You Got Shit Taste, So What?

'most people like shit music' I said to LJ's brother as we sat in the kitchen on Xmas Eve. I was not exactly being eloquent, was I?

'in you're opinion', he replied.

oh, it was my opinion, was it?

he's tries to be a Good Guy. in doing so, as he told me, he insists on always adding 'in my opinion' having expressed one.

you'll have seen 'IMO' crop up in online discussions. some people feel the need...as if to clarify that they're not speaking on behalf of their mother...or David Cameron...

so we talked about Taste, what's Good & Bad and more to the point, what it means to express an opinion about Art & Music, specifically.

in his quest to always be Good he explained that he sees one side, then the other, and always reminds himself of the Third Way, the liberal recognition that there must be some middle ground and that there is always another view. and that one should recognise the validity of the other view. he said my kind of attitude was dangerous and lead to wars. I reminded him that I'm incapable of actually starting a war. I went on to say one has to have beliefs, to be passionate about something, even though I'm not sure that being passionate about Music is worthwhile at the end of the day. come sundown, the idiots will still be buying Miley Cyrus' music.

to say that most people like shit music isn't true, of course. who are 'most people' anyway? the majority? what does The Majority buy?

the best-selling albums of 2013:

1 OUR VERSION OF EVENTS - EMELI SANDE
2 TO BE LOVED - MICHAEL BUBLE
3 LES MISERABLES MOTION PICTURE CAST RECORDING
4 UNORTHODOX JUKEBOX - BRUNO MARS
5 TIME - ROD STEWART
6 JAKE BUGG - JAKE BUGG
7 AM - ARCTIC MONKEYS
8 BAD BLOOD - BASTILLE
9 RANDOM ACCESS MEMORIES - DAFT PUNK
10 BABEL - MUMFORD & SONS

if I listened to them all, would I conclude that 'shit' is a proper description? if so, why? just because none of them sound remotely like my selection of the year?

I'm currently listening to The Hafler Trio. almost everyone who bought one or more of the above albums would think The Hafler Trio makes shit music.

where does that leave us?

old saying: you're either part of the problem or part of the solution.

I don't waste time getting angry about what Mr & Mrs People like, music-wise. it's not as if you could join a party to fight against it.

LJ's brother cites the Net and all the wonders it contains. in reply, I say that people are still drawn to shit like flies. it doesn't matter what's theoretically on offer. people are still cloth-eared. still programmed by mainstream media to gleefully ingest utter shit. and enjoy it. what do all those online avenues do to change that? nothing. except, occasionally, someone will discover life beyond the mainstream, by chance. more often than not, an idiot will pipe up in YouTube Comments to voice their incomprehension when chancing across music which doesn't conform to The Rules.

yes, most of us enjoy aspects of The Rules, such as rhythm, melody, harmony. would you trust someone who only listened to the likes of The Hafler Trio? I'd steer clear, if only because I don't approve of such limitations. and they'd laugh at my Disco records.

less is more. less radio channels meant John Peel was essential. it also meant that good things got played in the daytime on Radio One. sometimes. less TV meant that BBC2 would show foreign films. there were intelligent documentaries and important plays. even the idiots would watch some of them, having so little choice. perhaps a few had their heads turned, their minds opened up a little.

today, look at all the channels! wonderful! we can choose to watch a greater variety of shit than ever before! wall-to-wall shit with no fear of accidentally coming across a programme that requires a little intelligence. hurrah! it's cosy and secure in the self-made ghetto. there are real people doing stupid things...ordinary people, glamorous people, famous people! thank the god of entertainment for creating the technology that enables us to fill our evenings with Easy Viewing. tv can't get dumb enough for me. why? because it makes me feel smart. that's how bad things have got.

'your view of the world isn't the world,' says LJ's brother. no. it's my world. and how else do we live if not through our own ears and eyes? which is not to advocate total selfishness, of course. coming from the side of the tracks that I do I can understand prole behaviour, for instance. I'll never understand what its like to be born middle-class, though, despite having known a few of their number. well, I've wanted to discuss Sartre or Sun Ra occasionally, so give me a break. it's not going to happen on one of the local housing estates. I tried once. I put leaflets in the entrances of the tower blocks saying 'Join my discussion group down the -------- -------- pub. All classes accepted, even yours. Subjects will range from the ongoing influence of Dada in Art to the significance of file-sharing in post-modernist electronic music. See you there!' no takers.

we all believe we're right in our judgements. the point is that I know I am. except when, as as happened just once in a while, I say something's shit then enjoy it years later.

