Say no more. Beautiful family, beautiful "bolg" shots.
This reminds me of the book I am me I am free by David Icke. The cover features a picture of the author completely nekkid, spreading his arms. Before publishing the book Mr. Icke had been pretty badly humiliated in British TV. So he must have thought, what the heck, let's go full monty.
The publisher, however, wasn't quite as "bolg" as the author: A sticker was added to cover David's genitals. The sticker is removable, but this now is one of those philosophical problems where you can not make up your mind whether the sticker is packaging material and may be removed, or is part of the item and should be left intact for authenticity and full resale value.
Eolake wrote: "As a teen he was pals with Kate Bush ..."
Holy Mackerel! This makes Laurie a demigod himself. No wonder there's an aura of ease and fluency in his work. He must have contracted some of the magic from KT in his teens.
Another explanation is that she simply grew too complacent.
One interesting observation is that for Sensual World she switched to digital, hard disk based recording. You will notice that the luscious warmth of Hounds of Love is gone. But also, switching from working with tape to hard disk based editing changes the working process a great deal. There's a lot more freedom - perhaps too much?
Many authors insist on hammering on an old typewriter, without facilities for making corrections and moving text around. There is a reason to this.
It turns out that the creative mental process is very different when you know you can go back and change everything any number of times. At no time does it force you to enter the peak mental state where you know you are producing the final work here and now.
Hard disk based recording also liberates you from ever having to construct the piece in your mind as a whole. You can work bit by bit, drafting the work, until it sorta becomes whole. The crucial difference is that in this style of composing you never have to give it your all. You never need to "max out" your brain. You never need to open the intuitive channel fully.
Hmmm, gaffaweb says the switch to digital editing didn't happen until The Red Shoes. It is strange as Sensual World does already sound harsher (more digital like) sonically than Hounds of Love. There must have been some other change then.
Overall, I still stand behind the ponderings I presented above.
Complancant, no way, not Kate. She is one of those who gives it her all no matter what she does. Far more likely to freeze up from taking it too seriously.
I know she used digital tools, like the Fairlight Musical Instrument (a sound sampler) very early, even in the mid-nineties. I think the Dreaming was the first album with such.
I now realise I used the wrong word. Perhaps comfortable is closer to what I meant.
I know from experience that it is easy to spend years sitting in the studio playing with your equipment, fully intending to create your best work ever. But you are fooling yourself. Hard disk based recording end editing tools easily seduce you into this mode of 'working'. It's actually closer to playing video games than creating art.
This is why most of today's pop music sounds hollow.
P.S. I am not referring to Fairlight, or samplers in general. Kate used the CMI very creatively. I am referring to computer based recording and editing of the whole work (as opposed to recording on tape).
TTL said... "in this style of composing you never have to give it your all."
Hmm... I don't know about music, but I find my writing has improved a lot with the computer age. In the sense that before, if I wanted more crafted writing, I would've had to re-write everything, including the parts that were fine. So at times I tended to just say: "Well, it's good enough like this anyway." I see writing now a bit like painting : I draw the big picture, then add more and more detail here and there, fix what I'm not pleased with, until the image is perfectly the way I wanted it. Photography sort of did the opposite of this to artists reproducing real world images... Anyway, I feel the most important is for everybody to remain free to choose their style and tools. The world is "getting smaller", but it's still quite vast enough for all. Warmongers excepted. (I don't have much liking for "the Art of War"... The "noble art of Boxing" is too brutal to the human body as well, it's medically proven. Caused Muhammad Ali's Parkinson disease, most likely.)
21 comments:
Laurie, the images and videos on your site are beautiful. My thanks and gratitude to you, your family and all the lovely girls who pose for you.
Paul
PS. I love your nude bolg as well.
Yes, it takes a "bolg" man to appear nude in front of the whole world. ;-)
Especially in case one's also bald!
I think it's kind of amusing to find nudity being complimented by a man named Taylor. :-)
But I fully agree with you, Paul.
Say no more. Beautiful family, beautiful "bolg" shots.
This reminds me of the book I am me I am free by David Icke. The cover features a picture of the author completely nekkid, spreading his arms. Before publishing the book Mr. Icke had been pretty badly humiliated in British TV. So he must have thought, what the heck, let's go full monty.
The publisher, however, wasn't quite as "bolg" as the author: A sticker was added to cover David's genitals. The sticker is removable, but this now is one of those philosophical problems where you can not make up your mind whether the sticker is packaging material and may be removed, or is part of the item and should be left intact for authenticity and full resale value.
I am sure most collectors would consider it the latter.
Funny coincidink: Laurie worked briefly with David Icke back before he went all spiritual, when he was a sports presenter.
