ramblin’ – Page 35 – EXCUSES AND HALF TRUTHS

Holding Back The Storm

The Storm Giants come at us from a thousand miles away. That’s one hell of a run-up. They hurl their fury at the coastline with brutal, unforgiving force, and also with a dreadful patience.

We can do this for millennia, the cannonade of the surf declares. Eventually, your castle walls will fail you.

But the defences at Bedruthen are strong, and built to last. Better yet, they are manned by invisible creatures, twice as tall as we are. The steps carved into the battlements are much too steep and wide for we puny humans. They fling rocks at the storm, and have done so for a very long time.

We are simple observers to a war that has raged since we first whispered around campfires. A war that will continue long after we are sketches and memory.

TLC and I have gone into the west, where stories bloom between the rocks like strange, glorious flowers, and all the beasts have TALES.

Sleeper, waken

She sleeps, and her dreams are as green and deep as the earth she rose from. The wind through her branches gives her the deep, even breath of a maiden adrift on a sea of longing.

In winter, she would be blanketed in an even swan-white cover. At the height of summer, the day after the solstice, the sun warms her flanks with the heated touch of a lover.

Some say it is that touch and its fleeting nature that makes her seem so sad.

Meanwhile, in his bed along the copse path, her brother lies awake and plans out mischief.

Both these figures can be found in The Lost Gardens Of Heligan, a ten minute drive from St. Austell. Very heartily recommended.

We are in the west, walking strange paths and forgotten woods.

Here be Mythagos.

Going Dark

TLC and I are off into the west this week. I don’t think they’ve heard of the Internet where we’re going, and phone signal is sporadic. So updates this week will be intermittent and tersely worded at best.
Instead, I will be settling down to some good old fashioned reading and writing, without the distractions of yer TwitTwoos and Facebonks and an RSS feed that don’t ever seem to quit.

Serenity or madness await.

Justified: an interview with Bill Drummond

I was looking for an exit strategy all morning. Maybe I was ill in bed. Maybe an unexpected client attend had dropped on me. There had to be something. I was halfway through a sixty-hour crunch week at work, and the last thing I needed was the added stress of a filmed interview with an ex-member of the KLF.

Thing was, I’d made a promise. And this interview was a big deal. Bill Drummond, art-provocateur and Justified Ancient Of Mu-Mu, was the last interview we needed to get perspective on Gimpo and the whole M25 Spin. It didn’t matter how tired I was, or how many rings I’d have to jump through to square a four-hour lunch break with work. We’d chased Drummond for years, and for me to bow out at the key moment because I was a bit tired wasn’t going to play. Dom would forgive me, but I’d never be able to forgive myself.

Continue reading Justified: an interview with Bill Drummond

Weekend Off

Or if you like, in research mode. Two posts hacked out and ready for you next week already.

In the meantime, courtesy of Leading Man Clive, please to enjoy Jonathan King’s lovely ligne clair comic, Threat Level.

And HOORAH, at last, a new Vegan Black Metal Chef! Crushing potatoes with a mace? We’ll all be doing it this time next year. Remember, show them no mercy.

Normal service will be resumed as soon as I can reboot my BRANES.

Opportunities

Much as I admire and base my actions on Master Lao Tzu, there’s only so much banging on about life in a Taoist stylee you can do before you start to repeat yourself. I’ve decided to open up my Sunday thread, which will henceforth be retitled The Sunday Spiritual, to other voices, opinions and philosophies. Possibly even some I don’t agree with, so that you can have the edifying experience of watching Yours Truly arguing with himself.

Meanwhile, the last couple of weekends have been spent with the extended family, celebrating birthdays and generally enjoying the rare occasion of everyone getting together. Both sides of our clan are equidistant, meaning that visits are bookended with two-hour car rides. Another reason, I guess, for the rarity of family reunions. There are only so many Saturday mornings that you can spend on motorways.

