...turned into a tree...

yesterday was the anniversary of pentangle recording the live side of this album at the rfh in 1968

today it is a bright bluesky kind of day.


yesterday was not. it was pretty grey with only a few moments of inspiration. horsemouth barely made it out of the front door - well ok no he didn’t he just lay about, read and listened to music (and farted about on facebook).

in the vegetarian the central character decides to give up on being human and become a tree instead (see, at last horsemouth gets the joke in the title, he really is a dull boy) - the revenant is ostensibly a revenger (fur trader and trapper leonardo di caprio seeks revenge for the death of his son) but the real star is transcendent american nature. it is a cold world of snow and freezing rivers and fires and bear skins to keep one warm, of bear attacks and festering wounds. the nature is wide angle and epic, the human interaction close up and squalid - with smoke, water and blood on the lens. the soundtrack (ryuichi sakamoto) is nicely synthetic.


while he waited for the sun horsemouth annotated his copy of the score of fantasia del octavo tono (luys milan 1536) - it begins with 23 bars of bach style descending scales (the main theme) changing key at bar 10, before 9 bars made up of alternating trills, there is 4 bars of chording alternating with the main theme repeated with additional voicings in the bass. there is then a middle section that horsemouth has not fought his way through before an ending with two four bar builds (alternating with chording) then 12 bars of chording ending on a d (where it all began).

ship of fools: how greed and corruption sank the celtic tiger continues on its way - a corrupt and venal political class, slack banking regulation, nobody at home for tax purposes (why do we say tax exiles rather than tax fugitives?), an economy vastly over reliant on construction, vastly over reliant on house prices for its sense of well-being, a crisis of affordability, the satire of unaffordable affordable housing. it all sounds utterly familiar - like a crisis that hasn’t happened yet but will happen somewhere else (and where will that be and when).

ship of fools (the brexit remix) thinks horsemouth. how much is it? 20 euros. I thought it was ten? nah mate. it’s had a remix.

horsemouth has been having a conversation (online) with a friend about this immigration lark - horsemouth (as you know) likes the cosmopolitan world of the internationalised work force (lots of smart new people to talk to), his friend, formerly an electrician, does too, but it has become hidden by the struggle to get somewhere to live. horsemouth has no expectation that the state will sort him out (this was probably his mistake in not attempting it when it was still possible).

his plan was to escape to the south with his pension (when and if it comes) into that blissful state called economic inactivity - if brexit hasn’t fucked that entirely (and it probably has) it has at least made it more difficult.

in search of stone circles

is that it, is it? wondered horsemouth, looking over the hedge at the pile of rocks in the field. the cows munched on incurious. the crows (rooks really - great ugly messy birds) flew back and fore.

the map said standing stones but as he had been warned many were on private land out of sight of the road (of course he should have done a bit more research before setting out).

there’s a ringfort at the top of the hill in the town itself said the retiree who gave him a lift back into town - he remembered the town when it was a village, just the main street.

on the way up he met derek who’d moved back from the forest of dean just in time for the recession, now his construction business was back on track (but stuff was still selling for roughly half of what it was before).

horsemouth was wandering about asking directions. even being equipped with a map didn’t necessarily guarantee being able to discover what road one is on. oops a mob of rooks has just arrived in the garden (there seems to be some running off of the jackdaws going on).

horsemouth is enjoying the vegetarian by han kang - a woman has terrible blood-curdling dreams and decides to stop eating meat, the family do not understand, she slips into mental illness, her brother in law becomes obsessed that she has a birthmark (a mongolian spot) and paints her and himself with flowers (very jean genet).

today is sunny - so perhaps back out to the beach at fountainstown - there are some standing stones near there too - horsemouth should have brought a camera so he could document them for you.

rivers end (thanks for sharing)

it’s a bit like cornwall here (bright clear sunshine when the sun shines, lush green vegetation with the occasional tropical plant, pleasantly rough building materials).

yesterday horsemouth walked out carrigaline to cross haven (about 7km along the side of the owenabue river following in the tracks of a the disused south cork railway). at crosshaven he paused by the rivers end cafe in the sunshine to look out across the loch over to cobh (dirty great church thing).

out on the waters the car ferry went past.

really he should have got the bus out to fountainhead and the beach for a swim (it was a warm day 21 celsius or so). he tried that today (though it was a bit cooler today), but yesterday he didn’t feel like trying 4km of windy country roads with no pavement. the weather probably won’t hold (but it would be good if it did).

this time last year horsemouth was celebrating st.joao in porto hitting people on the head with squeaky plastic hammers (upon being persuaded that this was socially acceptable).

