bumblebee (horsemouth in the wilderness)

horsemouth is back at his folks so he will be out of mobile phone communication for most of time. message him on facebook or send an email if you should need to get in touch with him. 

horsemouth was just dreaming about wandering round leyton. (he thinks he was schmoozing for a gig).

looks like the whole album of homegas (a totally under-rated freak folk from a commune thing) has surfaced. they were on takoma. the first track is the best the rest have a kind of incredible string band feel to them. 

the light in horsemouth's room is placed in such a way as to make reading in bed difficult. he's brought a slab of books, he hopes to make progress of the origins of totalitarianism, the white guard he  hopes to finish off. 

today a visit from relatives. tonight a meeting of  the communal endeavour on zoom. boxing day his brother's side of the family come. (assuming no lockdown etc.). in a bit breakfast then a walk on the common. 

two years ago horsemouth was bemoaning the brexmas election. the nation (well 31% of the electorate) votes for boris (er. and the tories and er. getting brexit done).  then his seasonal poverty was merely of a temporary cessation of work kind (now it is a more definite or at least longer lasting cessation). in the car on the way over from the railway station horsemouth chatted to his dad about when he took early retirement (hint: it was earlier than horsemouth has taken it and the state old age pension started earlier too). horsemouth's mum kept working for a while (in different jobs). 

they are comfortably off - horsemouth will have to be poor. but that's ok his needs are few. 

'this morning I woke up'

good morning! good morning!

actually what horsemouth hears in his head is this morning I woke up by gila

horsemouth is feeling slightly ropey  from the jab. (at least he hopes it's the jab). he's either too hot or too cold (and he feels like someone has 'dead armed' him - did that used to happen to you in school?). 

he will be taking the laptop to the countryside (he realised after he'd packed his bags). he's started the day with two paracetamol. (he ended yesterday with two paracetamol). 

last night m.r. james's  a warning to the curious (no archaeology in east anglia thank you, especially no digging up the crowns that protect the realm). after that a film nothing but the night featuring christopher lee,  peter cushing, and diana dors. 

it's michael hurley's 80ieth birthday and he seems to be getting his moment in the sun. 

this may be my last time (morning final)

horsemouth is up. howard has put up the latest golden glow (12.12.21 with tracks chosen by horsemouth) but horsemouth is experiencing problems getting it to play. as a pleasant surprise he discovers swan arcade's babylon is fallen lurking on the end of his previous mix (after vaksine!  by sanba yo). ok for some reason it just started working.  

so the staple singers into gila (a popul vuh folk offshoot apparently - thanks sean). 

obiero by ayub ogada (horsemouth saw him him the one time playing supporting jah wobble down in islington). it's a great performance. obiero into greetings to saud (pharoah sanders in churchy mode pianist joe bonner does a great job in the drone). 

ok now he's hitting some of howard's selections what's been coming... or maybe it's dorthia (the girl andrew minty recommended, horsemouth hasn't listened to all of it yet). ah-ha spirit of the water by camel (prog giants) then pentangle rain and snow (howard seems to have found the live version - which is good). 

next the instrumental for one love by nas - now this is a push button  mixtape put together by q-tip using a track by the heath brothers which itself uses an mbira (or thumb piano).  you may remember that track from a previous compilation. it stops and starts. now a piece horsemouth doesn't know (ali farka toure plus flute? probably further east knowing howard's taste - daymallah majid bekkas). 

karen O and willie nelson's take on queen's under pressure. ok so it's karaoke but to horsemouth this opens up the lyrics (which are so good). 

flash of the spirit was a very influential record for horsemouth - an african percussion ensemble farafina  and loads of ambient music bods (john hassell, brian eno, daniel lanois). when horsemouth was in a band with a sampler he sampled it to fuck. next up kathy smith's awesome travel in a circle (or richie havens' record label).  then ellen mcilwhone (of no fear) covering jack bruce's weird of hermiston (see having a woman singing I am going to a wedding (dressed in black) is just a more interesting proposition. (again a live version).

ok what's this? october song the incredible string band horsemouth. it has something of a song for ireland  about it. next up lani hall doing love song (horsemouth finds this song a real heartbreaker). then into bonnie koloc's the wind on the water (that's a voice another heartbreaker). 

one by howard that horsemouth that horsemouth doesn't recognise (sounds like t-rex so it's probably devandra banhart) then morning final by the blue oyster cult and a nice transition into you got it, you'll get it by herbie hancock and the headhunters. the berimbau of the headhunters going into the mo chara  of michael o'shea.  (er. and swan arcade  again). 

today six months since horsemouth last got jabbed. 

this morning horsemouth goes to get jabbed. not up in walthamstow (like on previous occasions) but just round the corner. it's still a bit dark out to work out what the weather is doing (grey skies opines horsemouth). it's six months since his last jab - he'd booked it just before the government changed its advice so you could get the jab five months after your previous jab (this may have left him a bit vulnerable and under protected). and once it was booked there was only one or two weeks difference in re-booking it. 

the latest variant is the prince of re-infecting people who have had it before and of infecting people whether they have been jabbed or not. allegedly getting his booster in is about the best thing horsemouth can do. horsemouth plans to go and hide out in the country for a bit. he'll test before he goes (the better not to kill his parents).

ok so he's finished his coffee. now it's time for the museli. 

