(ban)jolin, (ban)jolin... (to the tune of jolene)/ controversy on the american primitive scene

so horsemouth now has ayesha’s banjolin to play with. what a beast. that was his morning.

last night ayesha and horsemouth adjourned to a little pub round the corner from hers, sank two halves (an almost perfect amount of beer), and in mixture reminisced and cast a wary eye over the political situation. in the cold light of day the brexit party victory in peterborough has not come about (they’re still a protest vote phew). it all continues to be rubbish. social housing is not getting built.

emma (of emma and rob) was coming up to visit - horsemouth said to say hi.

in the day horsemouth wandered eastwards as far as baker’s arms tescos and south/ westwards in a loop back, succeeding in getting lost, passing leyton parish church (closed for reclamations) and the almshouses, approaching the asda business park from the wrong direction.

it is the point of transition in horsemouth’s year where he has to learn to live without the structure of work, to set himself tasks, but also to go and do the things that are important rather than avoiding them (as is his wont). for the rest of the month? saturday he goes to pick up his guitars from howard’s (and perhaps pass on the banjolin to him). he needs to get up to his parents at some point, solstice on the 21st, probably leave time for the leigh folk festival. then it is the midpoint of the year.


horsemouth was recently involved in some controversy on the american primitive scene - over on john fahey some gentleman had taken against young american primitive guitarist gwenifer raymond’s playing (he wanted slow and contemplative rather than fast and furious, with taste there is no arguing).

consequently when horsemouth found a bbc wales mixtape show by gwenifer (one of her tunes followed by a mixture of welsh indie pre-war blues and such like) he thought it better to post over on american primitive guitar (which is much more the spot for young american primitives or people posting their own stuff). it got likes. it’s good stuff.

then, perhaps somewhat unwisely he mentioned that perhaps he might post it on john fahey too. only to be told that no john fahey should be left for john fahey.

at this point loads of people weighed in to defend horsemouth’s freedom of speech and right to post wherever he chose. (thank you people). having used the word controversy horsemouth found himself at the heart of a controversy. so far so cash from chaos - ‘create generation gaps’. (or indeed edward bernays’ crystallizing public opinion).

what horsemouth (free speech hero) should do now (of course) is advertise his own material - but he might wait a while until it appears less crass.

day 3 of the recording sessions for musicians of bremen volume 4

finally a day that doesn’t go so well.

to howards trip hop instrumental sitar horsemouth adds a guitar part similar to the reverend gary davis’s talking blues, a slide guitar part using an open D6 (dadfsharpab). he then adds a part in an open Dm6 (dadfab). he starts out full and thins it out towards the end. hopefully that’s enough to be working with.

howard has a john carpenter-ish instrumental to which horsemouth entirely fails to add anything useful (first on slide guitar and then on the resonator) - it has variable bar lengths i.e. it changes when it wants to (that’s its charm), horsemouth is reduced to a bad-tempered sweaty heap.

they then try to add a lap steel part to confiding in the evening star and it’s fine until the first drop (and thereafter horsemouth has lost the plot) but howard has added a really good melodica part that lifts the whole thing from this point.

thereafter they go for a walk down to the beach of self-expression through the sun-fried streets, on the way back they attempt to call into the gun for a pint (but it is busy), so they retreat to howard’s flat with a few bottles of beer and listen through a few songs, horsemouth attempts to convince howard of the virtues of hissing of the summer lawns - of self-conscious story telling songs, songs in a conversational register. horsemouth blows out not just one but two gigs (sorry lou, sorry matthew) eventually he loads up as many of the guitars as he can and heads off for home.

 he floats in liquid darkness.

recording musicians of bremen volume four

howard had posted over demo tracks (vocals and ukuleles) for  blue crystal fire and confiding in the evening star, both of which are sounding good and fried in reverb and delay.  there’s also a song called blind spot (for the moment) and some kind of drone thing called experiment. and there are loads of covers that could be done painbirds, turn your heater on, katie cruel, on the road again, even rain and snow could get a re-lick.

ok day one (sunday 26th may) of the horsemouth's guitar and vocal recordings

the tracks so far;

• katie cruel (taken a little fast truth be told). two guitars (tuned standard and daddad), a vocal each howard and horsemouth. (perhaps a little lap steel next). 
• confiding in the evening star. howard vocals and ukulele, horsemouth slide guitar, vocals on the chorus. not there yet (but coming along nicely). as an original song it will take a while longer to get it together. 
• blue crystal fire. ukulele and vocals howard. horsemouth, some tracks of e-bow guitar (a bit meh to be honest), acoustic guitar following the chords about (sightly discordant) sounding most elegant but a little darker than the original. once horsemouth had got a take down howard could hear the sense in it. 

day two (monday 27th may) horsemouth was round howard’s recording again. 

on sunday horsemouth had brought down the lap steel - he played two parts call and response on katie cruel with this and then they added a track of clapping to attempt to firm up the rhythm. (violin would be nice).

for confiding in the evening star horsemouth faked up an intro (based on the chorus) and this led him up and into the verse, he then got howard to extend out the song by another verse (they had not taken the precaution of recording it to click and so could not just copy and paste verses round the place) and essentially reprised the introduction through it. hence (for once) a more complicated structure than usual. again violin would be nice.

 the one they began fresh was painbirds

this they recorded to click - horsemouth did the guitar part on the paesold nylon strung guitar, then some vocals, howard did some vocals and then a double-tracked melodica part for the instrumental last verse. it’s a bit slow (but it might be better slow). horsemouth then doubled up some of the guitar with some from the resonator. it was sounding pretty decent by the time they had it done. (erm. violin maybe).

