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popculturebuffet · 2 years

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Watchmen Issue by Issue: The Abyss Gazes Also (Patreon Review for WeirdKev27)

Content Warning: This review will contain mentions of extreme and graphic violence. While i’m going to not show it because I love you all, it is vital and necessary to the story I talk about some of it so if you have sensitivity towards that sort of thing or the deaths of children or dogs, please skip this one.

Times up times here for the watchmen once again. I’m Jake, I review comics, film and animation and for this year i’m taking a monthly look at the watchmen courtsey of my patreon weirdkev27. And i’ts been an enlightning return as while I liked it as a teen having to really drink everything in has made me appricate it more the second time around.

That said while I had to wait till the end of the month for this one as it was the easiest to rework in my schedule when I hit some sliippage, I wasn’t that put off. And it’s not due to quality: This issue is easily the best so far, the most iconic in the series with MANY of the most memorable moments of it comign from this, and one of the most intense and captivating issues i’ve ever read.... but it’s also bleak, gory as hell, and hard to stomach. This issue is a dive into Rorschach’s mind and just what turned Walter Kovacs into the obessive right wing murderous nightmare he is. And the results are well...

It’s a great issue but I was dead serious, as I always am, about the content warning. If you’ve read this one or at leats know rorshachs backstory, then you know why i’m like this this go round. And if you don’t.. well be prepared to gaze into the abyss because what stares back.. is a lot.

The issue is, as you could probably guess, another character focus, but while it does focus on one of our leads in Rorshach.. it also focuses on his pyschatrist, dr. malcom long who wants to study our formerly fedora clad man of many creepy rants to help him. And to possibly get a book deal but unlike the sam hamm script after it, it DOES feel like Long geninely WANTS to help Rorshach and comes off as the only friendly face in the prison: the guards don’t seem to like him any more than the police, the prisoners naturally all want him dead and taunt him in his cell every night, Long is the only one genuinely WANTING to change him for the better instead of just see him as a bloody smear on the wall as quickly as possible.

The problem is that Therapy requires the person to actually WANT to change on some level: to adress their problems and manage their mental illness. It’s what I hope to get some day and why I take medication. It helps. But while Rorshach IS clearly mentally ill on some level, and the story sadly does the classic dovetailing of mental illness with violence, he’s HAPPY as what he is. He’s vengance in an unjust world and he dosne’t WANT to change or come back from the edge. He won’t compromise.. even in the face of armageddon.. so Long was doomed from the moment he sat down.

The issue is framed by the twos sessions and Rorshachs flashbacks as we learn WHY he ended up like this and that he’s suprisngly tragic. I still don’t LIKE him as a person.. but I do feel sorry for him. While again the story mistkaes mental illness for violence, to moores credit he also shows Rorshach didn’t get this way out of nowhere: a society unwilling to get him help, a mother who actively hated him, and a traumtic incident to end all incidents got him there. Just because he’s an asshole at the end dosen’t make it any less tragic the world failed him so badly. That a man who ended up despite all this becoming a hero.. wound up as only marginally better than the monsters he fights.

So we see that path during the first sessoin even if Long, sadly dosen’t get that insight to actually help his patient: we get our first really iconic bit as Kovacs says a bunch of nice stuff.. while imagining a dog with it’s head split open.

You were warned and it ONLY gets worse. IT’s why i’m also, as you could probablyu noticed not mocking rorshach as usual: it’s just.. not an issue for that.

Our first flashback shows him walking in on his mom .. who was a prostitut, had sex in the home and abuses her son when the john leaves because he walked in. Yeah this work.. dosen’t have the best views on sex work, and I wince at the sterotype of prostitues who are moms doing all their work in the home. It paints them as stupid and neglegent and all sex workers who happen to have kids as badly needing the money> Which does happen.. but geninely just because you work in sex dosen’t mean your a bad parent. Anyone in any line of work can be a bad parent. The only things I can give moore is it likely wasn’t intentional, and that it does answer why Kovacs is such a dick towards said sex workers: he had a terrible experince himself. It dosen’t remotely justify it, but it adds depth to his actions instead of just bein ga right wing ass

His next flashback during the same section is of some kids bullying him.. till he snapped and just started snarling into one like a beast, a sign of who he’ dbecome.. and what was lurking underneath. The rage, the pain, and the lashing out at a society he correctly sees dosen’t care about him.