‘thisday, thatday, otherday, someday, yesterday, today and next day’

'the trouble isn’t the ghost, but what the ghost reveals.'  

so says jack hanson in a recent edition of the baffler when reviewing the ghost stories of edith wharton. horsemouth had taken up reading the NYRB website (because the LRB and the TLS are really stingy in comparison).  there's a zoom session between NY literati - the top two seem very pleasant the guy on the bottom is annoying as fuck. he does, very wisely, warn the youngster of derrida as an explanation of ghosts, warning that it drains the joy from things. 

last night horsemouth lay dreaming. he was wandering round some small town with howard (and someone else). horsemouth caught up with them sitting outside a pub and preparing to order some food. later they were camping out in the countryside. in the night there seemed to be strange military activities going on with stealth planes or light aircraft. horsemouth crawled through the darkness to get a better look. 

seems like we will be having ourselves a covid christmas - shop keepers, teachers, sign language interpreters of horsemouth's acquaintance, they all seem to be getting it right about now, horsemouth (from his privileged position of economic inactivity) advises caution. 

horsemouth goes to get booster jabbed monday morning (he hopes he hasn't left it too late) and then he tries to high-tail it out of town as fast as his little legs will carry him. there's a kind of parallel with the white guard, there the dudes are waiting in kiev for the inevitable arrival of enemy forces. (and as to kiev and moscow  don't get him started).  

horsemouth found a basho special online from NTS and charlie drakeford. the dudes over at american primitive guitar seem to like it. michael hurley has hit 80 (he gets an NYT article). god that man is indestructable, and still looking good). 

'I never thought of a career in music. what I do is goof off — and try to get away with it.'

in the absence of a new episode horsemouth listened to the hawkbinge podcast on hawklords - 25 years on again. the new musicians (harvey bainbridge, martin griffin, steve swindells) are competent (and can carry a tune), bob calvert is inspired, the barney bubbles packaging  is awesome, they produce what is probably the best album of the silver age (of the calvert era), certainly the one with the best songs on it. 

yesterday horsemouth discussed it with mike T (just as he was going out the door).  mike was critical of flying doctor but strangely accepting of 25 years itself (a silver machine re-lick) - the two weakest tracks on the album. the youngster points out the bowie in bob's vocals (and he's not wrong). 

horsemouth includes for your delectation the oumou sangare track howard included in his recent ambient mix. it's funny who, of the african musicians, gets taken up by the youngsters, opined mike T. horsemouth is glad he took the time to go early to the brockwell park field day a few years ago to go see her. she was moaning about how strong the sun was (which was strange for someone from mali horsemouth thought). 

‘thisday, thatday, otherday, someday, yesterday, today and next day’

horsemouth no longer relies on the seven days of the week.  or rather despite not working he still does. today (this evening) another spot of child minding. monday the jab. tuesday the train. thereafter horsemouth goes to practice his new immunity in the countryside. 

musicians of bremen back to back in the golden glow

good morning! good morning! horsemouth is up early (why he's not so sure).  

howard is stuck at home so he's been getting on with some tasks. first off he has done a new ambient mix (these normally go down well) - about an hour in oumou sangare appears singing mogoya (which fuses lots of things very well).

and yet howard was still bored so horsemouth has sent him over a list of tracks with instructions to forge it into a new golden glow  mix. horsemouth doesn't have enough tracks for a full mix yet so he suspects they will be doing a combined mix (back-to-back he believes the term is). it will be the first time where they have both chosen tracks for the mix. either that or a shorter than usual mix. 

last night quatermass (1978), the one with the old people hiding underground  and a mass rapture at wembley stadium. this featured irene handl - who interestingly enough was  president of the lewisham branch of the elvis presley fan club.

there were other films after but horsemouth couldn't be bothered. 

horsemouth is issuing howard with songwriting advice - howard has a very promising song but horsemouth doesn't think it is fulfilling its potential. this is because it is a song of rejection (not a getting-it-together/ love the one you're with song) and this is (to horsemouth) inherently unpromising material. ok there's a nice juicy contradiction there but how to deal with it is the problem. 

it may be that horsemouth (as a self-described sleazy opportunist) is just not the right person to be asking about this material. but it is not about the sexual politics of the situation but about the needs of the song. 

later mike T comes over to visit. 