The meet-ups have had a couple of unexpected benefits. I have an evil plan that may turn into an biography, and another that is likely to lead to a regular blogging gig separate from X&HT. Neither of which I can really talk about yet.

Meanwhile, I and another group of friends that don’t get together often enough will be meeting tomorrow, following which there may be more news. And it looks as if another piece written a while back will be making an appearance in print very soon. But again, I can’t really talk about these yet either.

In other words, although I’m bubbling over with excitement about events in the latter half of the year, I can’t do more than hint and tease. Which makes this whole post a bit redundant, really.

Oh well. Dance me off, Mulder and Scully…

They're doing the twist to the theme from "The Munsters", you know.

Pride

You won’t often get a football post out of me. I can think of only a couple in my entire blogging career, both of which were snarks at the so-called beautiful game.

Why, then, am I so saddened to hear that Reading had lost to Swansea in the playoffs for a place in next year’s Premiership? Considering the fact that I’ve never been to a match, even though the bus to the Madjeski Stadium runs from the bottom of our road. Even though I’d struggle to name more than a couple of our first team players.

I think it’s got a lot to do with the events of the past few years. Under the visionary Steve Coppell, Reading made their way into the Premiership in 2007 for the first time in their history. After a giddy couple of seasons in the top flight, they crashed out unceremoniously and faced tough times. Coppell left, to be replaced briefly by Swansea manager Brendon Rodgers, under whom the Royals couldn’t couldn’t seem to win a game. The first team was strip-mined of talent by Premiership clubs, and left in the hands of caretaker manager Brian McDermott. Saddled with a first team of untried youngsters, and a season that started with the team hovering a point or so off the bottom of the Championship, the glory days seemed like a very distant memory.

But this year, Reading seem to have hit their stride. Unbeaten in eleven games, striker Shane Long up for player of the year. McDermott’s quietly inspiring managership and a playing style that could best be described as “no surrender” (several games this season have been won in extra time), meant that the Royals suddenly looked like they had a good chance of getting back in the major leagues.

Yesterday’s 4-2 result was especially heartbreaking, then. Reading were 3-0 down at half-time, thanks to a penalty and a lucky deflection that seemed to knock all the fight out of the boys. It’s absolutely typical of them that they came out in the second half and fought back hard. It looked as if they could pull off a miracle, but luck and the run of the ball were simply against them. Jem Karacan’s strike smacked off the post, and a late penalty rang the final bell on Reading’s chances. It seems ironic that Rodger’s Swansea is the team to go up. Like Reading, they were suffering only a couple of seasons ago. The Royals’ loss would seem to be the Swan’s gain.

I don’t think any Reading fan can be anything but proud of their team today, though. They showed the spirit and determination that have turned them into a deeply respected team in the Championship, and the team to watch next season. The town and it’s community are behind them, and they are a true unifying force in Reading. It’s been a rollercoaster year for the Royals. Who knows what could happen in 2012?

Lyrics That Make You Want To Listen To Instrumentals

I’ve been listening to The Icicle Works again lately – Ian McNab’s epic bombast suits my mood, especially here under the grey dome of a typical late spring bank holiday.

Their breakout single “Love Is A Wonderful Colour” is wonderful, widescreen bellow-along stuff, but the opening line almost knocks you out of the spell the band are trying to create.

“My friend and I were talking one evening, beside some burning wood…”

That, I guess, would be a bonfire. I’d listened to the song for years, but only recently glommed on to how clumsy that opening line is. Now, of course, it’s all I can hear. Great.

This fumbled attempt at mystery and atmosphere, while at the same time trying to keep the metre and rhyme of the song in check can lead to some unexpectedly hilarious or outright bizarre lyrical choices. Take, for example, one of my favourites, Thin Lizzy’s “Jailbreak”. Phil Lynott asserts:

“Tonight there’s going to be a jailbreak, somewhere in this town…”

I’d start with the jail.

