Category Archives: Hedonism

The BBC has banned many songs over the years for being of a controversial nature, but none have been done more infamously than the blacklisting of Frankie Goes To Hollywoods Relax.

The track was a celebration of hedonism and living life on the edge. There was no filter on Relax, which didnt sit right with the powers that be in 1984. Broadcasters were disgusted by the unapologetic attitude that Frankie Goes To Hollywood proudly showed off on the track. The fact the group featured two homosexual men amplified the furore tenfold. However, no one got angrier with the song than BBC Radio 1 DJ Mike Read, who had no reservations about telling the nation his issues with Relax in a bizarre on-air rant.

The track is full of sexual innuendo, and in America, they were either oblivious or didnt care. However, in Britain, Relax caused a minefield of problems, which, of course, Frankie Goes To Hollywood had targeted but nothing on the scale of what took place. They created an ad campaign in the British music press, which played into homosexual stereotypes and contained puns that left little to the imagination.

The first ad featured images of the bands Paul Rutherford wearing just a sailor cap and a leather vest. Meanwhile, Holly Johnson donned a pair of rubber gloves. The images also featured the phrase, ALL THE NICE BOYS LOVE SEA MEN, and stated, Frankie Goes to Hollywood are coming making Duran Duran lick the shit off their shoes Nineteen inches that must be taken always. The second ad promised theories of bliss, a history of Liverpool from 1963 to 1983, a guide to Amsterdam bars.

Sexually promiscuous lines such as, Relax, dont do it When you want to go to it, Relax, dont do it, When you want to come, Relax, dont do it, When you want to suck it, chew it. As the track was the bands debut single, they decided to be as audacious as possible to grab peoples attention. However, a ban was the last thing they wanted, and it could have had a cataclysmic impact on their career.

It was number three in the charts when Mike Read suddenly lifted the needle, denounced Relax as obscene, and refused to play it again. Unbeknown to Read, the BBC was already planning on blacklisting the track for the same reasons.

If the group didnt feature two openly gay men talking about sex in this way, and instead, they were straight, its hard to imagine that the BBC would have acted in such a strong manner. The fact that they werent ashamed of their sexuality shocked those in power, who tried their hardest to pour scorn on the track.

In those days, radio held the keys to the music kingdom and Frankie Goes To Hollywood could have found themselves in deep trouble. Yet the uproar around the track only heightened demand, record stores all around the country sold out of copies, and it eventually rose to the top spot in the charts.

While the public clamoured for the track, Holly Johnson even appeared on TV alongside an executive from Radio 1 who explained to the singer he thought the lyrics were objectionable and felt it could offend the majority of our listening audience.

A composed Johnson then replies, only someone with a mind of a sewer could find them obscene. Johnson was upset by his bands coverage, and he was genuinely fearful that Frankie Goes To Hollywood would never recover from the adverse publicity.

The fact that the track still managed to rise to the top of the charts is a testament to the strength of Relax and shows that most people didnt find it objectionable after all. Frankie Goes To Hollywood stuck to their guns with the track, and they ended up reaping the rewards for staying true to themselves.

Continue reading here:

Why the BBC banned Frankie Goes To Hollywoods Relax which celebrated homosexual love - Far Out Magazine

Londons spiritual haven, The Mandrake, has reopened in style, and everybody can all indulge in all its remedial glory. The leafy Fitzrovia kingdom has announced three new offerings designed to ease travelers into the world once again whilst surrounded by some of the most ambient interiors in the city.

The Evergreen Evening, Soul Revival, and The Artisanal Experience are the aptly-named new hotel services that transport guests to faraway landscapes amid the hustle of the British capital.

It seems we werent the only ones who got busy with a modern home makeover project over lockdown, as The Mandrake similarly revealed a range of new experiences that are a sensory treat for culinary and design lovers alike. Because at this hotel, the decor is just as delicious as the menu.

(Image credit: The Mandrake)

The Evergreen Evening, which is curated for nature enthusiasts, offers guests dinner at Jurema or in a botanic-filled greenhouse, home to medicinal plants from across the world. While the Soul Revival Package is an overnight revival package led by healing practitioners, and The Artisanal Experience draws primarily from the arty decor of the cabanas.

The Mandrakes founder Rami Fustok invited four artists, including IT Spain and Iris Brosch, to elevate the space and bring Jurema inside. The artists created a cocktail of textures, patterns, and hues to create a breathing space where guests can lose themselves.

(Image credit: The Mandrake)

See: Mural walls are going to be everywhere this season 3 ways to style the trend in your home

Plus, while we take notes on The Mandrakes new interiors, were equally interested in its exterior design and even more importantly its ability to epitomize indoor/outdoor living the 5 star way.

Beyond the kaleidoscopic cabanas, the hotels curative menu is equally enjoyed in The Jurema, the evergreen terrace area which draws from the beauty of the Mandrake plant and combines its tropical allure with Londons metropolitan charm.

(Image credit: The Mandrake)

The new offerings further emphasize The Mandrakes signature juxtaposition of dark and light through hedonism and healing by offering an unrivaled sanctuary for travelers to relax, party, and delve into every experience in between.

(Image credit: The Mandrake)

Although our lights have been dimmed over these past few months, The Mandrake invites one and all to come and shine with us once again, Rami explains. We are reopening with extraordinary color and energy, offering an inspiring destination for our guests to celebrate togetherness, to celebrate living, and to continue growing our own universe at The Mandrake.'

'From nature lovers to spiritual souls and creative minds, we welcome guests to The Mandrake to once again feel inspired and energized,' he adds.

