the death of 'blind' john fahey ("how can i be a folk?")

"still, this is so dumbfoundingly extraordinary. In a very short while there will be no more of me – and of all the things worldly, of all the affairs and destinies, from then on I will be unaware..." - 2 may 1953, last diary note, ivan bunin.

today in the seaside towns it is a bright sunny morning (but clouding over rapidly) - horsemouth should get out there double quick.

in the last couple of days he's started reading ivan bunin (a russian writer of the turgenev/ chekov variety - though praised by gorky). during the second world war bunin did not flee to america but hid out with his wife and friends in the french alps growing potatoes and living on a starvation diet. the book itself (the elaghin affair and other stories) was formerly the property of prince george's county memorial library (seemingly from jan22 1971 until july 1986) bladensburg, hyattsville and other locations (broadly the region between washington dc and annapolis, maryland. how it then made its way to halcyonandon books in greenwich the lord only knows.

yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the assassination of malcolm x.


also coming from maryland - born in washington dc and raised in the suburb of takoma park - was john aloysius fahey (born february 28, 1939 died february 22, 2001) - horsemouth will be celebrating his birth at the end of the week. today he is celebrating fahey's death. fahey's championing of 'old-timey' music is of course problematic - to a lot of people the old times were bad times and there's no need to be raking all that up again - furthermore he was geographically in the wrong place "how can i be a folk? i'm from the suburbs you know" on the edge of the south (and later in a california totally contrary to his instincts, still later in salem oregon). further the music is difficult to place on a simple folk-art-commercial grid running from pay-the-rent christmastime cheese to collages of modern classical and blues to the somewhat lazy noise/ improv that we think of as radical of his later years (but hey... at least he was working).

that fahey ended his life in poverty and sickness is held against him. that he had drug and alcohol problems is held against him. there is a don't-try-this-at-home-children moralism that alternates with a fascination for the bohemian existence (as if it was planned) that is cut with a modern disdain for anyone who doesn't have a career in the arts that enables them to sup lattes and sit in coffee shops. (by way of compensation at least he had a beard later). fahey didn't die young and leave us recordings and a reputation as a thoroughly nice fellow (like robbie basho whose life and death horsemouth will be celebrating on saturday or the dude from sparklehorse). if he survived long enough to get ugly at least he got paid to make music still.

the unfashionable edges (where it is cheap to live) this is where we are going - from the suburbs we came to the suburbs we shall return.

horsemouth has been watching true detective again (this is the kind of thing fahey should have been soundtracking - this, southern comfort, paris texas, deliverance ...) - it's the scale of america (necessitating good cars and being able to drive), that industrial/ rural mix. the pathologisation of the proles continues, history is a source of danger, modernity an incomplete and botched project.

the revolution will not be twittered

war in the east. (sorry that should read 'ceasefire in the east').

and in the european family 'intense diplomatic efforts' (aka bullying). the greeks made them an offer they couldn't accept (so regretfully they had to refuse). if the greeks succeed the bond markets will have to wait longer for 'their' money and austerity will be less intense - if the greeks fail either they crash out, great carnage to the benefit of the bond markets or they carry on being slowly choked to death in perpetuity at the discretion of their fellow europeans.

yanis V is some kind of a marxist (he says) - it would be good to understand better why he thinks what he does - drawing him as a zombie (as horsemouth has done) is just not an adequate response. if the eurozone can grant concessions then it would be good to get it to do so (would it not?) - that would constitute a victory (of sorts), why is his analogy between thatcher days and greece now incorrect, why is he quibbling over the difficulty in valorising the human factor in value production... etc. etc. 

later horsemouth goes to work. he has rearranged his shelving a little (now 3 shelves of russians/ east europeans, 1 shelf of gothics/ decadents, 1 shelf random unsorted), constituted a box of utopians/ transcendentalists and dusted in the hallway. as usual this brings horsemouth face to face with what he has not read. he should really at least put up some more shelves (or have them put up)




horsemouth has listened to; two tracks by his bandmate in musicians of bremen john smith (the second) or howard grange or whatever he's calling himself at the minute - pleasant durrutti columnish stuff well sung and well played on his new acoustic guitar. (horsemouth may be out of the game).

horsemouth also listened to the free cd by long pike hollow - crafty and intelligent guitar soli, and the new track by stick in the wheel (which is about a horse, and a horse as a labouring creature at that).
 
the difficulty here horsemouth feels is finding the way to make our musical efforts distinctive that respects what they are - horsemouth has no answers but he thinks it's the key question at least - to have a verse and a chorus and lyrics enough to cover them is no longer sufficient.

