Notes On The Purpose Of Writing

I was sat outside the Museum St cafe that I like to frequent when I go into town and Jacko was assuring me that ‘the boogie’ was to blame but for what, exactly, I’ve never bothered to work out.
   “No-one’s really interested in what you think about music,” she said.
   You’re right. I’m wasting my time. But perhaps I’m interested in what I think because writing concentrates the mind, makes me listen differently.”
   “So you write for yourself, really.”
   “Everyone does, to some extent. Even professional journalists.”
   I caught sight of myself reflected in the shop window opposite and concluded, regretfully, that despite wearing a cap and sunglasses I looked nothing like Belmondo in ‘Breathless’.
   “I mean writing’s a way of ordering the chaos that is your thoughts. It’s a kind of taming process. The thoughts are unstoppable and they come and go so randomly. But to write is to corral a few. It’s a small victory of sorts.”
   She sipped coffee. I did the same.
   “Writing can organise, illuminate, clarify, or reflect the chaos,” I said. I don’t think you even have to choose one of those options. You can use them all.”
   “Yes, but readers like a clear cut identity. Diversity confuses them, whether it’s from an artist, writer or musician.”
   “True, but if an artist gives in to what he thinks the reader wants or what he thinks the reader is capable of understanding he’s doomed.”
   “Assuming he’s writing with some grand purpose in mind.”
   “That doesn’t matter. It’s what the reader aspires to that counts. What we want. What we want, demand, seek out is all that counts. The ordinary, the average commonplace...whatever you want to call it, will always exist. But it’s the work outside of that that really matters. That’s the stuff that makes it all worthwhile.”
   “And lots of people just don’t care about any of that.”
   “And lots of people love trash TV and read The Sun. I know. But they’re not important, only in the context of culture, broadly speaking. Even then, I don’t adhere to the idea that engaging with that culture is essential. National publications feel they have to reflect everything. When we write as individuals without a care in the world for pleasing, or gaining more, readers, we are free. In writing, painting or whatever, we are truly free, or at least the possibility is there. Even that isn’t an easy thing to find because we’re always fighting preconceptions, habits, so-called high standards, doubts and insecurities. But I’d rather do that than give in to some pattern set by others. So I’ll carry on writing for myself. And no-one can stop me!”
   I thumped the metal table; an impression of an angry not-so-young-anymore man.
   She laughed, said she had to go.
   Alone, I got out the pad and wrote down what I’d just said.
   The above is a transcription of the notes I made. Except to say that they were only ever notes to start with because there had been no-one to talk to.

