here we see a clip from an italian film production based on the invention of morel with the music of robbie basho from his debut album (seal of the blue lotus 1965)underneath it.
basho is (or was) not a takoma park boy (he was from baltimore). he meets fahey at the university of maryland together with ed denson (the early co-owner of takoma park records), and max ochs (early american primitive guitarist). it is important to remember they are all young when they create this. they are of the generation that grew up in post-war prosperity in the suburbs but were not comfortable with this. henry 'sunflower' vestine of canned heat was another takoma park boy with a similar interest in the pre-war blues.
like all of them he goes in a slightly different direction when he has his wings (only fahey is truly american primitive). this is from an early album 1965 so he hasn't moved that far from the blueprint yet, but he will, he had seen ravi shankar play in 1962 and you can hear his interest in indian music.
he will start singing and his lush, romantic view of the world will come out. he will make the journey to california too. a scene will begin to crystalize about them. at UCLA fahey will meet harry taussig and al 'blind owl' wilson, booker t. 'bukka' white. fahey will begin to assemble a roster of artists.
ok that about wraps it up for fahey week this year. horsemouth will try and have a day listening to basho.
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mc skibadee (king of the double time MCs) has died. while it can't be claimed he originated the style he was one of its most able practitioners. there was a whole raft of these guys beginning with stevie hyper D and mc det, continuing on through riddla, funsta, shabba D.
it looks like it could be a decent day out and it's a monday (start of the week). later this evening a meeting of the communal endeavour (over zoom).
horsemouth is back from a visit out to howard's in sunny east ham.
and it was sunny (if a little cold). to begin horsemouth wandered over to stratford via the marshes and the olympic park. there at stratford international DLR station he boarded the train for west ham and thence via the district line to east ham. he has hardly ever used this particular route and he pronounced london, its new(ish) transport infrastructure and its people beautiful.
once in sunny east ham he walked through the market down to the pub with the pizza. there he met howard and they adjourned to the (sunny but cold) back garden for pizza and beer. they then adjourned again inside before adjourning to the big pub that is usually empty (which was strangely full of small children and rugby fans). with heroic efforts wales nearly pulled themselves back from shameful defeat by the english.
before returning horsemouth called round howard's to pick up the hohner 6 string with the om sign (a very sweet sounding guitar).
in the LRB the poet jo-ann wallace writes about typing. about learning to type in montreal as a teenager (she now lives in alberta). later she types out virginia woolf and in doing so she learnt her style, her way with the comma and the semi-colon (similarly a young joan didion typed out hemmingway). typing is about anticipation and muscle memory, the fingers move to where they think they will be needed.
playing guitar is of course similar. horsemouth regrets never putting much effort into learning other people's stuff. he is a thorough-going bodger of a player. in his defence there never used to be much teaching material around when he started. there was very little film of people playing, if there was they didn't show you what the guitarist was doing they mainly focused on the singer's face. hell when horsemouth started there weren't even instructional videos. there was some tab (but then you needed to know what the tune sounded like to use it), there was some sheet music (but then you needed to know what the music a sounded like and be able to read music to get much use from it).
then there was then learning by ear or learning from friends (which was the way it was mostly done).
things didn't start to come together for horsemouth until he started writing and playing his own stuff. except he never wrote it down really.
horsemouth can (sort of) read music (very slowly). he mainly uses it to find out what the note or chord is at a particular point. he learned to read music at school (there were generalised music lessons for one year with an exceptionally grumpy teacher whose classes a friend of horsemouth with epilepsy was very keen on ditching out of). later horsemouth re-taught himself it by diligent application to howard shanet's how to learn to read music.
fahey played in the school band (that's where he learned to read music) and he listened to a lot of classical music.
after the guitar pickup horsemouth went to his child-minding gig and then later home. it's a bright sunny morning.
these lines are from the poem the end and the beginning bythe polish poet wisława szymborska.
'now and then someone
will dig up rusty arguments
from under the bushes
and take them to the dump.'
this stanza is in dubravka ugresic's the ministry of pain, heading up a chapter wherethe central character is reading her ex-father-in-law's self-published autobiography, an account of his struggle as a teacher to build yugoslavia. but it is a country that has since fallen apart and from which the daughter in law is now an exile.
horsemouth apologises. he is a little distracted by events. two years ago he was bargaining with coronavirus now he is kvetching about the invasion of ukraine. events have somewhat overtaken him again.
is horsemouth to suppose that the glorious end of history is now over? that history is back on again? or is this one last pointless strike from hell's gates by ideologues defeated by the true and just forces of economic liberalism and democracy? (horsemouth is being sarcastic here)
horsemouth feels great pity for the people of ukraine - they are now stuck in a proxy war between the US and a dream of a revived russia. it is beyond even the kind of civil war in syria and the former yugoslavia. the more they fight the more of them will die.
for having waltzed them to this position europe and the west is going to do exactly nothing to help them. (that is the russian calculation and the west has told them as much). we will return to the cold war (except the iron curtain will be at the eastern polish border - er. assuming the tanks stop there).
the clock of history is being wound back (as if any 'gains' were only temporary, as if the years between were illusory). and all over eastern europe people must be feeling that chill.
the dubravka ugresic encourages horssemouth to think about the long term consequences of the war and about the refugees from it. in her book he central character is not in exile from the former yugoslavia, it is just that when she returns she is no longer comfortable back there.
horsemouth's suggestion that we re-read bulgakov's the white guard (aka. the fall of kiev) is looking increasingly stupid and specious (literary and pretentious), he may still do it. in a bit horsemouth will look at the newspapers and listen to the radio (online).
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it's a bright sunshine-y day.
yesterday horsemouth went for a walk (up the valley of the agapemonians) to walthamstow (st. james' street oxfam) in search of books. he returned with michael rush's new media in art (world of art series - one squid) and guy de maupassant's a parisian affair and other stories (penguin classics - one squid, containing boule de suif and the horla etc.).
the walk tired him out. in the afternoon he sat and read - the ugresic, the rush.
today (as usual) he has no real plans. horsemouth tends to want to dally with the kind of rusty arguments that are not so dangerous they have to be taken to the dump (pre-war blues music re-imagined as instrumental guitar music for example).
here horsemouth retitles the piece in the style of john fahey (as if it were a historical event, made into a piece of program music for parlour guitar).
'program music is a type of instrumental art music that attempts to render an extra-musical narrative musically. the narrative itself might be offered to the audience through the piece's title, or in the form of program notes, inviting imaginative correlations with the music.' says wikipedia.
the opposite to this would be absolute music where the formal properties of the music and its development provide the interest.
an example of program music would be thebattle of prague , op.23 (by františek kocžwara) widely derided as the worst piece of music ever. of course giving any piece of music a title encourages people to think about it in a particular way. fahey uses this trick often in his titling. what is going on with the death of the clayton peacock for example?
last night horsemouth watched I, Tonya a film about figure skater (and alleged conspirator to knobble her rival nancy kerrigan) tonya harding. tonya was white trash from portland, oregon. (jesus what a terrible life)
fahey moved to live in salem oregon in 1981 (the state capital - this is my link). he said there would always be money there because there would always be jobs for the bureaucrats.
oregon (as a state) already has an interesting history 'in december 1844, oregon passed its black exclusion law, which prohibited african americans from entering the territory.'
fahey collaborated often with portland oregon (the largest city) guitarist terry robb. robb was record producer (and sometime accompanist) on eight of fahey's albums between 1982 and 1994 and fahey played on some of his records too and provided the cover for at least one. after 94 fahey's career starts to revive
here it is a bright sunny morning. horsemouth is contemplating a walk. he hasn't checked the news yet (because he knows it is going to be depressing).
so here we have red cross disciple of christ today from fahey's first posthumous album of the same title from 2003. the title is lifted from a sermon recorded for paramount records by the reverend moses mason (released january 1928).
