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Monthly Archives: November 2016

Speaking loudly in a Public Place & The art of conversing sustainably.

28 Monday Nov 2016

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80s Casuals, BREXIT, cars, Class War, Education, fashion & Beauty, Fotball, gene Pool, Genetics, Golf, Harry Enfield, Hilditch & Key, Holidays, Identity, Living The Dream, Llandeilo, Macclesfield, MAMILs, mobile, Notting Hill, Petworth, Prince Regent, Rugby, Semi Detached, Sex, Skiing, Sustainability, Tacchini, Tech, Trainspotting, Trump, Withal & I

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Love us. We just can’t help ourselves.

For all the homespun wisdoms and studies around how being more socially aware of, sensitive to and inclusive of those around us creates a more resilient society, we just can’t help banging on, sounding off, shouting out, and blahing about  – loudly, relentlessly and shamelessly – about us, us, us.

There’s a touch of Blackadder’s Prince Regent’s about us.

In Blackadder the Third, Sense and Sensibility, Rowan Atkinson’s eponymous butler is trying to coach Hugh Laurie’s roaring roistering and very shouty Prince Regent in the art of public speaking, unhelpfully aided by two ‘actors’.

‘Unaccustomed as I am to speaking loudly in public place…’.

Yup. That’s us.

We’re simply oblivious to the cascade of fog horning we actually do. Or simply don’t care.

Perhaps it’s all part of our genetic makeup. Not happy with our messenger genes working furiously, invisibly, silently on our behalf, perhaps we need to openly trumpet our superiorities and assert ourselves on something, anything, to demonstrate our fitness for gene pool ascension. A sort of oral chest beating. A belt and braces approach to social assertion.

We’ve certainly got plenty of topics to choose from with which to do it:

  • Holidays (boutique off beat long haul 6 star glamp “please find me interesting” and package all-inclusive entertainment included “… but it’s great for the kids…” meets the urbane city break couple with an ironic burlesque trapeze in their suite)
  • Homes ( and the whole region meets post code fascism thing that goes with them  -you know who you are London)
  • Fashion & Beauty (naked stripped back Paraben and orang-utan free meets hi bake crusted fake slathered super gloss with a centre ground of super-drugged over doses of buy 3 get none free )
  • Cars (muscle car versus hot hatch versus electric versus petrol head versus bike versus Classic versus Zip)
  • Sex (socially this is open season – from “euughhh no thanks!” princesses and the blank-eyed cote d’Azur lizard lover to semi-detached Tudored, Tweezered and GoPro-ed all-in wrestling and Breezer bus-stop procreation)
  • Education – (Toffs going state-side leaving the Publics to the oligarchs and bankers , the rise of the Old grammar, and the Churchy state scrum versus post code lottery shitsville Secondary in an over-pressured catchment area kind of thing)
  • Sport (especially things like Golf and Formula 1 – but Rugby versus Football is good for a class fight – but then so is Union versus League – yikes – and cycling’s for MAMILs)
  • Technology (is that the latest super triple upgrade diamond encrusted razor thin i-phone meets digital poverty and second hand devices with digital dementia)
  • Drugs (council estate pill heads, skunks and suburban speed freaks rub up against school study stoners and coke horse fashionistas – with a sprinkle of Withnail and Trainspotting for good measure)

There is endless fun to be had for anyone with a Class calibrated slide rule and an eye for an accent, a shabby cuff, an overturned trainer instep in whitest white and a social smoke machine.

All of the above and many more subjects besides can offer multiple signposts to our ability to secure, protect and expand the gene pool – as a mate and provider –  and more importantly, where we think we currently are and hopefully wish to land on the great ladder of Life.

But many of these subjects are impenetrable to most of us in the flow of our accelerated lives – and carry a complex and subtle range of degrees not immediately obvious.

Impact demands some quite bloody and explicit sign posting and you’ve got to pick the right ones if you’re going for the ‘speaking loudly…’ option.

If chosen properly, to suit both the environment and the audience, the best ones can be a source of endless amusement for the seasoned observer are the ones where our social anxieties, bombast and terrors come rolling boldly into view unmasked and unfettered.

