Saturday, 29 June 2013

horsemouth on the beach (eternal sunshine of a spotless mind)

Subject : horsemouth's ancestors - orpheus
 Posted Date: : 13 Apr 2007, 09:50

In the original stage production of orphee by jean cocteau the cryptic messages delivered by the radio were delivered by a talking horse. unfortunately horsemouth cannot watch the movie all the way through because the dvd has had jam spread on it - but he remembers it as being very good. horsemouth has just read plato's account of the death of socrates (as set to music by satie) -martin cooper's 'french music' says - 'satie's mainly negative qualities - ' no humbug, no repetition, no furtive caresses, no feverishness or miasma' in cocteau's words - are combined with a genuine, if tenuously expressed feeling... there are moments, as when Socrates drinks the hemlock, where the philosopher seems to be joining hands with debussy's damoiselle elue ... ' also on the record is debussy's chanson de bilitis - which horsemouth prefers... horsemouth is working hard learning la fille au cheveux de lin and is nearly ready to record it.

Subject : horsemouth on the beach (eternal sunshine of a spotless mind)
Posted Date: : 09 Apr 2007, 11:34

today (indeed yeasterday because this blog has been rewritten) horsemouth returned to one of his usual haunts - the swamp in haggerston park - a typical horsemouth summer would involve lots of sitting/lying on the park benches nearby R-E-A-D-I-N-G, something the youth (and certainly the deaf) never do... (last year was exceptional because he managed to swap it for the town beach in valencia) but the key benches have been removed and the lush verdant flower meadow has been converted into a lumpy desert by the british trust for conservation volunteers (bastards) despite the fact that horsemouth is on holiday he failed to go to a party saturday night - this he blames on an outbreak of the anti-socials - but horsemouth is nothing if not a sun worshipper and has been out toasting himself in the unseasonably warm and sunny weather -on his privatised sky-terrace! (see it and weep! as did his music therapy practicing friend dave) though there's still the ocassional nip in the air necessitating a horseblanket. john lanchester's recent piece on the digitisation of library stocks http://books.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2051729,00.html caught horsemouth's eye in papers over the week as did reviews of barbara ehrenreich's book on music and dancing etc., apparently (at the ICA) she said she hates canetti's crowds - this seems unfair to horsemouth. but it is a measure of how difficult people find the idea of the crowd that canetti's enthusiasm for it can so often be misread as its opposite , it reflects a particular reading that is also made of gombrowicz -that they were against crowds (when everyone was against them) and for them (now that everyone is for them). 
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horsemouth has also been thinking about ranciere, his popularity with the art world (as witnessed in his cover star status in a recent art forum), his hatred of stages in theories and his tendency to wheel on the suffering and oppressed whenever his theory is criticised (both in art forum and in real life apparently). Ok - so horsemouth hasn't read enough yet but.... (also; horsemouth can't help feeling that he's seen the structure of ranciere's partage du sensible somewhere before...but he can't remember where...) Ranciere (and I apologise for the lack of an accent but I can't be bothered typing this in word or setting a keyboard shortcut) provides, as horsemouth friend martin argues, a means by which art criticism can not only have post-structuralist theory but also kantian aesthetics as well. As even the king of a relational art so anodyne that it has been described as 'corporate feng shui' Liam Gillick notes 'the danger here is that we are merely happy to read a theorist who has even bothered to address contemporary art. We might be ascribing an excess of potential to his reassuring assertion(s)...' what are the potentials of ranciere's work? his defence of art and revolution as a practice of disensus - as a rare (or maybe less rare in art galleries) irruption of something new into the social leads him to refuse existing theories (and in particular examination of economics) as being a blocking move. horsemouth should approve of the way in which this leaves the art object alive and mutinous (exactly what adorno is accused of not doing but in fact takes great pains to do) but again (as with the conflict free kindergarten that is relational aesathetics) this seems to horsemouth to be a bit panglossian as well.... wow! art does this! it does politics! wow! (I need never attend another crap demonstration again!) horsemouth likes some of what the theory does - it brings aesthetics back onto the table and makes it important, it provides a corrective to definitions of arts autonomy that seal it off from politics, it attributes to art something like sovereignty (an ability to be an experientially enacted critique of reason - at least as currently constituted - and to go beyond it to a new partage) - but horsemouth worries that this partage is semi-permeable And stageless because it need never be blocked – it's always a partage again and again and again – this is a magic cake that can endlessly have slices taken out it and be shared out and yet will magically regenerate in time for the next partage. this all seems too successful as a theory to horsemouth - like baby bear's porridge it is always 'just right' - 'oh look! they're exhibiting disensus!' the key question for horsemouth is how this can be taken forward ('and so? where to now?') yet any questioning that seeks to undermine this autistic freedom is immediately confronted by the great starving masses (don't you know art does politics! - just look at their little starving faces!). has ranciere really broken with althussairian authoritarianism or is this just a distibuted version? ranciere seeks to put everything back into play again - but to do this means that nothing has been used up or blocked - is this true there is also ranciere's as resistance to the ethical turn - an idea that horsemouth will take up later and ranciere as critic of relational aesthetics, both provide an alibi for arts turn to aesthetics Ladies and gentleman - you are now free to exhibit disensus! -------------------------------------------------------------

 last night horsemouth watched 'eternal sunshine of a spotless mind' which he liked (a lot) but it made him very sad - he remembers asking his NLP practitioner friend to have some of his life blanked but he couldn't at that time face destroying the evidence. horsemouth is aware of being deeply misanthropic, of being badly adjusted and of letting his social skills fester - but on the other hand at least he's making music again.

