Somewhere in Glasgow, a city about which I know absolutely nothing, I have a acquired a new friend. He has a terrific music blog, SibLINGSHOT ON THE BLEACHERS. He was nice enough to post a link to me, and I've been meaning to post a link to him. The trouble is that he posts so much, that I can't get him to stand still long enough to point you at any one particularly interesting piece. His tastes are, catholic? eclectic? I hate that "eclectic" word so I guess he is the pope of his own all encompassing tastes. For his, and anyone else's amusement, here's The Bassholes.
4 comments:
Hey Jon. Thanks!
These flats, I think, are the Red Road flats just to the north of where I live. They're not a million miles away either as the crow flies or in terms of reputation.
The tenements - before they demolished them to pave the way for tower blocks - were notorious as slums as in hundreds of other major urban cities.
The high rises, of course, were by no means a major improvement.
When I was reading your recollections of Brooklyn, it struck a very similar chord in that the resounding characteristic is an overwhelming sense of perpetual twilight. We spend too much time waiting for lifts in dimly lit landings, or scurrying backward and forward in the shadow of the buildings themselves.
I have (or had) a great-aunt on my mother's side who emigrated to California sometime in the forties. I never think of the influencing factor being the glamour of Hollywood ; I think she was consciously just stepping into the sun.
Those are the Red Road flats. I stole the picture from the Glasgow Housing Association website.
To steal from the GHA can only be good. Fuck them. The flats I stay in are far less cosmetically appealing ; they are identical to the shot of Harlem in a blizzard I posted at my place.
Behind the freshly facades of the Red Road PR shot, however, living conditions are far from good. Bad racial tensions there too ; multiple stabbings and murders which forced council authorities to rehouse many asylum seekers in my area near the river front.
Tower blocks, or as we call them here, The Projects, suck. It was no loss when places like Cabrini Green in Chicago were torn down. Unfortunately, they haven't been replaced with anything but homeless people pushing shopping carts.
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