artwork by Scott Ewalt
artwork by Hanni Balzer
I recently
checked out Marc Almond’s End of New York. It is a series of poems, lyrics, and
prose from the 80’s and 90’s of his view of New York that was published in March of 2001, I was updated by a fan, thanks again. I
noticed that there’s a couple of major, distinctions between the readings from
the CD and the book itself: There’s a reading of “The Puerto Rican Go Go Boy”
in the CD that’s not in the book, and a lot of the wordings were either omitted
or inserted by Marc himself, but there’s a photo with the same title, it’s an
art piece by Scott Ewalt, but there is “The Lonely Go Go Dancer”, but it wasn’t
read. I personally was confused that he only read about 75% of his work and
then left the rest unread. However it is a nice piece of art and liked his
perspective of New York. I also like how there was two Soft Cell songs that were
used: One was read which was “Baby Doll” it had another feel to it compared to
how it was released in 1983, but it was equally erotic and the other was "L’Esqualita" which wasn’t read but it did have a small fact Marc pointed out,
“L’Esqualita is the name of the Puerto Rican drag club in New York. I first
visited the club in 1982 and it became one of my favorite places. When the drag
artists performed members of the audience would walk up to them and push
dollars down the front of their dresses.” End of New York, p.49. There’s also
photos that are in black and white that Marc took of people but wasn’t credited,
don’t understand why unless he was trying to be mysterious. I really love the rawness Marc provides for these pieces and organic, really telling it like it is. I do love the
artwork by Scott Ewalt, the usage of colors and people from abnormal heads and
shapes to the complicated structures of buildings. This item is out of print,
and was proud to finally get it, it was one of the items by Marc Almond I
wanted. I felt sorry for him when he was trying to get his fans into it, but
they all wanted to know about the latest album and when was it coming out. If I
was there, I would have asked what made him feel secure enough to have his some of his art
pieces released into a book and why did he left out some of his work. I knew from
reading previous facts that New York was actually his idealistic place to live,
but after 9/11, it was irrelevant and then too the accident few years later
that would change him altogether and found a new fascination that is Edinburgh, and shockingly enough Russia.(found this out on his twitter) it's interesting because Neil Tennant is into the Russian culture, he would definitely have someone to talk to about that now wouldn't he? Anyway, Also another piece of art remains not credited, which is the portrait of Marc as a
devil. I also wonder how his attitude was when his voice was recorded; what was
going on when he read them, did he feel different or felt the same after a
period of years. Maybe the word “ellipsis” probably meant something symbolic
such as to be continued or something like that. I also noticed how there’s a
similarity on the theme, there’s a photo of Marc as a devil but then too, the
cover of the photo have Marc’s head being almost dominant and then behind him
says the Angel of Death. This is something for either young adults or adults
that into the sleaze, drug, sex, violent, glamorous type of world that was and
probably still is New York. My thoughts might change over a period of time
about this, but as of now, it’s something I would get if you’re into art and
would to know more about an artist. Also I forgot to point out the musical Cats
the way Marc discuss about it seems very intriguing, I always wanted to see it
and now getting the idea of it, makes me want to see it more, but I don’t think
they will show it anytime soon. There’s was a bit of humor about it because
Marc says there were the only cats he wasn’t allergic to, even though some of
them were intoxicating. There is a remix album that shares the same title of
The End of New York but there were fifty limited editions that were given away
and some of the songs aren’t from the series too which was interesting. I’m
glad I just have the series of his art plus the audio CD. If my facts are off is because they don't have much for me to look at.
sources were from the book and
http://www.brainwashed.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3628:marc-almond-qthe-end-of-new-york-book-a-cdq&catid=17:books&Itemid=134
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