Dr. Long works on the case at home, and we get updates on what happened next: the incident caused Kovacs home to be investigated.. and thus him to be taken away and him to do FAR better. He got good grades in school and seemed fine.. though his reaction to his mom’s death, good indicated he hadn’t forgotten nor forgiven how she treated him.

So at the next session Long admits he got that Roshach wasn’t engaging and asks him too.. and Ror admits he dosen’t LIKE dr. long, feeling a rich man can’t understand what he went through, but agreeing to actually talk to him about Rorshach. It shows the tragedy as well as why Rorshach remains unlikeable: He was through a lot... but he also refuses to empathize, to see that Dr. Long is TRYIGN to help walter and isn’t being condescending or anything. He gets he had a hard life and treis to understand it. The work isn’t working because Long is fat or wealthy, it’s not working because Rorshach dosen’t want it to and woudl prefer to break a geninely kind, decent man wanting to help him.. than actually GET help.

So we get the story: after leaving the orphanage at 16 Kovacs worked in garmets, not minding except having to work with women’s clothing. It’s there he found the mask and we find out why it shifts, something I hadn’t even noticed till now: it’s a special fabric made my mahattan. the client abandoned the dress so walter took it home and played with it, as frankly I would in that situation then forgot about it, again as I would. It wasn’t till two years later when he heard about the woman who ordered it’s rape and murder that something change. He heard how her forty neighbors, all above.. did nothing. Some even WATCHED.

So Kovacs made a face he could look at in the mirror..and Rorshach was born.. but as Kovacs says not really.. it was still walter in the mask. not the Rorshach he BECAME. Kovacs also points out there are more severe cases than his but the doctor isn’t visiting THEM... and makes a valid point there. I do like that: while I do think Dr. Long is a good man he’s not infaliable, as seen right after when he assumes the kitty genovese incident was just an excuse to do this.. when what caused Walter to become Rorshach was much deeper.. and that Rorshach did beocme a hero for good reason. To protect those who couldnlt

Long then recounts an incdient after that.. and we get one of the most iconic scenes in the comic as an inmate tries to intemdiate rorshach.. and soon wins his darwin award as rorshach flings a hot tray of food at him burning the man. And as he’s carried away he says the line bart..

“I’m not locked in here with you.. your locked in here with me”... Long is starting to realize how wrong he was, Kovacs isn’t getting better.. and Long is getting worse, neglecting his wife for the case.. or as he muses

Ror procedes to prove how far gone he is claming Kovacs was soft for having friend sfor having mercy.. for in short being a good hero, venting his resntment at everyone quitting and again adding a layer to his respect for the comedian: while he was still an ass about the sexual assault and always will be, we see he saw a kindred spirit: someone who didn’t give up and who saw the world was fucked up and kept up the work anyway. Granted he dosen’t seee that the work was jut an outlet for the comedian to kill and abuse people, so again, asshole, but it does make it more than just being right wing that makes rorshach respect him and shows WHY he dove so hard into this: i’ts not just the conspiracy.. it’s a person he admired and kept him going dying and him wanting to know WHY.

He ends it by saying “We are compelled” and Malcomn Long.. wonders why. He’s also unnerved to find out the newstand he goes to is the same one Roshach went to.. it’ trivial but I’d be spooked too. Still Malcom’s wife has a party planned with some couple friends to try and smooth things over, and things seem better... so yeah.. about that..

