'sociability' horsemouth

yesterday was bright and sunny - horsemouth therefore spent the day reading. mostly he read the byng, though he did dally a little with the physics of finance. byng is journeying to the north - near garwood he finds crag house and sir robert's cave (the first of which he finds 'without taste or design'). in knaresborough he awaits an extraordinary person - the 'genius' john metcalf who despite being blind was a violinist of note, taken prisoner at the battle of falkirk, and later a guide to stagecoaches on the road(!) and indeede a surveyor and constructor of roads(!).

increasingly though, he moans about the isolation of travelling (of being forced to converse with innkeepers, tradesmen and his servant), and indeed his powers of description are so weak (except when applied to his copious eating) that we feel the boredom too. he complains of bad food, lumpy beds and bad service at the inns ('this is no more a trout than you are sir!').

 'but where is your friend, your companion? one who would have enjoyed with you the observations, the sweatings and the cold meal; else, who cares for travel, or for what you saw or what you did? this is everlastingly, the burden of my song. I have dragged a servant hither, hired a clown to conduct me,; but where was the participation?'

this evening horsemouth goes to pick up some keys - tomorrow he may be interviewed - thursday he's going to a gig - it's a busy social whirl for new improved 'sociability' horsemouth. as usual horsemouth spends the best part of the day writing this (lacking an employment to get him up and out the door) and later is bored. yesterday horsemouth managed some work on a new song using satie's gnossiene no.1 and the mur-der-er rhythm. the intention being to write a jack wild penny dreadful style ballad about bad behaviour in a celebratory but sardonic vein (think mack the knife). it is of course important that no names attach to this song - it is not his intention to do the work of the police for them (heaven forefend).

thursday he should probably buy an e-bow on his journey into town - horsemouth was listening to his use of it on his recordings with goatboy (it's a pretty cool racket!).

'success lies buried in the garden of failure' (jolly's green)

this is of course a new age re-rub of 'success is on the far side of failure' by thomas j. watson (the founder of IBM) - you could have something to say about IBM's involvement in the third reich but horsemouth here looks at the garden, he looks at the buried. he's a bit of a sucker for new age exhortations. 

horsemouth was listening to a documentary about jeff buckley (where it crops up) - he has a great voice, he's a pretty boy and  he's a good guitarist too, you can hear the jimmy page influence. at one point, having been successful (because you want people to hear your music) he returned to playing secret gigs in folk clubs and coffee houses because he wanted to experiment and try something out.

"There was a time in my life not too long ago when I could show up in a cafe and simply do what I do, make music, learn from performing my music, explore what it means to me, i.e., have fun while I irritate and/or entertain an audience who don't know me or what I am about. In this situation I have that precious and irreplaceable luxury of failure, of risk, of surrender. I worked very hard to get this kind of thing together, this work forum. I loved it and then I missed it when it disappeared. All I am doing is reclaiming it."

he died in the wolf river near memphis, an accident they say, battling the second album, making demos on a 4-track.

horsemouth has an ugly voice, and he's old and ugly and his guitar playing is not what it once was (say it's not so people) -  but there are still lessons horsemouth takes from buckley - one is good tune selection for your covers, find songs you can do something with, range widely, another is to work what you have, if lush chordage is your thing go for it, but keep developing it. 

horsemouth can sing low and he can do that half speech/ half singing johnny cash thing, whilst harmonies are (currently) beyond him he can manage a creditable unison backing vocal in many registers. (frankly he should probably just go and get some lessons but he's probably not going to do that). on the plus side his choice of covers is exemplary (je te veux, blue crystal fire, silver raven, the werewolf, a luna yo mi voy),  he writes (or co-writes) a nice wordy song (the devil song, gentleman john, all my dreams), his slide playing (whilst neither inventive or immaculate) gives good texture (golden one, dorothy) he should put a bit more effort into his arranging and picking, work an instrumental into the set. 

a friend has pointed out that there isn't really an italian word for assertiveness (and so, it follows, that there is no equivalent of assertiveness training) - it's just what you are expected to do. horsemouth worries that he's not assertive enough when it comes to the things that matter to him.

horsemouth is reading the physics of finance (james owen weatherall - tales from the crypt - one quid fifty) about how probability distributions took over finance, the common people, byng's tours, his educational researches are on the backburner. the weather has gone rubbish. horsemouth is beginning to be bored. when he is bored enough he will do some work on his singing, his playing and his songs.

june's books

after london: wild england - richard jefferies.

the major works - sir thomas browne (introduction),

life on the mississipi river - mark twain,

celebration of awareness  - ivan ilich,

journey through britain -  john hillaby,

the hill of dreams - arthur machen,

tales of hoffman - eta hoffman (part inc. sandman)

the war - marguerite duras,

the oxford book of the sea - (started)

'if you don't ask you don't get'

'if you don't ask you don't get'  would be horsemouth's motto (perhaps together with the  experiential 'you don't know until you try' ) but sadly he would also have to admit that 'you can't always get what you want'  features heavily in his life. not that horsemouth is a buccaneering pirate adventurer you understand but he would like to be more so. horsemouth suspects that if you're having to ask things are not too clever already (not that that wouldn't stop him from asking you understand). 

horsemouth will soon be 50 - once he has celebrated this event he will begin lying about his age (or at least being economical with it), not everyone needs to know after all - horsemouth would like to afford people the opportunity of not being ageist - just because he's a hobbling balding greybeard there's no reason to aassume he's clapped out, past it and fit only for the knackers yard.