(Image credit: The Mandrake)

See: 4 steps to creating a Michelin-worthy dining room atmosphere at home

Discover more about the new well-being spaces and reserve your place on The Mandrake website. This also leads to more information about The Jurema restaurant.

Read the original:

This London hotel is offering guests a well-being experience in a beautiful interior designed sanctuary - LivingEtc

Motley Crue bassist Nikki Sixx has promised readers a deeper look at his early lifewith an all-new memoir, the upcoming The First 21: How I Became Nikki Sixx.

The book will detail the musician's formative era indeed, his first 21 years before the times of rock star hedonism highlighted in his 2007 tome, The Heroin Diaries. In 2011, Sixx authored the photography-focusedThis Is Gonna Hurt.But The First 21 will delve evenfurtherinto the Motley Crue member's history.

"You've heard the tales of excess and debauchery," Sixx offered in a press release of "all the peaks and the valleys that came with rock 'n' roll stardom and my life in one of the world's biggest bands."

The First 21 represents "the story that you haven't heard," the rocker continued, "the one that led up to those stories. It's the intimate, personal story of how an innocent Idaho farm boy with a burning dream and desire for music, for love and for fame became the notorious Nikki Sixx. I believe our first 21 years have a lot to do with shaping who we become. These are my first 21, and it's my hope that they will thrill and inspire you to invest in your own biggest dreams."

Publisher Mary Ann Naples added, "Whether you're a Motley Crue and Nikki Sixx fan or not, if you're looking for a memoir that transports you back to the '70s and early '80s, and that, for those who lived it, will reacquaint you with the vinyl collection your parents threw out in the '90s, then this is your book. And the larger themes of getting to know who you are and taking control of your identity certainly resonate now in the still-new 2020s."

The First 21arrives on Oct. 19 via Hachette Books. Pre-orders are available now at thefirst21book.com.

Loudwire's picks for the best rock + metal albums of 2021 so far

More here:

Nikki Sixx to Go Behind the 'Excess and Debauchery' in Memoir About His Youth - Loudwire

Late in 2020, Ojayy Wright put out Fuji Pop, a clear signal of his growth as an artist and, importantly, as a songwriter, using the sonic tells of Fuji music to create an extemporaneous anthem that was still rooted in the refined vibe of todays Afropop.

In that vein, Ojayys just-released project, Commander-In-Chief, is a natural continuation of his path from Fuji Pop and sees Ojayy self-mythologise over pulsating beats retro-fitted to his fizzing voice.

Within the 7-track project, Fuji Pop sounds immaculate as Tenis tributes to old masters like King Wasiu Ayinde Marshal and Alabi Pasuma compliment Ojayys bubbly verse. A more textured showing on Money Calling, sees him own up to his hedonism and all that it brings over a plucked mid-tempo instrumental.

A collaboration with another griot Bad Boy Timz on Duro produces the kind of vibey music that populated Ojayys debut project, 37 Degrees In Lagos while the titular track has hints of introspection to find meaning of his place in the world and what it means for his loved ones.

The lower half of Commander-In-Chief is packed with low-burning would-be love anthems like Erika, a flamenco-tinged ballad that showed another portal to Ojayys artistry while closer, Ave Marie, produced by Spellz is warm footnote on a project that has a bit of all we need.

LISTEN: https://ojayy-wright.ffm.to/commanderinchief

Read more from the original source:

Ojayy Wright Features Teni And Badboy Timz On Commander-in-Chief E.P - Guardian

The entertainments of abandon, music and alcohol have been faithful bedfellows ever since mead tankard first clinked along to Viking war song. Throughout history, wine and music have flowed in bacchanalian brotherhood and, in recent decades, superhuman intoxication has become a fundamental strut of the myth, mischief and rebellion of the rocknroll era. From the bourbon-soaked laments of the 1950s bluesmen through Whiskey in the Jar, Cigarettes and Alcohol and much shouting of lager, lager, lager in the techno age, music has invariably failed the breathalyser test; when singing songs that remind you of the good times, its become customary to drink a whiskey drink, chased with a vodka drink, then a lager drink and, since youre at it, a cider drink for the road.

But Covid, to some degree, appears to have put a cork in it. In February 2021, Mike Kerr of Royal Blood posted an Instagram photo of his sobriety coin, marking two years since his last drink. The No 1 album that followed, Typhoons, detailed the paranoia, shame and self-loathing that forced him onto the wagon. I spent so long in this fuzz, in this washing machine of negativity, he told The Independent a few months later, lost in depression and lost in my own head. His biggest wake-up call was acknowledging that, unless he got dry, he could lose everything: My songwriting ability was slipping through my fingertips.

Little could Kerr have known that his social media statement was something of a rallying cry for legions of musicians using lockdown to get sober. If the pandemic gave the general public an insight into touring life minus the hour onstage ie, drinking earlier and earlier in the day to alleviate the tedium of being stuck in cramped, largely identical rooms with the same three or four people for months on end for many musicians it had the opposite effect. By removing the social gigging element of their lives and careers, lockdown starkly exposed dependencies theyd previously been able to disguise as a typical rocknroll lifestyle.

Its a job where you[r addictions] can go very undetected, Kerr said something Dan Pare, manager of south London post-punks Deadletter and currently five months into a 12-step recovery programme, knows only too well. The social and work aspects of the music industry can provide quite a good cloak, he says. If youre out every night going to a gig, seeing mates, the lines between socialising and work becomes so blurred. Once all of that is stripped away and youre basically just sat alone in your bedroom for the 90th day in a row, living exactly the same existence, its like OK, so I was just hiding in plain sight.

