announcements and endings (parts I,II,III) (confiding in the evening star)

hmm. facebook has some news for horsemouth. 

announcements and endings part I 

'Paul, creating and editing notes will be unavailable after October 31. We know your posts are important, so any published notes will stay published on your timeline. However, any unpublished drafts will be deleted.' 

the drafts can go. horsemouth can of course merely write his drivel on the front page of facebook  (as a comment) or he can write from exile from the sunny land of blogspot (where he has been archiving his kipple for a number of years already). 

of course this reminds horsemouth of the myspace blogpost dieback of 2013. when all of a sudden myspace died (after a brief spell as my______) taking 6 years of horsemouth’s blogging with it. after remonstration myspace emailed the complainants their blogs. thank you myspace decently handled. you have my thanks. you will be fond in my memories. 

facebook however, continues to be more problematic. (it's evil horsemouth. just admit it)

the change to new facebook about a month ago marked a radical limitation of your ability to access your historical material - wheras before your could nip back to 2010 month by month to look at what you were posting then now all you can get a access to is a list of your blog posts going back only as far as your connection permits (probably about a year). a change sprung with no consultation. 

if facebook disappear even that button all that will be left is scrolling back through your timeline to find your posts. it is ok facebook. (though if you are reading this facebook the offer of a text document containing all horsemouth’s blog posts (similar to the offer made by myspace) would be nice). 

horsemouth is a philosophical mule. the main benefit to him of writing the diary entries (let’s at least be honest about that - it is a diary) occurs when he writes it (the reading and re-reading it later and much later are added bonuses). he can always write more of it. 

for a while horsemouth has been having to go through a fair old palaver to post - over to the notes page (found from a scroll down list on the homepage), click write new post etc. 

horsemouth wonders if he shouldn’t instead get into physically writing (pen and ink) a physical diary again. now horsemouth keeps various work diaries (before he worked - during the great unemployment - he kept a rehearsal diary of his band bush house). indeed he has a box of such diaries going back the best part of 20 years. but they are paltry things, doodles, times and initials, commonplaces and quotations from whatever he happens to be reading at the time, the monthly list of films seen, distances walked. stuff horsemouth will brag about later. 

horsemouth likes such pseudo-organisational workings. 

 announcements and endings part II 

ladies and gentlemen ‘confiding in the evening star’ the final release from the musicians of bremen recording campaign 2019-2020 may not just be the final release from the musicians of bremen recording campaign 2019-2020. it may be the final release ever. 

the reasons lie deep in the psyche of howard and horsemouth. howard is a put-the-show-on-right-here type guy, a downsize and out, abrupt ending kind of guy, horsemouth is a rehearsals, archive and continuity type guy. but essentially with howard’s new job as head of art (and his need to move because he is getting evicted), he doesn’t have time for it. plus he has other plans. 

really the best person to ask about howard’s motivations is howard. 

similarly for horsemouth the coronavirus epidemic has meant that he hasn’t been very keen to go down howard’s to rehearse or play web gigs and of course it has utterly wiped out the possibility of playing live gigs. 

horsemouth would gladly stick the toys back in the cupboard until next year (it’s where they were going anyway) and then resume if there is anything to be done. it won’t be the first time musicians of bremen has ended. horsemouth has done solo gigs (and gigs with guest spots) as musicians of bremen, the musician of bremen and so on. he has also played duo gigs with howard (sometimes adding an additional musician - nick doyne-ditmas for example down at water into beer).

the horsemouth/ howard duo line up has been one of the best working set-ups horsemouth has ever had with another musician and has generated some of horsemouth’s best work ever. 

howard will return with a series of releases of his electronica from the 2000s towards the end of the year. horsemouth is off to make a movie, then he will be woodshedding to consolidate a repertoire for his eventual live re-appearance and initiating/ re-committing to some other projects. there was a promise made to record lou at some point (that may still happen). 

of course musicians of bremen is kind of like spartacus - in that all the rebels are spartacus, in that all farm animals seeking something better than death (via a career in the music industry in bremen despite the handicap of their utter lack of talent) are musicians of bremen. 

horsemouth (canny mule that he is) is moving into franchising. as to part III - horsemouth can’t say yet.  

