The Sony Walkman came out in 1984 (couple years earlier in Japan). Unless you made music or carried a boombox on your shoulder, you probably hadn't ever had the chance to walk around the streets with your own personal soundtrack accompanying your every step.
If you're taking the time to read this, play the video/tune below and read on, the video's nothing but the tune is a good one from this era of Russell's work.
A corn-fed boy from Iowa and classically trained on the cello, Arthur Russell came to Manhattan in the late 70's when the rents were cheap and the anger of punk had already knocked down the walls - musicians were starting to explore the spaces behind the facades - rediscovering rhythm, picking up new things to make sounds with, and creating new atmospheres to inhabit with their music and their bodies. Loft spaces and derelict buildings were taken over as artist studios and, late night, would turn into furtive spaces for dj's and dancers to congregate and see what was new that might make them want to move. Post-punk, art-rock experimenting was here and still a few years from creating the molds that would soon be filled with hair-gelled, synth-laden pap that makes so many cringe when you say 80's music.
Russell looking out at the Statue of Liberty, listening to his compositions
The advent of the Walkman allowed you to really inhabit new spaces with your music and body...taking with you the soundtrack of your choice that would totally fill your head as you walked around the dirty city streets. We take it for granted now, but sometimes, especially when you're walking through an unfamiliar place with your tunes going, you're able to newly realize how totally transformed the experience is by having a soundtrack for your walk...imagine if every time you walked down the street, Stayin' Alive filled the world or you walk in a room and Superfly booms as the door flys open...yeah.
This is entirely the way Russell composed his music - so much music too - some of it throbbing dance beats with simple and suggestive mantras song in his gentle voice, or sawing, ebb and flow cello with that voice, layered and processed over it all, or even country-tinged pop songs that could and should have been all over some radio station that just didn't exist - they're all unquestionably created in his 'voice' though ...he'd record much of it in his apartment (which apparently had piles of studio equipment, his cello, and a few pallets pushed together with a mat on them for meditating), he'd dump the songs onto a mini tape deck and go walking through Manhattan, along the East River, through Greenwich Village, letting the city sounds seep through the headphones and meld with his music. It's Great music to walk to.
I like to think of all of them doing this: Lou Reed, Richard Hell, Tom Verlaine, David Byrne, Debbie Harry - maybe they did, these people behind the music - sporting their oversized headphones and walking the streets demo'ing early versions of Marquee Moon, Making Flippy Flop, Sweet Jane, or Another World - when no one else was walking around with headphones on yet, most people's soundtracks limited to the clang and clamor of the city. I don't know, but I do know that this is how Arthur Russell first listened to much of his own music. To me, this is my favorite way to listen to him still - a good pair of Grados' turned up loud on an Autumn walk. Get yourself some and join me on the streets, I'll give you a nod when we pass on the sidewalk, every step is moving me up...
Arthur Russell - Pop Your Funk 7" instrumental
..this is a download link to one of the rarest of all dance/disco singles there is...and a sweet one at that. 150 copies pressed on 7" vinyl in 1980-ish and it's never been repressed! Put this on your iTunes, or whatev. if you're even a bit interested. This amazes me 'cause of its utter-ahead-of-its-time-ness...sounds like Black Dice or some Brooklyn noise/funk band from 2008 but, at it's tweaked heart, has the same song and spirit as all of his lovely stuff. Russell also released this as a single with lyrics in a different mix and it took the downtown discos and clubs by storm...an afro-dub sexuality bubbling up through the gentle-ness of his voice, the bongos and the looped and altered cello strokes taking the dance floor in a direction that, to me, feels so much more comfortable, personal, and home-y than the distant and cold dance-floor stuff that makes so much of this kind of music have the staying power of a birthday cake on a New York sidewalk in a downpour.