For many, simply continuing pre-lockdown habits was enough to alert them to their issues. In lockdown, when there was a lack of gigs, I became very aware of the fact that I was drinking a lot before we went on stage and then drinking more when we were on stage, says Deadletters similarly lockdown-sober frontman Zac Woolley. The majority of that time I was spending on my own I was drunk. When youre sat in your own bedroom, whether it be doing a bit of writing, playing a guitar or just watching a film, and youre hammered and not able to string a sentence together, I think thats when it really hits hard that there is an issue. One morning I woke up and I was going to go to work and I was hungover and I just thought, Why am I hungover on a Tuesday morning, having been on my own? And so I just decided to nip it in the bud. I was 60 days sober yesterday.

It felt like a bit of a groundhog day, says You Me At Six drummer Dan Flint, who quit alcohol for a more active, health-first lifestyle last year. Hed been feeling the creeping effects of late-night drinking sessions in his home studio begin to drain his energy and creativity. Every day feeling a bit rough and then by the afternoon having a drink. I was listening back to the [music] that I made and thinking, You know what, I can do better than this. I went and saw one of my friends whos a great personal trainer, because I was looking at myself in the mirror and thinking, Im not happy, Im not proud of how I look, and I wanted to do something about it.

And its not just Royal Blood whove been making new music about the darkness at the bottom of the bottle.Francis Lung, ex-WU LYF bassist, released a single about his relentless hangovers called Bad Hair Day in February, several months after his own music kicked him out of his alcohol stupor. Id just finished making a record, he says, and when we were mastering it I remember listening to it and going, This is so dark, why am I talking about death so much? Why does it feel like theres no way out all the time? A lot of it was written about drinking and I knew that I did drink too much and I knew I relied on it too much, but I needed to see how much I was writing about alcohol and dependence to realise that I even had some sort of problem. I had to go through that process to realise I was telling myself something, almost. Like a lot of people, I struggle with anxiety, depression, and it came to a head to a point where I thought, I think I might be doing this to myself, and stopping drinking was a more extreme measure that I took to see if it could alleviate some of these problems.

Enjoy unlimited access to 70 million ad-free songs and podcasts with Amazon MusicSign up now for a 30-day free trial

Lung stopped drinking on 1 January, just as the second full lockdown was about to kick in. Did it prove to be the perfect opportunity to quit? Absolutely not. Its probably the worst time, he says. Really I shouldve given myself every break and gone, its tough enough, just chill and do whatever you need to. But mentally I was in a place where I just couldnt take it anymore What I found was I still suffered from anxiety and depression but when the symptoms came on I could manage them so much better since I stopped. So I realised I wasnt giving myself mental health issues but I was really aggravating them and that was really freeing to know that I had at least some control.

Francis Lung: I realised I was aggravating my mental health issues'

(Coralie Monnet)

Other musicians found lockdown, for all its frustrations, to be a sobriety lifeline too. South London singer-songwriter and Ghetts collaborator Jessica Wilde was in a Sony Studios in Amsterdam when the first lockdown hit, facing down her demons: the sort of self-sabotage levels of drinking that had earned her her stage name but also countless bad decisions, an operation on her vocal cords and a major productivity slump. It was like the universe kept saying to me, you have to stop drinking and doing drugs if you really want to do something with this life, she says, so she got dry and clean early in 2020 and, three weeks later, recorded a jubilant rap-reggae song in Amsterdam called F*ck U Im Sober Now. On it, she sings: Reckless weekends keep descending into nightmares with no ending, not any moref*** you Im sober now, turning my life around.

Released in February alongside the regretful Wasted (about the wasted times), the tracks preface a diary-style full album tracing Wildes route to sobriety, coming from really heavy drug-taking and drinking and all the toxic relationships that came off the back of that to then over the past couple of years going on a spiritual health journey. It just so happened to align with lockdown that I was finally like, I can do this [project]. It gave me the headspace to use this time to reflect on life and get focused on what I want to do, rather than drink my worries away and making them worse. It helped me with staying sober during lockdown as well. I cant f****** drink because everyone would say, I thought you said your albums about being sober and the albums not coming out until next February! Ive had a few people message me asking for tips about how to go sober and saying they put on my song when they wanted to have a drink and theyd dance in their front room going f*** you, Im sober now! That was amazing to hear.

I didnt want to be the person not drinking, bringing the mood down

Fiona Burgess

Likewise, lockdown came along just in time for Fiona Burgess, ex-singer with London indie-pop band Womans Hour, now beginning a solo career. For years shed played along with the popular image of the singer as the perma-swigging life and soul of any party, even as she realised she could no longer control her drinking and became increasingly anxious about her intake ahead of social events. It still felt like such a big part of my identity, she says, and also I felt a responsibility, I didnt want to be the person not drinking, bringing the mood down. I felt like I had this reputation of bringing something with my energy when I was drinking and Id always be the last to leave There was that feeling of powerlessness and regret and feeling out of control.

Following one too many midweek hangovers in December 2019, Burgess vowed to ditch the sauce and turned instead to books and podcasts about getting dry. I just needed to hear other peoples stories. One of the descriptions in [Annie Graces The Alcohol Experiment] book was of a field: if youre in a field and theres no pathway but you keep walking down the same path eventually that trampled path will become a pathway, and thats what your brain is like with these habits that you form. Its about finding a new pathway and slowly that old pathway becomes overgrown and it wont even be recognisable as a pathway eventually because youll have found a new one.

By the time lockdown arrived, Burgess had trampled herself a new, sober route. Perhaps, if the lockdown had begun and I had not already implemented those changes I maybe would have gone completely the other way, she considers. If I had not started that journey before I wouldve hit it hard, even though I was at home. So that was a real blessing for me.

