on rehabilitation and on things not yet being what they will become

good morning! good morning!

horsemouth is up and about and he has his coffee. the sun shines in the window. later today some child minding. 

yesterday horsemouth found a copy of the second trip by robert silverberg in a bookbox (in powerscroft road). 

and so he has read it. it reads easily but despite this  the book seems to have been stabbed repeatedly (horsemouth could easily see someone getting annoyed with it). the cover is actually the pan lozenge one (beloved of outlaw bookseller). 

as a friend noted the wikipedia entry confidently asserts that the annoying material "...placed the second trip squarely within the new wave subgenre" but that this may not be how 'the new wave of SF' was understood at the time, that indeed british and american new waves had different aims in that they responded to different SF old waves and establishments. 

horsemouth replied that he agreed. formerly subgenres were not marketing categories but parts of the open work (an as-yet-unrealised splitting of science fiction with works to be retroactively assigned). 

horsemouth appended a quote about althusser that he found while trying to find the quote about the anatomy of the human is the thing that gives us a guide to the anatomy of the ape.  

' to commit implicitly to a temporality that is non-contemporaneous (to use althusser’s term) with the changed temporality of the cultural field' - oded nir, althusser, or the system, meditations journal 30/02/2009

of course these problems (with things not being what they used to be, or things not yet being what they will become) mount up as soon as one is dealing with the things that are in the past or in the future with the understanding that we have today. in fact science fiction is one long encounter with it. interestingly enough the book is set in 2011 - a future that is already gone by being in the past. 

the book itself is a jekyll and hyde - the central character is a deckard type construct living in the body and brain of a former rapist. the mind of the rapist has been blanked and a new personality installed by the 2011 system of criminal justice. the new construct is then found a job and rehabilitated. (except this being a drama the mind of rapist comes back). combine this with prurient 60ies style writing (when people thought sex was the golden road to self-actualisation and freedom) and you can see why the book got stabbed (or it might have just got left in the street and run over). it is a book that no longer fits the times. 

left to philip k.dick (there are many phildickian obsessions here. personality replacement, false memories, psychiatrists, the intersection between the state and mental states etc.) the book would have been better. there is some dull stuff here from silverberg on artists and creativity taking picasso (artist as monster)  as his starting point. 

in silverberg's a time of changes the erstwhile writer of the book attempts to dig himself out of the repressive society by means of drugs, sex, (so far so new wave) and autobiography. if the autobiography survives to be read this is proof of the erstwhile author's success in changing the society (to one where the feelings and thoughts of the individual can be discussed). 

horsemouth should probably re-read silverberg's dying inside (telepathy as curse and as gift) again. he remembers liking that one as a kid. 

following this up  horsemouth watched zombieland. essentially a modern amusement park ride of a film (that ends up in an amusement park er. with zombies). our cautious survivor has rules (seatbelts for example) - rule two is double tap, if in doubt, and as a general precaution, shoot the zombie a second time in the brain (this being the only guarantee that it is deactivated). 

horsemouth (being cautious) subscribes to double tap. 

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ok today. work from 2.30/3pm. looks good out there. 

ordering coffee in german (the devil rides out)

the morning was looking quite promising but by the time horsemouth was up and about it had all clouded over. seemingly in his dream horsemouth was in germany because he was ordering coffee in german (or trying to and hoping it was going to work). he remembers hearing the bin lorries (hail the binmen)

later. horsemouth has his coffee.  

last night a friend did a radio show (and very good it was too). horsemouth then watched demons 2. the young and the beautiful turn into demonaical zombies and terrorise the other young and beautiful people of consumer land (before that they dance to panic by the smiths and rain by the cult at a chi-chi birthday party). he also watched a number of gabber videos (thunderdome 1996 etc.).

we are in the time of the devil rides out. rex has landed at the aerodrome, we are driving to simon's house where we will find the 13 assembled for the sabbat. tomorrow at sundown  on may eve the celebrants will gather in a field and the goat of mendes will appear at simon and tanith's satanic initiation. 

horsemouth is unsure what to do with the day. he thinks he has a cold (whenever he tests it is not covid). 

horsemouth is much concerned at the minute with exterior insulation and air-source heat pumps. (the future of domestic heating) he is concerned with the challenges faced in retro-fitting these to old housing stock and insulating the house sufficiently well that air-source heat pumps can actually work efficiently. 

but horsemouth thinks it is actually a number of years down the line for the communal endeavour. instead he views a campaign of double glazing (it should really be triple glazing) and loft insulation as the most cost-effective and quickest means of saving the members money on their gas and electricity bills. next horsemouth thinks we will be moving onto PV solar panels. then we will be moving into doing the insulations and air-tightening of the building in preparation for the air-source heat pumps. by this time the inflationary spike will probably be over. 

anyway no need to worry about any of it until the 1st meeting back (23rd may). horsemouth has submitted a short biography where he emphasises his green credentials and filled in a monitoring and diversity form because these kind of things are becoming more and more important. 

horsemouth has had his coffee and he's had breakfast (last night's chilli reheated- he's finished the chilli but he still has some rice left for this evening), he's starting on the tea. he types this sitting cross legged in bed with the sleeping bag round his knees. it's a friday (horsemouth has made it to the end of the (working) week again). he has even made it to the end of the month (he has done his end of month lists). 

books, films, gigs, events april 2022

probably a little early

books/ blogs etc.

- to the is-land: autobiography 1 (janet frame)

- south of no north, hot water music (bukowski)

- the soul of man under socialism (oscar wilde)

- time of changes (robert silverberg)

- harrison birtwistle (in the modern composers series by michael hall)

- holst (imogen holst)

- nlr sidecar and lrb blogs

films/ podcasts/ radio shows etc. 

- return of count yorga

- the butterfly room 

- ghost ship, curse of the cat people, and a documentary on him (val lewton)

more gialli 

- bloody pit of horror

- the devil with 7 faces

- knife of ice 

- dario argento: an eye for horror (documentary)

- laurel canyon documentary

- revisit throwing shade's robbie basho special (nts radio)

- excerpts from devi shridar's book on radio 4 on pandemics and health policy

- lecture by chicago foreign policy wonk john mearsheimer on why ukraine is the west's fault.

- tomorrow calling (short film based on 'the gernsback continuum')

- hawkbinge podcast (the sonic attack episode)

- catalogue item on guitar piece by pier marton  on at electronic arts intermix

- bibliomania: the rise of rare book collecting

- andrew o'hagan podcast on outdated technology (lrb) 

- misha glenny on poland  (R4)

gigs 

- martin carthy at cafe OTO (with howard, bump into lou)

events

recording with howard (two mornings and an afternoon), a days decorating, child's 18th (see folks, martin and angela etc. hoarwithy ramble II) and child's 8th birthday parties , various walks over the olympic park with TG, communal endeavour AGM.

back from the clanmoot (some thoughts on finances)

horsemouth is back from the clanmoot of the communal endeavour. (sadly there was no gabber dancing)

he was successful in that he talked the members into the required rent rise of 4.1% (CPI plus 1%). this now means he now has to pay an extra fiver a week on his own rent. (woop de doo - well done horsemouth - that was a smart move!).  

after the meeting there was beer. (peter and enza and a guy called graham up the approach). 

it is the following morning. horsemouth has had his coffee. he has had some paracetamol. he has had some breakfast even - a wrap and the last of yesterday's chilli. 

during his visit to the supermarket in the fields a few days ago horsemouth checked out his bank balance on one of those new fangled ATM machines. he's about 5/12ths into his redundancy/ pension taken in advance money - this should carry him out to roughly february 2023. thereafter horsemouth has to get on because he's starting to dig into his actual savings.

horsemouth's plan (if you can call it that) is to live cheaply and glide towards his state pension. 

he does get a works pension already that he was able to take early, but because he was low paid and enrolled at the last possible minute by his employer (and because he took an advance on it),  it is only about £60/ month. (so beer money really). 

the housing is his major expense and will rinse his savings if he lets it. the real question is where does he want to be. 

in the ongoing omnishambles that is british political life we have reached a defining moment. boris is denying calling tobias ellwood a cunt (come on boris everybody knows tobias ellwood is a cunt, just admit it).

