'the big wheel of heaven came down over the little wheel of daily life'

there is a late photo of robbie basho (1985) from a newspaper article a year or so before his death - it is the anniversary of his birth today - horsemouth will be listening to some of his music, he recommends you do the same. the sun is up and peeking through the trees. horsemouth has had his (instant) coffee. robbie basho was mightily cosmic (horsemouth less so).

howard always laughs a bit when horsemouth claims to be influenced by these finger-pickers (basho, fahey etc.), as he did to howard’s next door neighbour yesterday, simply because horsemouth doesn’t put enough work in to be able to play those complicated fingerpicking patterns. frankly he tends to play carter-style (tune in the bass and a chord to keep time) and keep it simple (the better to facilitate singing and recording).

yesterday horsemouth, howard and pete recorded a good solid version of the devil song - horsemouth thanks howard for working through despite having been to the dentist in the morning and pete for adding some double bass at short notice. horsemouth recorded a guitar pass, a vocal, a vocal of him saying the devil at various opportune moments and a ukulele part (broadly a bolero). they recorded two tracks of pete’s bass. he’s pleased (at last he has it in the can).

that’s the end of the recording for this year - now they will import the recordings into cubase and start fiddling about with it whenever they have a spare moment.

to celebrate the end of recording horsemouth and howard adjourned at the sign of the owltopus for a thai curry and a couple of pints. sadly the girl with the owltopus tattoo and the large dude with the beard were gone and the music has gone terrible. still the food and beer was good.

books, gigs, films,events august 2017

 books

• the man in the high castle, do androids dream of electric sheep?- philip k. dick, 
• the condition of the working class in england - engels, 
• freefall - william golding, 
• the main currents of marxism (vol.3) - lesek kolakowski, 
• the art of the novel, ignorance, immortaity - milan kundera, 
• lonesome traveller - jack kerouac, 
• recent writing from italy, 

gigs   none

films/tv

• the magic box, 
•  at the earths core, warlords of atlantis, 
• the lone ranger, 
• pressure - horace ove, 
• child 44, 
• utopia / eden / arcadia, 

events

iona leaving drinks, 93 feet east gig, art board peckham visit, be magnificent exhibition, vestry house visit, claire and paul depart for frome, recording with howard (and pete), max's birthday, whitechappel art gallery / bermondsey white cube visit, enza's unbirthday atop a car park in stratford, death of brian aldiss, e15 mum's march.

john smith (1952) experimental light projections (tiger is lion)

for horsemouth is has been a long holiday - he finished work in mid-may, he won’t be fully back at the grindstone until after the autumn equinox, and yet he won’t get paid (other than dribs and drabs) until the 3rd week of october. to add to this last year getting paid started a month early (woo-hoo) so it also finished a month early also, and horsemouth has had all his back tax, he’s even paying a little into a pension. result? horsemouth will be dipping his savings, dodging his rent, living on lentils until mid october.

but hey - the best part of a month spent abroad (ireland and porto), the best part of a month spent in the cloud forest, the best part of a month spent at his parents, and (best of all in horsemouth’s humble opinion) it will be three gigs played (one as the musician of bremen, one as musicians of bremen, one at the monkey-on-a-stick party as who knows yet) and new tracks recorded.

later he goes to record with howard. 

they should (of course) have recorded the gig(s) in some fashion - b-boys got to document.




last night there was an online discussion of john fahey’s live in tasmania - an unlikely recording event (but true). he plays his way through waltzing matilda - using the techniques from his immediately prior album yes! jesus loves me - teasing apart the victorian conventions. he reworks his older tunes under changed titles -tiger is lion, tasmanian two-step is hawaiian two-step/ spanish two-step and return of the tasmanian tiger is revolt of the dyke brigade. the approaching of the disco void is a re-working of wine and roses. in a typical fahey move indian-pacific r.r. blues is actually beverly, a studio recording from his album after the ball with added applause (at least according to wikipedia).


