Bruce Thomas, Bassist for The Attractions, Discusses the Art of the Bassline on Nakedly Examined Music

in Music, Podcasts | December 22nd, 2022

Bruce is best known as Elvis Costello’s bassist on about a dozen albums as The Attrac­tions, but Bruce has been in bands since 1970 and has done numer­ous ses­sion gigs, most notably for Al Stewart’s ear­ly albums, plus The Pre­tenders, John Wes­ley Hard­ing, Bil­ly Bragg, and many more.

Your Naked­ly Exam­ined Music host Mark Lin­sen­may­er inter­views Bruce  to dis­cuss his work on “Blood Makes Noise” by Susanne Vega from 99.9 Degrees (1992), play clips from sev­er­al of the most famous Attrac­tions tunes (using when pos­si­ble the 1978 Live at the El Mocam­bo album) plus “La La La La Loved You” by The Attrac­tions (w/o Elvis) from Mad About the Wrong Boy (1980), the first half of the title track of Quiver’s Gone in the Morn­ing (1972), and we con­clude by lis­ten­ing to a cov­er of The Bea­t­les “There’s a Place” by Spencer Brown and Bruce Thomas from Back to the Start (2018). Intro: “Radio Radio” by The Attrac­tions feat. Fito Paez from Span­ish Mod­el (2021). For more about Bruce’s musi­cal and lit­er­ary projects, see brucethomas.co.uk.

Hear all of “Radio Radio” in Span­ish plus the orig­i­nal. Hear the full ver­sions of the Attrac­tions clips: “Chelsea,” “Pump It Up,” “Club­land,” and “Every­day I Write the Book.” Hear all of “Gone in the Morn­ing” plus “Killer Man,” whose bass solo is at 4min in. Here’s Bruce demo­ing some of his parts. Watch the video for “There’s Is a Place.” Here’s one of the Al Stew­art albums that Bruce plays on. Here he is live just pre-Attrac­tions with The Sun­der­land Broth­ers and Quiver.

Naked­ly Exam­ined Music is a pod­cast host­ed by Mark Lin­sen­may­er, who also hosts The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life Phi­los­o­phy Pod­cast, Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast, and Phi­los­o­phy vs. Improv. He releas­es music under the name Mark Lint.

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Watch Björk, Age 11, Read a Christmas Nativity Story on an Icelandic TV Special (1976)

in Music, Television | December 21st, 2022

The hol­i­days can be hard, start­ing in Octo­ber when the red and green dec­o­ra­tions begin muscling in on the Hal­loween aisle.

Most Won­der­ful Time of the Year, you say? Oh, go stuff a stock­ing in it, Andy Williams!

The major­i­ty of us have more in com­mon with the Grinch, Scrooge, and/or the Lit­tle Match Girl.

Still, it’s hard to resist the preter­nat­u­ral­ly mature 11-year-old Björk read­ing the nativ­i­ty sto­ry in her native Ice­landic, backed by unsmil­ing old­er kids from the Children’s Music School in Reyk­javík.

Par­tic­u­lar­ly since I myself do not speak Ice­landic.

The fact that it’s in black and white is mere­ly the blue­ber­ries on the spiced cab­bage.

It speaks high­ly of the Ice­landic approach to edu­ca­tion that a prin­ci­pal’s office reg­u­lar who report­ed­ly chafed at her school’s “retro, con­stant Beethoven and Bach bol­locks” cur­ricu­lum was award­ed the plum part in this 1976 Christ­mas spe­cial for the Nation­al Broad­cast­ing Ser­vice.

It would also appear that lit­tle Björk, the fierce­ly self-reliant latchkey kid of a Bohemi­an sin­gle moth­er, was far and away the most charis­mat­ic kid enrolled in the Bar­namúsik­skóli.

(Less than a year lat­er her self-titled first album sold 7000 copies in Iceland—a mod­est amount com­pared to Adele’s debut, maybe, but c’mon, the kid was 11! And Ice­land’s pop­u­la­tion at the time was a cou­ple hun­dred thou­sand and change.)

As to the above per­for­mance’s reli­gious slant, it wasn’t a reflec­tion of her per­son­al beliefs. As she told the UK music webzine Drowned in Sound in 2011:

…nature is my reli­gion, in a way… I think every­body has their own pri­vate reli­gion. I guess what both­ers me is when mil­lions have the same one. It just can’t be true. It’s just…what?

