Richard Witts
I have written three monographs, and a fourth has been pubkished vy Eyewear of the lyrics i wrote. An interview with me in the journal Punk
Phone: 01695-584374
Address: CMIST
Edge Hill University
Ormskirk
L39 4QP
Phone: 01695-584374
Address: CMIST
Edge Hill University
Ormskirk
L39 4QP
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Books by Richard Witts
Witts places the band and its genesis in the cultural context of Manhattan's beatnik bohemianism, its radical artistic environment, and the city's negative reaction to California's 'Hippie' counterculture. The radical nature of the group's Warhol-period performances are examined, together with those aspects related to the issues of gender, sexuality and drugs culture by which the Warhol Factory scene was identified, and contemplated in Reed's songs.
Witts examines the musical influences of the Velvets on punk, post-punk and subsequent rock movements, culminating in the band's reunion of 1993. He also indexes the variety of media constructions that the group endured through the years and how these affected Cale, Nico and Reed and their attempts to establish solo careers.
They have done so in order to delimit general sequences of events around the specificities of Factory Records. By constructing and advancing a received post-punk narrative they have swept bands like The Fall out of that history. Yet the stories provided by practitioners and resources such as The Fall provide much richer accounts of impacts, scenes, activities, realisations and conflicts than the monochrome frame tightly set around Factory.
This chapter examines films, books and statements that construct a particular narrative, one which disregards the modernist project by which postwar Manchester set its mark. In doing so it traduces the experimentation and radicalism epitomised by The Fall.
Papers by Richard Witts
They remain globally valued as two of the chief cities identified with the development of popular music in the second half of the twentieth century. As de-industrialised centres seeking new engines of growth, they have invested in these cultural reputations in order to attract for themselves tourists, university students, the conference trade and foreign business. Yet across the past decade numerous claims have been made in a range of journalistic outputs that Liverpool and Manchester are cultural rivals. These claims appear to be predicated principally on sport and music, key meeting points of commerce and leisure.
There are certainly differences between the two conurbations – the industrial site of Manchester grew at the interstices of three rivers while Liverpool evolved as an Atlantic port. Yet the major transport initiatives in the area (the 1830 Manchester-Liverpool Railway, the 1894 Manchester Ship Canal, the 1934 East Lancs Road, the 1976 M62) were constructed in order to accelerate connections between the two cities. Most recently urban strategists such as Andreas Schulz-Baing have fused the diarchy by describing them as a potential polynuclear metropolitan zone, a megalopolis. From this the businessman Lord O’Neill has popularized the union as ‘Manpool’. Taking this as its cue to correct the music history of the ‘adversary’ cities, this chapter examines three diverse examples of musical figures associated with one city who played in vital, but forgotten, part in life of the other. Firstly, Tony Wilson (1950-2007) who was associated with Factory Records and the building of the Haçienda nightclub in Manchester, but started his career in Liverpool (the 1979 festival ‘Zoo Meets Factory Halfway’ will be referred to). Secondly, Roger Eagle (1942-99) who was associated with Liverpool post-punk club Eric’s but also Manchester’s Twisted Wheel (1960s) and The International (1980s); Eagle played a leading role in converting post-punk Frantic Elevators into soul-based Simply Red. Thirdly, the Griffiths brothers (The Real People, Liverpool, 1988–), the Gallagher brothers (Oasis, Manchester, 1992-2001), and the formation of 1990s ‘laddism’. Other cases are cited. A critique is made of contemporary and historical literature on the music scenes of the region. Examples of co-operation, reciprocation and solidarity remain hidden when ethnographic assumptions about separate ‘scenes’ are not tested by examining the common patterns of behaviour between sites of activity. Actors and events that are vital to the stories of both cities get consigned to one. Where the cohesive factor is music, there is a tendency to underestimate the extent of the patterns of interactions. The problem is that of the spatial relations between the administrative frame and the functional terrain of flows and exchanges. This chapter challenges that ethnography which cannot see the wood for the trees.
Witts places the band and its genesis in the cultural context of Manhattan's beatnik bohemianism, its radical artistic environment, and the city's negative reaction to California's 'Hippie' counterculture. The radical nature of the group's Warhol-period performances are examined, together with those aspects related to the issues of gender, sexuality and drugs culture by which the Warhol Factory scene was identified, and contemplated in Reed's songs.
