the orpheus of leigh-on-sea

so who did horsemouth and howard  see?

well first they had to get there. and at west ham station they had their first mishap (accidentally buying an extra ticket there (don’t ask). it was a hot day - possibly the hottest of the year so far - a good day to be out of london and away to the seaside towns. the train traveled through the glories of essex - heavily subscribed with people off to southend.

howard and horsemouth got off at leigh-on-sea and wandered up the hill.

main stage - leigh orpheus male voice choir and a cup of tea to celebrate their arrival, then down to the lower library gardens for the jones boys (fields of athenry from the all ireland squeezebox accordion champion and a mandola player), then mains'l haul - the first shanty crew of the day, then back up to the main stage for daisy bowlers (double bass, guitar, triangle - la vie en rose, charlestons such like but very competently done and with a lot of charm. by this point they’d cracked and got some beer - back down to umbrella factory, a guitar and mandolin duo - great version of one more cup of coffee, then back up to see masal (you will remember horsemouth saw them last year), then back down to see a barbershop group (sorry gentlemen horsemouth has forgotten your name).

by this time horsemouth and howard were pretty much immobilised with the heat - despite their judicious acceptance of any shade available.

then three good acts on the trot.



first belinda kempster and fran foote - the stick in the wheel backing singer and her mum doing traditional essex songs - they tried to get the audience singing the refrains (but no joy) - a john barleycorn that they opened with was probably the best known, then broomdasher six voices excellent harmony work, then the hoy shanty crew (one of whom had to go and lie down mid-set) and horsemouth’s favourite rolling down the river. kitty macfarlane was setting up but horsemouth and howard awayed to sharron kraus and band which howard announced his favourite thing of the festival...


er. and that was pretty much them -

they departed in search of shade and food - finding pizza (decent) and then more shade in a weatherspoonsish pub. (and then back to the wen).

today at leigh it’s more folky (united bible studies etc.) but horsemouth is taking it quietly.

‘the overcoming of death’ (the unguarded thoughts of abram tertz)

horsemouth is up. he has his coffee (yum yum). it’s a slightly misty morning.

here's a show on new weird britain (from the bbc).

last night a horror movie mini-marathon, both hammer blood from the mummy’s tomb (1971) not as good as hammer’s the mummy but still an entertaining romp, and night of fear (1972) a more psychological horror (plot spoiler - largely on the lines of les diaboliques featuring a disused school with recordings of the children). both were on channel 81, herzog’s nosferatu is coming up soon. all the above, and the following, can broadly be described as concerning the overcoming of death - either as literal return to life, simulacra, or in the case of abram tertz, by means of art.




horsemouth has shifted his reading affections

to abram tertz’s a voice from the chorus the book tertz (real name andrei sinyavsky) wrote while in prison in the form of letters sent out to his wife. he wrote on various topics all of which avoided his imprisonment (like silvio pellico of an earlier age). tertz’s life returns in reflected forms and concerns - gulliver, robinson crusoe (the castaways), the lives of things, the poetry of thieves cant, bragging and exculpations.

‘each man is born in only one copy and when he dies no one can take his place.’

horsemouth is plotting going to see gigs - gwenifer raymond this week, thereafter the weekends are filling up - leigh folk festival, the mela, the greenwich tides festival, a stick in the wheel gig.

the edge towards the solstice (panglossolalia)

after his successful reading of dubravka ugresic’s ministry of pain horsemouth’s reading has slowed back down again (he’s paddling around in the shallows of robert walser’s institute benjamenta - a school for training servants, a narrator with panglossolalia).

well the sun shines. and horsemouth is due to go off and undertake some training (this afternoon), the last wage check of the season should hit his account this friday (seeing as the last bit of work he did for them was a month ago) but it could be even longer.

