The sad thing: Troy Davis was murdered by a violently anti-black country.
The tragic thing: This brings us no closer to revolution. Taking someone’s life is supposed to be the last straw… and they’ve been doing it for four hundred years. What has to happen for us to start crying out and demanding our freedom? Apparently not psychological abuse, not imprisonment, not rape, not murder… I implore you, Black people, GET ANGRY. Death should not be the only way a black person can rest in peace.
Another black punk band recently rediscovered!
By Mike Rubin [New York Times article] “This band was punk before punk was punk”
ON an evening in late February at a club here called the Monkey House, there was a family reunion of sorts. As the band Rough Francis roared through a set of anthemic punk rock, Bobby Hackney leaned against the bar and beamed. Three of his sons — Bobby Jr., Julian and Urian — are in Rough Francis, but his smile wasn’t just about parental pride. It was about authorship too. Most of the songs Rough Francis played were written by Bobby Sr. and his brothers David and Dannis during their days in the mid-1970s as a Detroit power trio called Death.
The group’s music has been almost completely unheard since the band stopped performing more than three decades ago. But after all the years of silence, Death’s moment has finally arrived. It comes, however, nearly a decade too late for its founder and leader, David Hackney, who died of lung cancer in 2000. “David was convinced more than any of us that we were doing something totally revolutionary,” said Bobby Sr., 52.
Forgotten except by the most fervent punk rock record collectors — the band’s self-released 1976 single recently traded hands for the equivalent of $800 — Death would likely have remained lost in obscurity if not for the discovery last year of a 1974 demo tape in Bobby Sr.’s attic. Released last month by Drag City Records as “… For the Whole World to See,” Death’s newly unearthed recordings reveal a remarkable missing link between the high-energy hard rock of Detroit bands like the Stooges and MC5 from the late 1960s and early ’70s and the high-velocity assault of punk from its breakthrough years of 1976 and ’77. Death’s songs “Politicians in My Eyes,” “Keep On Knocking” and “Freakin Out” are scorching blasts of feral ur-punk, making the brothers unwitting artistic kin to their punk-pioneer contemporaries the Ramones, in New York; Rocket From the Tombs, in Cleveland; and the Saints, in Brisbane, Australia. They also preceded Bad Brains, the most celebrated African-American punk band, by almost five years.
Jack White of the White Stripes, who was raised in Detroit, said in an e-mail message: “The first time the stereo played ‘Politicians in My Eyes,’ I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. When I was told the history of the band and what year they recorded this music, it just didn’t make sense. Ahead of punk, and ahead of their time.”
The teenage Hackney brothers started playing R&B in their parents’ garage in the early ’70s but switched to hard rock in 1973, after seeing an Alice Cooper show. Dannis played drums, Bobby played bass and sang, and David wrote the songs and contributed propulsive guitar work, derived from studying Pete Townshend’s power-chord wrist technique. Their musicianship tightened when their mother allowed them to replace their bedroom furniture with mikes and amps as long as they practiced for three hours every afternoon. “From 3 to 6,” said Dannis, 54, “we just blew up the neighborhood.”
Death began playing at cabarets and garage parties on Detroit’s predominantly African-American east side, but were met with reactions ranging from confusion to derision. “We were ridiculed because at the time everybody in our community was listening to the Philadelphia sound, Earth, Wind & Fire, the Isley Brothers,” Bobby said. “People thought we were doing some weird stuff. We were pretty aggressive about playing rock ’n’ roll because there were so many voices around us trying to get us to abandon it.”
When the band was ready to record, David chose a studio by pinning the Yellow Pages listings to the wall and throwing a dart; it landed on Groovesville Productions, a company owned by Don Davis, a successful producer for Stax Records. Groovesville signed the band, and in 1974 it began work at United Sound Recording Studios in Detroit, where it shared space with Funkadelic, the Dramatics and Gladys Knight. At the time David was 21, Dannis was 19 and Bobby, still a student at Southeastern High School, was 17.
