the funeral music (and requiem) for takoma john fahey

there is a requiem for mississippi john hurt but then there’s also a requiem for john hurt, but then there’s a funeral song for mississippi john hurt - they are all by john fahey. this is what happens when you don’t keep track of your versions, or your titles (or even the master tapes of your recordings). sooner or later these tunes will end up all sequed together with other tunes anyway.

purcell suffers with the same problem - his music for the funeral of queen mary (first performed march 1695) also gets variously titled (when it’s not being played on synthesizers by wendy carlos for the soundtrack of a clockwork orange). just as many hymn tunes are either lifted from popular songs or go on to become the tunes of popular songs so purcell recycled this music as part of incidental music for thomas shadwell's play the libertine.

holy mountain mission (montreal 2009 probably now paying as part of Ol Savannah) and gwenifer raymond (brighton 2018) have variously attempted fahey-esque songs under the title requiem for john fahey.

horsemouth has had a crack at a funeral music (originally intended to be a funeral music for john fahey and robbie basho - but horsemouth decided the title was way too long). this was a retroactive title (when he realised quite how much he’d lifted from john fahey for it). he’s lifted next to nothing from robbie basho for it (but he felt that basho deserved being honoured anyway).

there is little in horsemouth's repertoire that is fahey-esque anyway (horsemouth is no longer much of a finger picker and instrumentalist, he's much more interested in singing.


horsemouth is of the opinion that modern horror films are rubbish - here's a clip from the original version of suspiria  to prove his point (soundtrack by the mighty goblin).

‘the triumphant cries of her frenzied murderers and the music of their harps’

the beetle is nearly done - soon dastardly magical foreigners will have been beaten back, victorian values will have been restored and everyone will be safely married. (there will be no more frenzied murders, no more harp playing and no more hot foreign climes).

horsemouth is up and onto his second coffee - the heating is on, or has been on (and very pleasant it is too). outside the sun is making valiant attempts to pierce through the morning murk (later it will be successful and we will have a bright autumnal day. horsemouth has survived his week at work (he celebrated with a bottle of beer and a spaghetti) - the invaders is back on the horror channel (in the spot previously reserved for under the dome). he has a mere four weeks to serve of his sentence (before he can go back to being really poor), then the winter solstice celebrations, the january doldrums (when the work is thin on the ground), groundhog day to the spring equinox (the slow climb back up into the light).

later he walked up through the valley of the agapemonians to walthamstralia - a little second hand book shopping maybe.

 results (total walk 9.2 km)


the firebird - children's book (illustrated by igor yershov and ksenia yershova), two squid - local charity shop and, continuing with the ‘ reading la comedie humaine’ project,

the unknown masterpiece - honore de balzac, nyrb edition - two squid (oxfam).

horsemouth is acting like he has money (by spending it) - but of course he doesn’t have the money, it’s his younger self who has the money (and sadly there is only a limited supply of his younger self to be had). quite what the timescale is on this is not yet clear. 

sunday horsemouth will be transporting his mother across the seaside towns.

horsemouth hadn't realised - it's gene clark's birthday.

‘who is this fine fellow, playing fine devilish tunes?’ (ornithology, death and despair in south london)

horsemouth is back from his mission.

how did it go? it went well (thanks for asking). thanks to lou, annie, myk, zoe and nick for coming out, thanks to martin howard and the others at water into beer for putting him on. (special thanks to lou for getting him the gig).

martin played first - ornithological themes (well ornithology, death and despair), e.g. at the ornithologist’s arms (a song of the type imaginary boozer). then he played as part of a duo as S+M, tainted love, you’ve got the love big songs of emotion ably sung.

then it was horsemouth’s turn.

after some internal debate he opened with the gospel blues satan (your kingdom must come down) - it took him a while to find his feet with this one (largely because he’d started too fast and forgotten to pick up his slide and... well because he was out of practice not having played since last friday 13th). basically this tune functions as an opportunity to talk to the audience and to see if they will sing (as usual many of the audience were better singers than horsemouth).

then (if memory serves) horsemouth played his ‘mercifully brief’ slide guitar instrumental ‘when the faun met alice’, then (swapping to the nylon strung guitar for reasons of pseudo-variation) the werewolf (an opportunity to see if the audience will howl like wolves), he then briefly digressed on folkways records and michael hurley. thence the devil (which horsemouth can now only hear with the bass on it, or rather he notices that the bass is not there) followed by an explanation, then worldes blisse (a chance to make the audience miserable). essentially these are the bedrocks of horsemouth’s set.


then (with a little time on his hands) gentleman john got an airing (this time it went well - the previous time it had been an impossible torture), crisis in the credit system got its first airing and horsemouth played mark linkous (sparklehorse)’s painbirds (in keeping with the nights themes of ornithology, death and despair). he then indulged in some onstage retuning - his least favourite thing - and finished with her hair like some glittering gold aka. la fille au cheveux de lin a debussy piano piece mistranslated onto slide guitar in open g tuning (again a first).

horsemouth tried to flog some CDs (but no one was interested). he retired to the back of the room to drink beer.



last on - bity booker - imagine joan baez as your nursery school teacher singing you songs about parrots, parokeets and sparrows, ok it wasn’t all ornithology, there was a song about a pony and a song about a mouse and she ended up with malvina reynolds’ (not pete seeger’s - as she pointed out) little boxes. she has a great voice - capable of going from a loud yet intimate whisper to a wide vibrato, and an admirably clear and practiced guitar style. horsemouth was impressed.

then the train back home and a walk and a falafel wrap as his reward.

a few things had to happen (zombie nation)

a few things had to happen for horsemouth to make his discovery

first someone in horsemouth's hood had to potlatch out their old copies of new left review

second horsemouth had to fail to find his preferred book this morning and so selected a volume of the above from the stacks in his rush to get out the door -

finally he had to have the long slow bus journey back...

and what should he read in julian stallabrass's article on the mute magazine anthology 'proud to be flesh'. (you will remember horsemouth has an article in it zombie nation).  the quote here has been doctored to assist his anonymity.

