alternative communities in 19th/20th/ 21st century england and america

horsemouth's connection to the world wide communion is down from home at least (he types this in the library). keep up the good work cyber munchkins.

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later/ earlier - horsemouth is in exile from the world wide communion and is typing this in a word processor programme (remember those). It may be that this is eventually posted on the web (soon horsemouth hopes) in which case he will have to go through and remove the auto-corrected capitalisation or risk looking like he is yelling at you (never his intention). communes (curiously) sin deeply in grauniad land because they violate the sanctity of the family and private property. they remind the reader of their mortgaged ideals rather than mature complaisance. (think Tőnies use the gemeinschaft versus gesellschaft distinction in Communities and Association (1974)).

horsemouth was sad to read of the collapse of an apocalyptic commune in scotland and the time spent by the founder in a lunatic asylum (or whatever the current term is) … later he read that the founder was an apostate lacanian and university lecturer who had been disciplined by his college after showing one of his students an article about fellatio in fruit bats. But is this not (in its modern incarnation) merely a rerun of the end Henry Allos's potato growing commune Allopia that ended messily and with a spell of mental illness for the founder. To review the lecturer's mea culpa (how dare he imply that capitalism is not sustainable and it will all end badly?) the Grauniad hired (do they still pay book reviewers?) another commune dweller whose own mea culpa is out in June. (dylan evans/ tobias smith)

horsemouth has been spending time in the library ('where we bury the lies') with dennis hardy's Alternative Communities in !9th Century England.

on his journey to the library horsemouth has been reading gabriel josipovici's goldberg: variations – which reads like a survival from borges time - writer hired to write and read for an insomniac philosopher (a tale each night) – familiar locations and topics, skara brae, ring of bro(d)gar, maes howe, venice, the wild boy of aveyron (L'enfant sauvage), odysseus.

this morning horsemouth wandered off in search of museli - 3kgs. he then tried halcyonandon returning with selected writings from the american transcendentalists (in a signet classic edition) - this includes a section on brook farm their not-so-long lived utopian commune and a piece by bronson alcott founder (with charles lane) of fruitlands another utopian commune.

 as hardy says in his introduction

'their ideals proved to be illusory, but their own existence was real enough.'

fade away

horsemouth (the fictitious character remember) would like to make it clear that he is literally the employee of beachside donkey rides - a firm offering children or larger adults a ride up and down the beech on the back of a genuine donkey (or mule) in the pissing wind and rain. he is not attempting any kind of satirical dialectical montage here.

ok horsemouth (cold, runny nose, grumpy) goes to be a performing monkey for the cameras in a room marginally larger than the average armpit - it will either be stifflingly hot or freezing cold. he is being photographed to prove that the institution is caring sharing organisation that complies with the provisions of the equality act (an umbrella piece of legislation covering the disability discrimination act - because you wouldn't want to give the disabled their own act - that would be special treatment). seeing as these are statutory requirements it is the equivalent of photographing a fire extinguisher and saying 'look how good we are to the cients of our institution, we generously provide equipment to stop them being burned to death'.

interestingly enough a while ago (in south london somewhere) some muppet judge in a housing benefit case destroyed the basis on which horsemouth is hired to do beachside donkeyrides work - no institutions do not have to make a 'reasonable adjustment' people (and small children) are required to walk up and down the beach on their own - but seeing as horsemouth and his colleagues are of the middle class and some of them even have salaries their jobs have not been immediately destroyed but merely allowed to continue on in a sort of ghost existence.

in fact the real attack comes from budget cutters - dyslexics in education seem to be the first target to have their support cut, next the deaf and disabled in work (yeah they're clearly uneconomic- let the state feed them - hey there are always food banks say the tory MPs). the business-trained managers of health, education and other services (always with their hand out) insist that each sector (at least) must pay its way.


there is annecdotal evidence that many of the better trained (sign language interpreters etc.) are leaving the sector as the agencies attempt to drive down pay and conditions - admittedly these were pretty fucking featherbedded but the people with mortgages (based on this feather bedding) believe they will do better elsewhere. horsemouth recently overheard a conversation where one was seriously considering becoming the manager of an aldi. on the beach by the waterfront where horsemouth works (beachside donkey rides - trolling up and down the beach in the pissing wind and rain) several donkeys have already been made redundant or redeployed to work down the mines.