“They were just so impressive, and the sound was just so big for three guys,” said Brian Spears, who was director of publishing at Groovesville and oversaw their sessions. “I knew those kids were great, but trying to break a black group into rock ’n’ roll was just tough during that time.”
The apparent nihilism of the name Death was also out of step with the times. “Nobody could get past the name,” Mr. Spears said. “It seemed to be a real detriment. When you said the name of the group to anybody, it was like, ‘Man, why you calling the group Death?’ ”
The Hackneys said Mr. Davis brought a tape of Death to a meeting in New York with the record executive Clive Davis. Afterward Don Davis told the brothers that Clive Davis had liked the recordings but not the band’s name; there could be no deal unless they changed it. “That’s when my brother David got a little angry,” Dannis said. “He told Don Davis to tell Clive Davis, ‘Hell no!’ ”
Part of the reason David refused was because he was writing a rock opera about death that portrayed it in a positive light, Bobby Sr. said. “He strongly believed that we could get a contract with another record label,” he added. “We were young and cocky, but David was the cockiest of us all.”
That defiance has become central to Death’s underground legend: what could be more punk rock than telling the suits to take a hike in the name of artistic integrity, even if punk didn’t quite exist yet? But separating fact from lore is tricky after three decades. The Hackneys remember Clive Davis’s label affiliation as Columbia Records, but Don Davis — who initially didn’t recall working with a band called Death — said in a phone interview that Clive Davis was with Arista Records, although he couldn’t remember the specifics of the meeting and if the group’s name was an issue. A spokeswoman for Clive Davis said he had no recollection of the group or of any meeting concerning it.
The brothers Dannis (left) and Bobby Hackney.
Death and Groovesville parted ways in 1976. Don Davis produced two No. 1 hits that year, one of which was Johnnie Taylor’s “Disco Lady.” The Hackneys, meanwhile, pressed 500 copies of “Politicians in My Eyes,” backed with “Keep On Knocking,” on their own Tryangle label but found it nearly impossible to get radio play in Detroit. Disco had begun to dominate the marketplace — thanks in part to “Disco Lady” — and control of radio playlists was shifting from local disc jockeys to corporate consultants. Bobby said 1976 “was really a tough year for us,” citing “the disco ebb tide” with particular chagrin. “We just figured nobody wanted to hear rock ’n’ roll anymore.”
The Hackney brothers as the 4th Movement, from left, Bobby, Dannis and David.
As their disenchantment grew, the brothers were invited by a distant relative to visit Vermont. “So we came up here to clear our heads for a couple of weeks,” Bobby said with a laugh. “That was like 30-something years ago.”
“We’re still clearing our heads,” Dannis said.
Performance by Rough Francis
Settling in Burlington, the brothers released two albums of gospel rock as the 4th Movement in the early 1980s. David became increasingly homesick and moved back to Detroit in 1982, continuing to make music until his death. In 1983 Bobby and Dannis formed a reggae band, Lambsbread, which became a familiar presence during Vermont’s late-1980s jam-band boom; eight albums later Lambsbread is still active on the New England college circuit. The two brothers bought a house together east of Burlington in Jericho, built their own recording studio there and raised families. Bobby Sr. and Dannis each have five children.
Bobby’s children were crucial to Death’s resurrection. The Hackneys had never shared the details of their Death experience with their kids. “We had moved on in our lives and thought that chapter was over because we went through so much rejection with that music,” Bobby said. “We just didn’t want to relive it, and I especially didn’t want to relive it again with my children.”
But last year Julian heard the Tryangle single at a party in San Francisco and recognized his father’s voice. Soon after, Bobby Jr. did a Google search that revealed the Holy Grail status of the band’s only release. This news astounded Bobby Sr., who dug the master tapes out of storage last May for the first time in three decades and sat down with Dannis for a listen. The music “literally took our breath away,” Bobby Sr. said.
“We looked at each other, and we said: ‘This is truly some of the best rock ’n’ roll we ever heard. Wow, David was right.’ David knew it, and always believed it, much more than we did.”
