7th March is world book day, the opportunity for all those with young children to spend hours scrabbling around to try and match up to their neighbours attempts, whilst the kids hope they wont be too embarrassed by it all. What fun. Like National Women’s Day or Record Store Day or Black History Month, these are all worthy concepts, supporting better lives for all. Really, though, everyday should be World Book Day. Everyday should be equality of opportunity for all day. One Day should be watched every day.
In supporting the adult focus to WBD then please have a look at my first book, Blank Canvas, soon to be followed by Creative Spheres, deep, playful, anarchic, experimental and entertaining explorations of popular culture, with creativity centrally placed.
Now time to dress up as my favourite cultural icon …..
A fresh looking Brian Eno at Watford Art College (Mid 1970s)
I am part of a fantastic line up of presenters, exploring the intersection between art and punk, on the afternoon and early evening of Wednesday 20th March at University of the Arts London (LCC campus – Elephant and Castle). It will be dynamic and exciting, intellectually stimulating and with some punk academic attitude.
Music and sex go together like strawberrys and cream, Lennon and McCartney, Foster and Allen. Or more probably Blondie. Cool images on our walls, cut out centrefolds from NME, Smash Hits or Sounds, the new look, new love but it was always Debbie Harry who caught the imagination of a generation. Iconic and cool. Sex and music create some of the same internal feelings, warm and tingly as you filter sweep your Sequential Circuits Pro One. The moving connective rise and fall of an orchestral string section. Ibiza Chill Out classics. Leonard Cohen or Van Morrison in a Parisian flat on a sleepy Saturday early spring morning, the distant sound of vegetable or flower stalls coming to life, the dawn chorus. Sound, comfort, meditation, love. We experience a reason for being in the world, a natural connectivity through bodily integration, listening to the gradually intense breathing, the heartbeat changing from reggae, through hip hop, pop, techno to drum and bass before climaxing in hard core. Music is sex: sex is music. Sex has informed music culture, from the permissive era of the 1960s, sexual exploration and glam rock in the early 70s, to SEX the shop, punk and the pistols to New Romantics, the Aids pandemic spreading through London and New York gay scenes. Raves were about love, group hugs rather than explicitly sexual as energy went out on the dance floor. It was the parties after the events, the chill out rooms, the Sunday afternoons where thoughts of new musical ideas and sex started to reawaken. Love hope and happiness.
I am very excited to announce this years festival lineup, which features an amazing array of talented musicians across jazz, latin, funk, soul and blues. There will be 5 headline nights from Thursday 23rd May to Monday 27th May, with the community music stages being across the weekend. Previous festival goers will understand the extremely high quality of all acts that we programme for this event. We have had an increasingly large number of artists applying to play which has made the decision making process increasingly competitive.
The end of May is the perfect time to visit East Devon, UK. The flowers are out and the weather is usually (crossed fingers) perfect. A beautiful way to welcome in an English summer. A perfect long weekend break.
The US – Vietnam War ended in 1975 with American troops airlifted out of Saigon, ending eight years of another attempt to take aways the country’s independence, it’s freedom to exist, Continuing conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine demonstrate the lack of learning that the human population undertakes. Or maybe it is the people in power who learn. That they can do anything and the fog of information, the lack of a true story deflects attention, confuses the masses. Travelling through modern Vietnam, dodging the mopeds, it is really difficult to fathom the reasons behind the war. Reds in the beds. McCarthyism in America where a communist spread was a frightening position for Republicans and Democrats alike. Vietnam is the most beautiful and friendly country. The people have forgiven. They love Westerners whilst keeping a wary eye on China to the North. War, what is it good for. Absolutely nothing of course and you realise the sheer stupidity of trying to bomb the hell out of a diverse and opaque land where the camouflage of the jungle and the brilliant local knowledge is bounds to defeat the enemy, carpet bombing from above. B52 craters litter the land, now creating objects of war for tourists to take selfies besides or filled in as finishing lakes. Tunnels at various levels where life could go on unhindered, were the enemy could be surprised, passing hidden entrances and attacked from behind. Like in Gaza, finding ways to defeat the over powering superpower, going underground to get out of the jam.
There is the demonstration of collective strength from the Vietnamese people, a common goal to get on with life and make the most of their opportunities and resources. Legendary leader Ho Chi Minh left the country to learn about all aspects of life, from pot washing to gardening, supporting the French Communist party before returning home from hiss exile voyages to support the implementation of collective politics at home. Vietnam still contains a Socialist government with the cracks of Capitalism breaking their way through, but a common understanding and Buddhist leaning life is abundantly clear in the happiness, the joy de vivre of the people. They laugh and work as small groups, spreading out to a vital whole. Vietnam is rebuilding through its people, its verdant growth. Built on the back of a non hierarchical mixed patriarchal/ matriarchal society where women can be seen building houses and men in the kitchen. Wandering through parks and closed weekend streets in Hanoi, the lilting tones of Boney Em to One Unlimited filter through as groups of women dance in step, teenagers hang out on sultry evenings in Hoi An working on routines and theatre sketches, peacefully in each others company, not getting drunk or jacking up. Peacefully, happily together. Strong groups, strong families.
