Red Bull Music Academy Radio Live -- 16/5/16 11-12 a.m NY time Resolutionary & Cherchez La Femme, The Musical!

Some EUROPEAN PRESS for "Resolutionary" SPEX& RIFRAF & BAD ALCHEMY

Legendary OTHER MUSIC made RESOLUTIONARY the COVER... poignant as it is their final issue!

http://www.othermusic.com/

http://www.othermusic.com/collections/frontpage/products/resolutionary-songs-1979-1982

VIVIEN GOLDMAN
Resolutionary (Songs 1979-1982) (LP, CD)

Staubgold

Vivien Goldman went from being a musical participant of the early-'80s London-New York fusion of dub, post-punk, reggae, hip-hop and African sounds to a keen, informative critic and professor of those genres in general, and the cultural impact of that specific era. The excellent Resolutionary (Songs 1979-1982) is the first collection of Goldman's brief yet vibrant musical explorations. Finding herself within a ripe collective of friends from NYC and LDN, she worked and played with some of the scene's key (albeit 'outsider') players. Included among the various talents are members of the Slits, PiL, the Raincoats, Robert Wyatt, Steve Beresford, David Toop, and Adrian Sherwood (whom she began her music career  with, singing on his various On-U Sound releases).

This much-needed compilation plays like a solid, and remarkable, album. Spilt into three sections, we have Goldman's Dirty Washing EP released on 99 Records (ESG, Liquid Liquid), two tracks from the Flying Lizards' self-titled album, a few songs from Chantage (her duo with Afro-Parisian Eve Blouin), and an informative interview that concludes the set. Needless to say, this is essential listening from start to finish. These tracks combine a pop sensibility with the avant-dub deconstructionist mindset that lends her work that rare and special mix of accessibility and experimentation. There’s a potent duality in Goldman's approach as evidenced through the pairing of her playful sing-song delivery with heavy subject matter, such as war and the struggle between the sexes. Consider this a rare gem within the musically salvaged lands of dub influenced post-punk. Absolutely recommended (May 5, 2016)

Reviewed by Daniel Givens

Lovely reviews "Resolutionary" has been getting... The Wire

The Wire June 16

At last... my "Resolutionary" compilation on Staubgold - Songs 1979 - 82

My Bio by one Evelyn McDonnell.... Top Writer!

There’s a myth about music critics that says we are frustrated, wannabe performers. Evidence to the contrary: Vivien Goldman. Ever since she migrated from pitching editors on the little-known music of Robert Nesta Marley to becoming one of the foremost chroniclers of the perfect storm of reggae, punk, hiphop and Afro-Beat, the London-born, New York-based Goldman has made documenting music her primary life work. But between 1979-82, Goldman was also a working musician, creating songs that, years later, would be sampled by The Roots and Madlib. These rare girl grooves are now collected for the first time on Resolutionary, courtesy of Staubgold Records.

Resolutionary takes us through Vivien’s first three musical formations: first as a member of experimental British New Wavers The Flying Lizards; next as a solo artist, with her single “Launderette,” featuring postpunk luminaries; and then as half of the Parisian duo Chantage, with Afro-Parisian chanteuse Eve Blouin. Goldman’s synthesis of post-colonial rhythms and experimental sounds are threaded together by her canary vocal tones and womanist themes. Her eclectic musical crew included PiL’s John Lydon, Keith Levene and Bruce Smith; avant- gardists Steve Beresford and David Toop; The Raincoats’ Vicky Aspinall; the mighty Robert Wyatt; Zaire’s Jerry Malekani; Manu Dibango’s guitarist; and Viv Albertine, then of her good friends, the Slits. The majority of the tracks were produced by dubmaster Adrian Sherwood, and Resolutionary channels the history of a time when the bon-vivant voice of music was in the air, and Vivien Goldman was its eyes, ears, and mouth.

When she wasn’t writing, broadcasting or filming - or even when she was - Vivien always sang. She sang in a lilting, clear-toned soprano honed during childhood, when she and her two sisters would harmonize with their violinist father. Spend even a little time with Vivien, and she is likely to burst into song. “People knew I sang if they were around me, because I was always doing it,” she says cheerfully. “It’s just inside you. I hadn’t thought of singing as a career; I was always doing it as family.”