'rev. moses mason was reportedly from lake providence, louisiana, although no birth date is available. whether or not mason was actually ordained is unknown. his life is a complete mystery, other than the fact that he recorded eight songs for paramount records in 1928 in a chicago studio. whether or not he came to chicago specifically to record is unknown.' says a commenter on a youtube video.
fahey seems to know more. chuckling he tells the interviewer that moses mason also recorded secular blues music for paramount under a different name.
and it's not the only title he lifts for the album.
charley bradley's 1066 blues lift's its title from a charley patton tune that is named after the way engine driver charley bradley blew the whistle of his train. there's a recording somewhere of fahey interviewing son house about it. fahey had written his master’s thesis in folklore at the university of california at berkeley on charley patton (al 'blind owl' wilson had helped him with it).
stewart lee in the times (mostly paywalled but click through as far as you can) reviewed red cross... at the time (feb 23rd 2003).
'john fahey was an american acoustic guitarist who used the blues music he grew up with as a doorway into a world of abstract, impressionistic sound...'
which is a pretty fair summation. except that john fahey didn't grow up with the blues he grew up in the suburbs. it was an effort of research for him to find out about it. as a teenager he went door to door in black neighbourhoods collecting the old records and then sat down to work out how they were played. towards the end fahey was playing electric guitar (it was just easier).
this season horsemouth is concentrating more on fahey's later years. giving them a listen.
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it's a grey rainy morning out. supposed to be sunshine in the afternoon. last night horsemouth watched ombre (1980) a giallo(ish)/ ghost story thing with tarot cards. as it is not a straight ahead giallo he would have expected the fragments of fear podcast to have covered it (both the double and autopsy recommended by them were excellent). horsemouth supposes it is not an actual giallo because of the supernatural elements (and because, for once, nobody gets slashed or stabbed).
horsemouth should be listening to fahey (it being fahey week after all) and have something useful and instructive to tell you about him.
horsemouth is up. it's 8am ish. he's drinking his coffee (while listening to the julian bream/ benjamin britten). today sun in the morning (best to get out early).
facebook is showing him a number of fahey related memories (but not all of them).
5 years ago revelation by the side of the charles river dam (see here horsemouth takes a fahey title as his model).
6 years ago horsemouth repeats his belief that the title of fahey's city of refuge is derived from blind willie johnson's run to the city of refuge. this is a belief that recent reading (see yesterday's post) has pulled if not apart then at least into the more interesting shape. it may be that it is in fact derived from bible study (with johnson's song at best reinforcement).
horsemouth takes this as a proposal. a thought experiment.
7 years ago he posts a piece that is really on the second acts in american lives for fahey's life has a second act, he moves to salem oregon (and even after it falls apart it all comes together again).
'there are second acts in american lives (there always were) - fahey will survive in exile and eventually be hailed and return too (sic.) be as curmugeonly as ever - but then he will die (because there's no escaping death).'
9 years ago horsemouth thought this too 'fahey's is a life with a second act (that was its kindness)'.
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horsemouth has been reading dubravka ugresic's the ministry of pain about balkan refugees hiding out in holland. it all goes well before it succumbs to rage.
and meanwhile in the now
putin is off playing chicken with the west | the west is playing chicken with putin
complete the following list. what is the missing word?
"john is one of the heroes of whatever this country has for a culture." - leo kottke.
fahey week begins
to celebrate fahey week this year horsemouth seems to have succeeded in getting into an argument over the precise meaning of
john fahey's use of the phrase city of refuge from his album titled city of refuge (released slightly over 25 years ago). belatedly horsemouth discovers this is with someone who actually interviewed fahey when the album came out in 1997.
now it may be that fahey's use of it derives directly from the bible (as has been claimed), or it may be that it is filtered through blind willie johnson's use of it in his song
'I'm gonna run to the city of refuge'.
but that's only horsemouth's supposition (it is the kind of supposition that blues fans like horsemouth are apt to make). people who put god and the bible at the centre of their lives may be apt to see it differently.
john fahey is dead and so he can't be asked (he died 21 years ago today)
but he was interviewed at length at the time and if you ask the person who conducted that interview,
'john would have known about the song but he never mentioned it.'
the fan website the fahey files suggests there's a connection (and here) that the title of the song and willie johnson's name are printed on fahey's album but this is not conclusive. horsemouth would need to possess a copy of the record itself to be sure (and even then that would not be conclusive - it would just show if
whoever designed the record put the wille johnson title on there and perhaps that fahey okayed it.)
certainly the interview shows fahey had enough interest in christian religious matters to discuss them. it's quite phildickian - john was living in abject poverty at this point and yet here he is discussing religion.
horsemouth was casting around for material for this year and the universe has provided him with it.
interstellar space day
it is also (by a strange quirk of fate) interstellar space day. - when horsemouth celebrates the recording of john coltrane and rashied ali's interstellar space. here it is represented by a mix of four key tracks.
there is something between the sparse intensity of fahey's city of refuge I and coltrane's paring of his music down into a duo interstellar space.
listening to city of refuge nowmostly reminds horsemouth of is benjamin britten's nocturnal (written for julian breem horsemouth believes) all the pieces of a guitar tune are teased out and finally assembled at the end into their original (in britten's case john dowland's come heavy sleep).
good morning! good morning! it looks like a good morning out (by which horsemouth means there is sunshine and no rain clouds). ok some cloud cover is starting to bubble up (or be blown in). the seaside towns are in fact a long way from the coast. they are in a river valley (it's a bit of a swamp really).
last night the straight ahead giallo death carries a cane (1972). ideally horsemouth would match the gialli he watches to the ones discussed on the fragments of fear podcast.
horsemouth has remembered where he heard the bunky and jake track before - he thinks the owl service covered it.
he pretty much sees it as john harris sees it - the UK politics that is emerging post-covid (if indeed we are are there which we are not) is pretty ugly. and it's pretty hopeless in electoral terms too.
it's the monday (start of the week) and horsemouth should really hurry up and start getting some plans together.
tuesday fahey week begins (and it's interstellar space day with john coltrane and rashied ali too). horsemouth sort of plans to recap and contextualise what he has written before and to look at other celebrant's productions (james cullingham's film in search of blind joe death for example, john jeremiah sullivan's writing in pulphead, steve lowenthal's dance of death: the life of john fahey etc).
fahey week will finish sunday 28th with robbie basho day(which commemorates basho's death and fahey's birth). it's not a leap year so we will be moving on sharpish to jackson c. frank midweek celebration (march 2nd and 3rd).
good morning! good morning! it's sunday. horsemouth has woken up cheerful (but with a slightly blocked nose). it's a grey morning (but at least it has stopped raining).
it begins with the usual suspects henryk sienkiewicz's quo vadis (1896), bolesław prus pharoah (1897), tadeusz borowski. these are the ones horsemouth hasn't read but then it continues on to some he has, bruno schulz the street of crocodiles (1934), witold gombrowicz ferdydurke (1937), stanisław lem solaris (1961) (ok ok the lem he has read another book of his and has seen the two movies).
stanisław ignacy witkiewicz sounds like a card and horsemouth will have to investigate him.
how about horsemouth does you a list of polish authors and books he has actually read.
bruno schulz the street of crocodiles. this is just a great magical realist novel from the borderlands between ukraine and poland and was horsemouth's point of entry into polish literature when the brothers quay made a stop motion animation of it. (it was also his point of entry into other east european animation). it's the film clip at the top of the page (but with some kind of synth soundtrack). horsemouth has lent this out.
