september 2016 - gigs, books, films, events list

gigs

• 9- alasdair roberts 
• 12 - stick in the wheel, borabora band, dark lanterns (both bermondsey folk festival)
• 16 - 4 acres and a mule, sue driver 

books

• andre gide -journals 
• thomas hardy - far from the madding crowd 
• roger scruton -a short history of philosophy 
• hugh brody - the other side of eden 
• best sciencefiction of the year - volume 6 - aldiss and harrison 
• frankenstein unbound - brian aldiss 
• raymond williams (critical perspectives) - terry eagleton 
• metapolitics - alain badiou 

films

• werckmeister harmonies, damnation, the turin horse - bela tarr 
• robin redbreast, the village green 
• lost hearts, the treasure of abbot thomas, the ash tree - lawrence gordon clark
• the science of sleep
• knowing 

events

• 4 acres and a mule gig 
• eleonora's show 
• back to work

adieu to old england part two

'rent - ‘that imposition of vampires on virtuous sons of toil’
'I’m not for a moment suggesting that the monkey is under siege by spivs’,
‘st. john long’s death by consumption, in the midst of proofs that it was not a fatal disease...’

singing in different registers
 far from the madding crowd the other side of eden
(the wheel of fortune, the tower and the star)

‘an angry man tells a story’

the osea island temperance community
the wickford anarcho-naturist commune (tolstoyan)
the governments new (donkey) race to the bottom charging schedule

horsemouth bitten by dogs
horsemouth stuck in the meat world
horsemouth hiding out in the green

venus in cancer (sister anne)

‘it is closing time in the gardens of the west’

‘sad to say I must be on me way’ (adieu to old england part two)

up until now horsemouth has mainly thought of escape as a means to increase what one has - eg. to move somewhere cheaper so as to be able to afford to buy a property and thus be free of rent that ‘imposition of vampires on virtuous sons of toil’ (to quote ambrose bierce). prior to the brexit vote it could even have constituted a merely defensive strategy (to defend the existing value of one’s savings or even one’s assets) - that is prior to the 10% and increasing devaluation that brexit has caused. now it increasingly seems to be the only way to defend the future value of one’s assets from further raids, devaluations, lootings by finance capital.

some friends of horsemouth are off to ireland (in the green), another is in portugal waiting for the dust to settle - another is debating what to do about the ‘is your child a refuge?’ letter received from a local school (well he does have a foreign surname this child of hackney) - for the rest there’s the vexed matter of a university education for your child (still free or cheap in vast swathes of the EU, but now a life’s worth of debt in the UK).

horsemouth was at a goodbye do up in the forest - dave and claudia played (jointly and separately), horsemouth played (jointly with graham on an extended trance blues number and with claudia and with claire). there was an attempt to get sally maclennan played in honour of friends who must be on their way (but horsemouth failed). on the other hand (you picked a fine time to leave me) lucille went well and horsemouth essayed a few lines from adieu to old england adieu. horsemouth was particularly taken by dave’s classical guitar version of gnossienne no.1. he thanks you all for your kind attention.

horsemouth is still struck by how enthusiastic those outside the seaside towns are for brexit (his parents for example) and how adamantly opposed to it those within the seaside towns are. but the sun shone all summer and now there will be a picturesque cold snowy winter -followed by a 2017 in which the bills are delivered and more show up in subsequent years.

 "all stories are stories of disintegration. or else they're of resurrections."

escape features in bela tarr’s damnation - set in some buttfuck ugly hungarian coal-town with a solitary nightclub. it features an excellently biblical damnation speech (horsemouth really must track it down). to end it all the central character fronts out a dog while down on all fours (er... in the rain).

