unpopular

How geeky is this? It’s yesterday’s bike ride, in case you were unsure. I love my Garmin 705. I could do you another video that charts my heart rate as well. No? Oh well, suit yourselves.

Horses at Blue Anchor

Horses at Blue Anchor, originally uploaded by unpop.

I had a lovely 140km ride yesterday up to the North Somerset coast, to join C and her parents at Binham Grange for lunch. We stayed at Binham Grange last October half term, and it really is the most delightful and relaxing place. Lunch was delicious, as expected. The ride was good too, although the climb back up from Dunster to Wheddon Cross was long and hard. Certainly much harder than coming from the other side. I mean, it’s not like I’m making it out like some Alpine pass or nothing, but still… when you’re full of white chocolate cheescake it’s a bit of a pull.

I was going to stop on the seafront at Blue Anchor to take a photo, but it was blowing a gale (headwind! Argh!) so I didn’t bother. Instead I documented the day with these horses at the top of the climb out of Blue Anchor. Don’t let the clear blue sky in the background fool you though – yesterday was a day of whipping wind and blustering showers, and I notice my shoes this morning are well and truly dusted with the dirt from the wet roads. Plus, it felt scarily like Autumn, (rivers in spate, leaves on the road, Rowan berries on the trees, a chill on the wind) which is depressing as hell considering it is July still.

“Barbeque summer” my arse.

switch your bloody phones off...

Okay, so I am forced to backtrack slightly on my 4th Plinth thoughts from a few days ago. For Chris T-T was, as expected, thoroughly entertaining. He played a great set of poignant and provocative songs, of which this was the first. I’ll be uploading more excerpts from the performance on YouTube as the day progresses, although I expect Sky will object. Meh.

Kevin has been reflecting on the past, present and (maybe) future over at the Your Heart Out blog. Interesting stuff in there about music journalists and so on. The state of play. How it is now versus how it was then, perhaps. Then being a time I remember so well; a then that marked me for life; a then that cut me deep.

The thing is, I am not so sure there is really much difference at all. The technologies might be different, but the basic idea of journalists working their way through the ranks of the acknowledged structures is surely not so different? Having the right handshakes and saying the right things. Don’t rock the boat. It works as much in blogs and online writing as it ever did in the land of the weekly inkies. It’s all about building your networks, after all. ‘Virtual’ or ‘real’, it makes no odds. Because these days ‘virtual’ is ‘real’ and vice versa. Just ask your average 16 year old.

And to be honest, I really do not care much anyway. To be fair, I don’t think Kevin really does either. As he says, in a lot of ways he’s been lucky. I can say the same. Certainly what he says about his reasons for writing Hungry Beat and now Your Heart Out (and presumably the various other exhilarating episodes along the way) resonates with me. That thing about writing out of a need to communicate. A need that burns inside. Now let’s be generous to our journalist friends and suggest that there are similar needs burning inside them. I’m sure it’s true. I KNOW it’s true. But here’s the rub (and I’m only speaking for myself here, you understand): what’s made me lucky is that I’ve never had to write for a living. And why not? Well, partly because I was never much interested. Partly because I realized at a quite early stage that I just wasn’t really good enough. And partly because, yes, I was too bloody lazy to have to consider writing about things I had no real passion for. That last one is particularly important because it connects with the idea of potential audience: the potential audience for the particularly idiosyncratic collection of things I would want to write about being effectively miniscule and certainly not large enough to support me in the standard of living I’ve grown accustomed to…

Now one of the things I like about Kevin’s blog entry is the unspoken conflict between the idea of the refusal to engage with the established structures and the frustration at those established structures not truly embracing the voices of the outsiders. For me this is that eternal tension between longing to belong and the desire to remain, as Kevin might say, on the outside of everything. I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it: for me that is a tension essential to the creation of great art. And it’s why, in the broadest terms, there is so little that is truly great and so much that is, at best, merely satisfactory.

Elsewhere, Everett has been exploring thoughts of the impact of new technologies on the role of the critic. I think there are some really interesting discussions to be had around this, just as there are around the impact of those technologies on society in general. Being an educator with a responsibility for new technologies within my school I am of course particularly interested in the education implications, but in reality there are so many connections jumping around that it seems counter-productive to focus one’s attention only on one sphere. Personally I think there are really interesting parallels to draw between the idea of the tastemaker critic and teachers, and of how new technologies alter the balance of power in the relationship between critic and audience / teacher and student. It seems to me that increasingly the audience / student expects a conversation. They are no longer expecting to be merely consumers, but rather expect to interact. Everett suggested a list of things that make a successful taste-maker critic, and key in that list was the idea of trust. Me, I think it’s fundamental. In the critic and the teacher. Everything builds off that. It’s only with trust that the productive conversations can truly take place. And trust takes time of course. Which is why I always find it kind of bemusing when new teachers seem to expect immediate respect from their students from day one. Why? What have you done to earn that respect? Having a badge that says you are one thing or another is not enough.

Anyway, that’s enough thinking for one day. My head is starting to hurt and I am meant to be on holiday. So pass me that Stieg Larsson book and that cup of coffee.

Chrs T-T on the 4th plinth

Having only two days ago posted some thoughts on the 4th plinth project, this arrived in my inbox a moment ago:

Just to let you know that the wonderful Chris T-T will be on the 4th Plinth this evening 10-11pm.
After applying to take part in the art project by sculptor Anthony Gormley months ago, Chris got the call just the other day and will be spending his hour playing a few tunes on his acoustic guitar and singing to the gathering crowds.

