What's Your Story?
Making music is like storytelling - you guide the listener through a slice of time, taking them where you want them to go, for the effect you want to achieve.
If you want to shock you can take them down a familiar route and then suddenly change the surroundings to an unfamiliar and shocking landscape....
If you want to relax and reassure them you can create a safe, happy environment where nothing will ever hurt them.
Where did your story start? And where does it finish? How can you show that progression in your music? What will your audience learn along the way?
Remember that good storytelling is always a learning experience for the listener - and music is no exception. When people enter into that contract of listening and being guided, they open themselves up to being taken on a journey...they are waiting to learn and experience the things you tell them...
What is your story?
by Dave Graham
David Learnt composition (harmony, counterpoint and orchestration) to degree level through studying Schoenbergs Fundamentals of Musical Composition, the classic text on twentieth century harmony by Vincent Persichetti, Henry Mancini's Sounds and Scores, Rimsky-Korsakov's excellent books on orchestration as well as studying any scores that intrigued me.
He is a founder member of two bands, avant pop duo Cnut, and orchestral doombience outfit Regolith, and have performed across Europe with them.
What Writing music is NOT:
What Writing music is NOT:
...it's not about talent.
...it's not about technical ability.
...it's not about the gear you use.
Writing a piece of music is about how much of yourself you are willing to invest in it.
It is about how hard you are willing to work.
It's about how many failures you won't let yourself make...
It's about thinking clearly...it's about letting your inspiration do the hard creative part, and getting your rational mind to fill in the blanks.
I believe that anyone can write a great track..it just takes the commitment, the effort and the will to not give up until it is done.
It's about trying harder than anyone else.
It's about confronting the problem and figuring out a better solution than anyone else!
by Dave Graham
David Learnt composition (harmony, counterpoint and orchestration) to degree level through studying Schoenbergs Fundamentals of Musical Composition, the classic text on twentieth century harmony by Vincent Persichetti, Henry Mancini's Sounds and Scores, Rimsky-Korsakov's excellent books on orchestration as well as studying any scores that intrigued me.
He is a founder member of two bands, avant pop duo Cnut, and orchestral doombience outfit Regolith, and have performed across Europe with them.
Think it over and it will fall down.
Elton John’s partner David Furnish (yeah I can’t believe I’m quoting him either) once said “Anyone with an addiction is not being honest about something in their life” – and I think the same applies to motivation.
Whenever I’ve felt demotivated when working on some music, it’s always been because of some doubt somewhere about what I’m doing. Whether it’s doubts about if the project is worth investing my time in, or I have a feeling it’s going to fall through and my music will end up not being used…perhaps it’s something I don’t really feel happy about being involved in. Maybe I secretly feel too insecure to be putting your music into a certain project – or possibly feel I’m too good for another one.
Whatever the reason, feeling demotivated is a clear warning sign. It shows that deep down I don’t want to do it.
It shouldn’t normally take too much soul searching to find the answer…and reaching a completely honest answer is vital.
If you don’t want to write music because there’s something good on tv, or you want to go out instead – well it depends on the context (if you have a deadline for a track the next day and you would rather be out clubbing, then perhaps re-evaluate what you feel is important to you!), but in general I’ve found that this sort of thing is procrastination.
To avoid the stress of doing it, you fix your mind on some random activity that suddenly seems enormously alluring.
Face the fears and doubts…they are an imaginary boundary, and as Frank Zappa said “Think it over, and it will fall down…” – if the doubts and fears are genuine, then this is a difficult position, as something in you does not want to do what you are doing, and you need to look at what that means for you.
As negative as that seems, I’d always say to look for the positive in situations like this. It was this exact quandary that shifted my life from making music, to helping others to improve their music making.
Something in me was saying “this is not the right thing for you” – and I’d devoted my whole life to music, and becoming a better musician…it was hard to listen to that voice, but it did steer me in the right direction, it just took a while for me to figure out what I wanted….
When you are doing what you love, in the way that you want to…motivation will never be a problem…if anything it will be a problem stopping yourself doing it all day!
by Dave Graham
David Learnt composition (harmony, counterpoint and orchestration) to degree level through studying Schoenbergs Fundamentals of Musical Composition, the classic text on twentieth century harmony by Vincent Persichetti, Henry Mancini's Sounds and Scores, Rimsky-Korsakov's excellent books on orchestration as well as studying any scores that intrigued me.
He is a founder member of two bands, avant pop duo Cnut, and orchestral doombience outfit Regolith, and have performed across Europe with them.
Image: Francesco Marino / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Master and Servant
I've mentioned in a few places that when you are making music everything serves the message.
I think I need to qualify this a bit to avoid confusion!
By "everything", I mean the musical ideas you have, how you use them, the sounds/timbres you use and the structure of the track. In a word, I mean the sound you have made.
When I say the "message", I mean that music is a language, and it expresses things. The language is recognised by humans in a peculiar way and unique way. It is the sort of language the mind uses to express feelings, instincts and emotions. Meanings are personal and flexible. It is not the same as languages that use specific words for specific objects and concepts. Music works on a lower, more primitive and powerful level than conscious thought...but it doesn't only work on that level.
This all seems to fit together nicely...except there's one problem.
What a piece of music expresses is determined by the listener - not the creator.
The "message" is not fixed - it is created uniquely by each listener. Listeners may share a similar message, but like snowflakes and memories...no two will ever be exactly alike.
The creator can try to evoke ideas or feelings with their music, but they can never guarantee the content of the message that the listener will receive.
Hence, everything that you put into your music serves the message - even if you do not intend a message, or if the music is generated by some algorithm or artificial process. The message will be generated by the listener as a response regardless of the intention of the creator.
Curiously, a solution to this contradiction lies in instinct - what you instinctively know how to say in this strange language will also have the best chance of being communicated accurately, at some level, to other humans. We all share the same basic construction...deep down we all work in the same way. Tune in to what you instinctively feel is right for your music, and you will reach out directly to other people in a more honest way.
by Dave Graham
David Learnt composition (harmony, counterpoint and orchestration) to degree level through studying Schoenbergs Fundamentals of Musical Composition, the classic text on twentieth century harmony by Vincent Persichetti, Henry Mancini's Sounds and Scores, Rimsky-Korsakov's excellent books on orchestration as well as studying any scores that intrigued me.
He is a founder member of two bands, avant pop duo Cnut, and orchestral doombience outfit Regolith, and have performed across Europe with them.
Be Your Own Worst Critic
Being a musician is about dealing with emotion. It’s often about connecting with the listener and telling them a story that connects emotionally with them. Whether it’s a classical symphony or a dancefloor banger - you’ve got to connect with that unknown person on the other end of the line.
Unfortunately, the process of making music can be a highly emotional one in itself, and you can easily get caught up in a terrible trap. The trap of knowing what your intentions are with your piece of music.
When this happens, you forget the listeners point of view, and you start thinking:
“oh hell yeah, I’m nailing this track, I’m on a roll and I’m completely awesome!”
Sure it sounds like that when you know what the message is, and how you did it, and how much work you put into it....and you’ve just spent all night on it.
The casual listener will have no interest in whether or not you’ve written better or worse tracks...they won’t care if you stayed up all night trying to get one particular detail right.
They’ll react to it instinctively, right!?
This is where the sobered up “morning after” listen comes in. If your track still kicks ass at 7:30am the next morning (and you’ve actually been to sleep for a decent period of time - all nighters don’t count here) then you have probably hit your mark.
There is not a creative musician in the land who has not experienced the “I’m a genius” moment in the heat of creation, only to be brought crushingly down to earth the next morning.
The message here is - listen to your music like a stranger would. Don’t be soft on yourself... be your own harshest critic, and you’ll already have faced the worst criticism.
by Dave Graham
David Learnt composition (harmony, counterpoint and orchestration) to degree level through studying Schoenbergs Fundamentals of Musical Composition, the classic text on twentieth century harmony by Vincent Persichetti, Henry Mancini's Sounds and Scores, Rimsky-Korsakov's excellent books on orchestration as well as studying any scores that intrigued me.
He is a founder member of two bands, avant pop duo Cnut, and orchestral doombience outfit Regolith, and have performed across Europe with them.
Image: Chris Sharp / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Silver Apples, Eat Lights Become Lights, Luminaire 2010
Luminaire, Kilburn. 08-08-2010For those that don’t know Silver Apples are THE electronic group of all time. ‘Genre defining’ is perhaps too glib a description as its general overuse has rendered it incapable of accounting for the trail they auspiciously blazed.
Fuck it, Silver Apples are to electronic music what Thomas Edison is to Facebook.