'I’m not for a moment suggesting that the monkey is under siege by spivs’

such was a line in an email horsemouth saw recently (ok he has changd a few names to protect the guilty). to quote linus (or was it charlie brown) 'oh good grief' (again) - could we please be spared any more of this type of prose example number two - an 'absolute warren of interconnected small' innuendos.

a man of calamity in other ways

‘st. john long’s death by consumption, in the midst of proofs that it was not a fatal disease...’ - thomas hardy, far from the madding crowd. (from whence we learn that bathsheba does not in fact sing ‘through bushes and through briars’ to the farm labourers (as she does in the john schlesinger version where she is played by julie christie).

so horsemouth has played his first gig as part of four acres and a mule (with sam and andrew minty and pete helping out on a few tracks) or whatever it is eventually called - it went ok, horsemouth is not utterly impressed with his performance (but it was decent enough). they played silver raven, painbirds, sometimes our dreams (float like anchors), power in the blood and when i fall as the main set (and perhaps a few others until ordered to stop by the bar staff). sam argues that the ones that are most worth doing are the ones with horsemouth and andrew minty singing in different registers (on that basis how great thou art would be worth adding).

horsemouth has finished reading the hugh brody (not brophy) and is on to the thomas hardy (which goes quickly).


this evening horsemouth goes to a meeting, tomorrow is the anniversary of robbie basho playing the stone city general record store in Iowa in 1982. thursday is the autumn equinox. friday is john coltrane’s birthday. (thence forward to samhain)

‘if a tower is babel, it shows the essence of human conceit and the puzzle of language itself’

horsemouth is reading hugh brody’s the other side of eden: hunter-gatherers, farmers and the shaping of the world (a book the bushwhacker would like horsemouth thinks) from whence this line about the tower of babel (george steiner’s after babel says similar horsemouth believes)

... and of the bible as the story of agriculture and settlement and how settlement on a piece of land implies that at least some of the descendants must eventually move elsewhere (it is our civilisation that is in fact the nomad society - the hunter gatherers and nomads who stay put). brody is with the hunter gatherers - who they say of themselves we have always been here (migration across the berring land bridge be damned). it goes quickly (page 146 already).

the mother of an ex had met hugh brody in the north of canada.

horsemouth approaches the autumn equinox (and after that samhain) and today (later on) he works (for the first time this academic year - he thinks it may be a walk and talk session). he’s also supposed to be jamming with mr. minty in preparation for a possible open mic appearance friday - he may be later getting back than he originally hoped.

today is greetings to saud day (in honour of mccoy tyner and pharoah sanders recording of elevation on this day in 73).

horsemouth bitten by dogs (death to the agricultural metaphor that preys on the minds of the people)

howard has been busy - here's some more guitary stuff.

horsemouth has been bitten by dogs (in particular by a mini sausage dog) first it growled a little then it tried to nip his ankles, finally in frustration is jumped up and bit horsemouth’s hand. oww said horsemouth (followed by an oi! to the owner). horsemouth examined the bite mark (small and circular) ‘no worries. no blood’ he remarked (see he is a stoical beast) and off he went.

saturday night horsmouth babysat. later there were tarot cards (the wheel of fortune, the tower and the star appeared - horsemouth finds an integrative verticality in the first two - a cyclical repetitive tragedy, in the star (strangely) horsemouth finds a proper separation of the realms (of air and of earth) achieved by the drawing up of subconscious material into consciousness.

horsemouth is back from sarf having been to see stick in the wheel (with myk) who were great as ever. sadly horsmouth had got the start times wrong and so only saw the last few of their songs (he’d also missed hickory signals). they were followed by the bora bora band (tooting folk club runners) and the dark lanterns (soon to be tooting folk club appearees). both of these bands were nice enough but not really horsemouth’s cup of tea (hence the death to the agricultural metaphor that preys on the minds of the people that horsemouth scrawled in his diary). horsemouth prefered the redriffes (?) (a local rock covers band of local wrinklies clearly injected with some new blood) but most of all he liked the traditional irish dancing group and the opera singer doing arias.

in his dreams this morning horsemouth was on holiday. choosing between towns, there was floodwater and a reconciliation, loz appeared, horsemouth was pleased to see him (he’s not normally pleased to see the dead in his dreams).