Bobby Sr.’s sons were equally impressed. Bobby Jr., a veteran of several Burlington hardcore bands, formed Rough Francis with two brothers and two friends to play Death’s music as a tribute to his family. (The band’s moniker comes from his Uncle David’s nickname.)
“We were just trying to find ways to inform people” about Death’s music, Bobby Jr. said. “When I first heard it, I thought: ‘This can’t be real. People have to know about this. This is crazy!’ I felt like I had found Jimmy Hoffa or something.”
The young Hackneys weren’t the only Death enthusiasts. In August 2007 a record collector named Robert Cole Manis, having heard “Keep On Knocking” on a 2001 bootleg compilation of obscure punk singles, found a copy of the Tryangle single on eBay and acquired it for $400 and $400 worth of rare records.
“It was true love when I first heard it,” Mr. Manis said. “I think the record is just phenomenal. It’s timeless. It’s an amazing document.”
While surfing the Internet last summer, Mr. Manis saw a posting from a friend of Bobby Jr.’s on a punk message board announcing the rediscovery of the Death tapes. Mr. Manis excitedly tracked down the Hackneys in Vermont and helped put them in touch with the Chicago indie label Drag City, which he had worked with on a previous reissue project.
The music is an “undeniable combination of classic and punk rock elements,” said Rian Murphy, a spokesman for Drag City. “You can put the needle down on that record in any given place and just be completely transported.”
The Hackneys and Drag City are discussing reissuing the 4th Movement records too, and Bobby Sr. and Dannis are considering playing some live shows as Death, with the Lambsbread guitarist Bobbie Duncan taking over on guitar.
Death’s newfound acclaim has surprised the Hackneys but, Bobby Sr. said, David had predicted that Death would find fame one day. “David came to me right before he died, and he had some master tapes of ours,” he said. “I jokingly said to him, ‘David, I have enough of our stuff, man, I’m running out of room.’ And he said, ‘Bob, you’ve got to keep all this stuff, the world’s going to come looking for it one day, and when the world comes looking for it, I’ll know that you’ll have it.
“You can only imagine the emotions that I go through in my quiet moments when I reflect on that.”
BY JAMES GREENE, JR. [BLURT.com]
The strange, sad story of punk’s first and almost completely forgotten all-black group began in Philadelphia in 1974 when four guys – Kenny “Stinker” Gordon (vocals), Preston “Chip Wreck” Morris III (guitar), Kerry “Lenny Steel” Boles (bass), and Michael “Spider” Sanders (drums) – came together over a mutual love of acts like the Mothers of Invention and Alice Cooper. The teens christened themselves Pure Hell and soon realized there was nothin’ doin’ in Philly. Thus, they moved their act to Manhattan.
Guitarist Johnny Thunders, who had befriended Sanders in Philadelphia, put Pure Hell up in his band’s New York loft. Naturally, this location was advantageous for networking, and the band soon found itself on bills with Patti Smith and Television. They also landed a manager, Curtis Knight (who years earlier had employed a young Jimi Hendrix in his band the Squires).
Like most NYC-based punks of the time, Pure Hell made quite a splash in Europe when they traveled there for a 1978 tour. Around this time the band released their snappy cover of “These Boots Are Made for Walking” backed with the original rave-up “No Rules.” The single charted in the U.K., prompting Knight to hurry Pure Hell into the studio again to record their full-length debut, Noise Addiction.
Unfortunately, before the album was completed, group and manager had a major falling out over Knight’s increasingly nightmarish behavior (including the molestation of an underage fan at a London party). When it was time to fly back to the States, the band members voluntarily disappeared. Knight, left high and dry, departed Europe with the Noise Addiction master tapes and Pure Hell’s chances of bigger, broader success.
PH nabbed a new manager and slugged it out for a couple more years before finally calling it a day in 1980. In the decades that followed, while just about every other band from the Bowery scene became lionized and hailed as true pioneers, Pure Hell faded into obscurity. They existed only in the memories and on the lips of the few hundred or so people who had seen or known them.