No two roads to sobriety are identical and the musicians I speak to all have differing experiences of lockdown life on the wagon. No longer the readily available go-to drinking partner for midweek afternoon sessions (as is often the role of more successful musicians with time on their hands), Flint threw himself into his carb-free, zero-sugar health kick and found himself bouncing off the walls with new-found energy to the point where many of his friends signed up for similar training courses, after some of whatever he was on. Woolley, who quit just weeks before pubs reopened in the UK in April, struggled with the reopening looming around the corner and found boozy band rehearsals frustrating until hed had enough dry nights out to conquer his discomfort.

Lung plugged his brief alcoholic urges with other comforts sugary drinks and ice cream until the cravings stopped. Developing healthy habits is incredibly hard during a pandemic, he says. Learning to meditate or exercise when you feel like you have an attack coming on is so hard. But the one thing thats helped me when Ive felt really desperate is knowing that its not just me thats doing it and its really great to know that its becoming almost cool to say no to alcohol and be sober and clear. I like that theres another way of looking at things and its more acceptable.

Indeed, with new generations taking a more responsible approach to drinking, non-alcoholic brands on the rise and laddish hedonism looking increasingly boorish and old hat, rock sobriety once the remit of straight-edge emo punks and road-beaten rehab rockers is beginning to look like an increasingly credible new normal. Everyone I speak to hails the benefits of making music sober: the productivity, self-awareness and focus. Flint has taught himself production techniques, Wilde credits her improved mental health for giving her the clarity to do some really great stuff that I probably wouldnt have been able to have done if lockdown wasnt around, adding that being sober has given me something to feel elevated and proud of. Any fears that alcohol was a driving force or motivational factor intertwined with their songwriting process, that the booze was the muse, quickly dissipated. Theres a part of me thats like, what can I write about now?, says Burgess. Theres not necessarily the same drama in my life that there was when there was this cyclical self-loathing thing going on. But by not numbing my emotions and exploring in way more depth my inner psyche, it feels like a very rich and even more honest account of the human experience.

Fiona Burgess: Theres not necessarily the same drama in my life that there was when there was this cyclical self-loathing thing going on

(Fiona Burgess)

I was really scared that the only reason I wrote music was to feel better from being hungover, says Lung. I thought it was all part of a linked process. Since Ive stopped Ive been writing another record I was so happy that I could still do it and to know that it wasnt alcohol that was giving me some sort of impetus to create. It was already there. If anything it was making it harder to express myself clearly.

Im realising things about myself that I maybe hadnt brought to the front before because I was clouding it over with a drink, says Woolley. Im certainly going in with less anxiety with what Im comfortable saying. We had our first gig the other night and I came offstage, the first time Ive ever come offstage sober, and I felt better than I ever have done being drunk.

If anything, alcohol was making it harder to express myself clearly

Zac Woolley

The modern touring industry, with its fridges of lager at every turn, its crate-of-beer payments and its brand-sponsored aftershows, is virtually an industrial production line for alcoholics, and bands face an intense unspoken pressure to play the jovial, semi-sloshed hosts at all times, to surrender to excess, to live the cliche. Wilde argues that the industry is making strides in providing coaches to help acts deal with addiction issues (alongside social media backlashes, mental health and general wellness), but as gigs and tours begin to return, do they pose the biggest challenge yet for 2021s freshly sober musicians?

I used to drink all the time before I went onstage and there were times I fell over onstage, it wasnt cool, says Wilde. But I used to think I had to drink or I didnt have confidence. Then when I stopped drinking my performances were so much better This has been really good for me and has transformed my life. If I can stick with it I can help other people if they want it.

I learnt to drink when I was in WU LYF, says Lung. I learnt to drink on the road. You drink after the show because you want to get rid of those aftershow nerves, because theyre just as bad. And then you feel horrible in the van and then someone starts to drink at 12pm and then it just gets earlier and earlier and before you know it youre drinking every day. Its the aftershow beers that will be hardest to say no to. Its really hard to stay in tune when youve been drinking but after the show, whether it goes good or bad, youve got so much energy and you want to tranquillise yourself. So staying present after the show is gonna be really strange.

If you can get through the first few shows, the first week of touring, I think Ill be OK and Ill find a routine, says Flint. Its difficult with playing late, getting excited for shows, staying excited after the shows been great, thats the hardest part of it. But the most important part is that were not gonna do this job forever, so I want to enjoy the shows that I do play. Theres no point looking back on my life and thinking, I didnt enjoy half of that because I was hungover.

Lung, indeed, looks forward to a post-lockdown music world less obsessed with swilling your way into legend. I think its the lamest thing, he says. I cant think of anything less rocknroll than being a f****** drunk. Thats so lame. I think rocknrolls about art the excess should come from the excess of art rather than all these things that youre doing to yourself.

If you or someone you know is suffering from alcohol addiction, you can confidentially call the national alcohol helpline Drinkline on 0300 123 1110 or visit the NHS website here for information about the programmes available to you

Excerpt from:

Kick out the drams: the musicians who went sober during the pandemic - The Independent

Francis Bacon, 1984. (Photo by Ulf Andersen / Getty Images)

In August of 1998, a team of curators, conservators, and archaeologists arrived at 7 Reece Mews, a small flat in Londons South Kensington neighborhood, to start work on the month-long task of transporting its contents to the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin. There, over the next five years, the team labored to painstakingly reconstruct the flat, which for some 30 years had served as the home and studio of Francis Bacon. The artist had moved to Reece Mews in the fall of 1961 and lived there until his death, in 1992, of a heart attack while on a trip to Madrid. The studio re-creation opened at the Hugh Lane in 2001 with some 7,500 pieces of materialslashed canvases, crumpled photographs, pages ripped from medical textbooks, drawings, and hand-scrawled notesnow available for consumption by a public hungry for insight into Bacons life and artistic process.BOOKS IN REVIEW

In the three decades since his death, that appetite seems not to have waned but waxed, as indicated by the staggering amount of material now devoted to Bacon: centenary retrospectives at the Tate and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a five-volume catalogue raisonn, and various biographic monographs whose titles (The Gilded Gutter Life of Francis Bacon; Anatomy of an Enigma) point to his canonization in the public eye as the enfant terrible of 20th-century art.

