New York in 100 Songs - # 26 Gil Scott Heron
3 hours ago
Wednesday 13 April 2016
Monday 11 April 2016
Sunday 10 April 2016
Politics These Days
This Paul Ryan Video Sure Looks A Lot Like A 2016 Campaign Ad
There's an interesting comment left at the link above which goes as follows:Its a long shot, IMO, but this is how it worksUPDATE:
Trump loses on the first ballot, Cruz loses on the second and probably third ballot. Delegates start getting panicky and starting looking for a quick way out of the mess while the national cameras are rolling. Ryan gets presented as someone who can bridge the gap between establishment and anti establishment wings, while declaring he doesn't want the job..which clearly means he is above reproach. That argument sells with the majority of delegates and they rally behind him to give him the nomination. Ryan takes the stage and delivers a humblebrag speech that says all republicans need to unite against the evil of Hillary, aka Obama's third term, and though he is reluctant, the danger is so great that he will humbly take up the banner and lead them all into the breach.
Nobody gets EXACTLY what they want, but they settle for someone who isn't prerceived as completely loathsome by either wing..and hey, he IS bailing them out in a tight spot, even though he says he doesn't want the nomination. He said so himself, repeatedly. Some grumbling, but they mostly put it behind them and move on to the fall.
The notion that Ryan is also unbloodied by the primaires, as opposed to Trump and Cruz, will also be whispered in lots of ears.
Like I said, its a major reach, but have no doubt that Ryan has his eyes looking for just such an opening to emerge.
Paul Ryan has ruled out a 2016 Presidential bid
Saturday 9 April 2016
Merle Haggard: Learning To Live With Myself (A film by Gandulf Hennig)
I have decided to make my film Merle Haggard: Learning To Live With Myself available for free streaming on Youtube for a limited time for those of you who haven't seen it, or would like to see it again. Please share and spread the word.
I spent three years following Merle for this project and filmed him and his family on the road and at their home. We did a number of in-depth interviews with Merle and with his family for the film, and it wasn't always easy sailing. Besides Merle and his family we also interviewed Keith Richards, Robert Duvall, Dwight Yoakam, Marty Stuart and many other artists for the film. The film aired as part of the PBS/American Masters series in the US and on the BBC and German television in Europe but for a number of reasons it hasn't been available to the public for a while, and it is currently not available on DVD or home video.
I want to thank everybody again who worked so hard on this film with me, first and foremost my old production partner Alfred Holighaus back in Berlin, our editor Dava Whisenant, our cinematographers Roger Pistole and Matthew Dyer, our sound engineers Thomas Morrison, Matt Hamilton and Jeremy Mazza, and all the other great people who worked with us. Merle's publicist Tresa Redburn, his lawyer Anthony Kornarens and Merle's long-time road manager, Frank Mull were essential in the making of the film - I simply would not have been able to pull it off without their help and support.
Merle is gone, but his legacy will live on forever. My work on this film has defined my American experience like nothing else. It's time to make the film available for everybody now
Gandulf Hennig
Ornery
Norman Westberg (Swans) Brisbane/Melbourne/Perth (April 14-17)
Guitarist extraordinaire and all round nice guy Norman Westberg is undertaking a series of shows in Australia starting next week. These will be the first solo shows to be played outside of the United States.
The dates are:
Brisbane: Institute of Modern Art 7PM April 14 (Free)
Melbourne: Monash University Museum of Art 3PM April 16 (Free)
Perth: Club Zho April 17 7PM ($20/15)
Following these dates Norman will be back on Swans duty with hopefully the band rolling back into town in early 2017
From 13
From the new album MRI available now (Info)
Thank you John for the kind permission to use that wonderful photo of Norman
Flashback
Friday 8 April 2016
Thursday 7 April 2016
Wednesday 6 April 2016
Getatchew Mekuria R.I.P.
Getatchew passed away today (4/4). At the age of 81 and after a musical career of 68 years. He was a truely unique saxophone player. Born in the countryside of Ethiopia, he heard the saxophone on the radio at the age of 13 and went to Addis Abeba straight away. He wanted to play saxophone! And soon after that he got himself into the Municipality Band. Later he played in the Haile Selassie Orchestra's, the National Theatre Orchestra and more.
Since 2004 he played regularly with The Ex. It was his choice after hearing us at one of our festivals. He recognized something in our music which reminded him of the early groups he was in, like the Fetan Band (Speed Band). He loved playing with us and for us it was also an incredible experience. He was always totally himself, full-on intense and dedicated. We played more than 100 concerts and made two beautiful albums together.