As a very part time musician composer producer kind of person it is difficult to find the time to produce music and the th frustration comes of actually trying to find anyone to play it/ listen to it/ feedback; hate it love it buy it. Over the last few years I have been involved with a Twitter/ X based music scene, where generally unsigned artists making slightly avantgarde or non totally commercial electronic music inhabit. BBC Introducing was one space, but that is an increasingly singer songwriter gateway into radio airplay. In my genre of melodic not quite dance electronica a really supportive network of likeminded artists exists, supporting each others mainly part time hobbies. Names like Kiffie, Signal Committee, Trevas, Mothloop, and myself Inochi seem to constantly appear, as if by magic, on the same internet radio shows. I have no idea of listening figures for some of the shows we are played on but it definitely warms the cockles of your creative heart. I mean what is musicking all about anyway? Making your fortune, heading off into the sunset with a banana daiquiri on a Caribbean beach. Possibly. But really, for me its about having an existence which includes music at the forefront, not making a living, but providing some feedback and support, acknowledgement that you have a place on same airwaves.
Big up to Radio Wigwam, Big Satsuma Radio and Trust the Doc internet radio shows who are all playing Inochi tracks this weekend. We are all listening and playing music this weekend in recognition of the epoch changing British poet Benjamin Zephaniah, who so sadly passed yesterday, 7th December 2023.
Just before the onset of those traditional festivities where families argue or try and flick an After Eight from forehead to mouth without using fingers, I am speaking about connections between punk and jungle music genres at the wonderful Punk Scholars Network conference.………
Punk is timeless and extends beyond the year zero late 1970s definition and identification in which it is commonly held. In connecting to other time points and genres I interpret jungle as a genre which combines many of the same elements, reflecting on the wider connotations of punk, stepping into the Hardcore Continuum identified by music journalist Simon Reynolds which led through techno, jungle, drum and bass, dubstep, and grime.
Key elements of punk and jungle show equivalence:DIY, creative emancipation, postmodern eclecticism of genres, dole and squatting, technological shifts, subcultures, resetting the music landscape, minimalism, anyone can be a musician, pirate radio, delivering an original sonic difference. Visual arts also played a key role as jungle initially connected with graffiti whereas punk defined new fashion, emerging from Dada and art inspired spaces. Punk and jungle resonated sonically, music that is dynamic, danceable, and fluttered speaker membranes.
Every scene, or scenius (the genius of certain scenes – thanks Brian Eno), cooperative genius needs a key instigator to push it forward so within punk, managers Bernie Rhodes and Malcolm McLaren forged the scene whereas jungle was led by its musicians, specifically Goldie or Roni Size in London and Bristol respectively. Community spaces including key venues, rehearsal and recording studios also supported and defined both scenii (scenius in plural), from the Roxy to the Blue Note.
Acknowledging the punk continuum in preceding genres such as jungle, reduces retrospection and highlights future punk infused possibilities for popular music scenes related to inner city modern life.
Come along, its the most fun you can have in any conference anywhere ever!
Synergy and serendipity are key elements of creative development, where working together and chance combine, natural energies allowed to collide so that ultimate experiences emerge. My book Blank Canvas, relates to coming from an empty space where previous learning doesn’t affect outcomes. This is a space where synergy and serendipity can be allowed to foster. Synergy can be defined as when the collective whole is greater than what could be achieved just by individual parts. Synergy connects to flow, a collective natural magic where everything just fits into place. Don’t you have those days when everything seems to work perfectly. You wake up, the weather is beautiful, your body feels great, you hug your partner, the morning light sifting through creates beautiful patterns. You gaze through the kitchen window to see the sun rising out of the flat calm sea which is starting to glow and has a lovely deep blue hue.The coffee machine is ready, there are lots of berries in the fridge, the news on the radio is uplifting. It’s a Friday morning, best day of the week. You have time to sit and write before going for a gentle run to the beach and diving into the still deep blue water. You win toward the gradually rising sun with a few other early birds happily swimming along. Somedays it all fits into place. Collective synergy is about alliance, coming together as one. Music composition has a synergy in that as you develop a piece it starts to gather a natural flow if you allow it. You might start with your main melody, riff or rhythm but working on certain parts then informs the next. Like knocking the first skittle over in bowling, you don’t know what kinetic effect this will have on the rest of them until their energy is transferred. I was just writing about flow and then on Doodle up pops a picture of Mihaly Csíkszentmihályi. Happy 89th birthday Dr Flow. Serendipity.
A great exhibition of influential women artists from 1970-1990 is coming to the Tate Britain from the autumn. Features many of the artists interviewed in my book with The Raincoats Gina Birch as the poster image
BLANK CANVAS 