what do you think of Jon Savage?

I need to stop posting to ilm so late.

Savage was interviewed in Vague a bit before it came out - again very interesting.

however, I was less impressed by Time Travel, a collection of his journalism.

I don't know that I've heard Kent's or Marcus's name mentioned on the board any more than Savage, but if it is so the main reason seems to me that Savage is primarily known as a music historian (at least amongst the people I know) whereas the other folks that you've mentioned are critics and pretty much known as such. And unless they are plagiarists or they get the history HORRIBLY HORRIBLY wrong, historians just don't get argued about that much. That said I don't know much about his critical contributions, so maybe that is just my limited perception.

I'd sooner recommend "Please Kill Me" by Legs McNeil & Gillian McCain, but it being an oral history instead of Savage's straight historical/ analytical/journalistic approach, I suppose the comparison is moot. Moreover, "Please Kill Me" concerns itself almost solely with the American perspective of Punk Rock.

Though it documents a later era, I heartily recommend Michael Azerrad's "Our Band Could Be Your Life" and, for the flip side of the coin, Chuck Klosterman's "Fargo Rock City."

It covers much more than the NME (actually it covers way too much). Simon Reynolds wrote a pretty interesting review on one of his web round up things (though I will of course deny I ever said that). I found it weighted certain periods far too much to match my interests.

Well, I can certainly agree with you on the self-congratulatory part (remember, it is an oral history, so fact will often be jettisoned in favor of self-serving revisionism), but I didn't find it boring in the slightest. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Truthfully and regrettably, I found "England's Dreaming" quite boring. I quite enjoyed the history behind, say, the gradual evolution of 430 King's Road, but Savage's interminable attention to details like the finer points of Malcolm Mclaren's childhood drove me to utter ennui. Still, I'll give it another chance (awfully sporting of me, eh?)

David Nolan's "I Swear I Was There" should be avoided for the same reasons Alex in SF targeted at "Please Kill Me."

You can read Jon Savage's history of Techno over here:

http://www.geocities.com/jahsonic/JonSavage.html

yours
Jan
http://www.geocities.com/jahsonic

Part that cracks me up each time is: "I've never seen so many....KIDS! On drugs!"

Anyone check out the Meridian 1970 comp he recently compiled? Lots of folk-rock from, err, 1970.

"Lipstick Traces" is interesting as a rant, and trawls through a lot of fascinating Reid/McLaren reference points but is absolutely bloody awful as a book about the Pistols themselves. Stewart Home devotes a big section into ripping into 'Groovy' Greil's academic take on Punk in "Cranked up Really High" - every line OTM.

Trivia point - Savage was musical advisor on "Velvet Goldmine" (And, sorry, I loved it)

stewart home's dismissal of GM is stupid considering his OWN punk theory (as "explained" in that stupid book of his) is ten times as hard to understand. he also has terrible taste in everything - witness his dismissal of "bad novelty bands" like x-ray spex.

Jon hates the Jam!

"Because fiction always lags behind music. And because the literary 'scene' in England is SO vile. Example: when in 1975, I left university for the world, my guides were not Martin Amis or Ian McEwan, but Patti Smith and The Ramones. They told me all I needed to know, not the overhyped products of an incredibly small, and inward-looking clique."

-- J.D. (aubade8...), November 13th, 2005.

is this not a "little" disingenuous though? mcewan comes from, i would guess, a quite similar background to savage, as it happens.

but the idea that mid-'70s new york rock was not "incredibly small, and inward-looking clique" is just hilariously dumb. patti smith is at least as vile as amis -- and i like them both.

england's dreaming really shook me out of a "no music" phase I was going through. he's probably my fave music writer just for the effect that one book had on me. I recently found that time travel anthology, haven't really had time to dip in yet though.

No further info on the Hac story, Matos. And frankly I have no idea what I was thinking here, because in it I say that I read something of Savage's in NewOrderStory, which is a film.

