huh?

SPG

After my posts on the Police Bill and Blair Peach, I was flabbergasted to find that UK toymakers Matchbox used to manufacture little Special Patrol Group vans.

How weird is that? Did kids in the 80s really set up little re-enactments of police brutality and riots in their bedrooms?

rhythmplex interview: Bryan Lewis Saunders

Bryan Lewis Saunders self portrait

rhythmplex » Blog Archive » Interview: Bryan Lewis Saunders.

Bryan does incredibly intense spoken word. He sent me some CDs out of the blue a few years back. I played one of his pieces on RSI Radio vol 2 which got some good reaction at the time.

We’ve stayed in touch and I’m pleased to say he has a collaborative CD with the always brilliant Z’ev just released and has given a very revealing interview over at rhythmplex which confirmed my good thoughts about him.

In contrast to a lot of “transgressive” artists, Bryan focuses on the bleakest, darkest aspects of humanity – not as some willy-waving competition or to shock people out of their so-called consumer complacency (yawn) but because he has an incredible empathy:

“The occasional person who walks out or walks away during the show aren’t the ones I am most concerned about reaching, those people are OK in my book. It’s the few people that have the adverse reaction that concern me and scare me the most, and those are the people that I try hardest to reach out to.

The vast majority might not enjoy it but they aren’t supposed to and they know this, so they are the ones that are the most supportive and many people are hurting or personally know others that are hurting and are appreciative that I have given them a voice. They understand the method, message and goal because I make it quite obvious throughout the performance.

The occasional sicko / whack job on the other hand, that then challenges to “outmasturbate me” afterward, or says, “You just inspired me to cut off a monkey’s head! Wow, you just made me want to cut off a monkey’s head that was awesome!” those are the people that I try really hard to reach. It is probably too late for them but I try anyway, because I can identify with them and I myself fear that I could have become one of them had it not been for the arts.”

The interview is well worth reading in full and includes some of Bryan’s Youtube work.

See also bryanlewissaunders.org for more information.

reading

gods of the blood

Mattias Gardell – Gods of the Blood: The Pagan Revival and White Separatism (Duke University Press, 2003)
Very readable for an academic book. Gardell is Swedish and specialises in the extreme end of comparative religion, having previously published a book on the Nation of Islam. The common theme being racial mysticism, of course – in this case the mysticism of whiteness, right down to the bizarre claims that Jesus was an aryan from the “Christian Identity” movement.

Whilst focussing primarily on racist Odinism/Asatru the book also includes a good overview of the development of the American far right and the “occult fascism” which emerged out of a particular strand of industrial music in the 1990s. There is a more critical review of the book over at the Southern Poverty Law Centre.

Ignatiev

Noel Ignatiev – How The Irish Became White (Routledge, 2008)
As a former editor of the journal Race Traitor (“Treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity”) I imagine Mr Ignatiev would be quite unpopular with a lot of people featured in Gardell’s book. This is quite US-centric, an examination of how Irish immigrants (and wider US society) dealt with the issue of slavery, and how this was a crucial element in them being accepted as part of the American white working class. The political machinations were a bit much for me, but overall I’d still recommend this I think.

exotica

John Hutnyk – Critique of Exotica (Pluto Press, 2000)
Nice contrast between the Asian exotica of Kula Shaker and the overtly politicised approach of Asian Dub Foundation and Fundamental.

Ray Hurford & Joakim Kalcidis – Small Axe Reggae Album Guide: Deejays (Small Axe, 2009)
Reviewed this for Woofah issue 4, but suffice to say it does what it says on the tin. Check it.

Linkage:

Les Back – Coughing Up Fire: Soundsystems in South East London (New Formations Number 5 Summer 1988)

Tom Lea – Essential Ruff Sqwad (FACT magazine 2009) – great overview of these Grime dons, complete with loadsa youtube links.

Droid – 20 Best Ragga Tunes (FACT magazine 2009) – the usual top notch quality and detail one expects from the man who single handedly saved Woofah from oblivion. Again, lots of audio to check alongside the great commentary.

