frenzy of the text

“What harm can a book do that costs a hundred crowns? Twenty volumes of anything will never make a revolution – it is the little pocket pamphlets that they should fear.” – Voltaire (1694 – 1778)

After the mass destruction of zine culture in favour of the morass of online information, some hardcore paper fetishists remain:

Uncle Louis, his Fruits and Vegetables: A Proletarian Critique of the Nation of Islam is number 6 in the series of pamphlets from the Melancholic Troglodytes.

2 quid from Centreprise in Dalston, or from:
Melancholic Troglodytes
Box 44
136-138 Kingsland High Street
London
E8 2NS

(Send cash or cheque with blank payee, allow extra for p&p – it’s A4, 60 pages)

They’ve also translated On The Poverty of Student Life into Farsi. Back issues available, you can email them at meltrogs1 at hotmail dot com.

I’ve previously plugged Why Not Show Off About The Best Things? by the Wu-Ming Foundation, and this forms part of one of the Infopool pamphlets, which are available from Housmans in Kings Cross for 3 quid, or direct (see link).

Back issues on Danish Situationism, political conceptual art, more. Contributors include Stewart Home and Howard Slater (of Break/Flow).

T.W.A.N.B.O.C.

Oo-er. Ingram is onto me! I shall batton down the hatches and expect a broadside soon.

He’s also done a good piece on the Honest Jon’s Light of Saba reissues – the jazzier (and therefore in some ways more respectable) end of reggae:

“What’s good about Reggae? It’s an endlessly recyled restless modernism. It’s a synthesis of voodoo and cheap technology. It’s got CHOONS. Not it’s posture, not it’s internationalism (works best always as infinite localism), not the impact of other musics on it, not it’s perfectionism, not it’s classicism. All of which are in abundance here.”

Matthew’s big ting is the AvantYob vs Beatnik dichotomy (definitely an interesting exercise) and he sees this as being the Beatniks trying to regain some of the Yob territory.

Possibly not relevant, but I’m sure some of the impetus behind reissuing the Saba stuff is that the original pressings have been going for up to 300 quid for the last 15 years. Maybe crude economics is more AvantYob than Beatnik?

riddims

It’s all about the new “old” riddims at the moment. I.e. new reggae productions out of JA. Possibly highly conservative of me, but the bashment futureshock can’t feed you 24 hours a day.

Coupla things I picked up from Gladdy’s over the weekend:

Immigration riddim, all pre 7s on Al Ta Fa An
Nice and rootsy, but with a modern, heavyweight feel. Fits in well with the do-overs of “It’s Raining” (Brick Wall) and “Watch This Sound” (Digital B) from last year. Mmmm I can feel another mix coming on.

Luciano – You can have the world (excellent vocal on a non-bling tip)
Admiral Tibet – No Fear (I think a Studio One lyric? I keep meaning to do a “two Tibets clash: Admiral vs David” piece, just to see how many people get all the references.)
Anthony B and Tafari – Rise Up (Anthony B’s stuff is always worth checking if you fancy a more melodic Capleton or Sizzla. His cut on Diwali is way below par, however).

Ba Ba Boom riddm, 2 pre 7s on Jammys
Skanking 2003 style from the man King Jammy

Ward 21– Reggae Pledge (as with their Shank I Sheck do-over from a couple of years back called “Ganja Smoke”, Jammy proteges Ward 21 excel at this stuff and are occasionally way better than T.O.K. – the obvious rivals in the ragga vocal trios championships. The bass vocalist is pretty much subsonic at times, which we like (see also the Congos and the Temptations…)
Shocking Blue – Artist War (nice vocal about the various “beefs” between JA artists).

Obviously there are a load of cuts of each, including some dodgy ones I passed over (mainly cos of quality than content) and some that just weren’t available. Forget Grail quests, the hunt is always on for those elusive cuts that are there one day, gone the next…

I have to override the enormous urge not to mention this good stuff. It’s a load of elitist bollocks, but when you’re totally skint but have The Knowledge, part of you doesn’t want every other fucker going out and grabbing the tunes you so painstakingly selected from the avalanche of new releases.

Socialisme ou Barbarie

I don’t know much about Stereolab, but it’s interesting to see that Laetitia Sadier has named her solo project Socialisme ou Barbarie after the french left communist group and is name checking Cornelius Castoriadis (aka Paul Cardan, arguably their leading light, although ‘the cult of celebrity’ is supposed to go against the grain of such groups) in the new issue of The Wire.

I don’t claim to have studied this stuff particularly rigorously, but I’ve always felt that S ou B were among the more human of the hard left groups I’ve looked at, probably because I don’t have a very firm grip on economics, and so am more attracted to texts that discuss the more psychological aspects of capitalist relations like alienation:

“The humanity of the wage worker is less and less threatened by an economic misery challenging his very physical existence. It is more and more attacked by the nature and conditions of modern work, by the oppression and alienation the worker undergoes in production. In this field there can be no lasting reform. Employers may raise wages by 3% per annum but they cannot reduce alienation by 3% per annum.”

S ou B also included Guy Debord as a member briefly, as far as I can remember, and the group inspired the UK’s Solidarity, who I have a couple of texts from on uncarved. (To continue the lefty trivia theme, Solidarity must surely be the only organisation that has included both Class War founder Ian Bone and Ken Livingstone as members?)