I would cut off a toe to read the Hac book.

also looking fwd to the gay-pop-thru-the-ages comp he's putting together for this year, also on Trikont

That comp thing sounds fantastic!

Also:

http://69.93.254.120/G/storage/site1/files/24/51/42/245142_76323876e8d154tarctm06.jpg

Has anyone here read "Teenage" yet ?

no. i was like huh? i thought it was going to be about postwar teenagers. or, the invention of the teenager i guess. but it's a prehistory. is he doing another volume?

I don't know. Not sure how music oriented it is in any event. Just wondered whether anyone had road tested it. He is a writer I do like but am not sure about this one.

Great source of info on Joy Divison but I can't stand reading this liner notes on the Joy Division releases, especially the Collector's editions the past few months. I even can stand Morley's big ol' essay on the Heart And Soul box set more than Savage's, which is saying a lot. (Not that I don't enjoy some Morley pieces, but THAT one was a doozy.)

His Kinks book is great!

Also:

― RoxyMuzak© (roxymuzak), Friday, September 29, 2006 10:22 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is good to know. iirc quondam ilxor mark s said he had the hell of a time writing it, and i was unsure whether the book was not good as a result of this.

back to the well: the england's dreaming tapes

Isn't Simon Reynolds doing something similar with the Rip It Up tapes?

has done so already!

Thanks for the tip, I didn't know this was available.

I just read England's Dreaming cover to cover again last month. It was good at 15, 25, and now 32. I appreciate that book more and more each time I read it. I am looking forward to 700+ pages of the source material.

Just finished England's Dreaming, a compelling and fascinating read for the most part. I think I would second the views expressed upthread that Savage is more of a historian than a critic. His ability to tell the story and to contextualize it is nothing short of breathtaking. And when he does take the time to describe the music he does so in ringingly persuasive terms.

I thought there were one or two strange omissions though, firstly there was hardly any mention at all of John Peel. Given that one of Savage's major themes is the way punk was filtered through the media, and given Peel's key role in the development of punk, this seems very strange.

Secondly, this is kind of lascivious but there was also precious little mention of sex in the book. Except for a brief reference to Sid going "so who's gonna fuck me tonight?" after a gig, you'd have thought none of the Pistols ever got off with anyone. I'd have liked to read more about whether or not they had girlfriends, groupies and so on. I can't imagine Jones and Cook doing badly for themselves, but Lydon has always seemed something of a sexless figure (there was the famous quote about "two and a half minutes of squelching").

i think steve jones was a sex maniac and fucked loaves of bread and stuff like that

I thought there were one or two strange omissions though, firstly there was hardly any mention at all of John Peel.

Savage was sort of associated with Throbbing Gristle/ Gen P-Orridge, I think? And they never had much time for Peel, and he didn't play them much.

i think steve jones was a sex maniac and fucked loaves of bread and stuff like that

― end to end berners (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 10 May 2011 14:55 (32 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

he whacked off in Glen Matlock's sandwich but I think that was less about him being a pervert and more about Glen Matlock being annoying

Has anyone here read "Teenage" yet ?

― Hedgerows, Monday, 14 January 2008 16:33 (3 years ago) Permalink

no. i was like huh? i thought it was going to be about postwar teenagers. or, the invention of the teenager i guess. but it's a prehistory. is he doing another volume?

"Teenage" IS about the invention of the teenager, exploding the idea that teenagers didn't exist before WW2. long & detailed, but readable. I thought it was pretty great.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/nov/14/california-punk

He compiled a collection of circa 77 California punk

x-post

That does sound interesting

there's also this companion book which you may already be aware of:
http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2009/08/jon-savage-the-england%E2%80%99s-dreaming-tapes/

The mythologising in Savage's book is wonderful, as I recall (long time since I read it).
Punk is all about mythology because they wanted it to be that way. They never wanted to be mere musicians.
That's why I love the aforementioned Greil Marcus book on punk too, wrapping it up with DaDa and Situationalism, philosophies about the heroics of failure.

http://teenagefilm.com/film/

Situationism. (I'm being pedantic, but I think it matters because there was also an unrelated situationalist school of ethics at around the same time.)

of course the Situationists themselves opposed the use of the word situationism to describe their theories

but I think it matters because there was also an unrelated situationalist school of ethics at around the same time

To prevent confusion in case an Episcopalian clergyman from the early 70s is sucked into a time warp and ends up reading this thread.