Now before we go on and just to clarify, on the technology front, there is of course a whole sub section beyond the basic noisy snobberies and tribalism of who’s got what “look at my device” technology, rooted in a whole new behaviour – that of a Life lived like an open wound on mobile loudspeaker.

Who has not had the unmitigated pleasure of listening to someone blah on in full voice about riveting subjects such as the process of returning the cardigan they bought on sale for £7.39 …but I had to return it  but then I find out that the sticker bar code had rubbed off so I had to go to the second counter, yeah the one across the other side in charge of bar codes, who’s that?…in the background?….ahhhhhh….how is he….anyway, and you wouldn’t believe it they only sent me back to the first one…ooh…he’s always dropping things that boy….and anyway that snooty cow was there you know the one and anyway…bip bip….oh sorry thought the bus was being re routed so anyway they put a bar code on it and scanned and then the machine woudn’t w…

SHUT UP!!!!!!

Why anyone thinks that listening to the utter banality and mundanity of them honking on about everything from Cheese and Onion crisps to their bunions holds the slightest bit of interest for anyone else within 20 yards of them beggars belief. Do they care. No. On and on they go. At top volume.

Perhaps fog-horning into our mobile while staring listlessly or sometimes cluelessly out of train or bus window makes us feel more alive, or alternately, less dead, or inert.

Or perhaps we all blah on because we’re afraid of the silence. Silence is very scary. Especially in the glittering noise of our conspicuous consumption world. The Silence gets filled up with stuff like thinking about over-drafts, and unpaid bills, and the car we can’t afford: the person we aren’t. And the fact that your other half seemed to pay far too much attention to old slippery bollocks with the ‘hot hatch’ at the pub AGAIN. Oh no. Fill that silence RIGHT NOW.

Or maybe it’s just a sign that we are lonely creatures relentlessly reaching out with any excuse to just talk to someone about something anything. Nail clippers. The benefits of GREGG’s foot long sausage roll (which to be fair does demand quite a lot of conversation).

Who knows. Anyway. Ear plugs in. Crack on.

So where was I? Oh yes. The deafening hawk, crackle and scrape of social laddering grinding across the room at full volume is a wonder to behold, especially in England, that bastion of crippling class consciousness and the emollient cold eyed Cheshire cat smile of its courtly Norman culture.

Now whether these conversations happen in a semi in a cul-de-sac in Macclesfield,  a terrace in Llandeilo or a townhouse in Petworth, the broad trajectory and oath is the same.

I – the fog horn – being of sound mind and body – shall peak loudly in such terms as to clearly communicate to those gathered within ear shot what level of lifestyle I have, the laissez faire with which I take or leave ‘work’, the shade quality or quantity  of leisure time I have and how I spend it – and ultimately – really really – whether I am, to quote the great Philosopher, Harry Enfield, “considerably richer than yaow”.

 (NOTE: This dynamic becomes doubly interesting with couples who might in the secrecy of a closed conversation or room be accused of marrying ‘below’ or ‘above their station’: as this creates an explicit external dynamic – between the individuals and those outside around them – and the implicit internal one between two people in intimate contact and with an intimate knowledge of each other’s foibles and failings in the class department)

So, for example: hands up who’s sat in a restaurant or bar listening to the rallied ranks cawing about a skiing holiday they have just been on or upon which they are about to embark?

Amazing. It is such a perfect storm of social drama. Which resort? Which slope? Drive or Fly? What grade? Mogul? Age of Youngest on Skis? (since he was 3 months old…Obvs). dangerous off-piste-er? French skier? Snowboarder?

And up diddly up up it keeps going. Heli Skiing. Cloud skiing. Rain Skiing. Skiing across a killer whale’s back juggling a bottle of fizz and a Grey Goose chaser.

“Ohh Jasp, you ARE a just SO fucking OUT THERE”.

The ratcheting upwards of who’s the biggest cock in the skiing conversation is a great example of a topic hijacked by our social and genetic need to assert ourselves and is a miracle to behold.