One person aware of Pure Hell and their trailblazing efforts was Mike Schneider, owner and operator of Welfare Records. “A friend of mine was playing in a band with an original member of Pure Hell and he told me about the existence of the unreleased [Noise Addiction] recordings,” wrote Schneider in an e-mail to Blurt. “I tried to contact Curtis Knight back then and had no luck. Eventually I was able to contact his wife in 2005 because she was looking to sell the reels, and I bought them off her then.” Knight passed away in 1999.
Pure Hell’s front man Kenny Gordon was “shocked” to hear Welfare had recovered his band’s long-lost tapes. “Our history was vague and lost for sure in a void,” the singer in a recent interview. After receiving the go-ahead from Gordon and the band’s other surviving members (Sanders had died in 2002), Welfare Records remixed, re-mastered, and formally introduced the world to Pure Hell’s Noise Addiction earlier this year. And what an introduction it was.
These guys pushed the histrionic sound of the Voidoids and the Dolls to a strange, new extreme on Noise Addiction. A few beats faster and Pure Hell could have easily smoked most hardcore groups. Still, you can’t deny the rawk rooted in the nasty swagger of cuts like “Hard Action” and the fist-slamming title track. Mike Sanders’ drumming pops like a freshly starched collar while the guitars bleed a sharp river of wild notes. Kenny Gordon sneers a nice Iggy impression on the vocals, but he avoids sounding too derivative or hacky.
In short, Pure Hell and their excavated album are really pure joy, a literal blast from the past that will delight fans of the old school and all us aging grumps who aren’t impressed by much anymore. “If this album had been released thirty years ago, it would have influenced so many people,” speculates Schneider. “Who knows how big [Pure Hell] would have become as a band?”
It seems like learning to appreciate black beauty is kind of like trying to appreciate the taste of liverwurst. No one likes it and if someone admits they have a taste for it there is a resounding ew!! In this world it is the epitome of ugliness. Asking someone to appreciate our physical selves is asking them to reject the fact that blackness is ugly. “See this grotesque thing as beautiful” is essentially what we’re saying. This brings me to my experiences as a brown-skinned girl who tans quite easily…
close but no cigar
I never really had an issue with my skin color when I was a child. Sure, I coveted the long, wavy hair of the mixed girls in my class, but I was caramel skinned. This meant that I wasn’t considered as pretty as the light -skinned girls but I could avoid the name calling that was rampant in elementary school (doo-doo stain, black as night, coal) and was light enough to, if I chose, do the name calling without someone pointing out the embarrassing fact that I was almost as dark as the “coal black” I was making fun of. My mother used barbie commercials and my favorite cartoons to teach me what was behind the light-skinned/dark-skinned obsession (something that, as I said, didn’t seem to hurt me much) and I’d reprimand my friends for saying things like “good hair” (though I’d wanted it as much as any other black girl). Succumbing to internalized racism was a grave sin in my household, and I resisted it as much as a black child could. Even when I tanned to a deep chocolate color every year (something that, to me, was evidence of a good summer), hating my skin tone didn’t come up until I was in ninth grade.
Ninth grade. I was cute. I’d always been cute. Up until now I had never looked at myself in the mirror with such distain and anger. It was early in the summer and I had already gotten my deep tan. I hadn’t even had a chance to to show myself off yet. I cried and complained to my mother that the sun had made my skin tone “uneven”. ”Are you sure that’s why you’re upset?” she asked. She knew what I was going through, but not wanting to embarrass me she suggested I put on sunscreen to “even it out.” I was embarrassed. Are you really crying because you’re too dark? How could you? What does mommy think? I was shocked that as socially conscious as I was, I fell prey to this thing that causes black people to hate themselves. I felt like the girls I had chastised all my life. Despite my dignity trying to take over, boys were more important than shame now. I spent the rest of the summer with my friend SPF 50.