The last few years, his health was not very good. He couldn't really go on tour anymore. As a kind of farewell concert for his fans, we organized a big event in the National Theatre in Addis Abeba. He got lots of attention and respect that night: 1500 people in the audience, three TV stations and a legendary concert. Getatchew was playing while sitting on a chair, but his playing was stronger than ever.
His whole life was music. With his unique sound and approach he leaves behind an eternal inspiration!
We will miss him.
The Ex & Friends
Via
A note from Michael Gira:
And so finally this LOVE has now led us, with the release of the new and final recording from this configuration of Swans, The Glowing Man, through four albums (three of which contain more complexity, nuance and scope than I would have ever dreamed possible), several live releases, various fundraiser projects, countless and seemingly endless tours and rehearsals, and a generally exhausting regimen that has left us stunned but still invigorated and thrilled to see this thing through to its conclusion. I hereby thank my brothers and collaborators for their commitment to whatever truth lies at the center of the sound. I’m decidedly not a Deist, but on a few occasions – particularly in live performance – it’s been my privilege, through our collective efforts, to just barely grasp something of the infinite in the sound and experience generated by a force that is definitely greater than all of us combined. When talking with audience members after the shows or through later correspondence, it’s also been a true privilege to discover they’ve experienced something like this too. Whatever the force is that has led us through this extended excursion, it’s been worthwhile for many of us, and I’m grateful for what has been the most consistently challenging and fulfilling period of my musical life.
Going forward, post the touring associated with The Glowing Man, I’ll continue to make music under the name Swans, with a revolving cast of collaborators. I have little idea what shape the sound will take, which is a good thing. Touring will definitely be less extensive, I’m certain of that! Whatever the future holds, I’ll miss this particular locus of human and musical potential immensely: Norman Westberg, Kristof Hahn, Phil Puleo, Christopher Pravdica, Thor Harris, and myself mixed in there somewhere, too.”
THE GLOWING MAN TRACKLISTING
1. Cloud of Forgetting
2. Cloud of Unknowing
3. The World Looks Red / The World Looks Black
4. People Like Us
5. Frankie M.
6. When Will I Return?
7. The Glowing Man
8. Finally, Peace.
“I wrote the song ‘When Will I Return? specifically for Jennifer Gira to sing. It’s a tribute to her strength, courage, and resilience in the face of a deeply scarring experience she once endured, and that she continues to overcome daily.
The song ‘The World Looks Red / The World Looks Black’ uses some words I wrote in 1982 or so that Sonic Youth used for their song ‘The World Looks Red’, back in the day. The music and melody used here in the current version are completely different. While working up material for this new album, I had a basic acoustic guitar version of the song and was stumped for words. For reasons unknown to me, the lyric I’d so long ago left in my typewriter in plain view at my living and rehearsal space (the latter of which Sonic Youth shared at the time) and which Thurston plucked for use with my happy permission, popped into my head and I thought “Why not?” The person that wrote those words well over three decades ago bears little resemblance to who I am now, but I believe it remains a useful text, so “Why not?”. Maybe, in a way, it closes the circle.
The song ‘The Glowing Man’ contains a section of the song ‘Bring The Sun’ from our previous album, To Be Kind. The section is, of course, newly performed and orchestrated to work within its current setting. ‘The Glowing Man’ itself grew organically forward and out of improvisations that took place live during the performance of ‘Bring The Sun’, so it seemed essential to include that relevant section here. Since over the long and tortured course of the current song’s genesis, it had always been such an integral cornerstone I believe we’d have been paralyzed and unable to perform the entire piece at all without it.
‘Cloud of Forgetting’ and ‘Cloud of Unknowing’ are prayers. ‘Frankie M’ is another tribute and a best wish for a wounded soul. ‘The Glowing Man’ contains my favorite Zen Koan. ‘People Like Us’ and ‘Finally, Peace’ are farewell songs.”
