A beautiful tribute.

I stumbled upon this on YouTube and was incredibly moved by it. Listen.





Autumn

Autumn leaves under frozen souls,
Hungry hands turing soft and old,
My hero crying as we stood out there in the cold,
Like these autumn leaves I don't have nothing to hold.

Handsome smiles wearing handsome shoes,
Too young to say, though I swear he knew,
And I hear him singing while he sits there in his chair,
While these autumn leaves float around everywhere.

And I look at you, and I see me,
Making noise so restlessly,
But now its quiet and I can hear you sing,
'My little fish dont cry, my little fish dont cry.'

Autumn leaves how fading now,
That smile that I've lost, well I've found some how,
Because you still live on in my father's eyes,
These autumn leaves, all these autumn leaves,
All these autumn leaves are yours tonight.

How can we comprehend war?

Birdsong. A beautiful reminder of the psychological and physical torment experienced by the soldiers of World War One. I've had the novel on my shelf for about a year now after finding it in a second-hand bookshop, but only just got round to reading it. I'm in that funny state of mind when you've finished a book, and are in mourning for the wonder of reading it for the first time, knowing you'll never have that wonderful enlightening experience again. Of course, I can choose to re-read it, but I won't be able to recapture the urgency I felt whilst turning the pages rapidly and wondering whether the war-wearied men I had warmed to would survive the next few lines.

I dare not say much more, as the enjoyment you would leech from the novel is too great to ruin. I'll just say three words: Read. This. Book.

I went on a school trip when I was 15 where we visited the trenches and mass graveyards in the Somme. I don't think I was emotionally mature enough to comprehend what had passed on those once barren landscapes. I still find it impossible to truly comprehend the mental hardship of those involved. I don't know if I would be able to throw myself over the top of the trench and run across No Man's Land, towards enemy bullets that make the muscle of men appear like the flimsy stuffing of a cheap rag doll. As the character Stephen says in Birdsong, how can you sum up the bravery of the actions of war from within the confines of the English language?

In Flanders Fields

by John McCrae, May 1915

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Performance is the product

I saw The Bays last year at the Warwick Arts Centre and was mindblown. Their mantra, 'performance is the product' sums them up quite well. When I went to see them, the auditorium was scattered with handfuls of people among swathes of empty seats, which did not bear testimony to the experience I encountered. We sat right in front of a human-sized speaker to better experience the music, as the 'experience' is the emphasis of all Bays performances. An orchestra were instructed to play the music on the digital screen in front of them, of which the score was being created as we sat and watched by a small man surrounded by computers, wires and cables. Every now and again it would flash up on a screen, and you could see the creative process at work.

What began sounding like a piece of skewed classical music morphed through stages of thumping DnB, eerie silences filled with meaning, and flurries of jazzy electro. The crowd responded in any way they desired. Some people were sat gracefully still as if they were at an opera, some were moving in response to the rhythm, and I distinctly remember one guy with long brown hair standing up and swaying wildly around the stairs. I, wasn't sure how to react as I couldn't draw upon previous experiences to guide me! I went for the casual nodding look, but it didn't seem to matter at all.

Here is what The Bays say about themselves and their music:

"Forget every rule you’ve ever been taught about live music. Ignore every outmoded notion of what it is to be a ‘live’ band. Forget even what you think you think ‘live music’ actually means.

What drives this band is a need to communicate with their audience in a way not possible with traditional live bands. There are no ‘songs’ as such to perform, there’s no album to promote, there are no commercial imperatives at play. The Bays only perform live, they never rehearse, they don’t have a set-list and they couldn’t ever do the same performance twice. It’s all about the moment – an experience or an event that exists between the band and the audience for one time only.

The Bays have no intention of releasing any material in the immediate future, but even if you could capture the performance in digital format, it would only represent a fraction of the total Bays experience. Because what they do that is so unique, so unprecedented, is that they enter into a creative partnership with the crowd, receiving feedback from the dance floor and reinterpreting that response, rewiring the vibe and taking it to a new level.

