MMXIII

Magical moments of 2012: the gift of an unfeasibly large basket of exotic fruit, the coalmines of Saint Etienne, having Den Harrow follow DJ Benetti on Twitter, getting to see Reincarnated, the streets of San Francisco, classic disco vinyl played at Torino vegan restaurant, Maya Deren screening, release of the chimps, BEB night, a platinum at last on PSN, Romney's demise, Daphne's birthday bubbly in Barcelona, Gullivers in Manchester, Cleveland waitress who turned out to be a fan of Uncle William, HMS Bounty at Boothbay Harbor, and so much else...
Incredible year, one of the very best, even despite a couple of health scares.
The travelling's been so much fun, met so many amazing people at shows: in the States, on the continent, and also back home. Also saw and heard some genuinely inspiring new stuff, recorded, live, and DJ sets: there's some amazing music out there for anyone who's ready to go out and look.
During the spring and summer, recording and preparing Black Mamba took quite a heavy toll and I don't care what that fucking snool at The Wire thinks about 54 Needles because I love that song and am proud of that album. Seriously, what's not to like about incense?!
Vinyl version will be happening before long with new songs to replace ones already included in the previous Afro Noise I vinyl sets. Also, Madwoman, a new 12", is in the works. Excited.
Anyway, my true thanks and love to everyone for listening, for writing in, for feedback, for doing reviews, for putting on concerts, for coming to concerts. It means such a lot. I hope the music might give you much special pleasure and more, and for a long time to come.
Have a great holiday and all that's right there in waiting for 2013.

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Afro Noise I
the response has been really fantastic, thanks so much to everyone who's already pre-ordered the CD (sadly, the free art cards are now finished but, since it's been such a success, already thinking of getting some new designs in); the first shipments have already started going out this week so they should start arriving with you very soon - was also (I confess) thrilled to see that The Wire had given it such a lovely full-page review in this month's issue, written by Nina Power

Cut Hands live
there's a Cut Hands show at the Glasgow School Of Art on 3rd June - it's free entry; I'll post more details as soon as I get them

Urbanomic
the publishers of the wonderful Collapse journal are doing a summer auction of various unmissably exciting stuff

Uncle William
afraid to say that there's no Uncle William this week; he is willing to accept sole responsibility for the inevitable disappointing dip in the number of hits taken at the blog due to his absence

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Mandingo!
the recent VBS documentary Mandingo! about the Floridian interracial swinging scene features a new Cut Hands track, one that isn't expected to be included on the forthcoming album - in case you're wondering which it is, it's the one in the film that doesn't sound like a Led Zeppelin remix

Bijin Tokei
am suffering from a mad addiction to these bijin tokei iDevice apps; not sure what's cuter - the ones with random girls in the streets of Japan, or the ones with the photos taken with fish-eye lenses of kittens and puppies; not to leave anyone out, there's even one with boys now, not to mention a porn incarnation (it had to happen sooner or later)

The Wire
I didn't envy David Keenan's herculean task of transcribing the 4+ hours of dialogue for the Invisible Jukebox, which then had to be edited down quite a bit; anyway, I thought he did a great and meticulous job of making it all work pretty well; there were just a couple of minor corrections I'd like to point out: of course, it was Robert Rental who sold me the Wasp synth (not Daniel Miller), and Bad Girls Get The Fuck Over It is in fact Whitehouse (not a side project as was suggested in the feature's introduction); the magazine also have posted an exclusive short streaming extract from 'Extralinguistic Programming'

Movies
it was time last weekend, once again, to dust off the 3D glasses for the (presumably) valedictory Jackass movie, review coming for that soon, along with Enter The Void and much more; nor has the promised Disney special been forgotten about, I know how much people are not dying to read that

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The Wire
god knows I have a love/hate relationship with that magazine: it's thanks to the free annual subscription I earned from having written the piece on Yoko Ono last year, I get to feel apoplectically irritated on a monthly basis over lunch at the nearby Himalaya Indian restaurant; and yet with that all said - and ignoring wankers like Edwin 'Pencil' Pouncey and Nick 'But' Cain - the editorship is genuninely respectful towards its contributors, I'd much rather it existed than it didn't, and they most pleasingly capitalise all words in song, book, and movie titles

Nurse With Wound
Andrew Liles kindly invited me along to Nurse With Wound's performance a couple of weeks ago at the Tramway in Glasgow; never having seen them play live, nor having heard recorded output since Soliloquy For Lilith, it seemed far removed from the carefully structured fondly anarchic surrealism of the 80s, more like loud droney lo-fi ambient; and yet that was neither here nor there because it was a real pleasure to see Steve, erstwhile loath to stages and audiences, revelling in the limelight

Wroclaw Industrial Festival
sad to report that there won't be a Whitehouse performance at this year's Industrial Festival in Wroclaw, Poland - there's more than enough else to enjoy at the packed four-day event for everyone who'll be there; I certainly would have loved the chance to catch up with Glenn (Michael Wallis) again

Books
I've been acquiring new books at such a prodigious rate in the last few months that I've decided to sell some older ones to create some much-needed space - they're mostly on the usual filthy subjects that we all love, and many are pretty rare; I'll post a downloadable pdf list of what there is soon, or just drop us a message

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UNLEGITIMATE

As the opening credits of the film documentary Smells Like Teen Spirit are emblazoned with the dreaded credit to 'UK Film Council', your hopes sink. And with good reason. This sloppy work is watchable thanks only to the remarkably fun phenomenon that is Eurovision, and thanks to the ability to augment from YouTube all the requisite footage that's shamefully omitted. (By the way, Romania got my 12 points.)