'her (josephine berry's) concerns were shared by horsemouth in an essay on the close connection between enterprises selling film and music, as the commodity basis of those media is challenged, and the art world move to 'relational aesthetics' in which social interactions are taken as artworks. horsemouth's essay put the problem sharply because art and business have been emulating each other closely, and the gap is shrinking from both ends.' 

cue horsemouth doing his "I'm a published author' dance - once again he wishes to thank his mute (and non-mute friends) josie, anthony, ben, matthew, anya, tim,denise, martin denyer, darsavini, is there anyone he's forgotten? for encouraging him on this path and providing him with the opportunity to vent.

he is reminded of the time one of his other mute articles was one of the sources for an art lecture he was attending - fortunately is co-workers and the client failed to notice. (otherwise it might have been embarrassing).

it’s all available online anyway - www.metamute.org

meanwhile the nation stomps on towards the finishing line of brexit (yes, like a zombie). and afterwards? we’ll be out in the fields picking potatoes.

horsemouth should hurry up and sort out his set for saturday (he’d forgotten he has the devil to p(l)ay).

first gig of november (dayight music)

yesterday horsemouth went out to see gwennifer raymond play (excellent as usual) and then a vocal ensemble echo - there was some thomas tallis, some meredith monk, some hildegard of bingen, something in old french (horsemouth did not catch the title) and was that a jocelyn pook with the smiths’ there is a light that never goes out on top of it.

this last one horsemouth is dubious about (he thinks it is crowd pleasing - and he thinks this is a bad thing).

horsemouth didn’t hang around for group listening (the next lot on - sorry dudes) - he’d bumped into some friends mike (no lou), andy, kate and their eldest nesta - mike headed off, andy, kate, nesta, your humble narrator headed off to brick lane for some s-h-o-p-p-i-n-g and a catch up. kimi (mike and lou’s youngest) showed up later. shoreditch swirled round them - horsemouth finds himself out of sympathy with the modern marketplace.

horsemouth has a gig coming up himself (i.e. one that he will be playing at) and yesterday evening he got out the guitar tuner (one of the clamps has snapped so he has to hold it to the guitar), dug around in his (various) guitar cases for his slide (unseen for many a month), and stuck some new strings on the slide guitar (initially just a g but as the result of a tuning disaster a new treble e as well). it’s sounding very nice and bright and this inspired horsemouth to put in some practice.

so all the slide guitar things first;

girl with the golden hair (horsemouth will have to retune onstage for this), satan (your kingdom must come down), when the faun met alice, funeral music, the worldes blisse (all from the third album), sorrows of tomorrow (from the first), crisis in the credit system (petit mal cover). if he plays all of these it will be the first outings for girl..., funeral music and crisis (he forgot to sing it last time).

and the songs in standard tuning;

the werewolf (for sure - michael hurley, but more in the cat power style) er... well he also tried you and your sister (clive bell but more in the this mortal coil way), return of the grievous angel (probably not a runner), painbirds, sometimes our dreams (float like anchors), all of these are much more tentative at the moment. there are more possibles - he was singing loudly. it was good to be back playing.

books, gigs, films october 2018

 books

•  de profundis (the decay in the art of lying) - oscar wilde, 
• claire bishop article 'palace in plunderland' - art forum, 
• bluffer's guide to winnicott (start) - adam philips, 
•  bluffer's guide to samuel beckett - a.alvarez (all), 
• the wolfman (a little), 
• nina power article in art review on sickness, 
• cloud atlas - david mitchell, (nearly done), 
•  a victorian poacher - james hawker's journal (started), 
• watchmen (first episode and dips), 
• the willows - algernon blackwood (story and preface) 

 films sympathy for the devil - godard, come hell or high water, deadpool, world war z, the fog (original and best), escape from LA (terrible), halloween (john carpenter's classic), the witch, delius- the song of summer (ken russell - part), hannibal rising, the black cat (fulci - italo-horror) 

gigs

•  gwennifer raymond, young waters, stick in the wheel and 
• the rantipoles (and various others) at scaledown 

 events

zbigniew herbert week, pizza with howard, benjamin exhibition, end of british summer time, samhain, lots of walking

in the spare hour between the summer and the winter (horsemouth to play south of the river)

horsemouth has just been out for pizzas with howard. he delivered to him the microphones, cables and two mic stands to permit more recording round howard’s new gaff.  howard (in the classic pattern) was ill with a cold all the half-term he had off.

sunday was bright and sunshine-y in the morning but the weather has gone cold. horsemouth awoke in the morning with a headache, he feels a bit run down and put upon.

such are the lives of fifty somethings in the metropolis.

brexit continues to be a debacle - horsemouth suggests only accepting payment in euros.

horsemouth is playing a solo gig (as musicians of bremen mind you) saturday 10th november in sunny south london - who wants it?  he should hurry up and tell people about it... here goes.


 It's Saturday, 10 November 2018 from 19:00-22:00
at waterintobeer 209-211 Mantle Road, SE4 2EW
London, United Kingdom

horsemouth/ musicians of bremen is on about 8.40 but please try to get there early for the other acts. he won't be playing anything fiddly - just his usual acoustic set - he will take some CDs to sell.