on being angry with a dead man (and other exercises in futility)

at the gig a dude wanted to talk about sparklehorse (mark linkous). but sadly horsemouth doesn't know much about him beyond a thumbnail sketch of his life (and painbirds). so he's having a listen now.

'I was lucky enough to have been told how much my music meant to people' he once said. but it wasn't enough to save him. a photo has emerged of the gig. horsemouth is playing. howard is waiting to harmonise. martin and jacken look on.  

horsemouth has continued to follow the career (in the sense of running amuck) of the greased piglet. if horsemouth has understood this correctly he can be removed just by vote of tory MPs (and 15% of tory MPs sending in a letter calling for a vote of no confidence is enough to get the process started). but his successor has to be elected by the party as a whole think that whole bozo/ jeremy hunt thing). this takes time and cuts two months at least out of the time the tories have to prepare for the next election which must be on or before thursday 2 may 2024.

plus the next few years are looking distinctly shit and the voters are likely to feel bad. hmmm.

next up for the hawkbinge neophyte review treatment is 1980s levitation simultaneously the meatiest and probably best played hawkwind album since the lemmy/ simon house years. for a 10th album band they sound hungry and the reason is returned guitarist huw lloyd-langton. listening ginger baker gives good drum timbre but it's huw's show - normally horsemouth thinks good taste is a bad thing but every note huw plays is on the money and in the right place (he can even make a plodding turd like who's gonna win the war sparkle - it's in that wishbone ash harmony guitar middle eight). 

it was huw's birthday yesterday (by some strange synchronicity).  horsemouth worries that the young dude on hawkbinge is just going to lose the will to live as he realises just how many albums there are in teh 80ies, 90ies, naughties, 2010s, 2020ies (and how low hawkwind set the bar on quality control). 

and meanwhile (in horsemouth's reading) ginsberg is in india. when horsemouth has read this he can return to the chronology of gary snyder's letters. 

it's a mildish morning. horsemouth has to go do some shopping. tuesday morning he has a phone meeting with the bank. 

‘the owl of minerva had taken flight and, as usual, seemed to have forgotten us’

musicians of bremen are back from the gig at water into beer (thanks dudes). he thanks martin for inviting them. martin played songs about the ecology with lou on backing vocals for the last one. jacken elswyth played (in solo mode) also (fretless banjo and shruti box).

and then it was the turn of howard and horsemouth. 

musicians of bremen had thought they might do two separate solo sets but when howard got there they decided to do the gig as a duo (cue restructuring of the set - or rather not). they then left it until they got onstage to decide what to play and of course they had not rehearsed anything together beforehand. 

there had been much talk of only playing new stuff and horsemouth had practiced based on this. ah well there's something to be said for tactical flexibility. so what songs do musicians of bremen have that they both know where horsemouth can play guitar and howard can sing harmony? 

how to open. 

satan (your kingdom must come down) as usual. an engaging piece of hokum designed to get people singing (which on this occasion it did). result! one down. horsemouth cheers up. a brief conflab about what to play next and then when the faun met alice (mercifully brief solo guitar piece) then the werewolf (designed to make the audience howl like wolves, but in the distance this time because of covid restrictions). somewhere round here horsemouth got in worldes blisse. 

what then? three of howard's new songs. all great. then painbirds by sparklehorse (mark linkous). then more of howard's new songs (horsemouth gets in a harmony on the lines he can remember on one) .

then to finish off two songs by karen dalton something's on your mind and then katie cruel (which for some strange reason at the critical juncture horsemouth could not remember the title of). horsemouth thought they might attempt starless (and bible black) as their last one (in the musicians of bremen karaoke) but in the end katie cruel seemed a better bet.  

so he didn't get in johnny remember me (horsemouth had been planning to instruct the audience in the singing of falsettos), highrise strutter's ball (banjolin), if you have ghosts (lighter tune to end the gig) or indeed any of the slide guitar pieces and the long disquisition on american primitive he had planned. 

gig done. horsemouth was now free to drink and pleasurably let the adrenaline subside. there seemed to be a tape trade/ CD exchange (possibly even a sale) going on with howard and jacken. horsemouth had planned to bring CDs but forgot so he had texted howard to do it. there may be a recording (howard brought the zoom) so we will have to see how it has gone. 

that's it settled. horsemouth is over to howard's next weekend to listen to it. howard says it is 'fun' (so it probably sounds terrible). 

thanks to mark and petra, lou and myk for coming, the young dude for coming over to chat about mark linkous, martin and jacken for playing and the water into beer lot horsemouth thanked earlier. 

later the train back, a walk back from dalston and a falafel wrap. at home a shower and some time spent reading to let the adrenaline subside. 

ok forwards to 2022. 