- Michael Gira 2016
SWANS TOUR 2016
North America
7/6 – Philadelphia PA, Union Transfer
7/7 – Boston MA, Royale Nightclub
7/8 – Providence RI, Fete
7/9 – Quebec QC, Le Cercle
7/10 – Toronto ON, Danforth Music Hall
7/12 – Detroit MI, St Andrews Hall
7/13 – Milwaukee WI, Shank Hall
7/14 – Minneapolis MN, Fine Line Music Cafe
7/15 – Chicago IL, Lincoln Hall
7/16 – Chicago IL, Lincoln Hall
7/18 – Cleveland OH, Beachland Ballroom
7/19 – Cincinnati OH, Woodward Theater
7/21 – Louisville KY, Headliner’s Music Hall
7/22 – Atlanta GA, Terminal West
7/23 – Asheville NC, Orange Peel
7/24 – Nashville TN, Exit / In
7/26 – Carrboro NC, Cats Cradle
7/27 – Richmond VA The Broadberry
7/28 – Washington DC, 9:30 CLUB
7/29 – New York NY, Bowery Ballroom
7/30 – Brooklyn NY, Music Hall of Williamsburg
*with support from Okkyung Lee
9/1 – Tucson AZ, Rialto Theater
9/2 – Los Angeles CA, Fonda Theater
9/3 – San Francisco CA, The Regency Grand Ballroom
9/4 – Portland OR, Wonder Ballroom
9/6 – Vancouver BC, Venue
9/7 – Seattle WA, The Showbox
9/9 – Salt Lake City UT, Urban Lounge
9/10 – Denver CO, Gothic Theater
9/12 – Dallas TX, Trees
9/13 – Austin TX, Mohawk Austin
9/14 – San Antonio TX, Paper Tiger
9/15 – Albuquerque NM, Sunshine Theater
9/16 Sept – Phoenix AZ, Crescent Ballroom
*with support from Baby Dee
Europe
10/6 – Brussels BE, Oranjerie Botantique
10/7 – Eindhoven NL, De Effenaar
10/8 – Brighton UK, Concorde 2
10/9 – Manchester UK, HMV Ritz
10/11 – Glasgow UK, Oran Mor
10/12 – Newcastle Upon Tyne UK, Northumbria University
10/13 – London, UK, Islington Assembly Hall
10/14 – London, UK, Islington Assembly Hall
10/15 – Reims FR, La Cartonnerie
10/17 – Hamburg DE, Kampnagel
10/18 – Berlin DE, Huxleys Neue Welt
10/19 – Prague CZ, Divaldo ARCHA Theatre
10/21 – Budapest HU, A38 Ship
10/22 – Vienna AT, Arena Big Hall
10/23 – Graz AT, Orpheum Extra
10/25 – Ljubljana SL, Kino Kiska Centre for Urban Culture
10/26 – Zagreb HR, Lauba
10/28 – Basel CH, Kaserne
10/29 – Vevey CH, Rocking Chair
10/30 – Bern CH, Reitschule Dachstock
11/1 – Tourcoin FR, Le Grand Mix
11/2 – Nimes FR, La Paloma
11/5 – Bologna IT, Teatro Auditorium Manzoni
11/6 – Rome IT, Orion Live Club
11/8 – Nantes FR, Stereolux
11/9 – Paris FR, Le Trabendo
11/10 – Cologne DE, Gebäude 9
11/11 – Munich DE, Feierwerk
11/12 – Wiesbaden DE, Kulturezentrum Schlachthof
Michael Gira is currently on a solo tour through Europe, for full details, updates and announcements of additional Swans dates please visit: http://younggodrecords.com/pages/tour-dates
The Bug on Ballard (Unedited)
What is your favourite novel of Ballard's and why does it resonate with you?
Absolutely impossible to choose one…. really… But I guess the “Urban Disaster” triptych of Crash/High Rise/Concrete Island. They literally, scarred me for life, and they were the first novels I read by him…But no less inspired, and periodically disturbing is his autobiographical masterpiece ‘Kindness of Women’, which I was really smitten by too…Likewise his transformative novels like The Drowned World are incredible too..And don’t even get me started on his short stories….hahaha…
If you had put a gun to my head twenty years ago, I would probably have said ‘Crash’ for the sheer what the fuck factor of the book..It scrambled my head totally, because it’s sexy, horrific, fetishistic, man-machine collision seemed way out and beyond all the previously read literature I had consumed. Anti-boredom, ultrashocking, yet deeply sensual, it made most books seem very pedestrian in comparison..
But now, in hindsight, I would probably actually say ‘Kindness of Women’, for its amplification of the sheer weirdness of suburban existence in Britain, and the fragile nature of reality in ‘normal’ life...It's a book which masterfully contrasts primal carnal desires, with the deepest emotional traumas and the surreal social constructions of everyday "civilisation" in the highly controlled, rigidity of UK middle class life (lessness)...Also, as a recent parent, I guess I now empathise with his observations of the surreal strangeness of guiding children through our beautiful, odd and periodically frightening world.
How and when did you first come across his work?
If I remember rightly it was through reading the Re-Search ‘JG BALLARD handbook’, which I had purchased due to my fascination with Industrial Music’s first wave, as I followed the paths opened up by Throbbing Gristle, 23 Skidoo, SPK etc,…I would try and investigate all their cultural influences/references..and I guess I discovered Ballard’s work at the same time I craved the info onslaught created by exploring the socially censored material, that industrial culture gleefully exposed.