Formed around 1967 they matched Danny Taylor’s 60s jazzbeat inspired drumming with far-out oscillators and solid state circuit-bent instruments courtesy of Simeon (aka Simeon Coxe III). However it wasn’t simply weird noise over stoned trance-heavy percussion, vocally Simeon delivered modern poetry and abstract musings in a particularly fresh way. Both Danny and Simeon stated that they were far more interested in patterns than music per se and their efforts inspired and prefigured krautrock, synthpop, dance music, electronica and boffin-lead outsider music for decades and probably decades more.
Danny died in 2005 but Simeon continues to write and perform solo or with occasional collaborators since the band’s popular rediscovery in mid 90s and again since 2006 via the championing of ATP (All Tomorrow’s Parties) and other cognoscente promoters.
The performance at the Luminaire in Kilburn was much anticipated on electronic and IDM message boards however there weren’t massive amounts of people present on the night. Perhaps due to it being a Sunday or perhaps because the band’s done a reasonable amount of shows in UK recently, in any case there was a feeling a pensive excitement throughout the venue.
These sorts of icon shows usually attract a fairly motley attendance and the Luminaire didn’t disappoint; pensive indie kids swayed downcast from the bar into corners furtively looking to see whether they had picked up pansexual interest, leopard print rock vixens with heavily lined eyes and bleach damaged hair texted their baby sitters and baby sat their vacant eyed am-I-a-musician? boyfriends, surly promoter types wandered around giving heavy ‘tude with serious airs of authority while clique taut anonymous man-baby types judged each other’s flannel shirts and greasy fringes.
I love the Luminaire. It’s a beautiful venue with good sound. The bar staff are fantastic; friendly, efficiently on it, and female, they are everything a thirsty punter could ask for. I have a gripe though and it’s a gripe that makes me inordinately angry, contemptuous even. Stencilled on the walls and looping on flat screens are ‘The Expectations’; we are not supposed to speak during performances as this is a ‘live venue’ and not a pub moreover if ‘we came to talk to our pals, we are in the wrong place and should leave’. The flat screen displays have an archly condescending tone as they parse regular enough questions that any normal person might ask; ‘where can I find a cash point?’ and ‘once events have been sold out is there a returns policy for tickets?’ in the form of a conversation where the customer is not simply wrong but stupid. It smacks of cliquey exclusivity begat by ugly people with no social skills and perpetrates the worse kind of reverse Darwinism where the sick and lame are allowed to spoil life for the conscientious, attractive and able. So please note: If you don’t want to deal with the public its probably best not to go into hospitality or leave the house for that matter.
If I am listening to a band that has failed to win their audiences attention let alone admiration, fuck them. Obviously I’m not going to start heckling, loudly recount my public sexual encounters or argue the merits of the offside rule. What I am probably going to do is head for the bar and have a drink and snidely discuss how much the band sucks with similar aligned aesthetes. I know this, we all know this, we don’t have to be told and telling us makes me hate you. Moreover, there is a general barometer of interest when it comes to performance and life in general. The more people like you the closer they come, physically and emotionally. Things are going badly if everyone hugs the walls and there is a vast expanse in front of you. Similarly if you’re absolutely on fire and the area at your feet is crowded by idolaters expect them to get active, jump, shout, show man-tits, and fake lesbianism for effect. To recap re: stage up-front much likes at back less-likes, simple, yes? Good.
Good times come along anyway
I don't care what the people say
Do what I want to every day
Cos I don't care what the people say
-Silver Apples
Now if you are standing in the middle and someone likes a particular song A LOT expect them to push to the front, tears streaming from their eyes as they remember their first kiss or how they felt when Nadine Burford dumped them or just sheer fucking joy. Don’t give them a shitty look that will cause an obvious confrontation, let them pass quickly and they’re gone, and if they stop right in front of your short fat girlfriend tough luck, it’s a gig, swap places with her and she should be able to see as well as she can given her obvious handicaps. They are in front of you so they obviously like the band much more than you, so courtesy dictates that you let them closer to the stage. If you disagree move on up, the band wants the people they see to be really into them, not your po-faced chin stroking being permanently clouded as someone jostles you from behind.
‘I really like the band but I’m not the sort to dance, jump, smile. I like things really regimented’
Sorry, you fail at life and no one should be subjected to your negative experience. Moreover given this general attitude I don’t think you really like anything. Constantly and compulsively fucking yourself over and without joy, you’re an unfortunate soul who cannot love in the true sense of the word. It is for you that the Luminaire put up these signs on acceptable behaviour because you are incapable of being a person other than in a prescribed manner. The freedom that life and great music allows remains constantly locked behind the green door. Musical ecstasy for you remains typified in one inflexible way that necessitates that everyone else conform otherwise your whole night is just ruined.
‘Not everyone wants a musical event to be a mad bacchanalian adventure or sights and sounds unseen’
Then why did you come? Predictable musical events of performative perfection are called 'albums', you can buy them and listen to them in the privacy of your own dank bedroom. I imagine that attending concerts is essentially a form of box ticking for you. You are of the passive generation.
‘You seem really angry about something, what it is? I’m a quiet guy with a pasta addiction and I like my checked shirt but really did you have to say that about my girlfriend?’
A lot of performances in London have become sedate affairs of people tutting at each other and subduing every act of musical appreciation barring polite applause. For years bands have remarked that London audiences are reserved to the point of being uninvolved and this should not be encouraged. Reading Mojo cover to cover and being manifestly obsessed with updating Wikipedia articles belies an ignorance of the limitations of the gig/performance dichotomy. Gigs are apparently experienced physically whereas performances assume a more cerebral consumption. It seems that people are asking less and less how they feel about musical events than what clever things they are made to think. As a result there is a tendency towards anodyne musical performances that are saying nothing and emotionally vacuous. Sadly this might be a reaction to music being consumed by unaware and emotionally simple audiences who don’t know how to be anything but passive in a musical environment.
‘What has this to do with the Eat Lights Become Lights and Silver Apples gig?’
Eat Lights Become Lights (ELBL) are a great band who seem to mix Yes and Krautrock-like Prog elements through a Stereolab filter. One imagines that in the States they’d really move an audience where bands like Particle tread similar waters to great popularity.
Humorously one of their intro sounds a lot of like ‘I want to break free’ by Queen but they quickly rocked it out with a steady but serious beat and accompanying groove based technical prowess. English band The Egg has to some extent harvested this crop before however where The Egg ploughed their field in the dance field ELBL are aiming for a more indie based sound. Arguably both acts are trying to bring their audiences into a groove based area of live instrumentation while skirting perilously close to the horrendous morass of white funk. ELBL are really a band with a strong sense of integrity who have captured their sound to almost rehearsed perfection it’s hard to make out where they’ll go with it but at the moment they seem unstoppably at the top of their game. More to the point it seems like they really care about the music they’re making, the changes are interesting and the drums pretty irrepressible. Despite being a support band they received a reasonable amount of love on the night and I think a few good festival slots should have them performing to greater crowds in the next 6-12 months. Against the earlier tirade this band is going in the right direction musically and the only criticism I can summon is that they didn’t really have an overriding conceit to make them uniquely great.
Silver Apples on the other hand despite the sad absence of Drummer Danny Taylor were packed full of personality. Simeon is truly a unique and fascinating musician who can’t help but express his ideas through his bleeps, squelches, fractured melodies and pink noise. I overheard grumblings that the updated and modernised drums sounds used to fill in for Danny weren’t really what people wanted. Initially I would have preferred to see and hear the freewheeling jazz-antics rather than some of the more predictable drum programming that accompanied the familiar tracks but towards the middle of the set the drums came into their own and there were some wonderfully dark tonal sections which rivalled anything created by artists a third of Simeon’s age. Encouragingly people nodded and stood transfixed as Simeon improvised sounds and melodies through his contraptions and as people filed out of the venue you could hear that a lot of lives had been changed.
In between the acts a short film about Silver Apples was shown featuring interviews with members of Can, Devo, Faust, and Suicide, as well as Jack Dangers and Alec Empire all of whom paid tribute to the band and described how much influence the band had on them either knowingly or unknowingly. Jack Dangers was particularly voluble on exactly how much ground they had covered during their first career in the 60s. It’s always a bit tense to see one of the so-called seminal bands play as what was once fresh and visceral is usually, by virtue of being heavily copied through the years, quite muted decades later. One of the more inspirational moments of the evening was the shock that despite losing a member and being in his 70s Simeon as Silver Apples was still vital conceptually and musically. The footage and interviews of the band from the 60s and 90s showed a partnership of two individuals without necessarily grand ambitions but certainly a strong concept and an unshakable belief in the music they were making.