Mark Van Hoen - Day of the Locust Album

Call me old skool, call me old-fashioned, but I’ve just discovered Mark Van Hoen’s Locust album, ‘Weathered Well’, and it sounds damn good. It was made in ’94, but doesn’t sound ‘old’ to me. Mind you, I’m no expert on the gadgetry timeline when it comes to electronic music, so I can’t place it in time by the instruments used.
   A combination of the latest bit of kit and mediocre talent will age a record sure enough; dance music is littered with examples. But major talent as possessed by Stockhausen or Subotnik ensures longevity. Then again, they weren’t aiming to fill a ‘floor, were they? Or satisfy anyone but themselves. I read an interview with Paul Weller today in which he dismisses the idea of an artist aiming to please himself first and foremost. He said something like ‘Well, stay in your bedroom then’. Eh? Just who is The Modfather trying to please when he makes a record? Does he have the retired scooterist in mind? This may account for the mediocrity of everything he’s done since killing off The Jam.
   I doubt that Van Hoen was aiming to satisfy anyone but himself when he made ‘Weathered Well’. As for instruments, here’s what he used:
   Synthesizers: Digisound Modular, Aries Modular, Oberheim SEM, Moog Rogue, Yamaha CS80, Pearl Analog Drumkit Module, Yamaha DX7, Korg Wavestation A/D.
   Effects: TOA DDL, Maplin Analog Echo, GBS Reverb, Roland GP8 Guitar FX, Locust Ring Modulator, Morley Phaser, Cry Baby Wah-Wah, Revox B77.
   The list reminds me of the buzz I used to get reading what Herbie Hancock played during his second great fusion phase (‘Thrust’ etc). The names conjured up The Future, as if they might also apply to robots, space stations and planets. Well back in the 70s you could say it did signal the big, bold brave new world of sound. Today an instrument check is less impressive, in a way. But perhaps techno-nerds do go all gooey with nostalgia for the Oberheim SEM.
   The long shadow of Vangelis’s ‘Blade Runner’ inevitably falls over a lot that goes on here, but it doesn’t prevent Van Hoen from shining, and besides, it’s influenced virtually everything in the realms of futurist electronica. Influence as opposed to pale imitation, in this case, can only be a good thing. That aside, you can guess the rest...Kraftwerk (of course), and Klause Schulze.
   ‘Music About Love’ is a tour de force; one of the tracks that’s up-tempo and tears along like he’s giving that Oberheim a good hammering. I imagine him in a frenzy of programming – ‘Now I’ll throw in the Cry Baby Wah-Wah!’ Is there a better name for an instrument in the whole world of instruments? It’s followed by the cast iron bone-crusher that is ‘Lust’, which may pummel your head in one sense, but in another demonstrates great restraint...a kind tension between the relentless beat and the cybertronic choral accompaniment lead by Aries Modular, I shouldn’t wonder. And if he existed, shouldn’t he be in an electronic vocal band remaking ‘Float On’? ‘Hi, my name’s Modular, and I’m Aries’. Perhaps not.
   ‘Fawn’ has a great spook-in-the-machine atmosphere, enhanced by tubular bells and phantom vocals by something that is not human.
   ‘Pithano’ does sound a little dated, only because to me it seems to be infected with the Rave virus. I can imagine it being a hit with those young people who liked to gather in fields, illegally. Even so, Van Hoen isn’t one for the show-stopping big beat, more the muted thump.
   Weathered well? I think it has, and it’s worthy of the rerelease it got earlier this year.

Wind - Hazard (Ash International)

I’ve got a BBC sound effects album stashed away somewhere, Horror being the theme, as I recall. Or simply violence. It contains tracks such as ‘3 Gun Shots’ and ‘Man Having His Head Sawn Off’...and ‘Mad Man Screaming’. These snippets of sound, lasting just a few seconds, have given me more pleasure than a lot of music.
   So now there’s ex-Cabaret Voltaire member Chris Watson making a career out of being a ‘sound recordist’, or making field recordings as they’re more commonly known. The difference between a BBC sound effects (‘Nature’) record featuring rooks and Watson’s ‘Embleton Rookery’ from his ‘Stepping Into The Dark’ album of ’96 being...the length of the recording. And its presentation, place in certain music stores and invitation to respond with a conceptual theory.
   Naturally, there’s something appealing about pure field recordings like this. It’s not music. Neither is it noise. It’s pure sound. When Watson appears on the cover of The Wire as he did last month, you know he’s being taken far more seriously than the anoraked Beeb employee who’s been told to get out there and record some birds.
   For an album that gets my Best Thing I’ve Heard Recently award he teamed up with BJ Nilsen to make Wind, back in 2001. It’s been reissued. Nilsen added the electronics, so you might say he was like a pylon in a field...a pylon covered in grass therefore camouflaged to melt into the natural environment...yet still serving as a carrier of...er...electricity.
   I’m omitting the a-word here because I don’t want to give the impression that this is just more muzak for New Age techno nerds. Although it may be. Something about pure sound bereft of melody or beat pleases me right now. That something is the omission of melody and beat.
   Change being as good as a rest is one thing, but this is no cosy representation of rural life, despite a track called ‘Village’. This village is more like something from the mind of John Wyndham. Which is not to say that Nilsen opts for lazy industrial Gothic horror drones, more that he underpins Watson’s wind recording with unsettling noises.
   ‘Barrier’ is also good, because it is more like the archetypal atmosphere favoured by the School of Disconcerting Drones.
   The cover may depict the kind of patchwork of greenery we love to see when returning from hot countries that don’t make decent tea, but this is far from a utopian vision of our land. You can imagine your preferred choice of horrors whilst listening...the sight of another Tescos being built...a motorway...wind turbines, poly tunnels...rain clouds when you have no waterproofs...whatever. To the sound of ‘Sough’ I can see a nuclear power plant featuring Ronald’s beloved golden ‘M’ next to a new mega estate of Barratt Homes from which zombie-eyed children are emerging with a view to stealing my soul. That kind of thing.
   It’s not music. Sometimes, after listening to so much mediocrity made by singers, players and programmers, that is a real relief.