If you had to save just one Ballard novel from a burning tower block, what would it be and why?
Other than the two novels I mentioned above, it would probably be ‘The Crystal World’, which is a work of unforgettable beauty, which literally feels like a psychological dose of lysergic acid. The more the story/environment evolves the more I would find my mindset feeling more spun out, and literally tripping.
The kaleidoscopic transitions outlined in the novel, never cease to bewitch me. Again, it's Ballard as a cartographer of the barely concealed chaos that surrounds us, and which we all struggle to come to terms with...Yet there is always great beauty in his apocalyptic visions.
My favourite novels, tend to impact my brain like a skullfuck, mashing up all my previous perceptions, in the same way as the most extreme drug experiences can…The best art release chemical reactions in the brain that detonate brand new thought storms and literally trigger a different ways of seeing the world.
Why do you think his stories have influenced so many generations of uncompromising musicians?
He was an intrepid explorer of inner space. He was a dream worshipper, a submariner of the subconscious, as are all the best artists,
His non-aligned originality, makes his writing all the more attractive to anyone interested in confronting the outer limits of the inner mind.
And who else writes with such a love of transformation, and excels at his trademark jump cut evolutions..?
I feel the best musicians are those that channel the extremes of the subconscious into their music, and happily flourish outside genres or compartments..ie freaks… He was such an outsider, a master of surprise, and a master of brain jarring surrealism..His observations and prophecies on the impact of the intracranial meltdown caused by the man-machine fusion, still resonate deeply with me indeed. And also he was funny as hell…when doing so
Ballard himself self-described his “Imaginative fiction” as an “extreme fiction, made out of extreme metaphors, and I think only people with that taste for extreme solutions are going to be drawn to my imaginative fiction.” So voila, a musical generation full of sonic space cadets are the perfect audience for his implosive writing.
His work oscillates between horror and beauty, obsession and dread, like all the best art forms do…His protagonists dream of achieving their flights of fancy, whatever the consequence or however “out” their targets may be, so naturally creative thinkers are always going to be attracted to his alternate aesthetic.
JG Ballard’s turns of phrase and cerebral shifts are sublime, and effortless, often leaving me speechless. Whereas many of his contemporaries, or those inspired by him, always seem to be trying too hard..I mean you can sense how much Will Self’s ass cheeks tense, composing his empty attempts to say something profound. In contrast James Ballard dropped pearls of wisdom nonchalantly.
In March, a film of his novel High Rise is being released. In it, social warfare breaks out with the upper classes in the penthouses waging war against the middle and lower classes for control of the building. To me it seems very prescient, with gentrification spreading through UK’s inner cities and poor communities being forced out due to rising living costs.
– As artistic and musical communities become displaced, are our inner cities in danger of losing their cultural identity? What do you think needs to be done to redress the balance?
Fundamentally I accept and relish change. I have maximum distrust for tradition, and have never felt truly grounded anywhere. Always hated britishness, and never wanted to be part of it...So bring on the sea of change and the mess of the present..Lets see where it leads us.
London, Manhattan, Paris etc are empty vessels culturally right now, compared to their illustrious pasts..C’est la vie...Move on...I look forward to observing where the next artistic explosions emerge from..And in which mediums..Naturally I have some nostalgia for the London I knew, but you can’t turn the clocks back.
So asides from the obvious answer - physical revolution, which is unlikely to happen in the unrevolutionary UK, you can only hope that the chattering classes develop a trend for egoless self analysis, decide to drop their bullshit, jettison their lifestyle accessories and burn their overpriced trinkets...then fuck off their superficial friends…(No, not very likely..lol)
I believe western urban conditions are truly becoming feudal in a very medieval manner. All the financial beasts, and rich parasites are on a feeding frenzy in the city centres, whilst the vast majority of dispossessed workers, and unemployed outsiders are therefore shifted away from the glamorous walls of the beauty palaces. The curse of the luxury apartment infestation is steadily strangling inner cities all across Europe and America right now..
But its not all doom and gloom. The net, access to independent infrastructures and decentralised dispersion of artists can lead to new exciting enclaves in random locations, lone sanity assassins and fresh territorial inspiration…
Out of tyranny comes great art…But f-ck it's sometimes hard to find a clear spot.
Many council flats in tower blocks are being sold for millions. Do you think landlords and real estate moguls are indifferent to whether a class warfare kicks off in their buildings and surrounding streets?