With Revelations, the latest addition to this litany of biographies, Annalyn Swan and Mark Stevens (who previously collaborated on a lengthy biography of Willem de Kooning) enter the fray, offering the most comprehensive study of one of the leading figures of modernism, someone whose paradoxical pop gravitas places him with the likes of Beckett, Camus, and Sartre. In some 800 pages of text and footnotes, the authorsaided by the artists estatedetail the trajectory of Bacons career with archaeological precision, excavating public and private records to unearth how the openly homosexual painter, preternaturally attuned to the social stage, crafted a rebellious public persona characterized by excesses of sex and violence, drink and drugs. As Swan and Stevens tell it, the ultimate secret of Bacons life was an intractable contradiction: his desperate wish to partake in the ordinary joys and solace denied him as [a sickly] child and young man, and his fear of anything that would shatter his glamorous veneer and make him appear commonplace, vulnerable, or pathetic.

Neither hagiographic nor sordid, Revelations is divided into three sections detailing Bacons youth and early success and failures, his breakthrough in the mid-1940s, and his final decades in London. The authors are adept at contextualizing Bacons artistic development within the story of his romances and exploits and go to great lengths to correct the record, dispelling errant mythologies (often propagated by Bacon himself) that lean too heavily on assertions of natural genius, such as Bacons claim that he rarely made preparatory drawings. Where the last major biography, Michael Peppiatts Anatomy of an Enigmawhich drew from the authors confidential conversations with Bacon over the course of several yearsindulges the mythography of its subject, conceding to Bacons many quips, his claim of being the most artificial person there is, to justify his use of cosmetics, Swan and Stevens are far more restrained, if also excessively discursive, preferring to refract Bacon through the company he kept, studies of his family, and analyses of his art. Their comprehensiveness is particularly instructive when illuminating his years as a commercial furniture and rug designer in the 1930s, a facet of his career that Bacon rarely discussed in public, lest it detract from his reputation as a painter of the macabrea reputation he achieved only in midlife with his 1945 triptych, Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion. That painting marked, according to John Russell, a transition in English art, shocking a society numbed from the long years of World War II. And it also marked a transition for Bacon, who would insist that he began as a painter with this work, a claim that drives Swan and Stevenss investigation into the contours of his artistic persona.

The appeal of an artist biography typically lies in its discussion of creative genius, as well as the hindrances and defeatsor the comfortsthat led to artistic success. Bacon was in no shortage of the elite privilege, particularly in his early years. Born in 1909 to an aristocratic Anglo-Irish family, he was the second of four children, his father a British major who had served in Burma and later trained horses and his mother the heiress to a steel fortune. Asthmatic from a young age, Bacon suffered from an inability to participate in the masculinist traditions of hunting and riding, causing his fatherto whom Bacon claimed to be sexually attractedto regard his son as sexually effete and weak. Both his asthma and his early sexual awakening would provide fodder for Bacons early self-mythologizing. He often spoke of an experience as a child, struggling to breathe and nearly fainting while locked in a dark closet by the family maid, who purportedly kept him hidden away so she could cavort with a secret boyfriend; he also claimed to have had his first sexual encounters with his fathers horse grooms, who purportedly whipped him in the family stables.

While the veracity of these claims remains uncertain, what is true is that Bacon left his family home in the English countryside at 16, supported by a weekly allowance from his mother. In the spring of 1927, he moved briefly to Berlin, where he imbibed the libertine atmosphere of Weimar, and then headed to Paris, where he first saw the works of Picasso in person and fell in with a crowd of artists and designers who inspired him to pursue a career in design. He returned to London in 1928, and it was at this time that he began his relationship with Eric Allden, the first of several powerful older men who provided him not only with sex and companionship but also financial support, as he pursued his ambition of becoming a furniture and rug designer, freelancing for prominent designers and debuting in popular magazines. Men like Allden, and later the well-connected Tory politician Eric Hall, would be among the many sponsors, financial and emotional, that Bacon relied on throughout his life as he stubbornly attempted to develop his own career outside the family name; others included his childhood nanny, who accompanied him for nearly 40 years, and later the gallerists who bailed him out when his gambling debts and profligate spending rendered him temporarily destitute.

A common feature of the artist biography is the allusion to a transformative moment, the pivot point at which the subject recognizes their artistic potential. Swan and Stevens do not stray from this convention: For Bacon, as intimated in this biography as well as the many interviews he gave during his lifetime, this moment came in 1931, when he saw Thirty Years of Picasso, an exhibition held at Alex Reid and Lefevre Gallery in London, and committed himself to studying art. He went back to Paris for two years and took painting lessons from the modernist Roy de Maistre; returning to London in 1933, he exhibited at successively more prominent galleries with the support of his many confidants and connections and was recognizedthough often with mixed reviewsin the British press. (John Berger, in a scathing 1952 review in The New Statesman and Nation, remarked that Bacon was not an important painter.)

