'essayists must be loveable (it's part of their role)'

hannah arendt finds in labour loneliness (but doesn't stop to explain why) - horsemouth finds it in consumption.

 'the proper medium for the split man is the journal intime' says cyril connolly (and not the novel). he continues to follow the product lifecycle of the novel and begins to ask the question of how would-be novelists can make a living without killing their art. horsemouth, as you may have noticed, takes his advice. the title of this blog is modified from a cyril connolly saying (but formatted and punctuated a la horsemouth), but connolly also notes their over-reliance on the worn out elements of language barely better than cliches, note the as you may have noticed in the previous sentence, does it not seem a bit, well, weak, to you. is not horsemouth's overall style a bit familiar.

 the angel of death has been abroad at beachside donkey rides - good donkeys have been taken away up to donkey heaven (there to burn ther saddles and frolic in green pastures) - arguably this will weaken the service (but horsemouth won't be worrrying about this until next year or september as it is more locally known). friday horsemouth went to the leaving do - there are other cuts at the seaside - he was hungover most of saturday - he didn't feel right until the evening when he went to see les ambassadeurs internationaux play.

essentially this was a salif keita gig (with a few of his old bandmates from les ambassadeurs) - notably they played je t'aime and primpin (and maybe ignadijge) from salif's later solo albums - but they also played mandjou the great african prog-rock organ led classic (and ended up with amadou horsemouth thinks), the two keyboardists also got to sing songs. salif (bowler hat on head) paced himself well, breaking into a little charlie chaplin dance here and there, horsemouth will have to find out the name of the blind guitarist (amadou bagayoko) - there was ousmane kouyate too, both played some excellently rambunctious unsmoothed solos (though, to be fair, there was also some jazzy noodling).

 horsemouth and john then walked back to bethnal green cutting across the babylon that is brick lane (though it has moments of prettiness too) - an impatient horsemouth got on the wrong tube and had to do some shilly-shallying back and fore to avoid wandering round epping forest without a map. today he has a day off (and will probably not be fullfilling any social obligations), tomorrow he has to be persuasive, tuesday he babysits his brother's children, the week after he has a gig. this morning is pleasantly grey and cool.

against idleness and mischief

hey sean if you read this get in touch please...

-------------------

grey start hotter later. yesterday horsemouth walked over to south woodford and down to eagle pond. he went in search of the scene of his meeting with alan clark but dyers hall road ends after 4 houses, the ghost space where the encounter took place  floats suspended over the widenend M11 (which was why horsemouth was there, doing up gardens in the planning-blighted path of what was to become the M11). later the area became the scene of conflict between squatters, anti-roads activists and the government wishing to widen the road system but when horsemouth was there (86-87) leytonstone was run down and a little sleepy. 

in leytonstone (after a conversation about children's books) he bought a copy of alice in wonderland  and reread it first near the ponds and then in the back garden. as horsemouth has noted before 'how doth the little crocodile' is a parody of isaac watts improving ' how doth the little busy bee', 'you are old, father william'  is lifted from robert southey's 'the old man's comforts, and how he gained them' 

'In the days of my youth, I 

remembered my god,

and he hath not forgotten my age' etc. etc.

'beautiful soup' a parody of 'beautiful star' a popular song by j.m. sales which alice and her two sisters once sang to dodgson. 'the queen of hearts, she baked some tarts...' is taken in unaltered - but there were other traditional versions to the one we know (as recorded by james orchard halliwell in his 1842 nursery rhymes of england). 

horsemouth (on his journeys) not only discovered eagle pond but also leytonstone's art deco library (a hidden gem). the alice... has some critical essays, horsemouth will read these, meanwhile he is battling his way through the indictment of hackney that is inside the inner city with one hand and batting away 'crap masquerading as analysis' (as a friend has put it) with another. he is happier now he has responded to it in writing - it stands revealed as a threadbare and poorly argued paper tiger. 

ok the day awaits - more wandering around and more reading.

