Extensive research [a moment of confused thought - Ed.] has revealed just one Cecil in the Pantheon of Pop - Cecil McCartney. Whether he was related to the more famous McCartney [Mike McGear - Ed.] is a subject of passionate debate among the Professors of Pop. Cecil [pronounced Cecil, not "Cecil" - Ed.] was mostly an artist-type guy, paintin' pitchers for such show-biz swells as RSRCH PSE ED [blow it out yer ass - Ed.]. He found time between daubin' canvas to cut this here long-playin' LP rekkid, mystically yclept Om, which sported an unappetising image of the artist battling melanoma. Maybe it was the cover that stiffed the album, maybe it was not calling himself something hipper than Cecil [Irving, for example? - Ed.], or maybe because it was shit, but it's certainly found its [nice apostrophysin' - Ed.] home on th' Isle O' Foam©!
Art-type paintings by Cecil are sparsely represented on the internet. Here's the only one I found [left - Ed.] after extensive research. I am frankly amazed that the artiste was able to make any kind of living at all. Born into money?
Here's the groovy album liner, which publishes his manifesto for a better world, but not musician credits. Anyway, this is a collectible collectible you'll be proud to add to your collection! Even if, like je, you bail after a cursory listen, keeping these mp3 files in mint condition for a return on your investment!
And here's the great man's publicity photo [left - Ed.] Vegetarian, song writer, "pop" singer, etc. No one I think is in his tree.
Post made possible thru' privileged access to th' Lupine Assassin Collection
Want this? Feature your inner sadness by telling us about your favorite Cecil!
ReplyDeleteI is disqualified, because my favorite Cecil is Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent from the Beany and Cecil cartoon. No inner sadness on that one. Other than the sadness of not watching it today.
ReplyDeleteO'Kontrary, iamjethro - you is very much qualified - you still want this pslab o' psychedelic psoup kitchen pslop?
DeleteSure, Why not?
DeleteLemme just imanentize th' eschaton, an' I'll be right wit'cha!
DeleteLemme just imanentize th' eschaton, an' I'll be right wit'cha!
DeleteCecil the Seasick Sea Serpent from the TV puppet show 'Time For Beany', that was created by Bob Clampett. Cecil was voiced by Stan Freberg. In the early 60s, it became an animated television series.
ReplyDeleteYou don't realise how spooky your comment is. You will soon!
DeleteSerpents aside, Cecil Taylor.
ReplyDeleteBrilliant but forbidding.
DeleteCecil Parker.
ReplyDeleteCecil, The Unwanted French Fry!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Di9bLztByZU
("The Real" Don Steele was a DJ and actor. You might remember him as Junior Bruce, the excitable sportscaster covering the race in the 1975 film Death Race 2000.)
Torgo bring inner Cecil sadness.
DeleteOwner too cheap to buy 20-watt bulb to keep Cecil warm. Sadness.
Torgo disguise inner Cecil with false ebullience of Irving.
DeleteCecil The Unwanted French Fry is more interesting than Cecil McCartney.
DeleteMore sadness.
Om on the range:
ReplyDeletehttps://workupload.com/file/fRFvYYH9eUE
Wasn't Gram Parsons born a Cecil?
ReplyDeleteCecil Ingram Conner III
DeleteCecil Womack?
ReplyDeleteThe drunk that was always behind the club (bar) where I attended "mass". You really had to watch your step back there......
ReplyDeleteWillm doing time at Dept of AC & PGM
Old Cess certainly divided opinium...
ReplyDeletehttps://www.thelonelynote.com/2006/02/cecil-mccartney-offers-peace-with-van.html
I have a suspicion that Old Cess larged himself up not inconsiderably.
DeleteI have a suspicion that you may be correct.
DeleteMore larging himself up...
DeleteI found a bio on Discogs that mentioned Van Morrison and the falling out. That bio also quoted an art gallery bio (which I found) that said he "studied at Belfast College of Art and Kennington College, London, where he became president."
That last part was worth a bit of a fact check. President of what? The college? The student council for the class of 19xx? The Kennington Park chapter of The Beatles Fan Club?