Bacons early paintings were riffs on the surrealist mode that had taken Europe by storm in the early 1930s, and for the next several years, he struggled to find a style that would set him apart and that he could claim as his own. By 1937, he stopped exhibiting entirely, a personal defeat that was eclipsed by the arrival of the Second World War in England. When London was bombed by the Germans in 1940, Bacon fled to the countryside to escape the dust that now filled the air. For two years, he worked there in solitude, using as source material newspaper photos of Nazi soldiers and the wreckage of war. The authors of Revelations are at their best when reflecting, as Bacon did, on these moments of internal reckonings, the junctures at which artistic development meets introspection.

After these quiet but crucial years, the figure that begins to emerge is not only the recognized painter of crucifixions and cadavers but the Bacon of popular lore, who prowled the clubs and bars of Soho, gambled away his earnings in Monte Carlo, and had long, torrid, sadomasochistic affairs with a succession of loversfirst with former fighter pilot Peter Lacy and later with George Dyer, the East End hustler who did not, in fact, crash through the Reece Mews skylight (as Bacon claimed) but who met him in a bar. With Lacy, Bacon spent time in Tangier, borrowing advances from gallerists to live in North Africa, where he fell in with American expats like Paul and Jane Bowles and William Burroughs.

But to understand Bacons legacy as an artistnot the one marked by astronomical auction prices but by his assault on the modernist sensibility and his dogged determination to succeed at whatever costthe authors direct readers to Three Studies at the Base of a Crucifixion, the triptych that debuted at Londons Lefevre Gallery in April of 1945, near the end of World War II, to what Swan and Stevens portray as a minor moral and critical uproar. Across its three panels, Bacon depicted the Three Furies from Aeschyluss Oresteia, mythological creatures of vengeance painted with sharp, attenuated necks and engorged bodies against a blood-orange backdrop, a color to shock wan, gray, war-weary London, where for years there had not been any intense light apart from the bomb flashes and subsequent fires.

The true shock of Three Studies, however, was not the sacrilegious subject matter or its garish composition, but rather its moral ambiguity. In refusing to distinguish between good and evil within his painting, Bacon presented a quandary for critics who sought a neat paradigm in the context of the war against German fascism. Nobody wanted to believe that there was in human nature an element that was irreducibly evil, wrote the critic John Russell, and yet Three Studies asserted this condition as primeval fact in a confrontation too beguiling to ignore. That in subsequent decades Bacon would, in his own revisionist approach, use this very painting to mark his beginning as an artista decision that Swan and Stevens present as convincing evidence of his shrewd approach to fashioning his legacy (as well as, frankly, his good taste)justifies the authors somewhat outsize focus on the painting in this biography, though one wishes there were richer descriptions of other notable works.

If you like this article, please give today to help fund The Nations work.

Revelations lingers on the period between the mid-1940s and the early 70s when Bacon ascended to celebrity, detailing the elite social milieu that swirled around him, which included designer Isabel Rawsthorne, writer Sonia Orwell, and painter Lucian Freud. The authors provide many sketches of the coterie of sponsors, confidants, lovers, and enemies that populated Bacons life, but the effect is one that occludes the subject of their study, as the presence of so many supporting characters thrusts Bacon himself into the background. As rife as they are with tales of excess, these years are also marked by moments of tragic symmetry: Lacy died the night of Bacons first retrospective at the Tate in 1962, George Dyer two days before his 1971 retrospective at the Pompidou. In the following two decades, Bacon garnered international acclaim and embarked on long-term, obsessive relationships with younger lovers, including John Edwards, to whom he bequeathed his estate, and Jos Capelo, the man who would be with Bacon in his last moments in Madrid. Throughout the 1970s and 80s, Bacon maintained his reputation for grandiosity and hedonism by swanning around in a Bentley and jet-setting through Europe and the United States, flush with cash from his sales with Marlborough Gallery.

Critics have argued that it was during this period that Bacons paintings became branded, his once-eviscerating symbolism now rote, his celebrity obscuring his talents. This is the double-edged sword of biography, which, like the tortured visages Bacon wrought in his lifetime, may distort as much as it clarifies. In attending to the many details and specifics of Bacons life as well as his legacy, Revelations comprises a more satisfying portrait of the artist.

Read more from the original source:

Behind the Hedonist Persona of Francis Bacon - The Nation

Compared with the clear-cut noble heroes ofthe DC universe, Harley Quinn gets away with metaphorical (and sometimes real) murder. Being a member of the Suicide Squad comes with a whole set of shady perks the kind of morally dark, R-rated hijinks that Bruce Wayne, one of DCs ultimate dyed-in-the-wool do-gooders, knows to givea wide berth.

Or does he? Now that DC has branched out with more mature takes on superhero tales with HBO-appropriate shows like the animated Harley Quinn series, the creative room to push the boundaries has gotten a lot bigger ...if not on the big screen, then at least in the more experimental reaches of the DC hero pantheon. Voiced by Kaley Cuoco, the toon version of Harley hangs tight (and sometimes even surpasses) her comics and movie counterparts when it comes to frequent swearing, cavorting with the wrong crowd, and cracking random skulls.

But thats Harley. Surely Batman himself wouldnt be tied into the more risqu ...would he? Well, the creative minds behind the Harley Quinn series recently shared with Variety that they tried to make it happen, before the higher-ups at DC descended with a mandate to have Bruce Wayne grappling-hook his way out of what couldve been truly risqu territory.

Its incredibly gratifying and free to be using characters that are considered villains because you just have so much more leeway, said Justin Halpern, one of Harley Quinns co-creators and executive producers, before delving into a tawdry unmade scene one that wouldve taken Batman way outside his typical zone.

