http://resonancefm.com/schedule

Don’t know any more than that, but there should be some interesting sounds and conversations coming up

Somewhere I have an MP3 of a two hour or something radio show where Henry Flynt is talking about music and playing some of his plus tunes he likes. This is old and I can’t find it from a quick search. I may not have got it from the web, someone may have passed it to me. However, it is great if only I could identify it. But there is Flynt stuff online including these more recent video interviews which I haven’t looked at yet:

http://imaginepeace.com/news/archives/996

P.S. Stubbs was on Radio 4 this morning promoting his book. Perhaps we should try to read it & then critique it. But, like you, from his talk, I don’t feel too tempted.

As HW points out with regard to early reggae (and the same argument might be applied to southern soul – look at Dobie Grey in the Drift Away period for example, although I prefer his earlier cuts like Out On The Floor), you can take a musical influence without taking on world views. So nothing wrong with Miles using Stockhausen if that’s what he did. Stockhausen’s more important compositions are largely instrumental, which also neatly avoids the problems with lyrical content you might find elsewhere.

I wouldn’t suggest that people shouldn’t use cars because Henry Ford was a racist, that would be silly, although I do think we should get rid of the private car for other reasons. My problem was that Stubbs presented all criticisms of Stockhausen as reactionary, and since this is not true it becomes a defence of what is reactionary in Stockhausen. Stubbs may do better in the book, or he may not have been aware of these criticisms (strange if this is the case because these criticisms fractured the avant-garde at the time they were made – Flynt in New York even more so than Cardew in London). Stubbs’s argument in his talk was wrong-headed.

I think Flynt’s critique is really spot on and racism is only one aspect of it. I came across Flynt’s attacks on Stockhausen before reading Cardew’s Stockhausen Serves Imperialism which being later seemed to me in some ways a weak echo of Flynt. My impression is Flynt was very meticulous in the way he went through Stockhausen’s writing, as well as attending that lecture. I do not agree with all Flynt’s ideas (Creep Theory for example) but my view is he can be trusted to report matters accurately. Flynt takes himself very seriously and would be horrified by your suggestion that he may have misreported something (which isn’t to argue he couldn’t have made a mistake, only that he would never do so deliberately). And Stochhausen’s views as recorded elsewhere mesh with what Flynt reports. Also if you look at Stockhausen’s justifications for his music they are ridiculous, absolutely absurd. So to enjoy the music – if that’s what you want to do – it seems to me it is very necessary to separate it from the man. Leaving aside the racism, there is still much that was both ridiculous and reactionary in Stockhausen, and as a result I found the all round defence from Stubbs in his talk really annoying!

With regard to Flynt, I was disappointed that I was unable to find a copy of his Communists Must Give Revolutionary Leadership In Culture online. I had a photocopy and that should be available for you to look at in the archive of my material at The National Art Library in London (should you want to look at it of course!). The tape of the interview I did with Flynt should also be there, alongside some other Flynt materials. I kept my copy of Flynt’s book Blueprint For A Higher Civilization, not sure if the NAL has a copy of that, it is very hard to source, there only ever seem to have been about 200 copies in circulation. But much of that is online now anyway,.

Not knowing much about Daunt Books, I didn’t know it was owned by JP Morgan, so thanks for pointing that out. I wouldn’t necessarily criticise Zero for that, we all have to live out the contradictions of capitalism until it is finally abolished…

There seems to be plenty out there on Stockhausen’s racism, & Cage’s too. I still enjoy their music. VS Naipaul is a racist too, and I still appreciate his writing. Mentioning Miles Davis was not an attempt to stop criticism of Stockhausen. Shame I have to spell it out. If only things were less fuzzy, and as clear-cut as some of the comments here seem to imply. The quote of Stockhausen seems to be hearsay and a half-quote by its own admission. That’s not to say he wasn’t a racist either, just to point out the inadequacy of starting an article with a quote that is not a quote as stated by the author.

Anyway… while we’re on the subject of the bourgeois… it struck me as interesting that Zero Books held the launch of both books at Daunt Books, owned and established by a former investment banker from JP Morgan.

Check out page 122 on the link here :

http://books.google.com/books?id=0ySi8l7B4-cC&pg=PA122&lpg=PA122&dq=Stockhausen+racist&source=bl&ots=8cSixRVoot&sig=efss4P_7_IMpi-H_Pcvq-OiVhYw&hl=ko&ei=k7D1SaXOEZyKtgOe6fXrCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10