“the unicorns are back, frolicking in the tory forest.”

remarked Lord Kerr, former UK ambassador to Brussels.

the tory popularity contest continues -

bojo the unfunny clown edges towards having half the tory MPs in the bag, if the first round was a three way tie for last, the second the tale of plucky little rory (but he’s still a tory really), the third and fourth (conducted today) will be the discovery the also-ran who can go down to defeat battling boris (jeremy hunt, gove 90 -who cares really?).

boris checks his phone to see what the ERG want him to say, jeremy ‘say my name say my name’ hunt furrows his brow and tries to remember if his wife is japanese or chinese, gove still reminds horsemouth of joe 90, at least that fucker raab c. nesbitt is gone (until boris hires him as himmler-in-chief).

sadge is nearly gone (oo he's come back - is he gone yet?) - it’s like he’s a character from another film who has wandered into the middle of it all by accident blithering on about equality and opportunity and things like this. doubtless he’ll be gone by the end of today. the thing it resembles most is britain’s got talent - here come the judges (the 1922 committee). and the votes are...

summer solstice, weekend, monday collective endeavour, midweek possibly gwenifer raymond up in town, friday anniversary of the first duo gig of the musicians of bremen, saturday/ sunday leigh folk festival/ and/or perhaps the mela, mid-point of the year.

horsemouth should probably get out of the country (leviathan will fight behemoth)

at first horsemouth read this in a strictly timetabling sense but then it dawned on him that in fact it had a deeper political meaning.

a friend was discussing doing a runner (going into voluntary political exile) in disgust at the situation, but to horsemouth it is disgusting everywhere. the you who lives in exile speaking a different language is not you, it is necessarily a different you. for many people this is a bonus.

horsemouth was reading dubravka ugresic’s ministry of pain again - the exiles/ the survivors cannot get comfortable, they cannot begin again.

 ‘we see that all life has been preserved here, but at a price which is dearer than life itself, because the strength required for self-defence and survival was borrowed from future generations, who were thus been overburdened.the brute instinct to defend life won out in this struggle but life itself lost so much that little was left it other than its name.' - ivo andric, signs by the roadsides.

this is the sense in which ugresic uses the quote - but for andric (at the founding of the yugoslav project) it was about overcoming the weaknesses of the belgrade people created by ottoman domination.
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soon the competition will be whittled down to two tory ‘leadership’ contenders - leviathan will fight behemoth for the affections of the tory party faithful (a japanese monster movie for an audience of zombies, though one may be a minnow and another moby dick). and then the beast will be imposed on us as pasha and despot.

the brave monster will suspend parliament to effect a no deal brexit. but perhaps this is not even necessary - parliament has already stripped itself of the powers and (even with rory stewart leading the charge from methodist hall) will not be able to seize back control of the process once the deed is actually done - screw your courage to the sticking place etc.. 

 ‘ If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well It were done quickly:’ 

the brave monster will have cut the gordian knot, and, riding the tiger of the subsequent chaos, will have a free hand (a grateful and shell-shocked nation etc.). the monster has license to suspend - and such suspensions have a habit of being extended - til 8th may 2022, or perhaps beyond (if it is considered necessary). of course this will not be to everyone’s taste. blitz spirit, keep calm and carry on etc.

we should watch the upcoming tory leadership race carefully - it may be our last taste of such things for a while.

conversely, the monster might suspend article 50 and crystallize the losses of a failed brexit, promising to get back to the negotiating table toute bloody suite. but is this not in fact sailing back into troubled waters?

should the monster fail every hand will be lifted against it, its enemies, its rivals, its former supporters, its former friends - the tory party can only wait for the moment of maximum opprobrium and then mercilessly sacrifice the beast. (indeed we have recently witnessed something like this). in exile and opposition the tory party will lick its wounds (and live to fight another day).

the key question is are the DUPpies really prepared to bring down the tories?

their successors (on that glorious day, 8th of May 2022, or nearer, or in the far socialist future) will inherit a poisoned chalice of post-industrial proportions.

‘the rowan trees, their bitter berries, the empty bottles and me like that’

title by cameron bain
 

downstairs there was a wedding (with a loud disco and wedding band). upstairs was demetra with her new baby.

upstairs was also a reading of cameron bain’s poetry five years after his passing. 

they began with londinium (the epic 2112 of the set - from the book of the exhibition max had at the barbican in november 2009) naomi and friend read (and anya read the last 3 lines that are in german). ‘i would feel such an unbounded flood-of-love for these humble, functional things’, says cameron letting his gaze wander, while drinking in the rochester castle.

later anya read from gesundheit - interpolating little bit of musical noise between. the poem about origen raised from the dead (and none too pleased) did not get a reading. various friends read, ben read, one of cameron’s brother’s read and issued an appeal to gather in any of cameron’s uncollected material. a few lines from cameron’s song trail of destruction were sung.

cameron was in a number of bands including NZ band constant pain - to horsemouth this is already marked by genius.

