Paris is Burning from subMedia.tv on Vimeo.
Category: Blog
WHY THE FUCK DID I SAY THAT?
“Why the fuck did I say that? Like I thought my choice of words and views raised and general conversation was relevant and even interesting. The way I brought in those asides. When I took a more dominant status in the conversation that was OK too. In fact I thought I did well steering the discussion at that particular moment. And I was being a good listener too. And the way I drew person X into the conversation and sought to clarify what they meant by that subject that I know they are very interested in. I thought it was ok. Except when I said “ZZZ ZZZZ XXXX ZZZZ” what was I thinking! For fucksake. That would have surely changed their opinion of me! I was probably going quite ok up until that point? What comes over me that I have to make trite comments like that? Spoils everything I had said for the whole discussion. No wonder these people rarely choose to engage with me or ask me over for a visit. They just know that I am going to say something stupid and reveal that my intelligence is, you know, so so. That although not a bad guy can be annoying. Says a lot of stupid things. Really I should just listen more and not fucking say anything.”
Continue reading “WHY THE FUCK DID I SAY THAT?”
TEETH (checkup)
I think my teeth r shit
like… when you’re at the dentist… do you ever try and check out the dentist’s teeth? Or think of him with a fucking big mirror and a drill? Or think of him calling another dentist and asking “Can I make an appointment?”
Or what about a dentist getting a fucking tooth ache…
Mine are starting to crack up..
I’m starting to fall apart Jim!
What about a chemist? Does he go to another chemist to get his script filled or just grab what he needs off the shelf?
I’m such a shit slide player. Sorry about that.
No worries; I’ll will do my due diligence next time and find a slide virtuoso. Someone who has a micro-bevelled custom finger-size fit tempered glass slide. Someone who has not only studied the Robert Johnson method of what is often ignorantly referred to as accidental clanking noise when the player’s slide hits a fret awkwardly, but someone who can also faithfully reproduce that sound at a specific velocity as dependant on the weight of dynamics and harmonic movement in preceding bars. In fact a slide guitar virtuoso who can guarantee that all collateral noises, buzzing, fret rutting, dead string sounds and accidental note clips in their performance are deliberate and backed up with notation and transcription examples showing their historical context. I knew I should have got someone like this from the start. Precision at all costs, particularly with those incidental sounds. I understand that there is a ratio of incidental mechanical noises based on tempo and true note density and should have realised that only someone who has a thorough technical understanding of these ratios would be appropriate otherwise the music will inevitably have little true substance. Did you give much thought to the historical context of that buzzing sound? Have you any peer reviewed written evidence that a true slide master would have played what you played in the last half of bar 10, chorus 14 in the context of this songs harmonic movement and tempo? Have you actually written any papers examining Son House’ use of incidental slide noises in a spirtual context or as metaphorical good vs evil survey? No, I didn’t think so.
Continue reading “I’m such a shit slide player. Sorry about that.”
COFFEE AT MILANOS ?(DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!)
Ben Watson on COFFEE AT MILANOS
“It’s very direct, very melodic, and it sounds like a bunch of demos recorded by visitors from outer space who have just encountered jazz and are demonstrating what they’ve found to an interplanetary alien space station crew of investigative analysts.You see, what kills music is THEATRE, the sequencing of brute effect according to narrative … Wagner, Pink Floyd, Cornelius Cardew’s The Great Learning, David Bowie. What I crave is collective union of attention to musical detail: to the intricacies and intimacies of players’ establishing harmony and rhythm; unstitching the inherited garment and playing with frayed edges and weird worlds of thread. Or, to change metaphors, what I hear in COFFEE AT MILANOS is the dissecting scalpel of player intelligence cutting through the skin surface of “music” to expose pumping arteries and zinging nerve cells and replicating blood corpuscles. Close focus on the stuff of music itself.”
I’LL PLAY THIS AND YOU PLAY THAT
‘I’ll play this and you play that’ (he said to the army band cornet player pointing to the cornet and then his drums after he had asked ‘What shall I play then?’)
I said 'Play anything you like and I'll drum with it'. He said 'But I can't do that'. And I said 'But you can just blow a note, any note, and I'll play this and you play that'." --John Stevens
IT BEGAN AS A SPIRIT OF REVOLT
It began as a spirit of revolt
To break the rules and upset forms
It is the suspension of decision making
We let the body speak for itself.
To reveal itself
To reject the superficiality of everyday life.
– Akaji Maro on Butoh
THE !872 HAGUE CONGRESS ALL OVER AGAIN!