The final message of the short film was made by Simeon where he forcefully and energetically pronounced that people should never give up, they should keep going, no matter what. It is a message that I hope activates those inspired by the show to get involved with a grand scheme of their own making and a positive message that doesn’t require infantile signs urging conformity to get people doing the right thing.
Image credits: Courtesy of Silver Apples
1. 2008, Berlin, by Manfred Miersch
2. 2007 ATP Fest., England, by Zach Dilgard
3. 2002, Fairhope, Alabama
iDose Therefore I Am
By Matthew Devereux
Stop me if you’ve heard this before. Your child is already dead and as a parent you’re to blame for their fatally uncontrolled behaviour in a confusing, predatory and dangerous world. Professor Ray Surette’s (1998) law of opposites, based on an analysis of the media’s reporting of crime and violence states that there is greater media coverage of events that are particularly unusual or severe against individuals over and above the percentile risks associated with actual crime. Furthermore there is a seeming social bias at play with a concentration of stories focussing on older or higher status victims and offenders. An emphasis Gregg Barak (1994) argues which ‘reinforces forms of social control’ by dictating how society should view these events in terms of right or wrong, victimhood, race, sex and class.
The ecstasy related death of Leah Betts in 1995 and those of Louis Wainwright and Nicholas Smith during 2010 at the hands of mephedrone in terms of the amount of coverage afforded to these three tragic occurrences can be said to have been boldly aggrandised by newsrooms in light of the public interest, or moral panic, or rank sensationalism. Mephedrone itself was unknown as miaow-miaow prior to the deaths and as Private Eye uncovered was a name concocted by the media itself (Private Eye 1259, 2010). Although the emphasis of new stories in correlating the taking of drugs as the prime cause of these fatalities was ultimately unmasked as erroneous, it helped to ensure the attention of public which in turn made the prohibition of mephedrone and ecstasy an easy political win in the UK. An act which has not stopped any further ‘drug related fatalities’ nor the use of either ecstasy or mephedrone, however it has criminalised a lot of otherwise carefree people.
Now the twist. In July 2010 we are presented with Drug Craze 2.0 in the form of iDosing, ‘A BIZARRE new craze in which youngsters get high by listening to droning MUSIC is sweeping the internet'. iDosing, or listening to Binaural music said to elicit illicit psychological responses, has been listed by US narcotic authorities as an insidious new gateway for teens to experiment with real drugs. The regularity of these hysterical panics suggest that we, the public, love them. The prurient heart pounding scares, the tang of alienation from a gloriously hedonistic society, the schadenfreude of the irresponsible in cuffs, why do we make these stories? And what makes them so good to tell?
And here lies the fundamental problem involved in this process of interpretation and re-interpretation. On the one hand, reportage of unusual events potentially affects perceptions of their probabilities. This was, in essence, the very centre of all the satire produced by Chris Morris in the Brass Eye era. Those who castigated Peadogeddon entirely confused the target of the satire (the increasingly hysterical representation of paedophilia in the media) with an affirmation of paedophilia itself. This is the equivalent of thinking that Jonathan Swift genuinely wanted English people to eat Irish babies, rather than satirically mocking the proto-Malthusianism of his age. However, rather like a variant of George Soros’s reflexivity theory in financial markets, perceptions also lead to changes in realities.
A hysterical news story might lead to a process of prohibition of a drug or, alternatively, it might lead to a massive uptake in its intake. I myself had never heard of an iDose until I read a news story which presented it as the new danger to the young, and then immediately and quite naturally rushed off to iDose (without much effect). Charlie Brooker’s Newswipe programme had a good segment on precisely this process where it argued that media representation of mass killings such as that in Columbine High School needed to be very subtle and very calm indeed in order to limit the propensity of similar events happening again.
It is constantly the case, however, that the “end of the world is nigh” message gets greater oxygen of publicity than the “things are moderately OK” communiqué. This is particularly true where journalism forgets its vocation of reporting events that have occurred or are occurring and instead speculates on future events, particularly when that speculation is based on an awareness of probability that would be intuitively understood as insane and as ludicrously fear-mongering by a primary school child (“Santa Claus not only doesn’t exist, but he is armed with a Kalashnikov and is outside your front door”).
This addled process operates in particular through the lens of the so-called ‘war on drugs’, a war unwinnable both pragmatically and in terms of nomenclature. This is not a new phenomenon: cannabis was vilified by the William Randolph Hearst media conglomerates in large part because of his extensive forestry interests, which were potentially threatened by hemp manufacture. The precise history of illegalisation is often very arbitrary. Moreover, as Thomas Szasz argued, the criminalisation of certain drugs leads to a situation where the drug-taker is infantilised; in Szasz’s typology, they are reduced to being versions of the Freudian id, desperately searching for short-termist highs, whilst the judiciary or police are institutionalised or entrenched as the ego or super-ego.
It is not the case that all drug-taking is benign, and in a subtle piece of journalism printed as part of his book Junk Mail Will Self wrote about the complexities of decriminalisation of cannabis in Amsterdam (although it does have to be said that those complexities are heightened by the existence of the Netherlands as an island of decriminalisation with the corollary of drugs tourism). Addictions of one kind or another can be hugely damaging and destructive. One can, however, become addicted to almost anything.
Whilst it is clear that crystal meth or Chris Morris’s cake have something inherently addictive in them at a physical level, it is the case that addictive behaviour is an underlying part of certain personalities, and, moreover, a form of behaviour that often arises when other problems are not being solved in the life of the addict (whether emotional, psychological, or in terms of housing and employment and so on). In so much of the depiction of addiction in the mainstream media, the focus is upon the symptom rather than the cause; on the external manifestation rather than the underlying dynamic, and on the mass production of panic.
A key question would be what effect on brain waves a hysterical news story has – does it boost alpha waves, delta waves, theta waves? Does it stimulate our natural fight or flight mechanisms and their chemical embodiments? Is it addictive? Does a diet of scare-mongering news lead one to desire experimentation with drugs – the dreaded gateway theory?
Another aspect of this rather curious story, therefore, is the very question of what drug-taking is. The brain itself is a potent chemical factory, and listening to music is only one way in which those chemical balances are changed and in which endorphins or serotonin or dopamine levels are played with. Other activities along with iDosing that involve such transmutations include cooking or having a conversation or kissing. Moreover, the targeted use of substances or of soundwaves to transform brain waves has been an element of all human societies. Isn’t music by definition sound structured for effect?
The question is, again, not so much whether a particular substance is healthy or unhealthy in itself, but rather whether the ways in which it is consumed are beneficial to the individual and the community. One of the most notable differences between Ecstasy culture and the culture of legal drugs such as Valium is that the former tends to be taken communally while the latter is taken on a more individual basis; the former is often used to ‘get high’ while the latter is often used to keep a person functioning in the everyday. Rather than simply seeing the two as the same process, there needs to be a consciousness of ‘set’ and ‘setting’ and of the end-goals of narcotic experiences. Taking Ecstasy every morning over the cornflakes in order to cope with the daily commute is not the same thing as taking it in at a music festival. Part of the discourse in some of the iDose reportage uses the term to ‘get high’ as a pejorative and as code for degenerative behaviour. But since it has happened throughout human history, what precisely is wrong with height? Again, there is the thought experiment of what a positive news story about drug taking would be like, as Bill Hicks had it.
The other subtext to this story is the fear of the internet as a place of chaos and access to the dangerous and the Dionysian. An element within that is, of course, the uneasy relationship between overwhelmingly top-down mainstream media and the overwhelmingly bottom-up world of cyberspace. These tensions are not new, since they also accompanied the development of the printing-press, the great antecedent of the internet. At times, today, there does seem to be a curious process where the top-down mainstream media and the bottom-up web 2.0 internet world create a kind of dance of short-termism. The Raoul Moat case was perhaps one of the most bizarre, with the formation of rapid pro-Moat and anti-Moat factions.
There is, of course, an immense attention deficit hyperactivity element to all this: this is today’s latest freak or outrage, to be forgotten by tomorrow morning’s caffeine intake. The danger, however, lies in the skewed perceptions of probability and reality that can accompany these fads, and the prohibitions that can follow them. As Montesquieu said, unnecessary laws weaken the necessary ones. A rule concocted out of hype is not likely to either be enforced or enforceable, let alone enlightened.
Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose. Despite the apparent Brave New World feel of the alpha waveology of the iDose, there is nothing new about moral panics and nothing new about fears over drug-taking and, on the other side of the coin, romanticisation and glamorisation and at times fetishisation. Particularly when there is a death as a result of drug-taking, we need to follow Voltaire’s argument that to the living we owe respect but to the dead nothing but the truth. One can only imagine how much excitement a death from an iDose, whether true or fictional, would cause – but, as in all these things, a sense of proportion and detachment is a healthy one. However, being hand reared for these stories all our lives, we are as a society jonesing for our next mad hit. The wildly hallucinatory accusations, the entreaties to youth, sex & music, the priapistic moral high ground culminating in climactic feelings of potent action, promises promises. In the sober light of morning declarations of the decline and fall of western civilisation as a result of iDose apathy may prove to have been premature.
Unless of course we all happen to die of boredom first, but never fear our children’s inappropriate behaviour assures our future’s destined to be outrageous.
References:
Technical Explanation of Binaural Beats
Java Applet Binaural Beat Generator
Ray Surette (1998)Media, Crime and Criminal Justice: Images and Realities (Wadsworth Contemporary Issues in Crime & Justice)
Gregg Barak (1995)Media, Process, and the Social Construction of Crime: Vol 10 (Current issues in criminal justice)
(please note: we are not affiliated with the authors of these books, however we do get a bit of money if you purchase the books via the links which goes some way to offsetting our costs, thanks.)
Venetian Snares. Deep Cuts.
‘The Swingle Singers? Yeah they’re great, camp operatic flight of the bumble bee. Now that’s some weird music!’
It's 2004, we sit crowded in a small office at a doomed Electronic festival, a nationwide power cut has Berlusconi’s Italy contemplating its future in pre-industrial darkness, the drug addled crowd, irresponsible and anonymous in the night, are tingling with nervous frustration and are contemplating acts of whimsical destruction. A bottle of cheap rum is clumsily passed around in the darkness and smashes on the floor, the doyen of American electronic music Richard Devine is discussing remixing the daft 80s classic ‘Broken Wings’ with Venetian Snares aka Aaron Funk who is distractedly grinding broken glass with his heel. This is a moment I’d like to savour but one of the artists in my ‘care’ has just slashed his chest and head with broken pieces of a toilet bowl that he’s just thrown at a security guard. Also the persistent rumour that a local Italian gang has taken exception to me for some act of disrespect is playing on my mind. I should do something, but what? Maintain order? How and in the end why?
Aaron Funk passes me another bottle of rum ‘this is great!’
Intensely prolific Aaron as Venetian Snares has managed to release an average of two diverse sounding albums per year for the last four years as well as varied and numerous singles and Ep’s. This slew of releases appear barely able to meet the demand of his rapidly expanding Indie fanbase of heavy beat heads. In concert his ferocious presence comes to the fore, split second mixes collage his better known epics within unknown whimsical forays which merge into mesmerising sonic voyages of demonic dancehall, paper cut melodies, rapid silences, and violent arrhythmia. Crowds usually whip themselves into violent ecstasy, jumping and gesturing like b-boys on a heavy speed and acid combination. Rome is no exception.
Seemingly at home amongst the darkness of a festival on the verge of collapse Funk’s performance drew heavily from ‘The Chocolate Wheelchair’ (2003) his latest release on Mike Paradinas' Planet Mu records. Described by Aaron in previous interviews as a ‘party’ album The Chocolate Wheelchair shows strong compositional skills as well as a talent for rebellious breakbeat anthems and was considered by the iconic Warp records, amongst other electronic luminaries, as his best work, perhaps even ‘landmark’.
In tracks like ‘Abomination Street’, the Coronation Street (a popular UK soap) theme is rearranged with the punk classic ‘O Bondage Up Yours’ by the X-ray Specs structurally held together by an intense cut-up of breakbeat drums. The striking feature of this and many other tracks on the album is that within the miasmic use of different funk, rock, kitsch, and dance samples a discerning and infectious rhythm remains to shock the listener forward. The staccato drum n’ metal anthem ‘Too Young’ streams a number of four-four beats through each other in an interlocking weave that samples a 80’s hair band to paleolithically stomp its way into the cosmically complicated ‘Langside’ and beyond into the vein popping jungle funk of ‘Einstein-Rosen bridge’. Moving away from his darker more distorted beginnings Aaron’s production on 'The Chocolate Wheelchair' is surgical, deep, and overwhelmingly directed.
Created from inside a cold brick building deep inside Canada’s interior, Aaron’s music contains the kind of energy that speaks volumes of long dark days of cabin fever, numerous cigarettes, vodka from the bottle, years old chicken soup not to mention a ravenous appetite for electronic music’s more rock sensibilities. That he grew up in Winnipeg, Manitoba and has remained there brings into relief his regular raucous transgressions into North America and Europe. Boarding long plane rides, big and small, to venues of varying sizes he generally leaves his albums of cold musical atmospheres in people’s bedrooms preferring to cart his crowd pleasing yet ear bleeding anthems around in a stained rucksack.
In interviews Aaron often avoids or subverts questions of meaning, emotion and personal relevance, but we’re in Rome and neither of us is going anywhere.
‘I swear people ask me the same shit all the time. I feel like I shouldn't be helping these people who really are failures as journalists… like "your music can be very dark and scary, why is that?" The music’s fun! And not just the chocolate wheelchair others too’
Can you project where you want your music to go?
‘(laughs) that's something I always get asked’
and your standard answer is?
‘Don't know how to answer that. Probably "who cares", Although I think as far as electronic music goes these days, people do have more insight on the whole process, and that's from actually trying to do music themselves.’
‘Basically, I'm just doing the same thing I always have. I truly appreciate the fact folks are buying my records but at the same time it does seem funny that as a lot of my music becomes stranger and stranger it is better received. I have no real concept of what people expect from me, I think people are going to hate my new records because they usually represent such a different side of myself than the side I showed on the last record, but in the end they don’t.’
What makes The Chocolate Wheelchair such an integral work in the Venetian Snares' catalogue is the extent to which it provides an observation satellite to preceding works. Rumbling electronic chords splattered with drive-by breaks, overturned melodies, and hitch-hiking mc’s are all part of the Venetian Snares ride as much as deeper voyages into places that aren’t so easily characterised. What The Chocolate Wheelchair does leave unvisited are the more atmospheric and darkly whimsical continents of his back catalogue, ominous states of which are thoroughly explored on ‘Winter in the Belly of the Snake’ (Planet Mu 2003), ‘Printf…’ (Isolaterecords 2002) and parts of ‘Find Candace’ (Hymen 2003). This is appropriate because like the works of many musical atmosphericists they are to be taken as part of a whole and not really to be sampled individually.
‘Sometimes things just need to be completely synthetic. It's the only way to express that which does not exist on any tangible level.’
While placing Venetian Snares’ music amongst defining electronic artists such as Drexciya, Aphex Twin, or Squarepusher is warranted, happily comparisons fail to encapsulate the unique qualities that his music present. Let’s say that the charisma behind the sampler is different. The few thousand subtleties that torch a musical second in electronic music have to be particularly individualised, a guitar players pressure on the instrument will individualise it them way that is much more difficult with sequencer. The accomplishment of electronic music and production is in maintaining the individuality of the musical meme.
If classic rock’s ego lies in some expressive sexuality, then electronic music’s conceit is in its own cleverness. Punning titles, conceptual parody, obscurist tendencies, cheeky geeky sexuality, cartoons, and the creation of an intellectually aloof personae are all typical modus operandi of the genre (Venetian Snares song titles include: ‘More Drugs Less Love’, ‘Intense Demonic attacks’, ‘Einstein-Rosen Bridge’, ‘Twisting Ligneous’, ‘Breakfast Time for Baboons’, etc) . This is not to claim that Aaron embodies all or any other these things but it’s the felt underlay of the industry to at least be interesting, so there you are.
The evocative contradictions of Funk’s music are highly entertaining, as well as very human, and perhaps not so much complex as specific. Instead of simply sex, death, happiness, and angst read ‘looking down a stairwell at an ascending lover as a more emotional sexual position than sex itself’, ‘death by hanging after watching a program on hypnotising chickens’, ‘finding happiness in the articulated rhythm of a garbage truck compacting trash, punctuated suddenly by the brittle joyous ejaculations of breaking glass’, ‘Is the holiday/work cycle a rut?’. However the ‘intelligence’ per se, of electronic music is largely overplayed and many pundits generally shy away from the fact that as a whole it’s the most evocative genre of music working with a pulse.
Aaron claims that his interest in inanimate objects approaches the alchemical but its not simple symbolism that moves him, but the manner it which different symbols relate to each other. That is, not simply transmutation but understanding through the processes of symbolic ordering, not to mention the power of forms in repetition. In his recent work we can see similar musical lessons learnt from his early experiments with found sounds.
