Just back from a trip to London to see Phillip Glass’s setting of Leonard Cohen’s Book of Longing poems at the Barbican. I went to the Barbican at 5 to meet my friends and noticed as I approached about a dozen people gathered round in a huddle outside. I thought it was a group perhaps exchanging tickets or buying them from touts, but as I came up to them I realised that here was Leonard Cohen signing autographs on his way into the venue. He was short, thin and quite frail-looking, wearing an untrendy black raincoat over a light coloured suit. His hair wasn’t cropped as in recent photos but in a side parting, like his early photos, only white. He looked quite serious but every now and then the lopsided grin broke out and his eyes twinkled. When people thanked him for signing their book or CD, he would invariably thank them – ‘Thanks so much for coming. Thanks for buying the album.’ The fan in me was tempted to ask for an autograph, while another part of me wondered what for? (That’s not me in the photo!) But when people started asking him to stand with them for photos, and blocking his entry into the venue for yet another photo or autograph, he began to look first merely patient, then a little tired – like a man in his 70s – and I realised I could appreciate it without grabbing my bit of him too. Eventually he pulled back towards the door – the public entrance – waved, looked at everyone, thanked us all for coming and headed in. The small, rather stunned, crowed had the respect not to follow him in, but when I did go in five minutes later, I found him in the midst of a smaller group outside the artists’ entrance further into the complex. He quickly escaped inside.
Retro Necro
Momus writes an interesting article about what he calls Retro Necro – the tendency of music nowadays to constantly reference the last forty years as if nothing new is possible. There’s a very simple, very big problem for today’s pop musician: if you fail to attack the father and rip up his rules, the father … Read more
