Going Underground: Paul McCartney, The Beatles and the UK Counterculture

You can keep your San Francisco.

For my time machine, London circa 1966/67 sounds like it could have been ground zero for the counterculture, and a recent documentary examines this possibility.

Going Underground: Paul McCartney, The Beatles and the UK Counterculture takes a detailed look at Swinging London and the impact that Britain's radicals had on shaking the island country out of its Victorian slumber.

Press:

In the mid-1960s the often rigid and colourless British way of life was irrevocably transformed by the emergence of a cultural underground movement. Led by a loose collective of young radicals, they introduced new social, sexual and aesthetic perspectives. Operating out of the heart of London, their various activities, from 'The International Times' - a bi-weekly journal that no hipster could be seen without - to the psychedelic nightclub UFO, promoted alternative lifestyles and values, and sparked a social revolution.

This film not only traces the history of this underground scene, but also explores its impact on the pre-eminent British group of the era, The Beatles. Although they were well established by the time the movement emerged, Paul McCartney in particular, was closely linked with several of its key players, and through his exposure to cutting edge concepts brought ideas directly from the avant-garde into the mainstream.

Featuring many new interviews with key players from the time including; IT editor and long term friend of Paul McCartney, Barry Miles; founder of IT and UFO club organiser, John 'Hoppy' Hopkins; founder of UFO and Pink Floyd producer , Joe Boyd; Soft Machine drummer, Robert Wyatt; drummer from experimental improvisational collective AMM, Eddie Prevost; proprietor of Indica, the counter-cultural gallery, John Dunbar; Underground scenester, vocalist with The Deviants and IT journalist, Mick Farren; plus author of 'Days in the Life: Voices from the English Underground 1961 - 1971', Jonathon Greene; Beatles expert, Chris Ingham and Mojo jounalist Mark Paytress. Also includesrare archive footage, photographs from private collections and music from The Pink Floyd, The Beatles, Soft Machine, AMM and others.

Corroncho - Corroncho

Admittedly, I’m no expert or authority on salsa music, Cumbia, or any other kind of Latin music-so take everything I say with a grain of salt and a shot of Tequila.

Corroncho is an album/collaboration between Roxy Music guitarist Phil Manzanera and Columbian artist/sculptor Lucho Brieva. They began taking shape after working with Chrissie Hynde on the Spanish version of her song “Complicada.” The two men began a working relationship between 2003 – 2008 and that material is now presented n Corroncho.

The record breezes through several different genres with guests like Hynde, Robert Wyatt, Annie Lennox, and a bunch of other players that I’m too lazy to look up. And while the genres may not always follow a Latin path, all of the songs presented are sung or spoken in Spanish with Manzanera providing flawless production and performances underneath.

It’s presented as a loosely knit concept album that I cannot adequately explain or translate. It’s described as songs about two corroncho characters, which I learned was a derogatory term in Columbia, so if this offends, blame the two parties involved please.

Corroncho is a pleasing effort, if nothing more than of a background flavor for adult cotemporary aficionados and timid world music explorers. There’s very little not to like, to be honest, but very little to remember too.

Yes, there are moments of Roxy Music that can be found and yes, Manzanera shines as a wonderfully understated and versatile player, but those seeking out something revelatory about the guitarist or looking for an introduction to Brieva’s other artistic endeavors, Corroncho remains as a nothing more than a lite background pleasantry.

Robert Wyatt - Comicopera

Robert Wyatt is a verb. Seriously. “Wyatting” is the act of going into a bar with a jukebox and playing the strangest track on it with the only intention being to annoy the other drinkers. From what I understand, Robert Wyatt tracks are perfect for “wyatting,” but I must confess to never actually seeing a Robert Wyatt song on a jukebox, but I have dropped a few quarters on “Revolution 9” to achieve the same effect.
I quickly learned that most bartenders have the ability to reset the device and move on to the next track.
There’s not a track on Robert’s 16th album, Comicopera, that would qualify as annoying. As it stands, every track on it is surprisingly accessible (by Wyatt terms, anyway) even though the subject matter, contemplations on the absurdity of our lives, doesn’t seem like fodder for social drinking.
Instead, it’s an album of incredible introspection, filled to the gills with contributing musicians and dozens of different instruments. Performers like Brian Eno, Paul Weller, and Roxy Music’s Phil Manzanera join in, along with a guest list of artists from around the world that I’m really too absorbed to recognize, since my tastes run more towards the rock than genres that are probably more important.
And make no mistake, Comicopera has more in common with jazz than it does with the material that probably brought you to this website. So take the album’s perceived brilliance with a big old grain of salt, as it’s an album that people smarter than you listen to, but I question how often.
It’s not because Comicopera is a bad album. Far from it. But the subject matter, the vastness of it all and the huge scope that it takes to address it all, can make for one incredibly dismal album.
Wyatt is a radical, which means that those who align themselves with him and his music will probably be offended by all of this, and I understand why. But then again, Wyatt has offered his own opinion of the ills of this world that, I feel, entitles me to offer my opinion of his take on it. To that point, I’m drained of this kind of cynicism (as well as low-brow variations of it that produce voter apathy) because I feel a strong urge to move forward regardless of how fucked things may seem today.
Part of this may have something to do that I wake up each morning to two kids completely obvious to the world’s problems, filled with unrequited joy that a new day is beginning. So in other words, I gotta fucking believe, because I certainly don’t want them to turn out as embittered as Wyatt seems now.
When Wyatt opines from his wheelchair, regardless of topic, his voice sounds utterly defeated. Whether he’s smacking at organized religion, war, or longing for similar minded radicals like Che Guevara, Wyatt comes across as a sad old man at the end of the bar who offers his opinions to anyone willing to sit long enough to listen and pay for the drinks during the process.
By the end of Comicopera, Wyatt’s singing in Spanish and Italian, metaphorically reminding us that our planet is larger than the one we see outside of our front doors everyday while flipping the bird at the England’s (and America’s) inability at producing a political agenda that meets his approval. So rather than inspire us, he essentially gives up on us, positioning us as too far gone to correct the ills that our elected officials have laid before us.
Unfortunately, the last half of the album also reminds me how awesome the first half of the album was before it transformed into such an indignant drag.
Or, to put it another way, before Robert himself turned Comicopera into another night of wyatting.

This review originally appeared in Glorious Noise