A perfect example of that is in this third season of Harley [when] we had a moment where Batman was going down on Catwoman. And DC was like, You cant do that. You absolutely cannot do that. Theyre like, Heroes dont do that. So, we said, Are you saying heroes are just selfish lovers? They were like, No, its that we sell consumer toys for heroes. Its hard to sell a toy if Batman is also going down on someone.

Darkness in all its forms surrounds the Caped Crusader: Its part of his long-running mystique. And theres no question that Bruce has had his share of chances, over the decades, to indulge in some decidedly non-heroic hedonism. Christopher Nolan teased that very idea in Batman Begins, when Bruce (Christian Bale) shows up at his own birthday party looking like a debauched playboy, swilling wine and frolicking with supermodels (though he ended up having a truly heroic reason). But DCs point seems to be that, even with all his wealth and worldly connections,Batman may have seen it all,butlike a stoic superhero, he probably doesnt do it all. At least not as far as they want to confirm on-screen.

Harley, on the other hand, pretty much gets to do whatever she likes and as the first two seasons of the animated series have shown, her appetite for mayhem and hedonism is more than big enough to carry the DC universe on its back. DC hasnt yet revealed a premiere date for Season 3 of Harley Quinn, but its expected to arrive with 10 new episodes sometime later this year (or early 2022) onHBO Max.

View post:

Creators of animated Harley Quinn series reveal the Batman scene so risqu, DC made them cut it - SYFY WIRE

[SPOILERS] On Friday, June 11, Netflix dropped Part 2 of Lupin, the French thriller TV series based on the Arsne Lupin novels by Maurice LeBlanc. Part 1, which was released on January 8 of this year, overnight became Netflixs most-watched non-English-language TV show with 76 million viewers in the first month, and the first French show to break Netflixs U.S. Top Ten ranking. The reasons for its success are numerous, including a star in the form of the inimitable Omary Sy (of Les Intouchables fame), a flashy Parisian backdrop, and source material that sits at the heart of French literature (though it may be new to many Americans watching).

The first season follows the journey of Assane Diop, played by Omar Sy, as he attempts to avenge the death of his father Babakar at the hands of Hubert Pellegrini, one of the richest men in France. Diop has spent his entire life styling himself after the character Arsne Lupin, a gentleman burglar and master of disguise, and each episode features an assortment of capers and costumes borrowed from LeBlanc and updated for the times (although, as in many crime thrillers, some of the technology used veers on the side of futuristic).

Advertisement

Whereas Part 1 was lauded for showing some of the real Paris, and included scenes in suburban HLMs or state prisons, Part 2 is all glitz and glamor: swanky restaurants, luxury Parisian homes, and a final episode set entirely at a symphony charity fundraiser.

Much of the show is designed to call attention to wealth disparities in present day France and, by extension, the world. Assane is the son of a poor Senegalese immigrant, who was framed for the theft of a famous necklace so that his already-wealthy employer, Pellegrini, could claim the insurance money.

Pellegrini is a Villain with a capital V, a cartoonish rendering of old money white male privilege, the kind of man who pockets donations from his own charity foundation and keeps an assassin on payroll. And the farther you get into the show, the worse he gets. While this is clearly done to make the thieving, adulterous, generally manipulative Assane look like a hero in comparison, at times Pellegrinis evilness is so over-the-top it gets in its own way.

Pellegrinis daughter, Juliette, is a more effective tool for showcasing effortless entitlement. In one episode, Juliette complains to Assane, her old flame, that she has too much money but that her life has become boring, lacking adrenaline. She goads him into playing the bad boy of his youth, dining and dashing and then running off on a stolen vespa. Its later revealed that Assane planned the whole thing, paying the restaurant and the scooters owner to fabricate an evening of infantile hedonism. Juliettes true stripes are shown: she thinks nothing of being bad with Assane no matter who gets shorted, because she knows that she can always tell herself it was his influence, and go home to her safe, privileged world.

We get a lot more of Assanes backstory in Part 2, including an incident in which a shopkeeper refuses to rent a violin to Assanes future wife, Claire, because he doesnt trust the young black boy she keeps company with. Its the first time he asks himself, What would Arsne Lupin do? Steal the violin, of course, in an act of revenge against the racist shop owner. Though he gets caught, the rush of the game sticks with him, setting him on a path towards ever-bigger heists.

Though Omar Sy manages to pull off a massive charm offensive in these five new episodes, there seems to be a huge effort made to make the show more serious than it needs to be. Vast conspiracies, bloated bad guys, and threats of child murder detract somewhat from the shows mischievous, lighthearted core. Many of the characters also come off as particularly one-note: Pellegrini, as previously mentioned; Assanes ex-wife Claire, who too-often wears the angry divorce hat; Belkacem, who too-often wears the angry cop lady hat; Raoul, whose only personality traits are being obsessed with Lupin and being obsessed with his dad; or Lonard, the sociopathic assassin who seems to beg for some kind of backstory.

That being said, the show is impossible to stop watching once youve begun. Its shiny and exciting, and occasionally offers some purely marvelous moments, such as Assane taking a joyride on the Seine in a stolen boat while Jacques Dutroncs Gentleman Cambrioleur plays in the background. Its already been confirmed for a Part 3, so heres hoping the Lupin team can get their act together and smooth out the rough edges. Because the potential, like Lupin himself, seems to be without limit.

Go here to read the rest:

'Lupin' Part 2 is Glamorous and Addictive, if a Little on the Nose - Frenchly

The Sherlocks will headline The Black Prince in Northampton later this year as part of a 15-date UK tour.

In recent years, the Sheffield quartet have become one of the most exciting live bands on the indie circuit, selling out tours across the UK and Europe and opening for the likes of Liam Gallagher, Kings Of Leon, Kaiser Chiefs and The Libertines.