on the last day of september/ the first day of october (the tail of the scorpion has a sting in it)

the equinox has been and gone, horsemouth, and half the world, move into winter. 

the air is colder and thus can only support smaller droplets of moisture from human breath that may carry the virus. thus the droplets travel further with a cough or a sneeze. it is winter when people are more generally inside in confined spaces staying warm and breathing on each other. when people are more likely to take public transport. when people are more likely to have other respiratory diseases causing them to cough and sneeze and distribute the new virus more widely. 

 coughs and sneezes (spread diseases) 

but  we have survived this far. (huzzah) 

a friend quipped of a difficult/ unprofitable piece of reading that he’d read it in the next lockdown, maybe. 

horsemouth laughed and then realised that it is on its way (imminently) 

stay (the fuck) home mutters horsemouth. knowing that this is truly effective messaging. knowing that his plan for the day and the weekend is not this.

at the start of the crisis there was a brief (socially distanced) visit from mike T, asked of his opinion of the crisis he remarked that by the end of it we will all be better people. which is as dry a summation of the situation as can be managed

so what is in horsemouth’s diary for january; 

1, coronavirus second spike accelerates post the students coming home for christmas 

 2. brexit food shortages 

 3. fall of the USA 

horsemouth found another giallo the case of the scorpion’s tail by the same guy who made all the colours of the dark. both of them begin in 70ies london but the scorpion’s tail rapidly decamps to 70ies athens. once again the soundtrack has it’s moments. 

interestingly the plot resolution that is offered to us does not seem to match the footage used earlier (hence the sting in the tail), the camera has been lying to us. 

horsemouth could only find a version in italian so he’s guessing about the plot really. it’s not as heavily art directed as the argento films (they are the top of the line for this sort of thing) but there are some satisfying moments. 

this weekend horsemouth goes to shoot his/ suke/ enza’s dancing about architecture film. the shooting script arrived via facebook messenger last night. rather than film the sequences in the order they will eventually appear in the film it often makes sense to film them in an order that saves work. 

horsemouth does his bit to ensure domestic transmission

horsemouth is back from sunny pop(u)lar. he was not recognised by soon-to-be-evicted disgruntled tenants and torn limb from limb (next time maybe). 

just as the director of the wickerman stunned his cast by suddenly announcing that they were not making a horror movie, as many had thought, but a musical, so horsemouth stunned enza by announcing that they were not making a magical film in the style of kenneth anger but in fact remaking a british children’s cartoon series called mr.benn. 

every episode mr. benn would go into the fancy dress shop and try on a costume - he would then have a magical adventure. but eventually the shop keeper would come and get him and the adventure would be over for the week. 

when they had finished working i.e. dressing up in silly costumes and photographing themselves and arranging all the statuary in the place as if they were guests at a party - enza gave horsemouth a glass of mulled wine to send him off out the door. 

horsemouth wandered downstairs to howard’s (pausing to drop off a copy of musicians of bremen volume four with howard’s next door neighbour darsavini - who was well). there they drank beer and played a little music and listened to a little music - reflection eternal’s respiration (with the great verse by common), company flow’s track that lifts run-dmc’s dance to the rhythm and rime and co(ld) flow, emmylou harris (and ricky skaggs)’s the darkest hour is just before the dawn, ennio morricone’s theme to il gran silencio, the beatles michelle my belle and, to kick it off, juliette greco and ibrahim maalouf’s version of la javanese. 

 thereafter horsemouth wandered back up the hill (pausing at wick fisheries to get a bag of chips to refuel). 

“writing about music is like dancing about architecture” - quote attributed variously. to frank zappa, thelonious monk, brian eno, miles davis, elvis costello, (and gore vidal) people generally considered to be smart (for the music industry). 

nonetheless this is horsemouth’s plan - not the writing about music bit (he’s done that already at length) but the dancing about architecture bit. he goes to memorialise a mural. the wrecking ball is coming. the high rise will fall (or be left like a giant rotting tooth). very little will be saved out of the wreck. 

walking in and walking back out again is distinctly part of horsemouth’s practice. 

