(TV) Re: TV Digest V1 #565

[DAYKARAK@aol.com]

This is a bit late as I'm currently without a phoneline (ah, the joys of being a broke college student!), but let me just say I find the quoted stuff below to be nothing less than fucking hiliarious. Heylin's _FROM THE VELVETS TO THE VOIDOIDS_ is, of course, the authoritative source on the "punk" music coming out of New York and Cleveland in the seventies...I can't count _PLEASE KILL ME_ as being very authoritative because it really doesn't deal with music. Entertaining read, yeah -I usually take it with me whenever I'm facing a long ride on the train or bus in Chicago; it's comparable to watching a favorite movie and knowing most of the dialog. But anyway...Heylin's book is *the* source simply because it's the only book which I've come across that attempts to be comprehensive and give an overview of how the different contingents of musicians in those respective scenes tied together. The thing is that it obviously isn't. The New York coverage references bands that are never once covered...I guess Mr. Heylin 
is fine with name-dropping The Shirts and Tuff Darts and the like to sound like he knows more than us, but he also seems fine with leaving it that way, too. I'm not complaining because I know more about all this than Heylin; it's more that I sure as fuck don't and the whole point in reading such a book, after being entertained, is to be informed. And the Cleveland coverage...well, again, the same thing: the Styerenes get mentioned for about a quarter of a page and then get a couple paragraphs in the discography section, but it seems as if Heylin doesn't seem to think we really need to actually know anything about them. 

So yeah, I find the below to be absolutely fucking hilarious. Heylin thinks he's some sort of god; maybe he needs a slap or two to remind him that he's just writing books pertaining to the history of pop music and related subject matter, hm? The only thing I've seen come from him that's been more egomaniacal are his liner notes to the "Punk Legends" compilation, in which he drops paranthetical insults directed SPECIFICALLY to Legs McNiel. Haven't got the disc on hand right now as I'm at a friend's place typing this up, but if anyone wants to read the bit I'm talking about, just ask here on the list. (I'm REAL curious as to what Richard Lloyd's comments about it would be too...)

-nick

>Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2001 09:46:17 -0500
>From: "Casey, Leo J" <CaseyL@VOLPE.DOT.GOV>
>Subject: RE: (TV) Clinton Heylin
>
>Clinton Heylin said recently:
>".....Er, the point, Matthew, 
>is that you're all lDas! We 
>all have our insecurities and
>I could be all coy about this
>but you know what, fuck it,
>OF COURSE I DON'T RECOGNIZE
>ANY EQUALS IN MY FIELD (and
>in this I mean historian of
>popular music, not just 
>so-called' Dylan expert, 
>my friend).  .."
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