Comedian Russell Howard pointed this one out, and I have to hold back from yelling “try the jail!” whenever I hear the song. The song also contains a prime example of Lynott’s way with the ladies:

“Searchlight on my trail
Tonight’s the night all systems fail
Hey you, good lookin’ female
Come here!”

You can’t resist, can you? This is the man who allegedly coined the come-on line “Got any Irish in you? Would you like some?” You have to at least admire the swagger and testosterone in the couplet above, and the wink in it is almost visible.

Sometimes, all you need is one syllable to make a line scan, and the temptation is to jam one in and damn the consequences. That’s all that I can think was going through Paul McCartney’s mind when he wrote the opening verse of “Live And Let Die”. It starts off with a philosophical flourish:

“When you were young, and your heart was an open book, you used to say live and let live…”

All good so far. But then we get a sentence that doesn’t seem to know when to finish.

“But in this everchanging world in which we live in…”

CLANG. Brakes on. A binful of prepositions, and all of a sudden Sir Paul is tripping over his own feet. Makes me give in and cry.

Readership, you all know of my love and admiration for R.E.M. but even the saintly Michael Stipe gets it wrong every so often. Famously, the band’s first album Murmur was titled after Michael’s less than clear vocal delivery. Sometimes, it might be better if he mumbled a bit more. The lovely Leaving New York contains the line

“…leaving was never my proud…”

which I would dearly love someone to explain to me. It doesn’t even rhyme properly with the next line of the chorus. In a song that has a strong personal meaning for TLC and I, that line sticks out like a gangrenous thumb.

Of course, the king of rotten lyrics is Simon Le Bon of Duran Duran. He seems to be quite happy to sling together any old word salad as long as it matches the tune. My personal favourite is from “Wild Boys”, where our Simon loses the plot and the ability to string a sentence together all at once:

“You got sirens for a welcome
There’s bloodstain for your pain
And your telephone been ringing while
You’re dancing in the rain
Wild boys wonder where is glory
Where is all you angels
Now the figureheads have fell
And lovers war with arrows over secrets they could tell…”

There’s plenty more where that came from. Although I’d disagree with the school of thought that claims the line “You’re about as easy as a nuclear war” is one of the worst ever. It has the right level of over-the-top silliness that suits the Dran in their heyday.

We could go on and on, but I don’t want to turn this into a simple “crap lyrics” post. It’s the lines that almost work that are the most fun. Besides which quoting out of context does every songwriter here a disservice. There is one that always makes me smile, though, and I want to conclude with Sade. I am happy to say she taught me something about American geography when she sang:

“Coast to coast, LA to Chicago…”

The Windy City is, as any fule with access to Google Maps no, 800 miles inland. I guess “LA to New Jersey” didn’t have the glamourous cosmopolitan ring Sade was after.

The End Of Recorded Music: Bill Drummond And The17

Let’s begin with a few words from artist musician and cultural rabble-rouser Bill Drummond.

Drummond has always been about flipping the switch on baked-in ideas about art and music, but this is something else. Performance for the sake of performance, completely dissolving the boundaries between musician and audience, to the point where they become one and the same entity.

In his explanation of the concept found here Bill mentions influences as disparate as Yoko Ono and Steve Reich. I’d add the experiments David Byrne carried out in Brooklyn, turning an old warehouse into a musical instrument. I’m also thinking about Jem Finer’s Longplayer, a software instrument designed to play by itself for a thousand years without ever repeating. Or his Score For A Hole In The Ground, a tuned series of metal bowls that play a random melody when water is dripped onto them from above, hidden in a forest in Kent.

I find conceptual music deeply fascinating and satisfying, and the idea of a piece of music mutating and evolving beyond the reach of it’s composer is an amazing idea. The17 aren’t quite there yet – they are still organised by Drummond, and sing libretti that he has written. But this will change, I’m certain. And Drummond has stated his intention to set it free on his 60th birthday in 2013.