famous brutalist concrete (and a james bond villain) saved the balfron. but being named after an outlaw got robin hood gardens destroyed. the destruction of social housing on the nearby aberfeldy estate goes unremarked because it’s not in brutalist concrete. on chrisp street market the festival of britain reaches its predestined end (obsolescence - neglect - destruction - regeneration as a playground for yuppies just at the point when they no longer need to be there). 

once again the timing is all wrong out east. maybe it will take so long to redevelop it will come to be seen as a signal of hope rising from the ashes. 

he has some music (that he made last weekend with suke). ok he has the start of a plan. to make a film with enza and suke (to memoriaise the mural) 

horsemouth is the magician - he waves his magic wand. but his magic can’t save the block (or prevent the evictions). nor indeed can his magic put money in people’s pockets as the economic shock of the coronavirus epidemic hits and people lose their work (and there’s the winter and brexit to come). horsemouth’s magic is of very limited power. 

you’ve gotter larf incha. remarks horsemouth in his best mockney surveying the wreckage.yesterday horsemouth went to meet one person indoors in an enclosed space. monday he goes to meet more than 6 people in a garden (weather permitting). thereafter he will be ‘working from home’ until thursday where he may actually be ‘working on site’ (he will walk in and walk back out again). 

walking in and walking back out again is distinctly part of horsemouth’s practice.

“... a million poems in her voice”

juliette greco has died. 

the inspiration for the beatles michelle my belle, various philosophers (jean-paul sartre), the bob haircut, elaborate eye make-up, lover of miles davis, actress in jean cocteau's film orphée and the french horror tv series belphégor: phantom of the louvre that caused a moral panic by scaring children half to death in a dr. who stylee. 

initially it was her dog (bidet) that was famous as an actor. a famous french photographer (robert doisneau) shoots them both (but he’s there to shoot the dog really).  

yesterday a day off. horsemouth went out for a walk and paused to read the first few pages of benjamin’s essay on kafka. he read a little of howard barker’s arguments for a theatre. he listened to a demo CD for musicians of bremen volume four, the various EPs and the last single to come (release date october 4th).

‘there are two cardinal human vices, from which all others derive: impatience and carelessness’ - zürau aphorism no.3, franz kafka. 

horsemouth suppose he added kafka to his list of aphorists not so much because of his actual aphorisms (which horsemouth always forgets about) but because benjamin writes about him - but it's true kafka is not so much an aphorist, he's more of a parable-ist (think before the law etc.). but again you could accuse kafka of a willful obscurity both in stripping down the details to the barest outlines (where is all this action taking place? where is the castle?) and in terms of what the story is supposed to mean. 

horsemouth supposes there are the 109 zürau aphorisms of kafka, written from september 12th 1917 to april 1918 and published by the book-burner max brod in 1931, and the 41, culled from kafka’s diary written january 6 to february 29, 1920. we think of kafka as a novelist because brod did not do his job. 

horsemouth supposes his point was that both kafka and benjamin must be persevered with (but also you can read too much at one sitting of them and spoil your digestion).  . 

horsemouth has a slight cough and the sniffles. he has pretty much continuously had a sore throat since april (of and on). his sense of taste is as bad as ever. today he was to work from home (briefly) but it has been cancelled. friday he puts in a payclaim. saturday he goes to plan to film. monday he goes to a meeting in a garden (weather permitting). wednesday/thursday end of the month book and film lists. the danger is social transmission in the home.

a broken zither (the untuned lyre)

so horsemouth went round suke’s. lovely flat (cheers for the food). and they recorded. suke on drums mostly (a wonderful toy drum kit courtesy of andrew coram), horsemouth on guitar, ayesha’s banjolin, and a broken zither (courtesy of max). an antique and a broken one (the top plate has split, buckled and lifted blocking about half of the harp strings). 26 strings in the harp/ 5 strings in the 'guitar' by j.b. westermair (munchen) then 1a reichenbach strasse. 

the zither gave great swirling round inside a piano noise (but was considerably more portable). they recorded two improv’ed pieces (the march and the collapse of the tower), suke stereo panned the zither and also produced a sped up version of collapse of the tower. suke’s school recorder also made its way in there - tootling through the apocalypse. 

horsemouth then played a version of darktown strutter’s ball renamed high-rise strutter’s ball, guitar, banjolin, various voices, trumpet impersonation. suke on drums. of course for the party scene they still need lots of blah-blah -blah type speech. they still need the flaming sword motif and an aftermath for after the tower has collapsed. suke may have a piece for the aftermath. 