witold gombrowicz ferdydurke. form deforms mutters gombowicz darkly. horsemouth has also read the diaries. on the run against the infantilising forces of society. gombrowicz himself ended up in latin america.
tadeusz konvicky a minor apocalypse. on beingstitched up by other so-called 'radical' intellectuals. on being alive at the lowest moment in polish history.
czesław miłosz - the issa valley a novel about his growing up in lithuania (the relationship between lithuania and poland is kind of like the one between england and scotland) and an appreciation of his poetry (the poet's work nathan quinn).
wisława szymborska. the fragment of one poem (about finding something at the dump and taking it for reuse - he thinks it is quoted in dubraka ugresic's ministry of pain)
jan potocki the manuscript found in saragossa. one of those horrific gothic novels where characters in stories start telling stories (and you become convinced that you will never escape). potocki is mainly famous for becoming convinced he was turning into a werewolf and shooting himself in the head with a silver bullet. horsemouth thinks his copy of this has gone west too (though there's a chance it's in the pile with the gothics rather than over with the russians and the east europeans).
stanislaw lem the hospital of the transfiguration.
horsemouth has read more widely than this (honestly). he has the daedalus book of polish fantasy, polish writing today (from 1967) and five centuries of polish poetry.
horsemouth made a visit to poland in the mid90ies for a week (and like his visit to detroit for slightly over a day , or his visits to spain and portugal for a month) he has dined out long and hard upon this. horsemouth is a literary enthusiast and traveller - if he is going somewhere he will try and find out about the writers and read their stuff (in translation sadly), either whilst there or upon his return. he will also take a phrase book and make an effort to learn at least a few polite phrases. in the old analogue days he would keep a diary these days he's as likely to blog as well.
(as a vegetarian it is difficult for him to eat the national dishes etc.)
later horsemouth travelled to the czech republic a few times (he could do you a similar list of czech writers or indeed pretty much any former east european country).
his current travel/ literary enthusiasm is for portugal (or will be when international travel returns).
what will horsemouth be up to today? not a lot. he must discover a new book to read (or return to the ones he abandoned). last night rice and a peppers, red kidney beans, onion sauce. today he will finish off the rice. last night some tv rather than the usual youtube giallo.
yesterday he put the vacuum cleaner round and mopped the kitchen floor, the corridors and the living room floor. he had a look at the back garden (but it is too fucked to be dealing with. just like the front garden really). he went for a walk and on his travels he found a low slatted coffee table that he has stored some of the egregious kipple in the front room on. he's going to start sorting out the books from his library and start doing some runs to the charity shops and the book-sharing boxes.
it is the anniversary (in 1991) of harry everett smith's lifetime achievement award for his anthology of american folk music.
on having visited the mississippi delta of techno and listened to kraftwerk in a bar
yes horsemouth (but that was a very long time ago - probably 25 years ago, maybe 24 years and 6 months). back when detroit was coming back (again).
the roads just petered out and turned into fields (horsemouth always says this). the priority of the city authorities was to destroy the housing to stop it being visibly empty. the parallel was with the depopulated world of do androids dream of electric sheep?
the mexicans had made it all the way across the united states of america to one of the coldest places on the planet in winter. they had opened restaurants in the deserted downtown. the hipsters had yet to come (they were just sniffing around but had not even been constituted as a style tribe by this point). lots of people were living across the border in windsor ontario and commuting across to work.
horsemouth was reminded of this by the (allegedly astroturfed) 'trucker's' blockade of the bridge there - the point that 25% of the trade between the US and canada must pass through - well done the anti-lockdowners for actually finding one of the key choke points in the system (the left spends a lot of time going on about supply chains and logistics and 'pinch points', about how vulnerable 'just-in-time' makes capitalism but here was a bunch of anti-lockdown knuckleheads who had placed their thumb right on it).
there was a tunnel as well.
you have memories to look back on today. says facebook.
horsemouth has nearly finished reading ghostland by edward parnell. it is either a meditation on semiotic ghosts in the field of folk horror, or, rather it is a product of a writing-mill somewhere (a creative writing course). there is a belief that by writing this material down the emptied out life portrayed will acquire meaning.
horsemouth may have used this title before. he apologises for having woken up grumpy.
in the giallo horsemouth was watching last night (death occurred last night/ la morte risale a ieri sera - 1970) there is a comparison made between the author's fear of finishing off the book and the detective's depression when a crime is solved and a criminal caught. both find the prospect underwhelming.
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a year ago u-roy had just died. horsemouth was debating the prospect of more furlough. horsemouth notes that it is prince andrew’s birthday (huzzah for that most hard working of royals).
four years ago horsemouth was stomping in the studio (or at last posting photos of himself attempting to do this) - attempting to get a suitably thuddy thud for the track serpent(S) by stamping on the floor of howard's room(and referencing performance art while he did so).
storm eunice has ripped the roof off the dome (good! horsemouth never liked it).
horsemouth is up early (well, for these days, about 8am). the binmen have been. storm rain rain go-away is either coming (10am ish) or it has been. he is writing this in 'real time' on a friday morning.
meanwhile howard has been busy and there's an ambient mix.
once upon a time, when working with rust, horsemouth used rain rain go-away as a chorus on an instrumental of rust's. he can't remember any of the other lyrics on it. he had a lead guitar part for it.
last night horsemouth child-minded. he travelled there. he read a few stories and then went to sleep in a corner. he then woke up. came back and farted about online a little.
yesterday horsemouth mostly sat in the sun (in the living room) and read. edward parnell's ghostland (m.r.james, algernon blackwood, robert aickman etc. but alan garner, susan cooper also) goes along nicely. he goes out and visits whatever sites remain extant. there's some personal tragedy, there's some tv (bbc ghost story at christmas etc.), there's some birdwatching.
the birdwatching horsemouth doesn't do (he doesn't do much botanising either really).
he's about 90 pages off finishing it.
horsemouth is still waiting for the return of hawkbinge season 2: the eighties - this time it's not as good as it used to be. fortunately they can hide this knowledge from themselves at least for the first episode because they will be reviewing levitation which is a corker of an album.
for once (for hawkwind) it benefits from having real musicians - ginger baker shows up and does his drum parts in two days flat, huw lloyd-langton emerges from a decade of session work to play his little heart out, tim blake has the analogue synth and sequencer chops, harvey bainbridge is solid and on the money (whatever ginger baker says) and dave brock has been woodshedding and has a stash of demoed up tunes. doug smith (their old manager) is around to get them a deal, bronze records their new label aren't enthusiastic about them and so treat them mean to keep them keen.
and almost immediately dave brock will fall out with tim blake. ginger baker will fall out with harvey bainbridge. this line up is dead in the water there will be no album two.
fortunately dave brock and harvey will get a synth duo going round the farmhouse table. drum machines are available. michael moorcock will be enticed back to write the lyrics and huw is on hand to retro-fit dozens of old songs with shiny new lead guitar lines.
horsemouth is back from a visit to howard's out in sunny east ham. they listened through to the live recording (aka. the confiscated bootleg) to see what they thought of it. horsemouth thinks that with a lot of work and studio trickery it should be possible to make it sound barely decent. as howard pointed out when he'd put out live things before (in his electronica and improv period) they were compilations of the best bits taken from a lot of gigs.
this is not. it is a recording of one gig. and a gig for which they had not rehearsed together (largely because horsemouth believed they would be doing two solo gigs).