See.. now we get what caused Walter to become Rorshach.. the Rorshach we know. And find out about the dog with it’s head split open. This.... is what haunted me and kept me away a bit. The stuff with him slowly breaking malcom dosen’t help.. but this.. it chills my bones. It utterly unsettles me and i’mnot the hardest mark for horror: horror stuff can shock me. But this.. may be one of the most intense and unsettling things and we hardly see anything... and that just makes it worse

So Walter was investigating a kidnapping, a chlid was taken for ransom on a stupid mistake as her father wasn’t rich like they thought and taking it personally for reasons you can probably guess, Walter looked for her. And while he foudn where she was clearly kept, he also found butchers tools, a childs clothes in the incenerator... and the worst thing the attack dogs the guy had.. feasting on human bones. I.. I can’t even use a reaction image for this it’s so fucking disturbing. And Moore to his brilliance.. dosen’t show any excess gore or anything dosen’t show the child being devoured. All it takes is the implications and the sights of the dogs fighting over the remains..a nd that.. that is enough. It’s enough to leave me barely able to write the rest of this and it’s enough to kill walter kovacs. Rorshach then picks up the cleaver.. and well .. you know what happens next.

So we get a naturally brutal death for the monster, as he first THROWS THE DOG CORPSES AT HIM, which as a dog lover all this dog stuff.. jesus christ it’s a lot, then chains him to the furnance, gives him a saw and jigsaw style tells him “won’t get through chain in time’ ... giving him an obvious implication.. and then lighting the place up.

And from that Rorshach took his philosphy: there is no meaning, no purpose, no greater design.. only what we make. No one shaped it.. it’s us.. just us.

Naturally he ruins the dinner party talking about the incident, and his wife runs out on him like n ass instead of seeing you know, he’s heavily fucking traumatized... and he ends the issue starring into the abyss.. but finding nothing. There is nothing left for Dr. Long.. or anyone

This issue is a masterpiece.. but as you might of guessed it is a lot. It made me respect Rorshach as a character a lot more, see far more complexity and thankfully Dr. Long’s story isn’t over just yet. Though thankfully this part of it is. Thank god. This issue is brilant, intrancing.. but fuck is it a lot. It’s probably Moore’s best work.. but it’s also easily darkest. So be careful when you hit this chapter.. nad be good to each other. Because yes, maybe something didn’t shape this, I belivie something did though I have no idea what. Beleivie what you belivie as long as it dosen’t hurt others. But even if it didn’t.. even if all we hav eis the meaning we make.. there’s no reason to not be good to each other. There’s no reason to not help one another and there’s no reaoon to not care about what we do have, what meaning we have made. Rorshach wasn’t wrong people can be terribhle and sometimes violence is just there... but they can also be good.. and despite everything, especially in the past week.. i have to belieive there’ shope and that we can make this world better again and that a select few can’t ruin it no matter how hard they try. Thank you for reading.

#watchmen #dc comics #rorshach #malcom long #alan moulder #dave gib

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lyrasky · 2 years

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Them Crooked Vultures【Elephants】和訳理想の女 The ONE in Eden

Them Crooked Vultures【Elephants】和訳理想の女 The ONE in Eden Lyraのブログへ ↑ #themcrookedvultures #elephants #joshhomme #johnpauljones #davegrohl #ゼムクルックドヴァルチャーズ #nirvana #queensofthestoneage #ledzepppelin #alanmoulder #AlainJohannes #JustinSmith #ChrisKaysch #BrianGardner #MikeBozzi

スーパーグループと言えば、Cream がまず頭に浮かび「Ginger (Baker) ス・テ・キ　❤️」とエキサイトしてしてしまうLyraです。あと愛しのJimi Hendrix とかPsychedelic Rockで育って来た為かついつい昔の凄腕アーティストの集まったバンドを思い出してしまう。色々カテゴリー気にせず聞いてきたのに自分でも不思議。きっと、ライブビデオの見過ぎなのだと思うが、目配せしながら、相手の出方で演奏を自由自在に変えるバトルしてる様が好きだからだろう。勿論、ヘヴィメタルのライブだってそうなのは見てきたからわかっているし、Jazzのライブも間近でよく見たが、モロ即興しかないあの空気が大好き。それなのにOld…

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adsmusiconstellations · 2 years

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Interpol - I Touch A Red Button Man - Animated Film by David Lynch (2011)

Interpol – Lights (Interpol, 2010)

https://www.davidlynch.es / http://www.interpolnyc.com

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longliverockback · 9 months

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Gary Numan Hybrid 2003 Jagged Halo ————————————————— Tracks CD One: 01. Hybrid 02. Dark 03. Crazier 04. Bleed 05. Torn 06. Down in the Park 07. Every Day I Die 08. Absolution 09. Cars

