Tag Archives: community

Learning from Vietnam

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.

poster of a female soldirer in the Vietnam war
outline of a female solider on a window of the Vietnamese Women's exhibition in Hanoi.

Images from the Vietnamese Women museum in Hanoi, Vietnam

2024

Ok ok so it’s another day, another year. Excellent stuff and thanks for everyone who has read my posts, my books, listened to my music or looked through my photographs. Next year is time to release book number 2 into the world, an exploration of music scenes through my eyes.

Have a great New Year and hope the world can finally get its act together in all ways.

Hearts

Internet Radio

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.

Timeless: the punk/ jungle continuum

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!

poster for the punk scholars network conference in high Wycombe on 15th and 16th December 2023

Resonance

Gradually we descend through the blustery moments of autumn hoping to arrive within the warm embrace of log fires, nights in and out, fluffy socks, pipe and slippers. A time to dive into creative pursuits to fight off the dark (k)nights. About a year ago I excitedly released my first book Blank Canvas, containing musing on creative development alongside a wonderful array of interviewees such as Brian Eno, Pauline Black, Bill Drummond, Stephen Mallinder, Gina Birch, Helen McCookerybook, Lester Square and the dearly departed Keith Levene. It has been great seeing its journey into the world.

Every morning through 2023 I have woken by 6am at the latest and furiously tapped away for an hour each day, conjuring up my next book Resonance. It is a semi autobiographical frolic through music scenes, using the concept of scenius (collective genius) as a lens. It’s currently a mash of ideas, thoughts, pages of autonomic writing, exploring individual to collective creativity. I always get over excited as I develop creative products, so I need to calm down and take a steady path to the finish line.

Here is a little snippet:

Resonance is a story of collective success through individual failure, where my own role petered out but the collective force continues to resonate and scenes run on. The genius of the Love – did did, do do did did. I’m going to have some fun. Fun lots of fun. And I did fail many times. Pulling apart the bellows of accordions through over vigorous activity, desperate to be heard. Playing a battered trombone which had more dents than tubing. Spending a month in a Southern Spanish villa where there was only local English cuisine available, rehearsing diligently parts for a new album which would all be completely scrapped on our return to Paris. Trying to synch multiple ADAT digital tape machines, time stretching over night, selling dodgy grey market synths on Charing Cross Road. I was working for a camping company based in Hemel Hempstead when I saw a small advert in the middle of a page in Loot, the ads paper of choice, looking for a hi-fi installer. I whizzed down to London, got offered the job, given a brand new silver Astra van, and was soon installing tech stuff for the rich and famous. Sultan of Brunei, Rodney Trotter, Bros, Pamela Bordes and Princess Diana. I am terrible at DIY and managed to place a Bang and Olufsen flat speaker on one of her walls, walk gently away and it crashed to the floor, ripping its brackets out and leaving a great gash. We quickly left. The company (Le Set) went out of business soon after. Hi-Fi was big business in the 1980s. People bought high quality boxes and spent fortunes on ever shorter cables, hoping to experience every nuance of sound that recording studios imparted. Listening for pleasure, placing your favourite seat equidistance between your KEF or Quad Electrostatics. The Linn Sondek, imperfect perfection. Sound quality was universal, something to seek out and aspire to. I’m not sure our latest mp3s can remember those times.

Blank Canvas can be purchased directly from the wonderful people at Intellect publishing or through all good retailers.

https://www.intellectbooks.com/blank-canvas
https://www.pagesofhackney.co.uk/webshop/product/blank-canvas-simon-strange/

Some art books from the Tate Gallery bookshop in London including four copies of Blank Canvas