Beyond The Realms Of Dub

Adrian Sherwood can’t mix dub, so someone told me the other day. It was news to me, but then, I’m no expert and he is. The trouble with experts sometimes is that their authority can be a straightjacket that restricts their ability to appreciate that which is related to their field of knowledge. If you get my drift. I doubt that AS would consider himself fit to polish King Tubby’s crown, but that wouldn’t deter his legion of admirers from appointing him King of Anarcho UK Dub Tech Radicalism. There aren’t many challengers, true. His work with Mark Stewart is enough to secure him a place in my little book of legendary engineers, anyway.
   There’s something appealing about renegade activists operating in areas where many others already rule. Gareth Sager’s no Roland Kirk, but what a fine noise he made when, with Rip Rig & Panic, he broke into the kingdom of jazz to ransack the palace, nick a few treasures and leave, howling with laughter. The same might be said of James White and even John Lurie, although Lurie does have decent chops on him.
   It’s been a Dub-filled afternoon. Such things as ‘Garvey’s Ghost’ with Jack Ruby at the controls – no extravagant FX trickery, but with such pieces (players) at his disposal with which to create sonic mosaics he doesn’t need it.
   Mad Professor took me ‘Beyond The Realms of Dub’ – what a fine madness, taking the title track as an example, wherein the Mad One mixes vocals to make a Hammer horror atmosphere whilst drums burst through your brain like bursts from an Uzi. ‘Africa 93’ is laced with such lunacy that his royal highness Lee Perry should worry - a fantastical whimsy of heavily reverbed drum, bleeps and electro squiggles.
   Kit Clayton’s another imposter, but his ‘Nek Sanalet’ album contains some fine dub-electronica, like ‘Nuchu’, which is as good as anything Lee Perry ever produced in his sleep. And I mean that as a compliment. ‘Purpakana’ is also a worthy excursion through the psyched-out echo chamber. Likewise ‘Kalu’. Other tracks are more Basic Channel than Channel One, but you know how those two are connected so they still fit in the context of the album.
   A minute into Joseph Nechvatal’s ‘Ego Masher’ we hear a motorbike zooming off; perhaps it’s King Tubby riding through the alleyways of Kingston on his Honda. The track, from Sub Rosa’s ‘Anthology of Noise & Electronic Music Vol 6’, bares some relation to Dub’s ability to rearrange sound. Not that Dub is JA’s answer to musique concrete, exactly, but the boldest producers’ inclination towards splicing in that which sits outside of music is tangential to this brand of avant-garde sound.
   Without having played all of the compilation, it’s still evident that the sixth in this series is equal to its precursors, providing, as they all do, diverse examples of noise and electronic music, some of which, you may not be surprised to learn, is both.

Of Playlists, Tangerines Dreams & Sad Skinheads

I confess to having wasted several of my waking hours recently; a large portion of time last night, and again this morning. Only the part in between wasn’t a waste. And I berate myself for having done so whilst then again berating myself for being precious about time. It’s a no win situation.

   I spent most of last night compiling a Spotify list of music which few people will hear and even less will like because I don’t know where to put it and have few friends who enjoy electronic music as much as I do. Neither of them do.

   When it comes to posting playlists, I’ve visited a few sites, but their size, ironically, works against them as far as I’m concerned. When they tag music ‘electronic’ it could mean anything from cheesy house to dubstep. Finding what I like requires more (wasted) hours trawling through all the rubbish. It’s obvious that what’s needed is a really specialist outlet for this kind of thing. I’ve yet to find one. You know, a place where people know Black Dog from Skinny Puppy.

   If you’re aware of any good specialist playlist sites, please let me know.

