The visual, auditory and written multiverse of Dr Simon Strange
Interesting article on Bandcamp. One of the main inspirations growing up for my love of electronic filmic music, 80s electronica and the synthwave revival.
https://daily.bandcamp.com/lists/tangerine-dream-album-list?utm_source=notification
Check out my Bandcamp page here: https://inochi1.bandcamp.com/album/intra
I read a series of books at the same time, flicking from one to the other, diving into the underground life of music, philosophy, fantasy, reality, fact or fiction. I have books for various times of days. Mornings are for writing, afternoons evenings for reading. I flitter, float about. The later the day becomes the more that fiction seems to resonate. Gently moving from theory to fantasy. I have books dotted around my house. A stolen moment here to pick up writing on Western Philosophy. A yoga manual perched by the sink in my bathroom, stood on one leg brushing my teeth. The shelf in my study contains all that music and culture information, books I have read and can constantly go back to, dive in again to remember sections or reacquaint with nuggets of information. Just by looking at the sleeve of a book and taking time to think, I can transport myself back in time, a tardis of information that is lodged somewhere in my brain waiting to be unleashed again. My living room contains a mixture, from magazines, journal, novels and more playful academic studies. Also books for guests. Ones other we have loved or those that haven’t quite resonated that passing people might grab hold of and take on their travels. A couple of books sit on my bedside table, again sliding from fact to fiction, generally combining both. Ways of supporting transference from daily life into dream states. There are patterns through everything. I find it difficult to watch TV without also reading at the same time, my brain not satisfied with just one form of stimulation but wanting to switch between states, multiple stories occurring at the same time. Most people also flick through their phones while watching TV, not content just to sink into one medium. I always feel better turning the blue screens off and sinking into a book, airplane mode, sat on the sofa, concentration honing in on just the one story, my mind switching off from reality. I find libraries both beautiful and scary. Overwhelmed by the enormous amount of information, again peering at sleeves to imagine what is inside each book. Trying to suck the information from the pages into my brain. Auto transference. Like the other Dr Strange I can raise my arms at the entrance to a library and suck the information of multiverses straight into me.
As humans we love a rant, inside our heads churning things over before generally unleashing at some point onto unsuspecting victims, impassioned by the unfairness of lots of things within life. As we get older you would think that calmer heads develop, compartmentalising concerns, ideas, thoughts. Taking time to think over, ponder, before spouting them out. Or do you actually need to verbalise thoughts in this way. Rants continue on certain paths, honing in on set ideas or concerns. The everyday unfairness of the world. The traffic, new lights system, being on hold, social media, politics, war, climate change, pollution, music, art, LA, saxophone players, jazz, auto tuned chipmunk vocals, radio, sound quality, public toilets, sewage in the water. Knowledge is power, something that has probably occurred since eternity, new measuring systems and media openness have brought debates to the fore. Is it better to keep the rats inside. Bottle them up but also take the time to think, put everything into perspective. Talking worries through with close friends seems to be a therapeutic way to unload data from within you but does it actually help in reality. Those issues probably still exist. We still live in a political system, first past the post, where inequalities rule. Hierarchies of power. Unequal wages. Premier League football players. The overly white male crowds at football matches baying for each other’s blood. Ranting in a neanderthal manner. Fighter gatherer without the gathering. Sometimes we are at peace. Lying on a subbed sipping a colourful martini, umbrellas and fruit bursting out, the sun gently dipping down, beautiful smells, fresh food being lovingly cooked ready to gorge. But, oh the chicken is slightly undercooked, the rice mushy, chips soggy. You are alone. There is no-one to hear your rant. You think about it inside and politely tip the restaurant before firing off a volley of texts to nearest and dearest. Whatever situation we are in, our plight is generally OK, small issues that blow up in our minds, take a step or two back, breathe in through your nose and out of your mouth. Chill.