Collective Consciousness

Music connects to our worlds, what we perceive as life as A Tribe Called Quest extol in the brilliant Black Noise by Tricia Rose’s (1994, p.68), suggesting ‘the rhythmic instinction to yield to travel beyond existing forces in life. If you want to get rhythm then you need to join a tribe’. Natural cohesiveness that transcends our world, both imagined and real, featuring a collective consciousness that pervades and sweeps through the music. Modern Western cultures struggle with the concept of collective consciousness because there is often a negative impact that occurs. Within a scenius (a scene containing unusually high levels of genius) the group think supports positive elements, such as in the London Jazz scenius where places such as The Total Refreshment Centre and the Tomorrows Warriors school help people on a group path, showing value in nurturing communal musiking. Stories told within mainstream media rely on collective consciousness to push ideas, generally in a negative way. Get Brexit Done, Covid-19 lockdowns, the Middle East situation where a lack of historical knowledge is used to sway arguments. Which side are you on, the Palestinians or the Israelis, when the situation is much more nuanced, non linear. Chaos Theory is utilised to confuse and subvert populations. Obvious 20th Century examples include Stalin, Hitler, Apartheid, Anti- black racism, Trump, Johnson, Berlesconi. Dominic Cummings sadly slumped at a desk on live TV lying, needing an eye test to confirm that he was driving a car. If you can start to move the juggernaut of the group down one path then it is unstoppable as there is no room to turn around and the vessel is so large that it would take forever anyway. Brian Eno demonstrated Chaos Theory with his 2 handed pendulum, where simple motion on the first one creates infinite non repeated movements on the second. So a little nudge one way can send all kinds of confusion across the next, thereby subordinated populations. Collective consciousness came through in punk, hip hop, techno, jungle etc.. through commonalities of fashion, style, music, art, taste, lifestyle, place, rhythm, dance. There are instigators, those key people who lead the collective in a certain direction. We are all swayed in some way, which can be a positive in cultural scenes but have global destroying effects in political spheres.

Emma Warren – Total Refreshment Centre

Mercury Music Prize

And the winner of the 2023 Mercury Music prize is…….Ezra Collective. Excellent choice. A jazz group winning a major popular music prize shows how the genre is central stage and gives a real filip to events such as the Sidmouth Jazz Festival that I am part of the organising team. Ezra Collective’s album Where I’m meant to be is excellent, mixing afro beat with jazz and hip hop, showing their London roots. Accepting the award, drummer Femi Koleoso thanked Tomorrow’s Warriors and the Total Refreshment Centre community space where the group and the new London Jazz scene emerged. Taking Brian Eno’s concept of Scenius (or group genius) you need free spaces to support collective creativity, central locations where people can hang out and explore their creative selves. I learnt about playing in bands and explored musical styles through having the time and space to explore, experiment. Neoliberal gentrification housing issues that are sweeping our lands are cutting bands like Ezra at source. They will disappear without a proactive moment now to protect community spaces – it is a human need for us all. 

Femi also thanked music education, schools, colleges, tutors who support young musicians to develop and explore their fields. Ezra Collective came through Tomorrow’s Warriors, a school that develops young jazz musicians in London and is expanding their reach across the UK and beyond, helping musicians from underprivileged backgrounds in Devon for example to explore the joys of jazz. In working on the Sidmouth Jazz Festival, I also want to see the expansion of jazz in rural areas, to see urbanities in the fields, swimming in the sea, hanging out on beaches, playing, dancing and listening to music, spreading our rich cultures to all parts. Ezra Collective have just made a big moment in that direction.

Ezra Collective winning the 2023 Mercury Music Prize

Women in Revolt

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

https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/women-in-revolt

Sidmouth International Jazz and Blues Festival 2023

https://sidmouthjazz.com/Whats-On/193-/COMMUNITY-STAGE-SUNDAY

I am very honoured and excited to be part of the Sidmouth International Jazz and Blues festival team featuring great headline acts such as the Brand New Heavies and Courtney Pine.

The free community music is unbelievably high quality including Roland Gift of the Fine Young Cannibals and the amazing Hannah and the Apparitions. All in wonderful sunny Devon. At the end of May. Perfect