the owl service(againor)

so horsemouth and howard practiced (a little desultorily because of the heat and because horsemouth had some wax in his ears) but horsemouth played his the murder ballad (with no names) to another human being for the first time and at the end they played a version of manha do carnival from black orpheus (which horsemouth does to a slow clave rhythm), earlier they were attempting a new song by howard your child self and elizabeth cotton's freight train - howard had the picking pattern down (but then he forgot it). they finished up with the werewolf and then horsemouth was out of the door in the rain and away to see the owl service.

the owl service were great (the bass was a little more 'hackney' and dubwise than last time), john was a little upset they're still not playing willie o'winsbury (which they played once at their comeback gig and not since). horsemouth has always liked this song - with the improbably named king's daughter janet - her name seemingly stuck in at random to the song.

trembling bells had come down from glasgow (jesus that's dedication) and sounded in their first few songs like the lost folk root of black sabbath, later on they sounded a bit like the band fronted by sandy denny. good band, very enjoyable, not entirely horsemouth's thing. if horsemouth were them he'd work up a few more bits where people sing together - though this can be difficult with the kind of soundmix you get at pub gigs.

the evening ended with david thomas broughton who uses the kind of instant recording modern technology makes possible to make of playing folk guitar that no hay banda moment. the one where the image (of someone not playing a guitar) and the sound (of a guitar still playing) do not match - at last the guitarist is free from the mechanical task of playing the song and can do other things (wrestle with microphone stands for example to interrogate the materiality of the musicians existence onstage instead of hiding it all behind the music).

some people are trying to get a documentary made about him. the evening as a whole was a celebration of having achieved the kickstarter funding for a film about alan lomax and shirley collins and their collecting trip through the south of the US (in 1959 horsemouth thinks), so there were quite a few shirley collins' songs in the course of the evening - particularly by sophie williams (cello and voice - first act on). horsemouth liked the fact she wasn't interested in this 'chatting to the audience' lark (that was quite refreshing). horsemouth has lent his shirley and dolly collins cd out to sean - who seems a bit incommunicado at the minute.

on the radio playing the skyline, a girl, kizzy crawford, is doing a welsh language take on bossa nova as she, and gwilym symcock produce musical response to the skyline of port talbot, turning oil refineries, green hills and slate grey skies into music. his is all keith jarrett and claude debussy. hers, and shark infested waters by one of the super furry animals, creates the possibility of welsh bossa nova. bossa was a plan for a beautiful egalitarian multiracial brazil of art and beauty - what happened then was the military coup and years of repression and terror, no one wanted to listen to pretty songs about girls on beaches any more (except the tourists).
 ---------------------
not much for horsemouth to do this week except read - friday he goes to some friend's leaving do - the credit crunch/ government austerity finally having bitten in horsemouth's sector. saturday he goes to see salif keita's band (les ambassadeurs internationaux) play (shit he still owes john the money for the tickets!)

what do they think they're doing? / horsemouth and the lord of hellfire (erm. at a perfume launch)

what do they think they're doing?

so horsemouth is back from being interviewed, oh his poor ego it may not be able to take the strain. horsemouth gets to sound like a revolutionary hero when in fact he's just a lazy sod. but it's also made him a bit thoughtful. as usual having said something in response to a question there is always something else that should be said as well.

for horsemouth (and he suspects others) the interesting thing about the gentrification is that the gentrifiers just don't see that what they are doing could be a problem.

at one point in the proceedings - on an abortive mission to make it to the windsor castle (gentrified) travelling up the lower clapton street of gentrification shame - an employee of a wine bar emerged to protest against the 'negativity', to speak in defence of a 'local business' providing 'good food'. ('hey just be more dog guys!') this is possibly where the mismatch between what new hackney charges and what old hackney can afford is at its highest and, consequently, where the issue of who all this stuff is for, and who it is not for, is clearest.

it's an unwritten rule of gentrification (and the closely related market differentiation) that the higher prices are there precisely to deter those whose custom is not desired - if you have to worry about how much the coffee costs you can't afford to have it. people are also kept out by a careful use of the cultural codes of distinction and taste and shop-fitting (that 'hipster-style') - pay seven quid to sit at school desks? nah. poor people peer in the window as they hurry quickly past 'it's not for us'. but of course this also means the owners are free from any worry about being accused of any actual racism, or being against poor people themselves 'they just don't come in'. the business is a local business (and should thus be supported against the multinationals providing food at prices people can afford) and the food is good food for which more should be paid - you have a masters in wine dude, horsemouth is sure it's a good four pound glass of wine.