Tracks CD Two: 01. Ancients 02. Dominion Day 03. A Prayer for the Unborn 04. Me! I Disconnent from You 05. Listen to My Voice 06. RIP 07. This Wreckage 08. Are 'Friends' Electric? 09. M.E. 10. Down in the Park —————————————————

Roderick Chandler

Francesca Hanley

Rob Holiday

Sandy Mill

Alan Moulder

Gary Numan

Richard Pryce

Mark Ralph

* Long Live Rock Archive

#GaryNuman #Roderick Chandler #Francesca Hanley #Rob Holiday #Sandy Mill #Alan Moulder #Gary Numan #Richard Pryce #Mark Ralph #Hybrid #LP #Industrial #2003

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thisnoisemademe · 8 months

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There are so god damned many of them, it gets hard to breathe.

#the collector #nine inch nails #with teeth #alternative #alternative rock #post punk #industrial #industrial rock #electronic #trent reznor #dave grohl #alan moulder #atticus ross #rob sheridan #rich costey #nothing records #interscope records #Spotify

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robsheridan · 1 year

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We were young men once: Portraits of Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, Alessandro Cortini, Alan Moulder, and me, Rob Sheridan, at Trent’s Los Angeles home studio in 2008 during the recording of Nine Inch Nails’ Ghosts I-IV, which was released 15 years ago this month. Photos by me, with Tamar Levine.

This is my third collection of Ghosts I-IV photography shared here for its 15th anniversary - see the others here.

Limited Edition signed/numbered fine art photography prints from this era

Read about my desert photography and the creative process of the Ghosts I-IV artwork

This photo set is part of an ongoing reexamination of my work with Nine Inch Nails and How to Destroy Angels that I've been sharing across social media. For more, follow me here on Tumblr and on Instagram and Facebook. If you enjoy my work and want to dig deeper, consider supporting me on Patreon for frequent exclusive hi-res wallpaper packs, behind-the-scenes features, downloads, events, contests, and an awesome fan community. Direct fan support is what keeps me going as an independent creator, and it means the world to me.

#nine inch nails #rob sheridan #trent reznor #atticus ross #nin #ghosts i-iv #alessandro cortini #alan moulder #2008 #music photography #photography

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thedarkroomscene · 1 year

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Just Can't Get Enough – Live 1988-06-18 Pasadena Rose Bowl, USA – 4:01

Written by Vince Clarke. Recorded live at the Pasadena Rose Bowl, 18 June 1988, by Randy Ezratty, assisted by Mark Shane, John Harris and Billy Yodelman. Mixed at Swanyard Studio, London. Engineered by Alan Moulder. Produced by Depeche Mode. First appeared on 101 2xLP, MC and 2xCD released on 13 March 1989. (#214)

#just can't get enough #101 #vince clarke #live #pasadena #1988 #randy ezratty #mark shane #john harris #billy yodelman #london #alan moulder #1989

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nicolascageisagoth · 6 months

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A USELESS postcard from Depeche Mode, 1997 🟪 Ultra

#useless single release is 26 #You can see the first mix is by Alan Moulder. Some people could take a heart attack maybe twice reading that #depeche mode #ultra #dave gahan #martin gore #andy fletcher #dm 90s #musicians #electronic music #90s music #alternative music #alternative rock

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jucyfruit · 8 days

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CATHERINE MARKS: BOYGENIUS, MANCHESTER ORCHESTRA, AND FINDING EMOTIONAL FREEDOM

by Daniel Gumble | 4/22/24

Award-winning producer Catherine Marks sits down with Headliner to reflect on a whirlwind start to 2024, the magic that went into boygenius’s the record, and how her enduring relationship with Manchester Orchestra has taught her the importance of unlocking true “emotional freedom”in the studio…

“It’s been a crazy start to the year,” Catherine Marks exhales as she joins us via Zoom from her London home on a bright, early-Spring morning in late March. “I keep thinking it’s September or something.” In reality, it’s a month to the day until the 2024 MPG Awards ceremony, which will see Marks fighting on three fronts for a trio of highly coveted gongs. This year she’s up for Producer of the Year (an award she won in 2018) and Mix Engineer of the Year, while the record by indie rock ‘supergroup’ boygenuis, produced by Marks, is shortlisted for Album of the Year. Taking place on April 25th at The Troxy in London, the night will provide the Australian-born, London-based producer a rare moment to reflect on what has been one of the busiest and most fruitful spells of her career so far.