horsemouth wandered there across vicky park and the green bridge (and later he wandered back). humanity you are gorgeous in the sun (especially you two youth and beauty) but you should probably consider staying in more. what horsemouth needs to do is to learn to relax and enjoy the journey more. 

ok forward to the 26 th and the blocking rehearsal. today. horsemouth needs to go and bank a cheque (and he could probably do with going and collecting some PPE from work). he could also do with sending some emails to work out how the week’s work is going to be done. after yesterday’s sunshine and beauty the weather has suddenly gone all grey and rubbish.

bandcamp friday (04/09) occupy heaven (against the wastes of time)

first off it’s bandcamp friday (and it will be for the next 20 hours or so) when they waive their fees so that starving artists in their garrets, such as musicians of bremen,  can get the money they need in order to survive). coming soon the single but until then there’s a single, two EPs and an album to be had over at bandcamp, 

the CD is here too (as soon as horsemouth sorts out some production difficulties). 

david graeber of occupy has died (the coiner/populariser of the term the 99% - and once you have the term the 99% you also have the term the 1%). horsemouth never met him (as far as he can remember), he has only read his the democracy project (which he enjoyed). graeber does the great thing of linking the start of occupy in NY with the early revolutionary meetings of the american colonists of NY two hundred plus years earlier, where the american bourgeoisie rapidly realised they would have to do something to prevent democracy or they would be over run by people of no standing. graeber is smart enough to look beyond the bien-pensant middle classes to the people who really need democracy in america the poor. 

occupy itself started some interesting innovations in how activist meetings were handled and how political decisions were made. there was an attempt to bring the crowd to consciousness, to enable it to express and discuss and then act in a radical egalitarian fashion (continuations of work in non-violent direct action groups perhaps, innovations horsemouth was too cynical and jaded to appreciate). 

graeber's last/ latest book bullshit jobs: a theory horsemouth hasn’t read. vast chunks of our work under capitalism are just senseless wastes of time. look at the commute (destroyed by the coronavirus in less than a month). the jobs still being done are the ones we need. the bad news is that capitalism now knows it can liquidate those bullshit jobs and still make profits at a lower level of activity, the good news is that the workers in the non-bullshit jobs have a lot more power (and that capitalism will be actively working to concentrate that power in their hands in pursuit of a faster buck). 

horsemouth is not predicting the demise of the bullshit job in its entirety (capitalism needs human activity for the value created by real work to be siphoned off) but he is predicting the demise/ reduction/ casualisation of numerous bullshit jobs. (one day soon we will look up to uber drivers as models of stable employment). of course the balance point between real work/bullshit work is flexible - capitalism has declared it one way, it can declare it another, should the people ever achieve real political agency they could declare it another. 

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yesterday horsemouth went to trade some books with carl (in particular a duplicate copy of carl’s of richard jefferies’ nature near london). carl advised horsemouth to bring a bag and horsemouth participated enthusiastically in the potlatch (that’s his reading for the next month sorted). 

they then went for a pint and a half at carl’s local (the first bar horsemouth has been in in 180 plus days). soon horsemouth was over enthusiastic and swinging from the rafters. but carl (wisely) called a halt early. 

on his way back horsemouth bumped into shireen (who (sad to relate) had also been drinking) and they walked and talked their way back along up by downs park. they alternated between the ode to joy and some grim freudian version of the universe.

later horsemouth probably goes down to howard’s to gather more information as part of a mission to resolve the CD thing/ plot strategy.

books, films, gigs august 2020

books 

•  92 acharnon street 
•  hovel in the hills (elizabeth west)
•  the magus (john fowles) 
•  reflections on a marine venus (lawrence durrell) 
•  kilvert's diary (1870) 

films the running man (carol reed), the long hair of death (batbara steel italo-horror), the last wave, murders in the rue morgue, rabid, shivers (cronenberg), juian bream - my life in music, the skull, horror express (hammer/ amicus horror), the bridge, profondo rosso and the cat o' nine tails, (dario argento) the keep (michael mann), 

gigs (online) none 

events musicians of bremen volume four release