Newton’s cradle, one ball hitting another and gradually coming in sync. People come together and get more aligned often through taking the same drugs. The neural membranes aligned due to biological transfer. It is one of those things which is still slightly taboo, to talk about drugs, even though almost everyone has broken the law at some point by taking them. It could be the relatively light, sometimes called Gateway drug, of marijuana. A spliff. A relaxant in the right amount that can support mental health, whereas the wrong kind and too much is the complete opposite. Psychotic. Paranoia. Like many things in life it is the balance which is key. I go to the gym and that place is full of obsessives. People that need the hit which exercise can give. Some of my most transcendent moments have been there. Sweating and peddling in unison at a spin class, the instructor driving everyone forward, faster, more speed, as the techno track crashes through us. Group elation, laughter. Heart rates pounding through the BPM. A giddy excitement. The after glow which is followed by a gradual come down if there is no exercise, no gym the next day. It’s a good value healthy drug. Spliffs can support your creative mind, supposedly, but also dulls it, slows the memory cortex down so that you can’t actually remember anything seconds after you thought it. Obviously, there used to be the classic munchies. Young students rushing to the nearest Spar to stock up on Cadbury’s latest unhealthy balance. There is always that balance with drugs. The doing and the after. This is what causes so much pain and disaster. Lives tipped over by excess. Ecstasy brought a generation joy through the 1990s, supported by beautiful eclectic beats, Balearic, minimal, jungle, drum and bass, youth bouncing as one, underground overground dancing free. Grinning. Gurning. The up and the space to chill, doves and water. White floaty moments in love. Tuesdays were often difficult. Tetchy, doom ridden. Fetch that spliff for balance. Go to the gym. A walk in nature. Always a good cure. Other drugs such as heroin or ketamine were brutal reminders of the disasters awaiting, people let lose from their actors, floating off to other worlds, almost beyond saving. Psilocybin’s, mushrooms, magic, psychedelic experiences provided life altering moments, changing perceptions, webbing underground, connections understood, the matrix broken through. Neural change breakthroughs could provide exciting opportunities for communal health, utilised as an anti depressant, altering pathways so that the happy genes are restored, serotonin rushing through your body, generating the impetus to head back to the gym and spin.
I am sure that most of the my female friends have a greater number of friends than my male mates. I love friends, the close bond, silly and deep chats, similarities, differences but I don’t seem to spend much time nurturing them. I have a lovely small group alongside my close family, where I nurture relationships but generally I am quite self centred. Weaving my own path through the sticks of life, slaloming around poles which appear out of nowhere or gradually emerge from the distance. Today I woke up thinking about what I was going to do in two years time, when my research contract expires. It’s miles away but felt so close this morning. Being with friends at Glastonbury is an essential experience. I love my own space but this is one location and occasion where shared experiences are vital. OK you can meet people randomly, sometimes those that you know, but having a close group around you, the right number, 1-2, is ideal. Not too many to cramp your style and flow but enough to feel the love, comforted and sharing. In a couple of weeks a festival that I help to run, The Sidmouth Jazz and Blues Festival, will start, kicking off with king go gold Tony Hadley. Spandau Ballet cut a long story short, were cool for a few months but then became one of my less liked groups of the era. Being part of a festival is a great buzz, the year of planning coming to fruition, watching the vagaries of the English weather tease you. Seeing the same faces come back to work and help. A familiarity each year but also something different. There is always a vibe, a tangible feel to certain years. The wet Glastonbury’s trudging through mud, the hot Glastonbury’s yearning for shade. It’s not the specific bands but more the feel. What are the punters up to. Fashion, actions. Being part of organising a festival you feel that deep responsibility for everyone to have a great time, and when or if they do then your heart sings. It’s all worthwhile. The nerves start to kick in with a week to go. It all becomes real. A marker for the summer. A barometer of life. I am always gutted if I don’t go to Glastonbury Festival, which I haven’t for the last 10 years. I was tired of it by 2014. Corporate nonsense taking over the freedom which used to abound in the 1980s and 90s. BBC trucks pulling up and filming everything. A great wall holding everyone in. Search lights, watch towers. It used to be so liberating, now it feels like an image of liberation, a 2D rather than 3D experience. Still good though. I’m in that brief period of excitement and slight trepidation, a couple of days before going, trying to organise a good camping spot and not accepting every single gig coming my way, although I think I’ll be too busy to see Coldplay or Shania Twain. Which is a relief. The heart of Glastonbury is still run by crews who have been there for years, Shangri la, Theatre and Circus, Bandstand, Croissant Neuf. All the fun of the fair. Packing: small tent, nuts, protein bars, coffee, Trangia, duvet, trombone, accordion, water, vitamins, suncream, shorts, sandals, trainers, hats, brightly coloured shirts, festival blanket, sunglasses, camera. Check, 1, 2.