In the first quarter of 2024, she’s been hopping between continents to work across a number of new records, while also squeezing in a visit to the Grammys and the Resonator Awards, where her work on the widely lauded the record was deservedly recognised. At the Grammys, boygenius won Best Alternative Music Album, as well as Best Rock Performance and Best Rock Song for Not Strong Enough, while the band themselves presented Marks with the Powerhouse Award at The Resonator Awards in recognition of her work on the album. “I definitely felt like I was invited to the cool kids’ party by accident,” she laughs.

As those who have spent time with Marks will attest, she is excellent company. In conversation she is entertaining, thoughtful, and insightful, not to mention generous with her time, as evidenced by her almost apologetic disclaimer at the start of our conversation that she is battling through illness to talk to us. Still, she’s happy to speak at length about the year she’s had and what’s been keeping her busy in the first quarter of 2024.

“I started an album at the end of December with a band called Divorce and the day after we finished, I flew to LA, and the Resonator Awards were the day after that,” she says. “It was this intense period, and I don’t feel like I’ve really taken stock of that week in LA and meeting all those amazing people. And having already done a full album, it’s crazy! “It’s been a real whirlwind.”

The recognition Marks has received not just in the US but around the world for her work with boygenius certainly appears to have shifted the dial on her career. She was already a highly sought after, multi-award-winning producer and engineer, having cut her teeth with studio icons Flood and Alan Moulder and cultivating a client list that includes, to name a few, the likes of Foals, Alanis Morissette, Wolf Alice, Frank Turner, The Big Moon, and Manchester Orchestra, with whom she has become a regular collaborator.

We were both holding back tears… it was one of those magic moments.

However, when three of indie rock’s most celebrated songwriters, Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker, and Lucy Dacus decided to join forced under the boygenius moniker, few could have predicted the extent of acclaim and success their debut album the record would achieve. Their self-titled 2018 EP was met with critical acclaim, but offered little indication that their first full-length release five years later would go on to top multiple charts, scoop a raft of awards, and make the upper reaches of countless 2023 album of the year lists.

The iconography of the trio also elevated the record beyond the realm of the side project. From the album artwork, through to their already legendary take on Nirvana’s 1994 Rolling Stone magazine cover, which saw the band kitted out in pin-striped business suits, everything about the project felt synonymous with a bona fide band, rather than something that existed on the periphery of each member’s full-time solo career.

“They wanted me to mix their first EP, but the timings didn’t work out, as I was working with Manchester Orchestra,” Marks explains, recalling the origins of her relationship with the group. “And they reached out to me because of my work with Manchester Orchestra. There was a lot of mutual love and respect for those guys. But I had a meeting with them via Zoom and that was the first time we’d seen each other’s faces, and that was when we spoke about making an album together.”

While the ‘supergroup’ concept that shrouds the boygenius project is something that Bridgers, Baker, and Dacus were acutely aware of, Marks says that there was no discussion of the matter in the studio. As she puts it, the sessions were very much akin to recording a band, as opposed to three solo artists coming together.

“I don’t think that the ‘supergroup’ aspect was ever a real consideration, as they are all just really great friends and love each other very much,” Marks affirms. “As far as songwriting is concerned, they had written individually but had also gone away to work on them together before we started making the album. They treated it very much like a band where three people were bringing songs in, and they were critiquing each other’s music and lyrics. There was a lot of collaboration.”

Despite the collaborative spirit that fuelled the sessions, the task of weaving a cohesive whole from three distinct creative voices was one that hung heavily on Marks’s shoulders.