 

gig done and dusted (and a perfect day in the seaside towns)

the gig is done and dusted - horsemouth’s unbirthday season closes - he’s back up in the cloud forest on the sofa with a cup of coffee (he’s fed the cats). it’s 7.30am. now read on...

out in the forest they’re raving they’re raving (but quietly - they’re on to the chillout tracks) - horsemouth will go and investigate in a bit.

to howard, who had heard horsemouth plead poverty often enough, the gig must be a bit perplexing (it was a pay to play gig). it is simply that given a choice of birthday activities horsemouth would like to play music to an audience (ok the last part didn’t succeed as well as hoped but still you can’t fault his intention).

in mitigation horsemouth would argue that the gig also functions as a technology demonstrator for the new ep - of the setlist (satan, werewolf, sorrows, noah, fanfare, worldes blisse, love and all that I know, devil song) fully three (maybe four) songs are from it.

it also functions as a technology demonstrator of the harmonium/ guitar combination.

and it also functions as a recap of the neglected and under performed  volume two (noah and love and all that I know performed solo by howard - for many people the highlight of the show). sadly noah was once again the runt of the litter and may need to be dropped (horsemouth’s voice is just not good enough to carry it - it needs both voices).

really and truthfully one old song should have been dropped to make way for an additional song from volume 2 - they had another world rehearsed up (next time).


anyway as horsemouth remarked at the end it’s all on bandcamp (or will be soonish).

it was a beautiful day (a perfect day in the seaside towns). but horsemouth didn’t notice until it was nearly too late (he gets a little stressed pre-gig). they were in the cab rolling downhill to the gig. the streets were wider and a little emptier than usual. people wearing fuck all went about their daily business at a slower tempo in the beautiful sunshine and the cooling breeze. thanks to all who came (even the late arrivistes) esp. lee (good to see you homeboy after all these years), samanta, sue, myk, reuben, martin, nick snatch foster, nick DD, zoe... anybody who arrived super late sorry to miss you but horsemouth was up the park... honourable mentions for andy coram, micalef, pooyah and nina.

styska se mi po tobe (recording, compiling, gigging)

howard has been busy compiling again.

having finished do androids dream of electric sheep? in about a day flat horsemouth has finished reading milan kundera’s ignorance in about a day flat.. this is not actually about ignorance but about nostalgia.

kundera writes as an emigre someone who ditched out and went and did something else who now returns (or doesn’t). one character develops a strong detestation of his earlier (pre-exile) self - he is afflicted with a masochistic distortion of memory - he can remember only the bad things about himself, and his surprised and horrified by the stuff he finds in an old diary that he had forgotten.

horsemouth has listening to the early pre-mixes of the tracks musicians of bremen recorded round howard’s

• fanfare for the common mule (when the faun met alice) probably needs a drone, 
• d(sus4)rone sounds great, 
• he was most pleased by satan (your kingdom must come down), 
• worldes blisse sounds good, 
• the girl with the golden hair (pretty much debussy’s la fille au cheveux de lin played on slide guitar tuned sebastopol (or is it spanish?)) probably needs a few drop ins to fix stray notes/ unfortunate clunks of the slide against the guitar neck. 

they recorded again wednesday but horsemouth only managed some work on slievamon - other than that horsemouth isn’t thinking much past the gig.

'everyone should be working' (hooray for another day)

ah that’s better. the sun has reached into the window and is illuminating his legs. the coffee is doing its necessary work. the cats (rosie and oreo) have stopped hassling him for the second meal of the morning.

in a bit he’ll go off and water the allotment (just the bit in the polytunnel the rest should be fine). later still a wander round and a second-hand book hunt and find some stamps to mail-out some tickets. later later still a doublebooking - a birthday and a housewarming.

at the moment horsemouth has just finished listening to the max ochs album - solo guitar, beat poetry and anecdote, uncharacteristic love songs - it’s great. there’s a thoreau-like (surprise surprise) meditation on the pressures to work and the pressures to make music.

