Minge has tagged me with some questions. Here we go...
Name a book that you want to share so much that you keep giving away copies:
The Communist Manifesto.
Actually I've never read it straight through, and I've only given one copy of it away. But almost everything I read is technical material, most of which isn't great literature and doesn't make good gifts.
Name a piece of music that changed the way you listen to music:
"19" by Paul Hardcastle. Top of the Pops was on TV in the background, when suddenly this...sound intruded into my mind and wouldn't let go.
It wasn't a song about teenage love or dancing. It was actually about something real, and important. Something you could have discussions about that lasted longer than two sentences. For a pop song, it was deep.
Actually, it wasn't exactly a song at all. There were no verses or choruses or guitar solos - it had a willfully different structure. It used drum machines and synths that weren't trying to be other instruments, and cut up spoken vocals - it all seemed so audacious.
That one track started me listening to pop music, and it made me want to make music like it. That was 1985 and I was 13. It's 22 years later and I'm still inspired.
There are other songs I could say something similar about. "Close to the Edit" by Art of Noise, "Ultraworld" by The Orb, parts of "Einstein on the Beach" by Philip Glass.
Name a film you can watch again and again without fatigue:
I don't think there is one. I've been impressed by Network, Land and Freedom, The President's Analyst, Scanners, The Medusa Touch and even The Ipcress File at different times in my life. But there's no overall favourite, and not one that I frequently return to.
Name a work of art you'd like to live with:
Something by Rene Magritte. It's not that deep, not that clever and not that funny. But it tries, and I like it more than I probably should.
A bit like me, really.
Name a punch line that always makes you laugh:
Hmmm. I recently saw an early Jeff Stryker pornflick called...Powertool. Made in the 70s when it seemed inventive and fresh to set porn in prison.
There's one scene which opens in the communal shower, and the following exchange takes place:
Man 1: What are you lookin' at?
Man 2: I'm lookin' at your ass
Man 1: Well then. Here it is.
Well it made me laugh.
This was my favourite:
ReplyDeleteMan 1: What are you lookin' at?
Man 2: I'm lookin' at your ass
Man 1: Well then. Here it is.
If only life were so simple.
ReplyDelete