 Subject : horsemouth has remembered a dream (a rare event)
Posted Date: : 05 Apr 2007, 10:24

last night horsemouth dreamt he was blindfolded (and in a car?) for some reason he was feeling up the calves of a woman he new (and ... gentle reader... they felt GOOD!!!) somewhere around knee height (a chaste dream this - which is probably why horsemouth is sharing it ) he (and she, horsemouth thinks) took off their respective blindfolds... horsemouth was shocked to see who it was!!! --------------------------------------------------- last night horsemouth also went out for beers with the mute editors (diary; 8.30pm meet mute) and so feels slightly queasy this morning (horsemouth is a shandy drinking lightweight and can no longer hold his drink) -----------------------------------------------------

buffy sainte-marie; something shel-na-gig like about this cover horsemouth is hunting down her early experiments with a buchla synthesizer, not that she needs it her voice has so much vibrato it often sounds like a theremin and her use of mouth-bow (particularly on old english folk tunes reynardine -here subtitled 'a vampire romance' though horsemouth thinks it's about were-foxes reynard - and on lyke walk dirge - an anglo-saxon poem about the trials faced by the soul in the afterlife) is awesome. French chanson seems to be an influence as well

Subject : horsemouth stricken with remorse
Posted Date: : 05 Apr 2007, 09:56

horsemouth is stricken with remorse a friend has complained about racist and sexist language in the monkey-on-a-stick housing co-ops newsletter 'shut up and do as you're told' - and she has a point - the article in question is sexist. Putting it in the same issue as her article treating the same subject in a serious manner could be seen as a betrayal. horsemouth has apologised for his editorial failings in not bringing this juxtaposition to her attention ahead of publication - this seems to horsemouth to be his real failing in this matter - however horsemouth cannot apologise for the article itself because, in the first place, he didn't write it and secondly to do so would be to violate his understanding of how fiction and in particular satire work..

She wishes to establish 'an editorial committee' to prevent such outrages in future, but seeing as the co-op can't even keep its development committee quorate and active this strikes horsemouth as a bit hopeful. To horsemouth, this conflict seems a no-win situation, likely only to provoke calls for censorship (and accusations of witchcraft against horsemouth - who as a mule who stands on his hind legs is already in a precarious position). This puts horsemouth in a painful dilemma Like many organisations these days, the co-op often seems more interested in policing its members behaviours than fullfilling its actual alotted task of providing low rent housing to low wage povs so they can continue making their art/music/run their rag and bone businesses in high rent london - and horsemouth himself has frequently used satire as an (imperfect) means to criticise this. This has led him to use a poorly thought out no censorship 'it gets given in- it goes in' alibi when he is asked to present the newsletter for scrutinisation by the management committee. horsemouth is now hoist on this.

If life has taught horsemouth one thing it is that the useful and the good can only be accomplished by stealth.

horsemouth will now attempt to defend the text itself;

This is low satire in which a serious topic is treated as if it were not serious (as opposed to hudibrastics where a low topic is treated as if it were the fall of lucifer), this drives a sit-com like comedy of embarasment, ultimately aiming to assert a common humanity. To anyone familiar with the region, its politics, and what is at stake, this cannot be a satisfactory treatment, hence the charge of racism. But to criticise the article for this (and its sexism) is to refuse to recognise that fiction is not a blueprint for reality but its critique by over-extension (horsemouth subscribes to the bakhtin like notion that it is the last refuge of the carnivalesque as a critique of those in power) - to require that it be inoffensive or representative or undertake any other work is to hobble it. in juxtaposition to the complainants serious article on the same issue this satire clearly fails - the collapsing of difference in the name of common humanity fails as a strategy (as it does in most modern fiction) but equally horsemouth has no faith in the other alternatives proposed.

Thursday, 27 June 2013

when we pretend that we're dead (does goatboy really exist?)

Subject : nlp and the treatment of alcoholics - a fantasy
Posted Date: : 01 Apr 2007, 09:57

horsemouth hopes you like the 'new' photo horsemouth is currently on his easter break (strange when you consider when peak time is at the seaside) horsemouth never knows what to say to people - that's why he is always recommending products and services - he's currently battling derrida's 'specters of marx' - but he's not getting it - he just doesn't know enough... he also worries about offending people - disappointing people- which seeing as he would like to make more of his money as a musician/ theoretician is a bit of a handicap.

Although, truth be told, the money isn't the real motivation, it's the kudos, the status.... For a while horsemouth has been engaged in conflict with a fellow co-op member - within the co-op, horsemouth is often treated as the spawn of satan because he can add up and understands some accountancy - he feels that if he isn't careful an accusation of witchcraft will soon be made against him, an escalation from the mumbled innuendoes of financial malfeasance made by steptoe and son. He is reminded of the sayings of his former NLP counsellor who (inbetween trying to hypnotise horsemouth into making fraudulent housing benefit claims) remarked that peole love their misery and will do anything rather than change. ....and horsemouth knows this is really about him.