the crowd noise is good. it sounds like people are enjoying themselves (it sounds like a badly played gig in front of an appreciative audience). there are bits of MC patter. something is dropped (loudly) at some point. someone is taping along (not always in time). hell horsemouth's foot is completely out of time all the way through the first song. there are howard's new songs. people sing along.
howard is tired. you can hear it in his voice and see it in the solitary photo. horsemouth is in rude good health (but his voice is about as tuneful as it has ever been).
the questions then are what can be saved? what can be faked? musicians of bremen take as their guide john fahey's live in tasmania - old songs are replayed (but given new titles), lacking a song to finish the gig off with an instrumental from a previous album is retitled (and has crowd noise added). anyway more on this when fahey week starts on the 22nd.
so anyway. the plan is, sort the tracks out into separate tracks over half-term, then dive into fixing them up over easter.
they had a discussion at what level of sales it might be not too soul destroying to put out vinyl.
if horsemouth had taken a guitar case he would have been able to bring back the hohner 6 string (the one with the om on it). howard has just bought a 12 string hohner in the same range (fine beast that it is). horsemouth had a quick play (expect to hear it on a musicians of bremen recording soon).
once they had a plan horsemouth and howard went up the pub with the pizza (but it was shut until four and so was their second favourite haunt the empty pub on the corner). they were driven into the wetherspoons (boo hiss) - where they were forced to drink cheap but acceptable beer and eat cheap but acceptable food.
on the way back to the tube horsemouth attempted entry into the new london via a billboard sign for a new housing development (he thought it might make a convenient shortcut home). for a brief few seconds he smelled the carefully planted summer flowers of the pseudo-public spaces.
in terms of swag horsemouth returned with a ragga twins t-shirt and a copy of ghostland by edward parnell (a kind of reading autobiography in the style of francis spufford's the child that books built) but based round hauntological/ folk horror tropes. it's a pleasurable read (all the usual suspects), if thin, and unlike his other reading it goes quickly.
today looks like it will be a good day. the sun may even be shining in the living room now. horsemouth has some child minding in the evening. there may be a little more coffee to be had.
'when a day that you happen to know is wednesday starts off by sounding like sunday, there is something seriously wrong somewhere.'
so begins john wyndham's the day of the triffids. subject of a recent discussion (with blind people on the panel) on radio 4's the essay. this was their starting point - the silence of lockdown. it is, like the survivors, a case of the british middle classes in the apocalypse (gawdelpus).
horsemouth is dealing with his own variety of silence. the silence of the work. he is dealing with it by writing his daily blogposts in early (anything that hasn't yet occurred to him can be added later). he has read the first page of day of the triffids and see what that has sparked off already - he will post this wednesday the 16th.
he will also start on writing his response to john coltrane's posthumous release stellar regions that (if you are reading this) you will have read on tuesday the 15th of february. just to be clear he was actually writing this on monday the 14th of febraury which is either valentines day or 'let's kill captain cook' day depending on your preference.
this he is writing on tuesday 15th february.
'to an extent that has yet to be fully appreciated, many people will become significantly poorer...'
- andy beckett, guardian 14th feb 2022, 'britain's long consumer binge is ending'.
yes horsemouth expects it to be thoroughly shit. boris is an opportunist who looked forward to conquering and keeping the north (post brexit) by means of a couple of rounds of splash the cash. but the tories lack the imagination for such a move, even if, post-covid, they had the cash to splash. except for gove, gove is smart and mad and gets it.
like cassandra he will be able to see it all going wrong but be able to change nothing. instead what we will get is the further iteration of austerity as the tories do to the UK what the troika did to greece.
the alternative? some years of new labour recidivism under sir keir.
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actually being written right now 16th feb, starting at 7:50am.
it's a greyish morning out horsemouth is up a bit early. today he goes to howard's. yesterday he spent a bit of time attempting to learn last kind word blues (geshee wiley - standard tuning) and you turn me on, I'm a radio (joni mitchell - open d). the joni mitchell is much more straightforward than her usual tunes, the geshee wiley he's going to have to bodge the fingerpicking. he watched a bit of the rivals of sherlock holmes on tv and then some documentary shorts and interviews on youtube about michael mann (mostly about thief with a side order of manhunter). mann was a photographer (or, well at least, he took a lot of photographs) when he was younger, he worked a lot of jobs he saw a lot of skilled people at work. he became interested in process. this followed on from a walk and talk with TG.
we have arrived. it is stellar regions day. shortly to be followed by interstellar space day on the 22nd. this was the subject of a previous blogpost you will remember - saturday the 12th february's 'preparing for stellar regions'.
john coltrane - (tenor saxophone); alice coltrane (piano); jimmy garrison (bass); rashied ali (drums).
stellar regions was recorded february 15, 1967 but the tapes were put to one side and not found again by alice coltrane until 1994.
'stellar regions is the same composition as... 'venus' (from interstellar space) ... it was originally titled "dream chant" in the session log.'
'alice coltrane devised the titles, apparently not knowing that the title cut... is in fact 'venus.' I noticed this when I was sent a preview tape, but it was a week before the album's release, too late to correct the error.' - lewis porter.
stellar regions is a great title. so is seraphic light. and the music is all good. interestingly it is full of all that cosmic love/ cosmic sentimentalism that pharoah sanders and alice coltrane will do later. you can hear the continuities with alice coltrane's later work. rashied ali (as usual) gets it all to float (how does he do that?). but it is more exploratory because it is john coltrane.
coming up on horsemouth folk archive
fahey week (feb 22nd to the 28th death to birth). so feb 22nd will be a double celebration.
basho day (the 28th death),
jackson c. frank day (march 2nd to march 3rd birth to death)
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ok so no progress on the reading. horsemouth did listen to numerous podcasts (including the thoroughly blood boiling grenfell inquirypodcast) and he watched some instructional videos about outbreak management.he watched a documentary on william blake (curiously enough with daryll) - he loved the pictures and the self-publishing, jah wobble made an appearance, mark linkous (sparklehorse) was a fan too (horsemouth seems to remember), allen ginsberg. ok so this brings horsemouth back to his reading.
tomorrow he is off to visit howard in sunny east ham to see if there is a viable live album to be had.
phew. good morning. sten is still alive (the assassins have failed again).
‘sweet, bland commendations fall everywhere upon the scene’, elizabeth hardwick observed in her 1959 the decline of book reviewing.
‘a universal, if somewhat lobotomized, accommodation reigns’.
never mind book reviewing. horsemouth is experiencing great difficulty in even getting the books read. john clarkson in far off porto is shooting past him. horsemouth is stuck at the burning ghats with allen ginsberg (processing the bodies of dead indians).
also in portugal. john reports that the fall of bloco izquerda from their position in the government coalition is less noticed than the electoral success of chega (enough!) and other right wing parties. for years since the revolution the fascists could make no headway in portugal and there was a cordon sanitaire against doing coalition deals to allow them into office. this has fallen. fabian figueirido (leader of bloco izquerda) writes about it.
horsemouth will have to do more reading about how the portuguese elections actually work (he had imagined it was a proportional representation system but john thinks not). no wikipedia seems to think it is PR.
last night on tv louis theroux was in the world of the fascist internet trolls (jesus that was dispiriting). it's all the medicine show
here in this most united of kingdoms the greased piglet still has not fallen. it is tenaciously holding on to power (with its little trotters). if it fails it will be thrown out of the window and onto cobbles of downing street. 'while it only takes 54 tory MPs to compel a confidence vote, there is a larger and more important figure. that is 181, the minimum number of votes against him needed to ensure his defenestration.'