“We all knew it had to be a cohesive album,” she states. “That was something that was on my mind, but I don’t think it was ever articulated. Somehow the aesthetic of the album feels really consistent, yet each of their individual identities still shines through. It weighed heavily on my mind, but through the power of magic it turned out to be a cohesive record [laughs]. A lot of the other collaborators and musicians that worked on the album also helped to create this consistent sonic thread that runs all the way through it.

“We spent the first three- or four-days doing pre-production and working out how wanted everything to feel, so we were collectively conscious of making sure there was a flow to the album,” she continues, describing how they set the tone for the sessions. “We had a ‘wall of dreams’ that we would throw ideas at and we would write down particular influences and then see if there were other songs that fitted that aesthetic. There were relationships and interconnections between each song. That’s something I do on other records too. But they were so militant I don’t think they would have let anything veer off track.”

They were the toughest customers I’d worked with. I underestimated the challenge.

When reflecting on the most memorable moments shared between herself and the band (“there are too many to mention”), Marks is reminded of an especially poignant moment shared with Dacus when working on one of the album’s many highlights, We’re In Love.

“Lucy and I arrived the night before everyone else to start work on the album, and she played me this song,” says Marks. “There wasn’t really a structure to it, but there was this stunning, gorgeous melody that I was so moved by. Throughout the course of the time we were at the studio she carried on working at it. I had been saying I think it absolutely needs to be on the album, but it doesn’t feel finished yet. So, she worked really hard at it and performed it for me, and I thought it was beautiful.

“Anyway, on the day that we ended up recording it, it was still light outside and it was just her and I in the studio, and she played it just on the acoustic guitar in the control room. I had a couple of mics set up, and there was this beautiful light streaming in, and you can sort of hear at the end she chokes up, as I did. We were both holding back tears… it was just one of those magic moments. It was all about the performance, not recording the guitar and then adding the vocals over the top. She just put everything into this performance, and it was magical. That’s a really strong memory. But there were so many of those moments.”

As to whether or not the sessions offered any indication as to the rapturous response the record would be met with upon release, Marks takes a moment to consider her answer.

“I mean [pauses] it’s been next level,” she says. “I knew it would be significant. There are moments when you think back and get butterflies, like, I’m really a part of something special here. So, there is a kind of instinctive but intangible knowledge that you’re working on something special. And they are incredible characters. They are three of the best songwriters that exist today, so something had to go right!”

In looking back at the process of making the record and the spotlight it has drawn towards Marks and her oeuvre, our conversation gravitates toward some of the other records that have moved the needle on her career.

“Every record feels like that,” she states. “One of the most significant moments was engineering the Foals record (Holy Fire, 2013) with Flood and Alan Moulder. I was known within the industry from assisting in studios, but the success of that record put me on a lot of people’s radars. It was the next step from engineering into production on a commercial level.

“And there have been moments like working on Wolf Alice’s first EP (Moaning Lisa Smile, 2014), The Big Moon’s first record (Love In The 4th Dimension, 2017). And all the work I’ve done with Manchester Orchestra. I love working with them, and it seems like every band I work with LOVES Manchester Orchestra. My relationship and work with them has allowed me to learn so much and has enabled me to work with so many other artists.”

Marks’s work with Manchester Orchestra has undoubtedly been one of the defining features of her career. After producing the US rock outfit’s fifth album A Black Mile To The Surface (2017), she has become a regular and much loved collaborator, yet the harmonious relationship that has flourished between band and producer since was initially born from more tempestuous circumstances.

“On the first record we made together we were really at loggerheads,” she reveals. “They were the toughest customers I’d ever worked with. I underestimated how much of a challenge it would be. It was their fifth record, and I thought they’ll be very well versed in the process of making album, and it’ll just be really enjoyable and different to a lot of the first album projects I’d been working on. But I was really wrong, because they were putting so much pressure on themselves to make it the best album, they’d ever made, otherwise they were going to stop what they were doing. I didn’t anticipate that. Also, they are really polite, so it took about two weeks to get to the bottom of what needed to be done, and that really opened the floodgates.

“The way we communicate is so much freer now, which means it’s more about the creativity and the collaboration rather than the psychology. There are no minds games or personality challenges, we just accept each other for who we are and want to make amazing music.”