the rest of the week horsemouth buys food by weight and when it's on offer and when working lives on supermarket sandwiches but on his day off horsemouth has been known to do the turkish cafe breakfast and follow it up with a few pints in the murder mile.

and what's wrong with that? (asks the sommelier). people are having nice experiences, businesses are thriving and with all that extra money walking around horsemouth can't blame people for grabbing some of it. but for horsemouth what was special (hackney as a place of possibility for those with not much money - look at the improv scene, the four aces the drum and bass scene, the raves, the pirate radio stations) is ending and being replaced with an airport departure lounge mediocrity.

of course these local businesses are parts of chains and multinationals anyway - the gentrification is not paper thin but the jobs that go with it are - the businesses are vulnerable to (and nervous of) bad publicity.

horsemouth worries about to what extent the squatters were the last wave of possibility or the first wave of gentrification. to horsemouth the real motor of gentrification is the closeness of the inner city to the City not the great art and music that squatters made (to be frank most of it was pretty terrible). of the subsequent artists horsemouth thinks that they are directly in the service of capital and that they don't see a contradiction there - once art functioned as a critique of life and its shortcomings (and hence of capitalism), now these two circles lie ontop of each other and peoples art and music merely celebrates what is.


horsemouth and the lord of hellfire (erm. at a perfume launch)

from gentrification to perfume... (normal service will be resumed soon)

it's a bright cool morning but the news from the world is grim. meanwhile horsemouth is recovering having been to a perfume launch (he's not hungover but he seems to be coughing up ambergris).

perfume launch? sorry what was that horsemouth? a perfume launch? yes a perfume launch people. it was horsemouth's first perfume launch (john's second) and very enjoyable it was too - three members of comus played (cominus) and the evening ended with a performance by arthur brown (from the crazy world of arthur brown) , otherwise known as the lord of hellfire.

horsemouth arrived early and sought sanctuary from the disturbing possibility that he was at a perfume launch by clustering near the musicians making nice meditative ambient dronescapes near an enlarged garden shed. the perfume designer walked from exhibit to exhibit and told tales of family and travel and connection - each fragrance came from a memory - the smell of his father's gardening jacket (for example) - here come forward and smell it. there was a comic book telling the stories (which would receive dabs of the perfume). soon the vast underground space in soho (cunningly hidden beneath and behind a record shop) was full of the smell of perfume. there was a graphic novel too - telling a tale of sandalwood smuggling.

horsemouth and john nipped out for food and then returned to what turned out to be free beer and the evenings music - both cominus and arthur brown were great, the graphic novel author's band (werewheels) that started off the evening were enjoyable. horsemouth has seen arthur brown perform 'fire' - he's still got it.

the economics of this evening remain pleasantly opaque - horsemouth is clearly not the intended customer, he is not a buyer of perfume (though an argument could be made that out of kindness to his fellow commuters that in this hot weather particularly he should buy deodorant, not that he does you understand). 'they can't think we have any cultural capital'? remarked a friend, and indeed horsemouth doesn't see any reason why you should rush out and buy perfume on his say-so, he may tell you who they are, out of gratitude for them throwing a good party and telling him a good story, ok - gorilla perfumes. but that's as far as it goes.

perhaps the perfume isn't really the gig (the moment when they get paid), but horsemouth finds it hard to believe that records and comic books are the gig either (and the gig can't be the gig because it was free). it is pleasurable to visit the topsy-turvey world of promotion (as strange a thing as horsemouth has found down any rabbit hole).

'sociability' horsemouth

yesterday was bright and sunny - horsemouth therefore spent the day reading. mostly he read the byng, though he did dally a little with the physics of finance. byng is journeying to the north - near garwood he finds crag house and sir robert's cave (the first of which he finds 'without taste or design'). in knaresborough he awaits an extraordinary person - the 'genius' john metcalf who despite being blind was a violinist of note, taken prisoner at the battle of falkirk, and later a guide to stagecoaches on the road(!) and indeede a surveyor and constructor of roads(!).

increasingly though, he moans about the isolation of travelling (of being forced to converse with innkeepers, tradesmen and his servant), and indeed his powers of description are so weak (except when applied to his copious eating) that we feel the boredom too. he complains of bad food, lumpy beds and bad service at the inns ('this is no more a trout than you are sir!').