GIGDAY! ( see you all down south)

it's gigday. in a bit horsemouth will test himself for the C-O-V-I-D (he's not had a positive test yet). assuming he passes it he will be seeing you all down south. er... if he doesn't pass he will be messaging a few people. but first he will write this blog. 

'poetry XX century like all arts and sciences is devolving into examination-experiment on the very material on which it is made... 'an examination of language itself'... 

so music moves from old habitual scales and harmonies to abstract mathematic potentialities unrestricted by human pre-supposition.' 

so writes ginsberg on 8th july 1962 from calcutta. (horsemouth has found his copy of indian journals). ginsberg claims to be looking for a guru. 'take blake for your guru' he is advised (or so he says) mind you he is also advised to chant guru guru guru for 3 months until a guru comes to him. every few pages of diary there's an epic poetic ramble (admittedly of variable quality) but there are also photos and drawings and prose pieces. the drawings are similar to cocteau's in opium (for this seems to have been ginsberg and orlovsky's main interest at the time). 

an interview with shawn philips has come up.

'the shift would have happened after donovan...

I went through a very heavy spiritual transformation and suddenly I discovered why I was making music...'

today horsemouth will do a little light playing and singing through the repertoire and get in touch with howard to see how he wants to work it. he will then (gingerly) be rapid mass transiting it down to brockley. he's been thinking about why fahey and the rest of that circle played american primitive guitar and what exactly that was (in case he has to explain it). 

yesterday was bandcamp friday (when musicians of bremen derive extra benefit from you purchasing their kipple).  horsemouth will have to check if there were any additional sales of musicians of bremen  merchandise. (nope). 

talking politics is coming to an end. they've announced it. horsemouth is shocked. he enjoyed it a lot. there they were (david runciman and helen thompson), being reasonable. it helps that helen thompson sounds like miranda sawyer (i.e. not posh). they've been at it for three years, it's probably time to call a halt they say. 

meanwhile no sightings of the hawkbinge podcast (due to move on to levitation and the huw lloyd-langton years).  

he's been listening to recollections of albania - first by lea ypi (who grew up there under the beneficent rule of uncle enver and then had to face a life without those certainties) and by joanna robertson a reporter who set off there after the fall of enver hoxha (and witnesses the return of the son of the deposed king zog). initially her time in the collapsing state is good, 'it's the girl who fought the security police at the parliament' yell the terrifying paramilitaries at the roadblocks as they wave her through but eventually an assassin comes for her.  

initially she does not leave (well only temporarily) but eventually she does. years later after she has left she phones a friend who tells her while it used to be the hotel california now it's a shark tank.   

daryll is out the door - he seems to be taking his bike trailer for a spin. the upstairs next door neighbour is out the door  likewise. the next door neighbours seem to be back. 

dum maro dum (please put a penny in the old man's hat)

asha bhosle sings the praises of marijuana (and hare krishna). seldom has it all sounded so good to horsemouth (or looked so good with zeenat aman and her 'western' dancing). strangely now that horsemouth has stopped work and society has grown more permissive he feels no desire to smoke weed (mind you his lungs are still fucked so that's probably a good thing). 

horsemouth thinks he knows where ginsberg's indian journals is. he took it round a friend's house to give it away about a year ago, but it was rejected (his friend was also in a giving books away mode) so it should still be in the bag with the swag from his friend's book collection. ah there it is. 

to tell the truth horsemouth only bought the ginsberg/snyder letters (£2) to alibi his purchase of day of the triffids (£1).  

this year it will be 60 years since ginsberg's visit (february to may). ginsberg and orlovsky live cheap (the better to stay out longer), write poetry, make drawings and take photographs. gary snyder and joanne are there already (eventually they meet up). 