I jest. I am deadly serious. like Duchamp, I may contradict myself 'in order to avoid conforming to my own taste'. so excuse me whilst I go play a Mantovani album...

TTFN

Buñuel On My Back, Miles Believer & Thanks To The Regulars

i cycled home with Luis Buñuel on my back yesterday - I swear the book was as heavy as him - it was about him & if you're good I'll scan some of it for you.

but have you been good this year?
have i been good?
what's good?
what's bad?
behaving badly according to those whose attitude towards life you despise is good.
being good according to the same people is bad.

wot is this? philosophy?

it's the time of year...the silly season...enough to send anyone bonkers what with gift decisions, reconciling the materialistic with...what? i dunno...i'm not religious, although as i said to a couple of poets recently when one confessed to being a Marxist 'I have no belief except, perhaps, in the music of Miles Davis' - which could be considered pretentious but is better than swearing by some old political ideology...in my book...

i was going to say it later but may as well say it now:

Thanks to all you regular visitors for coming back time and time again. You make me feel that I'm not completely wasting my time.

Yours sincerely, the one-in-a-trillion blogger

John Heartfield - Wieland Herzfelde (Veb Verlag der Kunst,1971)

Xmas being a time for giving and all that I give you a few images from an amazing book. I know John Heartfield's plastered all over the Net but hopefully some of these will be new to you. Wieland Herzfelde was his brother, a publisher for whom John did most of the graphic work. The text is in German, a fact which almost prompts me to learn the language, but I'm rubbish at languages, although I mastered how to ask for a beer/coffee/bill on our visits. The Xmas tree image would make a lovely card, wouldn't it? That would cheer up your friends.

A site dedicated to John Heartfield is here  

Elias Tanenbaum Chases Charlie Parker With A Synthesizer

a mad merging of alto genius Charlie Parker with a synthesizer played by Elias Tanenbaum in 1972.
which works
& doesn't work
is right
& wrong
stupid
&
brilliant.
go back to 1955, the year Charlie Parker died
then move forward a year & hear the soundtrack to Forbidden Planet
whilst still remembering Charlie 'Bird' Parker's music
& you might be hearing the Future of Jazz
except you won't because this isn't an attempt to be that.
it's just a crazy idea by someone who loves both Jazz & electronic music.

A.F. Harrold - Nothing, Like Something

A.F. Harrold is a poet who makes music. His poetry is also worth a listen, especially if, like me, you enjoyed this year's début album by Dolly Dolly, who created the cover for Nothing, Like Something. It's Been 65 Million Years And The Dead Are Still Dead is also one of the best track titles ever. He describes it as 'an album of imaginary ballet pieces, soundtracks and jauntiness'. Fin de siècle modernism, utterly charming. The Unbeatable Slow Machine album on his Bandcamp page is also excellent, combining classicism with subtle electronics as it does.

His Bandcamp page

Eduardo Paolozzi at New Worlds (Savoy Books)

My copy arrived recently. This really is a superb production. 

Lots of art from Paolozzi, of course, but also New Worlds covers when they went New Wave. 

Buy one for your best friend this Xmas...I did...

More here

How To Succeed In Collage

Even A Good Father Can Hurt The One He Loves

The Door Into Summer - Robert A. Heinlein (Panther, 1960)

I haven't posted a good pulp cover for a while so to put that right here's one.

it stinks like an old paperback frequently does; that pungent aromatic stain

of ancient cigarette smoke, dust, damp & unknowable things that leave a trace

embedded in the pages.

it's also on the verge of falling apart but I'm trying to read it anyway.

I love this cover because it combines the staple ingredients of pulp -

sex & sci-fi. 