 'but where is your friend, your companion? one who would have enjoyed with you the observations, the sweatings and the cold meal; else, who cares for travel, or for what you saw or what you did? this is everlastingly, the burden of my song. I have dragged a servant hither, hired a clown to conduct me,; but where was the participation?'

this evening horsemouth goes to pick up some keys - tomorrow he may be interviewed - thursday he's going to a gig - it's a busy social whirl for new improved 'sociability' horsemouth. as usual horsemouth spends the best part of the day writing this (lacking an employment to get him up and out the door) and later is bored. yesterday horsemouth managed some work on a new song using satie's gnossiene no.1 and the mur-der-er rhythm. the intention being to write a jack wild penny dreadful style ballad about bad behaviour in a celebratory but sardonic vein (think mack the knife). it is of course important that no names attach to this song - it is not his intention to do the work of the police for them (heaven forefend).

thursday he should probably buy an e-bow on his journey into town - horsemouth was listening to his use of it on his recordings with goatboy (it's a pretty cool racket!).

'success lies buried in the garden of failure' (jolly's green)

this is of course a new age re-rub of 'success is on the far side of failure' by thomas j. watson (the founder of IBM) - you could have something to say about IBM's involvement in the third reich but horsemouth here looks at the garden, he looks at the buried. he's a bit of a sucker for new age exhortations. 

horsemouth was listening to a documentary about jeff buckley (where it crops up) - he has a great voice, he's a pretty boy and  he's a good guitarist too, you can hear the jimmy page influence. at one point, having been successful (because you want people to hear your music) he returned to playing secret gigs in folk clubs and coffee houses because he wanted to experiment and try something out.

"There was a time in my life not too long ago when I could show up in a cafe and simply do what I do, make music, learn from performing my music, explore what it means to me, i.e., have fun while I irritate and/or entertain an audience who don't know me or what I am about. In this situation I have that precious and irreplaceable luxury of failure, of risk, of surrender. I worked very hard to get this kind of thing together, this work forum. I loved it and then I missed it when it disappeared. All I am doing is reclaiming it."

he died in the wolf river near memphis, an accident they say, battling the second album, making demos on a 4-track.

horsemouth has an ugly voice, and he's old and ugly and his guitar playing is not what it once was (say it's not so people) -  but there are still lessons horsemouth takes from buckley - one is good tune selection for your covers, find songs you can do something with, range widely, another is to work what you have, if lush chordage is your thing go for it, but keep developing it. 

horsemouth can sing low and he can do that half speech/ half singing johnny cash thing, whilst harmonies are (currently) beyond him he can manage a creditable unison backing vocal in many registers. (frankly he should probably just go and get some lessons but he's probably not going to do that). on the plus side his choice of covers is exemplary (je te veux, blue crystal fire, silver raven, the werewolf, a luna yo mi voy),  he writes (or co-writes) a nice wordy song (the devil song, gentleman john, all my dreams), his slide playing (whilst neither inventive or immaculate) gives good texture (golden one, dorothy) he should put a bit more effort into his arranging and picking, work an instrumental into the set. 

a friend has pointed out that there isn't really an italian word for assertiveness (and so, it follows, that there is no equivalent of assertiveness training) - it's just what you are expected to do. horsemouth worries that he's not assertive enough when it comes to the things that matter to him.

horsemouth is reading the physics of finance (james owen weatherall - tales from the crypt - one quid fifty) about how probability distributions took over finance, the common people, byng's tours, his educational researches are on the backburner. the weather has gone rubbish. horsemouth is beginning to be bored. when he is bored enough he will do some work on his singing, his playing and his songs.

june's books

after london: wild england - richard jefferies.

the major works - sir thomas browne (introduction),

life on the mississipi river - mark twain,

celebration of awareness  - ivan ilich,

journey through britain -  john hillaby,

the hill of dreams - arthur machen,

tales of hoffman - eta hoffman (part inc. sandman)

the war - marguerite duras,

the oxford book of the sea - (started)