   Here's the playlist anyway.

Speaking of electronic music, I can’t be alone in finding the phrase ‘tangerine dream’ used in reference to Blackpool FC’s success amusing/unsettling/weird. Because of the club’s kit, one of their nicknames is ‘The Tangerines’. A BBC reporter used the phrase last night and I’m sure she’s not the first. Have sales of TG recordings rocketed in Blackpool since their rise to the top league? Somehow, I doubt it. Do they play ‘Rubycon’ in the ground before matches? It seems unlikely. How many Blackpool residents have even heard of Tangerine Dream?

 Before Chelsea’s home games they play Harry J All-Stars’ ‘Liquidator’. There’s no better tune when it comes to recalling the glory days of skin’ead antics in The Shed. Not that football today wishes to look back on the heyday of football aggro with fondness. Neither do I, except to say that I was a skin’ead back then and so I can relate. I wasn’t a Shed regular (far too young), but I’m sure there are a few middle-aged men in the Matthew Harding Stand who get a lump in their throats when the tune plays...fondly recalling their nadsat years, when they derived much radosty from giving others a good kick in the yarbles.

Bobby Jackson and Smashing Pianos

No cocaine running around in my brain; instead, Chairman Of The Board’s ‘Finder’s Keepers’ for most of the day...ever since I looked at what the Finders Keepers label had to offer in their catalogue. If I looked at the RAK label, I’d probably want to go sailing but not, hopefully, find myself singing Rod’s song.

   ‘Finder’s Keepers’ is, as you know, one of the greatest singles ever made, not only because of its groove, but also the arrangement and unusual elements, one of which is the scorching trombone. ‘Bone solos are a rarity in pop tunes (if this can be called ‘pop’). They’re not too common in Funk, except where the JBs are involved. One is featured in another fabulous record, the Soul Sisters’ ‘I Can’t Stand It’, which is also one of the greatest singles ever made. A pattern emerges? To make one of the greatest dance records ever, get a good trombone player involved.

   It’s easier to find great music now than it’s ever been, especially when the likes of Jazzman do all the legwork. One great discovery I made recently through that label is Bobby Jackson’s ‘The Cafe Extraordinaire Story’. And he’s virtually unknown. A bass-player who ran a venue in Minneapolis is about all I do know. ‘Bobby’s Blues’ is a stunner, featuring Bobby Lyle on piano, in a kind of McCoy Tyner mode, with grand chords crashing down the stairs, tunefully of course.

   Saying that reminds me of the time we couldn’t move a piano up some stairs, got it wedged in a wooden rail that had metal at its core (oh, they knew how to make things last in the old days), which we discovered when we tried to saw through it. So, after some debate we kicked it back down and smashed it to pieces. I’ve haven’t had so much fun from, or got such great sounds out of, an instrument before or since. Music for an unprepared piano. Wish we’d recorded it ‘cause I just know it would have become an avant-garde classic by now.

   Bobby Hutcherson, as he recalls in ‘The Hip’, once chucked a piano from a fourth floor in New York. They got a drunk off the street to give it the final heave whilst they prepared to record it on the street – ‘ – and then WHAAAAHOOOM! And man, this chord hits and it’s just like someone flipped a switch from darkness to light! It just stayed there and swelled like an atomic bomb.’

   Anyway, Jackson’s record is damn fine, not brilliant, but surprisingly modern-sounding, as in kind of timeless. I think the year was ’66, but it has a feel to it like it could have been made yesterday. It does look foward on 'Fluck Flick', with the electric keyboard lending it a fusion feel. Rarity is no guarantee of quality but in this case Jazzman's digging has turned up a goodie.