 A fantasy; The committee members of the far off monkey-on-a-stick co-op play (as any transactional analysis veteran will tell you) a hard game of 'I'm only trying to help you' - trying being the operative word - the intention isn't really to help - to discharge their duty professionaly and to the best of their ability but simply to moan on about lack of participation whilst doubling the number of committees etc. Anybody actually wishing to participate is clapped in chains and led of to work in their overgrown gardens of the wicked witch of the west (there that will discourage them) . Once the suggestion was made that the christmas party be on a boat - it could sink chipped in one of them - and how they all laughed! The only thing that will actually help the co-op is creating more permanent property - something none of these boobs has managed in about 15 years.... fuck em says horsemouth, stick a fork in their ass and turn'em over, they're done!

transactional analysis has also guided horsemouth in his dealings with goatboy - who (you may have guessed) is an alcoholic - or is he? - the doctor who treated him for his broken leg (horsemouth exaggerated - it was one leg broken in two places) said that because he didn't have the d.t.'s while in hospital goatboy is NOT an alcoholic!!! horsemouth follows the transactional analysis model of alcoholism that it is a game payed by the 'alcoholic' to extort maximum attention out of friends and family by a never ending cycle wagon falling off, hideous outrage, contrition...and then there is the pleasurable effect of the alcohol itself.

Once horsemouth was privileged to sit in on a lecture by an art therapist who worked at the priory and had worked in prisons with offenders - he said that when asked to paint a picture of what sobriety means the trainee alcoholics (from the transactional analysis point of view AA. is just a continuation of the game) always paint the same picture - them on the beach, in the sunshine... (like horsemouth's new picture' the problem says the therapist is that this is drunkeness not sobriety - sobriety is getting out of bed at 7am to carry fat children around that beach in the pissing wind and rain - of dealing with emotions and conflict and responsibilities and not just climbing inside a bottle where the sun always shines... but who is horsemouth to lecture - he wants a beer when working with goatboy, horsemouth always tried not to play 'i'm only trying to help you' or indeed to play the part of 2nd whip in a contrition scene but instead to help goatboy realise his obvious musical talent because horsemouth wanted some of it (and to be honest about that motivation) - in the end gaotboy outplayed your humble narrator - realising that the realisation of his musical potential would obviate the fantasy of being a misunderstood artist goatboy contrived shenanigan after shenanigan until horsemouth was exhausted - thus ensuring that this music will be lost to posterity (now there's a victory).

the key problem is that the motivation to make music is not a selfless gift but an imposture aimed at realising the same kind of unconditional affection and esteem that we all long for but are never going to get - it is drunkeness not sobriety.

Subject : lost in the land of the machines
Posted Date: : 24 Mar 2007, 00:35

horsemouth has just been watching 'the getaway' by sam pekinpah featuring steve mcqueen and ali mcgraw lost in the land of the machines. horsemouth also recommends the jim thompson novel from which it's taken for its almost unfilmable ending - though tarrantino and rodrigues suggest it at the end of 'from dusk til dawn' . horsemouth bought it from the fleamarket near vallencia footbal stadium. So 'the getaway' is 'la huida' in spanish. ok - time for bed.

Subject : when we pretend that we're dead
Posted Date: : 22 Mar 2007, 18:59

 That which determines subjects as means of production and not as living purposes, increases with the proportion of machines to variable capital (Adorno)

that's us folks - the workers!! … its consummate organisation demands the coordination of people that are dead.(and that's us too)

This is of course all a taster for horsemouth's soon to be realised and much heralded web2.0 article that you will soon be sick to death of hearing about - but the quote goes on '...Compared to this all the achievements of adaptation, all the acts of conformity described by social psychology and cultural anthropology, are mere epiphenomena.' to survive we must do more than be mechanised - become part of the machine - the change is much more profound . Actually horsemouth is reading the more usual black,white and red edition of minima moralia by theodor adorno that he bought second hand from dillons (as was) -£9.50 (bastards - role on the digitisation of text). He also watched marcel carne's hotel du nord with arletty (borrowed bethnal green library -£2), a while ago he realised that a friends band 'ruby throat' was named after the bar in les enfants du paradis (duh.)- he is struck by the sheer badly behaved life of it all - but as jean cocteau argued they are all too old - they are by the end of the war already not young enough looking to draw us all in to the story. horsemouth is a big fan of the villain (lacenaire?) - a very moral character and a true lover of art.


Subject : A textual and musicological analysis of the repertoire of Charley Patton
Posted Date: : 16 Mar 2007, 17:34

of course horsemouth is not reading this book now but he did read it once in Croydon library he thinks alan ' blind owl' wilson was involved in this shenanigan.


Subject : what does goatboy really look like - and does he really exist?
Posted Date: : 13 Mar 2007, 09:58

it has been suggested to horsemouth that goatboy is a figment of his imagination - merely a means to double the number of tracks available to the general public on myspace - a marketing ploy aimed at evoking sympathy.

The evidence is as follows:

firstly - that the 'folk' club poster is in fact a modification of the fight club poster with the characters reversed;

secondly - that there is no true picture of goatboy on either site that has not been manipulated with photoshop ( the ones on this site are clearly cardboard cut outs) ;

thirdly that goatboys work is too similar in content to horsemouth's for it to be mere accident or influence;

fourthly - horsemouth is way too interested in ethnomethodological fraud to be a reliable informant; fifthly - having been created by a filing of error of killer whales in a dream horsemouth is clearly confused -his sense of self is underdeveloped.