It's free (obviously) so just head down to Trafalgar Square or watch it streamed live here: http://oneandother.co.uk.
Chris is currently recording songs for his forthcoming album - due out later this year.
He is also playing at Folk Off To The Park Festival 2009, Beautiful Days Festival and will be playing piano for Jim Bob's band throughout September.

Now actually that IS something I'd like to see... though a part of me also wants Chris to choose not to take up his place. I wonder which would ultimately generate more publicity? Of course if I'd been bothering to check my Twitter feeds in the past few days I'd have found out about Chris' imminent metamorphosis into a Gromely sooner. But I've been too busy reading books and riding my bike, so meh.

thoughts on a plinth

I just read Dickon’s diary entry about a lady on the plinth on Trafalgar Square. I think he is spot on about how someone just being ‘normal’ on the plinth is perhaps closest to Gormley’s original vision of the work. Not that it really matters of course, for as soon as an artist places a work in the public domain the meaning becomes interpreted in a multitude of ways and any ‘original’ meaning is at best obscured and fractured. Then again, perhaps Gormley anticipated the fact that many would approach the plinth as an opportunity to, as Dickon says, “make big statements, raise worthy awareness, hire wacky costumes or treat the plinth like Britain’s Got Talent”. Maybe that’s a way of reflecting society’s obsession with self-aggrandizement and promotion. It’s like: look, you can stand on a plinth in Trafalgar Square and promote yourself and your causes all you like, but really, next to the statues and the crushing presence of history it amounts to bugger all. So get over yourselves.

Dickon also makes a reference to an E.M. Forster sci-fi story that I have not read. Perhaps I ought to, for the idea of over-dependence on technologies is one that raises its head in education discussions again and again. Dickon’s point that the lady on the plinth talking on her mobile probably sees the technology as facilitating her ‘real’ life is a good one and reflects recent research that shows that although ‘young people’ use technologies to a far greater degree than most older generations, the key thrust behind that use is in communicating and building networks of real, physical contact. The nay-sayers and doom merchants would suggest that generations who are developing an over-reliance on technologies are putting the world in danger of another dark age when the technology (inevitably?) fails. Personally I think that the notion of cyclical ‘dark’ ages is probably a fair one to build on. But doesn’t history also tell us that humanity has worked its way out of those ages in the past? Why should it not do so again?

To get back to the plinth though, I wonder if anyone has chosen to not take up their place. I mean, as in a conscious decision, not as in just missing their slot because they missed the train or had swine flu. It would be a nice gesture, wouldn’t it? A gesture of disengagement.

Now that would be something worth seeing.

Sunday Supplement pt 6: A Month of Sundays - The Church

I was never quite sure what to do with The Church. Were they really just Australia’s version of The Bunnymen? Plus they had long hair, didn’t they? So in my head I had them down with The Alarm and the Psychedelic Furs, which was probably a mistake. When I finally did pick up the Hindsight compilation I realized that really I should have had them slotted in with The Chameleons and then with the Paisley Underground bands like Rain Parade, whose dreamy psych tinged guitar sound ‘A Month Of Sundays’ most exquisitely tips towards.

A Month of Sundays - The Church

Tomorrow Is The First Day Of The Rest Of My Life

So some are already into their school summer holidays. Some have still at least a day to go. Me, I’m finally done. Time to think of Other Things. Time to dream of long warm days in the saddle with the lustrous blue of the sea glinting in the distance. Well, like I said, it’s a dream… Meantime, here’s a mix of recent listening that’s going to accompany me into tomorrow and beyond. Download from here. Tracklist below, in the usual manner.

 

A Summer Morning - The Feminine Complex

By The Sea - Wendy & Bonnie

Tomorrow Is The First Day Of The Rest Of My Life - The Free Design

Maybe The Rain Will Fall - The Cascades

The Rain, The Park & Other Things - The Cowsills

Shadows On The Wall - Poppy Family

Elusive Butterfly - Bob Lind

Soft Skies, No Lies - Strawberry Alarm Clock

Loudness Of You Silence - The Peanut Butter Conspiracy

Don't You Care - The Buckinghams

I'd Like To Make It With You - Fifth Flight

P.S. Come Back - Kaleidoscope

Alfred Bell - Duncan Browne

Deeper Tones Of Blue - Nick Garrie

Now You See It, Now You Don't - Inner Dialogue

September In July - Procession

Who Knows Where the Time Goes? - Fairport Convention

The Kiss - Judee Sill

 

I Wished On The Moon

Looper - Dave Moon Man
Ballboy - A Day In Space
Art Pepper - I Wished On The Moon
Chris Connor - Fly Me To The Moon

What Moon / Space songs were you spinning today?

Play it again, will you?

There are so many songs that would fit with the spirit of that Peanuts strip, but I’m flipping for this old Millennium cut. I cannot believe it is already nine years since I first got switched onto the Millennium and all the connected outcrops, thanks to the perfect Again collection put out by Poptones. That was a set that truly blew my mind. A moment of enlightenment and no mistake. Well, I loved this song more than any back then, and it still stirs me immeasurably. A song loaded with so much sublime sadness and made up of the perfect Pop ingredients: love, loss, longing and distance. Genius. As the boy said: ‘play it again, will you.’

Certainly my good man. Certainly.

The Millennium: ‘The Ways I Love You’