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
this short chapter examines the period 1978-1980 in North West England (principally the Liverpool... more this short chapter examines the period 1978-1980 in North West England (principally the Liverpool-Manchester-Sheffield axis) when analogue recording equipment was used alongside experimental digital 'toys'. This haphazard bricolage created a special aural result that contributed strongly to the 'post-punk' aesthetic.
Though The Velvet Underground existed for less than three years with its original members, it is ... more Though The Velvet Underground existed for less than three years with its original members, it is considered to be not just the 'ultimate New York band' but also the most influential group ever. Artists who have acknowledged such influence include David Bowie,The Sex Pistols, Patti Smith, Joy Division and Nirvana. 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.
The story of The Fall helps us to understand the post-war history of Manchester where the story o... more The story of The Fall helps us to understand the post-war history of Manchester where the story of Factory falls short of it. Yet in the five years between 2002 and 2007 there has been a concerted attempt to fix a stiff narrative frame around that city’s musical life. It has been applied by a cartel associated with Factory and keen to raise their ‘heritage’ status in the city’s cultural profile. 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.
"The story of Th... more "The story of The Fall helps us to understand the post-war history of Manchester where the story of Factory falls short of it. Yet in the five years between 2002 and 2007 there has been a concerted attempt to fix a stiff narrative frame around that city’s musical life. It has been applied by a cartel associated with Factory and keen to raise their ‘heritage’ status in the city’s cultural profile. 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. "
Since 2015 Liverpool has been designated a UNESCO ‘City of Music’. Not so its neighbour Mancheste... more Since 2015 Liverpool has been designated a UNESCO ‘City of Music’. Not so its neighbour Manchester, which has nonetheless been hailed in the press as the ‘capital city of music’. 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.
It remains a remarkable fact that during World War Two a civic entertainments manager in the Cot... more It remains a remarkable fact that during World War Two a civic entertainments manager in the Cotswolds planned a festival of modern music. The Tory Council supported his idea. The 1945 Cheltenham Festival of Modern British Music was staged five weeks after Victory in Europe Day, and its successor remains a fixture in the British festival diary. This article explores the ideological origins and development of the annual festival, arguing that it was a key part of an economic strategy to promote the town as an elitist enclave. Also examined is cause of the so-called 'Cheltenham Symphony', of which it may be claimed that there are 24, alongside 29 'Cheltenham Concertos'.
this short chapter examines the period 1978-1980 in North West England (principally the Liverpool... more this short chapter examines the period 1978-1980 in North West England (principally the Liverpool-Manchester-Sheffield axis) when analogue recording equipment was used alongside experimental digital 'toys'. This haphazard bricolage created a special aural result that contributed strongly to the 'post-punk' aesthetic.
Though The Velvet Underground existed for less than three years with its original members, it is ... more Though The Velvet Underground existed for less than three years with its original members, it is considered to be not just the 'ultimate New York band' but also the most influential group ever. Artists who have acknowledged such influence include David Bowie,The Sex Pistols, Patti Smith, Joy Division and Nirvana. 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.
The story of The Fall helps us to understand the post-war history of Manchester where the story o... more The story of The Fall helps us to understand the post-war history of Manchester where the story of Factory falls short of it. Yet in the five years between 2002 and 2007 there has been a concerted attempt to fix a stiff narrative frame around that city’s musical life. It has been applied by a cartel associated with Factory and keen to raise their ‘heritage’ status in the city’s cultural profile. 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.
"The story of Th... more "The story of The Fall helps us to understand the post-war history of Manchester where the story of Factory falls short of it. Yet in the five years between 2002 and 2007 there has been a concerted attempt to fix a stiff narrative frame around that city’s musical life. It has been applied by a cartel associated with Factory and keen to raise their ‘heritage’ status in the city’s cultural profile. 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. "
Since 2015 Liverpool has been designated a UNESCO ‘City of Music’. Not so its neighbour Mancheste... more Since 2015 Liverpool has been designated a UNESCO ‘City of Music’. Not so its neighbour Manchester, which has nonetheless been hailed in the press as the ‘capital city of music’. 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.