All this is nonsense asserts horsemouth. Anybody wanting to know what goatboy looks like should place a photo of father jack (from father ted) side by side by one of jude law and squint until a composite image is achieved. on the subject of imposters 'goin' up the country' by canned heat and al wilson is clearly sung kermit the frog - this fine album features a fahey/ wlson collaboration based on a jaw harp, delay and a fragment of 'we would be building' a piece of sibelius repurposed as a hymn and played on a guitar retuned to c. This is similar to fahey's doctoral thesis - a musicological and linguistic analysis of the output of a well known blues artist conclusively proving that what he recorded was not the blues.

hello amy

Subject : ferdydurke and participation
Posted Date: : 04 Feb 2007, 19:26

horsemouth wants to go and see http://seeitfirst.co.uk/trailers/ferdydurke.html by his all time hero gombrowicz - but he has to work out how to do it on the cheap/ free because he doesn't want to pay £17.50 for anything even if this is a fair rate for the job. He's borrowed 'participation' from martin, which seems to be an excellent bluffers guide to the whole relational art/aesthetics thing - and that's what he should be reading at the minute - but no he's grooming his myspace site like a crazed bower bird ... horsemouth notes that there is a king of times arrow/ counterclock world thing going on here when re-reading blogs - where the conclusion of a theme introduces it so hello amy...

fin-de-siecle absinthe binges and a goatboy discography

Subject : fin-de-siecle absinthe binges and henry moore
Posted Date: : 02 Mar 2007, 17:32

as you may have noticed horsemouth is a satie fan - but he's also a debussy fan, a faure fan, a collette fan and a ravel fan - horsemouth likes this world of sleazy publishers, cabarets absinthe fuelled decadence and wagner inspired composition - at least at a distance of 100 years. horsemouth is still suffering under the fat donkey controllers (and their even fatter children) and should be on his way to an attendance mandatory after hours meeting but he can't be arsed (or asked if you'er from newcasL) even though it's time and a half (allegedly).

  there's a worm on the lose that makes computers into zombies horsemouth has finally ushered the music/zombies/web2.0 article out of the door - though this is probably the first you've read about it - he's missed his opportunity to comment on those making use of the use value of henry moore bronzes (by melting them down) and thus negating the extent to which art is an absolute commodity but there will be a follow up article (which if you are reading this in 3 months time horsemouth will probably have mentioned.

Subject : more fabricated authenticity than blind joe death
Posted Date: : 20 Feb 2007, 22:05

horsemouth is reading the book below and giving himself a rest from relational aesthetics - well actually horsemouth forgot to take a book to work (oh they work him so hard) and so had to buy one lunchtime and it was the pre-release copy of fabricating authenticity - creating country music. horsemouth was horrified to discover that 'blind joe death' the fictitious rediscovered bluesman invented by john fahey was not the first time this trick had been used - it in fact dates back to jean thomas (an alleged 'circuit court stenographer') and her 'discovery' of 'blind jilson: the singing fiddler of lost hope hollow' player of elizabethan ballads. In 1931 thomas took him to london where he played a folk festival at the royal albert hall. but his real name was blind bill day, lost hope hollow is not in kentucky, he was a town beggar playing novelty songs - and jean thomas was not a court stenographer but a hollywood scenario writer and amateur folklorist. tommorow horsemouth goes back to work on his web 2.0 article

Subject : a goatboy discography
Posted Date: : 14 Feb 2007, 19:32

goatboy is currently back in the bossom of his family having been found by the side of a motorway in south london with two broken legs - get well soon. The four tracks on goatboys website are selected from a session he and horsemouth recorded round at sam's flat that produced 8 tracks. At that time sam had not yet taken the pledge and the recordings were frequently fraught - on the positive side this enabled horsemouth to record whaterver backing he chose to each of the tracks before goatboy arrived in the morning. Sam does a great job throughout, goatboys vocals are a bit rough, and there a re glitches a plenty in the playing. One other track 'because' was recorded by ayesha taylor whilst gertrude were in the studio and a version mixed by horsemouth. It appears on the 2nd phoenix compilation.

The four tracks on www.myspace.com/goatboycutout are;

1. Crash In addition to pointing out that this was a waltz, horsemouth does the country guitar at the start -goatboy improvised an amazing harmonica solo - the guitar goes from e on the verse to a c on the chorus - horsemouth tried to get goatboy to put down a pad of two harmonica notes e and g.

2.Rocks horsemouth plays the organ, doubles the goatboy's guitar chords and plays an e-bow on acoustic guitar solo. Goatboy's favourite. Edited down by Sam from its original 8 minutes. Goatboy wanted a version with no organ on the chorus but he lost his copy of the cd so horsemouth wins...

3. Legs horsemouth does the niggling repetitive blues guitar phrases against goatboys slide (another song played on a guitar tuned to e) and adds yet more howling e-bow on acoustic (a strategy he can't recommend enough). eagle eared listeners will also detect whistling, bass humming, a sample of the jbs going 'yeah', all standards from horsemouths box of producing tricks and even some evil dead grandmother backing vocals (turned down so low you'd need a submarine to find them).

4. Porcelain Doll goatboy came up with the keyboard part - horsemouth does a sub fugazi guitar part and played the drum machine, sadly the bass line is a little out of tune and uncompressed. This required a lot of vocal comping because goatboy was spectacularly fucked when he recorded the vocal (mostly to capture this fuckedness for posterity). There's some sub hari-krishna chanting and clapping by horsemouth but get your submarine out because its low in the mix.

