“Hold On to Your Dreams” is the first biography of the musician and composer Arthur Russell, one of the most important but least known contributors to the downtown New York music scene during the 1970s and 1980s. With the exception of a few dance recordings, including “Is It All Over My Face?” and “Go Bang! #5,” Russell’s pioneering music was largely forgotten until the release of two albums in 2004 triggered a revival of interest, which gained momentum with the issue of additional albums and the documentary film Wild Combination. Based on interviews with more than seventy of his collaborators, family members and friends, “Hold On to Your Dreams” provides vital new information about this singular, eccentric musician and his role in the boundary-breaking downtown music scene. Continue reading
Hold On to Your Dreams: Blog
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“Hold On to Your Dreams: Arthur Russell and the Downtown Music Scene, 1973-92″ is now published. It is available for purchase in the US and the UK (on-line and in stores). Scroll down for updates. Continue reading
Hold On to Your Dreams / Japanese translation
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現代音楽～ディスコまで越境した奇才、その謎に包まれた人生：
70～80年代のN.Yアンダーグラウンドなシーンを代表するアーティスト、アーサー・ラッセル。チェロ、ドラッグと仏教への心酔、ギンズバーグやフィリップ・グラス、ラリー・レヴァンとの交流、そしてトーキング・ヘッズへの参加。死後、はじめて才能を評価された彼が、若くしてエイズで命を落とすまでの壮絶な記録 Continue reading
Hold On to Your Dreams / Italian translation
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Nota Dell’Edizione Italiana — Daniela Cascella
Tre anni fa, intervistando Tim Lawrence a proposito della sua ricerca suArthur Russell, la vita del musicista mi fu descritta come “un complicatointreccio di sogni, progetti, speranze, delusioni, relazioni e Continue reading
Love Saves the Day: A History of American Dance Music Culture, 1970-79
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Published by Duke University Press, 2004
498 pages
ISBN 0822331985
Opening with David Mancuso’s seminal “Love Saves the Day” Valentine’s party, Tim Lawrence tells the definitive story of American dance music culture in the 1970s – from its subterranean roots in NoHo and Hell’s Kitchen to its gaudy blossoming in midtown Manhattan to its wildfire transmission through America’s suburbs and urban hotspots such as Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Newark, and Miami. Continue reading
Japanese Translation of Love Saves the Day
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![Love Saves the Day has been translated into Japanese by P-Vine and is now available. ＜ガラージ＞＜ロフト＞＜12インチ＞＜ノンストップ・ミックス＞… 現在の隆盛の礎となった、NYを軸とした70年代のDJ/クラブ/レコード業界まわりの史実を、オリジナル・インタビュー、“ダンス・クラシックス”リストを通して徹底検証した決定版！ DJカルチャー参考書!! ロック/ソウルなどと並ぶ一大ジャンルと化した“ダンス・ミュージック”。 ディスコ/DJカルチャーの礎を築いた70年代のNYを軸としたアメリカン・ クラブ・カルチャーの成り立ちを、300ものオリジナル・インタビュー、600曲にわたる“ダンス・クラシックス”の登場を通して徹底検証した決定版! やっとのことで、ダンスミュージックが最も影響力を有した時代の、包み隠しのない、詳細かつ信頼できる回顧録ができた ─フランソワ・K(DJ/[WAVE MUSIC]主宰) 『ラヴ・セイヴス・ザ・デイ』は末代までぼくらに必要なものだ。ダンスミュージック、DJ、クラブ・カルチャーのリアルな歴史さ ─“リトル”ルイ・ヴェガ (DJ/プロデューサー:マスターズ・アット・ワーク、ニューヨリカン・ソウル) More information: http://www.p-vine.com/app.php/mo/Shop/ac/ProductDetail/id/7327.](http://timlawrence.info/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/frontcoverlovesavestheday90.jpg "Front Cover: Love Saves the Day")
Love Saves the Day has been translated into Japanese by P-Vine and is now available.
＜ガラージ＞＜ロフト＞＜12インチ＞＜ノンストップ・ミックス＞… Continue reading
Nota Dell’Edizione Italiana
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“Love Saves The Day”, uscito in prima edizione nel 2003 per la Duke University Press, e’ un libro secondo noi importante, giunto a colmare una lacuna evidente nella critica musicale e piu’ in genere nella critica del costume. Infatti, sebbene non Continue reading
Voguing and the House Ballroom Scene of New York City 1989-92 (Soul Jazz)
‘Listen, and you will hear all the houses that walked there before’:
A history of drag balls, houses and the culture of voguing
Tim Lawrence
Bursting into public consciousness between 1989 and 1991, the culture of drag balls and voguing can be traced back to the second half of the 19th century. Harlem’s Hamilton Lodge staged its first queer masquerade ball in 1869, and some 20 years later a medical student stumbled into another ball that was taking place in Walhalla Hall on the Lower East Side. He witnessed 500 same-sex male and female couples ‘waltzing sedately to the music of a good band’.1 A rickety old building situated at 119 East 11th Street, Webster Hall played host to further events during the 1920s, Continue reading
The Forging of a White Gay Aesthetic at the Saint, 1980-84 (DanceCult)
Dancecult, 3, 1, 2011, 1-24.
Attracting an affluent white gay crowd of 4,000-plus on peak nights, the Saint was probably the most prolific employer of DJs in New York City between 1980 and 1988, when it closed before opening for a much briefer run. Only the Paradise Garage, another private party that pulled in a predominantly ethnic gay crowd of 3,000-plus on peak weekend nights, rivalled the reach of the Saint during its 1977–87 run. However, whereas historians of dance culture have hailed the Garage’s Larry Levan to be the most influential DJ in the city during the 1980s, the shifting roster of selectors who worked at the Saint have merited barely a single mention Continue reading
Icons: Arthur Russell (Attitude)
Icons: Arthur Russell (Attitude, October 2009)
A composer and multi-instrumentalist who lived and worked in New York during the creative peak of the downtown era, Russell was a quirky character who appeared to live at a tangent to his times. While his peers prepared for Armageddon by dressing in ripped black leather as they explored the outer limits of noise, Russell wore check shirts and made music that was esoteric yet anthemic in order to pursue Buddhist enlightenment. Scarred by acne, caught up in multitrack tape and perpetually poor, he struggled to make his presence felt until he died of complications arising from AIDS in 1992. Continue reading