ok some activity over at hawkbinge towers (so they are not dead yet). yesterday horsemouth gave the chronicle of the black sword a listen (and the earth ritual preview). this is when he parts company with hawkwind.
horsemouth liked the cottage industry synth duo (of dave brock and harvey bainbridge, church of hawkwind) that forms within hawkwind in the 80ies, the songs huw lloyd-langton brings are (mostly) good, even if (after levitation) his lead guitar is stretched too thin/ laid on too heavily on all the other tunes. there's a fair amount of the lyrical influence of michael moorcock and bob calvert still. there are still good things to be had. 8oies musical production is digitally clearer and in many respects this does not help hawkwind in this period. the analogue scuzz of 60ies and 70ies recording is currently much more fashionable.
soon enough rave will come.
today (a monday) horsemouth does not know. he has the window open to ventilate his room. in a bit he will go for a wander.
yesterday horsemouth child-minded. which was fun. unfortunately there seems to be a problem loading credit onto his burner phone (they may have reached the end of their rainbow together or it may be a temporary problem). but the gig dragged on into the evening so horsemouth was unable to go over to howard's and check out the live recording.
horsemouth returned home to watch some french crime serial and make believe he could understand what was being said (rather than in fact reading the subtitles). he had a bag of chips on the way home.
he hopes to get over to howard's sometime more like mid-week (but they'll have to arrange it via email because of the dead phone).
there has been a worrying silence from the hawkbinge camp for the last little while (well the last six weeks in fact). horsemouth worries that, faced with the full horror of hawkwind's 80ies studio album discography, the youngster has done a runner. the oldster makes a genial host but what makes the podcast engaging is the youngster's direct and unvarnished opinions on what there is on the studio albums. they have until the end of the month (59 days is their previous longest period of silence).
horsemouth thinks there are three phases of hawkwind covered so far - the launch (hawkwind, X in search of space), the golden UA years/ the lemmy years (doremi, silver machine, space ritual, hall of the mountain grill, warrior on the edge of time), the silver 'charisma' age/ the calvert years (astounding sounds amazing music, quark strangeness and charm, PXR5, hawklords).
to be honest hawkwind's reputation is based on their 70ies work.
with live 79 we move intothe bronze age/ the lloyd-langton years. they strike early gold with levitation (horsemouth is keen to hear the youngster's take on that) but thereafter (church of hawkwind, sonic attack, choose your masques, earth ritual preview, chronicle of the black sword, zones etc.) it is diminishing returns. they still exist as a live proposition (for when you are on holiday in the west country/ for lead guitar retrofitted outings of their back catalogue) but freed from the murk of poor recording practices you can hear not much is going on. they can invite nik turner back from his sojourn with inner city unit (and then fire him again) but it makes little odds.
around this time (the eighties as they were known) horsemouth would see nik turner with inner city unit and bob calvert's various outfits and (the gong affiliated) here and now. these were all fun gigs. he would also see lots of anarcho-punk bands. dave brock has just compiled a record for cherry red of the festival circuit bands - it doesn't look definitive to horsemouth.
in the nineties horsemouth finally succeeds in getting his own band together so he sees lots of bands on 'the circuit' in london trying to make it and he becomes more interested in making music of his own rather than listening to other people's.
today a grey morning. in the world of books horsemouth is still with allen ginsberg at the burning ghats. when that is done he will probably start on the day of the triffids and the gary snyder/ ginsberg letters back to back. the upcoming week is warmer and wetter. it is half-term for many schools. there is stellar regions day to look forward to.
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elsewhere a discussion of rasta attitudes to vaccination. (hint: they are against it).
tbh a fair few of horsemouth's friends are anti-vax (on that natural health versus (evil) science basis) or have at least delaying getting jabbed. horsemouth remembers chatting with a bangladeshi child minder early doors (hist. he doesn't want to dob her in) and she wasn't getting vaxxed either (despite working with children and living in a multi-generational home). heartwarmingly (for horsemouth) she blamed her employers and their skiiing holidays for spreading the virus.
it's no surprise if many rastas are anti-vax given the place natural and life have in their ideology and given the anti-vax positions of the jehovah's witnesses etc.. and then again many of horsemouth's friends are anti-lockdown on the basis that it is not necessary (debateable) and an infringement of their freedom (yes but er.) some friends (who work for the NHS) are anti- vaccine mandate.
but these are not rastas - unreason is much more broadly spread (and for reasonable reasons).
good morning peoples. in a minute horsemouth goes to his child minding gig (which is the nearest thing he allows himself to an employment these days). this should take him up into the early afternoon.
horsemouth is preparing for stellar regions day (15th february)but he will reserve what he has to say until then. it will be followed by interstellar space day on the 22nd when horsemouth will celebrate the release of that album.
yesterday horsemouth went for a walk with TG (across the marshes and over towards sunny leyton). later he had a zoom chat with john in porto (the old capital of the kingdom of porto cale of afonso I). in the evening he watched roger corman's the pit and the pendulum. vincent price chewed the scenery most effectively.
yesterday he tested for the plague (gentle readers, if he has performed the test correctly, he doesn't have the plague).
later (should time permit) he will be off to howard's to listen to the recordings from their previous gig together.
talking politics is ending. just a few more lonely episodes. horsemouth is saddened (he does like the reasonableness of it).
but before that a last attempt to make sense of boris johnson.
of course you can't make sense of any recent history without accounting for people's increasing disaffection from representative politics (and yet their inability to think outside or round it). the US, the UK, all over europe the spectre ofpopulism.
for years the politicians would tell us that nothing could be done that it was all about economics, or the EU, or something somewhere else, so why do we have you then? we would reply.
horsemouth is impressed by the great experimental insanity of brexit (but of course it is not bound to end up well). the it's nothing to do with us (but we are still important) political class were tasked with making 'it' happen, cue parliamentary mud wrestling and attempts at obfuscation and delay. but we wants it hiss the people from the wings.
cometh the hour cometh the man. dominic cummings. with his tame political buffoon boris johnson on a leash. they battle it through. they stand on the side of the people versus the establishment and are rewarded for this.
but now boris has spoiled his copybook (cummings had spoiled his earlier - and, like the servant he is, been dismissed). but when he was similarly caught boris would not go, he looks like a member of the establishment too good to live by the rules he imposes on others. (which is what he is and everyone always knew this). he could still be forgiven by the people with an indulgent chuckle. 'that boris, eh.' one third of the population would still vote for him (or vote tory which is the same thing), he is still popular within the tory party itself (just not with the MPs).
and it is the MPs who will decide his fate. however they will be looking over their shoulders at the rest of the country.
boris has successfully disaggregated the coming shocks. nasrudin promises he can teach the sultan's horse to speak if he is given a year (anything looks like a good bet when you are under threat of death).
'beware the ides of may'
a week is a long time in politics, a year is a very long time, much can happen in a year, and much can happen before may, before the local elections. world events may even happen. boris may have his falklands moment (er. in ukraine? possibly not).
but there is no obvious successor. and boris has gotten up and onto the front foot (smearing starmer) assembling mobs in the street, refusing to play the game of politics even by the westminster rules (such as they are). boris appeals over the head of the chattering media and metropolitan elite to the country (has everyone forgotten that this is his game not parliamentary wrangling).
of course in many ways horsemouth hopes that the tories can't run with the levelling up agenda. if they could run with it they would have a built in structural advantage in english politics, a built in majority, a divided opposition.
