In a sign that I may not have been completely out of my mind when I opted to spend all of our available money on Leonard Cohen tickets, instead of starting a college fund for Clementine, I stumbled across the following note, left by a WFMU disk jockey, on a website that I check from time to time.
throbbing gristle at the station a couple weeks ago were all ‘leonard cohen was the originator of everything and we really never should have gone the way of machines in music’
I’m not sure why this surprises me. I mean, it shouldn’t surprise me to hear Genesis P-Orridge praising Cohen. Cohen, after all, is a fine songwriter. And, P-Orridge, from what I’ve read, is a kind and gracious man. I guess it’s just hard for me to reconcile that the guy who filled a corner of the MASS MoCA with severed wolf heads and graphic photos taken during the pandrogeny surgeries of he and his late partner Lady Jaye, could appreciate Cohen to such an extent as to make him question his own catalog of work… Or, of course, the DJ could have been lying too.
And, with that, I give you this footage of a very Columbo-looking Leonard Cohen performing his song “Suzanne” on the Isle of Wight in 1970.
[And, for those of you who need a Throbbing Gristle fix, here’s something old and something new. Enjoy.]