Goldman’s talent did not go unnoticed by the many musicians with whom she was surrounded, particularly in the late 1970s bohemian enclave of Ladbroke Grove, where punk had loosened tongues and dub was freeing body and soul.

Vivien Goldman (1979) by David Corio

“The Punk Professor” began her singing career in the late ‘70s, doing backup with Neneh Cherry and Ari-Up (the Slits) on Sherwood records by reggae artists, including Prince Far I. It was a time of musical fermentation, collaboration, and experimentation - and of post-punk boundary breaking.



An American ex-pat music writer for NME could also become a rock legend, crashing at her colleague’s pad along the way: Goldman has a gorgeous cameo in Chrissie Hynde’s 2015 memoir Reckless.

“At the time there were no barriers between journalist and artist,” Goldman recalls. “Everyone used to knock around together. Ladbroke Grove was a real musical community, of which I was a part, with big players like The Clash, the Raincoats and Aswad as our neighbours.” David Cunningham was one artist who drew people together. Goldman joined his free- floating collective of improvisers, the Flying Lizards, when she first began recording music instead of just writing about it “We had an extremely experimental, loose and communal feeling,” she says. “We were very playful. The musicians were always doing unexpected things, like treated piano, like throwing things on the piano strings. It was postpunk touched by jazz in our heads.”

Punk’s eruption changed not just music, but social roles, as well. Goldman was particularly inspired by all the woman musicians in bands during that first-wave of punk, which cleverly morphed into post-punk. “I was a product of the first wave of self-identified female musicians,” she says of that era. “They inspired me to do in public what I did in private. There was a new energy that had not been experienced before that propelled me.”

Punk wasn’t the only sound animating the London demi-monde. In illegal shebeens (Jamaican after-hours clubs), Goldman grooved to the innovations of dub - its bass-heavy ambient, non-stop throb, its proto-digital play. “I was very impacted by reggae,” she says. “I was mad about dub, the music of deconstruction, of a new society trying to put it all together. Social and cultural turmoil, so of course my music would be dub-by.” The contrast between Vivien’s high, lilting tones and the deep rumble of the bass is a hallmark of all Goldman’s work, giving a haunting frisson of sex and alienation to songs like “The Window,” the eerie acapella track by the Flying Lizards, and “Launderette,” which was produced with PiL’s John Lydon and Keith Levene. Vivien knew John as a fellow reggae fanatic, and he let her use PiL’s studio down time to cut “Launderette,” a song she had improvised over a bass line by Aswad’s George “Levi” Oban. Bass is also the foundation of the angry anthem “Private Armies,” a favourite of Rock Against Racism, and its thunderous Adrian Sherwood dub. “Girls love bass,” she says. “It’s the yang to our yin. Women really respond to the depth and grounding of bass.”

“Launderette” tells the story of a chance unromantic encounter. Like the other tracks on Resolutionary, “Lauderette” captures Goldman’s modern sensibility - a woman who’s not about to throw herself off a cliff for romance. That cynicism, typical of post-punk love, also permeates the twisted mutant disco of her Lizards track “Her Story.” “Even when the songs sound soft, they’re mostly about hard things,” says Goldman. “People didn’t want to do mushy songs. They wanted to be experimental and avant garde.”

In the early 1980s, Goldman moved to Paris where she formed the duo Chantage with Eve Blouin. Reggae had been her London soundtrack; but in France, she absorbed music from Africa judiciously. “People in Paris were digging fusion; it was very much a two-way street. There were lots of African musicians and experimentations with synthesizers. It was a time of exchange, of new technology finding its balance with traditional instrumentation.” That interplay is audible in Chantage’s exultant, wholly original mash-ups, like the post-nationalism of “It’s Only Money,” a mix of steel pan, African soukous guitar and sobbing gypsy violin riding ferocious funk.

Post-Chantage, though, new media drew Goldman home. “Suddenly there was work for independent filmmakers,” she says. “I was asked to work in television. And I like telling stories. My lyrics are usually stories, too.” Along with co-initiating the 1980s global music TV series Big World Café, Goldman co-directed videos like Eric B. and Rakim’s “I Ain’t No Joke,” which was exhibited at NY’s Museum of the Moving Image.