the big temp agencies (ranstad etc.) are moving into the donkeyrides sector paying lower wages and providing unqualified staff (and some of them are not even donkeys) - by the time travel costs have been taken off we are pretty much looking at them being paid if not minimum wage than at least less than the seaside towns living wage (and anyway this is all on zero-hours contracts). as the song has it - there may be trouble ahead.

horsemouth (the working stiff) at least must concede that photographing him they are paying lipservice to a misty ideal of support. it creates the pleasant illusion that this may indeed be a right.

on the fine art of jumping ships and parting company

horsemouth is listening to musicians of bremen's debut album on shuffle on his (laughingly called) hi-fi . you can listen to and download these tracks - some of them are for download for free - at https://musiciansofbremen.bandcamp.com/.

it all sounds pretty good to him - the songs stand up (mostly) and none of the playing makes him wince. there's the odd level he'd fiddle with here or there (but he knows enough to know that people don't consciously register that stuff). it showcases john smith's singing and songwriting most effectively (which was its main aim) and the ukelele is a surprisingly effective instrument - these tracks are available on the sorrows of tomorrow and all my dreams EPs  on bandcamp (these are possibly the standout tracks). to download them you'll have to pay, though you can listen to them for free.

the cover versions (mostly collected on what a wonderful world) are (other than the werewolf and what a wonderful world itself) nicely made but somewhat inessential - the werewolf, father death blues, a la luna yo me voy having a horsemouth lead vocal don't really fit (if horsemouth's vocals had been kept for backing vocals on other songs more they might have worked better) , silver raven, blue crystal fire, would work to leaven the record but to leaven it would be to detract from its essential focus. I'm sad and I'm lonely works well (possibly the third standout track of the covers). 


horsemouth has learnt much from doing the project - he has (for instance) learnt that the werewolf works but father death blues doesn't, that you can't really have both silver raven and blue crystal fire (the arrangements are too similar), he's pleased with his lyric writing on the co-written all my dreams, his guitars are an essential part of the current arrangement on the golden one, sorrows of tomorrow and gently johnny. he's found gigs and he's played gigs (sometimes with very little warning, sometimes under difficult circumstances.

whether musicians of bremen reconvene at easter or not the musician of bremen can go forward - he has nothing to fear but fear itself.

and am I born to die?

'write.' - 'for whom?' - 'write for the dead whom thou didst love in the past.' - 'will they read me?' - 'nay' 

this was the motto with which soren kierkegaard planned to start his fear and trembling. another cheerful alternative was 'I had perished had I not perished.'

the preface begins in a recognisable tone too,

 'not merely in the realm of commerce but in the world of ideas as well our age is organising a regular clearance sale...' (see - it's uncanny!) 

kierkegaard even discusses an editor who will,

'slice the author into paragraphs, and will do it with the same inflexibility as the man who in the interest of the science of punctuation divided his discourse by counting the words, so that there were fifty words for a period and thirty five for a semicolon.' 

but before the main part of the book four tellings of the tale of abraham and isaac, each ending with a strategy for weaning babies and a homily.

horsemouth is back from a gig in a decommissioned asylum chapel in south london. he has a ton of CDs that he'll review sometime soon courtesy of stone tape recordings - the gig was in honour of alan lomax, his centenary event titled and am I born to die? the title of a charles wesley hymn popular in the appalachias-


meanwhile...

the owl service opened (good as ever - their version of fine horseman is indeed fine). gentlefolk proceeded (a little gentle for horsemouth's tastes but well played and sung), long pike hollow (piers haslam) a good young guitarist soundchecked with what sounded like fahey's poor boy and then went into a more robbie basho-like set (hey was that a bit of the black crows?), nancy wallace (who is moving to canada?) had already sung with the owl service and was to sing harmony with sharron kraus later) great, really good, lost harbours (like an improv-ey take on durruti column or, horsemouth doesn't know) with the poet justin hopper on the first song, and one of the other singers from the owl service on the second, 'we are you are wolf,' you are wolf announced themselves- possibly the only thing that was funky all day but not quite hitting that kate bush amazingness, sharron kraus great voice, great harmonies and squeeze box from nancy wallace. by now everything was overrunning by about 25 minutes so a short set from plinth (michael tanner)- violin, some bowed thing, accordeon, shruti, delayed fried vocal sample and live sampling and looping - drone.