Still, it prob­a­bly was­n’t too con­tro­ver­sial that the pro­gram­mers elect­ed to cleave to the rea­son in the sea­son. Ice­landic church atten­dance may be low-key, but the over­whelm­ing major­i­ty of its cit­i­zens iden­ti­fy as Luther­an, or some oth­er Chris­t­ian denom­i­na­tion.

(They also believe in elves and 13 for­mer­ly fear­some Yule Lads, descen­dants of the ogres Grýla and Lep­palúði. By the time Björk appeared on earth, they had long since evolved, through a com­bi­na­tion of for­eign influ­ence and pub­lic decree, into the kinder, gen­tler, not quite San­ta-esque ver­sion, address­ing the stu­dio audi­ence at the top of the act.)

Note: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this post appeared on our site in 2015.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hear the Album Björk Record­ed as an 11-Year-Old: Fea­tures Cov­er Art Pro­vid­ed By Her Mom (1977)

A Young Björk Decon­structs (Phys­i­cal­ly & The­o­ret­i­cal­ly) a Tele­vi­sion in a Delight­ful Retro Video

Björk Presents Ground­break­ing Exper­i­men­tal Musi­cians on the BBC’s Mod­ern Min­i­mal­ists (1997)

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. She is proud to orig­i­nat­ed the role of Santa’s mor­tal con­sort, Mary, in her Jew­ish hus­band Greg Kotis’ Nordic-themed hol­i­day fan­ta­sia, The Truth About San­ta. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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NYC’s Iconic Punk Club CBGBs Comes Alive in a Brilliant Short Animation, Using David Godlis’ Photos of Patti Smith, The Ramones & More

in Animation, Life, Music, Photography | December 19th, 2022

Atten­tion young artists: don’t let your day job kill your dream.

In the mid-70s, David Godlis kept body and soul togeth­er by work­ing as an assis­tant in a pho­tog­ra­phy stu­dio, but his ambi­tion was to join the ranks of his street pho­tog­ra­ph­er idols — Robert Frank, Diane Arbus, Gar­ry Wino­grand, and Lee Fried­lan­der, to name a few.

As Godlis told Ser­gio Burns of Street Pho­tog­ra­phy, “the 60’s and 70’s were great for pho­tog­ra­phers:”

The 35mm cam­era was kind of like the new afford­able tech­nol­o­gy of the day. Like hav­ing an iPhone you couldn’t talk on. Cool to look at, fun to use. Pho­tog­ra­phy was only just begin­ning to be con­sid­ered an art form. Which left plen­ty of room for invent­ing your­self. The movie Blow-Up showed off the kind of cool lifestyle that could be had. Pho­tog­ra­phy seemed both adven­tur­ous and artis­tic. There were obvi­ous­ly a mil­lion career paths for pho­tog­ra­phers back then. From the sub­lime to the ridicu­lous. But plen­ty of oppor­tu­ni­ties to exper­i­ment and find your own way.

Still, it’s a tough propo­si­tion, being a street pho­tog­ra­ph­er whose day job gob­bles all avail­able light.

Or rather, it was until Godlis blun­dered into New York’s late, great punk club, CBGB’s, and resolved to “take street pic­tures at night with­out a flash, and make all these peo­ple look as inter­est­ing as a Ramones’ song sounds.”

In broth­ers Lewie and Noah Klosters’ won­der­ful hybrid ani­ma­tion, Shots in the Dark with David Godlis, we see things fall into place as Godlis exper­i­ments with expo­sure times, dark­room chem­i­cal ratios, paper grade, and the street­lights lin­ing the Bow­ery.

He wound up with a brac­ing per­son­al style…and some of the most icon­ic shots in rock his­to­ry.

The Klosters, who were grant­ed full access to Godlis’ dig­i­tal archive (a request Lewie Klosters likened to “ask­ing the pres­i­dent for the nuke codes”), breathe extra life into this bygone scene by hand-cut­ting and pup­peteer­ing images of such stal­warts as The Ramones, Pat­ti Smith, Tele­vi­sion, Richard Hell, Talk­ing Heads, Alex Chilton, and Blondie.

Those who inhab­it­ed the scene in an off­stage capac­i­ty are also giv­en their due, from the door atten­dant and the bar­tender with the Dee Dee Ramone hair­cut to own­er Hilly Kristal, his dog, and the cool kid patrons pack­ing the leg­en­dar­i­ly filthy estab­lish­ment.