As the 1990s began, she moved to Manhattan and became New York University’s “Punk Professor,” teaching original courses on Punk, Bob Marley, David Bowie and Fela Kuti. And as always, she writes and broadcasts prodigiously about music generally. Goldman’s five books include the “Book of Bob Marley’s Exodus.” And equally, she has never stopped singing and writing songs. Chicks on Speed released a later cut, “7 Days,” with singer Andy Caine and Manasseh Sound System, on their 2009 Girl Monster compilation. Her house 12” records with singer Andy Caine and producers Alex Marsh’s Grasshopper and Berlin’s Moritz von Oswald, are compiled on LP’s. Goldman has also co-written tracks with Massive Attack, Coldcut, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Luscious Jackson. Early in 2016, she performed dub readings onstage with Boston’s Berklee Marley Ensemble. Her multi-media beat goes on.

“Music is something inside people, it does not always need to be dictated or funneled through the business,” she says. “I knew nothing could stop me carrying on making music. I still intend to do more. It’s strong in me. When I get together with musical friends, some combustion will occur whether we record it or release it or not. Music is a human birthright.”

(by Evelyn McDonnell)

1. Launderette

2. Private Armies
3. P.A. Dub
4. The Flying Lizards: Her Story
5. The Flying Lizards: The Window
6. Chantage: Same Thing Twice
7. Chantage: It's Only Money
8. Chantage: Tu M'Fais Rire
9. Vivien Goldman Interview

-

Very lively UK Punk 1976 Panel at SXSW covered by Austin Chronicle

http://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/sxsw/2016-03-17/sxsw-music-panel-no-future-1976-and-the-birth-of-punk-in-the-uk/

This was written by a real punk musician scribe, Tim Steegall.... thanks for caring the way you do...

“It’s the howl of the underclass,” roared Vivien Goldman, editor in 1976 of UK music weekly Sounds and now “punk professor” at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music in New York City.

Asked by panel moderator Crispin Parry of arts agency British Underground to define “punk,” Goldman’s answer was a suitable start to a lively discussion seeking to define and immerse in amber a culture and a moment resistant by nature to such academic dissection.

No Future – 1976 and the Birth Of Punk in the UK panelists: (l-r) Crispin Parry, Vivien Goldman, Will Hodgkinson, Horace Trubridge, and Oliver Burslem

PHOTO BY DAVID BRENDAN HALL

"So Much Things To Say" suite: I perform with Berklee Marley Ensemble Jan 28, 2016, Boston, MA.

https://www.berklee.edu/events/get-stand

Very challenging and thrilling, as I appear as a Special Guest with Berklee's Marley Ensemble...luvvin working with Musical Director, Matt Jenson.. and thanks to Kevin Johnson for keeping the vibe alive. Please spread the word to any Bostonians and I will update... thanxxxx

Neneh Cherry spins my "Launderette" alongside Jayne Cortez on 1st Guardian Radio Hour podcast

The Guardian Neneh Cherry launches new series Guardian Radio Hour – hear the podcast The Guardian Joining the dots between post-punk and dub-reggae to hip-hop and beyond, Neneh played tunes from the likes of Jayne Cortez, Vivien Goldman, ... Flag as irrelevant Neneh Cherry spins "Launderette" + Jayne Cortez Guardian Radio

So David Bowie changes into another sort of star... L.A. Record re-run my interview re his IS documentary

http://larecord.com/interviews/2016/01/12/david-bowie-vivien-goldman-interview

"You Can't Stop Looking..."

As I had recently initiated and taught the first Bowie course at NYU's Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, I still felt immersed in Bowie-world... and naturally, he had featured in the Punk course I was teaching at the end of 2015. But Bowie's multiplicities tugged at the hearts of almost everyone. Consistent even in his inconsistencies, Bowie gave us a really perfect example of how if you live a truly ever-evolving artist's life, right through till the end, your work can keep on growing even after you fly 100,000 miles...and in his final missive, "Blackstar," with a closing act of generosity, he gave us a hint of how not to be scared of death....

The volatile, versatile brilliance of Laura Nyro... thevinylfactory.com

http://www.thevinylfactory.com/vinyl-factory-releases/the-volatile-and-versatile-brilliance-of-laura-nyro-in-10-songs/

Enjoying doing these 10-disc roundups of beloved artists for The Vinyl Factory. Here, enter the tempestuous, radical world of Laura Nyro, the brilliant singer-songwriter who shunned the system and the music industry... but whose message continues to be transmitted in the many cover versions she began attracting in her teens...