Monday, 24 June 2013

black saint and the sinner lady

Subject : the black saint and the sinner lady
 Posted Date: : 02 Feb 2007, 09:03


Tuesday night horsemouth went out to see his friend saskia play http://www.myspace.com/pacwomanwizza - that woman sings as well as her records (something horsemouth can't say yet sadly) and plays a mean fender rhodes astro jazz sun ra celeste kind of thing - sadly saskia and her bassist were followed by something horsemouth couldn't stand - music of appaling safeness and a singer with mush for brains - so bad that horsemouth contemplated setting himself on fire or cutting his wrists on the dancefloor or both and had to make his exit into the night. The venue on ******** street - cafe **** - was a tiled west london ekoc snorting venue of the worst sort i.e relocated to near brick lane ... good taste...dontcha fucken' hate it!

the week before horsemouth went to see another housing co-op musician kevin davy and his grouphttp://www.myspace.com/dsemble in a gig at their rehersal rooms the premises - what a band! what a band leader! what a drummer! what a keyboard player! what a percussionist!

horsemouth was reminded (by other events in the week) of a californian girl he used to know from hackney (what was her name?) and a similar all male trawl (this time to the pub)  - he remembers having the brief and clear illusion that they'd all been transformed into pigs and were truffling in the gutter behind her as she went to meet her irredeemably posh boyfriend (with half the scum of hackney in tow).  horsemouth remembers being stood up by her one time and being left in her house (full of the scum of hackney and denise horsemouth's soon to be flatmate) he remembers sitting on her bed and contemplating the bed where her perfect californian body used to lay   some years later before she got some other dude to pay her airfare back to california - horsemouth remembers squatting a flat for her whilst her then boyfriend lay gauched out upstairs (in the estate at the end of stoke newington church street) horsemouth passed her the small adjustable spanner he was using to change the lock in the steel door - she smiled at him and tucked it into the waist band of her jogging bottoms - and sadly reader that was the closest horsemouth ever got to getting her into bed Good luck where ever you are..

The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady By Charles Mingus was not Released 14 December, 2006 (as some databases claim) but in 1963- it starts with an astonishing drum motif in 3/4,6/8,9/8,12/8 and continues with charlie marriano singing through his saxophone producing noises not to be heard again until the invention of the vocoder, it breaks down variously into the reedy wailings of chinese music of into flamenco guitar breaks - it is simply incredible music. ok horsemouth has been offered sweet potato for dinner and after that I think there's a plan to watch chinese ghost story part 1.

Sunday, 23 June 2013

in this remote country

Subject : the french canadian appalachias
 Posted Date: : 26 Jan 2007, 09:03

Washington Irving proposed renaming the United States  Appalachia - I read somewhere, I think,  that it was the native american name for the entire continent (this seems a bit unlikely).

I am Currently Reading;  (and for once I'm actually doing it!)
In This Remote Country: French Colonial Culture in the Anglo-American Imagination, 1780-1860 By Edward Watts - about the extent to which the French were already there in detroit, in michigan, in wisconsin, down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to their mouths (upper and lower Louisiana) before the anglos got there and the rhetorical use that was made of their presence. If we were to take this book as a work of art a whole other world is called into view. Of course what horsemouth is engaged in (like can) is a kind of ethnomusicological forgery of the music of this lost world - a world of faded parisian parlour piano music crossed with 'american primitive' guitar... horsemouth imagines the mountain range extending up across the canadian border to an acadia that is simultaneously nova scotia. shortly before the happiest time of his life (though this was only happy with  particular retrospection) horsemouth had a dream he was swimming with killer whales through the sea at amazing speeds. Eventally one of the killer whales took horsemouths hand in his (velvety soft) mouth and led him back to where the humans were (why the humans horsemouth thought)  horsemouth hardly ever dreams

Subject : clothes make the horse! (PLUS the last record made by smart people)
Posted Date: : 23 Jan 2007, 20:58

 horsemouth has just found a fine early photo of himself in the studio when he was young and good looking ( image 41 or so) - as you can judge by comparing them with the ones from the recent photoshoot - that was obviously a long time ago - you can compare this with the photo of him with the singer of humpty dumpty also in the slideshow (when horsemouth had hair and before he grew a goatee) It may take a while for it to show up in the slide show though  (horsemouth has been waiting 3 days and may have to admit a technical error) horsemouth is reading 'in this remote country' by edward watts (but he'll do this product endorsement/ viral advertisement later) instead he's endorsing the fugs first album that he bought on cd from the marylebone library sale for £1.50- possibly the last record ever made by smart people - horsemouth is not worthy!!! this morning horsemouth found himself consumed by rage - one of the donkey fat controller minions doesn't appear to understand that horsemouth doesn't want to to re-type the entire previous text into the 'confirmed' text message. If they send horsemouth a 'fat child pick up pier 10' text then 'confirmed- horsemouth' should do it. Using a text phone given the size of his hooves is not easy for horsemouth but no theres no release... horsemouth is in the power of morons being tortured by text message in the pissing wind and rain unless you the consumer save him. horsemouth is making progress with the web 2.0 article and has enlisted the help of someone who knows about art to help him with it - the problem is he's been dragged away from music (his first love) and onto the perilous terrain of relational aesthetics plus worse he doesn't recall agreeing a price for this one... OK - later muchachos