Each of The Bays is feeling a progression in the music and is anticipating where the performance is going to next. It could change at any moment and pursue a new direction in a second. Taking the concept of the DJ – presiding over a seamless continuum of music – The Bays drop sets like a live band creating a 90-minute DJ-mix. And reinventing the concept of studio remixing, The Bays are creating new tracks on stage and remixing these ideas live without any planning, verbal communication or commercial consideration.

The guys are pushing boundaries with their sound. They are giving their audience something radical, revolutionary even. So much so, that if the hype is to be believed, the 21st century notion of what it means to play live will henceforth be understood in entirely new terms - in terms first defined by The Bays."

I thoroughly enjoyed my first experience of the live music of The Bays and I would recommend it to anyone. If you live in the glorious south of the country, The Bays are playing on the 12th March at the Jazz Cafe in Camden, London. Enjoy. I've posted a short piece on them underneath to whet your appetite.

Drug #2491 - Empowerment.

You can fool some people sometimes,

But you can't fool all the people all the time.

So now we see the light,

We gonna stand up for our rights!

I felt in need for something empowering, and this has done the trick. It was actually the last song that Bob Marley sang before he died in 1981, which I find quite fitting as his last message. I wanted a live version because I wanted to see it in its embodiment as a vessel of communication. I think this song is supposed to be received by many ears, and just by being there in presence, the crowd becomes active in the song's resounding message against political oppression. I love how the lazily slow pace of the song and the simplicity of the monosyllabic lyrics contrasts dramatically with the depth of history it implicitly refers to.

The irony of the military trend.

Items on the High Street, from left to right: Erickson Beamon Swarovski crystal Victoria Cross brooches; Stretch cotton camouflage pants by Balmain; Cotton and silk-blend military shirt, Alexander McQueen; Dress by Diesel; Cracker Jacks cargo pants by Sass & Bide; Ladies' Waxed Cotton Utility Overnight Bag by Barbour; and Damisi Boots, All Saints.

The military trend resurfaces every now and again and is easily assimilated into high street stores. Scores of people wear both these designer and high street items ignorant of the wider implications. I cannot help but find it ironic that the military is glamourised through clothing, while soldiers are dying every day fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Chilcott trials are questioning the very right to go to war. So what are the political implications of glamourising the military like this through fashion? Is it the role of the consumer or the designer to be discerning about the clothes they wear or produce?

Buberry AW10



Marc by Marc Jacobs AW10

The collections by Burberry and Marc by Marc Jacobs this Autumn / Winter draw on the military trend. However, both seem to draw on wars from the distant past. Do they circumvent political implications by grounding their historical context in wars that only a handful of living people bear first-hand experience of? Are we all guilty of implicitly glamourising the 'heroes' of war, without questioning the right to intervene in the affairs of other countries?

I don't pretend to have the answers, yet I believe that we need to make sure that we don't become passive followers of the catwalk. We may not dictate the clothes that fill the rails of our favourite retailers, but we do exercise the choice to wear what we feel we should. Plenty of people chose not to wear fur, and slogan t-shirts are a simple way of coveying our opinions. So next time you see a military-themed item, be it a shirt, skirt or piece of jewellery, just consider the message that you'd like to convey. Let your style be in your hands, not those of the retailers or designers.

What is under your feet?

I read in the news yesterday that 'soil scientists' who analysed the soil for its insect content have discovered that over the last 10 years, the number of invertebrates in UK soil has increased by a gigantic 47%! This is despite a concurrent fall in species diversity and mass human destruction of habitats across the world. Scientists say that they can't yet predict whether this increase in soil-dwelling insects will be beneficial or not, although it is almost certainly due to an increase in average temperatures and rainfall.

It is strange to think that under our feet, the soil holds a metropolis of life. We tend to live our lives ignorant of other species, yet they are often more abundant than us, we just make more noise. When I was a child I used to love lifting up the rocks from the rockery in our garden, and capturing the insects underneath in a bucket. Worms, woodlice, tiny snails, earwigs, and the crown jewels - centipedes or millipedes. I know that when I have children I shall encourage them to get filthy in the garden and explore nature. Scuffed knees and muddy hands will be the uniform of the day, and the great outdoors our playground.