I think modern middle class money grabbers obsessively gorge on the present, as the future is too terrifying and unpredictable to even begin to consider. Modern capitalism maybe fixated on short term gain instead of long term legacies, but its the same structurally reinforced, bloodline protected, usual suspects, who are still on top of the heap…And what's most surprising about the mess of the present social morass is how little its changed for centuries.
I think there is a total indifference to the suffering of the poor and a shocking selective blindness re-their plight. There is a rapidly increasing disparity between the haves and mostly have nots, whilst the vast majority of city dwellers are now knee deep in credit. Yet the Lords live in protected areas and are increasingly banishing the peasants to other cities or the suburbs.
What role can music play in the solution?
Opening minds and the inner eye should be the goal of any musician or artist...no ? Opening ears to alien sounds, opening minds to new perspectives. Fresh angles on fresh options. The best music rings alarms, and raises hairs on the back of the hand and neck. Wake up calls or consciousness igniters, that's what I always wanna locate...Or basically writing a bad ass beat that fires people up. Stimulating those folks that would normally feel rejected, neglected or abandoned, to give them energy or inspiration through a song.
I personally like hearing rhythmic noise as a nervous system shocker, but I also love dronal drifts to zone too when travelling...Music is all to me, cause it gave me hope, and a reason to live in a fucked up world...I can only hope to pass that feeling on to others, and continue to plug myself into the parallel music constellation.
London Zoo was the soundtrack to a darker side of London – something that Ballard explores a lot in his work. Can you describe why you find the underbelly of vertical cities so creatively inspiring?
Its the urban yin and yang…I thrived on the opposites and contradictions a city like London throws up…I loved the fictitious collisions of cultures, attitudes and architecture jostling my thoughts from one unexpected area to another. The relentless energy levels caused by instability were always totally inspiring to me, and i fed off its nasty inequalities and hyper-speed existence therein.
The eat or be eaten ritual of everyday life in LDN seems even more apparent to me now that I have bailed out from the city. As now I am merely a voyeur when I return to London, because I have lived in Berlin’s open sprawl for the past couple of years.
Plus, I don't think I have ever been interested in mere "darkness", I am far more interested in intensity and its kinetic bombardment fall out. I think humanity is potentially the most dangerous creation of all, whereas romantic notions of darkness seem too close to religious ideals of light and dark for my liking.
'London Zoo' was the soundtrack to my struggle to keep afloat in London. It was the score to me trying to stay sane in difficult times in difficult circumstances. It's an album that confronts the ruff and smooth simultaneously...There's is a duality and complexity to all our lives that we all battle with, and that interests me far more than some gothy celebration of darkness...I like to track the animal impulses that exist in our fast forward civilization.
I guess I am drawn to finding some realness in the unreality of a city. I suppose I love the fact a city is made from dreams as well as concrete. And the more people are fleeing from the joblessness of rural environments to find their fortune in gotham like epicentres, the more intense the shared experiences of desperate people living on top of each other are going to become...
Steel canyons dominate every capital in the world. How do you think the psychology of living in tower blocks differs to horizontal living? Does living on top of people breed more violence and class division?
Before deciding to leave London, the last place me and my partner lived was on the 18th floor of the ‘Balfron tower block’ in the hellhole of Poplar. Poplar is an east end ghetto where every cultural minority lives in disharmony with each other, whilst being simultaneously, cynically literally overlooked by the rich men and women's superstructures in Canary Wharf…with its wealth flaunting skyscrapers blocking out the lights of hope for the residents of Poplar.
For sure the view from our flat was incredible…haha, and it had a balcony, lol…But as many of the residents were care in the community casualties, social misfits or depressed minorities, the atmosphere generally felt like a siege mentality, where problem neighbours surrounded us on all sides...I remember one guy on top of us or next to us (impossible to tell), who screamed in absolute agony several times per week, and at very regular times, like a terror alarm, but his howling was truly horrific, as his shrieks resembled the pain of a burns victim. Likewise perennially excruciatingly loud music from neighbours with questionable taste was always par for the course all around us..(Maybe revenge for the sonic pain I inflict on my audiences….hahaha).. Also being chased by gangs or having to meet my partner every night at a bus stop to walk 200 metres home, cause it was unsafe, were all signs that life in that particular borough was very difficult, and human noise surrounded us permanently. I realized I was no longer living in London I was just struggling to live in London. There would always be an inward sigh of relief when we got into our locked flat, and bolted the door, like we had managed to survive another day in hell….hahaha..But I guess, at least there was the unstable energy of human interaction to be inspired by, unlike the hide in your vehicle isolation of L.A. and its inconveniently spread out inhabitants..