NHK'Koyxen - Dance Classics Vol.III (PAN)

these albums have been a bundle of fun
fun?
yes, fun.
dance-not-dance classics. how ironic is the title?
how ironic was it when he first thought it up
& did he think it up whilst making the tracks, before, or after, having found some knocking around?
who cares.
with a serious track record of collaborations, Kouhei Matsunaga brings a hint of artfulness to the Dance. he's a shoe-in for DJ at the PAN office party, isn't he? like they have one. a party, I mean, not an office, although they probably don't have one of those either. rumours that images of Bill Kouligas's backside after he planted it on the office photocopier at last year's party are totally unfounded.
whilst there's not as much trickery as you might expect from a PAN album purporting to be Dance music, there's enough to add interesting dimensions across all three. it's a kind of homage to Dance music of the Electronica, Techno & Breakbeat kind since the 90s. a few tracks remind me of what we were playing down The Rumpus Room circa '96 anyway.
the best cuts are 675 (it's not just women who respond to bass, is it?) and 811, which is a chugging beast that makes you think your speakers have blown first time you play it. I'd have liked more tracks that do as much damage, but Matsunaga's light touches to various templates are also enjoyable.
danceable, yes, if you free your mind and allow your ass to follow.

2013 Releases of the Year

Cue fanfare.

Here's what the music world's been waiting for.

Autechre seem to be missing from a few lists by those who supposedly know their electronic music, which proves they don't. Familiarity breeds...ignorance? 

I've included all three of Morphine's Charles Cohen albums, even though they may not see a 2013 release; call me crazy. 

Some included didn't get reviewed on the blog because it slipped my mind to do so, or they went unnoticed. One such album is the Cacophonic release of Tape Recorder Music, an absolutely essential record. As are the rest, of course.

Flying Saucers Explained - God & Cosmic Teapots

The answer, at last! By travelling back to 1947 I found an explanation for mysterious 'flying cutlery', as they used to call it. In Boris Artzybasheff's cartoon you can see Neptunians (yes, that's what they are) firing saucers at Earth. It's not clear where the teapots are going, or why Earth was only deemed worthy of saucers and not the pots. 

And talking of flying teapots, perhaps Gong were onto something...

Their album was inspired by Bertrand Russell's cosmic teapot analogy in response to the question of whether a Christian God exists.  In his words: 'nobody can prove that there is not between the Earth and Mars a china teapot revolving in an elliptical orbit, but nobody thinks this sufficiently likely to be taken into account in practice. I think the Christian God just as unlikely.'

My first response upon seeing the cartoon was to think of H.R.Giger's work on the Alien film. Had he seen Artzybasheff's cartoon? Were Ridley Scott's aliens firing cutlery through space as part of some cosmic joke? And if one of their stray teapots did get dragged into orbit between Earth and Mars, does that in turn validate the concept of a Christian God? See, you thought Alien was just a great sci-fi film when in fact, buried deep as a sub-sub-text, it's about the existence, or not, of God. And cosmic teapots.

Heatsick - Re-Engineering (PAN)

from the Label of the Year (official)

they say the geek shall inherit the earth, so Steve Warwick's going to rule.
at least, he looks geeky
& favours a clapped-out Casio

but

don't let looks fool you. or the notion of 'retro chic'.
for all the apparent irony there's a great musical mind at work.
not that it matters. we know that supposed GMMs have made some of the worst music ever recorded.
rock supergroups, I'm looking at you.

Heatsick's proven track record of eclecticism, incorporating tongue-in-chic disco-House & such avant-gardism as Von Anderen Ufer sets up anyone who's heard it for another round of anything-can-happen antics. this might be his best album yet.

the title track fits perfectly with other recent vocal affairs from Dolly Dolly and eMMplekz. apparently random statements form the prose anti-poetry of the uncreative writing school. 'a poem is a machine made of words'. perhaps he got the lyrics from Google cut-ups. it would fit.

E-Scape is mutant hypno-funk. Mimosa, built on the old pre-set Samba (?) rhythm, is made amazing by whoever's playing saxophone. it's a shame the words aren't more easily discernible. Clear Chanel (geddit?) nods towards the dub Berlin sound. Speculative is possibly my favourite track. that's post-mod House with vocals (no, not cheesy female ones), the rhythmic hooks, doubled-up drums, bass, a theremin-type sound and more good sax-playing.