‘When I was a kid I'd use a bunch of ghetto blasters playing all at once to play different sounds I'd recorded with some other shitty ghetto blasters. Most of my sources I'd get riding around on my bicycle and just listening for interesting sounds. I'd use garbage bins and streetlights and anything else I could find that was hollow or metallic to bang out rhythms on. Then I'd set up all the ghettos and record them all playing into that same ghetto blaster. Then I'd play a bunch of those tapes all at the same time and record that and so on. Then I would do cut-ups or pause-ups of those tapes to create a more startling rhythmic effect. A strange ritual in retrospect. A turning point was when I somehow came across this looping delay pedal that held a 2 second sample. This pedal coupled with the ghetto blaster experiments really changed my life.’
A feature which regularly appears in Venetian Snares print is ‘questioning his sanity’ either through the guilty whimsy of childhood (repetitively counting his fingers to music) versus more introspective musing on the fringe benefits of abnormality. But these are really simple conceptual traps and snares of an artist that doesn’t particularly want to be represented, and this also may be to extent why he has stayed in a relatively small Canadian town. In his own words ‘I’m just a guy making music, if you want a superstar or something look elsewhere’. When asked whether he has travelled much other than on tour he laughingly replied;
‘Where am I going to go? The grand canyon?’
Indeed, it’s late and Rome remains in lurid darkness, the weirdness has abated, people have been patched up and transport is organised for those artists willing to go back into central Rome for connecting flights elsewhere. The rain pours down on post-rock acts Mice Parade and MuM as they strum guitars on rooftops and sing softly between boozy belches. Richard Devine drifts off into the crowd and Aaron gets a lift into town. Leaving amongst the medieval looking punters wandering around with candles covering in rags we promise to swap copies of rare David Lynch films and keep in touch, but its hard to imagine any continuity from this situation to a conversation elsewhere in normality.
James Brullige
Venetian Snares Website
Originally published ages ago in 2004.
Original photographs either incriminating, crap or lost.
All photos taken from Venetian Snares' Myspace.
James Brullige was barely present at the Press and Artist Desk, Bitz festival in Rome 2003.
After the future, all is change
After the future, all is change.
By Douglas Bulloch
Is change more than a cliché? More than simply a word uttered to capture unnamed aspirations? As the US election primaries are showing once again, change has a miraculous appeal. In spite of the weathered cynicism that flows after every lofty hope falls, large numbers of people always seem ready to believe again in something, anything, and – in the case of Barack Obama – almost everything. There is nothing certain in this world but that nothing is certain, as the old saying has it, yet this shallow maxim has the appearance of wisdom only because constant change defies the grasp of the present. It says nothing about the pace of change we are living through, nor where change leads. Yet although Obama momentarily captured the mantle of change in American politics, time will show that he is less the putative agent of change, than its product.
To say that there is always change is to disregard it, instead to place a lonely faith in human nature as a timeless challenge to the vicissitudes of providence and fortune. To speak seriously of change we need to look beyond individual examples, and look instead at change as a process – one with its own dynamics. Change does not simply describe the differences between one state of affairs and another, but is the means by which settled relationships are undermined and replaced by new configurations. Instead of seeing how change is an ever-present feature of our past, and therefore our future, we can look at the pace of change itself and see that change – technological, political and social – is perpetually accelerating. And this acceleration has effects all of its own, independent of the actual changes described. Simply put, it makes change the normal state of affairs, against which we search for stability, or at least for stable narratives. But as the process of change accelerates, the future becomes less certain, and we turn our attention towards common moments and common threats.
With the end of the Cold War, the future looked momentarily like a long slow procession to wealth and liberal happiness. The 1990s didn’t quite follow the script, but the future became condensed around the forthcoming Millennium celebrations when, around the world, most of the population jointly held their breath and watched a dawn of new possibilities wash away the sins of history. The end of that same year, the narrowest election in US history revealed an unanticipated indecision over what should come next, and in September 2001 a new threat emerged to hold the world’s gaze. Now, a few years and a couple of wars later, the ‘War on Terror’ hasn’t gone away, but it has to some extent been normalised into a question of police cooperation and political containment. The firebomb attacks on Piccadilly and Glasgow airport were revealed to be amateurish, and although there is no discounting new dangers, there is also the need to move on and imagine a world beyond the suffocating presumptions of security policy. Yet there is no Millennium ahead of us, nor any date that would unite the world in a moment of common reflection. Nor is there any agreed template of future progress, just an ever-tightening cycle of technological and social change, the principal effect of which is a stultifying ennui, a retreat from seriousness and a descent into consumerist accumulation. There are the apocalyptic warnings of climate change, but these are accompanied by the sense that it would at least provide spectacle to an ever more dreary world of prohibitions and material satisfaction. At the same time as we are afraid of the effects of climate change, we are seduced by the possible excitement.
The Christmas and New Year Television schedules in Britain were characteristically drenched in impressions of the past. Cranford, Sense and Sensibility and Oliver Twist, offered up merely the latest instalments in our continuing obsession with the 18th and 19th Centuries. This unending cycle of dramatic adaptations may stem from a profound alienation with our present place in the world, a yearning for the certainties of class and social hierarchy, or an abject fear of the future, or indeed an element of all three. It is tempting to think that the past is easy and that the watching public feel comfortable there, that edgy contemporary drama is too difficult for a general audience. But when contemporary British drama involves placing Tony Blair on trial and assassinating President Bush, then perhaps that serves as its own explanation. And now that we have an unelected Prime Minister and an eviscerated political discourse it is no wonder that America looms ever larger in our political and cultural imagination.
Another part of the appeal of period drama is the portrayal of societies in flux. Oliver Twist was after all a polemical exposition on the perils of poverty in a fast industrialising London. Cranford was a clever portrait of a fading age, the railway bringing more than commerce to the genteel habits of a rural Georgian village. The 19th Century was a period of dramatic social upheaval and technological innovation. This was matched in the world of ideas as Darwin exiled man from the Garden of Eden, Marx awakened new social forces, Empire brought the world fully into view and steam power made it closer. The end of the 19th Century was a time of unbridled optimism in Europe brought to a shattering halt in 1914. But we shouldn’t let this cloud the undercurrents of change throughout this period. War simply drove them onwards ever faster.
By the end of the First World War, war itself had changed, as had our revulsion of it. The next twenty years saw extravagant advances in science and technology; the rise of radio, television, antibiotics and new synthetic materials opened up whole new horizons of human possibility, along with authors like HG Wells and Aldous Huxley determined to embrace them. This coupled with new and threatening forms of political organisation, all focussed on grasping the future, produced another deadly conflict that bequeathed nuclear technology, jet engines, rockets and the computer. Therefore, although the world looked very different in 1900 than it had in 1800, the next hundred years would see exponentially greater change again. Nor should our consideration end there. The end of the Cold War unveiled technologies that were almost inconceivable just a few years before. The Gulf War in 1991 seemed less an attempt to establish a new world order than a showcase for it, as information systems and precision weapons turned a powerful, multidimensional, million-man army into target practice. And it did not stop there. The last fifteen years have witnessed the most intense period of technological change in history. Computer hardware doubles in speed and durability in shorter and shorter periods of time; software is limited only by human imagination. New methods of energy generation point the way toward the end of our dependence on fossil fuels, and genetic technology already raises more questions than we know how to ask, let alone answer. All this, and with new developments in nano-technology, we are stretching our capacity to imagine the future and testing the limits of language to describe it comprehensibly.
The evolution of the social arena has been no less dramatic. The old-fashioned idea that identity comes through the learning and mastering of the habits and customs of a region, class or profession have rapidly dissipated; to be replaced by a refutation of externally applied categories. The public and private domains have been reversed, and individuals demand to be understood as such. No longer are people judged according to the choices they make, but according to the feelings they reveal. Life now is a voyage of discovery, where every achievement or failure reveals innate characteristics and brings one closer to one’s ‘true self’. The Internet has accelerated this process exponentially as like-minds form distant communities of mutual appreciation, and shared obsession. The meaning of friendship has been destabilised, such that one can have thousands of friends, and none. Mobile phones have made communication potentially instantaneous, while facebook makes interaction passive and ad hoc. Information flows have multiplied and accelerated to such an extent that people are subsumed within it, and ‘identity theft’ becomes a matter of knowing someone’s birthday and their mother’s maiden name. It is now almost possible to know everything and nothing about a person, simultaneously.