'what about the working class?' yells a member of the mob at starmer (sounding briefly sensible, before going all elite paedophile ring conspiracy and anti-vax) 'traitor! traitor!'
it is strange to watch the hannah arendt origins of totalitarianism world re-emerge from out under the pandemic. (remember that's where we were).
of course many anti-vaxxers and anti-lockdown people believe that they are resisting totalitarianism rather than paving the way for the plague). they too have noticed the weakness of the supply chain, look at the truckers blocking the bridge between windsor ontario and detroit, and are applying pressure at the choke points.
of course starmer can't deliver the change people want and he can't reconnect labour with the working class, not in scotland, not in the north, he can only lead us back into a supressing normality (which was what got us here in the first place).
ultimately talking politics pin their hopes on a rebuilding of the centre ground (with a side order of democratic reform). but the toys of populism (and their followers in the street) are by no means guaranteed to go back in the box so easily.
once people realise power is in the street the temptation is to come out and play.
today looks pretty good. let's check the weather. ok looks good sunny and cloudy. no rain. getting warmer and rainier next week.
last night another morocco set giallo dead of summer/ heatwave/ ondata di calore (1970). the wife of the architect is stuck at home in a malfunctioning apartment block, baking heat, the howling winds full of desert sand, ogling moroccan men.
yesterday's radio and podcast?
an in our time episode on the library cormorant himself (walter benjamin) followed by michael ignatieff discussing late montaigne. the outlaw bookseller turns out to have been from a small hamlet just outside caerphilly, he wanders round pontypridd.
horsemouth has agreed to child portage at the weekend, he will seek to rearrange meeting howard into the afternoon/ evening. today he doesn't know.
horsemouth, as you know, is a big fan of theblue oyster cult (largely on the basis of hearing don't fear the reaper as a kid). it is probably their best song he has to admit. it is 'creepy but in a good way' as two teenage reviewers recently described it. the album it's from agents of fortune is probably their best too and definitely worth a listen.
in the states they are not just a one-hit wonder band. the later burnin' for you was a hit too. astronomy from the previous album secret treaties is well known enough to be covered by metallica. they tended to let other people write their lyrics so you get the rock critic richard meltzer, patti smith , the manager sandy perlman, the science fiction writer michael moorcock, cult actress helen trees etc.
horsemouth always thought you could do a great cuban version of this song.
but question - what do you think is going on in the song? vampires or suicide?
horsemouth was having a listen to amonastic trio by alice coltrane for the first time in ages. in its modern incarnation on CD it's assembled from songs from three sessions (mostly from two sessions at the coltrane family home and then one track from a session with john coltrane at the van gelder studio).
the original vinyl album begins with ohnedaruth (john coltrane's spirit name, allegedly with pharoah sanders on bass clarinet and ben riley on drums) but features otherwise the trio selections with alice alternating between harp and piano recorded later at the coltrane home with the great rashied ali on drums and jimmy garrison on bass. the voice of john coltrane appears on oceanic beloved (at least according to discogs)and on the sun on the CD reissue. pharoah sanders also appears on lord, help me to be (which seems to be the track that opens the CD.
it is a little confusing (but the music is great). horsemouth can't fault the selections in any form. it's deep and heavy.
later today horsemouth will try ptah el daoud with joe henderson and pharoah sanders.
it was suggested to horsemouth that he should 'put out the live recording warts and all as a bootleg... B/W cover, letraset and typewriter vibe. after a while any bum notes or fluffs or forgotten lines will be part of it´s charm.' as horsemouth said his plan had been to heavily fake it (in the style of thin lizzy's live and dangerous).
it was also suggested that 'it could be your Live in Tazmania... re-record the songs at home and keep the audience sounds...' in reference to fahey's notorious addition of a pre-recorded song to a notionally 'live' album (and under a different title too). fahey was a trickster. he couldn't resist the opportunity to play with expectations and subvert conventions (like carlos castaneda).
last night horsemouth watched jacques tourneur's 1948 berlin express (which is similar to, but not as good as the third man). it has its moments.
today a grey-ish morning. horsemouth kills time (or does it kill him).
looks like a nice morning out. horsemouth spent some time reading about the careers of maurice and jacques tourneur (father and son directors - whence 'between the powers of darkness and the powers of the mind' ).
above we see similar scenes from jacques tourneur's the leopard man and dario argento's four flies on grey velvet - locked in the park/ or cemetery after dark.
yesterday a meeting with the bank for the communal endeavour and thereafter some shuffling about.
this included an episode of the rivals of sherlock holmes featuringprofessor van dusen the thinking machine in the problem of the superfluous finger first published in associated sunday magazines, 25th november 1906. earlier in the series they'd featured his cell 13.
and later an episode of alexei sayle's podcast on the spycops, 'what kind of a fucking psychopath does that?' said alexei seemingly genuinely outraged (possibly not outraged enough to avoid trying to broaden the issue out or get in a few gags but still).
one of horsemouth's friends sent him a documentary on independent record shops (or such ones as still survive) again (like the one on NY booksellers) horsemouth loves it (despite the fact that he no longer has a record player set up and hasn't purchased a record since he doesn't know when).
ok today food and beer shopping.
horsemouth looks towards the weekend, jeremy bentham's birthday and to going over to howard's to listen to the live recording from the water into beer gig. he is adjusting his expectations. he expects that his own stuff (while fun on the night) will contain too many errors to be saveable. he expects that there will be difficulty in overdubbing to hide any errors given the ambient qualities of the room on the existing recording which will have to be matched for any overdubbing not to stick out like a sore thumb.
in a bit horsemouth goes to a meeting (and then he comes back). he will write more (because he doubts he has enough time to write what he wants to now).
he's growing reflective about the gig. he does hope he wasn't too much of an arse once he'd finished playing. as someone pointed out he played pretty much a different set from the one he'd had planned.
and now he has to wait to see if he caught covid.
howard is pretty much over plague paranoia into a 'you can't stop life' frame of mind - horsemouth is still in favour of the hide out and wait strategy (as in the masque of the red death and the decameron). ultimately it doesn't help the masquers. death still gets them.
horsemouth (indeed musicians of bremen) should go out and play more gigs but horsemouth is still trying to keep travel and sweaty rooms to a minimum. they may release some of the gig as a free/ pay what you want download rather than as a limited edition CD, all their CDs are limited edition (so far). he'll go up to howard's and give it a listen next weekend.
horsemouth has inveigled a friend into the cult of huw lloyd-langton, sample dialogue 'just reached 5th second of forever, class.' levitation and motorway city get the thumbs up. horsemouth has never understood how huw plays that acoustic guitar part on levitation (he's asking around because genuinely he has no idea how it is possible to play that - blitz away in 16ths with the right hand, hammer on and pluck with the left .he guesses - or is it just a studio cheat?)
5th second of forever features a nylon string guitar in a semi-classical moment but the bends on it seem non-classical to horsemouth. it's really quite posh it could easily be from the film as the track description claims.
ok meeting done. horsemouth prepares for an afternoon of news listening.
at the gig a dude wanted to talk about sparklehorse (mark linkous). but sadly horsemouth doesn't know much about him beyond a thumbnail sketch of his life (and painbirds). so he's having a listen now.