'like all dreamers I mistook disenchantment for truth' (sartre)

'There are two ways of making investigations, one is to look at flowers on horseback and the other is to get off your horse and look at them. If you look at flowers on horseback, you'll only get a superficial impression, as there are so many.' - mao. 

mao admonishes the intellectuals to get off their horses and take a closer look - thence the 68'ers into the factories, horsemouth escaped this by becoming the horse.

horsemouth has been out to sunny northwick park. the library was very good. he read a little of alternative communities in 19th C. england by dennis hardy, which has photos of the agapemone commune at four forks, spaxton in somerset. there the poet david grubb (beneath the visiting moon) used to play organ as a boy and the class structure of victorian society was intended to be taken directly over into heaven (and indeed was as they all successively died off). earlier there was also a co-operativist commune just opposite mount pleasant sorting office (the co-operativist and economical society, spafields, clerkenwell 1821-24, george mudie, owenites (basically)).

horsemouth also read the introduction to althusser: a critical reader by gregory elliot. there were accounts of althusser's funeral, derrida quoted a passage from for marx, in fact from bertolazzi/ brecht the famous essay.

'Yes, we are first united by an institution – the performance, but more deeply, by the same myths, the same themes, that govern us without our consent, by the same spontaneously lived ideology. Yes, even if it is the ideology of the poor par excellence, as in El Nost Milan, we still eat of the same bread, we have the same rages, the same rebellions, the same madness (at least in the memory where stalks this ever-imminent possibility), if not the same prostration before a time unmoved by any History. Yes, like Mother Courage, we have the same war at our gates, and a handsbreadth from us, if not in us, the same horrible blindness, the same dust in our eyes, the same earth in our mouths. We have the same dawn and night, we skirt the same abysses: our unconsciousness. We even share the same history – and that is how it all started.' 

balibar noted that althusser wanted 'to be at once totally a philosopher and totally a communist'. 

later (camberwell) horsemouth killed more time in the library first with a guide to ranciere and his re-readings of the french utopians (and literary wannabees). these he used to split himself off from the althusserian project (he was one of althusser's disenchanted) - an icarian commune in egypt, who knew? a small green book in an odd format winked at him from the stacks, it was germano celant's the record as artwork (1977 fort worth art museum) - a photo essay on futurist, dadist, conceptual art recordings. it featured michael snow's musics for piano, whistling, microphone and tape recorder (seemingly the basis for the noise and capitalism book cover).

horsemouth's grandfather (on his father's side) was born yesterday in 1908 - at one point, just after the second world war there was a plan to go help found an agricultural commune in new zealand, but at the innaugural meeting in london horsemouth's grandfather realised he was the only one who knew anything about farming (so with that harsh yorkshire practicality that was that). it does however answer the key utopian question, 'how do you get to utopia? by rainbow or railway?'

you too could be this good (if you were just prepared to apply yourself)

horsemouth (like many an old man) has been waxing enthusiastic (nay sentimental even) over music. don't worry gentle peoples soon he goes to work and labour discipline will be restored.

the thing with morrissey is that he can make horsemouth laugh, he can make him cry and (just as often) he can annoy the fuck out of him all in the same song - morrissey is a knob and a racist (horsemouth cites 'bengali in platforms' from viva hate as evidence - 'life is hard enough when you belong here' fuck you morrissey) and horsemouth was never as keen on johnny marr's guitar playing as others were (but that's when he did his best work) - it's the songwriting that makes him but it's not just the songwriting that makes him - dylan is similarly a knob but his songs don't get horsemouth where morrissey's songs get him...

horsemouth feels that morrissey knows what horsemouth knows (and vice versa) and they're from the same place (even though he doesn't and they're not). horsemouth gets that same sense that he gets from old soul songs that someone has reached inside his chest and said what he wants to say but better than he could ever say it.



but just one other thing - here's jeff buckley singing 'I know it's over' and 'the boy with the thorn in his side' (beautiful young man, tragic death, beautiful voice) but it's not as good - it's the limitations of morrissey's voice (even though he has clearly worked on it) that make these songs so amazing.

one thing horsemouth notes is that morrissey can swap from (genuine) emotion in one line to northern epigramatic 'wit' in the next - it's the catches in language that he gets working for him, stop me if you've heard this one before, in the great tradition of songs (not) saying what they mean - this is why his best work is with johnny marr because the songs have enough musical energy to take you on and deliver their emotional charge when the singing has stopped. but also in the sense of the song texts being fragmentary - not fully through composed - not holding you to one subject position.

there is of course something different about an older morrissey and a crowd full of turkish women and english expats singing along with I know it's over (as on one clip of it on youtube) compared to just a young(ish) morrrissey singing it. as he has thickened out and grown older he has worked on his voice to become the crooner his songs called for.