‘you in a band mate?’

‘yes. I’m in constant pain.’

at the sign of the two black swans (slip inside this house)

horsemouth’s hands are tied - literally - apparently there was something in the job description for god-emperor of the EU that he failed to read. something about provisions in the event of a poor harvest.  

re-wilding the population goes well they tell him.... europe is being broken up and brought together as a patchwork quilt of ethno-historical theme parks (sans-culottes on the streets of paris, the helvetians are the baitiest of all and don’t go up north jack...) this has affected the EU. all business now conducted in bad medieval latin. pilgrims to the shrines clog (literally) the street of strasbourg and brussels. pasolini's trilogy of life is popular as a style-guide. huzinga is widely read. there is a brisk trade in counterfeit breughels.

the viking confederation has announced a date on which fenris will eat the sun.

here it has stopped raining (a temporary respite perhaps). p(h)easants walk about (cautiously). ok - no that was an illusion. it hasn’t stopped raining.

at the moment horsemouth is on holiday and it will take him a while to adjust to living without even the minimal structure of work - if he were abroad he could go off exploring, or go lie on the beach, but it is expensive to do this from the seaside towns (plus you need the weather or the clothing, you need to be sanctioned in this by time being exceptionally valuable in some way). horsemouth likes projects - he likes to keep busy.

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80 years ago yesterday benjamin wrote a letter to gerhard scholem containing a harsh (but fair) critique of max brod’s biography of kafka (it is collected in illuminations). brod is a tasteless oik who doesn’t get it, he goes on about kafka being holy and then goes on about with unwonted familiarity about how they were the best of mates etc. on his own he might have been a minor austro-hungarian novelist but in proximity to kafka he is irradiated and destroyed. all that is left for him to do is steal the unpublished manuscripts from kafka’s funeral pyre - but this is why we have the castle, the trial, america.

otherwise all we would have of kafka would be the short fiction of metamorphosis, a country doctor, meditation, a hunger artist... the material published in his lifetime, parables almost, evacuated of anything reassuringly human. the process is continued in the short fictions of robert walser - but there there is nothing not even dread.

yesterday horsemouth read the daily torygraph business sections and went for two wombles (one on his own, one with his mum and the dog) up on the common. he listened to a talk on robinson crusoe on radio 4 (it is a very strange book) - curiously it was abram tertz’s favourite book (or so he says in a voice from the choir) while he was in prison, because crusoe makes the world, he makes all the items in it from nothing on his desert island, he overcomes the division of labour. marx takes against this as a nonsense, but tertz (sinyavsky) finds it inspiring.

some friends are playing a gig (as unmoor kiva) - horsemouth may even go.

sail away ladies (wonky)

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horsemouth has just spent a little time listening to the new tracks for the next musicians of bremen album - it’s all sounding pretty good, especially howard’s new track wonky - a wonky sounding slide guitar and vocal piece that’s kind of like late era fahey singing a ballad.

a rough list (horsemouth loves lists) would be;

• blue crystal fire - ukulele and voice (now with added acoustic guitar and e-bow drone). a now somewhat unsettling cosmic encounter in the woods. 
• katie cruel - acoustic guitar and voices (now with added lap steel guitar). on your way to a somewhat unsettling cosmic encounter in the woods. 
• painbirds - acoustic guitar and voices (now with added resonator guitar and melodicas on the instrumental verse). beautiful (and somewhat cosmic) pain. 
• confiding in the evening star - uke and voice and various slide guitars (melodica on the second half). don’t know what this is yet (but it’s sounding pretty good). 
• experiment keyboards and voices (lots of them). sounds to horsemouth like popul vuh. 

there are others 

(and there are other contenders) 

and there are others that will be made as the process goes on .