As ever, musicians using radical credentials can be dismissed out of hand as recuperators, but my guess is that Sadier’s interest is genuine and that Stereolab fans will already be aware of the group’s interest in the continental left.

(note to pedants – I am just bashing this stuff out at work – your comments and denouncements are welcome!)

CD Pressure

You can overdo the dark stuff. I’d been listening to the Crooklyn Dub Consortium compilations on Wordsound so much that my mental health was beginning to suffer. I got sucked into a downbeat, slightly drowsy, slightly depressed outlook for a while – the last time this happened was when I was listening to nothing by Wu-Tang stuff for about a month, 4 years ago.

Time to banish the darkside with a bit of light, so the weekend was spent on a steady diet of Studio One stuff – mainly the Soul Jazz compilations (Roots/DJs/Story) ‘cos when you’re washing up or mowing the lawn, the seven inch is not your friend (er, not that I have a massive stash of Studio One sevens or anything!). Anyway – mad keen on the cuts of “Throw Me Corn” which feature on these CDs:

Throw Me Corn – Brentford All Stars
Father And Dreadlocks – Charlie Ace And Scorcher (classic tune about a guy who comes home from university to tell his folks he has become a rasta – lyrics along the lines of “but son, what shall we tell the neighbours? Daddy – tell them I am fighting for the universal truth and rights…”

Annoyingly, I can’t remember the tune off “roots”. If I was a real blogger I would never admit this and would wait until tonight before posting, but maybe I’ll just do an edit later, heh heh!

Also been checking Paul Meme’s “Nervous Ragga” mix CD. Top stuff (of course) featuring a load of the most current riddims and so on.

Most interesting thing for me, knowing Paul so well, is the difference between the way we put mixes together. Paul selects in what I guess is a more techno-influenced way, in that he plays loads of cuts (i.e. 10!) of the same riddim, with much crossfader abuse, and can actually get two records going in synch.

Whereas I am keen on just chucking on a maximum of 4 cuts of each riddim, probably with just one verse, one chorus of each. Which means my mixes are in some ways “smoother” in terms of vocals, but maybe a little jerky in terms of the beats – Paul’s tracks are excellently mixed in terms of the riddim, but the vocals are mashed up in a way that William Burroughs would find most appealing. Paul also pitches his records up, which means he wins the prize for innovation and futurism (cos, as he says, this is what people in the UK do to music before creating entirely new genres) whereas I get the grumpy old man traditionalist award.

To continue the domestic theme, I caught about 45 minutes of the The Rootsman’s radio show online whilst doing the ironing on Sunday night. Great stuff and well worth a listen if you’re not up for David Rodigan’s bashment onslaught (especially now them tossers at Kiss have moved him to the 11:00-1:00am slot!). Some good Sizzla cuts and nice sets of Digital B pre’s. Also a great signal given my crappy internet connection at home.

I am also liking the new Muzik cover CD: “Bassline Pressure – It’s a ruffneck sound” (cliched title or what?). It’s been ages since I bought a proper dance mag, but I had a WH Smiths voucher left over from xmas and a long train journey to endure. “Bass” seems to be a category these days (hence the new-fangled digital TV channel – MTV Bass, or so I hear), which suits me fine. Good to see some ragga on there alongside the Garage and d ‘n’ b.

Got a taxi back from a mate’s house in Rotherhithe on Saturday around 1am and saw a massive queue outside of Ocean for the big UK cup clash. Sort’ve toyed with going to this at one point, but I’m not as young as I used to be, and I’ve never been that hardcore…

time travel

Oh yeah – you can pretty much ignore the times here. There are various settings behind the scenes I don’t really understand, but believe me, if I’m ever updating this thing at 4:00 in the morning, you will definitely be told.

blogmentalism

The norlonto crew have gone sidebar-mental over at their blog, and have even stuck this humble effort at the top of their list. So another plug for them, for furthering my devilish world domination strategies. Mind you – knowing them, it’s probably some kind of random script which will transform the page into a bosch-esque vision of puppies with doughnuts on their heads when you go there.

You also have to respect Grufty Jim for ending EVERY SINGLE ONE OF HIS ENTRIES with the phrase “could this be the end of western culture?” – like if he says it enough, it will happen.

In other news, the bizarre non-feud between Matthew Ingram and Paul Meme continues with Matthew roping in random UK-Dance participants and Paul stalwartly refusing to participate, even to the extent of not updating his blog in well over two months (but he has done a new ragga mix CD which is very good).

More content at uncarved.org/dub soon. Met a man in a pub last night…

new blog to check

Comrade Neil Starman is now blogging, which is excellent news. Two entries so far on the intersections between David Beckham, Guy Debord, old testament mythology and the war.

This should be one to watch, definitely check it if you have enjoyed the Practical History or Red Giant sites (and if you haven’t seen them, they are linked from the blog…)

Cary Grant

Despite trying to goad Paul into giving Matthew Ingram the (verbal!) hammering he so richly deserves for dissing him in his blog, the guy does some pretty cool stuff.

This is an excellent comic for those of ya into music, bunking off work and the psychogeography of London town:

Top Friday afternoon stuff.