Busy Old Week

 

A very busy and very good few days on Reverb. Song Of David, Jim's animation took another giant step, and  We were at Full Of Noises in Barrow Park last week for a performance. We showed a teaser loop from  and I played some of the recordings that will make up the soundtrack and a vinyl release called Familiar Music next year. This was followed by a performance by Aoire.  Aoire deep-mines rehearsal tapes and cassette  releases by for stems and samples, and subjects them to a granular, forensic examination. What emerges is like a hazy memory of youth glimpsed from a middle aged perspective, it floats in a suspension of blue pub air and valve amp hum, pinpricked by shards of clarity. You also heard recordings from what had been the Edisons night club on Abbey Road, kindly made by Jon Borgia,and voices from audience tapes of performances there.

Cassettes of Aoire's music are available here..

https://www.johnhallartistcumbria.com/product-page/aoire-the-keening 

There is video of the evening and the set-up on the way from Laurence Campbell, and audio from various sources, this will be included in the final presentation in March at the Barrow Dock Museum, along with Alex Blackmore's collective Pop Culture Figures. We got the first 3-d proofs of these from Andy at Fusion 3D in Barrow  the day after the show, and they look marvellous. 

You might also look in on Second Spin, Barrow's new vinyl venture on Crellin Street,and our friend Steve Cook's Sergeant Pepperry mural of Barrow music legends, which, I'm proud to say,includes a shot of the Artfly  Jukebox from the Play One Of Your Own exhibition.

Our thanks to all who came to the FON

show,to Larry Campbell for his photos,  and to the FON team for their hospitality.

Great few days.             

                    

 

Colossal, Yoof*

Good day at the office yesterday...This is Andy from Fusion 3D Printing in Barrow In Furness.  Andy's firm will be scanning and printing the edition of Alex's Yoof Culture figures. We don't know the extent of the edition yet, Andy is kindly providing us with some options, and we'll let you know.

All very exciting. If you want to  know more about what Fusion 3D Printing can offer you, here's their site. Cheers Andy.

https://www.fusion3dprinting.co.uk/

* A No-Prize to anyone who gets the reference.

 

Meat on the bones and Bass under the floorboards

Alex Blackmore's small scale sculptures of pop culture tribes are accumulating detail and character. There is meat on the bones and more than a hint of demeanour. I'm seeing the austere anti-glamour of

the Eighties, taking a step back from of the social-realist wing of punk and into the bookish, mushroomy activism of post-punk. 

Meanwhile, here is Jon Donohoe in Sheffield adding bass to my soundtrack for Jim Alexander's attic animation. 

  

 

Phil and Fiona: John Peel Ears

This is  Fiona Ogilvie (front, in black) and Phil Musker (beard)  in Ulverston with the popular singing group Meat Raffle.

Fiona and Phil have the open ears and curiosity that they had as kids. 

They find things by going to look for them. They travel, they go to sampler shows and  all-dayers, in search of something they don't know about. One discovery leads to the next. Their internet is a source of information rather than music. They find shape shifting and amorphous scenes inhabited by pools of do-ers and activists,  villages of musicians, designers, t shirt people, putting on festivals without name bands or even headliners. There are echoes of counterculture; of Co-ops and communal living, ways of doing things that have risen out of both necessity and nous, a determination to be in control of the vehicle; an insistence on fleshy, real time relations within overlapping scenes; a pleasure in operations on a human scale, with a core audience that is big enough to maintain you and small enough to get to know.

They never miss a support act.

They still have what Phil called  their John Peel ears.

NOW...Reverb writer and pal Geoff Cox and me met up with them for a few beers with a view to collaboration of some sorts . After , Geoff said this, and sent this diagram /score...

Hi John,

I’ve been thinking about what I’d be interested in chasing via the Reverb project, stuff we’d be able to include other folk in and discover some interesting ideas. I’ve been doodling a first pass at what that content might be - the diagram atttached is a big-picture take. If you think this is where we should be going I’d be happy to refine some questions for each of the 7 areas, though I’m not sure we’d need much more to get folk talking?

Anyone out there fancy getting involved?  artspacebarrow@gmail.com

Social Dancing

Three interesting and related encounters around dance, tradition and the folk process. A few years ago a call from Nick Wall at Cecil Sharp House sent me across town  to collect a collection of folkdance and tune 78s from a house clearance. They were owned by a local dance caller called Alan Rumbles.  Our pal Bob Spencer in Barrow has just done some sterling work work on greasing and springing the REVERB wind-up gram, and I've digitised them for Gordon Jones at Furness Tradition and digging into the history of the sessions with the help of the Vaughan Williams library.  They put me onto Sean Goddard at the University of Sussex who is doing a PHD on the role of recording and print media in the dispersal and popularisation of traditional dance music. Me and Gordon  had a really interesting zoom chat with Sean, who knew the and the plan is to build a radio show. The missing link here is Mr Rumbles, of whom we know almost 0. Yet.

There had been an assumption that the tradition was dying, and that the first recordists and transcribers were catching the last breath of something. But these records, by Douglas Kennedy and others, did something else. Sean talked about the impact of these 1920s/30s recordings, how they helped to popularise English dance music. He told us how the recordings were made at Maida Vale and Abbey Road, using the studio's pool of musicians alongside others from Kennedy's circle, and how Kennedy- who we'd now call the Producer - would dance around the room while the musicians played, so that they got the tempo, and that we might hear him on a couple of the discs (we can!)

Elements within the Sharp circle had fixed aspects of the tradition and developed a vested interest in the demonstration, teaching and licensing of what they saw as their material. Variants on their dance steps and tunes were not always "officially" recognised. Over time though such heresies become acceptable, and, rather than a corrupting or diluting influence,they can demonstrate the vigour of the tradition. One of our records features George Tremaine of Skelton, Yorkshire, on melodeon, and demonstrates the liberalising influence of Kennedy, being one of the first examples of a musician from within a local tradition recording for EFDSS and for commercial release.

