gigs, books, films, events january 2017

gigs

• none

books

• mardi (continued)
• music in the US: a historical introduction
• an imagined life (richard hoggart)
• ways of seeing (berger)
• isabelle/ symphonie pastorale (gide)
• unto this last (ruslin)
• 12 gothic tales (various)
• coleridge on shakespeare (terence hawkes)
• strategy safari (mintzberg et al. excerpts)

films

• hamlet
• the leopard man
• arabian nights 1
• susana
• un chien andalus
• l'age d'or
• the castle (hanneke)
• the testament of dr. mabuse
• before the revolution
• maitresse
• les stances a sophie
• les amants de pont neuf
• henry fool
• the theory of achievement
• ambition
• joy + helen
• jean vigo collection 
• l'une chante l'autre pas
• blood on satan's claw
• under the skin
• terence davies trilogy
• fanny and alexander
• loves of a blond (milos forman)
• battleship potemkin  and various grierson movies about trawlers and fishing (drifters, granton trawler, north sea) and len lye trade tattoo
• nobody knows
• 35 shots of rum
• the man from london (bela tarr)

events

• new years eve richard and stass's
• hoarwithy ramble (r+s and various)
• john visits
• photographic exhibition
• salt marshes ramble with suburban bushwacker
• morven, siobhan and the silver ravens gig
• thai curry with howard

‘the world is a den of thieves (and night is falling)’

the alice coltrane festival calender continues - sunday - the anniversaries of the recording of a monastic trio and cosmic music.

your beloved narrator horsemouth has a filthy cold (he does not believe it is physically possible to get more snot up into his nostrils - ewww gross).

so how are his new year resolutions going?

well he has played a gig (morven, siobhan and the silver ravens) but he has not got the recording apparatus out of its box and checked if it is still working. his resonator guitar is a bit of a one trick pony - clanking country accompaniment at volume (true it can manage sweetly reverbed single note playing horsemouth should try more of this), he has had his laramie hummingbird copy tuned standard but the strings are old and knackered and will need to be replaced before horsemouth proceeds, similarly with the dreadnaught, after an unfortunate accident the nylon strung guitar needs the bridge and nut replacing and then new strings fitting. he thinks he needs to purchase new headphones as well.

horsemouth is waiting for the mischevious and unpredictable monkey year to end and the more reliable year of the fat domestic bird (rooster or turkey according to choice) to begin.

 ‘horsemouth’s house is falling down, falling down, falling down....’

monday (parking peritting) the structural engineer comes to assess horsemouth’s dwelling - it has some cracks that may be the result of bodged/ skimped modernisation work undertaken before the house was sold on to the generous generous people who house horsemouth. horsemouth will be out earning a crust (as they say) and will miss the -told-you-so’s.

last night horsemouth watched nobody knows a japanese film about a group of kids whose mother abandons them - being illegitimate they have never been registered for school and the neighbours only know of the existence of the eldest boy - and so aren’t missed - and so the power and the water are cut off - eventually the youngest girl dies in an accident (and they bury her in a suitcase in the park). this all sounds quite depressing (but it is in fact very sweet) the trouble is it is based on real life. he also watched 35 shots of rum but he couldn’t get the soundtrack working so he was left trying to work out what was going on based on his limited french (and his even more limited german).

the product designers debate commodity fetishism

tomorrow (26th january) the anniversary of the recording in 1970 of this blaster - the first alice coltrane album to feature horns apparently - joe henderson and pharoah sanders, the great ron carter on bass. horsemouth will be busy so he though he'd best put it up now.



so horsemouth dreamt he was with the product designers (or were they industrial designers - they seemed to be confused) while they debated commodity fetishism. four of them had been assigned to read chapter one and report back to the group - none of the rest (it transpired) had read it. so we start at four nil and see how the discussion disperses and shares ideas.

as industrial designers (or was it product designers?) the students were aware that he product was made of deeply sensuous material (there was the material in the coat for example) and a portion for the wages of the workers who had sewed it together (if we are talking about a coat). but hey they’re getting paid right - and this makes up part of the value (so far so uncontroversial) and then there’s the portion for profit ... and then the discussion kind of petered out. why was it fetishism? a few blankish looks - maybe something to do with branding? being able to charge a premium price?

