Kurt Cobain discusses literature among other things with Erica Ehm of Canada’s Much Music TV channel. The interview was conducted on August 10, 1993.

In this 23 minute clip, Cobain is sweet-tempered, focused and relatively at ease with himself and the world (as much as most artists are). While watching the video, it was hard for me to imagine that this beautiful young guy would kill himself nine months later on April 5, 1994. Of course, it is impossible to know what Cobain was really going through at this point in his life, but he doesn’t appear, in this very small slice of a moment in time, to be a man locked in a struggle with mortality (oh maybe a bit, but no more than most sentient beings). His distaste for humanity seems rather healthy, perhaps because I share it. His perspective on wealth and fame is Zen-like. He has a certain melancholia, but so did I when I was his age. In fact, I still do.

I was never much of a Nirvana fan but I love the soulful intelligence and honesty that Cobain radiates in this video. I like his feminist point of view and social/political consciousness. He doesn’t strike me as someone who has given up on life. But maybe the drugs (the dirty ones) got the best of him.

I think it’s time for me to grab my wife’s Nirvana albums and give them another spin.
 

 
British psychedelic prog. rockers Curved Air perform “Propositions” and “Vivaldi (With Canons)” on the classic German TV show Musikladen, March 1971.

This is the first incarnation of Curved Air, which consisted of Sonja Kristina - lead vocals; Rob Martin - bass; Francis Monkman - guitars, keyboards; Florian Pilkington-Miksa - drums; Darryl Way - violin, backing vocals. Their appearance on Musikladen came a few months after the release of their debut album Airconditioning, a pioneering work, which reached number 8 in the UK charts, but did little elsewhere. It was also the first picture disc, released in a limited edition of 100,000.

Their second album Second Album captured Curved Air’s unique mix of Progressive Rock and acoustic folk music, and netted the band their first hit single “Back Street Luv”. The band then went through various changes, including stints with Mike Wedgwood as bass guitarist, and Eddie Jobson on keyboards and violin. Wedgwood went onto fellow Prog Rockers, Caravan, while Jobson went on to Roxy Music.

Curved Air has continued under various line-ups and still play today, but this is them near the beginning, when they were considered “one of the most dramatically accomplished of all the bands”.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

 
Bonus clip of Curved Air’s ‘Phantasmagoria’, after the jump…
 

 
Massive Attack’s Robert ‘3D’ Del Naja and Radiohead’s Thom Yorke thoughtfully discuss the impact of the Occupy movement. Recorded outside of the Occupy London Xmas Party on December 6th, where both men DJ’d to show their appreciation for the movement’s efforts.
 

 
The über-hipsters over at Bitchfork (er, I mean Pitchfork) have put together a list of the 20 worst album covers of 2011 and here’s two that got a chuckle out of me. Shit and Shat.

To see the rest go to Pitchfork’s website.
 

 

 
Light My Christmas.

Available now for the first time… The lost recordings of one of rock and roll’s most mysterious bands… In rare Yuletide spirit, The Doors… Light my Christmas...

This puts me in a festive spirit.
 

 
In 1983, KTTV Channel 11 News aired a series of reports on Punk Rock and “punkers” in Los Angeles area. It’s a fascinating over-view of the West Coast Punk bands, people and fashions, though at times veers into self-parody, as reporter Chris Harris pitches his story with all the earnestness of an Alan Partridge, who thinks he’s uncovered a Pulitzer-winning scoop of teenage “violence, abuse and self-destruction”, only to find it’s all just a bit of fun.

Harris kicks off his 5-part investigation with a look at a riot in Mendiola’s Ballroom, explaining what happened and asking that always pertinent question:

“Did the police use excessive force?”

I think we know the answer to that. Three cheers then, for Harris as he states quite categorically that violence was the exception and not the norm with “punkers”.

Listening to some of these young people talk, one could almost imagine they were talking about current events and OWS, as they discuss hopes for change, and that “the world will get better.” Plus ca change…

The series includes rarely seen footage of many of LA’s punk bands, and has interviews the likes of Spit Stix and Lee Ving of Fear, Keith Morris of Circle Jerks, Nick Lamagna and Felix Alanis from RF7.
Also, look out for a young Flea, seen here just prior to his quitting Fear and joining the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
 

 
The whole of the KTTV Channel 11 News investigation of Punk, after the jump…
 

 
For just this once I’m going to break my long-standing Beatles veto. I really didn’t think the world needed yet another Beatles blog post, but then this is just so ridiculously adorable it had to go up. Not only that it’s factually accurate!  I’m pretty certain not many four-year-olds are aware that Ringo was not the original Beatles drummer:

 
With thanks to Wallace Wylie!

 
In pondering the best music of 2011, one must consider Joseph Arthur’s stunning album The Graduation Ceremony. 

Over the course of the past 15 years, Arthur has created a body of work that is beautiful, mercurial, romantic and touched by more than a little heartbreak and betrayal. Joseph manages to deal with relationships gone bad, loneliness, drugs and New York City with a pained tenderness that recalls Nick Drake. He does so without being maudlin or self-pitying.

No mere poet of despair, Arthur has written songs that shimmer with a sweet spirituality built around big fat Beatlesque hooks and there are moments of deeply solid funkiness to some of his material that is positively Prince-like. As I said, he can be mercurial. From his early collaborations with Peter Gabriel and T- Bone Burnett to his self-produced albums released on his own label, Arthur has never shied away from experimentation while maintaining a consistently high level of artistry. I’ve never been disappointed by a Joseph Arthur album and I own them all.

In recent years, Joseph has become a painter with a growing reputation among gallery owners and art collectors. His paintings have become a part of his live performances. In the course of a set, Joseph will start and finish a painting. The effect is thrilling and the results are astonishingly good. Art at the speed of sound.

Joseph spent an afternoon with me at my house and I filmed him painting and talking about his music, art and poetry. The video features tracks from some of his past albums as well as his latest.

If you don’t already know him, let me introduce you to Joseph Arthur.
 

 
TV Party hosted by Glenn O’ Brian was a New York City cable TV show that ran from 1978 to 1982. It had zero production values but a shitload of manic energy and lo-fi charm. Among the many musical guests that wandered onto the program were Blondie, The Fleshtones, Klaus Nomi, Kid Creole, David Byrne, The Clash and many more. It was also a magnet for artists like Robert Mapplethorpe and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Directed by downtown auteur Amos Poe, TV Party brought some of what was happening in Manhattan’s rock clubs into your living room. I used to watch it while bathing in the bathtub located in the kitchen of my third floor walk-up on 27th street. $185 a month with a toilet up the hall. I thought it was quite glamorous.
 

 
Legendary post-punk/funk art terrorist Mark Stewart is back with an urgent, apocalyptic new track, “Nothing is Sacred” which you can download for free at his website.

The track is a damning indictment of greed in a year riddled by riots, revolutions, occupations and increasing collapse of the global financial system. A collaboration with Crass vocalist Eve Libertine, German electro monsters Slope and Dan Catsis from the Pop Group on bass “Nothing Is Sacred”’s howling funk-rock and unyielding political attack evolved from the sessions for Mark’s forthcoming album.

Stewart’s re-emergence seems particularly well-timed considering current events. 2012 will see the release of the new album from the Pop Group/New Age Steppers/Maffia frontman featuring collaborators like Richard Hell, Primal Scream, filmmaker Kenneth Anger, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Gina Birch from The Raincoaits and original PiL guitarist Keith Levene.