probably back to work saturday

books, films, gigs, events may 2019 (a little early as usual)

 books

• a voyage to lisbon - henry fielding 
• the signal and the noise (part) - nate silver 
• chronicle of the guayaki indians - pierre clastres (translated by paul auster)
•  the ancien regime and revolution - alexis de tocqueville (introduction and start) 
• road to wigan pier - george orwell (about half way) 
• cocteau - francis steegmuller 
•  masquerade and other stories - robert walser (intro and a few stories) 
• chav solidarity - d. hunter (first few chapters) 
•  bringing it all back home - ian clayton 

 films - berth 24 (1950- j.b.holmes) - songwriter (kris kristofferson, willie nelson) - cowboys and aliens - army of darkness (the medieval dead) - crazies (remake) - godzilla (2014) - alistair campbell on depression - first two episodes of 'the rivals of sherlock holmes' - plenty of other rubbish

 gigs

•  lankum and brighde chaimbeul - cafe oto 
•  me and my friends - qeh foyer 

 events recording with howard, john visits, european elections, jam with minty, cat sitting in london bridge, darsavini birthday

gnarly drone through giant orange stacks

so the lankum gig was good (if not quite as earth shattering as the first time he saw them) - jesus, we’ll have to seriously up our game.



lankum have radie peat’s voice and her harmonium drone - giant gnarly drone through two giant orange amplifier stacks (exactly the kind of amplifiers beloved by stoner doom bands and hated by roadies because of how heavy they are), but they also have a fantastic ability to harmonise and crucially they have the tunes (cold old fire in particular).

horsemouth likes the lankum version of katie cruel - but for his money you can’t beat the karen dalton version. horsemouth is a little unsure why he’s recording it himself. 

he also liked lankum’s political analysis ‘(I’m no economist but) we’re fucked. you’re fucked. we’re all fucked.’




brighde chaimbeul was on first - bagpipes, scottish tunes and bulgarian ones. that was pretty great also (would go well with laura cannell). horsemouth is not up on bagpipe terminology - is it the chanter that’s the pipe that the tune is played on then there are various drone pipes tuned by twisting them.

cheers to lou for getting the tickets (and for getting everyone there early so we could get seats). good to see everyone.

horsemouth dun voted (living with john fahey)

it is the anniversary not just of the deaths of clyde barrow and bonnie parker but also of the defenstration of prague that kicked off the 30 years war in europe.

meanwhile horsemouth voted for possibly the last time in a european election. it’s PR and it’s over ‘the seaside towns’, and how long the MEPs will actually sit in office (so how much of an effect they will have good or bad) is moot. we won’t know the results until sunday

it is off course getting messy in the uk, but it is getting messy in europe also - a generational shift is taking place between the europhiles and the eurosceptics. macron has arrived too late to play batman to angela merkel's robin. there’s a shift right-ward. there will be flag waving by the eurosceptic right who will do well in these elections - but actually, like the UK, it is not clear that the real levers of power in europe are in the european parliament anyway.

it is a vote with real consequences but horsemouth is happy to have it as a proxy second referendum - he just wants to get a sense of the actual distribution of forces. the brexit party will win big he thinks - even getting seats down into london and the south east.

the collapse of the nostalgically rebranded ‘british steel’ is a case in point - bought from tata (who’d milked the subsidies and bailouts and worker’s pension plans) by the venture capitalists of greybull for one pound, possibly unsaveable under european competition rules, possibly unsaveable under WTO competition rules, hoist on brexit uncertainties and carbon credits and in any event dirty old industry with 60 year old blast furnaces, its raw materials coming from abroad.

the real issue (for horsemouth)  is the vampire squid subsidy farming capitalism of greybull and the like, the chronic short-termism of government. whatever is worth money of it will be saved out of the wreck, whatever subsidies that can be given will be farmed and then eventually it will go tits up yet again (to be rescued yet again and relaunched at yet a lower level). who will emerge as ‘the saviour of british steel’? - probably farage. go on - it’s just perfect.




'Some day they’ll go down together 
 And they’ll bury them side by side 
 To few it’ll be grief, to the law a relief 
 But it’s death for Bonnie and Clyde.' 
 Bonnie Parker, “The Story of Suicide: The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde.”

birdsong sunlight books (a wood pigeon)

yesterday was the first day horsemouth felt truly free. he sat in the back garden sunning himself (it’s still a little nippy). by the end of the day he was a little torched.

this morning he writes this (types this) with the window open but wearing a jumper with his sleeping bag covering his knees.

horsemouth has been reading paul auster’s translation of pierre clastres chronicle of the guayaki indians. the forests are full of dangerous animals that can kill, the nights full of malicious ghosts of former tribe members, the neighbouring tribes are all shunned and believed to be cannibals. then there is the white man and his dogs and guns. the ghosts are lonely in their wanderings in the land of the dead, they must given someone to keep them company or they will come and take someone, it is difficult to keep everyone fed, there is abortion and infanticide to keep the numbers low at the level the environment can support, disease comes and when it does the sick are simply left behind to die. 

‘although I have been back to paraguay several times, I have never seen the guayaki indians again. i have not had the heart to...’ clastres, a student of claude levi-strauss, died in a car accident in 77 0r 78. of the guayaki indians their numbers are in any event declining - soon, if not already, clastres realizes, they will be gone.

auster’s translation was not published when it was made. the only manuscript was lost (only to be recovered from a second hand bookstore bargain bin years later). now we have it. horsemouth found it in a charity shop - not the manuscript but a fully bound paperback book pulbished by faber and faber, they were presumably emboldened by the subsequent success of auster as a novelist.

 ‘no matter that the world described in it has long since vanished, that the tiny group of people the author lived with in 1963 and 1964 has disappeared from the face of the earth. no matter that the author has vanished as well. the book he wrote is still with us... a small triumph against the crushing odds of fate...’