Subject : ASK HORSEMOUTH; the 3 vital issues of the day
Posted Date: : 15 Jan 2007, 19:24

the three vital issues of our times zombies  - Dontcha just love'em! apparently there was some zombie shopping walk (on international buy nothing day) down ste. catherine street in montreal- at the moment their ability to hang around shopping malls and buy nothing impresses horsemouth the most - their imperviousness to advertising that and their universal enthusiasm to eat brains - thus producing more zombies - its the only thing zombies do and they're serious about it - they don't even need to hurryweb 2.0 on the other hand, horsemouth says, -hmmn- it's a. 'a big shopping mall' (has no one seen dawn of the dead) and b. a popularity contest (has nobody seen carrie)  and c. an outbreak of vanity publishing of epic proportions (has no one read foucault's pendulum) d. a south sea bubble of australian proportions (does no one remember the racks of 2nd hand copies of 'frampton comes alive'!!!) and e. an excuse to inflict a lot of feeble music on the world (and here horsemouth knows whereof he speaks www.myspace.com/horsemouthfolk - but really horsemouth that's d, again, have a sense of proportion) and e. the end of getting paid to make music (so all-in-all its win-win)
on the proposition that part 2 of your life is better than part 1 - in general things get easier (but that's not necessarily good - horsemouth thinks he had the best time when things were difficult and he was stupid (but admitted;y better looking) e.g. - horsemouth can't think of a recent girlfriend who's attempted to organise 3 in a bed sex for him) and while his life did get better (briefly) in his 30s (human equivalent years) - by and large his 40s have sucked - I suppose I should embrace his inner zombie and stagger off in search of difficulty...

altogether now--- MORE BRAINSS!!!!! apparently zombie maestro george romero is off in ontario filming a hand held dv camera straight to dvd - blair witch meets the zombies flick called 'diary of the dead' ... and yessss! there is  a myspace page. www.myspace.com/diaryofthedead


Saturday, 22 June 2013

pyramid of animals

Subject : http://www.katarzynakozyra.com.pl/pyramid_txt.html
 Posted Date: : 08 Jan 2007, 09:10

  http://www.katarzynakozyra.com.pl/pyramid_txt.html

Subject : Katarzyna Kozyra: 'Pyramid of Animals'

horsmouth is particularly keen on this, especially as it is based on a fable by the brothers grimm.

Subject : Q. Does lower supply lead to higher demand? (perruqe)
Posted Date: : 08 Jan 2007, 11:38

ugly nephew records recently sent horsemouth a friend request horsemouth responded with his disclaimer - and a (poorly thought out) lecture on economics ugly nephew responded with the following; Q. Does lower supply lead to higher demand? A. well probably not, at least not in horsemouth's experience - maybe only of identical things and if people are aware of them - horsemouth has fallen back on a very common rhetorical trick these days of using poorly understood notions from marketing textbooks as if he were his own personal multinational. The problem was, as jacques attali has argued in his book bruits/ noise, that copying digital things is effectively effortless so its difficult to create a scarcity of them (or even charge people for them) - it all becomes an economy of the gift ....

Now The wider issue is whether anybody with broadband will ever download anything again (even the applications for their computer). The main problem, it seems to horsemouth, remains creating demand (to talk again like a marketing textbook) and this is what chris de wolfe (of myspace) realised when his record executive wife told him that a&R departments were slashing their budgets... etc blah blah more economic determinism -------------------- see - horsemouth has poor social skills (let alone poor netiquette) - he has responded to a perfectly charming 'teaser' with a marketing lecture that even he doesn't believe in.... no wonder americans similarly treated have denounced him as a douchebag ----------------------

horsemouth would like to make it clear that the above is a 'perruqe' or 'wig' a piece of work produced by the worker for himself while he's supposed to be at work - in horsemouth's case he's off sick with a nasty cough - this calls for caution - bad things happen to animals when they are ill and no longer able to work - look at the musicians of bremen. twelfth night the christmas songs will be removed and replaced by something less seasonal. So this is your last chance to download these tunes and support horsemouth as he follows in the footsteps of john fahey's christmas records and bert jansch'sin the bleak midwinter. horsemouth is essentially a collector - but the new digital age is hard on collectors - he has consistently used commodities to replace emotional relationships - but why collect anything when it is available on line - the only reason to possess something is for periods of artificial scarcity (such as camping holidays) ... and this is why horsemouth is making his music artificially scarce. we are leaving the potlatch economy of the gift and entering a pleroma, but it is a bitter hard thing and I must get on with my real task as a viral advertiser of attempting to stimulate demand. horsemouth would like to point out that the release dates for all the cultural items on display are grossly innacurate and make everything appear modern and up to date - this is not the case... there are old things in the world too. perhaps virtue now only resides in undigitised kipple looted from junk shops this is the record that rekindled horsemouths love of hip-hop, something he has never successfully been able to integrate in his own music, in particular r.a. the rugged man's  'record comapany suicide' anti-industry plaint, mos def, talib kweli, pharoahe monche back when they were bearable - the unjustly neglected shabam shadeeq- the whole format - making the record like a performance - like a radio show.

Posted Date: : 27 Dec 2006, 11:46

go see and hear antifamily and their very fine minimal page with lots of links to their fine music. horsemouth feels guilty about berating them when in fact their opaque strategy is perfectly modern and up to date only old communist curmugeons like horsemouth could possibly require something else. horsemouth is reading bourriaud's  relational aesthetics again because he is writing an article on crowds and web2.0 (whatever that may be) . this even looks like the book horsemouth has - but he's only borrowed it from martin - he probably needs  his own copy - he's finding hte section on guattari incomprehensible - but thinks that bourdieu's arguments on the need of educational institutions for autonomy may be useful to him - indeed he has a bluffers guide to bourdieu somewhere ... horsemouth may be tilting at windmills again - his friends who know about art tell him that hte scene has moved on there is now a return to aesthetics, a return to painting. Yes, but in what form asks horsemouth.

how I became horsemouth and decided living as a cartoon mule was better than my earthly life

Subject : merry christmas one and all
Posted Date: : 25 Dec 2006, 19:25

horsemouth wishes his many fans merry chistmas from his family demesne in the frankly frighteningly green herefordshire - soon, 12th night, it will be time to take down the christmas tracks and replace them with something more workaday and less seasonal. horsemouth will be back to work at the beach  with the fat children. in the meantime he's got to get on and do some reading. horsemouth's brother has given him a son house session with the 1941 recordings on it - which have appalling sound quality... and even a session with a band with a mandolin.

