{"id":1135,"date":"2018-06-18T17:38:41","date_gmt":"2018-06-18T17:38:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bcl.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-reads\/?p=1135"},"modified":"2018-06-18T17:38:41","modified_gmt":"2018-06-18T17:38:41","slug":"david-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bcl.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-reads\/2018\/06\/18\/david-israel\/","title":{"rendered":"David Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"

The band The The is performing live for the first time in 16 years. So I snapped up some tickets and went to look for my old CDs of theirs in the basement (remember those shiny round things? I couldn’t find mine, so I am listening on an iPad). \u00a0Going through their catalogue – primarily\u00a0Soul Mining<\/em>,\u00a0Infected<\/em>, and\u00a0Mind Bomb, <\/em>I am struck with how the despair these artists felt in the Thatcher\/Reagan era intertwined with both an aching longing and a sense of hope. And, how so many of those sentiments resonate once again in 2018. Top that off with some beautiful melodies (just take a listen to the simple riff the goes through\u00a0Uncertain Smile<\/em><\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0Soul Mining<\/em><\/a>\u00a0– it\u2019s gorgeous – first on guitar, and then piano) and you have a\u00a0recipe for something that speaks to me. \u00a0 Are these issues cyclical, or do those songs\u00a0still\u00a0ring true because the concerns over inequity, social justice, authority, and personal liberties have moved back to the fore? \u00a0Did they ever really go away?<\/p>\n

Probably not coincidentally, the book\u00a0Long Shadows, High Hopes: The Life and Times of Matt Johnson & The The<\/em>\u00a0by Neil\u00a0Fraser<\/a>\u00a0has just been released.\u00a0 It chronicles the background of the central figure behind The The. \u00a0From an interesting childhood in the still WWII scarred East End of London with pub-owning parents, to the present. \u00a0I am just getting into it – and really enjoying. \u00a0I have a\u00a0soft spot for behind-the-scenes books about music from when I was\u00a0growing up. \u00a0Books\u00a0about\u00a0bands that were on my stereo and in the periphery of my real life make me feel like I lived in the thick of it, and give me a perspective on how these artists were translating the\u00a0zeitgeist into meaningful art. \u00a0 Touchstones, for me, in this genre are books like\u00a0Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991<\/em><\/a>\u00a0by Michael Azerrad,\u00a0Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk<\/em><\/a>\u00a0by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain, and See a Little Light: The Trail of Rage and Melody<\/em><\/a>\u00a0by Bob Mould.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The band The The is performing live for the first time in 16 years. So I snapped up some tickets and went to look for my old CDs of theirs in the basement (remember those shiny round things? I couldn’t find mine, so I am listening on an iPad). \u00a0Going through their catalogue – primarily\u00a0Soul … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “David Israel”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-readers"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcl.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-reads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcl.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-reads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcl.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-reads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcl.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-reads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcl.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-reads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1135"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/bcl.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-reads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1141,"href":"https:\/\/bcl.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-reads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1135\/revisions\/1141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcl.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-reads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcl.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-reads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcl.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-reads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}