other activity plans include visiting the many local standing stones and heading off up to cork for some second hand shopping/ a swift pint in a local pub. (here is a photo of horsemouth worshiping at the rory gallagher shrine in the peoples republic of cork).

last night (on his return) horsemouth watched thanks for sharing a film about sex addiction - it suffers from likable protagonist syndrome - for people to continue watching the protagonists must be likable (but where’s the drama in that), they cannot be fully allowed their fatal flaw, to behave badly enough to drive the plot forward. (the comparison here would be the piano teacher that allows its protagonists to behave destructively and self-destructively.) it was good on procrastination and self-loathing, the problems that emerge when the struggle for survival is over.


he then listened to a documentary on the tarot (narrated by christopher lee) before heading up to bed.

horsemouth left to his own devices (ten minutes too late)

le beau voir et loutre (mild confusion on the banks of the owenabue river).

as you know for a while predictive text has been rendering horsemouth’s employment as otter (such as can be seen in statue form in the new town square at carragline - though the town’s signature animal is the egret). as you also know horsemouth has successfully sourced a picture of a pig playing bagpipes and medieval gargoyles in cathedrals feature donkeys playing harps. out of such materials are the new musicians of bremen formed.

last night horsemouth was out and about in cork - a session at sin-e, a singing of ten minutes too late, 3 fiddlers, a flute player, a guitarist, a banjo-player, a button accordeon player... and more people kept arriving with boxes, a harpist, a union-pipes player.

horsemouth will shortly be left to his own devices. he will wander out towards crosshaven. he has brought the sheet music for luys milan’s fantasia xxii - fantasia del octavo tono - and found videos of people playing it on youtube - perhaps he can learn to play it. ok it does get a bit fiddly towards the end...

 

jackdaws and rooks (hooded crows, magpies, no ravens)

horsemouth’s corvid update.

‘the occasion of the poem was the death of the poet’s spaniel drumin, which was choked when a mouse being chased by a cat jumped into its mouth.’ - folkmusic and dances, b. breathnach.

horsemouth is typing this in carrigaline just south of cork and johnny and denise’s place - tonight they go out for a few beers in cork itself. he’s feeling a little vague and unfocused after a few beers when he got in last night. j+d have just nipped out to pick up the youngest - it’s quiet...

cultural equity/ power to the periphery

today is the solstice (horsemouth is struggling with the heat and booking bus tickets)

‘given the failure of algorithmic curation to differentiate between truth and lies...’

so posited a newspaper article. it was loosely pegged on the handmaiden’s tale, really about the remaining power of the press (it was the sun wot won it), and perhaps typical of people’s tendency to talk about what they know (lloyd george knew my father).

there’s a great trial scene in blake’s 7 (possibly in the first episode) where the defence and prosecution arguments are loaded into a computer - and it produces a verdict. this taps into a very 70ies distrust of machines and the state (one we seem to have forgotten).

but actual processes to establish truth involve people.

there is a political process to establish truth going on in the streets and in the media and the political institutions (essentially an allocation of blame for past events and an allocation of resources to future ones), and various judicial processes, a fire brigade investigation, a police investigation, an inquiry, an inquest (aiming at the same thing). the tendencies are to view anything produced in the second process either as irrefutable truth, an appeal to impartial authority, or as mere delay and prevarication, a distraction from the political resolution of the problem.

where it will all end up who knows.

this monday in history - the brexit negotiations began, byron, polidori, mary and percy shelley gathered at the villa deodati at start telling each other ghost stories, alan lomax (cultural equity/ power to the periphery) died, and alice coltrane recorded battle at armageddon (possibly her maddest track - certainly the only one with a title straight out of public enemy) and the ankh of amon-ra.

palma c-103n (the volume of conversations)

horsemouth has identified the guitar he found on a wall (and restrung rather badly) - it is a palma c-103n a japanese guitar made by the terada firm he believes (and popular with the parents of children learning to play because they are cheap and comparatively well made for their price).

how did he make this discovery? he heard something rattling round inside the box (and lo and behold it was the label). it’s not like he did hours of detective work on the internet tracking down rosette patterns (etc.).

furthermore last night he took it up the fields with andrew minty (lisa and lise jones,others briefly) and gave it a good thrashing - it strums well, has good tone, though it has a few annoying little buzzes (the action is probably a little on the low side).

horsemouth has had his almeria bm fixed - nut and saddle replaced and restrung -£40 bargain (cheers dudes - guitarshop balls pond road) ‘great for helping you make that step from a beginner to a seasoned professional’. the tragedy is that horsemouth doesn’t have the repertoire to go with these fine instruments.