Rather than a by-product of everyday life, Culture is a force in its production and evolution. This evolution requires and encourages involvement with the new; new recording and playback technologies, new people, and what they bring with them. Not everyone approves; In the 30's, there were attempts to enlist UK  folk culture and our traditionsfor grubby, ugly purposes, based around daft ideas of purity and preservation of something-or-other. It's happening again, of course. But our Folk culture is inclusive, not exclusive. Look at the mainstream and you might find Morris, Bhangra, Dub, and You'll Never Walk Alone among its  countless rushing tributaries.  

Nobody owns this process. No-one with the health of their culture at heart would seek to close off or restrict access to the public spaces where it finds its expression and its direction. No individual or establishment owns the folk process or has sole access to the energies that drive it. Those energies often thrive despite the best efforts of individuals or establishments. No one with an understanding of our history could claim the authority to shut that process down with crude, disingenuous mechanisms of their own invention.

At Ulverston Coro last week we saw Pete Morton and his Ghost Of A Sailor show..I know Pete as a great songwriter and interpreter of traditional songs, but this was something different, Pete became a kind of jukebox  full of the most popular songs from decades and centuries long ago, and all were songs  that have been absorbed by the folk process and adapted by we the people whenever we get together to sing...Nessun Dorma, Sweet Caroline, a bit of Woody Guthrie, Jerusalem, Look Back In Anger... he could include Youll Never Walk Alone and We'll Meet again...this was about folk song as the  property of the people; songs learned from wherever they turn up, from other singers, records, films, picked up by football crowds, pub singers, karaoke kings, traditional folk singers.... whoever. Not a contrivance, not a pastiche, just what we sing when we sing. That's what the folk process is...the absorption of a vast range of material into a single stream that shows us who we are.

We wanted REVERB to include something that might signpost a stage in the process, and maybe even help it along a bit. These lads are the latest arrivals, they brought these dances with them from Afghanistan. To me they look like the social folk dances you see at Furness Tradition festival or at Carnival; you dance them with your friends, they're lively and celebratory. Again, technology plays a part...the music is online, they didnt have to cart crateloads of records with them, or get them imported in the way that, say, the Windrush generation did, and when Rahim was scrolling down for tunes you see people in Afghanistan dancing in the video that goes with the tune, and then suddenly the dance is there in the room with you. It was beautiful to watch, and the lads were great company. 

One day, someone will look back at this time, and there will be exhibitions at the Dock Museum like mine that look at the music and dance that was around. Hopefully these lads and their families will be among the voices you'll hear. They'll sound a bit more Barrow than they do now, of course.

More to follow.

And some music...

George Tremain 1947

Paktiawal Mast Attan f. Rehman Kharoti

Thanks to our dancers Noorsalaam, Rahimullah, Abdulrazaq, Hamidullah, and their pal Sartoorshaman, and to Linda, Pat and Pete, and Amy at Full Of Noises for helping get this together.

Deathcleaning. Where is thy Sting album?

 

So, Carl Flint emails me saying here was a guy selling old fanzines on his stall on Chesterfield Flea Market...(see photo). Mostly British but a few international ones as well. I didn't buy any, he says. as I'm trying to cut back on those sort of purchases in the interest of death-cleaning

He's fine by the way, and so am I..

I only heard that Death Cleaning is a thing quite recently. Might have been from Carl. It's a Swedish thing, a rational and civilised preparation for the inevitable that takes the onus off family and probably makes you feel a bit more in charge of things. It'd also be a good way to ensure that anything embarrassing gets deffed before you do, like that Sting Live lp with the blobby painting on the cover  or the tubes of panic -purchase Pile Cream. 

(We've all been there. It's nothing to be ashamed of.) (Pile Cream, not Sting.) 

It's in the air.  I've  had quite a few  discussions regarding souvenirs etc, about what you keep and what you don't and why. A few people had made a conscious decision to dump drawers full of stuff, but I don't think anyone referred to Death Cleaning though, they just let the  conversation trail off....

Turns out there's a tv show about it too...

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/article/2024/jul/06/the-gentle-art-of-swedish-death-cleaning-a-rare-tv-show-that-will-change-your-life-for-the-better

I have been doing it myself. The drawing portfolio regularly gets the treatment, drawings get screwed up and dumped, leaving clouds of charcoal dust hanging. The reasoning is that someone, one day, will have to go through this stuff. And not through familial obligation either.  Its going to either be someone who volunteers, or a Professional.  I'm trying to get a head start on it, getting rid of the rubbish, anything I don't rate. I suppose it would be easier on the poor sod who gets the job if I got rid of the good stuff, so there was only obvious rubbish there. I'm not really sure how he's supposed to know the difference.

Anyway obviously I desperately want these fanzines, but I'm not going to be around Chesterfield on any thursday coming up. Luckily my friend Androo Wobble is, and is good enough to wander down and grab me a selected bundle. Androo has excellent judgement on these matters so it'll be a good selection, and something to mystify whoever has to one day drag out whatever is under my bed.  Many thanks youth.

Walking Headless

A busy few days. Alex's figures are taking on some extra layers of clothing and a bit of what todays young people, (or their parents) call Attitude.  Heads next, and then a coat of matt white for printing.  We've been talking to a firm who can print these, so a small edition will be coming your way. 

Meanwhile, Jim is working on mouth shapes so that his animated figure can sing...
 ...and we have a further Flypaper ready, another one looking at the Prittstick Jungle of fanzine publication and illustration, as a companion piece to the RED zine ish, with former NME illustrator Carl Flint.