horsemouth the 'prepper' stockpiling food against the apocalypse

during the childhood of the writer janet frame there was a big polio epidemic in new zealand (particularly badly affecting children). as a result the schools were closed down and the courses taught by correspondence (letters back and forth).

horsemouth appends this in case people think modern conditions are particularly modern. 

yesterday a run to the supermarket kind of day. the best deal? 5 tins of red kidney beans for £1.50. this horsemouth considers a decent price (and red kidney beans have got difficult to find at a decent price). horsemouth gets pretty bored with a diet of chick peas on his pasta. he should really load up on dried beans and lentils (because they last a long time).

pasta seems to have got more expensive (horsemouth should probably switch to rice). horsemouth's cooking is a bit rudimentary and is based on the principle of starch (stodge) and sauce (with a side order of protein and perhaps a bit of salad). 

horsemouth jokes that he is a 'prepper' and is stockpiling food against the apocalypse.  

certainly during the pandemic he was trying to shop and eat in such a way that he didn't have to go to the shops more than once a week. horsemouth has a tendency to use shopping as a leisure activity (even food shopping) and the carting the kilos of food back in a rucksack as exercise. the pandemic has pretty much killed off his going out for coffee or getting a bag of chips on the way home (horsemouth never really orders in takeaway and hardly ever eats out because he cannot afford it - or so he says). 

he likes the cheapness of it.

similarly (as a reward to himself for working) horsemouth used to spend a lot of time book-shopping (an hour off for lunch? get a sandwich and then go and visit a second hand bookshop). this he hasn't really done for the best part of 2 years (for example he hasn't been to hay-on-wye for two years at least). again he doesn't really buy books from off the net. for horsemouth the browsing through the racks and getting a bargain is the pleasure. 

horsemouth (looking round at all the unmasked faces in the supermarket) supposes that the great british public has decided that the pandemic has come to an end (whatever the death rate - 451 deaths yesterday). 

the open-D tuning (vestapol - dadf#ad) is being noticed by literary types. horsemouth doesn't use it much. he tends to use nashville (daddad) more - it's drone-ier, it has no truck with majors or minors. the reverend gary davis has a nice one dadf#ab - open D6 (ernie hawkins teaches it) but it's a horse for a particular course. 

last night a giallo (the devil with seven faces 1971). in the day after his walk over to the supermarket in the fields (and back) he mostly sat out in the back garden and read (when the sun shone) or had a snooze indoors (when it didn't). he's reading the first volume of the janet frame autobiography (to the is-land) which is great (he has the other volumes round here somewhere). 

this evening horsemouth goes to a meeting of the communal endeavour. as usual he is pessimistic before he goes (thinking that all the good things that have been achieved or nearly achieved will be rolled back) but it usually turns out ok. it's a cold-ish day. he has just done a run to the book box (horsemouth's plan is to gradually thin down his book collection to what he can face moving or sticking in storage. 

and tonight, horsemouth helliwell... this was your life! (incidents of mirror travel in the olympic park)

proposal for a biography

horsemouth (former beachside donkey rides operative) AHEM years old. retired (or at least living out of his redundancy cheque and a small works pension taken early). 

worked for 25 years in further and higher education as a support worker to deaf and disabled students (usually referred to as beachside donkey rides - now it can all be told). involved in the communal endeavour for the best part of 24 years off and on, on the management committee, development committee, finance committee and too many bloody committees. volunteered his labour as part of the two refurb projects carried out by the endeavour to bring disused housing back into use. 

interested in homelessness, poverty, social justice, net zero, sustainability and democracy. (but mostly making music, reading, walking, drinking, writing, farting about on the internet). 

before that researcher for an anti-nuclear group, some volunteering at a well known green multinational. some work for an internet start-up. some work as a musician. some work as a roadie. 

currently an amateur musician (musicians of bremen). sometime actor. sometime blogger. published author. and all-around dole bludger. 

a level 1 BSL qualification from hackney college and various work-related qualifications. 

born in the midlands. brought up in south wales. has lived in london for the best part of 40 years (aka. the seaside towns) so (as he often jokes) he must like it. 

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incidents of mirror travel in the olympic park

‘in the side of a heap of crushed limestone the twelve mirrors were cantilevered in the midst of large clusters of butterflies that had landed on the limestone. for brief moments flying butterflies were reflected; they seemed to fly through a sky of gravel.’

- robert smithson, incidents of mirror travel in the yucatan 

here horsemouth twitches back the curtain so you can see the process of light fictionalisation  he applies to his existence (but there is some material base honestly). 

last night a meeting of the communal endeavour over the old zoom. tomorrow an outbreak of face-to-face meeting (with a zoom adjunct) - this will, of course, be a disaster - people are trying to be in two places at once, conveniently at home and in the agora taking part in politics and the affairs of the city.  curiously enough the meeting needs 13 people to be present to be quorate (same as a sabbat  apparently - or at least according to the devil rides out). 

little that horsemouth has done has been a great success. mostly he seems to have been engaged in uphill rock-rolling (he is not temperamentally suited to communal endeavours and yet he must needs struggle with them to see the things done that he wants to get done). 

sighs. groans. a little light kvetching.

last night horsemouth watched laurel canyon. the punk scene in hackney back in the day was not laurel canyon (people were just not that talented - but it did rock, to an extent).  later the dudes off the estates made jungle (that was genius). nowadays, looking back, he is often assailed by guilt and remorse and a sense of futility. he is trying to live a better life (one where he does less harm at least). 

as someone notes (alice cooper?) every best band in the city had moved to LA to make it - the competition was fierce. 

beautiful day out. today a walk. tomorrow a covid test (before the face-to-face endeavour). 

horsemouth (and his first world problems) at the site of the great space mirror

horsemouth is up. he has a snotty nose. but today is the day of the great smart meter fit out so he has to be on good form. there's the getting the meter hooked up to the broadband that might have to be done over the phone. horsemouth is being anxious or rather he's not he's just 'marching towards the sound of guns' and hoping everything will be ok. 

contrary to his reputation as a lover of science horsemouth is in fact a bit of a technophobe (ok ok he's a lot of a technophobe). he vastly prefers technology where he can understand how it works and has a reasonable chance of fixing it. and he prefers to have things in his control rather than have to rely upon others that said he also has a dreadful tendency to attempt to get by without knowing what he needs to know (the condition of the modern world). he likes to shrug off responsibility (to delegate is the more polite word) onto others and thus he regularly finds himself in the fix of resenting others and having to chase them up simultaneously.

that's where he may be today. 

ok he's looked it up it all looks possible (though at worst it may require a phonecall).  

meanwhile... last night a phonecall to his mum. in the day a walk with TG to the site of the great space mirror (there are photos and they are very good). 

so are there any regular american primitive guitar 'radio' shows? (on the internet)

probably not. (people have recommended some shows that sometimes feature american primitive guitar stuff - horsemouth will give them a listen and repost them here. sideways through sound seems really decent and to have plenty of hawkwind references.)

from 6 years ago the robbie basho 'throwing shade' show - horsemouth suddenly found himself deeply immersed in the beauty of robbie basho's playing, it reached in and got him in the heart and the beauty of his voice. it is a beautiful but sad and lonely place where basho is. it is genius

this time he also enjoyed the chat in the radio show - this time he wasn't disturbed by the accusations that robbie was a solitary because he'd assiduously researched robbie basho's collaborations. 

this evening (assuming the power is on - see what a catastrophist he is) a zoom meeting of the communal endeavour prior to the AGM on the wednesday. at the weekend may eve and the devil rides out. 

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ok the power will definitely be on because the smart meter dude has been already and there's nothing he can do until the power grid people have done something first (changed the company head in fact, old installations not being up to the safety standards of modern installations and category B as the dude informed him). dude was about 18. so now horsemouth waits to be contacted. it's a pity. the longer it takes the less horsemouth's chances of getting himself (and the house) swapped back onto the (cheaper) smart meter tariff that he used to be on. 

 

'narration: a description of the passing of the year' (landfill technologies)

this is what you hold in your hand. or would hold in your hand if it were a book (horsemouth's frame of reference, more so even than a record). if it were a thing (rather than a collection of ones and zeroes stored in a digital file somewhere - indeed possibly in more than one location, arriving to you from more than one route).