Warwick takes a stick to the House template and beats into his favoured shapes, dropping Acid (Emerge) & signing off with a distant mechanised voice amid the constant chatter of birds. fascinating & even fun.

Astrophilately? Rocket Mail & Stamps

Before Mail Art amateur rocket enthusiasts were designing their own stamps, embellishing envelopes and firing them off in their rockets. Ray Johnson, eat your heart out. If not exactly Art, I'm sure you'll agree that these stamps are wonderful... 

Polish Rocket Society, 1962

India, 1934

India, 1934

India, 1934

Austrian, 1930s

Dutch, 1938

Dutch, 1935

German Rocket Society

German Rocket Society

Olympic-Rocket Mail, 1960

Surrealism Unlimited 1968-1978

From the catalogue that accompanied the Surrealism Unlimited exhibition in Camden, London, 1978. 

The scanner wouldn't scan the cover properly because it's black. This is another book from the library of  artist Jack Yates.

Anatomy of a lady, Jack Yates 

Suspended Magic, Joe Rose 

title unknown, Stella Snead 

The Voyage Of The, Albatross Franklin Rosemont 

exceptional proles

so we're walking down the road to the supermarket and LJ says someone at work asked if that was her sheet music on the desk and when she said it was they expressed great amazement as if playing piano was miraculous

especially her

because she's not a career girl
or management
or middle class

so we talk about being working class and making things
making music and art
'we're exceptional', says LJ
'no!'
'we are. how many people like us do you know?'
'true'

so you see, proles don't make art...not many...I know, I know,,,,
I've spent my whole working life amongst them and not met one who made anything except music
& that was in a Punk band called The Sore Willies. I'm not joking

proles have got to stay as they are
watching telly all the time
reading tabloid newspapers
going to the pub, the shops, the pictures...
...not poncy Art galleries...

stereotypes?

you grow up being told to get a proper job & that's probably good advice but you only get a mediocre job with mediocre pay if you're lucky otherwise you get an even shittier job that only pays for rent and food & running the car but that's all the mediocre job does in the end except you also get a holiday & if you're oh-so-lucky your very own pile of bricks in which you sit watching telly & watching the kids who you might encourage to do better than you & go to university where they can learn clever things & get a better paid job than you so they can lead better paid & slightly more interesting lives but only slightly & they might read more interesting books & one days have a kid who enjoys Art & even dreams of making some although all that studying for her career than getting the big job doesn't leave any time for Art...

here's a poem

Kerridge - A Fallen Empire (Downwards)

A Fallen Empire -

bring the noise!

no-one's said that since people stopped saying it but this is as good an opportunity as any.

Samuel Kerridge brings the noise. not the Noise. the noise. 

subterranean, sledgehammering, skullmashing, metal-bashing beats.

& noise.

hellish, howling machinery grinding your bones to fine dust,

then sprinkling that into a re-animater where steel & circuitry are moulded into a ten foot carnivorous cyborg programmed to eat babies & rip the heads off Miley Cyrus fans & anyone else who doesn't buy this album.

hoover set to maximum low-end carnage.

Kerridge's methods may not be mad or different but they are brutally effective. it's a sonic black hole into which you will be sucked should you dare to get close enough.

Pop Art Design at The Barbican

Unlike us, Pop Art is eternally youthful. Whilst lounging on a bean bag at the Barbican's Pop Art Design exhibition yesterday I asked LJ how old you had to be before you wouldn't contemplate doing such a thing. 50? 60? 70? After all, there's a time when getting off the bags would be damned hard if not impossible. As it was, I considered asking someone to help me up. 

We were in a small room showing short films and adverts. William Klein's Broadway By Light came on. I'd never seen it, and spent the whole ten minutes with my eyes wide open, jaw dropped, agog in amazement. 

I was struck by Jann Haworth's Cowboy; its grotesque softness, nightmarish Westworld qualities and the Frankenstein-like patchwork stitching behind one ear.

Of all the things exhibited what I craved most was the This Is Tomorrow catalogue in a case. As I joked with LJ, I'd take that if given the choice of anything, despite its relatively low monetary value (it still sells for around £1000). I imagined organising a crack team of burglars with me shimmying down a rope like, er, Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible, evading all security features to cut the plastic with a laser bean and bag this book.