once upon a time horsemouth played a gig at the wild hare club in stretton sugwas (this was maybe about 2005). this was horsemouth’s first solo singing/ guitaring gig after his 2001 relaunch alongside goatboy.
the wild hare club are just in the process of relaunching their website and now has a hall of fame (into which horsemouth was inducted upon his recent visit to herefordshire).
a photo exists of the event courtesy of john clarkson - it was summer (you can tell this because horsemouth is wearing a t-shirt).
unlike horsemouth the wild hare club have worked hard at it and have built up an impressive roster of gigs (horsemouth on the other hand has not played live since 2014).
horsemouth is away to (he hopes) sunny portugal.
a friend has been battling the tide of stuff - horsemouth faces that battle upon his return. (there he just looked in his cupboard - matresses and all sorts). the fact that horsemouth is something of a womble and a hoarder and a book collector does not help.
ok - horsemouth has realised he will need a travel adapter for his netbook (which he is taking with him).
poetry (stepney) ed, darsavini, john cunning. ben etc.
books
the watcher and the red deer - richard perry,
the white goddess - robert graves,
into unknown england: selections from the social explorers,
a history of the chinese cultural revolution - jean daubier,
utopia - thomas more,
the search of the absolute - balzac,
jesus christ in flanders - balzac,
the ask - lipsite,
the rampage - miroslav holub,
the invention of morel - adolfo bioy casares,
stories - paul bowles
films
various zatoichis (1,3,4 etc.),
the killing (us) sr.1,
game of thrones - one episode from sr.6 and most of sr.1,
'land of green ginger' and 'gangsters' - alan plater,
mad dog morgan
events
dave's birthday, visit folks, keep ancestor's graves clean, visit richard and stass.
in the white goddess robert graves writes of mazes - he finds the same design (of the labyrinth of daedalus) preserved in the dance troy town and at bosinney in cornwall as at the dublin national museum (on rocks from the wicklow hills).
just as southern baptist preachers lay biblical time over present time (‘and it rained and it rained’) so graves lays classical time over the dark ages and the times before and over the now.
elsewhere fictional universes are being brought into communication - but what about if you were a character from another novel wandering around inside one of these trying to find the characters from your novel.
horsemouth has diverted from utopia to reading into unknown england 1866-1913: selections from the social explorers (ed. peter keating) - disguised in rags james greenwood spends a night in a london workhouse (8th jan 1866). later in low-life deeps he witnesses a fight between a midget and terrier staged for money among the miners of hanley.
arnold bennett does not believe him;
‘the only man who stands a chance of getting his teeth knocked down his throat here is the ingenious person who started the celebrated legend of the man-and-dog-fight at hanbridge. it’s a long time ago, a very long time ago, but his grey hairs won’t save him from horrible tortures if we catch him.’
there is a certain crossover between the worlds of derek raymond (the crust on its uppers - the impecunious posh fronting gambling dens for the richardsons) and that of michael moorcock (new wave science fiction, genre hackwork editing and writing at the lower ends of the london literary scene). it is in Kyril Bonfiglioli (art dealer, book dealer, editor, author) - whose birthday is today incidentally (harry smith''s too).
the krays were out looking for bonfiglioli onetime and ‘braced’ the young michael (in a bookshop naturally). at a party once he pulled out a pistol and chased everybody about (a very derek raymond to have happen).
help horsemouth celebrate the noahversary one year since
howard and horsemouth (aka musicians of bremen) recorded noah.
they’d started writing it in 2014 by bibliomancy - horsemouth had tried out a 3 verse demo version of the song at his gig at cafe bohemia in december and then on this day last year they had a crack at recording it properly. (as soon as school holidays and such permitted).
the key ingredient was probably the addition of the resonator guitar (as pictured) and recording the song in sections to a click track (something horsemouth is normally good at but on this occasion he struggled with). the icing-on-the-cake was saturating the solo guitar part with lashings of echo and delay (it’s just horsemouth noodling about really).
horsemouth had had a go at recording a guide vocal (which was a little croaky) and eventually managed to double track a reasonably tuneful take. howard then recorded backing vocals for the choruses.
horsemouth has a fairly stripped down version - howard has recorded an extended version with an additional verse and more bells and whistles on an epic scale.
the cover of the last CD that horsemouth was involved with putting out was a pile of junk. (it was a good photo of a pile of junk, nicely filtered in yellow, and the junk was interesting).