Living in that tower block felt like incarceration. It felt claustrophobic and largely defeated. Paranoia, fear and dirt may have been good for my musical inspiration, but I was happy as hell to get out of that environment…Living in those circumstances, subconsciously pollutes your mind with the realisation that your choices are low, your finances are lower and the urge to escape remained high.
Your music has been described as tense – do you think people in inner cities need angry music to quash any real physically violent instincts?
I guess my music also thrives on friction and collision aesthetically and philosophically...But my music is also systematically forced underground...So the chances of large numbers of people being alerted to my sound are small in the grand scheme of things. This is definitely not by my choice, this is my constant battle.
I think the most ‘popular’ musics in the inner city will always really be escapist….Just as drugs were pumped into American inner cities in the 60’s via the CIA, bland music broadcast to pacify potential unrest is blasted across the airwaves by the conservative media mafias as a means of pacifying the proles. Major radio stations grow fat and bloated on their endless sugar coated playlists…Choice is limited, alternatives are generally frowned upon.
But resistance is not futile, these rigged conditions should just harden the defiance of an artist to refuse to roll over and die, or worst still make bland fuckin house music.hahaha. From the Sex Pistols to Public Enemy, to Atari Teenage Riot, there are many instances of urban music burnin down barricades, but for me, the truth of the matter is, it can be more subversive to avoid the obvious riot calls and aim for the jugular from the leftfield. The element of surprise is most deadly of all.
Music has always been my therapy and medication..Anger is holy, fire is essential. Angry music can take the form of Marvin Gaye or Crass, and needn’t be one dimensional in sound nor appearance. It's certainly my aim to keep my music fluid and uncompromising. That is all any musician can hope to achieve if they are really representing some real difference. Protest is best when illuminating alternate routes to freedom…Freedom may be a myth, but it's one worth aiming for. London is a pacified police state, and zombies are not undead, they just don’t resist…Music should make the blood boil with passion, anger or lust...or the opposite it should knock you out like an opiate. Most of all it's the middle mass of middleground music that I find abhorantly conformist and numbing, that is the audio enemy...
Your last album was called Angels & Devils – why do you think electronic musicians and writers are consistently drawn to the shadows of human psychology?
Because psychology is the science of the subconscious and the gateway to the imagination, so therefore electronic practitioners are going to find the oasis of the mind a fertile feeding ground for exploration.
I know for me, when I began making music I felt it was all about reflecting the harsh intensity of reality, but as time has flown, I now realise my music statements are more like independent transmissions from my internal, parallel universe, which can act as a warnings from the buried psyche of the world we fight with on a daily basis, or as an SOS from my deepest soul when feeling most alienated.
When JG Ballard said he is interested in exploring ‘The only alien planet, earth”, I totally understand where he’s coming from, as all the best artists seem compelled to try and find answers and truths that exist beyond the superficial mundanity of controlled social interaction..
Music at its best, particularly in the live arena, shatters behavioural control mechanisms and encourages the listener to lose their shit, or better still, get lost in a frequency avalanche..I want my sound to resonate deeply with anyone who is in my path. And now that gentrification is increasingly shutting down or shutting out the loud volume of energized music venues, it becomes even more important to fight against the oncoming near silence of living death that is threatening to envelope inner cities in tasteful shells, by blasting down these yuppie constructed walls of Jericho...
I think writers and musicians are often non-conformists who are trying to find singular paths thru the chaos of everyday wreckage. I guess I see artists as illuminators of danger signs and investigators of the unknown or challengers of the censored…
Most of the finest musicians/artists are pretty dysfunctional in conventional terms...And likewise, music was my exorcism too, a way to navigate the insanity of the world by constructing my own internal micro-universes..
Even your moniker The Bug has dystopian connotations to it, as if a rampant virus is about to invade your ear canal. What are the pros and cons of being labelled a dystopian artist?
The future is scary cause its unknown, and likewise I have little idea what i will record next year, so it's that uncertainty that makes the process of songwriting so compelling.
A huge challenge is always to find approaches/concepts that will ensure my music stays somehow relevant, and to and to thereby avoid staleness, whilst evading the attempts to slap a sell by date on my sound by this cynical industry Iwork within.
Genre labels are a form of confinement, and I will always seek to fly from being caged in a specific genre or field.
The con is being portrayed as a one dimensional, miserable bastard, the pro is people know my mentality is hardcore, but my aims are genuine in an attempt to stay fresh. I believe it was William Burroughs who said Paranoia is seeing the world as it actually is, and viewing the dystopian acceleration of the world and soundtracking the wars outside our eyes,windows and walls seems to make me happy...haha...