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and so onto the sage of wimborne robert fripp - here what horsemouth likes is the abscence of emotion other than the pleasure of watching clever people do a smart thing very well - the sense of you too could be this good (if you were just prepared to apply yourself). horsemouth grew up in a difficult time for rock music, it was bill glover who introduced horsemouth to king crimson the record that worked best for horsemouth was red - a stripped down power trio engaged in a reformation of rock music away from the baroque, formulaic and lumpen excessess of nwobhm - the new wave of british heavy metal.



this fripp followed up with league of gentlemen and his frippertronics experiments and discipline. discipline is of course the sound of a death by drowning in talking heads envy (just as signals by rush is the sound of a power trio drowning in police envy) -

fripp had hired adrian belew (who'd worked with talking heads) both to produce the screams and glitches of talking heads guitar but also to do david byrne's nervy new yorker (10 parts caffeine to 1 part german expressionism). horsemouth loves the way the two guitars work together and the rest of the band works (god bill bruford - what a drummer!). later this populist impulse fails and we are just left with immaculate shining technique... and the result is very boring.

horsemouth realises this is a harder sell - compared to the smiths and morrissey  it has the disadvantage of making the work and thought that went into it obvious (indeed that's its selling point) you too could be this good (if you were just prepared to apply yourself). it is an idea of music making as work and as craft.

but similarly if you were prepared to apply yourself to the craft of song writing you too could be as good as morrissey.

sample footnote from a russian novel - ''life is beautiful' quotation from mayakovsky (who committed suicide aged 30)'.

this is why russians are geniuses.

horsemouth (you remember him don't you?) is back with you again having worked (3 hours actual work - two and a half walking in and back). tomorrow he does the same (ok a bit more) with less walking, friday is some hellbooking in the wild west (jesus fucken' christ - the north west - they probably have fucken' snow out there) and horsemouth still with some cough and cold thing. next week he's back to his regular bread and butter bookings (hopefully).

the footnote quoted as the title is from benedict erofeev's moscow circles - a samizdat novel the phrase for 'self-published' would be sam izdatel'stvo, by analogy with the state publishing house gosizdat this became samizdat. as benedict notes the first production run (of one) sold out immediately. the town name omutishche is translated as 'slough of despond' (but slough would probably do it). in the uk the translation was published by writers and readers (it even still has the reviewer copy press release lettter still inside it probably from october 1981).

horsemouth is tired and headachey and the light is poor - he may snooze.

today horsemouth did a preferred learning styles survey - he scored zero as a 'reflector', he doesn't reflect on what happens - this is quite interesting don't you think? (the learning styles are -activist, reflector, theorist, pragmatists). horsemouth simply doesn't care - whatever is behind him is in the past - onto the next thing. (but maybe he only says that)....

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if horsemouth remembers correctly one of boris pasternak's autobiographies (safe conduct) ends with the death of mayakovsky - ah he's found it - here it is -

 'Suddenly, outside, underneath the window I imagined I saw his life, which now already belonged entirely to the past. I saw it move obliquely from the window like a quiet tree-bordered street resembling the Povarskaya. And the first to take its stand in this street, by the very wall, was our State, our unprecedented and unbelievable State, rushing headlong towards the ages and accepted by them for ever. It stood there below, one could hail it and take it by the hand. Its palpable strangeness somehow recalled the dead man. The resemblance was so striking that they might have been twins. 

And it occurred to me then in the same irrelevant way that this man was perhaps the State’s unique citizen. The novelty of the age flowed climatically through his blood. His strangeness was the strangeness of our times of which half is as yet to be fulfilled. I began to recall traits in his character, his independence, which in many ways, was completely original. All these were explained by his familiarity with states of mind which though inherent in our time, have not yet reached full maturity. He was spoilt from childhood by the future, which he mastered rather early and apparently without great difficulty.'