horsemouth could be wrong but by calling it fetishism isn’t marx implying that this is some kind of irrational belief, that if we were outside the society and ideology we are in we could see it. one where the relationships between people (exploiters and exploited, exploited and fellow exploited) are replaced by relationships between things - us and money. the work (of the workers) gets hidden within the commodity (and is valued in money - which is itself a commodity). the whole system comes to look natural and fair.

ok - it’s a long time since horsemouth himself read any of this - but then he wasn’t asked to read it when he was paying good money for it. next week (said the end of the dream) baudrillard.

morven, siobhan, and the silver ravens

saturday night and the secret gig - morven, siobhan, and the silver ravens (horsemouth, andrew minty, sam leon with the help of a few friends voices and percussive skills - myk, lisa, howard / john smith). the weather outside was cold but in the kitchen it was nice and toasty - two e strings snap.

of course (once again) horsemouth should make more effort to stay sober and compus mentis unto the very end.



the rock and roll stuff went over well (opined howard / john smith when horsemouth visited him for pizza and a beer on sunday - me n’ bobby mcgee, lucille). later (in response to a request for motorhead, and having attempted deep purple's smoke on the water) horsemouth sang an impromptu version of ace of spades in the style of elvis.

where to next? maybe a birthday (or two) or a pub back room on a sunday probably.

horsemouth is reading unto this last by john ruskin - as ruskin points out what we have is not a division of labour (tuesday I am a lawyer, wednesday a musician, saturday a sanitation engineer) but a division of men and a reduction of work to mindless demeaning and atomised tasks. but isn’t the modern artisan form of boutique capitalism a kind of ruskin vision (one that still leaves people reduced to mere factors of production even as it farms their innovation).

ruskin’s political insights are lost in his life story - no wonder at the end of his life he wrote ‘an autobiography from which he deliberately excluded the memory of anything which caused him pain.’

in further reading horsemouth also found a copy of arthur c. danto’s the transfiguration of the commonplace - on that duchamp/ andy warhol moment (25p sarf lunun charity shop on horsemouth’s long march to camberwell. danto borrowed the title from that of a book written by a character in muriel spark’s the prime of miss jean brodie (horsemouth is ashamed to say he has never read it).

it is the anniversary of one of howard's mixes.

performance analysis (blood on satan's claw)

so horsemouth watched the blood on satan’s claw (a classic folk horror from the 70ies - peasants, nudity, period costumes, low production values). this he enjoyed enormously - he remembers seeing the trailer for it at the castle cinema in caerphilly as a kid (and being scared shitless by it). he’s been reading some of gide’s symphonie pastorale - poor blind girl is adopted by vicar (with predictable results).

tonight is the second performance by the enhanced and extended rick burners (or whatever it is they are actually called - minty jam probably) at a secret gig location (probably not bow ecology park as it wasn’t last time). he’s feeling a little strange - hopefully this will clear and he will just relax into playing. he’s trying to tempt howard/ john smith out to sing on silver raven and perhaps a few other things. he senses there’s a little work to be done to incorporate flute into the set - it’s quite loud compared to the human voice. 

yesterday he wandered over to the salt marshes with the suburban bushwacker - suburban wanted to practice his flyfishing casts (and to be filmed doing it - footage may yet emerge).

next week he works (rather a lot) as part of his two anomalous weeks. monday evening (the anniversary of the death of dali) he’s either at a meeting or meeting a friend. tuesday he walks to work - thursday he walks back from work. friday he has off.

public opinion descends upon the demonstrators

ok another day another thing learned (so that’s what seuil means - now horsemouith just has to find out how to say it). he watched agnes varda's l'une chante, l'autre pas dayglo feminist protest movie (with musical numbers) - a fitting cousine as part of a double bill for les stances a sophie.




horsemouth is playing a secret gig (at secretly celebrated the hackney music club) message him if you wish to apply for tickets and there will be a strict vetting procedure involving a blood oath with something to do about never visiting naples or venice. of course the gig may not be happening at all (for real) it may just be some email harvesting scam.

wednesday night horsemouth and his co-conspirators rehearsed (you know the drill). the band name is still undecided - on reflection they forgot to rehearse most of the tunes they are likely to actually play - there will be other musicians performing also and karaoke opportunities.