Jump to 2011, California. I’m hard pressed to find a black couple anywhere. Black women are alone, black men are with non-black women. I walk past a black man and he starts looking at his cell phone or suddenly the sky becomes very interesting. I AM AVOIDED. It makes me angry, but I am more hurt. Number one, because he thinks that every black woman is so needy that they want to hop on any and every black guy they see. Number two, because his desire for whiteness is so strong that he doesn’t even want to lock eyes with me. No friendly hello. No nod. Not even a accidental glance. I DON’T EXIST. When he is with a non black woman he buries his face in hers when I walk past as if to say, “Don’t even fucking try it. I got a good thing going here so back up.”
Today, again, I am ashamed of myself. Getting annoyed when the sun seems to follow me in the car, frustrated to find that after a day of outdoor fun I have gotten two shades darker. Feeling this way about blackness makes me sad, but I no longer chastise myself. I’ve wondered why it seemed that no matter how well I dressed, how pretty my hair looked, and how well I did my makeup, my beauty was not recognized, almost like I was pretty in a dark room. The reason? Black beauty is an oxymoron. Most of the time I am an enlightened black feminist who genuinely loves black skin. However, I realize that demanding I change my mind completely and immediately about something as omnipresent as white beauty standards is asking too much of myself. I try, and I sometimes fail. Loving your physical self is hard even for a woman who was taught all her life that black women are beautiful from her beautiful, black mother. Realizing that you have to stop waiting for black men to approve of you and become the revolution yourself, even if that means being without a partner, is even harder.
I started this post months ago and it was going to be about black lesbians, hence, the photos. Honestly though, I forgot what I was going to say about them. What’s on my heart now are gay black christians, and here are my thoughts…
I don’t know how we do it. No matter how much is stolen from us and how badly we’re beaten, raped, and emotionally abused, miraculously, black love forges on.
But look there! Way in the back! Bearing the weight of all these things, plus ostracism from their own community are gay black people.
I can never imagine how it must feel to believe that you are a walking sin; that a part of who you are, something that you can’t change, is in direct conflict with God’s Law. What a triumph and a relief to discover, and know in your heart, that these things are not true. To know this is to know God’s Love.
Great! We’re over that hurdle, now it’s time to fellowship, right?
Wrong. Most black churches not only condemn homosexuality as a sin, but seem to believe that it is among the worst sins. Separating the holies from the hellbound is sort of a tradition in the Christian church, it hurts me to say . It’s not just that most black Christians believe that homosexuality is a sin, it’s that we have no love in our hearts for the “sinners”. We fear gays like they’re contagious. The further we are away from them, the more “Christian-like” we become. Since Christianity is such a huge part of black American culture, this exclusive attitude not only hurts black gays who want to fellowship, but all gays, since their mothers, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and friends likely claim some kind of Christian affiliation.
I have to admit that I was once one of those Christians. Homosexuality was not to be discussed, it was to be condemned, and that was that. There was no close association or friendship with gays unless your aim was to convert them. I don’t know how it happened, but gradually I started seeing gays as, well, human. God opened my heart and I started to learn acceptance. Then one of my good friends came out to me. I cannot describe the amount of love that God poured into my heart that day. He turned mere tolerance into an open-armed embrace. His love and compassion was so powerful that I almost couldn’t contain it. God also let me feel the terrible pain of someone so lovely and good who hated herself because of what other Christians had taught her. She’s still struggling today.
We have to band together as one family and eradicate anything that would separate us. The church is ONE body in Christ. God is LOVE in its purest form, and He makes NO MISTAKES ♥
“It is a white, petty-bourgeois Anarchism that cannot relate to the people. As a Black person, I am not interested in your Anarchism. I am not interested in individualistic, self-serving, selfish liberation for you and your white friends. What I care about is the liberation of my people.” -Pedro Ribeiro
WILLIAM MORRIS AGENCY HAS DROPPED MEL GIBSON
In 2006, then partner and now CEO of WME, Ari Emmanuel, said in a piece he wrote: “I wish Mel Gibson well in dealing with his alcoholism, but alcoholism does not excuse racism and anti-Semitism. Now we know the truth. And no amount of publicist-approved contrition can paper it over. People in the entertainment community, whether Jew or gentile, need to demonstrate that they understand how much is at stake in this by professionally shunning Mel Gibson and refusing to work with him, even if it means a sacrifice to their bottom line. There are times in history when standing up against bigotry and racism is more important than money.”