There is something so freeing and fresh in these ideas. I find it more and more difficult to connect with modern chart music, which has become shamelessly blatant in the way it cribs older songs, or have the sound and lyrical content of skipping rhymes. Yes, yes, I know, old git thinks music ain’t worrit used to be. Which is a rubbish argument, because there’s a lot of great new music out there. And let’s not lose the image of me bouncing up and down on the sofa cackling at Eurovision a couple of weeks back. I’m still not convinced about Drummond’s argument that all music has been heard to death, either. But a radical stance is the first move towards new way of thinking, and Bill has always been an innovator.

You could argue that performance by and for a small group is as ancient as gatherings around campfires. But then sometimes we need to see where we’ve been to understand where we’re going. I love the Spotify model of complete access to a vast range of music. I love discovering new and old music alike. (an example: this absolutely gorgeous version of Leonard Cohen’s Suzanne by… well, you’ll be surprised. Pleasantly.) The17 ties into that process of discovery and distills it down to a very pure, clear extract. A perfect circle, welcoming and enclosed all at once. Music for the initiated, performed in an open church.

The next The17 performance will be in Portugal on June 17th. For more details, or if you’re interested in participating, check the website.

On a slight deviation, Bill Drummond is the unheard voice in our conversations about the M25 Spin, following chats with Gimpo and Iain Sinclair. Dom is in contact with him, and it’s a dear wish of mine to be able to chat to Bill about the Spin, The17 and his other projects. We remain hopeful, and will update you as news becomes available.

The End Of The World, Continued

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It’s a big old world out there, and everyone has their own ideas about how it’s going to end. It would be silly of me to suggest that the Christians have the whole Empty Earth thing wrapped up. And anyway, the concept of The Rapture bothers me. I think the whole idea of a chosen few being whisked away to safety leaving all the non-believers behind is incredibly selfish. There’s an element of that in all religions, of course. Our way is the right way, and the rest of you can (quite literally) go to hell. It also gives a whole new spin on the idea of Christian family values.

Every culture has a view on the apocalypse. The Abrahamic tradition (your Jews, Christians and Islamics) tend to view it as the end of all things. God ringing down the curtain as punishment, or rebooting creation as it’s started going a bit funny and his spreadsheet package has frozen. Buddhist and Hindu philosophy tends to think cyclically. As one age ends, another begins. It’s almost a seasonal thing, the endless cycle of death and rebirth. I can sympathise with this. Every time I think I’ve wrought the End Times on the weeds in my garden, back they come, regular as the new Golden Age.

Most religions seem to agree that we are living, if not in the End Times, then at the corrupted end of a cycle. Hindus call it Kali Yuga. The thinking goes that as we and our world go through time, we devolve from divine beings that know nothing of sin, into the sort of base creatures that can happily watch the X-Factor. According to Buddha, our life spans are also attached to this cycle. In the past, people lived for 80,000 years and were endowed with beauty, grace and strength. Over time, as we took on more worldly habits (organised religion, frozen stuffed crust pizza, Sky Sports) our life span and the gifts that go with it started to decline. Eventually, as the cycle comes to an end, we will live for ten years, become sexually active at five, and hunt each other for sport. Once only a few of us are left to repent that we ever thought Eastenders was any good, we will somehow regain virtue and become again divine. See, much more sensible than this Rapture nonsense.

I’m intrigued by the idea that most religions think that we are living in a time that is significantly more corrupt and evil than any that has gone before. I’ve heard that argument before. From my nans, mostly. Things were so much better when they were kids. There was Hovis for everyone, and there was none of this war stuff, you know apart from the war.

This hearkening back to a mythical Golden Age, and dire warnings for our future if we don’t behave, has been going on for longer than you think. Sumerian cave writings have been found that gloomily document a society grown weak, venal and corrupt – a society that, the grumpy writer predicts, will soon collapse into rubble. These writings, surely the first example of a Daliy Mail editorial, have been conservatively dated to around 2800BC. Which goes to show. If we really are living in Kali Yuga, we have been doing so for a veeeeery long time.