Cover of 'Underground', by Norma Editorial.
If you don't know it, you should go to
Underground
, by scriptwriter Arnaud Le Gouëfflec and cartoonist Nicolas Moog, at Norma Editorial (be careful, the volume weighs almost two kilos).
It is a hagiography of leading figures of rock damning, peppered with some creators from contemporary phenomena, such as Yma Súmac, Raymond Scott or Moondog.
A contamination, we could deduce, of the aesthetics of
Incredible Strange Music
, those astonishing monographs released in the nineties by RE/Search, the San Francisco punk publisher.
Although they are drawn biographies, we are at the end before a true inventory of, as the subtitle says, "Damned rockers and great priestesses of sound."
We already know that lists excite us like the movement of the cape before a bull;
specifically, they prompt us to detect the underlying method.
That is more difficult than it seems.
One would think that the inclusion here of an artist as
mainstream
as Patti Smith is a deliberate provocation, apart from the fact that the engulfment of her character, in her last days, seems to have escaped the authors.
The creators cover the French quota with the incorruptible Colette Magny, the orientalist composer Éliane Radigue, the indisputable Boris Vian, the restless Brigitte Fontaine and the film trio Un Drame Musical Instantané.
They cannot be accused of chauvinism: to bolster their arguments, they invoke the authority of this or that member of Sonic Youth, which may not impress anyone outside of that sect.
One of the pages of the comic 'Underground'.
And what characteristics define a cursed musician?
According to
Underground
, apart from the obvious little success in life, some peculiarities tend to be reiterated:
1. Psychic problems: Daniel Johnston, Kevin Coyne, Townes van Zandt.
Sometimes accelerated by the intake of LSD, as in the case of Sky Saxon.
2. Productive incontinence.
The discographies of Sun Ra, Billy Childish or Lee Perry come close to or exceed a hundred references.
But we are aware that parvity (Kraftwerk) is preferable.
3. The reluctance to pursue a conventional career, ranging from self-sabotage (Alex Chilton) to career change (Captain Beefheart and painting) to exile (Lee Hazlewood, fleeing to Sweden for tax reasons).
Note: Moondog's expatriation —from New York to Germany— multiplied his reputation and his recorded work.
4. The darkness sought.
From the enigmatic Residents to the elusive John Fahey.
5. Exemplary lives are not required, something evidenced by Kim Fowley's career as a producer or the trickery of Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser, promoter of German "cosmic rock".
For the record, Arnaud Le Gouëfflec and Nicolas Moog generally avoid the obviousness of curses.
Thus, they rescue Crass, the only group of the first British punk that really maintained an oppositionist attitude from anarchist practices.
Nor do they mythologize tormented lives —the drawing is smiling, sometimes
naïve—
nor do they reward the premature dead;
the exception is Peter Ivers, murdered at the age of 36 in a crime that has never been clarified.
If you're a
Route 66
reader , you're probably already aware of these snipers.
If not, consider
Underground
as guided walks on the wild side.
Don't expect help from the mainstream media: they'll only talk about Eugene Chadbourne or Cosey Fanni Tutti after they're gone.
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