Thursday 26 February 2009

White Queen (As it Began)



Dear James,

Has it really taken me three months to post my first Queen video? I just read this old interview with Peter Saville and thought you'd enjoy this snippet:

"The consumer is being manipulated as an addict," reckons Saville. "To me, pop culture's gone from being acid to crack. When people took acid in the 1970s it was likely to be a mind-expanding slightly dangerous thing but they came away from it thinking, 'Well I never saw it like that before.' As opposed to crack, which will drain everything you've got until you're dead. And there's a big difference between introducing someone to acid 25 years ago and dealing them some crack today, and I don't like being part of that system."


Saville is now creative director of the city of Manchester, which is why it looks slightly odd these days. He was also of course the designer of New Order's Blue Monday sleeve. New Order/Joy Division is my favourite band story for a band I don't listen to. (The Frank Zappa biography got packed into a cardboard box along with all my reading matter by Josefina. What am I supposed to do on the toilet now? Just sit there and wait?)

I have an idea for my 33 and a third birthday party (4 October, 2009) where everyone has to come dressed as their favourite album. I could come as Queen II, simple by making a cardboard cut out of May, Taylor and Deacon to wear around my head, while I walk round with my eyes closed and my arms crossed across my shoulders, pretending to be Freddie Mercury. Technology being what it is these days, I'd expect people to have MP3 players attached to their costumes playing a selected track from their albums. Mine wouldn't be White Queen, but it's the only passable track available on youtube, although dios Salve La Reina's March of the Black Queen comes close. Dios Salve La Reina are playing Belgrano in March, but the week after you leave. I'm sorry.

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