‘with the widespread use of ‘canned’ music (radio, phonograph and tape playback in serious music...) the visual or theatrical aspect of the performance of music has lost much of its significance’ says gordon mumma.

from the same era robert ashley titled a piece public opinion descends upon the demonstrators.

horsemouth once attended a live demonstration of au seuil de la liberté with a giant wax firing canon blasting away at the walls of a ‘white cube’ art gallery (it may have been the gugenheim in bilbao - it may have been a rainy day). he has to admit that he enjoyed it (it went bang!) even though he thought the institutional critique involved was utterly feeble.

'sisyphus at peace with himself' and ‘the principle of unripe time’

horsemouth is back from work early (but he works later). it is a beautiful bluesky day.

he has been reading music in the USA: a historical introduction and an imagined life by richard hoggart. hoggart met laban (in 1947 in middlesborough).

hoggart tells a tale of st. catherine’s monastery on mount sinai - while he is at unesco he receives a report the israelis have burnt it down - he investigates - it turns out a certain brother ignatius had overindulged in the fermented cactus drink they made and fell asleep in bed smoking - later he visits brother ignatius’s bones are drying in the sun before being placed in the ossuary. so even after death do the monks support their institution.

...  and this is what has happened to hoggart - he has become entombed in institutions - first unesco, then goldsmith’s college... the clock of his life is running out and his opponent believe in the principle of unripe time (aka. ‘the time is not yet ripe for...’) and he’s investing his energy in never ending battles to get goldsmiths incorporated within the university of london (and other augean chores).

'the corporealization of the intelligence that is in sound' was a quote taken up by edgar varese, it was originally proposed by hoene wronsky (1778-1853), aka joseph marie wronsky, a polish philosopher and mathematician, known for his system of messianism.  varese, as well as lots of other american - or worked-in-america - electronic musicians horsemouth wasn’t aware of; gordon mumma, robert ashley) and non-electronic ones (ives etc.), make it into the music in the USA: a historical introduction. it’s a very fair-minded book. he’s tempted to listen to more of their work.

mark fisher has died. this is a shame. like lots of the people horsemouth met around that time (fellow enthusiasts for noise at the noise theory noise conferences at middlesex - like nina power, steve goodman etc.) he was friendly and helpful, smart and kind. horsemouth was delighted to meet such people (even if he may not have subsequently agreed with them on everything).

‘our life is frittered away by detail (simplify simplify)’

says thoreau in walden (ok, ok - horsemouth has modified the punctuation again, as is his wont). he lifted if from volume 3 of hoggart’s ‘autobiography’ an imagined life - and an amiable academic walk around it is. 

phew. horsemouth is done for the day and done for the week. his life has been frittered away in detail (yet again). he has failed to simplify (yet again). but one day they will simplify him and then he will have to go and get a proper job (boo hiss). until then horsemouth continues with his life’s labour of fitting square pegs into round holes.

‘people before the public live an imagined life in the thought of others and flourish and feel faint as their self outside themselves grows bright or dwindles in the mirror’ - more hoggart.

today is the anniversary of the founding of king crimson in a basement underneath a cafe in fulham palace road in 1969. horsemouth is a big fan both of their prog bombast years and their wannabee talking heads years.

wednesday night he jammed with andrew minty - soon there may be another ‘performance’. tonight he may go out (he doesn’t know to what yet). sunday he may rehearse again. next week he works (not his usual beachside donkey portage bookings). he would like to be more available to do other things (babysitting, holidays, checks on collapsing buildings) but he’s not.

‘the wisdom of near death experiences’ (what a difference a shelf makes)

horsemouth has survived to see in another morning (knocking on for three weeks after the winter solstice - and associated midwinter feasting/ festival of lights type jollies). we are now heading up towards the light once again. a few mornings ago horsemouth celebrated by going for a womble in the salt marshes with suburban bushwacker (keeping him from his dayjob of plumbing at ben’s). the frost was very pretty - he should do it more often.

whilst he was away horsemouth had persuaded daryll to put up some shelves -thus he has got a goodly percentage of his excessive storage up off the floor and onto one of the walls of his room (fortunately one of the ones without cracks in it indicative of future collapse). this just leaves him one wall (currently with boxes stacked against it) to put further shelving up on - and then he’s out of walls and will just have to live within his means (or institute a ‘one-in-one-out’ policy).

last night he watched the soviet version of hamlet - dir. grigori kozintzev - with innokenty smoktunevsky in the lead role. it was awesome (even though it swore off loads of the swear! stuff that horsemouth would have known from derrida). you see horsemouth has never read hamlet or been to see it at the theatre (he is an uncultured little barbarian). tarkovsky once pronounced boris pasternak’s translation of it unusable.