This seems to be a reflec­tion of the irre­press­ible, and end­less­ly curi­ous Godlis’ world view. As Lewie, who had 16 hours of audio inter­view to draw from, told the Vimeo blog’s Ina Pira:

Ken Burns could make his next 20 hour doc­u­men­tary on Godlis alone. If you ever bump into him, and you will — he’s every­where all at once in the Vil­lage, ask him about some of our favorite sto­ries that hit the cut­ting room floor: Jager at the Revlon Bar, the bum piss­ing out the win­dow, when he was held at gun­point in Boston, about Merv and the Heinekens, and see­ing Bob Dylan win­dow shop­ping. Just to name a few.

The final moments of Shots in the Dark with David Godlis are bit­ter­sweet. The film­mak­ers’ sub­ject sums it up best:

 Noth­ing lasts for­ev­er, but you also have to know what will be of inter­est when it’s gone.

Relat­ed Con­tent 

CBGB’s Hey­day: Watch The Ramones, The Dead Boys, Bad Brains, Talk­ing Heads & Blondie Per­form Live (1974–1982)

Pat­ti Smith Plays Songs by The Ramones, Rolling Stones, Lou Reed & More on CBGB’s Clos­ing Night (2006)

AC/DC Plays a Short Gig at CBGB in 1977: Hear Met­al Being Played on Punk’s Hal­lowed Grounds

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine and author, most recent­ly, of Cre­ative, Not Famous: The Small Pota­to Man­i­festo.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Hear the Best of Angelo Badalamenti (RIP) from 1986–2017: Features Music from David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks & More

in Film, Music | December 15th, 2022

The late Ange­lo Badala­men­ti com­posed music for singers like Mar­i­anne Faith­full and Nina Simone, for movies like The City of Lost Chil­dren and Nation­al Lam­poon’s Christ­mas Vaca­tion, and even for the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona. But of all his musi­cal work, no piece is more like­ly to begin play­ing in our minds at the men­tion of his name than the theme from Twin Peaks, the ABC series that both mys­ti­fied and enrap­tured audi­ences in the ear­ly nine­teen-nineties. Look­ing back, one would expect any­thing less from a prime-time show co-cre­at­ed by David Lynch. And though Twin Peaks’ ini­tial run would come to only three sea­sons, Lynch and Badala­men­ti’s col­lab­o­ra­tion would con­tin­ue for decades there­after.

It was with his work for Lynch, in fact, that Badala­men­ti first broke through as a film com­pos­er: 1986’s Blue Vel­vet may have estab­lished Lynch as Amer­i­ca’s fore­most pop­u­lar “art house” auteur, but it also intro­duced its view­ers the world over to the seduc­tive and unset­tling beau­ty of Badala­men­ti’s music.

That film’s song “Mys­ter­ies of Love” (with its Lynch-penned lyrics sung by Julee Cruise, who also died this year) comes ear­ly in the chrono­log­i­cal best-of-Badala­men­ti Youtube playlist embed­ded above. Span­ning the years 1986 through 2017, it also includes music from such motion pic­tures as Cousins, Holy Smoke!, The Beach, Cet amour-là, and The Edge of Love.

The bulk of the playlist’s selec­tions, how­ev­er, were com­posed for Lynch. You’ll hear music from Wild at Heart, The Straight Sto­ry, Mul­hol­land Dr. (a film fea­tur­ing a brief but mem­o­rable appear­ance by Badala­men­ti him­self), and of course, Twin Peaks — not just the orig­i­nal series and the 1992 movie Fire Walk with Me, but also the 2017 con­tin­u­a­tion Twin Peaks: The Return, for which Badala­men­ti returned as com­pos­er. In all these eras, his work sound­ed dis­tinc­tive, some­how tra­di­tion­al, uncon­ven­tion­al, earnest, and iron­ic all at once — a mix­ture that could hard­ly have been bet­ter suit­ed to the Lynchi­an sen­si­bil­i­ty. And so it is with a thor­ough­ly Lynchi­an salute, in the mid­dle of one of his dai­ly weath­er reports, that the man him­self sends Badala­men­ti off.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ange­lo Badala­men­ti Reveals How He and David Lynch Com­posed the Twin Peaks‘ “Love Theme”

Get a First Lis­ten to David Lynch & Ange­lo Badalamenti’s Long-Lost Album, Thought Gang

Hear the Music of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks Played by the Dan­ish Nation­al Sym­pho­ny Orches­tra

Hear the Music of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks Played by the Exper­i­men­tal Band, Xiu Xiu: A Free Stream of Their New Album