Wild In The Streets

Not much coming into the bunker in the way of pulp paperbacks (or any interesting oddities) recently. But I did get this. Teen takeover? Heaven forbid

Cut To Be Command Words

Research project: to find out to what extent scrambled messages are unscrambled, that is scanned out by experimental subjects. The simplest experiments consists in playing back a scrambled message to subject. Message could contain simple commands. Does the scrambled message have any command value comparable to post-hypnotic suggestion? Is the actual content of the message received? What drugs, if any, increase ability to unscramble messages? Do subjects vary widely in this ability? Are scrambled messages in the subject's own voice more effective than messages in other voices? Are messages scrambled in certain voices more easily unscrambled by specific subjects? Is the message more potent with both word and image scramble on video tape? Now to use, for example, a video tape message with a unified emotional content. Let us say the message is fear. For this we take all the past fear shots of the subject we can collect or evoke. We cut these in with fear words and pictures, and threats, etc. This is all acted out and would be upsetting in any case. Now let's try it scrambled and see if we can get an even stronger effect. The subject's blood pressure, rate of heart beat, and brain waves are recorded as we play back the scrambled tape.

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There Are Treacherous Passages In These Somber Pages...

Jazz With That Bacon Sarnie?

So I goes into this food joint called Pod and they’re playing jazz; not just the usual kind these places air in the name of appearing ‘cool’, but some deep stuff featuring an alto player well into his improvisational flight – which makes a change from Blue Note or bossa.

   And once I’d ordered my breakfast I tried to figure out who was playing. Bird? No, the sound was too clear. Art Pepper? Possibly. Could have been Konitz...

   And I got a little frustrated at not recognising either the tune or the player. But then, the solo lasted most of the duration so...you know...there was no tune to recognise.

   Anyway, waiting for the grub I contemplated striking up a micro-chat with the young black girl behind the counter who, naturally, looked bored. I was going to ask her if she enjoyed or simply tolerated this kind of music. But, you know, in all my years of shocking shop assistants with sudden outbursts of communication that go beyond those required for simply purchasing anything I’ve learnt that they can sometimes, well, quite frequently, be so surprised that it renders them speechless.

   Suppose I’m kind of sociable like that. Never angling for a favour, just a quick link with humanity.

   Well, I kept quiet, carried on trying to ID the player, failed, and felt a bit pissed off because, hell, I’ve written a damn book on this music, haven’t I? Still, as I’ve said many times, I’m a fan, not an expert (as you’ll know if you’ve read the book).

   I’m guessing it was music policy rather than workers’ choice, that Jazz. Let’s face it, the chances of anyone in there opting for Jazz is remote. Nobody under 40 likes Jazz. In fact, from my thorough research into the matter, I’ve only found a handful of people who do like it. Although, to increase my circle of friends I am thinking of joining the Lady Gaga fan club. Members of which I do not want to know.

   I wonder what those with no interest in Jazz think of walking in to buy food and being treated to several minutes of improvisation? I really wonder what goes through their minds...’What a racket!’? Or ‘Christ, I hope she hurries up with that roll’. More likely than ‘This is fantastic!’. Of course.

   If there is a form of logical progression in this strange phenomenon I expect to walk into one of these places in, say, a couple of years, and hear Cecil Taylor. A stupid idea, I know...

All My Friends Are Absent

At 5.17pm, according to my Facebook page ‘No one is online’. Imagine of no one really was online? This simple statement of fact regarding the absence of any of my ‘friends’ strikes me as profound.

   I wonder if I could go to any other page on the ‘net and also find that no one is online?

   Imagine that there really is no one online anywhere and that all the forums and social network pages were empty...tumbleweed rolls through digital space...not a soul...just me staring at my screen...a post digital apocalypse in which I am the only person left in the world with access to the internet...me and government agencies...who only have one person to spy on...me. They would find my activities rather dull since I don’t visit politically radical sites. They may, however, shake their heads and sigh at my obsession with visiting Boomkat...

   I need more ‘friends’, obviously, yet Facebook is already such a distraction that to have lots of ‘friends’ would prove to be a kind of trap which I’d find very hard to escape...all those chat boxes popping up...it would be rude to ignore a message.

   Yet the widening of the social circle online may prove valuable in that it must increase my chances of making contact with someone who may be useful in many ways...tips about film, books, music and, not least of all, that one person who could further my writing career, which barely exists...which is why I need that someone, a manager, promoter...more pertinently, an editor, probably.

   Ah, the loneliness of a potentially long-distance FB member...all those potential ‘friends’ around the world...an alternative to finding out that I have none...online...right now...