Nottingham is an interesting place. Sat halfway up the country, home to Byron, Boots, Raleigh and lace. It is not somewhere I previously considered but starting to work with the university there and my youngest daughter going to university in the city, has brought it into focus. I met an orchestral leader and educator in the city, someone who transferred their life from LA to the East Midlands. For work, such is the joy of academia, throwing you around the world in search of nirvana. Looking for the excitement and safety in equal measures. Academic working puts your whole sense of place in another context because it provides opportunity and threat. The chance to travel around the world, put small roots down wherever the best role seems to fit. It also keeps you there though because when you start to specialise in an area the options become less apparent. You raise a family and don’t want then have to decamp somewhere else. It provides a level of paranoia, especially within the creative arts that are under attack yet again in Higher Education. Leave those teams alone. Fight alternative beings rather than going for the easy targets situated within the arts. The creative arts bring a whole range of excitement, interest and sets of skills that really traverse boundaries. Reflexivity, stamina, concentration, innovation, dedication, collaboration, humour, physicality, neuroscientific skills which are transferable or just lay in place to entertain. Local Councils like that in Birmingham or Nottingham are in financial peril, so the first they consider is to cut the arts. But these are the elements which make them, drive local industries, provide employment, set the tone of a place. Why not think about doing the reverse. Embrace the arts, place trust in their ability to lead your city to prosperity.
I am exploring the concept of scenius, the collective genius existing within scenes. Exploring the intricate parts which make up successful scenes, lifting them beyond the norm. I see the main elements as centred around hierarchies, process, experimentation, relationships and flow. The Bristol music scene as defined by bands such as Massive Attack and Portishead brought disparate parts of the city together. St Pauls and Clifton, placed in the Dug Out club and revolver records equidistant between both areas. The music resonated with the sound of the city, the Bristol hum, water sloshing underneath the pathways, providing a resonant frequency which connected with the bass music, a slow tempo with depth. An ethos based on attitude. Political protest. Standing up for the common good. Preparing to fail or anger the regular creative arts industry. Banksy. Placing faith in art. No compromise. No sellout. Each place has its own resonance, connects through natural and social factors. It’s time again to fight for the arts, to provide the new upcoming government with so much evidence that they finally support the arts once and for all, enshrines British culture with the security it needs and deserves.
There seems to be a common trend at the moment of art works spreading out before you like the great expanse of the Gobi Desert, blowing around aimlessly, waiting to get to the point. Sometimes it is necessary to sit in and feel the energy, get sucked into lifestyles, atmospheres, take time to tell the story. Jeez though, some recent films and books have meandered their way. Booker Prize or Oscar nominees. Have the editors been cut from their jobs? Jettisoned like unwanted plankton into the seas of journalistic oblivion. There was I thinking we live in the tick tock world.
The Bee Sting – Irish family troubles taken to the nth degree of narrative, personalities you understand within a few paragraphs drawn out for huge swaths, 100s of pages.
Oppenheimer– the human big bang, lots of men talking, shouting, laughing, plotting, bombing.
Dragons Den – in the end it just repeats its formula infinitum until we throw down the remote control in disgust and go for a walk. Or pick up the latest recommended novel.
