Creative Spheres

So I am coming to the end of finishing my second book, Creative Spheres, and as well as the relief and excitement there is also a slight feeling of loss. The work is done. Now, though, comes the tricky task of finding a publisher. Who will release a book that crosses academic and commercial arenas? It is the next mission, to find the place in the world for my latest baby. Here are the chapters…

Creative Spheres: the resonance of music scenes

Contents

Opening Reel

Resonance

Passing Through

Introduction

Part 1: Scenius

Art worlds and music worlds

Popular Music genres

Places and bands

Part 2: The elements

(i)           Hierarchies

The ordinary musician            

Interlocutor

Politics of creative space

Leisure

Media

(ii)          Process.

Materiality

Physicality

Chance/ Serendipity

Taste

Sonic spaces

Jamming

Lyrics, words, phrases, repetition

Technology

Critique

Tempo

And space

(iii)    Experimentation

Without the fear of failure

Attitude/ radical

Politics

Protest

Humour

Words/ lyrics

Eclecticism

Fashion

Examples

(iv)   Relationships

Master/ Apprentice

Instigator

Linkers

Tension

Place

Family

Friendships

Social Rhythm

Gigs

Sex, Sex,Sex

Fans

Religion

(v)       Flow

           Autotelic

           Dancing

 

Creative Spheres

Epilogue

 

Chihuahua band logo from Creative Spheres

 

Sex Sex Sex

Sex sex sex well you came here to dance (Scritti Politti)

Music and sex go together like strawberrys and cream, Lennon and McCartney, Foster and Allen. Or more probably Blondie. Cool images on our walls, cut out centrefolds from NME, Smash Hits or Sounds, the new look, new love but it was always Debbie Harry who caught the imagination of a generation. Iconic and cool. Sex and music create some of the same internal feelings, warm and tingly as you filter sweep your Sequential Circuits Pro One. The moving connective rise and fall of an orchestral string section. Ibiza Chill Out classics. Leonard Cohen or Van Morrison in a Parisian flat on a sleepy Saturday early spring morning, the distant sound of vegetable or flower stalls coming to life, the dawn chorus. Sound, comfort, meditation, love. We experience a reason for being in the world, a natural connectivity through bodily integration, listening to the gradually intense breathing, the heartbeat changing from reggae, through hip hop, pop, techno to drum and bass before climaxing in hard core. Music is sex: sex is music. Sex has informed music culture, from the permissive era of the 1960s, sexual exploration and glam rock in the early 70s, to SEX the shop, punk and the pistols to New Romantics, the Aids pandemic spreading through London and New York gay scenes. Raves were about love, group hugs rather than explicitly sexual as energy went out on the dance floor. It was the parties after the events, the chill out rooms, the Sunday afternoons where thoughts of new musical ideas and sex started to reawaken. Love hope and happiness.