Politically this translates as the abandonment of party loyalty, and the rise of single-issue campaigns. There is no use attempting to unite people behind a shared program of social transformation, as social transformation accelerates every day. Better to capture those fleeting moments when everyone agrees about one thing. Political parties used to be respectable associations of common loyalty to a way of life or general social disposition; now they are merely the receptacles of strident and fissiparous individual ambition. When this ambition is realised, then governing becomes the management – or mismanagement – of the everyday. Long-term investment decisions get overtaken by events; minor clerical errors cause ministerial resignations. Governments can no longer even win wars because the reasons for waging them are continually crowded out by the life story of the latest casualty. They are no longer concerned with the future for the simple reason that – due to the permutations and combinations of proliferating technological and social change – we know less about the future now than at any time in history.
With all this change comes an intensification of the present. Change is not simply upon us, it overwhelms us daily. It generates fear and alienation. As the world changes, so we feel less at home in it. We fear being left behind, so we master new technologies and novel social codes, or we retreat and reach for old certainties. As the past becomes more distant, we venerate it all the more. We dig it up carefully on live TV, we recreate it meticulously as a tribute to an imagined stability and coherence. We hang on inexplicably to a simulation of traditional monarchy for the disguise it permits our tawdry voyeurism over their pointless, infantile lives. Most of all we adopt the latest fashionable opinion, and strive endlessly to seem familiar – even if disdainful – with the new. But of course, we do it ‘ironically’. We laugh at ourselves as we slavishly join facebook, we ‘do our bit’ for the environment, as long as it doesn’t mean any genuine sacrifice. We wear armbands and go to concerts to save the environment, laughing all the time at Ricky Gervais – laughing at us, laughing at him, laughing at us, etc. Life has become so ironic that irony itself is now meaningless. This crisis of meaning is revealed not simply by our obsession with the past, but also by strange direction comedy has taken. Ricky Gervais offers moments of original and deeply powerful social critique but is perhaps exceptional for that. Little Britain on the other hand is surely amusing, but nobody can explain why without just repeating the catchphrases and laughing. Not everyone likes Little Britain, but everyone knows about it, and it wins awards. To call it a freakshow serves no longer to condemn it as the rootless turmoil of our post-millennial life looks a little bit like a freakshow, doesn’t it? Where once we could draw on narratives of progress and national purpose for some consensus upon which to base our criticism and satire, now we are simply wheeling about looking for something odd to laugh at, and Big Brother offers us not just the vision, but the reality of a society that simply sits around, watching itself, laughing.
This vortex of technological and social change that sucks away the meaning in our lives by destabilising all certainties produces a generalised psychological distemper which meets the future with an exhausted shrug; a post-millennial condition which reduces to a kind of nervous, reflective cynicism, an arch contempt for purposeful risk and endeavour, and a soulless post-ironic reductionism that disdains seriousness in favour of wit and unapologetic self-obsession. To hold an opinion, or to believe something, is not the result of thoughtful consideration, but a kind of social performance. To believe is to value being perceived as believing.
Nevertheless, the world demands interpretation. Life still requires meaning. And even if the increasing pace of change elevates insouciant dilettantism up the social hierarchy, the need for interpretation renders public opinion both volatile and powerful. Influence becomes a case of playing the Pied Piper of Hamelin, seducing rats and children with irresistible mood-music. Given that change is a remorseless dynamo, we vest inordinate faith in those who claim to be its master, those who claim to know the way ahead. It is not necessary to say exactly what change is necessary, merely to pull at the bridle and look serene. Nor is this entirely negative. For a population to be sold an idea is not to interrupt change, nor to control it, but it may create fleeting commonalities of perception, and thus restore a semblance of joint purpose to the whole, distilling from the chaos and anomie a precious moment of parallel reflection.
And people clearly want to believe in the future. When everything is so uncertain, it’s no surprise that we grasp at any trace of meaning, any attempt to chart a path to progress. It is impossible to see the renewed enthusiasm among the US electorate and come to any other conclusion. Indeed, even if it is assumed that Obama’s message is short on specifics, that in itself is indicative of the lack of conditions his supporters place on the content of his message. They are simply seduced by the idea of hope after 7 years dominated by fear. But this article has been less about the specifics of Obama’s appeal, and more about the post-Millennial mindset, which acts as the context of conceptual instability in which grand appeals to the future can prove so attractive, not because of their specificity, but in spite of it.
A desire for change, so visible in the current US elections, is not what it seems. It is indicative of a yearning for predictable points in the future; moments to hang on to, things to be sure about. It is a perfect encapsulation of the post-millennial condition, where increasing uncertainty about the future raises the stakes of every private wager with aspiration. And when these desires coalesce around a political figure, it provides a moment of intense relief. To believe that a new face, one promising change, will deliver at least a point of common agreement momentarily sweeps aside the cloying retinue of meritless curiosities that occupy our degraded public life, and reminds us what politics is for. If we have abandoned grand narratives of political and social transformation, we cannot abandon the effects of change on our lives. We cannot simply sit back and show contempt for it all like monks in a weird form of public retreat, or pick at it like diners in a vast buffet. If change is perpetually accelerating and making our grasp of the future less certain everyday, then commitment to an idea of political community becomes more important, not less. And it is this sweeping undercurrent of social transformation that makes us reach out for the idea of unity. Living in the modern world can be a rollercoaster, but rollercoasters are no fun riding solo. As the idea of the future becomes more distant and opaque, we must become accustomed to change as the norm, to see it as much more than a cliché or an empty aspiration, but as the only thing we have left.
Lebowski fest UK
The Queen and her damned undies: the Lebowski fest comes east
I love The Big Lebowski (TBL). Characters weaving in and out with scant regard for their responsibilities as usual plot devices. Things coming together, making sense, like casual mystic revelations or suburban acid flashbacks and as new shit comes to light one understands that it is from a state of horizontal equilibrium that issues seek their own resolution; the centre abides the ball returns to the bowler. As a fan, you know that some films shake you but the special ones really tie your world together.
As a film, the effortless perfection of the TBL, classic dialogue, and sluggish box office sales guaranteed that it would be a cult film (albeit in hindsight) but hardly anyone could have foreseen the manner in which the cult would grow. And grow it did.
From what started as a bowling rendezvous of lazy hedonism in celebration of the Coen brother’s masterpiece TBL, Lebowskifest has become a long running event where fans from all over the world congregate, share beverages, dress up, and (of course) bowl. Since the 2002 Lebowskifest in Kentucky, each festival has become bigger, toured other cities, and produced some fine merchandise but refreshingly the basic informal and non-corporate format is largely unchanged. So it is that this August there will be Lebowski festivals in Edinburgh (24th) and London (30th) to promote the fan book ‘I’m a Lebowski, you’re a Lebowski’ to be released on August 21st (Canongate).
For ‘I’m a Lebowski, You’re a Lebowski’ (IALYAL) Will Russell, Scott Shuffitt, Bill Green and Ben Peskoe have exhaustively tracked down the inspirations, characters, actors, locations, text, trivia, and a ‘whole lot of what-have-you’ of TBL to answer many of the questions fans have about the movie. Trebuchet decided to ask some more.
First off, what is it about The Big Lebowski?
Will Russell: The film is overflowing with quirky characters, interesting situations and tremendously quotable dialogue. There's something for everyone: Nihilists, porn stars, slackers, war veterans, bowlers, rich fucks, fascists, pederasts, liberals, conservatives, stoners, arty debutantes - the list goes on. It’s mind boggling how much the Coens stuffed into 117 minutes.
Scott Shuffitt: I think that one constant thing about the Coen brother's writing is that they create really strong characters, Raising Arizona, O' Brother, for example, you could dress as the lead characters and someone will know who you are. They are very definable.
WR: From all the interviews we did with the people that know the Coens, they are easily amused by quirky people. They get the biggest kick out of people like Peter Exline who had them over for barbecue chicken to watch the Super Bowl. Every time he would point to a rug that he had taken from an abandoned neighboring apartment and say "doesnt this rug really tie the room together?" they would fall out of their chair laughing. I think the Coens are unique in their ability to see the tiny idiosyncrasies that people have. Apparently they do a lot of "giggling" and only they get what they're giggling at.
“The dialogue in the book seems different from how I remember it” Do you get that a lot? Is what people come up with more interesting?
WR: I'll tell you what we're blathering about, we have incorporated the dialogue as part of our everyday speaking and writing so we may have been referencing dialogue in the text without even being aware of it. Even just keywords or key phrases peppered into sentences are enough to satisfy the Achiever within. It's always cool when someone can seamlessly work in a reference to the dialogue and only the true Achiever is aware of the reference.
SS: We haven't gotten it yet since the book has hit the selves yet, but I know myself, I have seen the film close to a hundred times and the dialogue will seem different. Of course there are strands and the drug regiment that could have something to do with that.
You use the term ‘gateway quote’ in an almost creepy fashion throughout the book (pg 129), why?