Mark Hayes and Paul Aylward – Anti Fascist Action: Radical Resistance or rent-a-mob? (Soundings Issue 14 Spring 2000)

Blaggers ITA fanzine interviews

Way In My Brain

The nice people hand over some blue robes and I sit, waiting for my MRI scan. NWA lyrics about being “dressed in the county blues” go round my head.

The letter said I should leave all my valuables at home, but that I could bring my own CD. People said don’t take anything too rhythmic, cos if you involuntarily brock out in there it might ruin the scan. I settled on Lull, Dave Parkin’s Snowflake mix and some Autechre.

In medical situations when they ask you a long list of questions, I always end up bursting out laughing. I know they have to do it for a good reason, but when it got down to “have you ever had a shrapnel injury?” I just couldn’t help myself. If I worked there I would make up some extra ones just to keep myself amused.

I’m not really claustrophobic but you do worry about being stuck down a tube and being immobile for an indeterminate length of time. The CDs were never mentioned, but I got to listen to patches of Heart FM. I say patches because the scanning process is actually really noisy, I hadn’t sussed that. Harsh drones of varying rhythmical definition. It was actually pretty wicked. Static-ridden Heart FM in the gaps.

The last bit was especially intense, almost up to Gabba tempo, with this faint undercurrent of Duffy “begging me for mercy”. Essentially the sonic experience of having a brain scan is like something Toecutter would come up with. I doubt many people see it like that, but for my part that connection gave me a (motionless) chuckle and kept the claustrophobia at bay.

I didn’t get to see a picture of my brain. Maybe I will when the results come through in a fortnight.

the sixth gig I can remember going to

Click here for a complete list of entries in the series  “the first 23 gigs I can remember going to”.

marillionxmas

6) Marillion, Aylesbury Civic Centre 28/12/86

This was an Xmas fan club gig, in the band’s home town. Yes, I was in the Marillion fan club as well. Jesus. Probably only for a year though, if that helps.

The fan club was called “The Web” after a song on their first LP. It commences, with typical pomp:

The rain auditions at my window
Its symphony echoes in my womb
My gaze scans the walls of this apartment
To rectify the confines of my tomb

I remember its name only because some spectacularly shit policing linked this fact with the horrific “Ealing vicarage rape” earlier in the year. The scumbag attacker had a tattoo of spider’s web, like hundreds, possibly thousands, of skinheads – none of whom would have had much time for Marillion. The fan club agreed to help the cops with their enquiries, as I guess anybody would even if the investigation was clearly going down completely the wrong track. I remember discussing all this with my parents over Sunday lunch.

Anyway, as well as a possible knock on the door from the old bill, fan club membership got you a magazine and the odd newsletter. And the chance to attend an exclusive gig, strickly fi de ‘ardcore.

Unfortunately I can’t remember too much about the night because I have blanked it from my mind. This bit of light repression is because I now find recalling the event more embarrassing than associating it with having been in the fan club of an 80s prog rock band. We heckled the support band. They were rubbish, we were pissed. We probably had a load of teenage sneery punkish hormones racing round our bodies. They were friends of the headliners and… they were just boring blokey rock. So we hung around at the back and shouted the odd comment, I can’t remember what. Except for one thing.

There were I think a number of asides to the audiences between songs, which is a bit much for a support band. One of them concerned the drummer being involved with a car crash and being out of action for a good while. To my eternal shame we responded to this by shouting “we don’t care!”. I am cringing right now, typing that.

I’m sure by this time the band and most of the rest of the audience had realised we were pissed twats and proceeded to carry on as if we weren’t there. In many other gigs I have attended since, this sort of behaviour might have resulted in a severe kicking. So it’s Marillion fans: 1, me: nil, in the tolerance and goodwill stakes.

The rest of the night passed in a drunken blur. There was possibly more friction between fans and band during “Kayleigh”. One of my mates’ Dads kindly drove us home. It was the last time I ever saw Marillion. By the time their next album “Clutching At Straws” came out, I was much less easily impressed. This was down to the fact that the quantity and quality of gigs I attended in 1987 would be immeasurably greater than what had gone before…