recording (soon horsemouth was drunk and calling out for more beer)

utopia eden d(sus4)rone (waiting for the library to open. soundcloud is still there (yay)

yesterday horsemouth recorded with howard and it looks like they will both be playing on august 25th at 93 feet east - it’s a big indie band meat market but fuck it best to be out and about and seen thinks horsemouth.

they recorded a drone improvisation (which may indeed yeild more than one finished track) and a stomping/ clapping/ slide guitar version of the gospel blues standard satan your kingdom must come down. howard fed horsemouth soup and then (later) they headed up the pub and sank a number of pints (soon horsemouth was drunk and calling for more beer). they plan to record next on friday (devil song, worldes blisse, fanfare..., more improvisations perhaps) and to work up a live version of another world (from musicians of bremen: volume two) to go with noah.

back home horsemouth watched a tv show on utopia and then changed channels to watch a reality show called eden: paradise lost. utopias, when they go stale are simply renamed dystopias, they can never really go stale, reality tv shows thrive on conflict but then what utopias actually produce is tons of conflict.

horsemouth didn’t last long with the show (he doesn’t like conflict) - of course people disagree, of course there is no effective means of managing their conflict, we are in the storming phase of team formation.

musicians of bremen (on the other hand) are well into their performing  stage.

silver: we start again (fab five freddy told me everybody’s fly)

horsemouth and howard begin again at 12:00. meanwhile he is down the library posting shite.


horsemouth is wondering about the possibilities of getting multi-tracked harmoniums to pulse against each other - about the possibilities for dronework. he’s also worrying about his upcoming gig - as he does - he thinks it’s a good idea (but if it isn’t it’s no major loss). which song should he start with do you think?

horsemouth is playing on the @absentkelly loud in london festival! See him on friday 25th august at @93feeteast, where he'll be playing with a selection of live indie acts.

further announcements to come, message him for cheap tickets! the ticket gets you access to 13 events in 10 venues over 4 weekends in august (oops - one's gone already), and can be exchanged for a wristband at any festival event. See www.absentkelly.com for full details.

last night horsemouth was feeling a little angsty (so he had a bottle of beer). there was nothing to watch on the tv (though he does have a dvd of penda’s fen to watch). following on from watching at the earth’s core (doug mcclure and peter cushing in victorian period costume battle samurai styled ratmen and prehistoric telepathic budgies at the earth’s core), horsemouth watched warlords of atlantis (doug mcclure and peter gilmore in victorian period costume battle telepathic atlanteans and a giant octopus in atlantis).

both of these he would have seen at the caste cinema in caerphilly (which around that time would have hosted a gig by the sex pistols).

'lazy as a toad and thick as mince'

so the leader of the leave campaign described david davis chief negotiator of brexit and a man from a family so lazy they couldn’t be bothered to give him a first name at any distance from his surname.

horsemouth is back from the sarf and east of the seaside towns where he went with howard to view art (it being a holiday and that). at the whitechapel art gallery - emanuel almborg’s talking hands (using footage from the zagorsk deaf-blind school in the 60ies) and a piece on a.s. neil and the summerhill school the majority never has the right on its side. pawel althamer’s self-portrait as the billy goat, ben drew and emma heart’s installations.



at the white cube bermondsey dreamers awake - a group show themed around women and surrealism - they bumped into martin and juliette. horsemouth (somewhat) missed the point arguing that sexuality in the surrealism in its first incarnation was dangerous, compulsive, intended to shock. (the correct response to a surrealist exhibition would not be contemplation but to form a lynch mob). this exhibition has good manners (which is a problem).

horsemouth liked the leonora carrington (decently mad), paloma varga weiss, the eva kot’atkova, mona hatoum. the rest of it moved him not a millimeter (ok there were other things he liked but he can't remember them right now).

thereafter horsemouth and howard adjourned to the pub - then, deciding to go out and help max celebrate his birthday, they went and got a pizza (and for horsemouth an espresso to enable him to keep going) in franca manca, and thence to the george. (that about wipes horsemouth out financially for the weekend)

horsemouth made it home by bus. he has developed an interest in tim buckley (many years too late).