Turns out it's almost impossible to find any info of it as a college at all. But there's an archival photo of the building circa 1975 that notes it was called "ILEA Kennington College" at the time the photo was taken. The building is better known as Vauxhall / Kennington Manor and was mainly a secondary school.
So at least there was such a place, at some point in time. But... the Discogs bio says CM was born in January 1938 (and deceased October 2018), and claims that Van Morrison visited him at his Belfast home in 1966.
ILEA, the Inner London Education Authority, was established in 1965, so the "ILEA Kennington College" would have been so named between then and the 1975 photo.
CM would likely have been there before then, as he was already 27 when ILEA was established. It's quite possible the "college" was already functioning - but whatever it was, it certainly wasn't much. There's a Facebook group for former students of the secondary school. It leaves absolutely zero doubt the secondary school was in full operation at that same location from the late 1950s through the 1970s. The Facebook page has no mention of any college operations there.
So his art gallery bio wants you to know Cecil left Ireland to go study at a "college" at a former manor in south London that mainly operated as a secondary school.
AND his bio wants to make sure you know that he became president of something or other while he was there.
Torgo relentless in search for factual accuracy. FT3 thank Torgo.
Delete(Also, cooling to our theme, various on-line sources quote his paintings as being owned by just about every A-list rock musician. I think we can call him out on that, too. Something - and my bet is family money - allowed him to swan about the world daubing canvas - and here his internet footprint is smaller than a cockroaches - and recording shit albums, but it wasn't talent.)
I'm on board with calling him out on that. Here goes!
DeleteFirst... I looked for records of his work having been displayed or sold at an actual gallery. I found one!!
But when I checked into the details, nope, false alarm. He had one piece up for auction but it went unsold. It was the Cecil, The Unwanted French Fry of that day's art sale.
Here's the auction results page:
https://www.mutualart.com/Artist/Cecil-McCartney/EA5B325FB6166766/AuctionResults
Note the "Not sold lot #119", even though there's a sale date listed. You can also filter by sold/unsold, and it comes up as Unsold.
Second, the art gallery bio that I mentioned is laughable. It's from a gallery in Galway, Ireland. You won't find the bio by clicking around on the web site's links. It seems to be from an archived version of the site from 2011. (Clue: pages on the active site have a link for events in 2019 in the menu on the left. CM's bio and other artist bio pages that I found have a similar link, but for 2011 events.)
So the bio is a bit tricky to find. Here it is, for anyone who can stomach it:
http://www.thekennygallery.ie/artists/mccartneycecil/
Also note the self portrait is a much older person than the album liner pic, resembling the pic from that other article where he ranted about burying the hatchet with Van Morrison. So... I'm concluding that it really is a bio from 2011 (maybe late 2010) and that he was age 73.
With that in mind, once you get past all the nauseating name-dropping, you find this gem near the end: "To date, the artist has staged seven exhibitions of this work, not only in Ulster but also Oxford and Ibiza."
Oooohhh... how impressive!
The bio pushes that he studied at Belfast College of Art, presumably circa 1956-1960. But he only managed seven exhibitions in 50+ years - and in spite of his obsession for name-dropping, he couldn't even list any of the actual museums or galleries that allegedly exhibited his work.
Better still... Galway is NOT one of the cities he named. So even the gallery whose web site has this lame bio has never hosted a collection of his work.
Best guess = a coffee shop in Ibiza was willing to let him put two or three of his pieces on a wall. Presto... it's an exhibition!
Mutualart has no image available of Sailboat Within A Rocky Landscape. A blessing.
DeleteHe was also a "would be astronaut".
ReplyDeleteApparently.
https://www.historyworkshop.org.uk/food/radical-object-the-british-vegetarian/
Great article. This is a gem: "the singer/would-be astronaut goes on to detail the six herbs that he felt compelled to eat while on a mountain expedition, which in terms of their ‘molecular structures… were more complex than LSD’." Ri-ight.
DeleteLSD has a very simple molecular structure..
DeleteOkay, so now that I have ripped CM mercilessly over that godawful bio he had on the art gallery's web site, it's time to give the man due credit for something he did extremely well.
ReplyDeleteApparently he was a wonderful father.
His son posted this video memorial after Cecil's passing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8w0X-l6ioY
That's enough.
Delete