Subject : never look a gift horse in the mouth

horsemouth was hoping to see his disclaimer cloned across myspace like a rash but antifamily who promised solemnly to put it up have instead opted for some opaque modern art type strategy /.../.../ or some such. horsemouth is feeling the season gringe - but truth be told (armed children, crazed cockney vigilantes, being more celibate than morrissey aside) he has little to complain about. He worries about the effect of being able to watch video footage of amon duul II and pentangle on myspaceyoutubehighfiveportalportalportal (or whatever it's called). Another one of horsemouth's friends left the party early this year, he wishes her peace wherever she is, a good reincarnation, to be fondly remembered like she deserves Another Truman show product placement  - basket of light by pentangle - part of horsemouth's parents record collection. horsemouth finds jaqui mcshee's voice a bit 'pure' for his taste but for him it's the jazz double bassist/rock drummer rhythm section  against bert jansch/john renbourne guitar that does it, that and the choice of material - it's a gatefold album (and probably the source of the dark/brown tonalities horsemouth favours)

Subject : the first picture of you
Posted Date: : 14 Dec 2006, 23:50

Horsemouth has just spent the last 2 day choping up and fiddling with a lost gem of 80s guitar music -The lotus eater's 'the first picture of you'  a disgustingly cheerful (and hideously overproduced) jangly guitar epic - horsemouth's flatmate Howard has suggested that the next co-op cd they produce (and they've produced 2 so far of musicians in the housing co-op) be a covers cd. These cd's they give away free with the co-op magazine to all 150 or so members in the sure knowledge that most of them will use it as a drinks coaster. ok off to wave tim n' dar goodbye - they're off to india too, but not horsemouth.

Subject : how I became horsemouth and decided living as a cartoon mule was better than my earthly life Posted Date: : 07 Dec 2006, 16:33
So tell me about the different parts of your being that have been reincarnated as horsemouth?

 Leroy 'Horsemouth' Wallace - one of the finest ever reggae drummers, star of Rockers, an absolutely ludicrous Jamaica set caper movie. So again I'm not actually watching the item I recommend for your consumption below...

The picture?
Horsemouth looks like Goya - in fact he looks like no.41 of the caprichios 'ni mas ni menos' which seems to argue that the law is 'no more no less' than an ass (and is having its portrait painted by a monkey). Goya was influenced by Hogarth and Blake - As an engraving it was designed to be printed, to be reproduced mechanically.

The seven souls?
Horsemouth sems to remember, in a past life, taking a dim puritan view of the sometimes rare, sometimes profligate moments of art and beauty in our lives. He seems to remember spending a long time in cargo cults waiting for either the pelican of revolution or the record company egret to descend from the sky and feed him. He is nostalgic for this. Why is living as a cartoon mule preferable to horsemouth's life in the real world? It must be... otherwise why are all these other fools on myspace... it is a mistake to believe this technology is about communication... it is about a more perfectable less material self.

Subject : a hole in my shoe
Posted Date: : 06 Dec 2006, 14:16

horsemouth has a hole in his shoe that is letting in water - he needs to go get new shoes. Horsemouth would frankly rather go to the dentist. Today is a beautiful sunny day, seeing as it's december it is a little nippy and horsemouth is wearing his horseblanket. He's just put up loads of 'candid' 'unposed' photographs of himself from a recent photoshoot - go look! He's a little perplexed that they're not in the slideshow yet (but hey) ... other sources of perplexity include the fact that the other donkeys who work with the fat children have not been told about their armed nature, meanwhile the fat children donkey ride controller has gone on holiday. Horsemouth only hopes no-one gets stabbed in the meantime. The product which horsemouth  would like to bring to your attention today, like a character in the truman show, is john fahey's 'dance of death and other plantation favourites'. Ok- that's it horsemouth has just been offered beans on toast for breakfast.

the one where horsemouth refuses to have friends

Subject : explaining the disclaimer
Posted Date: : 26 Nov 2006, 19:05

 horsemouth has just spent ages putting up one of those slide shows of his photos (see bottom of the page). I hope you like it. Battling thee no doubt log jammed bottle necked myspace server. This is probably time he should have put in to recording more music... horesmouth thinks you deserve an explanation as to why he will have no friends (as a matter of policy), except that he doesn't really have one yet. He refers people to the 'first cut is the deepest' article on www.metamute.org  - somewhere in the midst of this reference is made to the panglossian enthusiasm that artists now posses for the social, courtesy of Bourriaud's relational aesthetics. As art has been recreated in the image of the commodity this enthusiasm for the social has become the motor for much of modern capitalism - and web2.0 is the prime example of this. It is no suprise to find that myspace is a direct response to peer-to-peer computing and the changes this brought about in the music industry - for music in its irrationality is the perfect commodity. Horsemouth is suspicious of the resources being put in place to enable this sociability. (horsemouth's main source of inspiration for this frankly ludicrous theory is theodor adorno's aesthetic theory which he read on the beach in valencia in august, so no again he's not actually reading the book he recommends below at this very minute...)

