Bloggsnobb Kalle Tiderman: Band reunions, Stooges and others

Ett inlägg skrivet för MOJO, publicerat (redigerat) i MOJO 163, juni 2007:

Party like it's 1929

”The negro has landed”, guitarist Ron Asheton said self-jokingly on arrival for rehearsals with the Wylde Ratz, him being the only authentic Stooge in this band that played Stooges songs for the Velvet Goldmine movie - prior to the current full Stooges reunion [see interview in MOJO 161].
Yeah, that’s what it is, isn’t it? All these reunions with musicians coming out of the woodwork and bands reforming: it’s the 60’s folk blues revival all over again. Nowadays there are no Bukka Whites or Skip Jameses to rediscover, instead the attempt is to recreate the band magic of days long gone by. Throw in the same guys as 37 years ago and we’ll see what happens. At least we will get a reason to celebrate the old records again, all of us together, and that’s not a bad thing. Hell, there are even present day versions of the Electric Prunes and the Chocolate Watchband.
The big difference of course is that the 60’s never really went away, not like the pre-war country blues did. And it’s very hard to live reclusively these days once you’ve made your mark on the music legacy, even if you would like to – Syd Barrett could have told us. Perhaps Vashti Bunyan is the only truly forgotten artist to be rediscovered and celebrated today.
And of course the 60’s don’t seem that far away (or indeed otherworldly) as the pre-war rural South must have done in 1963. The 60’s have been in the cultural spotlight all along and some of the participants, like Iggy Pop (or is that Iggy Stooge?), still have the same youthful countercultural mannerisms to them, like time never passed. It’s history, musical and cultural, looking itself in the mirror. Something to think about in this year when the Summer of Love is as far away from 2007 as the Wall Street crash of ’29 was from Woodstock.

Karl Tiderman

Bloggbonus:
1. Bit av låten I Happen to Love You, Electric Prunes 2006