it is bandcamp friday once again.  horsemouth would encourage you to purchase musicians of bremen  merchandise but he suspects anyone reading this has it all already (please put a penny in the old man's hat).

horsemouth has changed the strings on the hummingbird copy for girders. his fingertips may be  suffering but the guitar sounds like a giant clanking beast (so horsemouth is pleased). he has played through high rise strutter's ball on the banjolin successfully. he is trying to assemble a setlist and to think about the patter he needs for it (and the names he should write down in case he has a 'forgetful' moment). 

seeing as the gig has been advertised as american primitive influenced horsemouth in planning to play more instrumental guitar than usual also by playing more slide horsemouth evades the arthritis in the first joint of his little finger (it will take him some time to learn to play relying on just the 3 other fingers of that hand). horsemouth is fiddling around in dgdggd tuning seeing if he can find a way to play pagodas this is easy to get to from dgdgbd (open G). 

last night he watched tales from the lodge an attempt to do a portmanteau comedy horror (it won't be winning any approval points horsemouth suspects). 

horsemouth vanished into the stacks

somewhere horsemouth has a copy of ginsberg's indian journal (it was one of brynley's books he thinks). it would be a good time to read it (in the selected letters snyder and his wife are attempting to meet up with ginsberg and orlovsky in india).  to horsemouth's recollection it had a grey paperback cover and was bigger than  an A size book (possibly a B). there were photos in it and an account of ginsberg hanging out in the bone fields with the sadhus while bodies were ritually cremated. but it has vanished into the stacks.

his fear (of course) is that he has got rid of it to a charity shop in an effort to lighten the load before he moved up here 5 years ago. 

that's annoying. horsemouth will be bothered by that until he finds it. 

horsemouth is getting anxious about the gig (as he always does) but as soon as he starts playing he will relax. 

he is not sure what to rehearse. the new strings are a lot heavier than the old ones (fucking girders), they are clankier and require more effort to push around. in theory he will just be using the hummingbird for the slide stuff so it shouldn't matter too much (in fact it sounds like a great roaring beast). the standard tuning sing-along stuff horsemouth will be playing on howard's guitar probably (but for the moment he tends to practice the standard tuning stuff on the hummingbird - he doesn't of course have to, he has guitars for days). 

plus he has a sore throat (he will test the morning of the gig) and the remnants of his winter cough. yesterday was groundhog day (punxsatawney phil predicts 6 more weeks of winter). and on this groundhog day (jour de marmotte) it is the twelfth anniversary of the marmot review.

the topic of the marmot review?- levelling up...  (stop me if you've heard this one before)

horsemouth listened to volume four again. because they launched it into the middle of the pandemic horsemouth and howard never sat down and worked out how they were going to play any of these songs live.  (so basically they will not be sounding like volume four at the gig). howard will be playing a solo set of his new compositions. horsemouth will mostly be sounding like volume three  cut with a few newer and older tunes as he did up at cafe babar at midsummer. reference has been made in the advertising to american primitive guitar so horsemouth will work up a few of the instrumentals just in case. 

he will also have to come up with some stage burble. last time he was forgetting key names and having lots of senior moments. 

horsemouth watched some of parasite on the tv. shitpoor korean family inveigle their way into the service of a rich family by systematically playing on their weaknesses and ruthlessly elbowing other proles out of the way.  horsemouth is not sure what it means that he can watch the korean equivalent of shameless. it will take some thought and he didn't watch it to the end. 

that internet outage (it's probably a good thing)

'during the twentieth century, letters were a literary form that nearly everyone practiced.. in the days before inexpensive long-distance telephone service became commonplace, the main avenue for communication was the written word.'

