Wake up... time to write!!!!

Moody Boyz - perfect slice of soul/dubstep

OK, so I've been kicked out of a long drawn out creative block.

What I mean is this... once, a long time ago I had an ambition to write fiction. And then journalism took over my life and I watched my plans disappear into the far distance (or under loads of shit in a drawer to be more accurate). Then I turned my thoughts to academia and my early plans became crushed by theoretical rants. Fiction writing had gone... my unpublished work forever gathering dust in that drawer.

Then, out of the blue I was asked to contribute to a collection of short stories on the Urban theme. The book is called Hyperkinetic - High Velocity Tales From The Inner City and features some fantastic writers.

My story is called 'Marcus White Is...' and I'm really excited by it. Rough around the edges in parts, but I'm as proud right now as I was when my first book came out.

For the first time in years I feel released from the tyranny of the target market and audience grabbing intros. Suddenly I love writing again...

My story is about fluid identities and liquid geography. It was inspired in part by Dr Michael Bull's work on the iPod, Sound Moves. iPod Culture and Urban Experience (Routledge), where he proposes the concept of an 'auditory bubble' that surrounds people when they're plugged in to their iPods. The result is the creation of a private space in a public place, where you feel almost untouchable - floating through your own personal music video.

It was also inspired by an awesome soundtrack - most notably 'Freedom' by the Moody Boyz, which might just be the perfect slice of soul/dubstep. The Moody Boyz aka Tony Thorpe have been around for years of course. Although records have been pretty sporadic, they've always been worth the wait. This latest single though is a cut above everything Thorpe has done. After years of drawing on dub he's finally fully succumbed to the energy of the echo drop.

Biographies in the Internet age

What place for artist biographies in these days of Internet/infonet where investigation sees no stone remains unturned snd no rumour unreported for too long. Each morsel, each tiny bite of info is grabbed by the fan and posted for consumption by an imagined community of other online obsessives. Where once the myths surrounding music would emerge from the pages of the music press, today its fansite discussion boards and blogs that create the rumours, state the presumed facts. Today, like never before stories and lies masquerading behind a mask of truth are published without consideration for reality.
In this collapse between truths and realities, lies and stories any sense of unquestioned history becomes forgotten. What happened less interesting than what might have happened, what was reported as having happened and what is disseminated as the version of how people might have hoped it had happened. Numerous histories emerge, histories on a verge of collapse through loss of critical voice.
Once these biographies attempted to be the conduits of truth. Once they would be the only places to glean the new knowledge and to explore the previously uncovered myth. Today however biographies have a different use. Today biographers are tour guides. We pick our way through the detritus of popular culture, explore the irrelevant, celebrate the facts, but above all attempt to find a path through the multiple versions of history; the histories that exist.
To this versioning of history we add a critical perspective – sure it’s our opinion, but then enjoyment of music was always about opinion. And, with the exception of the toothless music journalism purveyed by some music magazines today, music journos were always the first to express those opinions. This is how it should be.
The biographer can never be outside of the story. We are implicated in every word, every story line followed and every fact written. Our opinions, backgrounds and ambitions colour these texts. We are critics. And this is our work.
The stories, rumours and lies can take care of themselves on the Internet. Biographers should attempt to grasp the burning embers from the fires of historical confusion and culturally locate them in the here and now.

NME, new conservative and the Daily Mail

Old news I know, but I was thinking about the recent(ish) Morrissey nonsense in the NME. I know the old ham's opinions lean a bit far to the right, and his comments about Englishness seem way too nostalgic to be taken seriously but what do people expect? This guy has made a career out of references to white bread British working class culture. He employs imagery of Britain every bit as odious as Betjemin's leather on willow or Shakespeare's  sceptered isle. He redeploys skinhead imagery as homology stripped from its political foundation, sucks the colour from the cheeks of fascist farce - and yet people love him. He's an 80s icon. So what if he didn't have the courage of his convictions to step from behind the asexual facade until he was in his late 40s. So what if he castigated asians in a manner worthy of Enoch. So what if he waves that Union flag with a dewy eyed nostalgia for a Britain of his memories (albeit memories altered through art). We still get excited about his comebacks and talk excitedly about that Smiths moment.

But worst of all for me was the NME reaction to the geriatric posturing of Mozza's memories. It was positively Daily Mail in its righter than right wing expression of shock. It was a reaction up  there with the Mail's condemnation of teenage mums, loony lefties, immigrants, Muslims, druggies... or anyone not like US. 

Thing is I'm not sure NME were representing the voice of their readership (as the Mail can at least claim) so much as they we taking on the position of the moral majority - which is kind of ironic when you think of where the magazine thinks it stands on the ideological shop rack. Underground, alternative it ain't. Neither is it particularly the position of the average shock waved indie kid - many of whom, when pushed, might even agree with Mozzer (indie is after all that most Tory, and conservative, of all youth scenes - all the 'me' centricity of Thatcherism and the innovative spirit of a caged bunny, erm I mean an Eaton schoolboy). 

So, in a strange twist on their expression of local leftism the NME attacked free speech in a manner worthy of a rag that is pitched at the heart of commuter belt 50 something women. NME's curtains were twitching with all the rage of  'Mr.Angry of Surbiton' at, what was at the end of the day the rambling of a man who knows best how to anger child hacks. He should be offered a part in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang as the child catcher not attacked in this most blunt, unintelligent way. 

Funny though that Moz seemed most upset by the fact that the journo didn't know who David Bowie was. It's a hard thing to face Moz, but you're getting old. The kids don't get your references anymore. Most don't give a damn about you - your haircut is all wrong.

So, NME, a right wing rag for right wing times attacking a man with overtly right wing attitudes. It's like the 80s without Live Aid.

My solution? Get the git off out TVs, our radios, magazines etc. Not because he's a fascist, so many artists throughout time have been (and I for one relish the argument), not because he's middle aged, but because, even in these mediocre  times he's Mr Mediocre personified.

MOVED

I've moved from State of Bass because the computer says "no", that address does not exist.

So now I'm St8ofbass... simple, innit.