'they wander in deep woods, in mournful light, amid long reeds and drowsy headed poppies'  (virgil/ausonius) 

yesterday was record store day (horsemouth should hurry up and go) but he hasn't got his record decks (or indeed a record player ( a turntable) set up). there's 'new' karen dalton to be had for starters that should have tempted him out. the last time he talked to andy, andy was bemoaning horsemouth's lack of interest in purchasing new music. 

it is strange that the record and the record player are not landfill technologies. he still has his weight in records with him (he got shot of a lot of them when he was moving out of pop(u)lar - mainly the drum and bass 12"s-  before that about half of his collection went west when a door blew shut behind him when he was moving out of hackney 27 years ago and he couldn't face breaking back in). 

he thinks record covers are much more satisfying size than CD covers (see another landfill technology) and he likes the ritual of putting records on. with both of these he likes the physical ownership - he likes that they are a thing. 

he was thinking about records yesterday when he was watching young people effortlessly doing beatmixes (blending two records running at the same tempo) on those audio controllers - it was hard work for horsemouth to do this on vinyl (and here are these young fuckers doing it effortlessly and fiddling with their phones the whole time).

almost all of his records were bought at the record and tape exchange or reckless or out of charity shops and library sales. 

similarly with the books. he has been recycling some of his lesser loved books back out into the community via the local book boxes. (though to be fair he has been picking up books from garden wall potlatches and book boxes for a while - his new neighbourhood is very good for that). 

yesterday he got the fan-powered organ out its storage place (wedged into a corner beside the low-efficiency CD storage cupboard) and had a go at playing along with various new musicians of bremen tunes (mostly using its somewhat limited autochord facility or duplicating guitar lines). it's not particularly heavy but it is cumbersome, he could stick it in a rucksack and take it up to howard's. in an ideal world horsemouth would be thinking of using the harmonium they have (borrowed from john clarkson) but it is tuned at +50% so horsemouth would have to play the part hideously out of tune and then get howard to retune it in the computer.

the fan-powered organ is noisy (granted) but it does sound real and authentic - like something someone from the 60ies might play. they used it a lot on volume one (and thereafter not so much).  

later today horsemouth will go for a walk. later the sunday chat on the phone with his mum. this week (gone) (after the visit with relatives monday - the hoarwithy ramble II) lots of child-minding (birthday party, overnighter, violin lesson), lots of listening to the new songs.  

tomorrow the dude(s) are coming to fit smart meters for the gas and electric (hopefully - last time they went to the wrong address). 

later on monday a zoom meeting of the communal endeavour. the cost of heating and hot water is about to skyrocket for the members and it is time to get out in front of it with more insulation and double glazing (a shallow retrofit as it is termed). next it is time to get on the case with solar panels on the roof. finally (and horsemouth is sad to admit this is years down the line) there should come the deep retrofit of the stock with air-source heat pumps instead of gas boilers and all the new plumbing and radiators that requires. 

a case study 47 greenleaf road walthamstow

a retrofit of a victorian terrace to raise its raise its energy efficiency performance from an E to an A and then fitting fitting solar panels to provide electricity and an air source heat pump to heat the property and the hot water cost £110k. the CO2 savings per year were about 6800kgs/ year (impressive) but the cost savings to the occupiers were only about £2k/ year. so we would be  looking at a payback period of 55 years. 

the problem for social housing landlords is that there is no new money for this. it all has to come out of rent in (rent taken from people who are poor anyway - which is why they are in social housing). 

horsemouth (the evil old pike that he is) slides beneath the water and vanishes from sight

good morning! good morning! 

it's a beautiful morning. last night horsemouth was doing a spot of child minding (of the go there, go to sleep, come back variety), later he is doing the child transportation racket (to the violin class). by early afternoon he will be free. 

yesterday horsemouth dropped off some books at the book box by the park (everything excepting an ex-library rough guide to crete appears to have gone from the last lot). in imogen holst's bok he found a railway ticket to sutton from 2009(?). 

first off news from the pestilence. he continues with his avoidance of the typhoid stricken sten (ok no he has just had the c-o-r-a-n-a-v.... fuck it it's too long, never mind,  but he is on the mend). the major effect of the virus (as far as horsemouth can see) is to exacerbate sten's tendency not to tidy up after himself and to leave shit all over every surface in the kitchen.

with a bit of luck horsemouth will continue to avoid the plague (er. like the plague). horsemouth has been enjoying the excerpts from devi shridar's book on radio 4 on pandemics and health policy and revisited the talking politics lot discussing what the pandemic has taught us (not apparently nothing  to quote the song but probably less than we think).

having done pestilence horsemouth now moves on to war and a lecture by chicago foreign policy wonk john mearsheimer on why ukraine is the west's fault. but john was not talking about the current war but about the seizure of crimea, the (proxy) civil war in the donbas etc. in 2015. like horsemouth he has the opinion that the west, in its mission to promote democracy round the globe, has the inverse midas touch, that all it leaves behind is a series of smoking ruins, that putin's war goal in the donbas was probably just to fuck ukraine over (if I can't have it you can't have it).  

one of the interesting things about it is to see what mearsheimer has got right (and what he has got wrong). 

and, to quote donovan, the war drags on. there's nothing very profound here but it's nice to see it all assembled in the same place. horsemouth knows there are plenty of people who would wish to see a more optimistic portrayal of the possibilities for ukraine and its people other than the next syria  (but he doesn't see it). russia on the other hand is truly fucked. for all the talk of putin being too smart to start a war  he has done the stupidest thing possible, and started a war. his presumable hope must be that he can surf that wave of revived russian patriotism. the point is, that in a very real sense, russia either has to win the war in the ukraine  or, at the very least, putin will fall, if not russia itself. 

the world is rolling back to its 19th century self (great (sic.) powers, the great game, national interests, zones of influence etc.) and away from its 21st century format (globalisation, neo-liberalism, trade rather than war, inter-connectedness). let us all worship at the defunct nordstream plants. let the tragedies commence. (except they have been going on for a while). 

mearsheimer is a prophet of the coming conflict with china ('my people' he says ironically because as the coming power they get it wheras the washington foreign policy wonks, 21st century boys to a man, don't). the 2008 crisis, then the pandemic and then the ukraine war have all served to decouple the world economic system and make the west aware of its vulnerability if the productive area of the world (china together with its outsourced plants in the region) is closed off.  

horsemouth (the evil old pike that he is) has a plan. it is to slide beneath the water and vanish from sight. today the violin run, but first some breakfast. 

horsemouth (the evil old pike that he is)

'here lies an old man who was fond of painting' - auto-obituary of a japanese painter (it may even be hokusai. horsemouth has tried looking it up online now he is looking in a book he has on hokusai).

'start with anything' is supposed to be a creative dictum of w.b.yeats (at least according to imogen holst) but horsemouth cannot find it anywhere (perhaps he will find it later). in his researches he found start something (think the do you wanna be starting something? of michael jackson)  and start anything (don't start anything) as expressions for starting trouble. 

horsemouth has been aggressed on the john fahey group (or rather, worse, he has been managed). his sin was to be a promoter of less well known american primitive guitarist suni mcgrath. an oldster from the scene  arrives with gifts (photographs, footage, anecdotes) but in parallel he takes horsemouth and another suni mcgrath supporter aside, there is a suggestion here that they are posting inappropriately (by distracting the john fahey group with suni mcgrath) and  that by taking them aside the gift-bearer is doing them and the group a favour. 

horsemouth's response to most discourtesy (perceived or real, in the real world and online) is to ignore it. he doesn't tend to confront it (though he knows he should), he just tends to walk away. the world is big (and contrary to what we are told) there is plenty for everybody. horsemouth tries to maintain an attitude of friendly co-operation. failing that he adopts a strategy of driving defensively (avoid arseholes and potholes). it can be objected he is not being authentic with people and not being honest about his feelings but so what?

there have been a few occasions when horsemouth has dug in and faced up to conflict but generally he considers them to have been a waste of time and effort. there is literally no point in warfare it is just bad for business - on a rational calculation you wouldn't do it. (horsemouth realises this is not a very revolutionary attitude and he should be looking to overturn the applecart and lead the people across the desert to the promise land etc. etc.). 

anyway. here, for your listening pleasure, is some suni mcgrath.

instead horsemouth (the evil old pike that he is) will simply slide beneath the water and vanish from sight for a while.  

he is reading imogen holst's (the daughter's) book on the composer gustav holst (following on from his reading of michael hall's book on more contemporary composer harrison birtwistle). as a kid horsemouth's parents owned a copy of the planets (as a bloodthirsty kid horsemouth was of course fascinated by mars bringer of war). holst was apparently very keen on casting horoscopes for his friends. jupiter bringer of jollity is supposed to have made the cleaning ladies of the queen's hall 'put down their scrubbing brushes and begin to dance'. 

and here we are with the gernsback continuum  a world of beautiful class certainty and classical proportion is about to fall into conflict, what it is hiding (the cleaning ladies, that their economic interests might be important) will be revealed. 