WR: The term 'gateway quote' is used on page 129 as the first quote that is spoken from one Achiever to another wherein they recognize they are equally obsessed with The Big Lebowski. There is an alternate theory, however:
We've all been taught that the real dangers of marijuana are not that it makes you giggle and gives you the munchies, but that it is a "gateway" drug that can lead to heavier drugs. The highly-addictive quotability of the script can start out innocent with an occasional "Over the line!" or "The Dude Abides" but can evolve into much heavier use where the afflicted cannot help but quote the movie in any situation, usually inappropriately. Instead of simply saying "that would be fine with me" the subject blurts out "mark it, Dude!" In extreme cases, subjects have been seen mumbling to themselves "How are you gonna keep 'em down on the farm once they've seen Karl Hungus?" or "I can get you a toe." The only known treatment involves bubble baths and whale sounds and is highly experimental at this time.
Many of the people interviewed for the book can’t actually bowl but love bowling anyway, why is that particularly Lebowski?
WR: Bowling is fun! It's the only "sport" where eating deep-fried cheese, smoking and drinking beer is the norm during the game play.
SS: Bowling is very social and it lends itself to munchies and drinking. I would say that is the sport of the Achiever.
Why the UK, why now?
WR: We have gotten tons of requests to come across the pond, as it were. And yes, we aint never seen the Queen in her damn undies as the fella once said. After Lebowski Fest UK, we can die with a smile on our faces without felling like the good lord gypped us.
SS: Why not? We wanna see the Queen in her damn undies! Over the years we have gotten a number of request to come to this city or that including a number in the UK and Europe so when the book was being negotiated, they wanted us to come over to promote it, so how could we pass up on it. It was just the push that we needed.
In terms of inspired Lebowski casting, two words - Jeff Bridges. Is Jeff Bridges the dude?
WR: He's even more Dude than the Dude. He's just as cool as you would hope he would be. Most of the clothes he wore in the movie came from his own closet. He wore his jelly sandals when he came to the Lebowski Fest in LA. However, he doesn't drink White Russians, just Russians (Vodka on the rocks). It is impossible to imagine the Dude being played by anybody else.
SS: Jeff Bridges is the dude! Of course we know a good portion is character, being unemployed, what-have you, but from what I have gathered Jeff is really laid back.
Where will this fascination end? Japan? Afganistan? Australia? Greenland?
WR: Lebowski Fest Tokyo would have to be the last one. The souvenirs would have to light up and be very "blinky."
SS: It's hard to say. We have gotten a number of request to take it to Australia and a couple from Japan. If the Achievers want us, we will ah, you know try to gather the unmarked twenties. When we started, going to the UK was far beyond anything I could imagine so you never know.
Is there a sense of progression from one festival to the next (is even asking this question completely undude)?
WR: Other than being in a different place each time, it's pretty much a bunch of people who love the movie getting together and having the time of their lives. No need to progress from there.
The basic format has been the same since the very first one: bowling, a few beers, a few laughs - our fucking troubles are over.
At each Fest, a "world of Lebowski" is created. The first night, we watch the movie. The next night we become the movie. Valkyries, Dudes, severed toes, and nihilists run amok in a bowling alley fueled by White Russians and great music. Lines of dialogue being traded back and forth, instant bonding among strangers. It's always a trip!
Have there been any documentaries made of the Lebowski fest?
WR: Many have tried. None have succeeded. We've got a pretty promising lead on one getting started this month in Louisville. We shall see.
SS: There have been several attempts. One is called "Over the Line" it looks like it may get finished, but you never know.
Do you think that any costume will ever top the person that came as the ‘Creedence tape’?
WR: I'm still waiting to see someone roll in in an iron lung.
So there you have it folks, books out on the 21st and go to www.lebowskifest.com for festival details.
Mark it, dude.
--
Poster credit: Bill Green
White Water, Blue Sky: Rafting the Rio Grande
By Mike Laird
www.ses-explore.org
Chris Clarke: Acoustic Body Music
Chris Clark or simply Clark these days is a busy man, making music, incessant touring and learning new instruments. While uncomfortable with the title of Warp records’ electronic standard bearer with each release Clark has remained popular by keeping the tracks funky, immediate, and accessibly extroverted.
Body riddle is no different, layered, crowd pleasing and already garnering the sort of attention that artists more focused on popularity crave. With a large portion of electronic musicians wanting to become more and more obscure we talked to Clark about what it means to him to make music that reaches people.
Trebuchet found Clark in Peckham, wearing a pink shirt, and ready to talk.
Trebuchet: You seem to enjoy releasing stuff on small unconventional formats like mini CDs, do you have a lot unreleased material?
Clark: Yeah I really liked the format, 3 inches, there is something quite cute about them. I want to do a whole series, there’s a free one (Throttle Clarence) with the album (Body Riddle), and there’s loads more stuff coming out on them.
I’m giving away loads of stuff at the moment but I just sort of forget to release music a lot of the time.
The album was ready two years ago but I just wrote a few more tunes, and kept on forgetting to hand it in. Just generally being forgetful about the fact that I’ve got a profile. If you’re really diligent and geared to the industry you make an effort to keep it up; which I haven’t done at all over the last three years. I’ve been doing loads of gigs and playing loads of new material. I don’t see the point of putting a new record out just for the sake of it; just to keep your profile up. I mean, there are so many people out there who are really well known but perhaps not really well liked.
Also, its just quite fun waiting three years; you get quite a big development within that length of time, and I learned how to play the drums for this album and it’s more live-sounding as a result. I think it’s just good to have that space away from… well just to have no pressure basically.
T: Tell me about writing a track like Herzog.
C: I can’t remember how I did that, it’s a pretty old track. I think I wrote that one really quickly – I just came up with a riff really late at night, like I usually do. I was in a relationship at the time, but I’d always set my alarm for like, 3am, and just get up to do music then.
You’re sort of in a weird intuitive zone then; you’re not bogged down by all the stuff that clouds your head up in the day. I guess you’re pretty egoless in a way, just plucking things, notes, out of places that you don’t usually explore.
You’re a bit more impressionable when you’re barely awake, to sounds and hearing certain melodies. Its clichéd but its almost like listening as a child… you can have a sense of wonder about stuff… and being in that zone where you can lose any cynicism about music and not treat it like any kind of equation.
Just kinda being impressed by stuff, and I think the only way I can get into that zone is by constantly working on stuff. I guess I just find it hard not to be inspired by music in a way. I think the reason my music sounds the way it does is because I spend a lot of time in my own little world - it doesn’t really involve any social activities based around it. It is what it is and I just get on with it on my own terms.
If you look at a scene like Hiphop or DnB its very much based on a community, its homogenised and in that way its very restrictive, with boundaries and etiquette, and there’s just none of that in my music, there’s no etiquette at all; I just totally please myself, and that’s exactly how I want it. That’s not to say I’m totally hermetic; I’ve got plenty of friends who influence each other and work with each other and do stuff and help each other out; but its very sort of non-conformist really, so everything’s panned out pretty well.
T: Drum n Bass seems like less of an influence on Body Riddle than in previous releases.
Mm yeah, I was totally influenced by it in the late ‘90s, and that’s where a lot of my early releases came from. I was really into Nico, No U-turn, stuff like that, it was mental when I first heard that. I guess it was cheesy brutal sci-fi, but in a good way rather than the shit way that it became.
I don’t really follow it now at all, some of it now is laughable, like you get on digital TV. I’ve got a mate who’s really into Grime, he keeps doing me mixtapes that are ace… like so, so aggro, its fucking amazing.
As for DnB, I haven’t followed it for so long but I still find myself going back to the old stuff, and then maybe some of the more recent Dillinja stuff, I think his stuff is incredible, almost like he’s taking the piss the production is so amazing. Not on all of it and it’s still got the cheese element, but tracks like ‘Crunch’ etc. I’ve listened to those more than I have supposedly timeless avant-garde stuff.
There’s so much posturing in the avant-garde in that you listen to it and you’re supposed to reflect on how it’s part of this canon and its forever immortal or whatever…and like I’ve listened to pieces that I really like but I never go back to them. Whereas someone like Dillinja, who’s so ‘low brow’ and mainstream or whatever, but I’ve gone back to his music so many times, and what does that say about timelessness and all these concepts that you’re supposed to revere and aspire to as a musician? It’s just absolute horse-shit. The idea of posterity in your music, and doing something that’s going to last… I think a lot of people get infected and caught up with those ideas, and often it makes their music really dull. It just proves that it’s an illusion and something that people manipulate in order to project their ‘art’ onto the world. But basically I’m just sticking up for Dillinja’s production because I think it’s so awesome.
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T: When did you start listening to Moondog?