'I was lucky enough to have been told how much my music meant to people' he once said.but it wasn't enough to save him. a photo has emerged of the gig. horsemouth is playing. howard is waiting to harmonise. martin and jacken look on.
horsemouth has continued to follow the career (in the sense of running amuck) of the greased piglet. if horsemouth has understood this correctly he can be removed just by vote of tory MPs (and 15% of tory MPs sending in a letter calling for a vote of no confidence is enough to get the process started). but his successor has to be elected by the party as a whole think that whole bozo/ jeremy hunt thing). this takes time and cuts two months at least out of the time the tories have to prepare for the next election which must be on or before thursday 2 may 2024.
plus the next few years are looking distinctly shit and the voters are likely to feel bad. hmmm.
next up for the hawkbinge neophyte review treatment is 1980s levitation simultaneously the meatiest and probably best played hawkwind album since the lemmy/ simon house years. for a 10th album band they sound hungry and the reason is returned guitarist huw lloyd-langton. listening ginger baker gives good drum timbre but it's huw's show - normally horsemouth thinks good taste is a bad thing but every note huw plays is on the money and in the right place (he can even make a plodding turd like who's gonna win the war sparkle - it's in that wishbone ash harmony guitar middle eight).
it was huw's birthday yesterday (by some strange synchronicity). horsemouth worries that the young dude on hawkbinge is just going to lose the will to live as he realises just how many albums there are in teh 80ies, 90ies, naughties, 2010s, 2020ies (and how low hawkwind set the bar on quality control).
and meanwhile (in horsemouth's reading) ginsberg is in india. when horsemouth has read this he can return to the chronology of gary snyder's letters.
it's a mildish morning. horsemouth has to go do some shopping. tuesday morning he has a phone meeting with the bank.
musicians of bremen are back from the gig at water into beer (thanks dudes). he thanks martin for inviting them. martin played songs about the ecology with lou on backing vocals for the last one. jacken elswyth played (in solo mode) also (fretless banjo and shruti box).
and then it was the turn of howard and horsemouth.
musicians of bremen had thought they might do two separate solo sets but when howard got there they decided to do the gig as a duo (cue restructuring of the set - or rather not). they then left it until they got onstage to decide what to play and of course they had not rehearsed anything together beforehand.
there had been much talk of only playing new stuff and horsemouth had practiced based on this. ah well there's something to be said for tactical flexibility. so what songs do musicians of bremen have that they both know where horsemouth can play guitar and howard can sing harmony?
how to open.
satan (your kingdom must come down) as usual. an engaging piece of hokum designed to get people singing (which on this occasion it did). result! one down. horsemouth cheers up. a brief conflab about what to play next and then when the faun met alice (mercifully brief solo guitar piece) then the werewolf (designed to make the audience howl like wolves, but in the distance this time because of covid restrictions). somewhere round here horsemouth got in worldes blisse.
what then? three of howard's new songs. all great. then painbirds by sparklehorse (mark linkous). then more of howard's new songs (horsemouth gets in a harmony on the lines he can remember on one) .
then to finish off two songs by karen dalton something's on your mind and then katie cruel (which for some strange reason at the critical juncture horsemouth could not remember the title of). horsemouth thought they might attempt starless (and bible black) as their last one (in the musicians of bremen karaoke) but in the end katie cruel seemed a better bet.
so he didn't get in johnny remember me (horsemouth had been planning to instruct the audience in the singing of falsettos), highrise strutter's ball (banjolin), if you have ghosts (lighter tune to end the gig)or indeed any of the slide guitar pieces and the long disquisition on american primitive he had planned.
gig done. horsemouth was now free to drink and pleasurably let the adrenaline subside. there seemed to be a tape trade/ CD exchange (possibly even a sale) going on with howard and jacken. horsemouth had planned to bring CDs but forgot so he had texted howard to do it. there may be a recording (howard brought the zoom) so we will have to see how it has gone.
that's it settled. horsemouth is over to howard's next weekend to listen to it. howard says it is 'fun' (so it probably sounds terrible).
thanks to mark and petra, lou and myk for coming, the young dude for coming over to chat about mark linkous, martin and jacken for playing and the water into beer lot horsemouth thanked earlier.
later the train back, a walk back from dalston and a falafel wrap. at home a shower and some time spent reading to let the adrenaline subside.
it's gigday. in a bit horsemouth will test himself for the C-O-V-I-D (he's not had a positive test yet). assuming he passes it he will be seeing you all down south. er... if he doesn't pass he will be messaging a few people. but first he will write this blog.
'poetry XX century like all arts and sciences is devolving into examination-experiment on the very material on which it is made... 'an examination of language itself'...
so music moves from old habitual scales and harmonies to abstract mathematic potentialities unrestricted by human pre-supposition.'
so writes ginsberg on 8th july 1962 from calcutta. (horsemouth has found his copy of indian journals). ginsberg claims to be looking for a guru. 'take blake for your guru' he is advised (or so he says) mind you he is also advised to chant guru guru guru for 3 months until a guru comes to him. every few pages of diary there's an epic poetic ramble (admittedly of variable quality) but there are also photos and drawings and prose pieces. the drawings are similar to cocteau's in opium (for this seems to have been ginsberg and orlovsky's main interest at the time).
an interview with shawn philips has come up.
'the shift would have happened after donovan...
I went through a very heavy spiritual transformation and suddenly I discovered why I was making music...'
today horsemouth will do a little light playing and singing through the repertoire and get in touch with howard to see how he wants to work it. he will then (gingerly) be rapid mass transiting it down to brockley. he's been thinking about why fahey and the rest of that circle played american primitive guitar and what exactly that was (in case he has to explain it).
yesterday was bandcamp friday (when musicians of bremen derive extra benefit from you purchasing their kipple). horsemouth will have to check if there were any additional sales of musicians of bremen merchandise. (nope).
talking politics is coming to an end. they've announced it. horsemouth is shocked. he enjoyed it a lot. there they were (david runciman and helen thompson), being reasonable. it helps that helen thompson sounds like miranda sawyer (i.e. not posh). they've been at it for three years, it's probably time to call a halt they say.
meanwhile no sightings of the hawkbinge podcast (due to move on to levitation and the huw lloyd-langton years).
he's been listening to recollections of albania - first by lea ypi (who grew up there under the beneficent rule of uncle enver and then had to face a life without those certainties) and by joanna robertson a reporter who set off there after the fall of enver hoxha (and witnesses the return of the son of the deposed king zog). initially her time in the collapsing state is good, 'it's the girl who fought the security police at the parliament' yell the terrifying paramilitaries at the roadblocks as they wave her through but eventually an assassin comes for her.
initially she does not leave (well only temporarily) but eventually she does. years later after she has left she phones a friend who tells her while it used to be the hotel california now it's a shark tank.
daryll is out the door - he seems to be taking his bike trailer for a spin. the upstairs next door neighbour is out the door likewise. the next door neighbours seem to be back.
asha bhosle sings the praises of marijuana (and hare krishna). seldom has it all sounded so good to horsemouth (or looked so good with zeenat aman and her 'western' dancing). strangely now that horsemouth has stopped work and society has grown more permissive he feels no desire to smoke weed (mind you his lungs are still fucked so that's probably a good thing).
horsemouth thinks he knows where ginsberg's indian journals is. he took it round a friend's house to give it away about a year ago, but it was rejected (his friend was also in a giving books away mode) so it should still be in the bag with the swag from his friend's book collection. ah there it is.
to tell the truth horsemouth only bought the ginsberg/snyder letters (£2) to alibi his purchase of day of the triffids (£1).
this year it will be 60 years since ginsberg's visit (february to may). ginsberg and orlovsky live cheap (the better to stay out longer), write poetry, make drawings and take photographs. gary snyder and joanne are there already (eventually they meet up).
it is bandcamp friday once again. horsemouth would encourage you to purchase musicians of bremen merchandise but he suspects anyone reading this has it all already (please put a penny in the old man's hat).
horsemouth has changed the strings on the hummingbird copy for girders. his fingertips may be suffering but the guitar sounds like a giant clanking beast (so horsemouth is pleased). he has played through high rise strutter's ball on the banjolin successfully. he is trying to assemble a setlist and to think about the patter he needs for it (and the names he should write down in case he has a 'forgetful' moment).