The new morality, baby.

I saw Teenage yesterday, based on Savage's book (haven't read it). I'd taken something for my hay fever beforehand, so I drifted a bit--I'd like to see it again. By the director's calculation, about 85% archival, the rest recreations (made to look archival, and very convincingly). Between the narration and the music, it's got a dreamlike quality that works well. I wanted the film to carry forward into Elvis and rock and roll, but I know that's outside the scope of Savage's book.

Out in November, looking forward to reading this:

The pop world accelerated and broke through the sound barrier in 1966. In America, in London, in Amsterdam, in Paris, revolutionary ideas slow-cooking since the late '50s reached boiling point. In the worlds of pop, pop art, fashion and radical politics -- often fueled by perception-enhancing substances and literature -- the 'Sixties', as we have come to know them, hit their Modernist peak. A unique chemistry of ideas, substances, freedom of expression and dialogue across pop cultural continents created a landscape of immense and eventually shattering creativity. After 1966 nothing in the pop world would ever be the same. The 7 inch single outsold the long-player for the final time. It was the year in which the ever lasting and transient pop moment would burst forth in its most articulate, instinctive and radical way.

Jon Savage's 1966 is a monument to the year that shaped the pop future of the balance of the century. Exploring canonical artists like The Beatles, The Byrds, Velvet Underground, The Who and The Kinks, 1966 also goes much deeper into the social and cultural heart of the decade through unique archival primary sources.

I'll start paying attention to Jon Savage when he acknowledges that The Stranglers and The Jam were as great as any bands that were around at the time, the former outlasting most of those punk bands considerably and The Jam going on to become incredibly big in the UK in the early '80s.

You may have a long wait, here he is in England's Dreaming:

Punk was politically riven as it interacted with the world outside. If the Jam and the Stranglers were going to coast in the slipstream of the Sex Pistols, then it was not surprising if they were judged on the same radical criteria and found wanting. Despite the element of novelty in both groups, there were also strong traces of stylistic and/or ideological conservatism which made them a satisfactory bridge between the mainstream and Punk’s all-out assault.

Yeah, I'm aware of his "stance" on both bands, and have always thought it was complete bullshit. If one listens to Never Mind The Bollocks and Black and White back-to-back, it's apparent which one sounds the most musically "conservative", and it ain't The Stranglers. IMO, the Pistols' music was far more monochrome by comparison, and both bands had a lot of attitude. Yes, The Jam were influenced by '60s acts, I don't think they ever denied that. However, surely not even Jon Savage can deny that that band meant a hell of a lot to a lot of people in the late '70s/early '80s, and if he does, then he's full of shit... and if he's implying that "punk was meant to be new", and that the Sex Pistols weren't influenced by anything and came about in a vacuum, then he's also full of shit. IMO, of course.

have you actually read his books?

https://thequietus.com/articles/30314-jon-savage-englands-dreaming-teenage-1966-owen-hatherley-interview

His perspective is so thought-provoking and really resonates with me.

That was a very interesting interview. Makes me want to read Teenage, but not 1966. England's Dreaming I've had for years.

1966 is pretty solid, I'd say give that a whirl. And yes to England's Dreaming, had the paperback run of that forever -- picked it up in 1992 when I visited the UK for the first time.

more than "pretty solid", 1966 is his best book IMO -- the interview doesn't really do it justice bcz it gets derailed into a (yes justified but also irrelevant) hate-fest against the very bad tory social historian dominic sandbrook

(this also means the much trickier question that hatherley asks -- abt the left-revisionist treatment of the 70s (historians beckett and edgerton) -- doesn't get explored)