for some reason horsemouth is up and about early. yesterday horsemouth went to a demo while he didn't do any samba drumming he did sing loudly at various points (he was in fine fettle). the marketisation of education thus resisted thence to the pub for a sneaky couple of pints in the rain.

what would horsemouth do if there were no beachside donkey rides to organise his work for him? probably get better paid for less work by cutting out the middle man. but he would then face the terrible situation of having to find his own work. saturday there's a party. in a few weeks time horsemouth is off to catsit the house on the north circular - he should get away and travel more (he knows this) but so far this summer the weather has been good. today it is rainy and grey in the seaside towns but the sun is shining in hereford and brighton.

oh well - what wll horsemouth ask next?

album cover

outside it is a bright sunshiney morning - horsemouth is saving up these memories for winter when he will be walking up the beach back and fore, back and fore with a fat child on his shoulders in the pissing wind and rain, probably shivering with fever.

after a busy couple of days new improved horsemouth was feeling tired out and sleepy - after babysitting at J and D's (and a late night whiskey fueled songster session) horsemouth rose early in the morning to walk over to his brother's. the day's planned activity was shopping so horsemouth returned via steamtrain to clapton and called in on howard.

the business of the day was to work on the album cover for the musicians of bremen - here are some contenders (though they may not win through in the end) another task for the day was to finalise the track listing, assign IDE(?) numbers etc. - all of this is howard's area much more than horsemouth's but it didn't stop him from eating a hearty breakfast to fuel him for it and sticking his oar in.

tracklisting is a bit of a bone of contention - howard had one (but lost it) featuring all the tracks recorded by musicians during the recording season, horsemouth had an earlier one that he and howard agreed that he thinks would function well as a song-cycle (thus permitting the argument that they should be listened to all together - in a violation of current listening habits).

horsemouth returned home on the official burnt toast celebrated 425 bus. he then fiddled and snoozed his way through the evening, installing the CD rack he'd picked up as a beer trophy even before they played their gig, at one point even cooking (potato and chick peas). the flat needs a hoover and a tidy round, horsemouth needs to buy in some more food (tick- done). he should resist the urge to go and buy more books (fail). tomorrow he is demonstrating again - the phony war following the credit crunch is over, the cuts have finally made their way through the bureaucracy to horsemouth' s area of activity (beachside donkey rides).

the man who fell to earth (atlantis and mir)

horsemouth is up early - musicians of bremen played (people seemed to like it), he thanks gertrude for inviting them and people for coming and bohemianaut nick DD for doing the sound (and of course all the people who went 'BOOM - Tschack' as requested) . after playing he (to mix metaphors) hung around for a bit decompressing and then (still full of adrenaline) walked home.

as usual with horsemouth's psychic economy having had a success he is busy converting it into a failure - once again he has not been declared god emperor of the universe and instituted universal concubinage - he must be doing something wrong. 

yesterday there was a lot of hanging around - horsemouth went up to chateau bremen to rehearse at 1pm - but they didn't really need to and were then stuck hanging around for the rest of the afternoon. where to play next (that's the question), where is that next gig coming from. but also how to get the music to the people so that people will actually hear it. 

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at the end of the space race astronauts and cosmonauts shook hands through the open hatchway between space shuttle atlantis and the space station mir and then... it was over.

the late night life of trains (interior emigration)

“The fact that life has no meaning is a reason to live—moreover, the only one.” e.m.cioran

 so horsemouth went to see the owl service play in a fisherman's chapel in leigh-on-sea - and very good they were too, beginning with the first song from the wickerman and then gingerly picking through the rest of their back catalogue. for horsemouth it's the harmonies that make them - the combination of the women's voices - the use of a drone box is smart, the bass playing unobtrusive, the guitar playing supportive.

elsewhere there was a mismatch that ewan macoll would have divined between the singers speaking voices and their singing voices and song topics - the girl with the anne briggs voice (fran mortimer) spoke purest essex, the girl with the poshest accent (country parish music) sang a song of hiring fairs (at which the staff for big houses were hired). you are wolf were enjoyable, live multitracking a sort of kate bush sound. alison o'donnell of mellow candle and flibbertigibbet back in the day was clearly a hardened performer with a new album to promote. she was backed by firefay - good band, on the money, the guitarist's guitar died halfway through the set (until that point he'd sounded very portishead - a compliment in horsemouth's world) - their own set earlier had an indistinct mix which was a pity.

(horsemouth doesn't know enough to comment really so please don't take his characterisations as gospel). horsemouth and john dived back and forth between the two rooms but if your name's not here horsemouth didn't see you (well ok crafting for foes, steve ashley you were good).

leigh-on-sea itself (the old town) was a pretty-ish ramble beset by salt flats and estuarine mud (the water far away), boats plied their trade at canvey island opposite (those little white dots - caravans). it was a seaside town (as john noted) and so should fit in well with horsemouth's mumblings - being the kind of place horsemouth has said he wants to 'retire' to (and to which he has already in some ways made the interior emigration).

on the train on the way back two drunken care assistants from an old people's home had found a black woman from texas and were questioning her with true essex enthusiasm (houston she said, 'euston' replied one uncertainty), they blundered about well-meaningly, she handled them with glamorous aplomb, they got off at benfleet (connections to canvey island). their seat (not that they used it being too enthusiastic) was taken by a punk gentlemen (piercings, spiky collar) with four anxious basset hounds - soon the woman from houston was cooing to them. horsemouth pretended to sleep before saying goodbye to john and getting off at limehouse.