he also watched a somewhat weaker than usual new mexico set jacques tourneur/ val lewton shocker the leopard man - inferior to their cat people or I walked with a zombie - featuring repeated use of the ace of spades as the death card.

the night before he watched a portuguese movie on the crash - arabian nights vol 1 the restless one by miguel gomes, it is losely modeled on the storytelling of a thousand and one nights. he’ll have to think about it a bit before he can give you his comments.

the debate would probably be what wisdom does the near death of an economy produce.

other than that we have a quick visit to howard’s and a trip up to islington to bank a cheque, john has been back to visit from portugal and they bumped into an old colleague of his discussed AI. ok he’s just agreed to work tomorrow (otherwise he will be back into the thick of it next week).

allegorical romance and wild travelogue-satire ('farewell to all the wild birds')

horsemouth is in a library in which he can blog - so let us commence. he would tell you of paul mason's grandparents (ellis island) and an art exhibit made from the burnt remnants of the jungle (and some CS gas canisters) and the note he found in one of them ('send immigration lawyers not artists').


finally there was john and there was steve and there was myk nodding their heads to early dancehall reggae in an overcrowded old-school shoreditch pub the barely mown (ini kamoze world a music was the only one horsemouth really recognised - friends owned the album when he first came to the seaside towns).

yesterday horsemouth ‘worked’ - last night he watched before the revolution by bertolucci (the era talleyrand claims we all aspire to live in). ‘we reflect as we sleep (or perhaps we don’t sleep)’ reflects enio morricone - he keeps a sheaf of music paper by the bed in case he has any musical thoughts at night - and he often does, though he says it often takes him time to recognise what problem it is solving.

this horsemouth learnt from the extras on the dvd for the film. bertolucci casts a younger version of himself as a protagonist from the mainly amateur cast (bertolucci still under the influence of pasolini but of godard also) casting only professional actress adriana asti (and his then lover) as the love interest. it is a film about people’s unwillingness to give up on the past - a landowner says goodbye to his property 'farewell to all the wild birds', a posh boy cannot abandon his class for communism, he speaks like a book reciting lines from the communist manifesto until his voice fails, adriana asti wants time itself to stop.

it is a film that nearly didn’t get made - bertolucci had to use the mafia to bail the producer out of his military service three years early. in a bar a cinephile praises rossellini’s journey to italy saying he has seen it 15 times.

community music and the utopian impulse (the audience comments while you paint)

horsemouth is back in the great wen after his holiday in weirdshire - initially at his parents then at richard and stass’s for new years. the gateway to the seaside towns was open again (after refurbishing over christmas and new years) - the gateway too the valleys was still blocked off from newport and replaced by buses. jon is over from sunny (though now cold) porto - things continue to be hard for the people horsemouth knows there.

on his last day in weirdshire horsemouth went for a womble round hoarwithy from near the italianate church uphill to another church past polytunnel strawberry farms and then across a victorian bridge and back around (rounding it off in the local pub with a pint). on his way round horsemouth discussed the 60ies, 70ies utopian impulse with a few of the survivors - formerly of communes in the hills now community music enablers, they reminisced about processional theatre (that’s not quite the right name) - plays on boats, plays on buses driving around and discovering historical re-enactments. horsemouth floated his notion of the democratic openness that repetition provides to involvement.

earlier (new years or possibly the morning after) horsemouth had been discussing painting while the audience comments (painting as spectator sport) - another arts festival hybrid.

later still news of a death arrived by facebook or one party guest (wheras once it would have arrived by mobile phone, and before that answerphone, phonecall or visit). the departed had been due to attend a new years eve party but had not arrived. 2016 (the grim reaper) departed as it arrived - for horsemouth it was the monkey year of disruption, vexation and change. his uncle ralph left the party - our brief glorious walk in the light before oblivion - but other than that horsemouth’s circle of friends survived unscathed. of the famous the magnificently smart and wise john berger has popped his clogs (just as horsemouth was belatedly discovering him).

2017 march/ april- elections in germany and france. at the pub in hoarwithy a french woman averred that the two stage french presidential election system was so gerrymandered that it would keep marine le pen out - horsemouth can only hope so.

horsemouth’s new years resolutions? - to record again - to attempt to evade the grave of anonymity - to play music live again to an audience.