Witts examines the musical influences of the Velvets on punk, post-punk and subsequent rock movements, culminating in the band's reunion of 1993. He also indexes the variety of media constructions that the group endured through the years and how these affected Cale, Nico and Reed and their attempts to establish solo careers.
They have done so in order to delimit general sequences of events around the specificities of Factory Records. By constructing and advancing a received post-punk narrative they have swept bands like The Fall out of that history. Yet the stories provided by practitioners and resources such as The Fall provide much richer accounts of impacts, scenes, activities, realisations and conflicts than the monochrome frame tightly set around Factory.
This chapter examines films, books and statements that construct a particular narrative, one which disregards the modernist project by which postwar Manchester set its mark. In doing so it traduces the experimentation and radicalism epitomised by The Fall.
They remain globally valued as two of the chief cities identified with the development of popular music in the second half of the twentieth century. As de-industrialised centres seeking new engines of growth, they have invested in these cultural reputations in order to attract for themselves tourists, university students, the conference trade and foreign business. Yet across the past decade numerous claims have been made in a range of journalistic outputs that Liverpool and Manchester are cultural rivals. These claims appear to be predicated principally on sport and music, key meeting points of commerce and leisure.
There are certainly differences between the two conurbations – the industrial site of Manchester grew at the interstices of three rivers while Liverpool evolved as an Atlantic port. Yet the major transport initiatives in the area (the 1830 Manchester-Liverpool Railway, the 1894 Manchester Ship Canal, the 1934 East Lancs Road, the 1976 M62) were constructed in order to accelerate connections between the two cities. Most recently urban strategists such as Andreas Schulz-Baing have fused the diarchy by describing them as a potential polynuclear metropolitan zone, a megalopolis. From this the businessman Lord O’Neill has popularized the union as ‘Manpool’. Taking this as its cue to correct the music history of the ‘adversary’ cities, this chapter examines three diverse examples of musical figures associated with one city who played in vital, but forgotten, part in life of the other. Firstly, Tony Wilson (1950-2007) who was associated with Factory Records and the building of the Haçienda nightclub in Manchester, but started his career in Liverpool (the 1979 festival ‘Zoo Meets Factory Halfway’ will be referred to). Secondly, Roger Eagle (1942-99) who was associated with Liverpool post-punk club Eric’s but also Manchester’s Twisted Wheel (1960s) and The International (1980s); Eagle played a leading role in converting post-punk Frantic Elevators into soul-based Simply Red. Thirdly, the Griffiths brothers (The Real People, Liverpool, 1988–), the Gallagher brothers (Oasis, Manchester, 1992-2001), and the formation of 1990s ‘laddism’. Other cases are cited. A critique is made of contemporary and historical literature on the music scenes of the region. Examples of co-operation, reciprocation and solidarity remain hidden when ethnographic assumptions about separate ‘scenes’ are not tested by examining the common patterns of behaviour between sites of activity. Actors and events that are vital to the stories of both cities get consigned to one. Where the cohesive factor is music, there is a tendency to underestimate the extent of the patterns of interactions. The problem is that of the spatial relations between the administrative frame and the functional terrain of flows and exchanges. This chapter challenges that ethnography which cannot see the wood for the trees.
They were not ‘essays’ at all but programme notes that Tovey wrote for his orchestral concerts in Edinburgh, which he organized, conducted and performed as soloist on Thursday and Sunday nights for twenty-two years until 1939. Richard Witts is cataloguing the Tovey Archive at Edinburgh University and his account of these concerts – together with recordings of Tovey talking and conducting – will throw fresh light on Tovey’s work as an animateur in an age before arts subsidy.
The allocation of the Proms among stations between 1942 and 1970 reveals the tensions within shifting BBC policies on the presence of classical music on the major BBC stations, in particular the crisis of 1955 when, due to the birth of ITV, the BBC was internally exposed to market-force ideology in its promotion of music genres. Internal memos expose arguments about the Proms as a brand as opposed a broadcastable entity. This paper recounts and explores these issues.