Laurie is one of those people who seem to have met everybody. As a teen he was pals with Kate Bush, I'm envious about that.
Eolake wrote: "As a teen he was pals with Kate Bush ..."
Holy Mackerel! This makes Laurie a demigod himself. No wonder there's an aura of ease and fluency in his work. He must have contracted some of the magic from KT in his teens.
That's not all. He claimed to me that before Kate's first record, she once told him that he was "a man, but has a child in his eyes."
Eolake wrote: "Funny coincidink: Laurie worked briefly with David Icke back before he went all spiritual, when he was a sports presenter."
I was quite puzzled myself, I wondered why I suddenly felt like having to write about Icke in a Laurie topic. Now I know why.
Eolake said: That's not all. He claimed to me that before Kate's first record, she once told him that he was "a man, but has a child in his eyes."
Oh dear, this is too much! Way too much!
Don't I know it.
The shame is, unlike his wife Vicky and myself, Laurie is not even a big fan of Kate Bush, it seems he prefer Genesis. :)
eolake said...
The shame is, unlike his wife Vicky and myself, Laurie is not even a big fan of Kate Bush, it seems he prefer Genesis. :)
I wasn't a fan of Kate Bush either until I heard her cover Elton John's Mega hit, "Rocket Man."
Well done Kate Bush! Bravo!
Yes, that was an awesome cover.
And I actually got it myself from Laurie/Vicky, I'd never heard of it.
Almost makes one wish Kate would do more covers. Her own music has become less accessible over the decades.
The first five albums up to and including Hounds of Love are pure aural gold. Sadly, at that point she seems to have lost it.
I personally rate Hounds of Love as one of the greatest pop records ever made.
I agree totally.
I think she grew too introverted, like Sinead O'connor did. It became too important, the songs had to be about something important.
The Dreaming and the Kick Inside also has some world-class music.
Sadly David Bowie has done much the same since the millennium.
Another explanation is that she simply grew too complacent.
One interesting observation is that for Sensual World she switched to digital, hard disk based recording. You will notice that the luscious warmth of Hounds of Love is gone. But also, switching from working with tape to hard disk based editing changes the working process a great deal. There's a lot more freedom - perhaps too much?
Many authors insist on hammering on an old typewriter, without facilities for making corrections and moving text around. There is a reason to this.
It turns out that the creative mental process is very different when you know you can go back and change everything any number of times. At no time does it force you to enter the peak mental state where you know you are producing the final work here and now.
Hard disk based recording also liberates you from ever having to construct the piece in your mind as a whole. You can work bit by bit, drafting the work, until it sorta becomes whole. The crucial difference is that in this style of composing you never have to give it your all. You never need to "max out" your brain. You never need to open the intuitive channel fully.
Hmmm, gaffaweb says the switch to digital editing didn't happen until The Red Shoes. It is strange as Sensual World does already sound harsher (more digital like) sonically than Hounds of Love. There must have been some other change then.
Overall, I still stand behind the ponderings I presented above.
Complancant, no way, not Kate. She is one of those who gives it her all no matter what she does. Far more likely to freeze up from taking it too seriously.
I know she used digital tools, like the Fairlight Musical Instrument (a sound sampler) very early, even in the mid-nineties. I think the Dreaming was the first album with such.
I now realise I used the wrong word. Perhaps comfortable is closer to what I meant.
I know from experience that it is easy to spend years sitting in the studio playing with your equipment, fully intending to create your best work ever. But you are fooling yourself. Hard disk based recording end editing tools easily seduce you into this mode of 'working'. It's actually closer to playing video games than creating art.
This is why most of today's pop music sounds hollow.
P.S. I am not referring to Fairlight, or samplers in general. Kate used the CMI very creatively. I am referring to computer based recording and editing of the whole work (as opposed to recording on tape).
TTL said...
"in this style of composing you never have to give it your all."
Hmm... I don't know about music, but I find my writing has improved a lot with the computer age. In the sense that before, if I wanted more crafted writing, I would've had to re-write everything, including the parts that were fine. So at times I tended to just say: "Well, it's good enough like this anyway." I see writing now a bit like painting : I draw the big picture, then add more and more detail here and there, fix what I'm not pleased with, until the image is perfectly the way I wanted it. Photography sort of did the opposite of this to artists reproducing real world images...
Anyway, I feel the most important is for everybody to remain free to choose their style and tools. The world is "getting smaller", but it's still quite vast enough for all. Warmongers excepted.
(I don't have much liking for "the Art of War"... The "noble art of Boxing" is too brutal to the human body as well, it's medically proven. Caused Muhammad Ali's Parkinson disease, most likely.)
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