‘... as I look deeper into the mirror, I find myself a more curious person than I had at first thought’ . says ruskin at the start of the second volume of his autobiography of the good bits praeterita. (horsemouth’s current reading)

handwriting (character formation)

horsemouth feels like his profile picture looks. a bit spaced and braindead from the weekend (well ok just from sunday).

it began well with a walk over to the junction in search of internet access, the back again to well common for the jumble sale and fete. there horsemouth rendezvoused with martin and andrew minty (and bumped into alessia and alice briefly) thence to the fields (1 can of red stripe), thence to martin’s famous roof garden, thence to the regent to meet up with some of martin’s friends and to drink more beer and thence to xname’s gig at cafe OTO.


by the time horsemouth arrived xname was already onstage arc-welding the future with intense concentration (making beats out of strobe lights and light controlled variable resistors) - horsemouth described it as ‘dark’ (this was probably the wrong thing to say). thanks for getting him a squeeze in anyway (and for buying him a drink).

martin would probably have something to say about écriture féminine in discussing the next band on odwalla 1221 - not even glitchy but with something of the randomness of disassociated sound - to call it quirky would be lazy, but horsemouth did warn you he was a little braindead today. the book on handwriting in america continues to go well -horsemouth is surprised that he had not noticed this connection before he came to write this - the graphologists discovered measurable differences between female and male handwriting but handwriting-reveals-your-personality-and-destiny pundits held that there were not (largely because many were women and they did not want women to be held back to their existing social roles).



braindead (as he was by the end of the night) - horsemouth held it together manfully for a while (chatting with a basque girl from madrid who had lived in cork and a dutch geezer) but having failed to blag a lift home he had recourse to the bus. he suffered a little this morning - really (at his age) he should be developing a more cautious attitude to alcohol this would enable him to fulfill his social obligations.

and kensington falls...

for horsemouth it was a bright sunny morning (and an early start). he discovered sten in the living room already discussing the political situation. it has been a strange election (horsemouth has been left feeling sympathetic towards both theresa may and diane abbot - go figure).

there is, this morning, much to smile about (the odious gavin barwell and jane ellison gone) and a number of near misses, a number of tories left on miniscule majorities in the seaside towns (notably zac (45) goldsmith, amber (346) rudd and theresa (350) villiers). and kensington falls.

of course (despite corbyn and macdonnald’s attempts to sledge their way into government) it will all roll on much as it was before.

horsemouth took advantage of brewdog’s kind social media advertising opportunity to have a free pint on them for having voted - it was punk ipa (5.3% - a little stronger than horsemouth likes ideally) but it went down a treat. in theory he could probably repeat the exercise today (at a different pub). with their free pint clasped in their mitts the well-heeled metropolitan youth of clerkenwell were discussing politics in a very sensible manner.

 horsemouth was out in clerkenwell (after a meeting at work) because the brewdog in homerton has shut - horsemouth is not sad to see it go, it replaced a thriving black bar (and late night drinking establishment) well used by the local community. horsemouth is not against craft beer per se - but he is against gentrification of everywhere into airport departure lounge levels of blandness.

the slugs have murdered the squashes like they were on offer at a delicatessen. the other brassica/ broad beans in the front garden seem to be doing ok.

against the apocalypse his stockpiles are; 1 litre of beer (ruddles and banks), 2.5kg of rice, 1kg pasta, 1kg coffee, 1.5kg museli, 1kg (dry weight - nearly) of red kidney beans, 1kg chick peas, 750g red lentils, 750g red kidney beans (uncooked), 1kg yoghurt, 350g cheddar.

of course, like chantal mouffe, horsemouth shares a suspicion of the better more direct democracy hiding indistinctly behind the one cross every five years (that’s yer lot) variety. he will of course tell you ate length about his terrible experiences face to face with naked human selfishness and self-interest with the monkey-on-a-stick housing co-operative. and yet horsemouth continues to believe that there has to be a better - that, to quote the old reggae tune - better must come.

in other news horsemouth strung his paesold classical guitar and has been ‘playing it in’ - waiting for the tuning to stabilise - sounds decent. horsemouth doesn’t really have the repertoire to judge it properly but soon he’ll have all 3 of his classical guitars up and running and he’ll do some comparative testing.

rainy day (rain all day) / lovely sky boat

sean is coming to visit (woo hoo). horsemouth seems to be cheerful. if the rain persists he may have to journey off in search of guitar strings. it’s cold and rainy out.

last night horsemouth stayed in and watched the sons of anarchy (season 2) again. they are (of course) by any rational measure crims rather than outlaws - and yet we are encouraged to cheer for them (hey at least they’re not racists).

on this day in 1968 alice coltrane recorded tracks 4 to8 of a monastic trio (amiri baraka was a fan) including lovely sky boat (one of horsemouth’s favourites) - horsemouth doesn't know whether it is ben riley or rasheid ali on drums on these tracks (he guesses ben riley with rasheid appearing on just the last track altruvista .