- from bill morgan's editor's preface to the selected letters of allen ginsberg and gary snyder. 

horsemouth needs to get on with changing the strings on his guitar (and possibly raising the action).

last night some reading (woo-hoo) from horsemouth's newly purchased selected letters and the watching of alternative-giallo the double (as recommended by fragments of fear). 

now the double is less the double than the stand-in. horsemouth feels the need to defend our central character against allegations of entirely being a trust fund kiddie/ useless drone. it is a bit of a stretch instead to view him as actually on a journey of self-discovery and improvement, but when he disposes of the body (see it is a giallo or thriller) he is in fact doing something for love and not just pleasing himself. he is undertaking work for another. 

in reality this is a film like more - thrill seeking posh youth adrift in the sunlight (rather than the darkness) - something from the 60ies still being worked through in the 70ies.

 eddie the hippie (the thinly sketched free-spirit hiding out in morocco) quotes ginsberg's song,

'the warm bodies shine together in the darkness...

the hand moves to the center of the flesh

the skin trembles in happiness

and the soul comes joyful to the eye...'  

eddie is tuned in to the sensuousness of the age but elsewhere we see the ugliness of a tragic reading of the centrality of sex to the decade, sex as politics, sex as power, as it is elsewhere in giallo. 

horsemouth tried retuning his hummingbird copy to daddad and the g-string broke. he replaced it and has now come to the realisation that he should restring it all (as much as possible) ahead of the gig and play it in (it will sound much better). 

today is groundhog day and the anniversary of the release of kick out the jams (motherfuckers) by the MC5. (for it is always already time for revolution to get us out of the dead rut of capitalism). 

horsemouth has been enjoying sitting in the sun in the living room (now that progress has been made on returning it to use). 

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our anniversary ('we can still be friends on facebook' )

the socialists have won an outright majority in the snap portuguese general election. as far as horsemouth understands it this is bad news. the socialists were mainly responsible for volunteering portugal for more austerity measures than the banks and the EU required  until they were forced to stop by bloc izquerda and the communists.   

'economist filipe garcia, the head of consultants informacao de mercados financeiros in porto, said investors were likely to appreciate costa’s new strong mandate, given the government’s record cutting of the budget deficit.' 

it's the two year anniversary of the last of the final countdowns towards brexit. 

it's nearly imbolc.

it's two years ago and horsemouth is still tacking blithely towards the pandemic. there was the news from china, the WHO announcement, but the thing that really decided him was the lockdown in the north of italy. soon he will be upping stumps and back to the pavilion, beginning his shutdown (horsemouth is staying in and is advising everyone he knows to do the same) ahead of the government lockdown (the government is telling horsemouth and everyone else to stay in). 

many people simply do not even have that option. they are the working class they have to do the work so that society can function (and they can get paid and eat) plague or not. later horsemouth will be doing a fair bit of working from home (and trying to work out how to do that on the fly) but he will still doing some face to face when required. at the end horsemouth and his co-workers will be thanked for their efforts (that should have tipped them off). 

and then they will be made redundant. 

and society is saved by the internet and by the fact that many jobs in the west are bullshit. despite the best efforts of capitalism to par its costs to the bone (long supply chains, just in time, casualisation) people continue to be fed and entertained and have toilet paper to wipe their arses with. 

and the food banks continue their operations. 

and at the end of it (if we are at the end of it) capitalism becomes unsure as to whether it needs the workers back in (so they can be properly inculcated and surveilled and forced to purchase coffee and snacks at inflated rates) or whether it is just as happy with them working from home (and then those pesky offices can be sold off). 

horsemouth is not convinced (help he just typed COVInceD) that we are at the end of the pandemic 

the end of the pandemic is one where  it becomes a mere epidemic and people merely die without it disrupting the efficient running of capitalism. but the government clearly is because it is busy dashing about destroying the trust and the mandate needed to run prevention measures. this they are doing  on the basis that it's no big loss (er. because clearly they won't be needed again) or that they were never needed and always actually harmful and only old people were ever going to die anyway, or perhaps because that seems the most politically expedient thing to do, when you have been caught breaking lockdown regulations yourself, is to create the impression that they did not matter.  

saturday horsemouth plays a gig. he will test on the day before he goes. he will travel down there masked up and then perform (and then travel back masked up). he is unclear how things will be run in the venue. howard (as usual) wants to go on early. martin has them going on late. horsemouth essentially doesn't care. he thinks it's good to be further up the bill. 

he thinks if you have ghosts (then you have everything) is a runner. he will probably get in johnny remember me, high rise strutter's ball, something's on your mind  and sometimes our dreams (float like anchors). he's just got to sit down and rehearse a range of songs (like the new ones and like all his usual songs just in case).