David Lynch Cre­ates Dai­ly Weath­er Reports for Los Ange­les: How the Film­mak­er Pass­es Time in Quar­an­tine

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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Beethoven’s Ode to Joy Played With 167 Theremins Placed Inside Matryoshka Dolls in Japan

in Music | December 9th, 2022

A decade ago, in Tokyo, 167 musi­cians per­formed a Beethoven clas­sic with the “Matry­omin,” a new-fan­gled instru­ment that lodges a theremin inside a matryosh­ka. A matryosh­ka, of course, is one of those Russ­ian nest­ed dolls where you find wood­en dolls of decreas­ing size placed one inside the oth­er. As for the theremin, it’s a cen­tu­ry-old elec­tron­ic musi­cal instru­ment that requires no phys­i­cal con­tact from the play­er. You can watch its inven­tor, Leon Theremin, give it a demo in the vin­tage video below. And via this link you can see the Matry­omin Ensem­ble per­form­ing a mes­mer­iz­ing ver­sion of Amaz­ing Grace. Enjoy.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent 

See Japan­ese Musi­cians Play “Amaz­ing Grace” with 273 Theremins Placed Inside Matryosh­ka Dolls–Then Learn How They Per­form Their Mag­ic

Sovi­et Inven­tor Léon Theremin Shows Off the Theremin, the Ear­ly Elec­tron­ic Instru­ment That Could Be Played With­out Being Touched (1954)

Leon Theremin Adver­tis­es the First Com­mer­cial Pro­duc­tion Run of His Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Elec­tron­ic Instru­ment (1930)

Learn How to Play the Theremin: A Free Short Video Course

“Some­where Over the Rain­bow” Played on a 1929

Meet Clara Rock­more, the Pio­neer­ing Elec­tron­ic Musi­cian Who First Rocked the Theremin in the Ear­ly 1920s

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The Untold Story of Disco and Its Black, Latino & LGBTQ Roots

in Dance, Gender, History, Life, Music | December 5th, 2022

As a white Mid­west­ern child of the ‘70s, I received two mes­sages loud and clear: dis­co was a breath­tak­ing­ly glam­orous, sexy urban scene, and “dis­co sucks.”

Cul­tur­al­ly, the lat­ter pre­vailed.

It was the opin­ion voiced most loud­ly by the pop­u­lar boys.

Dis­senters pushed back at their own per­il.

I didn’t know what YMCA was about, and I’m not con­vinced the ski jack­et­ed, puka-neck­laced alpha males at my school did either.

(My father, who sang along joy­ful­ly when­ev­er it came on the car radio, def­i­nite­ly did.)

Disco’s been dead for a long time now.

In the four plus decades since dis­grun­tled Chica­go radio DJ Steve Dahl com­man­deered a base­ball sta­di­um for a Dis­co Demo­li­tion Night where fans tossed around homo­pho­bic and racist epi­thets while destroy­ing records, there’s been notable social progress.

This progress is the lens that makes Noah Lefevre’s Poly­phon­ic video essay The Untold His­to­ry of Dis­co, and oth­er inves­ti­ga­tions into the racial and sex­u­al under­pin­nings of dis­co pos­si­ble.

I cer­tain­ly nev­er heard of Stonewall as a kid, but many con­tem­po­rary view­ers, com­ing of age in a coun­try that is, on the whole, much more LGBTQ-friend­ly than the world of their par­ents and grand­par­ents, are famil­iar with it as a gay rights mile­stone.

Lefevre ties the birth of dis­co to the 1969 Stonewall Upris­ing, and a sub­cul­ture born of neces­si­ty, where­in gay men impro­vised under­ground dance clubs where they could cut freely loose with same sex part­ners.

Instead of live dance music, these venues boast­ed DJs, crate dig­gers open to any groove that would keep the par­ty going on the dance floor: psy­che­del­ic, clas­sic soul, pro­gres­sive soul, jazz fusion, Latin Amer­i­can dance music, African pop…

(Thus the name dis­cotheque)

A dis­co sound began to coa­lesce around exist­ing hits as the O‑jays’ Love Train and Isaac Hayes’ Theme from Shaft.

You can hear it in Jim­my Nolen’s chick­en scratch lead gui­tar for James Brown and ses­sion drum­mer Earl Young’s open high hat and four-to-the-floor beat on Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes’ The Love I Lost.