As we bid our farewells and allow Marks to return to nursing herself back to health before another imminent trip to LA to produce the new Rise Against album in April and another Manchester Orchestra record starting in May, she is keen to point out that those early moments of friction can not only yield positive results but can be essential in unlocking a project’s potential.

“I actually encourage that kind of discourse in the studio,” she signs off. “I want people to feel free to be however they want to be in order to express themselves. There should be chemistry and conversation. And those little tussles you have can reaffirm what you believe in. Obviously, I wouldn’t encourage aggression, but frustration and anger can be a part of that, and there is something exciting about that level of emotional freedom.”

(x)

#catherine marks #boygenius #julien baker #lucy dacus #phoebe bridgers #headliner magazine #2024 #april 2024 #interview #archival

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scotianostra · 3 months

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The folk singer-songwriter and playwright Ewan MacColl was born on January 25th at Salford, England.

Now and again I post about Anglo-Scots, those born over the border in the home of our closest neighbours England, McColl is a man who was proud of his Scottish heritage, there is no doubt, but there is no doubt he took much from his upbringing in Salford, most evident in the song about the city Dirty old Town.

Ewan was born as James Henry Miller to William Miller and Betsy (née Henry). William, an iron moulder and trade unionist, had to leave Scotland after being blacklisted at every foundry in Scotland, one of them being the Carron Ironworks at Falkirk, that crops up in my posts now and then.

Ewan left school in 1930 after an elementary education, during the Great Depression and, joining the ranks of the unemployed, began a lifelong programme of self-education whilst keeping warm in Manchester Central Library. During this period he found intermittent work in a number of jobs and also made money as a street singer.

In 1932 the British intelligence service, MI5, opened a file on MacColl, after local police asserted that he was "a communist with very extreme views" who needed "special attention” For a time the Special Branch kept a watch on the Manchester home that he shared with his first wife, Joan Littlewood. MI5 caused some of MacColl's songs to be rejected by the BBC, and prevented the employment of Littlewood as a BBC children's programme presenter.

Inspired by the example of Alan Lomax, who had arrived in Britain and Ireland in 1950, and had done extensive fieldwork there, MacColl also began to collect and perform traditional ballads. Some of you might remember my post Come All Ye Tramps And Hawkers from the Lomax archive a few weeks ago, he was a folklorist, archivist, writer, scholar, political activist, oral historian, and film-maker.

More well known by most as a singer, MacColl was also an actor, writer and playwright To put him into some sort of importance George Bernard Shaw said of him in 1947, “Apart from myself, MacColl is the only man of genius writing for the theatre in Britain today., fine praise indeed.

MacColl recorded a huge volume of traditional Scottish and English folk songs, as well as creating a vast body of his own work, which ranged from satirical protest songs to tender love ballads, the latter most popularly renowned in his composition, The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, written for his wife, Peggy Seeger (another folk singer), but made most famous by Roberta Flack. His songs have been sung by the likes of the Dubliners, Dick Gaughan, The Clancy Brothers, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, David Gray and The Pogues.

Back to my favourite song by Ewan MacColl, Dirty Old Town, it’s not about Dublin, as many believe but Salford, because the Dubliners made it famous I think that’s where the confusion comes from.

Ewan must have been very proud of his daughter the late Kirsty MacColl, who followed on from her dad as a singer songwriter.

In 1979 he suffered the first of many heart attacks. The next ten years saw a steady deterioration in his physical condition, but he continued to work, tour, lecture and write songs. In 1980 he wrote his last play, The Shipmaster, the moving story of a sailing ship captain who cannot adapt to the coming of steam. In 1987 he began to write his autobiography, Journeyman. In the same year the University of Exeter presented him with an honorary degree. On October 22nd 1989, he died of complications following a heart operation. The University of Salford awarded him a posthumous honorary degree in 1991.

I’ve chosen The Bonnie Lass of Fyvie today as it is the first song I learnt and sang while still at primary school, probably aged about 10 year old.

If you want to know more about the man, his music and lots more check out the web page dedicated to Ewan here http://www.ewanmaccoll.co.uk/ewan-maccoll-biography/

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