'here lies an old man who was fond of painting' this seems a worthy obituary to horsemouth but of course it hides a number of things. 

'this month, I have no money, no clothing, nor food. if this continues for another month I will not live to see the spring' so wrote hokusai in a begging letter to his publisher in 1830. hokusai is brought low by gambling. holst is raised up by success but he views it as an evil and its demands as distractions (the comparative material comfort it brings is welcome however). 

hokusai's last words were 'if heaven would give me just five more years, I might become a true painter'. his tombstone was inscribed with his final adopted name, gakyorojin manji, which translates as 'old man mad about painting.'

'music being identical with heaven (a condition of eternity)'

good morning! good morning!

it looks like a nice day out there (if a little cold and fresh). 

howard has put up two new mixes on mixcloud. the 'eclectic' one has a lot of african music (of the type horsemouth likes- for example there's some early oumou sangare in there for a start at about 15 mins in) and another ambient one (that horsemouth will review later). 

horsemouth is reading the michael hall book on harrison birtwistle. 

birtwistle was inspired by gustav holst (says hall) and in particular by his moving to thaxted in essex during the first world war. on the whitsun weekend of 1916 holst and his wife  put on a festival.

'four whole days of perpetual singing and playing...

we don't get enough (music). we practice stuff for a concert at which we do a thing once and get excited over it and then go off and do something else... in the intervals between the services people drifted into the church and sang motets or played violin or cello... the effect was indescribable... I realise now why the bible insists on heaven being a place... where people sing and go on singing.' (in gustav holst by imogen holst, p.45-48).

in hall's book this inspires both birtwistle's monody for corpus christi and holst's four songs for voice and violin but it has become a strange magical event. 

'one summer's evening during the first world war, seemingly, holst went into thaxted parish church where a woman was wandering up and down the aisles singing to the accompaniment of the open strings of a violin she carried. the bare fifths framed her song and helped to articulate it...'

it is almost like something out of akenfield. 

hall's book is very enjoyable because there is a discussion of the musical procedures birtwistle employs and also a discussion of the texts birtwistle set and why he was interested in them. (there's the gunter grass diary of a snail, virgil, ausonius, sappho...)

yesterday horsemouth had a day off (after his busy social whirl of birthday festivities and collection of super-spreader events). now all that remains is to sit quietly, go for a few walks, perhaps do the shopping. yesterday horsemouth cooked and ate vaguely curried parsnips and carrots (with a tomato, onion and pepper sauce) and plenty of bread and cheese. he sat in the back garden sunbathing and read.

he will now wait to see if he has caught covid. 

in the evening horsemouth made a start on watching bloody pit of horror (1965) (cheesecake fashion shoot in old castle goes horribly wrong) and instead swapped to dario argento: an eye for horror from this he learns that dario's daughter's name is pronounced ah-ZEE-ah  not asia (or maybe this is just how italians pronounce asia rather than an affectation). 

horsemouth is just finishing off his coffee (and is contemplating moving on to tea). he was up just slightly after 7am (so that's fairly decent). 

on the subject of his own music making horsemouth should of course do more. 

it is not that he is that good at it (you understand), but because he enjoys it so much. 

the tracks he recorded round howard's have come out well (he thinks) though of course there is plenty of room to nip and tuck it and improve them. the guitar solo one has come out well - horsemouth had a plan for what he was going to play on the resonator and the he thought he should add the 12 string guitar as it was to hand.  horsemouth will probably title it variations on a guitar piece by pier marton. 

it is the day on which the events in the fog happen. next week monday meter installations, a zoom meeting of the communal endeavour in the evening, and then wednesday a full meeting of the communal endeavour face to face. soon enough the devil rides out day (may eve). various elections (may 5th, cinqo di mayo) and soon enough after that the 1 year anniversary of the last time horsemouth did any paid labour. 

there was a game of pass the parcel

doc scott (the legendary drum and bass DJ - horsemouth remembers him playing shadow boxing  at metalheadz) posts a photo of rishi sunak and boris johnson. this is how he captions it.

'fuck these 2 and fuck anyone that supports them and before you tell me to 'stick to the music' you can go fuck yourself as well' 

it's rare for people in the dance music scenes to express political opinions. the political act is the being together. respect. big up doc scott. 

oh dear harrison birtwistle has died (didn't know he did the soundtrack for the offence)

'birtwistle once told a room of pop musicians at the ivor novello awards: 

'why is your music so f****** loud? you must all be brain dead. maybe you are. I didn’t know so many cliches existed until the last half-hour. have fun. goodbye.'

horsemouth has michael hall's book on him in the contemporary composers series (it's a good read). modern classical music is often generated by compositional procedures, the kind of thing that can be explained and adapted. 

yesterday horsemouth attended a children's birthday party. the children pretty much entertained themselves (there was food, there were swings and climbing frames, there was a game of pass the parcel). horsemouth's job was to porter the party-makings over, to take the site, and to clean and decorate it. mission accomplished he stood around drinking small quantities alcohol and eating nibbles. he bumped into luisa (long time no see). 

at the end he helped porter out what remained of the food, drink and decorations. 

today looks like a beautiful day outside. horsemouth is going to rest after his busy social calendar. he will carry on listening to the new musicians of bremen demos (he should make a list of the nips and tucks). he thinks that's it for face-to-face meeting obligations until the communal endeavour's meeting on wednesday 27th. 

tomorrow is the day on which the crucial events happen in the fog. 

horsemouth was not looking with enthusiasm at yesterday's coronavirus stats. to horsemouth, seeing as the relationship between each of these figures is a week or two - people get sick, then a week or two later they are in hospital, then a week or two later if they are going to die they die, this is a wave going out and a new wave coming in. he supposes it is driven by large community transmission and half-term. the ones today seem much better - it's all going the right way. 

in the foothills of the apocalypse (tumbleweed blowing around the offices)

yesterday horsemouth was discussing how little effect the apocalypse had had - horsemouth expected a world of remote working to arise from the ashes of human contact (but no). he expected the death and decline of the city (but no the population of london has gone up), he had expected tumbleweed blowing around the offices (and this to some extent has happened).

the old patterns of work discipline and the physical surveillance of work have repeated themselves. (this is dispiriting because the opportunity to get rid of a load of carbon emissions by getting rid of the commute has been missed)

of course about half the jobs were and are full contact jobs that cannot be done remotely - your bus still has to be driven, your food still cooked and brought to your table, your stuff still has to be made in a factory somewhere and stuck in a container and shipped to you. during the apocalypse these people were just marched towards the guns (with minimal PPE). strangely the guardian did not find their experiences instructive. 

horsemouth was on a very full train back from birmingham last night (coughing sneezing bastards). at some point it dawned on him that the well dressed youth on the train were off to london for a night out or off on their travels and not (in fact) commuters at all. horsemouth has been persisting in his open air, mask wearing, minimal travel for a while now but he suspects the great british public are heartily sick of it and just want to get back to the party whatever the death rate. 

so horsemouth has retired (he says half-heartedly).

while he derived quite some satisfaction from work he always viewed it as a necessary evil done to bring in the money and prevent starvation and homelessness. soon it will be a year since horsemouth's last bout of actual paid labour, he can't say he has missed it. if the apocalypse had not intervened  in human affairs horsemouth would have continued jogging along in his job because it was comfortable and (reasonably) painless.  but that was not to be. he's not tempted to continue working freelance because it requires insurances and technologies and a whole host of unpaid griefs and gubbinses to get him up and running. 

in this the economy is (of course) not his friend. it is staging a bout of price rises and inflation - a raid on horsemouth's savings and his (very small) works pension income,  and, more broadly, a raid on the wages of the working class. as a character remarks in one of hans fallada's novels of inflation: 