It remains a remarkable fact that during World War Two a civic entertainments manager in the Cot... more It remains a remarkable fact that during World War Two a civic entertainments manager in the Cotswolds planned a festival of modern music. The Tory Council supported his idea. The 1945 Cheltenham Festival of Modern British Music was staged five weeks after Victory in Europe Day, and its successor remains a fixture in the British festival diary. This article explores the ideological origins and development of the annual festival, arguing that it was a key part of an economic strategy to promote the town as an elitist enclave. Also examined is cause of the so-called 'Cheltenham Symphony', of which it may be claimed that there are 24, alongside 29 'Cheltenham Concertos'.
This paper, a contribution to the conference 'Diva - an interdisciplinary conference' (Hope Unive... more This paper, a contribution to the conference 'Diva - an interdisciplinary conference' (Hope University, Liverpool, July 2011) examines the current state of 'divahood' with regard to the current high number of female singers competing in the popular music market, such as Britney Spears, Beyonce, Rihanna, Janelle Monae, Kesha and Lady Gaga. It takes as its starting point Linda Lister's paper of 2001, 'Divafication', and considers how helpful that term may be to explain the present scene.
In 1952 the London Philharmonic Orchestra sacked its highly admired and successful orchestra mana... more In 1952 the London Philharmonic Orchestra sacked its highly admired and successful orchestra manager, Thomas Russell, because of his openly communist connections. Boult's role in this scandal is examined, using public documents together with an aural account made by Frederick Riddle, principal viola and deputy chairman of the orchestra at the time.
The 1994 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act – which is still being used by British police - in... more The 1994 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act – which is still being used by British police - incorporates government policy on music, in that it employs that sense of the word ‘policy’ held in ‘policing’. This is a Middle French root referring to the regulation of public order or social conduct. Policy affecting the production, provision and circulation of music derives chiefly from administrative operations leading to legislation, schemes, regulation and promotions from six ministerial government departments. The two most conspicuously connected to music are the DCSF (which deals with nursery, primary and secondary music education) and the DCMS (which deals with aspects of the music industries and with arts subsidy, including the Lottery). There’s another sense of policy I wish to use, from the Latin politia, that is, related to the advocacy of socially responsible citizenship in the sense of civil order and the enhancement of social conditions. Policy as a managed course of action exists to legitimate the retaining or the raising or the protection or the promotion of the value of an entity (such as a product) or a system of classification or an intellectual formulation.
Donald Francis Tovey (1875-1940) is best known today for his Essays in Musical Analysis, an influ... more Donald Francis Tovey (1875-1940) is best known today for his Essays in Musical Analysis, an influential survey of the classical canon in which he applied his method of experiential analysis. Acknowledged as a pianist of international stature, his 1930s BBC talks on music gave him a national following, which was capitalized on by Oxford University Press in publishing the Essays. 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.
An examination of the origin and development of Britain's first self-consciously annual festival ... more An examination of the origin and development of Britain's first self-consciously annual festival of contemporary music, the Cheltenham Festival of Contemporary Music, established in 1945.
While it has often been assumed that BBC radio has consistently broadcast each Prom season in its... more While it has often been assumed that BBC radio has consistently broadcast each Prom season in its entirety, 1966 was the first year that it did so. Even then many concerts were switched between stations at their intervals, and it was only from 1970 that the series was transmitted throughout on Radio 3, excepting the Last Night. While parts of some concerts were televised from 1947 onwards, the attempt from 1964 to build a new visual presence on the new BBC1 and BBC2 stations was soon 'left to dry'. 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.
Lip-synching, an oral form of mime, has long been connected to the masking of technical problems ... more Lip-synching, an oral form of mime, has long been connected to the masking of technical problems in the performance of song, from the ’playback’ systems of Bollywood and Hollywood, or Marni Nixon-style ’ghost singers’, to a Beyoncé dance routine. Through the lips of drag queens and drag kings, however, synching has been analysed by scholars such as Judith Butler as an act disclosing the audience’s own performative acts of identity in an operation where the adroit competence of lip-synching animates the camp, parodic incompetence of drag. This paper examines this paradox through interviews with lip-synching specialists such as Dicky Beau, who turns audio recordings of camp celebrities into digital scripts.
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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.