'horsemouth must learn to keep silent'

horsemouth is back from a scottish folk gig in south london (alasdair roberts - which was very good, he’s a deft guitarist with a great voice, and you can’t knock the accent, he opened with fair flower of northumberland). sadly by the time horsemouth had turned up he’d missed gemma khawaja’s set and most of nigel (formerly of bermondesy)’s. it was a hot and sticky night in millwall country but the seaside towns mass transit system was working efficiently (this gives horsemouth hope).

tonight horsemouth babysits to enable a gig to occur (see he’s an enabler). he may go to the soundcheck so he can at least hear some of the acts. there’s another one wednesday 14th that looks interesting also.

the andre gide journals (as recommended by susan sontag) have started to happen for horsemouth (the last time he tried was definitely not the time). ‘no books other than dictionaries’ he advises at one point. ‘an angry man tells a story’, as a man who tells a story is not sufficient.

sunday stick in the wheel are playing bermondsey folk festival.

next week horsemouth is back at work - there is greetings to saud (mccoy tyner) day (the anniversary of the recording of elevation by pharoah sanders back in 1973). there is open house weekend.

the osea island temperance community

horsemouth (further to a link about essex architecture week and the group radical essex) has been reading (in the FTweekend supplement of all places - yes horsemouth has been enjoying reading physically-existing newspapers once more) about radical goings on out in essex back in the day. in particular about the osea island temperance community. a friend recounts parking up the boat just off there and rowing ashore for a picnic when he was growing up (now it is a reasonably plush holiday place).

Trail of The Spider from Hugo Baltazar on Vimeo.

once some friends filmed a western where the only way (out) was essex. of course horsemouth thinks this is just a plot to lure us all out there so we can be massacred on the mudflats. there are chances to visit this weekend.

other radical sites include the wickford anarcho-naturist commune (tolstoyan) - well worth a miss, silver end,  and the bata shoe factory and workers’ estate in tilbury (based on the giant bata workers’ estate in ziln in the czech republic). a visit there would give horsemouth the chance to check out if it is true (as hoy shanty alleges) that ‘tilbury girls go round in pairs’.

horsemouth is still stuck in the meat world without a broadband collection only accessing the digital pleroma at the library (and then only when it is open). this was perhaps why he went and hid at his parents for a bit (in the green in the green).

the weekend may be busy (and horsemouth may be babysitting at some point in the middle of it). thereafter he is (probably) back to work. he attended the induction meeting for beachside donkey rides (winter season) and was comforted to hear of the governments new (donkey) race to the bottom charging schedule - two bids must be obtained for any donkey ride and the lowest of them must be taken (even if the creature is clearly not a donkey - or is only one donkey claiming to cover dozens of bookings simultaneously with their tardis. of course organisations with large resources would not do anything so low as to undercharge to deliberately crash the market and then raise charges later when a monopoly has been secured...

eagle sails the blue diamond waters (electrophonic tonic)

‘it is closing time in the gardens of the west’ - cyril connoly (on the west presumably)

horsemouth is hiding out in the green.

tuesday night horsemouth listened to robbie basho’s venus in cancer (and john fahey’s womblife).

the countryside is great - horsemouth regrets not getting out up onto the common to take a look at the sunset (but he had his facebook addiction to service).

electrophonic tonic and sister anne were the songs horsemouth recognised (played in reverse order to end out the set by london band electrophonic tonic at the clerkenwell festival on sunday - he bumped into myk there and georgina whose un-birthday it was and paul mazon and various others). the first is by sonic’s rendezvous band the other by the MC5 (from high times). he liked the band but the guitars were a bit quiet - they were followed by a band working the B52s/ suzi quatro sort of thing.

intermittently (and especially at the start) it would rain (it was probably the first time in months horsemouth has been wearing trousers).

tuesday (according to ED denison) /wednesday (according to wikipedia) was the birthday of robbie basho. horsemouth is a little too hungover to celebrate having been out to the murder mile with howard (who is back at work thursday - so this is probably the last horsemouth will see him until christmas).