“this is an ingenious, entirely modern postwar invention; they rob you of one-half of the money in your pocket without touching the pocket or the money.” (wolf among wolves, hans fallada) 

if the government cannot provide you with a sense of economic security then what is it good for? 

if changing the government cannot do that then what is democracy good for? 

if the economy cannot provide you with the means to survive what is it good for? 

horsemouth's economic inactivity is (to some extent) sanctified by his having worked and having savings. the lesson of the pandemic was a lesson in frugality, in inactivity. a break in practice that should lead to a break in theory. but horsemouth has been living like this for a while with young horsemouth  subsidising older horsemouth with him gradually becoming less and less economically active. 

he's been enjoying the demos for his new recordings with musicians of bremen. (when asked what music he was listening to horsemouth was compelled to answer my own). howard is very taken with the martin carthy. 

today a children's party (weather permitting)

last (rush hour) train out of birmingham (hoarwithy ramble 2)

all this horsemouth wrote on the train up in the morning.

so horsemouth was on the world wide communion and did post some things. but now he's stuck in the meat world with coughing sneezing non-mask wearing people on a train. (ah brave new world, wondrous humanity) still - first world problems. horsemouth supposes that it was hitting 'temporary' account that did it - now he can't seem to get back to the main join up page. it should just be thrown up automatically (if horsemouth remembers correctly) horsemouth regrets not really paying attention in those IT classes. 

as horsemouth typed this we were just going through high wycombe jazz funk trancentral. he was just on for a few minutes (long enough to register). this he did by being patient and waiting (maybe if he tries it again this will work). horsemouth got back on and has joined up (but the connection has popped again) ok so he's on the two hour slow train to birmingham (the scenic route). thence he has a bus journey (to a friend's house) and then a car journey to he meet up point near sunny ross-on-wye. there horsemouth's family will dine and then horsemouth will make his way home. 

north of 8 hours travel today. he's not moaning (he likes the people). (remind him to check the train times back) 

the english countryside is beautiful (but probably boring to live in). except for the pronunciations bi-cester pronounced 'bister' - is that a silent 'ce' in the middle? 

yesterday horsemouth listened through to the monitor mixes of the set of tunes he was just recording with howard. it has all come out much better than he thought it would (but it's not yet without it's anxious/ not-quite-in-tune moments). will all the tunes survive? (probably not). just arrived at warwick. (worick) soon the train wifi will cease to be his concern (except for the journey back) he may have to read a book or doodle in his diary. 

 you may have to wait for all of this until tomorrow morning.

------------------------------------

and now he's on the train back. (he has a connection so he can probably pop this up). 

skateboarder youth. commuters. a very full train. 

the dinner was at a pub in hoarwithy. after horsemouth paddled in the river. so here it is solihull (the skateboarder youth have just got off). phew. 

several years ago horsemouth was on a ramble in hoarwithy (for new years day he thinks) or perhaps sometime around the last french presidential elections. 

the devil (and the feathery wife)

horsemouth is back from the martin carthy gig (in fact it's the morning after and he's getting up to face the day).

while waiting for howard to show up outside the gig lou came round the corner (back from a barbacue in leyton and on her way to dinner). she has gigs (indeed she's been playing gigs). they chatted (horsemouth feeling guilty because they'd promised to record her and then run out of time). she left. howard showed up. they got their tickets and got a beer (nearly a fiver a half jaysus) and went to sit outside. 

martin carthy (looking dapper in a floral shirt) came out with his grandson (was it? young, hoodie, phone). he chatted with a concert goer and a homeless woman spare-changing the audience as they went in 'just five pound and I'm good to go' she cheerfully announced. (but most of the audience were in already and firmly sat down). 

he played two sets (with a 15 minute intermission). songs about transportation?  ah the transportation of people to australia. a great sounding guitar (tuned down it seemed to horsemouth). mostly picking out the tune with his thumb and forefinger to support the vocal. lots of words to remember (some battles here but then the audience  were keen to assist particularly on the devil and the feathery wife), at one point his phone goes off (but fortunately at the end of a song). scarborough fair (of course) with a tale of recording it with a string arrangement for some netflix type show (which horsemouth can't find).

there were tales of learning songs at one sitting from davy graham. there was the odd 'fuck' as a tune went astray. 

horsemouth would last have seen him play about 40 years ago upstairs in a pub near great portland street (down near the institute of architecture if he remembers correctly). songs about poaching and such like. 

horsemouth supposes that the advantage of being a solo act is that the band never splits up. he liked this guardian piece on what pop stars do after (when their 5 minutes of fame is over).

he was glad to be back. people were glad to see him. 

in the intermission horsemouth and howard hastily adjourned to a pub round the corner  in the hope of cheaper beer. but their random choice of pale ale was lemony and unpleasant and they couldn't face drinking more than a half of it (so it probably didn't work out cheaper but more expensive). 

at the end an encore and then howard was off to the train and soon enough back to work. horsemouth (on shanks's pony) headed for home. 

musicians of bremen · You And Your Sister Demo

howard has put up rough mixes of wondrous love (oof horsemouth was singing badly that day) and you and your sister (which came out not too badly). howard has been back through and put down a bed of harmony vocals to smooth out the roughness of horsemouth's performances. horsemouth gave them all a listen on headphones and pronounced himself pleased (or at least satisfied). even jai guru is starting to do it for horsemouth and sound better. 

in the day horsemouth wandered round the marshes with TG catching up. (there are no photos). the photos taken on various expeditions have been going down a storm. other than that he sat out on the front step sunbathing and reading bukowski or out in the back garden. the day was bright and sunny the night a little cold. 

today (well this evening) horsemouth has to plan a journey for tomorrow. he will probably test again for the c-o-v-i-d (but seeing as he has not yet had a positive result he's not absolutely convinced he's doing it right). 

the third (and probably final) half day of recording musicians of bremen stuff 2022.

back  from howard's in far off east ham.  

the start

breakfast - 10am-ish. tea and another bag of those cheap micro croissants with hazlenut filling (again - well they worked last time).

listen through to things from last time.

jai guru sounding good. howard has done some work on the vocals (which is the thing it needs). horsemouth thinks to make the first half instrumental and then build from there. his last take at the main vocal over does it (they should chuck it or turn it down). 

murder ballad sounding better than horsemouth remembered it. 

something's on your mind probably the keeper from the session. sounding good.

if you have ghosts (roky erickson). sounding good. (but not much to it).

sometimes our dreams (they float like anchors) (william elliott whitmore). a tune horsemouth learned from andrew minty. howard will probably do a response vocal (as in 'call and response') for this. which would be good. otherwise fine. horsemouth meant to put some banjolin on it (but he forgot).

it's surprising how much better things sound when the vocal has seen a compressor or some such (software) device.  

and on to the day's new recordings. 

you and your sister (recorded with howard's valencia nylon strung guitar) this comes together really quickly. he thinks the guitar and vocal and the vocal takes are decent. probably another result. just needs the your loves adding, there's a little instrument under them too (horsemouth is not sure what it is). they are following the this mortal coil version rather than the chris bell version.  

howard attempts a backing vocal (then decides he will have to come back to it).  

wondrous love horsemouth and howard eventually find the (correct) chords online and horsemouth lays it down (hohner). a guitar and vocal together and a doubling up vocal track. nothing else. an intro and an instrumental half-verse. 

hear us o lord once again horsemouth gets towed off the harmony onto the main melody. he is too flustered to get the fake-bass harmony right. so some bits of it work (and some bits don't).

plus the arthritis is fucking up his ability to play those stretches. 

the only non cover of the day a guitar solo recorded on the resonator and then with the 12 string added on top. bit of an experiment (let's see how this turns out). in these days of digital editing that is probably enough. bits of it sound good. horsemouth is thinking of naming it variation on a guitar piece by pier marton (see if anyone gets that joke). he is not sure that he didn't rush it. it needs to be taken slow so that the beauty/ugliness of the resonator's tone comes through. 

end up on high rise strutters' ball. guitar (resonator), banjolin, vocals, trumpet-impersonation. rhythm still a little baggy. ah well fuck it. 

horsemouth is a little out of practice with this recording lark after the best part of two years off. 