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so what did horsemouth get up to in 2021? how much does he remember of the year?

well it is, now he remembers, the year of his redundancy, the year when the wheels finally came off his earner. he was paid out until the end of july and since then he has been living on his redundancy cheque (and an advance on the first 10 years of his works pension - which he can take early). all this took considerably more time to organise than horsemouth thought it would. 

in the first half of the year he lived on a mixture of furlough and work pay. excepting the odd lab work was online and did not involve travel. 

jim bermingham died, a friend was evicted, horsemouth presented (or rather he didn't but he had been planning to and that planning took rather a long time). the communal endeavour continues to be a pain the arse. 

as far as horsemouth can remember right now he only went to one gig (triple negative) and only played one gig (at midsummer with haress in weirdshire). it was a hard year at work  for howard so there was little progress on the musicians of bremen front - howard will probably release a solo album next year. 

meanwhile horsemouth voiced over george lansbury for catastro/fille, he collected together some tracks for a golden glow mix, some songs he worked on with catastro/fille and enza failed to come out (so maybe that's something for next year). an attempt to relaunch peter, paul and enza failed (which is a pity). 

he celebrated the anniversary of the paris commune and of the festival of britain exhibit at chrisp street market. he read some of hannah arendt's the origins of totalitarianism (this was probably his only theoretical project in the year). 

he hid out at his parents in the countryside til mid-march (the better to dodge the plague) and then returned there for a few weeks in june. he will be returning there as soon as is possible. he hid out a couple of weeks up in the forest. 

he read less than he thought he might (of late he has been attempting to get back into more serious reading), he played less guitar and listened to less music. he spent more time farting about online and watching bad horror movies. he has diarised entirely on blogger. he has written nothing of an extended nature. 

he went for lots of walks (even if he no longer has to do it for work). he didn't buy many new books or CDs. 

as usual with the year some people have died and left the party and more people have been born and joined in. horsemouth did some babysitting/ childminding. monday he goes to get jabbed, then he's away to the countryside. 

'... 98% of satanists...'

a recommendation from minty land. horsemouth is enjoying this a lot. she has a metal band as well windhand. (but is that wind like the air or wind like a watch, to quote a certain cartoon book).

horsemouth is enjoying the peace and quiet before the electrician comes round to change the fuse board and to get the smoke detectors back up and running. (the one outside horsemouth's door always detonates whenever anybody cooks - the ones upstairs should go off as well).

him and sten have had the first coffee for the day and there may be time to do a second. 

horsemouth is slightly at a loose end now the babysitting/ child transportation gig has ended (probably for the year). his plan is to get vaxxed (boostered) on monday and then to do a test and be off (cautiously) to his folks in the countryside. he was feeling the gringe but then he noticed a copy of to the devil a daughter (it would have been so much better with peter cushing rather than richard widmark). when he was a kid horsemouth had a making of book intended to teach children about film production.  

who knows maybe it had an effect on him? 

'98% of so-called ‘satanists’ are nothing but pathetic freaks, who get their kicks out of dancing naked in freezing churchyards'

later on another of the worlds beyond  series (allegedly from the archives of the society for psychical research). and then, a little bedtime reading, more of the white guard.  he could have gone for the origins of totalitarianism  instead (a how-to manual for would be demagogues). he is intrigued by the isolation/ loneliness/ solitude section - it kind of parallels the labour-work-action distinction from arendt's later the human condition. 

he's nearly done with his diary for the year. it might be an idea to get into keeping notebooks instead (he sometimes does this when he is on holiday). this saturday mike T is round to visit. there's a meeting of the communal endeavour to come (but horsemouth thinks it will be uneventful as it is in the run up to christmas) and there's the north shropshire by-election (the disgraced owen patersons constituency). 

next saturday the weeklong horsemouth on the golden glow festival commences with his first mix from 2015 and ends on sunday the 26th with his most recent mix from this year. 

roughly at the midpoint there will be the solstice. 

'will allegra stratton be having a leaving do? do bears shit in the woods?'

somebody has got to take the bullet (horsemouth supposes).

meanwhile horsemouth is feeling happy. he was worried about presenting in the end either his microphone or his internet connection was so fucked up it couldn't happen. horsemouth stomped off and everything necessary happened without him (phew). when horsemouth looked out at the crowd he knew they were home safe. 

it was a decent sized vote. horsemouth now thinks there is too little time left in the run up to christmas 

in other news horsemouth's friend has been evicted. and as you know horsemouth's other friend has crossed the rainbow bridge into the afterlife. 

horsemouth wrote a speech as well. (fuck it. secretly he's delighted).

it was good to see minty and jacqueline (horsemouth would like to point out that they only live a quarter of a mile away down the road). 

as soon as the meeting was over horsemouth got demob happy and started drinking. (but then he had to stop because he realised he was up early the next day). today some child portage and child minding to facilitate a gig. 

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in fact horsemouth turns out not to be needed this afternoon and evening. (it's  therefore a quadruple demob). horsemouth may in fact be done for christmas.  

monday the booster jab. tuesday the departure to the wilderness.