The Love Songs of WEB du Bois by Honorée Fannone needed it’s length, the opportunity to exist in current and historical black American worlds. The Bee Sting groaned from under the weight of over bearing descriptions and recap, reinforcing messages which were understood early on. A great 250 page novel turned into War and Peace, love and cars. Likewise, David Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, where the interesting storylines are battered into submission by over explanation. Leave the reader or viewer with some element of involvement. Like a classic French film, leave open endings. Stop halfway through. John Cage’s 4’33” of background noise or random performance, nothingness expanding a short space of time. Minimalism. Less is more. There is no need for yet another series of Schitts Creek, the humour, the stories have all been told. Fawlty Towers for all its racist, homophobic, hegemonic rantings knew when to stop, 12 episodes. Maybe Friends could justify its expanse. The double album never really worked, except for maybe The Clash London Calling or Sandinista. Daydream Nation, Selected Ambient Works. The White Album, taking minimalist Yoko Ono inspired Richard Hamilton artwork and introducing a range of styles that flowed over the whole. Country star Beyonce is yet another to cover Blackbird in the dead of night. New Order’s Blue Monday, only ever available at 12” length is a perfectly formed record. An example of using the medium in a perfect way. Maybe that is the problem with books? There is no limit. A press can just add more parchment. The same with Spotify. Your playlist can expand to ever reaching worlds, keep evolving, never having an end point. Music, music, music. Artists, musicians, producers saturating an already overburdened market with a slew of mid quality flotsam which floats around, no-one really streaming, no impact, just a space where artists can present their work. I mean that is probably a good thing, but the gatekeepers have vanished. The only people saying no are those working for major labels who just churn out material from their top selling artists. Fleetwood Mac, Elton John, Abba, Bob Marley, Taylor Swift x 10, the Beatles of course. Even Billy Joel hasn’t yet moved out. What hope do new artists have to puncture this dichotomy of a world. It’s never been so easy to release music, it’s never been so difficult to get heard. What new music makers should concentrate on is creating the perfect song. Don’t worry about a whole load of material, just write one amazing piece of music and then somehow get this to the ears of radio and record companies. Or create lots of tracks, form a band and get out there on the road battling through Brexit paperwork, sleeping six up in a dodgy freezing old transit van, making enough money for food and a drink the next day. Rock ’n’ Roll. Actually just make a song that is 1’30”. Short, sweet, to the point and doesn’t take up much of anyone’s valuable time. Now where’s that Tolstoy..
In the number 47 bus from Dalston to the Millennium bridge in London, there is a couple singing behind us. Having just extracted ourselves from the Oxfam shop where one of the assistants was singing to themselves. Now sitting eating a burrito in the Southbank and a shop owner is beautifully singing and dancing to Tina Turner. Having just extracted ourselves from the Yoko Ono exhibition at the Tate Modern. Compelling, creative, innovative and white on black with a splashing of blue. Listening to John and Yoko strumming, chanting, wailing, talking, screeching, loving, imagining. An amazing calm but active space. Expression through the release of sound the resonance of the soul
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)
Thoughts from the 3rd March.
With the collective there are checks and balances, the combined rhythmic and melodic impulses connect through the tissues of humans, vibrating naturally. Maybe this will fool the Artificial Intelligence (AI) bot, which can replicate individuals, but the collective human wave has the combination of randomness, continuity and subtlety that will defeat the programmer. We are the robots, do do do do. According to musicologist Michael Spitzer ‘music is something bred in our bones’. Can AI ever be expected to replicate the randomness of humans when placed together with ironic meta modern sentiments? The beauty of Kraftwerk was their humanity, they introduced the machine but with naivety (and great songs) at a point where the machine was not feared but excitement abounded due to the possibilities becoming available. Cybernetics pre-empting the internet. Mass communication through wires. There is something in AI which seems almost old fashioned, like watching sci-fi show Blake’s Seven on a wet and windy November Sunday afternoon. Kraftwerk still feel ultra-modern, the future whilst being embedded in the past. AI seems comically uncultured, taking Kanye West’s vocals for example you can create your own representation of one of his tracks. Is this innovation or legitimising the cover artist, providing creative potential for the masses based on what has happened before. Kraftwerk were innovative, generally ignoring the past, tomorrow’s world. AI has been around for years in music, a secret alien takeover kept quiet from the general populace since the sequencer became embedded in the Roland SH101 mono synth or as a standalone sequencer in the battleship grey Alesis MMT8. Automation in ProTools or Logic software programmes then arrived. Preset sounds built into music making modules are programmers deciding what sounds you would like to use in their machines, providing an AI style link. The Roland TB303 bassline was designed as a bass emulator, a robotic bass player, rather than the squelching acid machine it became. The machine was out of control, a Frankenstein monster let loose by its inventor.