when horsemouth was in a band (and at long last they had a record) the band decided they didn’t want it to have a cover (and so indeed it was). horsemouth still has a few in his cupboard.
perhaps CD covers are lowly enough and humble enough to contemplate as home designed artworks (3 pixels bleed round the edges etc.). perhaps they are easily enough produced to be ‘folk’.
last night horsemouth watched the hull set theland of green ginger - a couple fail to get it together driven apart by economics in alan plater’s 70ies play - the watersons sing throughout. the land of green ginger is the name of a street in hull old town (but the characters never manage to find it). a bbc presenter type on the train on the way up (RP rather than regional accent) says it was also the name of a fantasy land of satisfied desires (kind of like the big rock candy mountain and other peasant paradises of the full stomach variety).
it was a sproatley smith song that got him there.
a friend is wondering why it is now that we are organising history walks - it is because the world we grew up in is now sufficiently far away and impossible for it to be properly historical. today is the anniversary of the birth of balzac.
conversely this lead horsemouth on to another of plater’s 70ies plays gangsters which spawned several series of ‘race relations’-spolitation mahem as crews of various ethnicities run the gambling, drugs, prostitution, illegal immigration, and protection rackets of birmingham. (horsemouth used to stay up late to watch it - it was entirely unsuitable). it was perhaps an attempt to make use of hindi film tropes in a social realist setting. there was insatiable demand for it (similar to shameless - sorry that's as recent as horsemouth's cultural references get) which led to its creative team tipping it over into self-parody (the series ended with a kung-fu touch of death, the writers filmed getting the manuscript typed up at an indian typing stall in india somewhere with an audience, at the very end the script pages are thrown up into the air over the heads of the crowd).
another era ends - horsemouth is on the move up into the hills and water margins of liangshan.
horsemouth is up and about and shuffling round the flat. it is sunny but cold. (some friends were out camping last night he does hope they were ok). he has the balcony door open. later he will re-arrange the balcony to render use of the limited space more efficient (he bought a bag of fertilizer yesterday the better to hide his composting activities - all hail the worms). of course he is probably moving soon-ish but still.
he’s had a soap powder box leakage so he should vacuum that up at some point (maybe). he’s had his coffee, a few slices of bread and now he’s on to the tea. the nasturtiums are doing well (especially the ones that self-seeded in the guttering).
he’s reading the ask by sam lipsyte (thrown out books pile by front door of block - downsizing residents - free) - funding and donations grunt at a university has an outbreak of unfortunate honesty to an arts student and is fired - then gets hired back (maybe) to facilitate a donation from one of his richer college friends. it’s decent so far. it benefits from the correct feel.
DJs Uncle Jeff and (Cousin) Cal Huss provide an in-depth examination of John Fahey and the label that he started; Takoma Records.
inspired by the version of in christ there is no east and west that starts this a friend was bemoaning their lack of progress on the guitar. horsemouth is considering having another push on the ‘learn to play some john fahey’ front - there’s plenty of fahey tab about, and even video lessons of the old curmudgeon teaching you the more straightforward ones.
so far horsemouth has only unconsciously and/or imperfectly borrowed from fahey. horsemouth is aware that he’s a bodger - no longer interested in fiddly guitar playing but more interested in singing and doing just enough to enable this.
horsemouth was very taken by this song by the takoma released homegas (straight out of a rural commune in indiana).
ok - balcony rearrangement done (festering food waste food for the worms hidden). maybe some beans to go in later. in a bit - a wander.
on this day in 1969 ron carter, rashied ali and alice coltrane recorded huntington ashram monastery. horsemouth will play it later on today.
horsemouth is just back from denise’s (cancelled babysitting mission). there was some guitar playing (in fact horsemouth was dragooned into changing the strings on denise’s guitar (the green one) - a nice new set of martin strings with a wound-g. he played denise the steve earle, jackson c. frank’s blues run the game, his ‘new’ songs.
horsemouth and denise have survived twenty years in the same job (how unplanned was that) and perhaps a few years more in the same city.
last night horsemouth was round andrew minty’s (some guitar playing some drinking some listening to metal some tarot cards). he is therefore a little tired today. and the sun is shining which the weather report said it wasn’t going to do (aaargh!)
... and the sun is shining in horsemouth’s subconscious but there is a journey to be made.