In the begin­ning, crowds were pri­mar­i­ly Black, Lati­no and gay at New York City dis­cos like The Loft, which start­ed out as a rent par­ty, and The Sanc­tu­ary, housed in a decon­se­crat­ed mid­town Ger­man Bap­tist church. Map­plethor­pe mod­el Leigh Lee recalled The Sanctuary’s cachet to the Vil­lage Voice’s Peter Braun­stein:

It was sup­posed to be a secret, but I don’t know how secret it could have been when fag­gots and les­bians can come out of a church from mid­night till sun­rise.

As dis­cotheque DJs began dri­ving the record charts, main­stream pro­duc­ers took note, open­ing the gates for such mon­ster hits as the Bar­ry White-helmed Love Unlim­it­ed Orchestra’s Love’s Theme, Don­na Summer’s Love to Love Ya, and Chic’s Le Freak.

A glit­ter-bedecked nude man rode a white horse into Bian­ca Jagger’s birth­day par­ty at Stu­dio 54 on the stroke of mid­night, while hin­ter­land squares did The Hus­tle at their local Hol­i­day Inns. 

By the time celebs like the Rolling Stones and Rod Stew­art start­ing horn­ing in on the act, dis­co had already reached its tip­ping point.


Lit­tle twerps like me, whose moth­ers wouldn’t let them see the R‑rated Sat­ur­day Night Fever bought Bee Gees 45s from our local Peach­es and sang along to Glo­ria Gaynor’s I Will Sur­vive, as did some of our dads…

(An unex­pect­ed plea­sure of Lefevre’s video is see­ing all those famil­iar record labels spin­ning just the way they did on our pre­cious stere­os — Atlantic! Casablan­ca! Poly­dor! RSO!  Some­body pass me a Dr. Pep­per and a yel­low plas­tic insert!)

Radio DJ Rick Dees’ nov­el­ty hit with Dis­co Duck seemed so harm­less at the time, but it was sure­ly music to the main­stream “dis­co sucks” crowd’s ears. (Good luck to any punk who betrayed a fond­ness for Dis­co Duck )

Disco’s reign was brief — Lefevre notes that its end coin­cides with the begin­ning of the AIDS cri­sis — but its impact has been greater than many assume at first blush.

Disco’s empha­sis on turnta­bles and long play ver­sions influ­enced hip hop and elec­tron­ic dance music.

Near­ly half a cen­tu­ry after dis­co­ma­nia seized the land, its deep con­nec­tion to Black, Lati­no and LGBTQ his­to­ry must not be tossed aside light­ly.

Watch more of Noah Lefevre’s Poly­phon­ic video essays here.

Relat­ed Con­tent 

Dis­co Demo­li­tion Night: Scenes from the Night Dis­co Died (or Did It?) at Chicago’s Comiskey Park, 1979

Two Decades of Fire Island DJ Sets Get Unearthed, Dig­i­tized & Put Online: Stream 232 Mix­tapes Online (1979–1999)

How Gior­gio Moroder & Don­na Summer’s “I Feel Love” Cre­at­ed the “Blue­print for All Elec­tron­ic Dance Music Today” (1977)

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine and author, most recent­ly, of Cre­ative, Not Famous: The Small Pota­to Man­i­festo. Her Indi­ana ties result­ed in an invi­ta­tion to Rick “Dis­co Duck” Dees’ 1977 wed­ding. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Watch Neil Young & Crazy Horse Play & Record the New 15-Minute Track “Chevrolet” for the First Time

in Music | December 1st, 2022

“Chevro­let,” a new track on Neil Young’s 42nd stu­dio album World Record, takes you on a long, ram­bling road trip, cov­er­ing a lot of dif­fer­ent ter­rain over 15 min­utes, with some vers­es last­ing more than two min­utes. Above, you can watch Neil Young and Crazy Horse (Nils Lof­gren, Bil­ly Tal­bot and Ralph Moli­na) play the song for the very first time.  It’s also the same cut that appears on the album. It’s a pret­ty remark­able dis­play of musi­cian­ship, and a great new Neil Young track.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent

Neil Young Plays “Hey, Hey, My, My” with Devo: Watch a Clas­sic Scene from the Impro­vised Movie Human High­way (1980)

Neil Young Releas­es a Nev­er-Before-Heard Ver­sion of His 1979 Clas­sic, “Pow­derfin­ger”: Stream It Online

When Neil Young & Rick “Super Freak” James Formed the 60’s Motown Band, The Mynah Birds

“More Barn!” The Sto­ry of How Neil Young First Played Har­vest for Gra­ham Nash (1972)

 

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Meet Honey Lantree, the Trailblazing 1960s Female Drummer

in Gender, History, Music | November 28th, 2022

Quick, who’s your favorite female drum­mer?