Earlier this year, they released End Of The Earth, their first new music since their 2019 sophomore album Under Your Sky.

The LP reached number 20 in the Official UK Charts while single NYC (Sing It Loud) which was released on the same day, topped the Official Vinyl Charts.

The album followed their 2017 debut Live For The Moment which established them as key contenders in a new wave of British bands keeping alt-rock and indie vital for a new generation of fans.

If Live For The Moment was an insight into the hedonism and heartbreak of youth, its successor Under Your Sky saw frontman Kiaran Crook writing songs which bridged the exuberance of youth with the reflection and maturity of young adulthood.

The band is currently working on their third album.

The Sherlocks headline the Abington Square venue on Thursday, October 7. Support acts are TBC.

Read this article:

Indie quartet The Sherlocks announce Northampton gig at Black Prince - Northampton Chronicle and Echo

She's been recognised for her "services to music"

Skunk Anansie singer and Absolute Radio presenter Skin has been awarded an OBE (The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) in the Queens 2021 Birthday Honours list.

First established by King George V in 1917, OBEs reward contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service.

Honoured under her real name of Deborah Ann Dyer, singer, songwriter, author, DJ, model and radio presenter Skin has been recognised for her services to music.

Celebrating the news, Skin shared a photo of herself on Instagram and wrote: The face you make when you get an OBE!!

Not bad for a skinny black girl from Brixton who fell in love with Rock & Roll!! But seriously, this is a lovely thing to happen to me and Im quite chuffed, gonna take a step back and suck it in.

53-year-old Skin co-founded Skunk Anansie in 1994 alongside bassist Richard "Cass" Lewis and guitarist Martin "Ace" Kent and the bands first two studio albums 1995s Paranoid & Sunburnt and 1996s Stoosh - went Platinum in the UK.

Skunk Anansie also scored a string of hit singles in the late 90s including Weak, Hedonism (Just Because You Feel Good), Brazen (Weep) and Charlie Big Potato, and they were the last band of the 20th Century to headline The Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury when they topped the bill on Sunday 27th June 1999.

Seven years after their split, Skunk Anansie reformed in 2008 and they have released three further studio albums to date Wonderlustre (2010), Black Traffic (2012) and Anarchytecture (2016).

Last year, Skin released her acclaimed autobiography It Takes Blood And Guts and she was unveiled as The Duck on the first series of TV show The Masked Singer.

In October 2020, Skin hosted a new 10-part series on Absolute Radio called The Skin Show, and it returned for a second season in early 2021.

Absolute Radios Skin Tings podcast, which launched this spring, features Skin chatting to her musical heroes and some of the most exciting up and coming talent.

Guests have included Debbie Harry, Billy Corgan, Shirley Manson, Arlo Parks, Paul Weller, Sam Bettens, Joan Armatrading, Living Colour and the legendary Annie Lennox.

Everyone at Absolute Radio congratulates Skin on her incredible achievement!

Elizabeth Woolridge Grant (Lana Del Rey)

William Bruce Rose (Axl Rose)

Gerard Crosbie (Gerry Cinnamon)

Edward Louis Severson III (Eddie Vedder)

Farrokh Bulsara (Freddie Mercury)

Michael Peter Balzary (Flea)

Perry Bernstein (Perry Farrell)

Frank Ferrano (Nikki Sixx)

Frank Edwin Wright III (Tr Cool)

Courtney Michelle Harrison (Courtney Love)

Georg Albert Ruthenberg (Pat Smear)

Chaim Klein Witz (Gene Simmons)

James Newell Osterberg, JR. (Iggy Pop)

Vincent Damon Furnier (Alice Cooper)

Michael Ryan Pritchard (Mike Dirnt)

Ronald James Padavona (Ronnie James Dio)

Bree Joanna Alice Robinson (Brody Dalle)

Chad Robert Turton (Chad Kroeger)

Nicholas Jones (Nicky Wire)

Amy Lynn Hartzler (Amy Lee)

William Perks (Bill Wyman)

Jeffrey Isbell (Izzy Stradlin)

Stanley Eisen (Paul Stanley)

Henry Garfield (Henry Rollins)

Richard Harrison (Rick Parfitt)

Vincent Neil Wharton (Vince Neil)

Stevland Hardaway Morris (Stevie Wonder)

Michael McKagan (Duff McKagan)

John Baldwin (John Paul Jones)

Keith Palmer (Maxim Reality)

Eric Patrick Clapp (Eric Clapton)

Susan Janet Ballion (Siouxsie Sioux)

David Robert Hayward Stenton Jones (David Bowie)

Richard Wayne Penniman (Little Richard)

John Simon Ritchie (Sid Vicious)

Paul Daniel Frehley (Ace Frehley)

John Graham Mellor (Joe Strummer)

David Howell Evans (The Edge)

Marvin Lee Aday (Meatloaf)

Steven Victor Tallarico (Steven Tyler)

John Michael Osbourne (Ozzy Osbourne)

John Francis Bongiovi (Jon Bon Jovi)

John Anthony Gillis (Jack White)

Reginald Kenneth Dwight (Elton John)

Robert Allen Zimmerman (Bob Dylan)

Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor (Lorde)

Quentin Leo Cook (Fatboy Slim)

Jake Edwin Charles Kennedy (Jake Bugg)

Listen to Absolute Radio on DAB nationwide, on our free app, by hitting that play button on the bottom of your screen, via your smart speaker (Play Absolute Radio) and on Freeview, Sky, and Virgin Media TV.

More here:

Skin awarded OBE in the Queen's 2021 Birthday Honours list - Free Radio