Satan is Real: The Louvin Brothers' High Lonesome Theology, walking the line between the devil and camp. Quote: >>Ira Louvin, a drunkard, a brute, and one half of Elvis’ favorite gospel duo, sang in a tenor that pioneered the place of sin close to the heart of country music. [...] It was Ira Louvin—the older brother, the songwriter, the genius—who in 1958 designed the cover of the Louvin Brothers’ most famous album, Satan Is Real: a photograph of him and his brother, Charlie (in matching white linen suits, pink shirts, and squared-off blue ties), singing, arms outstretched, before what look to be the pits of Hell. Looming behind their backs, amid the flames: a big red devil, complete with fangs, horns, and a bloody pitchfork. [...] Is that Satan a joke? And if so, what is he doing there? These questions (and what are, I think, the answers: "Of course… but kind of scary too"; and "Unclear") point to a vein of self-conscious humor in the Louvin Brothers’ gospel that’s easy to mistake for kitsch. Many—most—truths in country music are spoken half in jest. No music is more embarrassed about its own theatricality.<<
monochrom is an art-technology-philosophy group having its seat in Vienna and Zeta Draconis. monochrom is an unpeculiar mixture of proto-aesthetic fringe work, pop attitude, subcultural science, context hacking and political activism. Our mission is conducted everywhere, but first and foremost in culture-archeological digs into the seats (and pockets) of ideology and entertainment. monochrom has existed in this (and almost every other) form since 1993. [more]