WANTED: ‘strange things that are considered valueless’

such are the things collectors like (according to benjamin).

you could think of illuminations by walter benjamin as being two books - a book of collecting, translating, story- telling, mechanically reproducing (printing), and a book of engagement with the key writers/ poets of the era - kafka, proust, baudelaire, ending with the angel of the future.

there is always something foolish about collecting (horsemouth bibliophile knows this) - as of all this stuff is going to be buried with you when you are gone, or set up as a museum, as if it is not in fact junk already. benjamin collected children’s books - like the opies. 

both benjamin (writing on leskov in the story-teller) and victor serge (in the beginning of our power) have the metaphor of the seeds from pharoah’s tomb germinating - where did they get this? from the newspapers? or from the same book? horsemouth wonders.

horsemouth is on the train back to his folks in the wilds of herefordshire (where it will be reliably grey instead of unreliably sunny). he’s brought some sheet music and some financial stuff (in case he gets bored) - because (as benjamin says) ‘boredom is the dream bird that hatches the egg of experience’.

how much boredom there is in the modern world unamused is another matter.

(ban)jolin, (ban)jolin... (to the tune of jolene)/ controversy on the american primitive scene

so horsemouth now has ayesha’s banjolin to play with. what a beast. that was his morning.

last night ayesha and horsemouth adjourned to a little pub round the corner from hers, sank two halves (an almost perfect amount of beer), and in mixture reminisced and cast a wary eye over the political situation. in the cold light of day the brexit party victory in peterborough has not come about (they’re still a protest vote phew). it all continues to be rubbish. social housing is not getting built.

emma (of emma and rob) was coming up to visit - horsemouth said to say hi.

in the day horsemouth wandered eastwards as far as baker’s arms tescos and south/ westwards in a loop back, succeeding in getting lost, passing leyton parish church (closed for reclamations) and the almshouses, approaching the asda business park from the wrong direction.

it is the point of transition in horsemouth’s year where he has to learn to live without the structure of work, to set himself tasks, but also to go and do the things that are important rather than avoiding them (as is his wont). for the rest of the month? saturday he goes to pick up his guitars from howard’s (and perhaps pass on the banjolin to him). he needs to get up to his parents at some point, solstice on the 21st, probably leave time for the leigh folk festival. then it is the midpoint of the year.


horsemouth was recently involved in some controversy on the american primitive scene - over on john fahey some gentleman had taken against young american primitive guitarist gwenifer raymond’s playing (he wanted slow and contemplative rather than fast and furious, with taste there is no arguing).

consequently when horsemouth found a bbc wales mixtape show by gwenifer (one of her tunes followed by a mixture of welsh indie pre-war blues and such like) he thought it better to post over on american primitive guitar (which is much more the spot for young american primitives or people posting their own stuff). it got likes. it’s good stuff.

then, perhaps somewhat unwisely he mentioned that perhaps he might post it on john fahey too. only to be told that no john fahey should be left for john fahey.

at this point loads of people weighed in to defend horsemouth’s freedom of speech and right to post wherever he chose. (thank you people). having used the word controversy horsemouth found himself at the heart of a controversy. so far so cash from chaos - ‘create generation gaps’. (or indeed edward bernays’ crystallizing public opinion).

what horsemouth (free speech hero) should do now (of course) is advertise his own material - but he might wait a while until it appears less crass.

day 3 of the recording sessions for musicians of bremen volume 4

finally a day that doesn’t go so well.

to howards trip hop instrumental sitar horsemouth adds a guitar part similar to the reverend gary davis’s talking blues, a slide guitar part using an open D6 (dadfsharpab). he then adds a part in an open Dm6 (dadfab). he starts out full and thins it out towards the end. hopefully that’s enough to be working with.

howard has a john carpenter-ish instrumental to which horsemouth entirely fails to add anything useful (first on slide guitar and then on the resonator) - it has variable bar lengths i.e. it changes when it wants to (that’s its charm), horsemouth is reduced to a bad-tempered sweaty heap.

they then try to add a lap steel part to confiding in the evening star and it’s fine until the first drop (and thereafter horsemouth has lost the plot) but howard has added a really good melodica part that lifts the whole thing from this point.

thereafter they go for a walk down to the beach of self-expression through the sun-fried streets, on the way back they attempt to call into the gun for a pint (but it is busy), so they retreat to howard’s flat with a few bottles of beer and listen through a few songs, horsemouth attempts to convince howard of the virtues of hissing of the summer lawns - of self-conscious story telling songs, songs in a conversational register. horsemouth blows out not just one but two gigs (sorry lou, sorry matthew) eventually he loads up as many of the guitars as he can and heads off for home.

 he floats in liquid darkness.