seeing as the gig has been advertised as american primitive influenced horsemouth in planning to play more instrumental guitar than usual also by playing more slide horsemouth evades the arthritis in the first joint of his little finger (it will take him some time to learn to play relying on just the 3 other fingers of that hand). horsemouth is fiddling around in dgdggd tuning seeing if he can find a way to play pagodas this is easy to get to from dgdgbd (open G).
last night he watched tales from the lodge an attempt to do a portmanteau comedy horror (it won't be winning any approval points horsemouth suspects).
somewhere horsemouth has a copy of ginsberg's indian journal (it was one of brynley's books he thinks). it would be a good time to read it (in the selected letters snyder and his wife are attempting to meet up with ginsberg and orlovsky in india). to horsemouth's recollection it had a grey paperback cover and was bigger than an A size book (possibly a B). there were photos in it and an account of ginsberg hanging out in the bone fields with the sadhus while bodies were ritually cremated. but it has vanished into the stacks.
his fear (of course) is that he has got rid of it to a charity shop in an effort to lighten the load before he moved up here 5 years ago.
that's annoying. horsemouth will be bothered by that until he finds it.
horsemouth is getting anxious about the gig (as he always does) but as soon as he starts playing he will relax.
he is not sure what to rehearse. the new strings are a lot heavier than the old ones (fucking girders), they are clankier and require more effort to push around. in theory he will just be using the hummingbird for the slide stuff so it shouldn't matter too much (in fact it sounds like a great roaring beast). the standard tuning sing-along stuff horsemouth will be playing on howard's guitar probably (but for the moment he tends to practice the standard tuning stuff on the hummingbird - he doesn't of course have to, he has guitars for days).
plus he has a sore throat (he will test the morning of the gig) and the remnants of his winter cough. yesterday was groundhog day (punxsatawney phil predicts 6 more weeks of winter). and on this groundhog day (jour de marmotte) it is the twelfth anniversary of the marmot review.
the topic of the marmot review?- levelling up... (stop me if you've heard this one before)
horsemouth listened to volume four again. because they launched it into the middle of the pandemic horsemouth and howard never sat down and worked out how they were going to play any of these songs live. (so basically they will not be sounding like volume four at the gig). howard will be playing a solo set of his new compositions. horsemouth will mostly be sounding like volume three cut with a few newer and older tunes as he did up at cafe babar at midsummer. reference has been made in the advertising to american primitive guitar so horsemouth will work up a few of the instrumentals just in case.
he will also have to come up with some stage burble. last time he was forgetting key names and having lots of senior moments.
horsemouth watched some of parasite on the tv. shitpoor korean family inveigle their way into the service of a rich family by systematically playing on their weaknesses and ruthlessly elbowing other proles out of the way. horsemouth is not sure what it means that he can watch the korean equivalent of shameless. it will take some thought and he didn't watch it to the end.
'during the twentieth century, letters were a literary form that nearly everyone practiced.. in the days before inexpensive long-distance telephone service became commonplace, the main avenue for communication was the written word.'
- from bill morgan's editor's preface to the selected letters of allen ginsberg and gary snyder.
horsemouth needs to get on with changing the strings on his guitar (and possibly raising the action).
last night some reading (woo-hoo) from horsemouth's newly purchased selected letters and the watching of alternative-giallo the double (as recommended by fragments of fear).
now the double is less the double than the stand-in. horsemouth feels the need to defend our central character against allegations of entirely being a trust fund kiddie/ useless drone. it is a bit of a stretch instead to view him as actually on a journey of self-discovery and improvement, but when he disposes of the body (see it is a giallo or thriller) he is in fact doing something for love and not just pleasing himself. he is undertaking work for another.
in reality this is a film like more - thrill seeking posh youth adrift in the sunlight (rather than the darkness) - something from the 60ies still being worked through in the 70ies.
eddie the hippie (the thinly sketched free-spirit hiding out in morocco) quotes ginsberg's song,
'the warm bodies shine together in the darkness...
the hand moves to the center of the flesh
the skin trembles in happiness
and the soul comes joyful to the eye...'
eddie is tuned in to the sensuousness of the age but elsewhere we see the ugliness of a tragic reading of the centrality of sex to the decade, sex as politics, sex as power, as it is elsewhere in giallo.
horsemouth tried retuning his hummingbird copy to daddad and the g-string broke. he replaced it and has now come to the realisation that he should restring it all (as much as possible) ahead of the gig and play it in (it will sound much better).
today is groundhog day and the anniversary of the release of kick out the jams (motherfuckers) by the MC5. (for it is always already time for revolution to get us out of the dead rut of capitalism).
horsemouth has been enjoying sitting in the sun in the living room (now that progress has been made on returning it to use).
the socialists have won an outright majority in the snap portuguese general election. as far as horsemouth understands it this is bad news. the socialists were mainly responsible for volunteering portugal for more austerity measures than the banks and the EU required until they were forced to stop by bloc izquerda and the communists.
'economist filipe garcia, the head of consultants informacao de mercados financeiros in porto, said investors were likely to appreciate costa’s new strong mandate, given the government’s record cutting of the budget deficit.'
it's the two year anniversary of the last of the final countdownstowards brexit.
it's nearly imbolc.
it's two years ago and horsemouth is still tacking blithely towards the pandemic. there was the news from china, the WHO announcement, but the thing that really decided him was the lockdown in the north of italy. soon he will be upping stumps and back to the pavilion, beginning his shutdown (horsemouth is staying in and is advising everyone he knows to do the same) ahead of the government lockdown (the government is telling horsemouth and everyone else to stay in).
many people simply do not even have that option. they are the working class they have to do the work so that society can function (and they can get paid and eat) plague or not. later horsemouth will be doing a fair bit of working from home (and trying to work out how to do that on the fly) but he will still doing some face to face when required. at the end horsemouth and his co-workers will be thanked for their efforts (that should have tipped them off).
and then they will be made redundant.
and society is saved by the internet and by the fact that many jobs in the west are bullshit. despite the best efforts of capitalism to par its costs to the bone (long supply chains, just in time, casualisation) people continue to be fed and entertained and have toilet paper to wipe their arses with.
and the food banks continue their operations.
and at the end of it (if we are at the end of it) capitalism becomes unsure as to whether it needs the workers back in (so they can be properly inculcated and surveilled and forced to purchase coffee and snacks at inflated rates) or whether it is just as happy with them working from home (and then those pesky offices can be sold off).
horsemouth is not convinced (help he just typed COVInceD) that we are at the end of the pandemic
the end of the pandemic is one where it becomes a mere epidemic and people merely die without it disrupting the efficient running of capitalism. but the government clearly is because it is busy dashing about destroying the trust and the mandate needed to run prevention measures. this they are doing on the basis that it's no big loss (er. because clearly they won't be needed again) or that they were never needed and always actually harmful and only old people were ever going to die anyway, or perhaps because that seems the most politically expedient thing to do, when you have been caught breaking lockdown regulations yourself, is to create the impression that they did not matter.
saturday horsemouth plays a gig. he will test on the day before he goes. he will travel down there masked up and then perform (and then travel back masked up). he is unclear how things will be run in the venue. howard (as usual) wants to go on early. martin has them going on late. horsemouth essentially doesn't care. he thinks it's good to be further up the bill.
he thinks if you have ghosts (then you have everything) is a runner. he will probably get in johnny remember me, high rise strutter's ball, something's on your mind and sometimes our dreams (float like anchors). he's just got to sit down and rehearse a range of songs (like the new ones and like all his usual songs just in case).