1pm finish. 

walk up to the nearest open pub that's not a wetherspoons (the boleyn in west ham, they pass the block where jaime lives) - chips and beer (horsemouth 3 pints, howard 4 (he's a faster drinker))

back home. howard is wiped out and needs food (and sleep). horsemouth leaves him too it. horsemouth heads home bringing the resonator with him and a bag with the banjolin and the melodica (but he forgets the glockenspiel). no child minding work that night. 

it was the kind of day where nothing sounded in tune and nothing sounded in time. (but it will probably turn out to be ok. horsemouth will probably have done enough). you and your sister came out well enough and quickly and this spoiled him. anything above and beyond that is a bonus. 

that probably marks the end of the recording campaign for 2022. when howard will get the time to mix it god only knows. horsemouth would be totally happy with just rough unmixed versions at this stage. to him it is enough to hear the song the way he imagined it without having to play it (himself).

tonight a gig (martin carthy). 

wait let horsemouth get another cup of coffee in and then we'll see if he has any inspiration left. 

 

of guitars and notation (isle of the dead)

good morning. good morning. bit grey outside (hope it improves). a bit of ragtime ralph to start the day (hmm just listen to that guitar it just sounds like an antique, a bit clanky, not too pretty). ok it is improving outside. 

7 years ago. the oscar schmidt resonator guitar joined horsemouth's guitar collection. as used, most notably,  on noah. as horsemouth remarked at the time it's a strange beast with a very distinctive sound. horsemouth will take it over to howard's just in case. if there's time he will try and get a solo piece out of it. 

he'll also try a version of you and your sister (probably on howard's valencia nylon strung guitar) and wondrous love (probably on the hohner). hear us o lord would be good too. perhaps high rise strutters' ball.  

unless howard has stuff he wants to get on with (in which case they'll get on with that). 

we also have to add;

the banjolin (gift from ayesha). yet to find a track on which to shine but horsemouth has been playing high rise strutters' ball using it. hey maybe he can use it on sometimes our dreams (float like anchors). the paesold classical guitar (charity shop if horsemouth remembers correctly) as used let all mortal flesh... (vol.3). the hohner arbor lw400n (gift from howard - the main 'standard tuning' acoustic) as used on most of volumes 3 and 4. the telecaster copy (found by some bins) soon to be heard on horsemouth's version of something's on your mind. the bass guitar (from rob lee and emma via rust) as heard to best effect on blindspot and dark was the night on volume 3.

he's agreed to some child-minding work in the evening (if it happens). monday (assuming he doesn't contract covid) he's probably off to his neice's 18th. tuesday more child-minding (birthday party). 

anyway first he has to pass a covid test before he can go and do any of this. (otherwise he's just sitting at home being grumpy and ill).

last night horsemouth had a hunt around on youtube etc. for more val lewton movies (for free). no results - he knows he's seen the seventh victim  before but he doesn't think he's seen any of the karloff's not even isle of the dead - which would be perfect in current circumstances - military discipline in times of plague etc. even better it's a vordulak tale.  

----------------------------------------

at last more hawkbinge! the sonic attack episode is here!

live these were the great retro-fit huw lloyd-langton years. but what about the studio albums? how have these held up?

tbh the only track horsemouth has ever played again off sonic attack is huw lloyd-langton's rocky paths. michael moorcock's coded languages he loves the lyrics but the backing is ploddy. virgin of the world he had unjustifiably neglected (but then it's on church of hawkwind  under another name anyway). the youngster had to admit that sonic attack was a bit of a chore. the eighties aren't his favourite decade and there's a lot of it to go. 

ok only a two month wait now for the church of hawkwind review.

the only sensible response to most stuff

horsemouth always wondered where siouxsie and the banshees got it from.

horsemouth thinks it was  probably from curse of the cat people (val lewton et al.) 

nice the way the carols in the scene work against each other. 

il est né, le divin enfant is a traditional french christmas carol, which was published for the first time in 1862  by r. grosjean, organist of the cathedral of saint-dié-des-vosges, in a collection of carols entitled airs des noëls lorrains.  the text of the carol was published for the first time in a collection of ancient carols, published in either 1875 or 1876 by dom g. legeay.

shepherds, shake off your drowsy sleep is usually sung to the tune BESANÇON, a carol from the eastern part of france, appeared in the recueil de noëls anciens au patois de besançon, which was published in 1842. the melody is probably from the seventeenth century. it's french words are berger, secoue ton sommeil profond. 

curse of the cat people is an actual sequel (but the cat people do not return). it kind of reminds horsemouth of the river scene in night of the hunter. 

here is an exchange between horsemouth and a friend about the current political situation.

- they’re all fuckers. I’m finding increasingly that this is the only sensible response to most stuff.

- fucking fuckers😁

- fuck all the fucking fuckers 😊

- fuck'em

imagine horsemouth's face reflected in his frontplate of his washburn oscar schmidt OR6CE acoustic electric resonator guitar. the reviews of this guitar are comedy gold ('marginally better than a plastic toy') but everything horsemouth has ever recorded with it has come out really well.

the guitars he has out for day-to-day practice are the hohner and the laramie.  

the current album horsemouth is recording with howard's guitars (an almost identical hohner, a remarkably similar hohner 12 string, a yamaha electro-acoustic, a valencia nylon strung guitar and the telecaster copy horsemouth has loaned him. 

horsemouth has had the resonator for more than 7 years now...  wow.  doesn't time fly.

horsemouth has relocated back to the gaff (just in time for it to become a plague pit). he didn't walk over like he planned (his little rucksack was just a bit too heavy). this morning (and he is up early because he has been trained to rise early by hungry cats) is a beautiful morning. the book box with the children design on it (amalin) is installed in the stacks. it has displaced the b&w repeat photos of kate bush dancing (in an eadweard muybridge style) to a lower shelf. 

it looks like the friday recording session is on. horsemouth will spend much of today practicing and playing guitar ready for friday. he'll have a hunt through his song books. saturday there's a gig howard and himself are going to (he'll tell you about that one later). monday (covid permitting) he may be off to his niece's 18th celebration (we'll see). 

'let us not anticipate the past (let all our retrospections be to the future)'

'when I orbited the earth in a spaceship, I saw for the first time how beautiful our planet is. mankind, let us preserve and increase this beauty, and not destroy it!'

yesterday was the anniversary of yuri gagarin's journey to space (putin was trying to make publicity on it).

here a french film about the destruction of the gagarine estate (named in gagarin's honour when he visited france after his flight). it makes it into that kind of afro-futurist wish fulfilment (a lament for the future that never came/ a calling it into being). horsemouth loves the track at the start of the video but it doesn't seem to be on the OST. 

'let us not anticipate the past (let all our retrospections be to the future)' - mrs. malaprop (amended)

horsemouth's accessions diary/ one for the new book box 

charity shop with the pretty goth girl (leytonstone).  one squid fifty. (plus a 15p donation to the homeless dude with a bleeding head, the guy was asking for 20, but 15 was all horsemouth had on him honestly).

the unknown lewis carroll: 8 major works and many minor, in humour, children's material, mathematical recreations (dover thrift editions)

s. dodgson collingwood, carroll's nephew and authorized biographer, gathered together in this volume carroll's privately printed humour, juvenalia  and recreation, together with explanatory introductions. (and very good it is too).

after the wonders of the val lewton/ jacques tourneur years (cat people, leopard man, I walked with a zombie), there are the val lewton solo years (in particular the work he did at RKO with boris karloff - isle of the dead, the body snatcher, and bedlam). there's also the curse of the cat people (which looks great) and the seventh victim (satanists of manhattan) horsemouth watched ghost ship (the captain is fixated upon authority and is going mental).

today the day when horsemouth has to pack up and remove from the cloud forest. he will tidy up to hide the evidence of his stay. he has fed the cats their breakfast. he will go make an inspection of the allotment. he has acquired a small book box, a couple of books, he now faces the task of fitting it all into his little rucksack. 

he thinks he will walk home (for the fresh air and the exercise). 

meanwhile at home one of his housemates has tested positive for covid. horsemouth thinks only the kitchen and the bathroom and various bits of corridors are zones of contention and contamination. he has to work out the timetable for his weekend - perhaps there is stuff to be done friday (perhaps not), there's a gig saturday, at some point there's his brother's youngest's birthday celebration. and then there's the bank holiday (and maybe a children's party).