Also for years a large problem was the infestation of dudes dressed in black at my shows, seeking company in their misery…hahaha..
But the more clubs and festivals I have played in the last decade the more I have seen all cultures and both sexes express themselves madly to my sound. A good thing indeed.
You, Burial and Kode9 all worked with SpaceApe and have been classed as Ballardian in your approach. Why do you think your generation of producers latched onto this outlook?
I can’t talk for others...
As a child of moon landings, and the space race, outer space was always an attractive proposition. As an only child, an insular existence was my reality, so therefore Ballard's juggling of inner and outer space and dreams of upside down worlds were always gonna appeal, no matter how twisted or potentially evil the powers that propel such a population might be...
Due to my mum, I was a sci-fi tv addict in a small town, trapped in a detached lounge, who dreamt of other realities in far off locations…And now, as a producer happy to be lost in the infinite labyrinths of my studio, I feel the technological-animal fusion has been integral to my past, present and future…And I feel it's the need to continue to immerse myself in our forever turbulent society that provides me with plenty of ammo for live battles and studio dispatches.
Apart from your own work, what artists have created perfect Ballardian soundscapes?
In terms of atavistic, id-like, contradictory provocative madness, maybe Prurient or Death Grips, in terms of mesmeric, crystalline transformation perhaps William Basinski or Tim Hecker, and in terms of surreal juxtaposition perhaps maybe Arca or Roly Porter...
To me, bass and brutalism go hand in hand. Both get straight to the point, yet are endlessly complex beneath their concrete exteriors. How has urban, brutalist architecture affected the way you see and react with the world?
We lived in a truly brutalist tower block in Poplar. The ‘Balfron Tower’ was a sister block to West London’s better known ’Trellick Tower’.
It gave me mixed feelings, as does brutalist architecture in general…Cool that ‘ugly’ buildings makes us re-assess our own thoughts on what is actually beautiful. Cool that the buildings are extremely memorable, and are literally designed to stick out…Great, that the shapes and fantastical structures are intrinsically linked to imaginative impulses..,BUT, the dilettante architects that design these buildings probably never lived in them for any lengths of time…For me, I fell in love with the variety of architecture in London, and the varied spice of life the city had to offer…No one style of architecture grabbed me, I just wanted to submit to the vastness of it all…
Many people find brutalist architecture intimidating. Why do you think this is the case? And why should they think differently about it?
I like to feel intimidated by scale, dwarfed by buildings and overwhelmed by environments…Other people may have problems with brutalist architecture, for those very reasons…hahaha
Do you feel the most creatively inspired amongst industrial landscapes – if so, why?
Yeah, for sure I love industrial landscapes, with their ominous size/scale, ghosts of full watt explosions, derelict corrosion, inferred power, cold metallic surfaces and intense psychological resonance, but as I said earlier, no-more inspired by industrial settings than I am by a suburban detached or the gothic beauty of St Pancreas Station’s exterior for instance…I'm too greedy for everything in life, to ever just be able to choose one strain of anything…Limitless existence, and total choice should be cherished..No ? haha
At the height of the brutalist movement, many creatives were appalled by these large wedges of concrete. Is our fascination with brutalism simply nostalgia for a past that has no future?
I grew up surrounded by grass, sand and sea in Weymouth, and sought refuge in concrete in LDN. Like all cliched Gemini’s I guess the thirst for extremity has fuelled everything I’ve ever done. So I was naturally drawn to alien structures and the shock of the new.
Yet just as brutalist buildings which once seemed like the shape of the future, quickly seem dated and basically dull, so, my perceptions of those types of buildings have changed…I like their brute exteriors, in terms of the thuggish simplicity in design, but I always want the contrast of seeing the south bank centre next to the Thames opposite St Paul's cathedral…I needed and need those insanely ill fitting conjunctions...I am besotted by the idea of time travelling through a city...Best of all in London was when I would cycle in the early hours from one side of the city to the other feeling enveloped by random time shifts and atmosphere via the randomly located, often entirely disparate architecture. The disorientation of disparity is a great thing and I celebrate diversity and worship difference.
What is the most beautiful brutalist building in the UK to you?
It wasn’t the most beautiful, but Centrepoint always had a special place in my heart and mind as it represented the only centre I could sense or magnetise myself towards in Slumdon..
It felt like it could have been the shape of things to come, particularly when it was first built, but had been significantly outmoded by its higher, brighter competition spreading so rapidly across the city. I guess it was a nostalgic yearning for me, wanting to feel like I was part of some skyscraper culture, and I wanted to feel like I was stepping into the future, having come from a low key seaside town.