Apparently, the only reason Mel was kept on as a client after his anti-semetic remarks in 2006 is because he was represented by Ed Limato, vice president of William Morris Agency, who kicked the bucket on June 3rd. Looks like Emmanuel fired him as soon as he could. Good for him.
…I have a naggin little question, though. I wonder if the remarks in 2006 had been about “dirty negroes” and not “greedy jews” would Ari Emmanuel have bothered to write about it, and would Mel Gibson be without representation now? Something to ponder…
LISTEN to Mel Gibson’s racist/sexist rant against Oksana Grigorieva
Oscar Grant
BART shooting trial: Johannes Mehserle found guilty of involuntary manslaughter – latimes.com.
I can’t imagine what his mother must feel like.
Wanda Johnson, Grant's mother
Johannes Mehserle
Love this skit. Little Miss Jocelyn is pretty funny. However, she does rely on stereotypes entirely too much. She’s a little over the top and it can get offensive, especially because she usually portrays whites as respectable and calm. But other than that… HARDY HAR HAR!!
Jocelyn Jee Esien is the first black woman in either the UK or USA to be given her own sketch show.
Lady Gaga’s photoshoot (2010) with LaChappelle proves to be as unoriginal as her music. The “dutiful black slave risking his life for Miss” thing has so been done.
And yes, that’s Kanye.
WHAT’S THERESA WATCHING INSTEAD OF WRITING HER SCRIPT?
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These chicks got some classy cooters. No meat curtains!
Oh SNAP!
Gina Gershon is so good, she’s both a whore AND a bitch!
I have to give a shout out to my favorite character, Molly.
She’s the black girl (adorable!) who lets that nasty wainch, Polly, stay with her. She’s punished, of course, for being smart, black, and respectable, by being brutally raped by three men; including Andrew Carver, a singer she idolizes and innocently has a drink with. After she is slapped and punched in the nose, her panties are ripped off and we get to see the whole bloody mess, including a shot of Andrew licking the blood off of Molly’s face while she’s getting raped from behind by one of his bouncers. Polly kicks the shit out of Andrew at the end, but unless she gave him “a broken nose and vaginal tears”, we ain’t square.
Don’t worry, Molly. One day we’ll have black female leads with sexual autonomy. YOU WILL BE AVENGED!!
I don’t know if any of you have heard about the infamous Cîroc vodka casting call, pictured here:
Apparently, only light skinned African Americans need apply… and whites and latina’s, of course. I’m not surprised, but I am glad that this is out in the open so that we have a solid reason to boycott them. Puff the magic Daddy released a statement on Twitter, clearing himself of all wrongdoing, “FOR the record people I LOVE WOMEN OF ALL SHADES!!! I DON’T DISCRIMINATE!!! DON’T BELIEVE THE HYPE!!! Now back to the POSITIVITY!!!”
Cîroc also released a lie statement. I’ll help you read between the lines: “CIROC Vodka has nothing whatsoever to do with this inappropriate and offensive casting call (or does, whatever), which was done without the brand’s knowledge or consent (is this really the first time you’ve caught us doing this?). We are currently investigating how this occurred (which means we are masturbating with lubbed hundred dollar bills until this whole things blows over). CIROC Vodka has created a brand that defines sophisticated celebration for all consumers (white people), and in no way condones this practice (we do,actually).”
While researching this, I found that a lot of people (mostly black men) support Mr. Combs and point to ads that feature him with brown and dark skinned black women. He does appear in ads that feature darker black women, but in the few I could find, I noticed that he is never touching or looking at them.
But let’s get back to some of that “positivity” Diddy was speaking of…
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