all this has to be timetabled and in a covid safe way(now that we will be living more intimately with the virus). stuff has to be cleared with people. 

the second afternoon from the musicians of bremen recording campaign 2022

back  from howard's after the second afternoon of recording musicians of bremen stuff for 2022. the start breakfast - tea and cheap micro croissants with hazlenut filling that horsemouth bought on the way there.

murder ballad  - the first new song horsemouth has written in a long time. as usual he has had it sitting around for ages but has never got around to finishing it (until now when he needs to record it). horsemouth wanted to record a murder ballad but an up-to-date one, to go with his thieving song (gentleman john) and his collection of folk sayings (the devil song). 

horsemouth plays it through on the nylon string guitar for howard but he's not got it so well nailed with all the bits that he thinks he could get it down to click and he wants to record it to click because he doesn't want it speeding up and slowing down (the main point of the tune is the lyrics).

record four minutes 20 seconds of the main riff over and over to click. 

then, and this is where horsemouth made his first mistake, adding  the first crack at the vocals assuming that he can remember the bar lengths of the instrumental breaks. what this means is that the vocals end up all present and correct but the instrumental breaks end up of variable lengths (oops).

oops. ah well. various percussion-y things added. various backing vocals sung (highs and lows). instrumental break guitar parts laid down (based on satie's gnossienne no.1) but because horsemouth has miscalculated the bar lengths it never plays in full. 

a little yelling in french and a backing vocal on the payoff lines. ok job done. sounds more like stereotype  than ghost town (oh well). 

dinner - posh beans on toast and apple juice (cheers howard). 

set up reconfigured to record vocal and guitar simultaneously.

'something's on your mind' (made famous by karen dalton but actually written by dino valenti) 

first take decent. second take slower and better. recorded with howard's hohner 6 string.

an attempt to double the harmonics at the start with the telecaster copy fails. horsemouth does a telecaster style guitar part for the whole song. (mostly he's keeping it very sparse and trying not to fuck up). which comes out well except for one bit (which can probably be lost). horsemouth always knew that guitar would come in handy. 

howard adds a nice reverb to it. 

horsemouth then he doubles up the main vocal. result! probably the keeper from the session. 

'if you have ghosts' (roky erickson)

again recorded with howard's hohner 6 string.

the run-down as per the original roky record then the song taken slower and lower (around C and not entirely correctly). vocal doubled and then a whispering vocal added. have to have a think about how to bring this on home. 

'sometimes our dreams (they float like anchors)' (william eliot whitmore)

a tune horsemouth learnt from minty. he thinks this was recorded on howard's yamaha. recorded without incident. no attempt to double the vocals. perhaps try an organ on it.

'you and your sister' (chris bell of big star but made famous by this mortal coil) well horsemouth attempted this at howard's urging but he was too out of practice to get to grips with it.

the end. tidy up.

go to the pub (wetherspoons - sorry sacked youth). horsemouth had one pint. howard two. two packets of crisps. end of day. 

horsemouth will wait and see if howard gets the chance to put up a demo mix of any of them on soundcloud.

otherwise the theory is to be back at it on friday (exhaustion permitting). this is why horsemouth is getting a crack at his songs over recording howard's songs - howard is just knackered from work. howard has requested you and your sister (so horsemouth will work this up) and he'll have a hunt round in his notebooks for other possible tunes. 

back at the gaff one of his housemates has come down with covid (oh no). this will necessitate some re-arranging of plans. horsemouth actually thinks the housemate has had it before but this is the first time he's actually tested positive for it (because the tests are a bit shit and because nobody liked sticking things down their throats). 

that said horsemouth has no desire to be a typhoid mary and spread it round his family and friends - he loves you all dearly but he doesn't require you to share his ailments. 

it's a beautiful morning outside. horsemouth will wander up the allotment and have a ponder. 

true crime (lie lie lie lie lie)

the cats came and collected him from the attic. at first they purred but that didn't last long... (tiger woo cheetah coup).

horsemouth continues his adventures in the cloud forest.

yesterday to avoid the yapping dog who guards the front door he was mostly making use of the garden gate at the back of the house. in the forest and the forest clearings it was most idyllic. it was cold but the sun shone. horsemouth made his way straight to the allotment to make sure the temporary greenhouse was still standing after its unfortunate boulversation  during the recent storms. having checked that he did a little light watering. the polytunnel roof of the old greenhouse is gone (the salad room looks schematic).

in the evening large bangings and moving around of furniture could be heard from downstairs or next door. (could they not have done it in the day?) horsemouth retired to the attic. 

horsemouth spent most of yesterday working his way through  murder ballad writing the new lyrics and working out what backing vocals could be sing where. once again (after turn your heater on) ghost town looms large in horsemouth's imagining. 

today (later) more guitar playing in east ham (hopefully). an issue has arisen over the weekend (it is his brother's youngest's birthday - there is a family do horsemouth's attendance is requested). horsemouth and howard have a gig they are going to see saturday night. there is a plan to do more recording on friday (energy levels permitting). 

and then the musicians of bremen recording campaign for 2022 will be over. 

the fluffy ginger cat from next door is peering in the catflap in search of extra food. a fox just gingerly crossed next doors lawn. 

the charmless lord pickles has given evidence at the grenfell inquiry 'in his evidence last wednesday and thursday,  (pickles) seemed more defensive than apologetic for his department’s systemic failings'  but it goes beyond this, he gets positively  onto the front foot urging counsel to 'use your time wisely' in the questioning because he had an 'extremely busy day meeting people'.

of course the position of housing minister is effectively a sinecure and a rotating door, a stepping-stone to higher things, ministers hardly ever stay more than a year in role, so lots of them are implicated.

'an investigation by trade magazine Inside Housing revealed that between 2014 and 2017 the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) wrote to ministers at least 21 times, calling for the (coroner's) recommendations after the lakanal house fire to be implemented.'

pickles later  wrongly said 96 people had died in the fire (it was 72) and referred to them as the nameless when they have all been identified.  he referred to himself in the third person as 'pickles'  on several occasions. 

like horsemouth said charmless. 

guitar pieces for when we reconvene (tiger woo)

'guitar piece is a darkly comical, angry work, in which marton hits a guitar against his head in a rhythmic (fashion), yelling "music!" in an accelerating fury until the guitar splinters into pieces.' - catalogue item on guitar piece by pier marton  on at electronic arts intermix.

of course now is the time that horsemouth should have a whole and complete plethora of new guitar tunes practiced up and ready to go but only has one original and new tune to contribute.  

he's pleased with the way jai guru has come out (though he is toying with the idea of renaming it tiger woo! and taking it in a more tyrannosaurus rex-y kind of direction). the mexican bit (the bit with the sweet tune) works well with the singing on it. there were moments when it was being made when it sounded even  better - if he can persuade  howard to sing on it more it will sweeten it up nicely. he is pleased with the way the introductory fanfare came off (it was a last minute idea) and the glockenspiel works well within it. a friend has suggested tremelo as an effect on it (that would work). 

he tried to tempt howard into doing a melodica solo for it (perhaps it will come). 

the second guitar though does not work as is. at the  moment it is some 8 miles high avant scrabbling but there is way too much of it. horsemouth suspects it could just be turned off and the track would be immediately stronger. 

the hand claps are weak and the melodica needs to come up and the fade out needs to come in earlier (or the bells at the end need to be moved further out. (it will come). 

horsemouth thinks he has a plan to record the next song - contemporary murder ballad - he just needs to finish writing the lyrics (but he knows what he wants to say so it should come quickly)

jesus is it that time already? he was up early (7am) having slept well. in a little while he'll go up the allotment and check that the temporary greenhouse hasn't blown over again.  

after some universe establishing harmonics...

musicians of bremen · Jai Guru

it is the day after the  work started on the next musicians of bremen album.

we have the demo for one track jai guru (lyrics lifted from across the universe and a spoken word bit 'may there be peace and love throughout all creation' from john and alice coltrane).

the main guitar is howard's hohner 12 string (which can be heard at the start). 

the second guitar is his yamaha electro-acoustic (which probably isn't needed or needs to be a different instrument to cut through). it works at the end when it takes over the main riff. . 

after some universe establishing harmonics on the 12 string, glockenspiel glocks and temple bells we are into the mexican theme, then a build, and then into the main jai guru deva OM then various repeats of the mexican theme and the build into the final jai guru which gradually fades and ends in bells. 