Subject : invalid subject line
Posted Date: : 25 Nov 2006, 11:56

What horsemouth forgot to say was that he has been watching lots of skip james and son house clips on you tube. Skip James was reputedly the most evil man John Fahey ever met - try his 'how bluegrass music destroyed my life' whilst we're on the subject of commercial endorsements, as good as charles Mingus ' beneath the underdog' which it in fact ressembles in loads of ways.  My favourite bit is where upset at the shabby treatment blue blues pianist Roosevelt Sykes has recieved by a promoter Fahey goes over to commiserate only to recieve a casebook cognitive-behavioural psychology lecture in how to avoid making bad attributions and thus upset himself more. Imagine you're breaking off a big piece of honey and giving it to them says Sykes, because everybody likes honey - there's at least a page of this great self-hypnosis script. Horsemouth isn't curently reading it, he's leant it out to someone and can't remmember who...

high hopes and a disturbing experience

horsemouth's flatmate has suggested that high hopes is best understood as a horror movie - insufficient characters trapped in defeat (and yet surviving anyway)

 Subject : sunday
Posted Date: : 03 Dec 2006, 12:40

 horsemouth waved his friend jacques (this means someone horsemouth has actually met in the real world) off on his trip to india last night. round there he was reminded - watching mike leigh's 'high hopes', how much he hated that whole ken loach, mike leigh thing. Or rather how much he used to like it when he cared about 'political sigificance' - now that horsemouth attempts to subscribe to less vulgar notions of that and indeed 'realism', the appeal of them has vanished.  Both the sister and the yuppy neighbor woman character are thatcher's sisters - it's fine that the gentrification of islington kings cross is misrepresented as being conducted by the old (public) school posh (the film-maker is repeating the mistakes of the military in fighting the previous class war rather than the current one), whereas it was conducted by the new labouratii, it is that the sister is in the long line of  attacks upon the working class attempting to change themselves in any way  - the simple fact is that Mike leigh's side lost and that the attitudes in the movie are mere historical curiosities. The very buildings in which it was filmed were not gentrified but demolished to make way for the eurostar terminal. At the time everyone was completely happy to see ourselves (marginal london lumpens and, a later term, slackers) portrayed - and in a sense I am unfairly criticising the movie for failing to solve the problems of the era (at least in its own terms) The issue is not that these films are not realistic - to be a film is necessarily to be unrealistic. Naked is a much better movie but in attempting to show the ugliness produced by this disenfranchisement of a whole generation but it is in fact itself sexist just look at the camera angle as the caitlin  character leaves the movie (shot on a street in dalston - house gentrified). ps. The david thewliss character was deeply popular with gobshite northern ravers. Americans like these movies because they are not hollywood but in fact they are not wholely movies - they owe more to documentary. Currently reading studies in european realism - georg Lukacs -here mike leigh is not a balzac (on the wrong side but getting through to the truth nonetheless) , he's a zola, or maybe even a hugo.

Subject : a disturbing experience
Posted Date: : 01 Dec 2006, 18:27

 horsemouth has just had (well on thursday) a disturbing experience... one of the skinnier fat children brought a knife to the beach and during a children's game announced he was going to 'poke' one of the others with it and proceeded to show the other child it. what disturbs horsemouth is the thought not just that these (frequently sulky) children are armed to the teeth but that this was regarded as a source or fit subject for entertainment by the other child. This knife carrying is thought so little of  that it can be the subject of a childrens game even when their psychiatric social worker is present. 'ooh! don't stab me! don't poke me! ooh!' lisped one. horsemouth resolved to quit that beach and seek donkey-work elsewhere. of course he has told the fat controller of beachside donkey operations - (having first consulted his union rep) who will no doubt tell the children's chief psychiatric social worker. horsemouth has refused to identify the particular child involved and hopes that the matter will stop there - with some general knife safety training for the children etc. and that on no account will horsemouth be labelled a grass and condemned to talk to laughing policemen. this does not however seem likely...

indeed it would be worrying if it did - 'disarming children!... fiddle de-de!' says the chief psychiatric social worker ' there's no proof they were ever armed' he temporises, 'other than the word of this clapped out old donkey.'

inauspiciously it begins

24 Nov 2006, no time given.

another week over and deeper in debt horsemouth struggles home from his gainful employment carrying fat children around at the beach. Curiously horsemouth has been recieving a lot of attention from females lately - though on the way home he saw a run over black cat, well that's that he thought ' I ain't superstitious ..but a black cat just crossed my trail'. (howling wolf). It's all a bit Appuleius(?) 'the golden ass' thinks horsemouth. Tuesday was a bad day because he was called into the office and made to do filing.

25 Nov 2006, 11:50 Female interest in horsemouth appears to have evapourated (it's a bit strange frankly that having 'saw you online..' females should still be interested in  horsemouth, still...(dot dot dot as Neville Shute used to say)).Still it was a pretty dream while it happened, horsemouth now has to return the dvd he borrowed from the library and do his laundry.

a response to the 2013 myspace blog dieback



the horsemouth folk archive is a place for horsemouth to archive all his drivel following the great wreck that was the 2013 myspace blog dieback. he will begin with what he has  and add more as he finds it. some of it will never be found again - this he knows.

horsemouth would like to make it clear that he is NOT the famous reggae drummer leroy 'horsemouth' wallace but rather an unsuccessful folk guitarist eking out a meager existence on the edges of the seaside towns. playing occasionally, blogging regularly, rehearsing infrequently.

his music can be found at www.myspace.com/horsemouthfolk

if you like what he does please let him know - if not please leave him be.