Britain has never been able to get it, Eurovision; we're a nation always fighting through our own invisible patina of self-loathing supercilious cynicism (typified by the tacit support for xenophobic prats like Terry Wogan and Graham Norton) and our own continually spurious attempts at wider musical legitimacy. This documentary is no exception to that.

I mention all of this because it lies at the heart of something I've discovered and learnt in the wake of my series of posts regarding the paintings of Congo the chimp. It's what makes Eurovision so much fun and the Brit awards or Turner Prize or Oscars so cringeworthy. It's what makes the satellite music channels like Viva Polska and Music Box Russia so watchable next to the wretched MTV. It's what makes Italo Disco so magical, yet 90s Britpop so awful. It's what makes everything from Wire magazine to Rolling Stone, books by writers such as Simon Reynolds and Jon Savage, Guardian and other broadsheet rock and pop critics, BBC music documentaries, and more, so fucking depressing. And of course it goes beyond music into the worlds of literature, art, performance, pornography, film.

It's this continually insufferable attempt to legitimise; the compulsion, through endless rationalisation, to give art some kind of special worthiness or moral weight. (And yes, it does have quasi-religious connotations.) Music, film, books, pictures should not have to justify their existence. Far better that they should not.

The act of attempting to legitimise one's own or others' work betrays the questionable underlying intent of trying to justify a belief system, a set of superstitions, a worldview. It says almost nothing else about the aesthetic value of the art. That's why it comes across as so overbearing and pompous and smug. It's an impure artistic intent.

LEGITIMATE
that which is considered as having unique irreplaceable worthiness, beyond its core artistic worth, rationalised by the creator or by others (i.e. legitimisers)

UNLEGITIMATE
that which is considered as disposable, or replaceable by other similar examples, spanning the full spectrum for popularity and potential for personal satisfaction

ILLEGITIMATE
that which is considered artistically unpalatable or unworthy by legitimisers, not on grounds of disposability or replaceability, but for a perceived threat to pre-established moral convention

Feel free to fill in your own examples for these categories according to taste.

INNER SLEEVE

The Wire magazine have published the Inner Sleeve feature from last month's issue online.

WEB EXCLUSIVE

There's a web exclusive track from Afro Noise I featured at The Wire magazine online site, which is to accompany my Inner Sleeve feature on Yoko Ono's Fly 2LP in the current issue (November 09, #309).

BLACK METAL PENCIL

There's really nothing like a sweet bit of come-uppance, and after decades of humourless digs at all and sundry in the world of music via his artistically null cartoon, Edwin Pouncey (aka Savage Pencil) feels the heat and sweats cold. All because some Wire reader without a life felt the need to write in and complain about Pouncey's inclusion of an utterly obscure heavy metal band in a playlist; and thus it seems panic has broken out at the magazine's offices, and said Pouncey has had to grovel for mercy by means of a public written apologia.

Of course, what he should be apologising about is his singularly embarrassing taste in music, not to mention his crimes against humour. As far as I'm concerned, black metal is what boys listen to after they've finished all their Harry Potter books; I imagine Iron Maiden would also still be cool, but not a band to be namedropped in The Wire. Graveforests And Their Shadows indeed. Seriously, Stars In Their Eyes is more experimental than this crap.

But that aside, here is Pencil's awkward obfuscating squirm from the latest issue, with annotations.

"My inclusion of Walknut's album in my Black Metal 15 was based purely on the group's music rather than any ugly fascist message..."
hang on, 'ugly fascist message' as opposed to 'nice fascist message'?

"...that they may have secretly buried in the mix."
what, like backwards messages?

"Although ignorance is no excuse,"
...

"...I was blissfully unaware that Graveforests And Their Shadows contained material that supported extreme racist viewpoints."
...so ignorance is indeed an excuse

"Instead, I heard what sounded like an excellent example of ABM (Atmospheric Black Metal) that I felt was worthy of mention for its musical and experimental qualities."
I'm sure The Wire complainant will be most grateful for having the acronym ABM explained to him - cf. 'paediatrician' (a doctor who looks after the health of children)

"Should its inclusion in my chart have caused any distress to readers of The Wire,"
'distress'?!?

"...or embarrassment to the magazine's staff, I sincerely apologize and promise to be more alert and responsible in the future. I also agree that racists should not be allowed to have a platform in the pages of The Wire. That said, however, I do feel that Black Metal is producing some of the most interesting and diverse music today, and for that reason alone I shall continue to support it. Savage Pencil"
so, by definition of the 'that said/however' contrast, does it mean Mr. Pencil does feel that it/they should be allowed to have a platform in the pages of The Wire, or that he'll just continue to support it/them for demonstrating excellent musical/experimental qualities?

This was the guy who got so hot and bothered over an erect penis on an album cover? Oh dear.