A mate did me a CD about a year and a half ago. He’s been sampled to fuck it’s really depressing. Mr. Scruff sampled him, and everyone hears Mr. Scruff songs and goes, ‘Oh it’s Mr. Scruff, he’s really wicked’, when in actual fact like all the good bits are just Moondog loops, like massive sections.
T: Do you do a lot of sampling yourself?
No, not really at all, just make my own stuff. I did at first, like when I first got a sampler I was really interested in it, and that was when samplers were really high tech…they were like machines of the future, I must have been about 16 at the time. I mean, I’m not saying its bad; some people do it really well. With Mr. Scruff, its not necessarily slagging him off, maybe it’s only a few tracks he’s used Moondog samples on. No, people do it really well and you can do amazing stuff with other people’s music (I’m not a puritan!) but I was always much better at making my own sounds.
T: You have cited (Bernard) Parmegiani as an influence.
Yeah, the last album, I was really into his stuff; recently I haven’t been so much into Musique Concrete as I was for the last record. I’ve got a lot of mates who are purely into avant-garde stuff, so it felt like doing this album and doing something more poppy was the most unique path I could follow. I guess if you’re only exposed to pop music then Musique Concrete and electro-acoustic music seems really fresh and it did to me for a while but, because that’s kinda my history it felt like the most unique path I could follow would be to do really strong melodic stuff.
I think I just get more confident with music the more I learn about it, and this record is just a lot more punchy…like on Roulette Thrift Run, there’s a sort of James Chancy horn that’s like found sound, but its not an actual horn, I just found a way to make it using lots of different sounds, using different sampling techniques at different sampling rates. I think this album just has more swagger, and that’s why I like Parmegiani: his stuff is really kinda academic but it’s punchy and direct, not wanky and drifty. His work is homogenous and solid, almost pop-electro-acoustic. His best album I think is ‘The Nature of Sound’, 13 or 14 tracks, and they’re all only 3 or 4 minutes long; it’s a pretty accessible format for that sort of music, and that’s partly why he’s a big influence.
T: Have you ever seen Parmegiani, is he still playing?
I saw him play in Birmingham, he just sort of played that album, it was a bit disappointing actually, not because of him, rather ‘cos of all the tossers that run that sort of sound-design project; they’re just so insular.
T: That said, Warp has a reputation for being pretty insular?
I don’t really talk to Warp that much, perhaps I haven’t noticed because I’m on the inside (laughs). Perhaps it is a very ‘bubble-like’ experience, but then, you know, what isn’t in the media really?
T: So to step outside that bubble is to go in a poppier direction?
Yeah, but then I’m under no delusions…its no James Blunt, but to me its catchy music, accessible.
T: In a lot of interviews I’ve read, and your biography, you are often referred to as a torch-bearer for Warp records?
I’ve heard similar things. I’ve got no idea how to respond to that except that I don’t see that as my responsibility at all. I rarely speak to Warp as I said, on this record there was just the time when I handed it in.
What I like about Warp is they do let you go and get on with stuff. I suppose they’re just too busy. But I really don’t let those sorts of comments or remarks affect me or how I perceive what I do. I still have the same attitude I had when I was 16 you know?
I had this German interviewer once that had a very romanticised vision of music producers, that when we meet each other we have these real intense conversations about music. But I think the truth is that that is just an image, purely an image that has been manufactured to present a cosy, cohesive idea of musicians.
Also, being of a younger generation, I wasn’t around with people like Aphex and Squarepusher doing music in the ‘90s, so in that sense I’m not involved and not really got any desire to be involved in a particular clique or whatever. And I don’t think they have either, it’s just a comfortable image that the media might use.
This German interviewer, I didn’t mean to sound facetious, but I was saying that when we do meet up we might talk about really normal things, and he was really enamoured with this idea of us sparking off one another and wouldn’t let it go.
That said, I’ve got loads of friends doing music that no one has heard about, that I think do awesome stuff, like Bibio who’s released a few things and Ed Law who did an album on Planet MU that was really ace.
T: I take it you’re still writing and recording at the moment?
I haven’t gone near a computer for a while, just been playing instruments, drums, bits-n-bobs. To become enchanted by something again I think the best thing is to keep away from it for a while, get some space between you and it. I’ve still been writing and recording on samplers and stuff.
But mostly drums and guitar, I like finger picking, classical styles, more James Blunt (laughs), we’re all mere streams flowing into the major current that is James Blunt, he’s a genius (laughter).
Strange isn’t it, that someone can write music that’s that contrived and commercial, and just like the lowest common-denominator but still…
T: But is it? I mean he believes in it.
Possibly yeah. It’s like politicians: if they believe what they say then it makes them stronger in a way. Like it’s very easy to think of them as two-faced, but although they’re embroiled in contradictions I’m sure they often believe in it all.
T: How about professional musicians, which I guess you are?
I’ve never…I just find the term really amusing, and I know it’s pointless to get pedantic,
T: So do you think that they don’t inject what they do with emotion and feeling? Is that part of the professionalism?
I’m sure they do, but really I have no idea, I’m just referring to a vague stereotype that I’m enjoying poking fun at. It’s a bit harsh and maybe they do…but yeah James Blunt: maybe he does totally believe in what he does, I mean I guess he must do.
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T: Bodyriddle?
Bodyriddle! I just like the sound of the words, together, there’s no grand concept behind it. It doesn’t link to the music, the title always comes afterwards for me. It would just be really pretentious for me to pretend I had a clear-cut idea of what it meant, cos I don’t at all, it was an afterthought. It’s something that you just tie in and I think it fits; I like the sound. I don’t want to puncture anyone’s imaginative leaps of what it could mean.
T: Ahem, ‘Herzog’ is a film-director...
Yeah I can’t lie about that, that’s a pretty blatant dedication to him. I watched ‘Heart of Glass’, which is a really good film, but the part I find amazing is the first ten minutes. It’s got a proggy soundtrack and the first ten minutes is just mind-blowingly fucking amazing.
You’d have to watch it, I couldn’t do it justice in words, but the script and dialogue is so relentlessly moving, and I watched that and wanted to do a piece of music related to it; perhaps use the visuals in a live set for that track. He comes up with iconic images, and that sense of tiny ineffectual people attempting the impossible; that sense of adventure. Herzog seems such an interesting guy in interviews, and it’s hard not to be inspired by his egalitarian visions.
He riles against academia and the idea of film being a formal thing that you study. He says what an artist should do is basically, they should box for about an hour a day, and then he says they should walk from one country to another across the border, with a notepad, just recording everything they see. I dunno, I just think he gives you a beating in terms of your self-concept of what you do and I find that really inspiring…just his whole approach is so hands-on. And ‘Grizzly Man’ is amazing…
T: ‘Grizzly Man’ yes! I mean, there was this huge thing about whether it was staged or not, but what an amazing film!
Yeah I kinda feel that he deserved it, in a kinda rough-justice way. He’s a pretty weird guy.
T: But then, his character, and Steve Irwin’s character…
Yeah totally. Did you read that his fans have been cutting off the tails of sting-rays in vengeance attacks? Isn’t that the most retarded thing? It’s so wrong.
T: Surely that’s something that he would disagree with
Well I don’t know, maybe he would, but at the same time he was just totally invading animals’ private spaces and breaking all sorts of entrenched rules of nature, and in that way, the fact that he died like that is sorta rough-justice.
Clark is one the one hand a lauded musician on an immensely influential label that has housed some of the greatest musicians in the last twenty years and on the other, like many electronic musicians. he makes music in a social vacuum. However, rather than being isolated by this he talks about connecting with sound in an abstract, awe filled way, often in the small hours of the morning, with little pretensions about previous music he’s made and perhaps even moving away from the idea that he’s making ‘music’ in a larger defined way rather than creating something psychologically elemental that intimately moves people.
With releases like Body Riddle the clichés of exploring through music certainly applies here, internal journeys, found sounds that throw titillating curveballs at the listeners, but perhaps paradoxically the musical vocabulary here is vox dancefloor.
Off tape he spoke at length about the craft of making the music that he does, explaining again that to him the intellectual and academic explanations of music aren’t what interests him as a producer, so much as the process of twisting sound slightly past the familiar but keeping enough textural and rhythmic clues that people whether they want to think about music or just move to it are satiated. That said, through the IDM tag Clark is surrounded by people that do think about the intellectual pretensions of making and listening to music and like the poor German reporter are hoping for some easy enlightenment.
Indeed, Clark wants to make intellectual records that don’t sound like intellectual records and so stands not so much an imposter as a dangerous interloper and in the end, the intellectualism of Body Riddle, as the name suggests, isn’t in posterity but immediacy, which is in itself pretty smart.