1
THE BALLAD OF BIG BAD BEN
In 1997, following a negative review of Tom Chant’s Touch (Matchless), three big cheeses in London Improv – Eddie Prevost, Evan Parker and Martin Davidson – decided that the Ben Watson by-line must be banished forever. This was Tom’s big break, and it upset their plans if anyone pointed out the record wasn’t much cop (since then, all three musicians have agreed in private that I was basically right). Derek Bailey was highly amused, and congratulated me on outraging no less than three eminences with a single short review. Shortly thereafter, Evan Parker was raging in a reader’s letter against another “erroneous” critic, and said something along the lines of “the problem is that, if – God forbid – Ben Watson should be run over by a bus, there’s going to be another idiot ready to replace him”. Derek pointed this out to me, raised an eyebrow and said “that’s a threat, you know, and not so veiled …”. Derek responded to this letter (and some other things) in “The Ballad of Big Bad Ben”. It’s from Chats (Incus), a fantastic CD-R with lots of Derek’s inimitable spoken-word.
IMAGES OF THUMPFACE
“James Wilson of Music With My Insane Friend suggested I use Richard Evans’ encomium to his neighbour Thumpface as an intro to “Images of Konk”, so I did. Out To Lunch”
Text (Thumpface) by Richard Evans.
Music (Images of Konk ) by I Digress Indeed
LOCATION / DISLOCATION (WITH SHOUT OUT TO PHIL JONES)
HERE IS THE OFFICIAL GUFF
Work Title: location / dislocation
Dimensions: 7.5 metres X 1.5 metres
Materials: Acrylic paint on wall surface, accompanied by musical interpretation.
Paint: Phillip Jones
Double Bass: James Rust
Percussion: Mark Grunden
Guitar: James Wilson
Tenor and Soprano Saxophones: Konk Zooben
Year: 1999 Continue reading “LOCATION / DISLOCATION (WITH SHOUT OUT TO PHIL JONES)”
SHEDMUSIC
REFLECTIONS ON NESTOR MAKHNO
OTHER-DOING, REVOLUTIONARY CRACKS AND CRACK POTS.
Free improvisation and Chadbourne are most definitely a manifestation of Holloway’s other-doing. A crack in the fabric of market capitalism. Outside of the spectacle and beyond its tentacles. No commodities or profundity chasing here. This is primal use value all up in ya face. And he’s an old fart as well, who’s been doing it for years. Eyebrows and recalcitrant stiff middle fingers all over the place. A fuck you to the man. Who says you have to grow up! Revolutionary potential? Who knows, go ask Taylor Swift!
Below a review by the Psychedelic Bolsheviks of Eugene Chadbourne’s concert at Cafe Otto in London. The link for those interested
Continue reading “OTHER-DOING, REVOLUTIONARY CRACKS AND CRACK POTS.”
MEETING UNCLE MEAT WRONGLY
What can ya do? Still gotta have some craft or skill I suppose. Proven exceptionalism over ordinariness? Specialness over unspecialness? I love this tune!
BIG SPIDER BAND ~ ’94/95 OR THEREABOUTS
Kym Farbach – voice and flute
Mark Grunden – drums
Konk Zooben – saxophone
Lead Suit Wilson – guitar
FUNK KING JOSEPH.
Seriously, how long does one have to put up with liberal Nobel Laureates and other half funking arsed liberal economic commentators rabbiting on with their holier than thou OVER FUNKING EDUCATED bullshit as if they REALLY funking care. Funking debt restructuring and giving countries a fresh start because that’s how capitalism can work?!? YEAH, AND THEN YOU CAN KEEP YOUR FUNKING HUGE SALARIES as you rock back and forth guiltlessly in your serious leather funking business shoes with your hands in the pockets of your seriously look-how-successful-I-am suit funking pants.
FUNK YOU AND FUNK OFF ! JUST CANCEL FUNKING CAPITALISM BECAUSE THERE’S NOT A FUNKING SKERRICK OF MORALITY IN IT. IT’S JUST ONE GREAT BIG FUNKING PHYSICAL AND MENTAL PRISON YOU FUNKING NOBLE LIBERAL LAUREATE MOTHERFUNKERS.
FRANK IS WHERE THE CRUX IS
Always wanted to do this but with…
nothing-less-than-total-respect
the- 
– belongs-in-music!
MUSIC IS THE BEST
BELIEF AND KNOWLEDGE
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BLAAAAAAH BlahblahBlahBLahBLAhBLAH BlaBlBlah
BLAH deBlah DeBlaHdeblaahh
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PAIN AND MUSIC WITH MY INSANE FRIEND
“So soon as I got home after I’d fed the hungry dog, the hungry cat and the hungry me, I started sucking on a piece of raw garlic which made it a bit better for a while. I had a few things I had to do online, apply for a job and apply for a benefit so I got the laptop out and looked for some music to play; I’d downloaded the three I to I tracks by Music with my insane friend, recommended by Out To Lunch on Facebook.”