"Gospel Trane" "I Want to See You""Lovely Sky Boat" "Oceanic Beloved" "Atomic Peace"

memory of a (free) party

it is the anniversary of ruskin visiting abbeville and horsemouth is up and about (and even smiling).

saturday night he was not knifed or run over by disaffected youth (promoted to glory ten minutes later) but instead wandered round the field day festival. the beer and food was over priced (and horsemouth spent way too much money) and a lot of the mainstage action was feebly shit but at least they hadn’t skimped on the toilets (as an old man with an old man’s bladder horsemouth was pleased to see this).

horsemouth’s favourite moments?



flying lotus coming on (dude that was fucking harsh!!!), aphex twin (bonkers), john cooper clarke (2 parts les dawson to 1 part bernard manning), abra (like shannon’s let the music play with proper sub), slowdive (nice dudes) , seeing the dude from silver apples get a birthday cake (we are all your children). run the jewels he missed (sorry dudes - next time), kaitlin aurelia smith (nice), a little bit of kode 9 and mike paradinas at the bandstand (sweet but get them to give you a proper PA next time), moderat (most nuremburg).

death grips he couldn’t get into (maybe next time dudes).

horsemouth (who may remember has seen glastonbury, treworgy, castlemorton, czechtek with the riot police, the frenchtek with toxic catepillars and the one with the ice on the tents, though not stonehenge) finds the mismatch between technology and effect disturbing (though frankly the bass was awesome). to the youth he says - take some sunscreen, a sunhat, a rainproof layer, plenty of water, take a friend in case some e'd up hippy gets over amorous, and above all don’t overdo it and collapse in a heap (take care out there).

sunday horsemouth went up howards for a cup of tea and a debrief (and to repo his bag). when he got home he watched fellowship of the ring (not again) and cleaned his new guitar (the paesold). next stop a guitar shop to pick up some new strings. this morning he was up early and playing a little guitar and singing (surely this is a good sign).

roderich paesold p.90 (the latest addition to horsemouth’s guitar museum)

ok - the latest addition to horsemouth’s guitar museum -he hasn’t even re-strung it yet (£15 squid sue rider cancer care walthamstow). in general glowing reviews for this guitar (prices quoted in the $100 plus to $400)- but really it’s a bit of a swizz. here’s a helpful fellow online at roderich paesold (noted german instrument maker),

‘thank you very much for your kind inquiry but sorry, no we can't answer your questions, strange enough, hmmm? we did never make guitars, we had always been a company for bows and stringed instruments only. i'll give you view into the history and you'll understand why there are vintage guitars by roderich paesold and why we can't come up with answers: 

in the late 1960's roderich - the founder - retired and sold his company to the clarinet company wenzel schreiber & sons in nauheim. later schreiber (together with roderich paesold) was integrated in the boosey&hawkes (B&H) group (the other companies were keilwerth, buffet crampon, besson, rico, winter and (only from 1993 on) hofner). A world wide group-own network of international distribution companies was installed. 

there was a high demand for guitars in the 70's and 80's but B&H didn't have a own guitar manufacturing company yet. but the group management of B&H wanted to join the guitar boom: Dutch made guitars (actually manufactured by egmont, this company is not existent any more) were bought in with paesold labels and sold mainly by the British and USA distribution companies. we here in Germany initially even didn't know anything about that.’

egmonds are perfectly decent guitars (http://www.egmond.se/) retailled in the states by martin and production ceased when egmond closed in 1993. the paesold is nicely made (champfered internal struts for example) and (allegedly) has the same body as the egmond malaga , there’s a decorated bridge (a bit cheap looking in horsemouth’s humble opinion), and some nice scroll work on the tuning peg plate.

the assistant threw in not one but two gig bags - an oldschool tight warm leatherette one (very stylish - but the zip needs fixing), and a bottom of the line thomann gig bag of the rucksack type (but decent enough).

horsemouth will let you know what it sounds like when he strings it up.

books, gigs, events may 2017

gigs

• william bassinski 
• stick in the wheel 
• unicorn stoner sludge rock fest 

films

• a wanted man 
• star trek 
• I robot 
• the sons of anarchy (season 2) 
• aliens 
•  the ninth gate 

books

• the enchanter - vladimir nabokov 
• the common stream - rowland parker 
• travels with donkey in the cevennes - robert louis stevenson 
• women in a river landscape - heinrich boll 
• yankee whalers in the south seas - a.b.c. whipple 
• the secret history (procopius) 
• praeterita (ruskin) 

events

• cat and allotment sitting in the forest
• chelsea tour with howard