horsemouth 'whataboutist' ('remember, remember, the fifth of november')

morning peoples. 

'starmer is boring but not corrupt' it was put to him. (er. except when him and his cronies were sabotaging the previous labour leader but we will let that go because it has indeed gone by). 

and then it was put to him that he was guilty of 'whataboutism' or 'whataboutery'. 

he replied that things happen (yes), but other things happen also, and it is permissible to go 'but what about...' because the other things may be a part of the first thing (a decay in wider political life for example). 

horsemouth has heard sten raise boris and lady nut nut's home decoration habit (paid for by anonymous donors - no danger of access or political influence being purchases there!) on the back of paterson MP's double my salary scheme, is this not 'whataboutery'? (or whatever the scope limiting measure is called). 

horsemouth is glad boris has been knocked back on his first attempt to knobble the regulator but he will soon be back at it (and probably, when the dust has settled, with labour assistance).

horsemouth's but what about? was claudia webbe MP who conducted a campaign of harassment against someone she suspected of having an affair with her partner (including threatening to thrown acid in their face). for this she received a suspended sentence and community service (which strikes horsemouth as unduly lenient). when you look at her website she is making all the right noises for someone of horsemouth's political persuasion and there she is ascending the greasy pole up from islington councillor onto the labour national executive. it only goes to show you can't tell very much about people from who they say they re

sproatley smith (and the weirdshire lot) have put up a compilation album of various artists who have played weirdshire events at the babar cafe (and very good it is too). horsemouth thinks it's a great 'scene' alula down, haress etc. and recommends you buy it , similarly he recommends the stuff from leigh on sea (the owl service etc.), the stuff stick in the wheel put out, gwenifer raymond's take on american primitive. 

meanwhile what is happening with the musicians...

'remember, remember the fifth of november...'

because it's bandcamp friday. (rather than the day on which we celebrate a conspiracy to blow up parliament rather a long time ago). 

on this day bandcamp waive their revenue share so more of the money goes to the musicians themselves (and they are hungry if not technically a famine). remember you can get the whole musicians of bremen digital discography  (and that's all the albums, EPs and digital singles you can see here) for a mere  £11.25 GBP or, if you've done that already, maybe you could purchase the weirdshire compilation or some of the music horsemouth has recommended above. 

horsemouth is very bad at this self-promotion lark and facebook and blogspot are obviously not the places to do it. 

horsemouth is coming to the end of milan kundera's immortality a book based around a (private life) sex/ (public life) fame dichotomy. if horsemouth is honest he has always been a shy boy (and now he is rapidly becoming old) and has not really had enough of either to satisfy him. he suspects he's pretty much had his lot (of either sex or fame) and from here on he will have to make music because he enjoys making it. 

his immediate task is the peter, paul and enza stuff, to negotiate a playing of some of  pete's songs (to their mutual satisfaction) and get a version of enza's loops of heaven  up and running.  

unearthing something nasty

yesterday's helpful reminder occurred in a discussion of 'hauntology' on the folk horror revival page. there was an ill-advised accusation of bert lloyd being a 'cultural marxist' (or at least an implication that his ‘researches’ were of a similar, i.e. low, level of scholarship).

true bert lloyd was a communist - but as one commentator put it 'there was nothing 'cultural' about a.l. lloyd's marxism'. he was an old school stalinist ('a tankie' in horsemouth's terms) he'd have a problem using the ideas of jacques derrida (the er. ‘father of hauntology’ if you will) in his writing because frankly he was already dead (hmmn or maybe not - but anyway, no sign of derridean thinking in bert lloyd’s writing that horsemouth can detect).

now onto this term cultural marxist and the people who use it

the term 'cultural marxist' is used by one of horsemouth's friends when horsemouth thinks what he really means is 'shitty patronising new labour councillors who won't give me a council flat', horsemouth’s friend may beg to differ and claim wider political aims, but this is how horsemouth hears it. horsemouth thinks his friend is wrong to use it in this fashion but hey, at least he has a real problem.

but more often the term  'cultural marxist'  is used by alt-right types as a means of having an anti-intellectual or anti-communist witch hunt in all but name.  at no point is any evidence offered or any serious reading done. it is simply slander and innuendo .

the sample argument here is ‘hauntology is no good (because derrida’s a marxist), bert lloyd was a marxist (so his research must be no good)’.

firstly is derrida even a marxist? he publishes a book the spectres of marx which sort of affiliates him to the marxist tradition, or at least shows that there is a deconstructive reading (derrida’s thing) of the marxist tradition possible - but then loads of other theorists (terry eagleton etc.) most of whom would almost certainly be described by alt-righters as cultural(ly) marxist, weigh in (in a a book called ghostly demarcations) arguing that derrida is not a proper marxist, or that a deconstructionist reading of marx cannot be made and it still be marxism.

secondly the problem for such people in the folk horror world (and there do seem to be some neo-folk types about, people who like to spice up their lives or flagging musical careers with a hint of fascism) is that the fifties, sixties 'folk revival' world was (largely) hewn into existence by writers, archivists, performers and promoters deeply interested in the working class and the independent culture of the working class - a pack of communists, lefties, peaceniks, civil rightsers and fellow travelers (such were your seegers, lomaxes, macolls and crucially here bert lloyd).

now horsemouth does not think propaganda always leads to the best music (he's with john fahey and harry smith on this one) its... oh look, just watch this documentary, clearly there is no mileage in arguing with bert lloyd's folk bonafides. and clearly there is also a danger of folk being  used to promote essentialist, nationalist or just plain racist myths - of it being (re-)hijacked by the right.

horsemouth could tell you a tale of cultural studies - of people wishing to study the culture of ordinary people, he could tell you a tale of a young generation of philosophy students enthused by rock and rave wishing to study it and deploying the new ideas coming from the continent following the dethroning of marxism in 1968 (deleuze and guattari in particular but derrida also). he could tell you a tale of the beautiful dawn of these ideas and their partial eclipse (as the problems with their application became obvious). he could tell you a tale of the rise of hauntology in the editorial office of the wire.

as to the term hauntology applied to music horsemouth is not particularly into it himself (there’s a nina power article somewhere where she questions its value). if it helps you write and create all well and good, if it helps you arrange your record collection and structure your taste all well and good. if you want to use it to slander people you can fuck off with that.

(horsemouth had a look in the photos of this critic of bert lloyd and derrida - and what should he find there but the logo of national vanguard/ national action - us fascist organisations).