“One of the biggest requests made by people is ‘What should I read?’ It may be topical: What should I read to find out about council communism? It may be a question of how best to grasp something over time: What order should I read these things in?
What people frequently fail to ask is ‘How should I read?’ Yet that is the truly important question.”
Chris Wright – On Reading and Not Reading Theoretical Works
Not much to add to various bloggers’ comments on the “blooding” of the hunt mob in parliament square last week.
After the first Countryside Alliance rally a few years back I was unfortunate enough to be on a bus with some of this lot, all clad in tweed. They were all absurdly shrill and jolly, but not because of the surroundings of our beautiful city, which they were relentlessly slagging off because of its ugliness. They were, and I hope you will forgive me for my intemperate language, cunts of the highest order.
As the bus continued on its journey we were treated to all sorts of vapid jolliness, until we reached Kings Cross. One woman picked out the station for its horridness and took a step too far for one of the other passengers. He turned round and said, calmly, “You might like to know…”
And this, dear reader, was enough to turn their ruddy complexions completely ashen. I have no idea whether it was because he was black, or whether their day out in the city was being spoiled by the locals contributing, but the top deck of that 73 suddenly went very quiet…
“You might like to know… that the station is a grade one listed building. It’s often seen as one of the best examples of victorian architecture – it was designed by Lewis Cubbitt and was the biggest ever made at the time. It’s also rumoured to be the site of the last resting place of Queen Boudicca”.
(seriously – I’ve forgotten all the details and had to google them, but it was pretty much like this although much better put and more detailed)
Yokel woman was reduced to stuttering something about it being “lovely” and then the whole crew got off the bus, I assume because they had a train to catch.
I wanted to grab hold of the geezer and hug him. But this is London, and we don’t do stuff like that here.
The best resource on the Countryside Alliance is:
French Dancehall in the 1980’s! Including sound snippets & scans.
Another great post from Beyond the Implode, this time on Herman Nitsch and the like. I was actually involved in showing one of his films at the Scala a while back. It was pretty good from what I can remember (I was doing my usual trick of organising great events and then spending the whole time running around the venue sorting stuff out rather than just sitting down and enjoying it). Loadsa insane black and white cow dismemberin’ and religious image desecratin’ and all that.
It was one of those nights, the Scala. Some bloke complaining about how it wasn’t extreme enough, other people walking out because it was. We had a bit of a Vienna “theme” with some ambient industrial bizness from Immolation by Scum, who were great (the projectionist at the Scala just spontaneously mashed up all this insane porn, riot and other weird footage whilst they were on, which was a fantastic surprise). Some other bloke was giving the guy selling their tapes a hard time before they even went on:
“Well what if I don’t like it?”
“Eh?”
“What if don’t like the performance?”
“Fucking DO something about it – don’t come whining to me, mate.”
“Er… oh…”
Never been that excited by the prospect of the Nitsch music itself, tho. The Aktionists were barking though, weren’t they? Schwarzkogler with his bandages and schizophrenia and Muhl (sp?) with his freaky german sex communes and stuff. There’s definitely scope there for a performance art version of Spinal Tap, I reckon… didn’t a crew including Germaine Greer try to disrupt one of the ICA shows they did?
MOBOs dump ‘Kill Gays’ singers – OutRage!
“The organizers of the MOBO Awards have announced that they are cancelling the nominations of reggae superstars Elephant Man and Vybz Kartel, after they refused to apologise for their lyrics inciting the murder of lesbian and gay people.”
I-Sound & DJ Scud collaboration Wasteland have a mix CD out and forthcoming album.
Aphasic’s label JUNK is now up to release 3, reviews soon.
Sick & Twisted – FRIDAY 10 SEPT
SOCIETY SUCKERS ( live on stage 11.15)
breakcore and raggacore mashup
plus dj’s
DJ BROKEN YOLK 10 – 11.15
(S&T’s resident experimentalist, listen as Yolk blends Venitian Snares with Europe and The Bug with medical machines.)
DJ SCUD – 12.00 – 1.30
From world renowned Amush Records, DJ Scud will bring the buisness. Will it be raggacore, breakcore old skool gabba? Who knows, just come and find out.
ALEX B -1.30 – 3.00
(if it’s not deranged, he won’t play it.)
plus the fantastic SICK AND TWISTED record stall stocking a fine selection
of vinyl, cd’s and t-shirts.
UPSTAIRS @ THE GARAGE
20 – 22 HIGHBURY CORNER
LONDON
OPP. HIGHBURY & ISLINGTON TUBE/BR
10pm-3am
£5/£4 cons or B4 11
info – sickandtwisted@ntlworld.com
Matt B on homophobia & dancehall with lots of links to recent articles, including a half decent Alex Petridis piece, surprisingly.
Dubversion’s arsequake revival!
Kid-shirt with some mentalist Steve Dikto vs Whitehouse artwork and his weird fascinaton with Ayn Rand. More please – this is insane stuff!
I’ve never posted here about comics, have I? I’ll add that to the list of self-obsessed autobiog entries which can be done if I ever get time.
Turns out Gustav Metzger lives in Hackney!
There’s a piece about him in the Gazette because some of his work in the “Art in the 60s” exhibition was chucked out by cleaners.
Which is hardly surprising when you consider that it was a load of rubbish in a bin bag… on the floor. 🙂
It makes a nice change from seeing Penny Rimbaud’s ugly mug in there in the middle of a piece about him trying to save the Vortex Jazz club, tho. Having said that, it’s gutting that it is closing, even though I never went… closed down by a greedy landlord – the “Islingtonisation” of Stoke Newington continues apace.