But once I travelled to other metropolitan destinations across the globe, I suppose I realised Centrepoint was a fairly ugly, plain, unimaginative design. Yet it always still seemed comforting for me, cause the centre of London held so much concealed magic that I had always wanted from a city…
If I’m honest, the real beauty of a city and architecture in general, is the hunger and necessity for change, variation and contradiction…A sense of the ever evolving cycles of life.
And finally, in High Rise the protagonist is forced to eat his own dog to survive. If you had to choose between eating a dog, your neighbour, or your own arm to survive, what would you choose?
Definitely my own arm...I'm a masochistic vegetarian...LOL
Via
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Kode9: On Ballard, Alienation and Abstraction
Tuesday 5 April 2016
Monday 4 April 2016
Sunday 3 April 2016
Southern Tales
Melbourne Recital Centre (29/3/16)
Stockholm (Not recorded)
Palmetto Rose
Decoration Day
Something More Than Free
Alabama Pines
Traveling Alone
The Life You Chose
Different Days
Never Gonna Change
Cover Me Up
Relatively Easy
If It Takes a Lifetime
Speed Trap Town
24 Frames
Children of Children
* * *
Elephant
Codeine
Download
Croxton Hotel (1/4/16)
24 Frames
Flying Over Water
Something More Than Free
Decoration Day
Different Days
Hudson Commodore
The Life You Chose
Travelling Alone
Alabama Pines
Codeine
Palmetto Rose
Never Gonna Change
Cover Me Up (1:08:45)
If It Takes A Lifetime
Stockholm
* * *
Speed Trap Town
Children of Children
Download
NOTES:
(Tuesday)
I have to say that I have really been looking forward to this Jason Isbell gig at the Recital Centre for the past couple of months a venue that I've only been to once before for a Robert Henke/Monolake audiovisual performance. I was supposed to have been back here a couple of times this past month but Gira's gig was cancelled (after the Grimm clusterfuck) and I was just too sick to come and see Tweedy here last week.
Anyway arriving about 45 minutes before he is due on the stage and I go to buy a beer and the street level bar has run out. Oh well my pancreas will be happy. I do find this a bit ironic considering Isbell has become something of a pin-up boy for the 12-steppers amongst us. Check out the reaction after he sings the lines "But I sobered up and I swore off that stuff forever this time" from 'Cover Me Up' live from Austin City Limits
Isbell's sobriety has been good for us as well as for him
And then it's inside for the gig. I have a bit of an aversion to sitting down gigs at the best of times and this is the problem for me on the night. Sonically the room is outstanding but it's not loud at all and this combined with the enforced politeness of the audience made me wish that I had known about his pub gig at the time this gig was announced but at this point I have to give kudos to the woman air punching throughout the gig while sitting in front of me though. Straight after the gig has finished I'm buying a ticket for his pub gig in a couple of nights (or so I thought)
(Thursday)
The Croxton Hotel is only just up the road from me and it's another venue that I haven't been to since they started live music there again a couple of months ago. The hotel's reputation as a live venue back in the seventies is still legendary but for all the wrong reasons. Fights would break out every night
Oh Jesse, Jesse, Jesse...
Of course what happened at The Bataclan was an absolute tragedy and while I totally understand that you are obviously suffering from PTSD and that fans losing their lives at a bloody rock gig makes my annoyance at the continuing loss of civil liberties pale in comparison but I really do have no time for your shite music nor right wing, NRA loving, hasbara, freedumb politics. You are on record as saying that if the audience had been armed the whole tragedy could have been averted and yet here you are searching everyone for, as the bouncer said on the way out, 'guns, knives and bombs'. Which leads me to another point...what exactly were the bouncers looking for when they were searching our bags? A black round thing with 'BOMB' written on it? Or perhaps orange sticks taped together with fuses at the top? I had my digital recorder in my bag which didn't even get a second glance and to be honest I know nothing about explosive devices but wouldn't an electronic device that size perhaps be more what a bomb could be contained in these days? But yes as the bouncer said on the Friday night it was all just done to keep his management happy.
(Friday)
So here we are back at the Croxton with not a security wand in sight and Jason and the band are on top form again. What is it with people talking throughout gigs these days though? The first time I asked the guy with the hat and his two female companions in front of me to try and keep it down I was polite. The second time not so much.
Which reminds me I must get these printed up
Thursday 31 March 2016
Wednesday 30 March 2016
Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit - Live @Paradiso Amsterdam (2016)
24 Frames
Decoration Day
Different Days
Travelling Alone
Cover me Up
Speed Trap Town
Children of Children
Elephant
(NB: the sound is a bit distorted but still a great show)
Sunday 27 March 2016
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