 'the lowing of cattle is the natural bass to the melody of human voices' - elisabeth palmer peabody (transcendentalist and brook farmer).

alternative communities in 19th/20th/ 21st century england and america

horsemouth's connection to the world wide communion is down from home at least (he types this in the library). keep up the good work cyber munchkins.

 -------------------------

later/ earlier - horsemouth is in exile from the world wide communion and is typing this in a word processor programme (remember those). It may be that this is eventually posted on the web (soon horsemouth hopes) in which case he will have to go through and remove the auto-corrected capitalisation or risk looking like he is yelling at you (never his intention). communes (curiously) sin deeply in grauniad land because they violate the sanctity of the family and private property. they remind the reader of their mortgaged ideals rather than mature complaisance. (think Tőnies use the gemeinschaft versus gesellschaft distinction in Communities and Association (1974)).

horsemouth was sad to read of the collapse of an apocalyptic commune in scotland and the time spent by the founder in a lunatic asylum (or whatever the current term is) … later he read that the founder was an apostate lacanian and university lecturer who had been disciplined by his college after showing one of his students an article about fellatio in fruit bats. But is this not (in its modern incarnation) merely a rerun of the end Henry Allos's potato growing commune Allopia that ended messily and with a spell of mental illness for the founder. To review the lecturer's mea culpa (how dare he imply that capitalism is not sustainable and it will all end badly?) the Grauniad hired (do they still pay book reviewers?) another commune dweller whose own mea culpa is out in June. (dylan evans/ tobias smith)

horsemouth has been spending time in the library ('where we bury the lies') with dennis hardy's Alternative Communities in !9th Century England.

on his journey to the library horsemouth has been reading gabriel josipovici's goldberg: variations – which reads like a survival from borges time - writer hired to write and read for an insomniac philosopher (a tale each night) – familiar locations and topics, skara brae, ring of bro(d)gar, maes howe, venice, the wild boy of aveyron (L'enfant sauvage), odysseus.

this morning horsemouth wandered off in search of museli - 3kgs. he then tried halcyonandon returning with selected writings from the american transcendentalists (in a signet classic edition) - this includes a section on brook farm their not-so-long lived utopian commune and a piece by bronson alcott founder (with charles lane) of fruitlands another utopian commune.

 as hardy says in his introduction

'their ideals proved to be illusory, but their own existence was real enough.'

fade away

horsemouth (the fictitious character remember) would like to make it clear that he is literally the employee of beachside donkey rides - a firm offering children or larger adults a ride up and down the beech on the back of a genuine donkey (or mule) in the pissing wind and rain. he is not attempting any kind of satirical dialectical montage here.

ok horsemouth (cold, runny nose, grumpy) goes to be a performing monkey for the cameras in a room marginally larger than the average armpit - it will either be stifflingly hot or freezing cold. he is being photographed to prove that the institution is caring sharing organisation that complies with the provisions of the equality act (an umbrella piece of legislation covering the disability discrimination act - because you wouldn't want to give the disabled their own act - that would be special treatment). seeing as these are statutory requirements it is the equivalent of photographing a fire extinguisher and saying 'look how good we are to the cients of our institution, we generously provide equipment to stop them being burned to death'.

interestingly enough a while ago (in south london somewhere) some muppet judge in a housing benefit case destroyed the basis on which horsemouth is hired to do beachside donkeyrides work - no institutions do not have to make a 'reasonable adjustment' people (and small children) are required to walk up and down the beach on their own - but seeing as horsemouth and his colleagues are of the middle class and some of them even have salaries their jobs have not been immediately destroyed but merely allowed to continue on in a sort of ghost existence.

in fact the real attack comes from budget cutters - dyslexics in education seem to be the first target to have their support cut, next the deaf and disabled in work (yeah they're clearly uneconomic- let the state feed them - hey there are always food banks say the tory MPs). the business-trained managers of health, education and other services (always with their hand out) insist that each sector (at least) must pay its way.


there is annecdotal evidence that many of the better trained (sign language interpreters etc.) are leaving the sector as the agencies attempt to drive down pay and conditions - admittedly these were pretty fucking featherbedded but the people with mortgages (based on this feather bedding) believe they will do better elsewhere. horsemouth recently overheard a conversation where one was seriously considering becoming the manager of an aldi. on the beach by the waterfront where horsemouth works (beachside donkey rides - trolling up and down the beach in the pissing wind and rain) several donkeys have already been made redundant or redeployed to work down the mines.