in fact it probably needs to fade out earlier. 

there is a photo of them working away. horsemouth on the glockenspiel. howard on supervision. 

what horsemouth wanted was something like early tyrannosaurus rex and it's coming along. the 12 string is a fearsome racket all of its own. the claps are a bit weak and the melodica (used to a fake harmonium) probably drives things along too much. horsemouth wants it 'up', howard wants it contemplative, we'll see where it goes. 

after they'd recorded howard fed horsemouth (quiche and potatoes). and then it was up the pub. the big empty pub on the corner seems to have closed (probably because it was reliably empty - except once or twice when it was full of small children) so it was off to the pub by the park with pizza. as usual horsemouth succumbed to the temptation of more beer but he's getting fed up with himself when he does this (it's expensive and reliably less fun than he thinks it will be). 

the problem with the flat where he is staying is that the sun rises through the trees of the forest and makes the world look too beautiful.  perhaps horsemouth will head off to look for more books.

all things permitting (are you leaving for the country?)

yesterday horsemouth walked back home (the gaff) to pick up some spare musical instruments and then back up to the forest (7-8 miles all told).

banjolele, glockenspiel, melodica, e-bow, guitar slide, guitar tuner and some spare guitar strings just in case.

he didn't bring the thumb piano, the omnichord, the harmonium or the fan powered organ (all a bit too big to fit into his little rucksack). nor did he bring the cymbal, the marching drum, the lap steel or the bass guitar. 

nor did he bring any of his other guitars. the plan is to use howard's guitars - for example howard has a duplicate hohner 6 string (to the one horsemouth has), a nice nylon strung guitar, that cheap telecaster copy horsemouth found and a 12 string (so they should be ok for guitars). the plan is to record round howard's this afternoon (all things permitting). 

more news from the world of karen dalton. another set of tapes has been found from1962 of karen and richard tucker in colorado. there's to be a release for record store day. the video from the santana support slot on may 1st 1971 above is another recent rediscovery. 

a friend (ok ok someone horsemouth met on facebook) recently published this, 15 minutes of raga mishra peelu on a 12 string guitar in sarode/sitar tuning (and very good it is too).

outside it is a grey morning. howard should be back home elevenish. (and so some time after that they will begin). 

horsemouth's guide to the seaside towns (my john fahey was a trickster - discuss)

recently, on john fahey (rather than on horsemouth's usual hangout american primitive guitar), there was a discussion of george henderson's book blind joe death's america. now horsemouth hasn't read this book (this is not strictly true, he has read as much as you can read for free). henderson is interested in what fahey wrote as well as what he played and in theory this should make for firmer ground when attempting to work out what fahey meant.

but fahey was a trickster and he had worked out a nice line of chat (or indeed writing - because fahey wrote extensive sleeve notes to his albums and academic essays) to enable him to do what he wanted to do - which was to play fingerpicking guitar. fahey knew enough to feed what academia wanted to hear back to academia and had enough bullshit to baffle most brains on the folk scene. fahey trained as a an anthropologist/ ethnomusicologist - probably carlos castaneda is his nearest rival.

life is a much broader church than horsemouth likes to imagine. horsemouth guesses that his fellow fahians are of disparate opinions, many would wish to believe that fahey has mysteriously and magically escaped all the problems with race and representation and the blues that come with the territory and with america and that thus his music can be enjoyed virtuously without all this baggage. 

horsemouth doubts this is true. that said he admires fahey's synthesis that enables him to escape or evade  the charges of inauthenticity that could be levelled at a white guy from the suburbs playing the blues in the tail end of the 60ies, but he doesn't believe the problems can be escaped because they are wider societal problems (the best that can be done is that they can be held at bay long enough for people to get on with doing what they want to do).

he does not take fahey's synthesis as a fully  worked out system but merely a way of living. 

---------------------------------

yesterday horsemouth went up to howard's early doors to assist with the decorating. at the end of it he felt properly battered (unaccustomed as he is to physical labour these days). they adjourned to the pub by the park - horsemouth had a pizza, howard some tagliatelle, horsemouth had two pints of beer, howard three. 

friday afternoon they are recording  - fingers crossed (horsemouth should have recovered by then). 

it's a bright sunny morning and the weatherman says it's going to hold for a few days. temperatures are rising. horsemouth has had his coffee. he has fed the cats. he is tucking into some cereal. 

south of no north

see. other things can be played on the pedal steel.

huzzah! horsemouth is up and about again!

there is blossom the trees and the first indications of the line up for the leigh folk festival has been published. horsemouth goes to assist howard with the decoration of his living room. (howard has promised him a curry as a reward (ok takeout was the precise word) - o sacrum convivium). 

accessions diary/ additions to horsemouth's temporary travelling library.

charles bukowski's south of no north (stories of a buried life) and hot water music - one squid each (age concern) both in ecco editions paperback (73 and 83) but sadly the design has altered between these two dates a little so they don't look like a pair. short pieces mostly (memorably the book says about 'drinking, women, gambling and writing'). there was more bukowski, horsemouth is tempted to go back and get it.

ok horsemouth has to get on. walk to queen's street walthamstow, train to barking, barking to east ham.

'and the fates gather at some standing stones...'

the cats have batted him awake (at one point he awoke to find them combing out his beard) and he is up early (by his own standards). he has fed them but they have left most of it on their plates and have not even said thank you.

and the fates gather at some standing stones (gossipy bitches).

having been found and spun the thread waits

- so how about that horsemouth then?

- him!!! pfft...

- still 'waiting' is he...

the scissors are produced (a pause) 

- another time maybe sister... time transparent. now arts connect...

- time transparent. now arts connect...

and they are on to the next bit of string.

back in 2020 tom phillips (by means of gysin/ burroughs cut up) had predicted the future (well the present in which we were living). there is a line in his cut up novel the humument (made by colouring over a victorian novel the human document), ‘time transparent, now the arts connect’.

a year before that horsemouth was arguing that brexit could not happen because it sinned against capitalist rationality. could it be that he was wrong?

in horsemouth's accessions diary 

3 gothic novels - frankenstein, castle of otranto, vathek 

(50p salvation army walthamstow).  they are still running 4 for £1 on books and CDs but there was nothing else he fancied, there was nothing for him in the ruby street book box either. 

it is in the cream bordered penguin classics edition rather than the penguin english library edition. horsemouth once owned that edition (he took it to portugal with him when he was wandering about the south in the 90ies). the author of vathek (slaveowner and millionaire william beckford) had been to portugal (or so said the guide book). 

elsewhere a friend has been arguing that frankenstein  is not a science fiction novel (here on the cover of 3 gothic novels it clearly implies it is a gothic novel). but of course it is a science fiction novel (even if that term had not been invented yet - his friend's argument). horsemouth suspects his friend of mere shit-stirring. 

horsemouth has recently posted a number of photos of himself wandering round (as if exploring) a few neglected corners of the canal system, spaces that have not found their place in the leisure economy. at some point they had been integrated into the new london (there was a spiral ramp leading up to a disused footbridge) only to be sealed off and forgotten again. 

in a cul-de-sac that he had turned up by mistake (believing there to be a cut-through to the road he is staying on) horsemouth found a little wooden box.   it has a faded design of two small children (a boy and a girl on it surrounded by leaves and the name 'amalin(?)'  (ah it used to contain jewellery)

amalin used to be a girl's name in the gothic language (allegedly). 

in it he has placed his temporary (travelling) library- the hrabal, the silverberg, the three gothic novels, the covid test kit, the paracetamol, the strepsils, a spare pen. despite his precautions horsemouth thought his small notebook had vanished  into the great pile of kipple that is the world (but then he found it lurking blackly at the bottom of his bag.  

'all my book I relinquished for one can get more books wherever one goes' confidently remarks the hero of robert silverberg's a time of changes (so far in his exile he has not mentioned books). 

and here we see horsemouth begin to reconstruct a library. the careers advice teacher who had the young horsemouth pegged as a future librarian was not so wrong. he's just not (and never was) a scientist.

today (now that he is awake) horsemouth plans to hit the charity shops on the market. tomorrow he may be assisting howard with decorating (physical labour horsemouth? yes physical labour). at some point he expects the delivery of travel documents.