I was reminded of a good quote today which is Chinese. It connected to my last post in the Tokyo Olympiad film, and it was about complacency to a point, which connected to the Anti-Complacency League sentiment in the Paul Weller post. Here it is.
'If you are thinking of one year's time, plant a seed,
if you are thinking ten years time, plant a tree,
if you are thinking one hundred years time, educate the people'.
Many would say the best film of the Olympics ever made is Kon Ichikawa's 1965 documentary, 'Tokyo Olympiad'. I'd agree with that.
Comedic, respectful of elite athleticism and dedication, tragic, beautiful, charming, disturbing, lonely, very human, weirdly not as uplifting as you might expect, something for the time capsule, something to show every new generation, arguably something for everyone. Here are two clips from YouTube.
This week Paul Weller is in Sydney. This is him from when he was in The Jam back in the seventies. In late seventies Britain, Paul Weller was a powerful pop culture voice and sound of the suburbs - a supporter of left-wing politics in Thatcher's right-wing Conservative, 'Get on yer bike' (and go and find a job) Britain. I think there are some good insights and observations about a youth culture under pressure to be more commercial and selfish, and less social and altruistic, both in this, and many other songs by The Jam - 'getting a cab and traveling on buses, reading the graffiti about slash seats or fares - that's entertainment'.
It's well known that much of the seventies New Wave and Punk owes a lot to the sixties Mods and bands like The Small Faces, The Kinks, The Yardbirds, The Byrds, The Rolling Stones and The Who. Those bands amongst others took a mix of psychedelia, blues and rock and gave it an anti-establishment voice for a new post-war generation in Britain, who was being told by the government of the time that they'd 'never had it so good'. In cash terms maybe they could believe that, but socially, society was still narrow minded and conservative.
Oasis and Blur and other Britpop bands like Pulp pay good homage to the Mod days. Blur had Phil Daniels do vocals in their iconic 'Parklife', Paul Weller plays lead guitar on Oasis' 'Champagne Supernova'. The family line and intertwining goes on in Paul Weller's new albums '22 Dreams' where he has Graham Coxon, ex Blur and Noel Gallagher featuring on tracks.
There is a lot of learning and parallels for me on brands in this. There's clearly something about lineage, dedication and high ideals that separates the greats from the rest. Genius is sometimes defined as taking an expertise in something to a higher level. There's a school of thought about a '10,000 hour rule' which means that only if you spend 10,000 hours on something can you hope to be expert enough to then take it to the next level. Weller takes an 'I do what I do' attitude to keeping on putting in the hours and taking his art to new places. In the interviews below he talks about exploring new musical areas in future and getting contributing musicians to do things outside their normal areas of brilliance - Graham Coxon plays drums on 22 Dreams, and Weller gets Noel Gallagher to play melotron and other keyboards.
In this video for 'Town Called Malice' I think his big ideal is simply revealed, and it's to do with 'struggle, year after year' and a signing up to a lifelong 'Anti Complacency League' attitude. He is certainly very highly regarded in the music scene in the UK as an authentic working class voice of the modern world and a great musical legend. I was completely knocked last night when I saw him play at the Enmore Theatre, it was a great gig, one of those gigs where you keep finding yourself saying, 'That was brilliant, that was absolutely fantastic.'. He and the band looked like they were having a great time too.
This is him (in two parts) in an interview from XFM in the UK, talking about the new album, the legacy he'd like to leave, and various other things.
This is a direct link to the work above Psyop did for the Converse campaign by Anomaly NYC on Psyop's site. Great energy, edginess and authenticity. Also good to see are the interviews with Pharrell Williams and Santogold on YouTube.
