box office and received harsh criticism when it was finally released a year later. Unfortunately, there is no known copy of his original version, nor any surviving footage of that attempt. So we are left to wonder what might have been.

Even in its “mutilated” form, the film still has fans. Some, like French director Jacques Rivette, consider it a masterpiece. And Brody calls it one of his favorite films. For him, The Woman on the Beach “has a dreadful, oneiric allure that bursts with a dark brilliance into an emotional and artistic apocalypse. It’s one of the great endings, one that foreshadows, remarkably, that of another noir classic, ‘Kiss Me Deadly,’ directed by Robert Aldrich, who was Renoir’s assistant director.” I thought it had some fascinating moments and some potential in the plot. The fact that the husband in this tense triangle is a famous painter is certainly interesting, considering Renoir’s own background. The acting is very good throughout, and some of the moody photography in the abandoned ship along the beach is wonderful. But the writing itself, at least in this version, feels clunky and somewhat predictable, despite whatever Freudian allusions may be offered. It’s worth watching, primarily because it’s Renoir. But it doesn’t come anywhere near his great masterpieces, or even excellent work like The River, which would turn out to be his next project and helped re-establish his reputation after his difficult Hollywood sojourn.

I’ll let Renoir have the last word on The Woman on the Beach:

“Although I don’t regret my American films, I know for a fact they don’t even come close to any ideal I have for my work . . . they represent seven years of unrealized works and unrealized hopes. And seven years of deceptions too . . .”

Concern - Misfortune

Drone music for a rainy, quiet Monday on a deserted campus during spring break. An interesting project I just discovered this morning, called Concern. This is from the most recent release, "Misfortune," which was created entirely with a box harp and field recordings.

"The fundamental link between all Concern releases is the strict use of acoustic instruments (and field recordings) as source sounds, meaning no electronic instruments or signal generators were used.... The initial box harp sounds on Misfortune were recorded in two house basements, then broadcast from car stereo speakers and re-recorded in several hospital parking garages in Portland, Oregon. There are also field recordings from public locations, specifically the Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula in Brussels and an indoor public market in Hamburg. The intent of utilizing the hospital parking garages was to explore and document the reaction of the box harp tones in thematically relevant and acoustically unique spaces. These underground, concrete garages are not only ideal locations as guerrilla reverberation chambers, but also contain deep feelings of veiled emergency, quiet desperation, and anonymous suffering, especially late at night."

 The quote comes from Rick Moody's interview with Gordon Ashworth, the guy behind concern.