the big temp agencies (ranstad etc.) are moving into the donkeyrides sector paying lower wages and providing unqualified staff (and some of them are not even donkeys) - by the time travel costs have been taken off we are pretty much looking at them being paid if not minimum wage than at least less than the seaside towns living wage (and anyway this is all on zero-hours contracts). as the song has it - there may be trouble ahead.

horsemouth (the working stiff) at least must concede that photographing him they are paying lipservice to a misty ideal of support. it creates the pleasant illusion that this may indeed be a right.

on the fine art of jumping ships and parting company

horsemouth is listening to musicians of bremen's debut album on shuffle on his (laughingly called) hi-fi . you can listen to and download these tracks - some of them are for download for free - at https://musiciansofbremen.bandcamp.com/.

it all sounds pretty good to him - the songs stand up (mostly) and none of the playing makes him wince. there's the odd level he'd fiddle with here or there (but he knows enough to know that people don't consciously register that stuff). it showcases john smith's singing and songwriting most effectively (which was its main aim) and the ukelele is a surprisingly effective instrument - these tracks are available on the sorrows of tomorrow and all my dreams EPs  on bandcamp (these are possibly the standout tracks). to download them you'll have to pay, though you can listen to them for free.

the cover versions (mostly collected on what a wonderful world) are (other than the werewolf and what a wonderful world itself) nicely made but somewhat inessential - the werewolf, father death blues, a la luna yo me voy having a horsemouth lead vocal don't really fit (if horsemouth's vocals had been kept for backing vocals on other songs more they might have worked better) , silver raven, blue crystal fire, would work to leaven the record but to leaven it would be to detract from its essential focus. I'm sad and I'm lonely works well (possibly the third standout track of the covers). 


horsemouth has learnt much from doing the project - he has (for instance) learnt that the werewolf works but father death blues doesn't, that you can't really have both silver raven and blue crystal fire (the arrangements are too similar), he's pleased with his lyric writing on the co-written all my dreams, his guitars are an essential part of the current arrangement on the golden one, sorrows of tomorrow and gently johnny. he's found gigs and he's played gigs (sometimes with very little warning, sometimes under difficult circumstances.

whether musicians of bremen reconvene at easter or not the musician of bremen can go forward - he has nothing to fear but fear itself.

and am I born to die?

'write.' - 'for whom?' - 'write for the dead whom thou didst love in the past.' - 'will they read me?' - 'nay' 

this was the motto with which soren kierkegaard planned to start his fear and trembling. another cheerful alternative was 'I had perished had I not perished.'

the preface begins in a recognisable tone too,

 'not merely in the realm of commerce but in the world of ideas as well our age is organising a regular clearance sale...' (see - it's uncanny!) 

kierkegaard even discusses an editor who will,

'slice the author into paragraphs, and will do it with the same inflexibility as the man who in the interest of the science of punctuation divided his discourse by counting the words, so that there were fifty words for a period and thirty five for a semicolon.' 

but before the main part of the book four tellings of the tale of abraham and isaac, each ending with a strategy for weaning babies and a homily.

horsemouth is back from a gig in a decommissioned asylum chapel in south london. he has a ton of CDs that he'll review sometime soon courtesy of stone tape recordings - the gig was in honour of alan lomax, his centenary event titled and am I born to die? the title of a charles wesley hymn popular in the appalachias-


meanwhile...

the owl service opened (good as ever - their version of fine horseman is indeed fine). gentlefolk proceeded (a little gentle for horsemouth's tastes but well played and sung), long pike hollow (piers haslam) a good young guitarist soundchecked with what sounded like fahey's poor boy and then went into a more robbie basho-like set (hey was that a bit of the black crows?), nancy wallace (who is moving to canada?) had already sung with the owl service and was to sing harmony with sharron kraus later) great, really good, lost harbours (like an improv-ey take on durruti column or, horsemouth doesn't know) with the poet justin hopper on the first song, and one of the other singers from the owl service on the second, 'we are you are wolf,' you are wolf announced themselves- possibly the only thing that was funky all day but not quite hitting that kate bush amazingness, sharron kraus great voice, great harmonies and squeeze box from nancy wallace. by now everything was overrunning by about 25 minutes so a short set from plinth (michael tanner)- violin, some bowed thing, accordeon, shruti, delayed fried vocal sample and live sampling and looping - drone.