'if you don't ask you don't get'

'if you don't ask you don't get'  would be horsemouth's motto (perhaps together with the  experiential 'you don't know until you try' ) but sadly he would also have to admit that 'you can't always get what you want'  features heavily in his life. not that horsemouth is a buccaneering pirate adventurer you understand but he would like to be more so. horsemouth suspects that if you're having to ask things are not too clever already (not that that wouldn't stop him from asking you understand). 

horsemouth will soon be 50 - once he has celebrated this event he will begin lying about his age (or at least being economical with it), not everyone needs to know after all - horsemouth would like to afford people the opportunity of not being ageist - just because he's a hobbling balding greybeard there's no reason to aassume he's clapped out, past it and fit only for the knackers yard.

for some reason horsemouth is up and about early. yesterday horsemouth went to a demo while he didn't do any samba drumming he did sing loudly at various points (he was in fine fettle). the marketisation of education thus resisted thence to the pub for a sneaky couple of pints in the rain.

what would horsemouth do if there were no beachside donkey rides to organise his work for him? probably get better paid for less work by cutting out the middle man. but he would then face the terrible situation of having to find his own work. saturday there's a party. in a few weeks time horsemouth is off to catsit the house on the north circular - he should get away and travel more (he knows this) but so far this summer the weather has been good. today it is rainy and grey in the seaside towns but the sun is shining in hereford and brighton.

oh well - what wll horsemouth ask next?

album cover

outside it is a bright sunshiney morning - horsemouth is saving up these memories for winter when he will be walking up the beach back and fore, back and fore with a fat child on his shoulders in the pissing wind and rain, probably shivering with fever.

after a busy couple of days new improved horsemouth was feeling tired out and sleepy - after babysitting at J and D's (and a late night whiskey fueled songster session) horsemouth rose early in the morning to walk over to his brother's. the day's planned activity was shopping so horsemouth returned via steamtrain to clapton and called in on howard.

the business of the day was to work on the album cover for the musicians of bremen - here are some contenders (though they may not win through in the end) another task for the day was to finalise the track listing, assign IDE(?) numbers etc. - all of this is howard's area much more than horsemouth's but it didn't stop him from eating a hearty breakfast to fuel him for it and sticking his oar in.

tracklisting is a bit of a bone of contention - howard had one (but lost it) featuring all the tracks recorded by musicians during the recording season, horsemouth had an earlier one that he and howard agreed that he thinks would function well as a song-cycle (thus permitting the argument that they should be listened to all together - in a violation of current listening habits).

horsemouth returned home on the official burnt toast celebrated 425 bus. he then fiddled and snoozed his way through the evening, installing the CD rack he'd picked up as a beer trophy even before they played their gig, at one point even cooking (potato and chick peas). the flat needs a hoover and a tidy round, horsemouth needs to buy in some more food (tick- done). he should resist the urge to go and buy more books (fail). tomorrow he is demonstrating again - the phony war following the credit crunch is over, the cuts have finally made their way through the bureaucracy to horsemouth' s area of activity (beachside donkey rides).

the man who fell to earth (atlantis and mir)

horsemouth is up early - musicians of bremen played (people seemed to like it), he thanks gertrude for inviting them and people for coming and bohemianaut nick DD for doing the sound (and of course all the people who went 'BOOM - Tschack' as requested) . after playing he (to mix metaphors) hung around for a bit decompressing and then (still full of adrenaline) walked home.

as usual with horsemouth's psychic economy having had a success he is busy converting it into a failure - once again he has not been declared god emperor of the universe and instituted universal concubinage - he must be doing something wrong. 

yesterday there was a lot of hanging around - horsemouth went up to chateau bremen to rehearse at 1pm - but they didn't really need to and were then stuck hanging around for the rest of the afternoon. where to play next (that's the question), where is that next gig coming from. but also how to get the music to the people so that people will actually hear it. 

--------------

at the end of the space race astronauts and cosmonauts shook hands through the open hatchway between space shuttle atlantis and the space station mir and then... it was over.