Hard­ly a strange ques­tion!

(Yes, you are allowed to pick more than one favorite.)

Things were decid­ed­ly dif­fer­ent when drum­mer Hon­ey Lantree, the only female mem­ber of the 60s British Inva­sion group the Hon­ey­combs, took up the sticks.

Drums were not her orig­i­nal instru­ment. Her boyfriend, employ­er, and even­tu­al band­mate Mar­tin Mur­ray was giv­ing her a gui­tar les­son when she asked if she could take a whirl at his kit.

Mur­ray recalled his sur­prise when she start­ed whal­ing away like a vet:

She was just a born, nat­ur­al drum­mer; she hadn’t played before and just went for it. I was aghast, star­ing at her, and said, “All right, you’re our new drum­mer.”

Lantree’s gen­der helped the Hon­ey­combs secure press.

She snagged a celebri­ty endorse­ment for Carl­ton drums and turned 21 with a cake fes­tooned with marzi­pan bees, and, more impor­tant­ly, a #1 sin­gle, “Have I the Right.”

Of course, her gen­der also ensured that most of the cov­er­age would focus on her appear­ance, with scant, if any men­tion of her musi­cal tal­ent.

Lantree was not the only mem­ber of the Hon­ey­combs to find this galling.

As lead singer Denis D’Ell told the Record Mir­ror in 1965:

How can it be a gim­mick just because we have a girl, Hon­ey, on drums? Hon­ey plays with us pure­ly and sim­ply because she is the right drum­mer for the job. If she wasn’t any good, she wouldn’t hold down the job.

On tour, we don’t have any trou­bles by hav­ing a girl with us. We just oper­ate as a group. Per­haps it is that the nov­el­ty has worn off — we hope that fans soon will for­get all about this so-called gim­mick.

The fol­low­ing year, he quit, along with lead gui­tarist Alan Ward and Peter Pye, who had replaced Mur­ray on rhythm gui­tar. Lantree and her broth­er, Hon­ey­combs’ bassist John, sol­diered on with new per­son­nel until the 1967 death of pro­duc­er Joe Meek.

Still, for a brief peri­od, the Hon­ey­combs’ record­ings, tours, tele­vi­sion appear­ances, and yes, press cov­er­age made Lantree the most famous female drum­mer in the world.

Admit­ted­ly, the field was not par­tic­u­lar­ly crowd­ed. Just chal­leng­ing in ways that out­stripped the dis­pro­por­tion­ate focus on fig­ures, boyfriends, and beau­ty tips.

Male fans dragged Lantree off­stage dur­ing a con­cert in Corn­wall, lead­ing her to remark, “You expect this sort of thing but it’s still ter­ri­fy­ing.”

Around the same time, anoth­er British band, the all-female Liv­er­birds, were invit­ed to cross the pond for a cov­et­ed gig in Las Vegas…provided they’d play it top­less. “Can you imag­ine me on the drums play­ing top­less,” Sylvia Saun­ders, who short­ly there­after was forced to choose between the drums and a high risk preg­nan­cy, gasped.

Although she is said to have inspired a num­ber of young female musi­cians, includ­ing Karen Car­pen­ter, Lantree, who died in 2018 at the age of 75, rarely shows up on curat­ed lists of notable female drum­mers.

In a strange way, that spells progress — there are many more female drum­mers today than there were in the mid 60s, and mer­ci­ful­ly more oppor­tu­ni­ties for them to be tak­en seri­ous­ly as musi­cians.

via Messy Nessy

Relat­ed Con­tent

Meet Vio­la Smith, the World’s Old­est Drum­mer: Her Career Start­ed in the 1930s, and She Played Until She Was 107

Meet the Liv­er­birds, Britain’s First Female (and Now For­got­ten) Rock Band

The Women of Rock: Dis­cov­er an Oral His­to­ry Project That Fea­tures Pio­neer­ing Women in Rock Music

Meet Fan­ny, the First Female Rock Band to Top the Charts: “They Were Just Colos­sal and Won­der­ful, and Nobody’s Ever Men­tioned Them”

The Woman Who Invent­ed Rock n’ Roll: An Intro­duc­tion to Sis­ter Roset­ta Tharpe

New Web Project Immor­tal­izes the Over­looked Women Who Helped Cre­ate Rock and Roll in the 1950s

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine and author, most recent­ly, of Cre­ative, Not Famous: The Small Pota­to Man­i­festo.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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