And when I use the word ‘cock’ please do not think I am removing the female gender in this. Social climbing and social fog-horning reaches its apogee in the open mouths of some of the women in these conversations in much the same way with the men.

Don’t get me wrong: I really enjoy skiing. I am not terribly good at it. But I have fun. Moving from bar to bar at high speed across snow is a right laugh. But life’s too short to spend more than 15 minutes talking loudly about it. Isn’t it? And let’s be clear. I am not referring in this piece to people who actually really do LOVE skiing. The die-hards any-weather, can’t live without it addicts. I could listen to their stories all day long.

No. I am talking about the people who haul themselves and their families up a collection of slopes every year, more out of social terror for what not doing it might mean to their school run dinner party schtick than the actual pleasure of doing it.

Golf has a similar schtick. Come on. We’ve all witnessed it. The arcane yet very loud golf-speak followed shortly after by ‘the swing’ with invisible iron finished off with a tongue on roof of mouth ball ‘TSCHH” sound  effect. Marvellous. And what’s interesting in the social malaise is that someone using Golf to publicly assert themselves socially may not even realise that someone else might be judging them silently for the fact they actually pronounced the word GOWLF instead of saying GOFF.

(Careful out there. The issue with social ladders is once on them, there tends to be people both above as well as below you. And the same rules apply. ‘Betters’ are like Bosses – everyone has one – somewhere – somehow – even if they are not immediately visible. They are there.)

Christmas is also a mine field of social fog-horning as it allows the social fog-horner to draw string together a whole host of levers and pulleys.

Consumption and exotic gift purchasing. Rare party invitations. Travel – preferably long haul. Higher order experiences. Exceptional distance from ‘here’ (everyday life)

Witness in a Notting Hill coffee shop three women, all American, just at the ordering point, a casual collision while all on their different morning threads – to work, to yoga instructor, to next coffee shop – living the dream, replayed in coffee shops up and down the country at every rung up and down the social ladder.  (You do not need to have a banker for a husband or as a job to pretend that you can live like someone who does. What are credit cards for!)

So the first asks the second:

“So hey, when are you heading out?”

“Oh gawd, we HAVE to go to New York first, some dull party but then up to the Cape, and then straight to Vale as soon as his mother lets us escape. How about you?”

“Yeah pretty much the same. He’s on his got to get away tip at the moment. Dunno. Might go to St. Barts over New year but that’s about it.”

The deafening silence of the third woman is palpable. Both turn to her and one speaks.

“Hey what about you guys?”

VERY LONG PAUSE.

“Well, think we’re going to have to stay put this year what with John’s work …”

BIGGER PAUSE – SILENCE – and she turns to the server.

“…can I get a Grande decaf cappuccino please…”

SHUT DOWN – SMALL COMPRESSED SMILE – OUCH.

The pause and silence is deafening. All the signs are big: really, really BIG – and not in a good way.

The two ladies look at her, shuffle a little, small smiles to each other.

This is uncomfortable. Not this is AWKWARD.

Three large klaxons have sounded above the lady’s head accompanied by flashing neon.

STATUS ALERT – might not be able to keep up/social death/slightly embarrassing

MONEY ALERT – might not be able to afford shiny life this month or year – do we invite her?

JOB ALERT – husband shaky job position or worse – NO ONE stays in London over Holidays.

Hopefully her remarkably over-priced hot, wet frappecrappachaiccinolate will take the edge off the moment. Nothing says Everything is Awesome quite like an over-priced coffee.

That much cow product in one over glazed cup would put most people into a cow coma of dairy proportion – something that I think she may well appreciate at this very moment.

Sometimes things scream louder in public than any raised voice – or should I say sometimes the world of logos and marques SCREAM louder in public that any raised voice but to much the same effect.  And of course there is the collision of semiotics and invisible gesturing that needs to be folded into this.  Social sign posts come in all manner of variants

In one conversation with a very sartorially obsessed man, I noticed the usual scoffing at a large bloke in a Tacchini sweatshirt – 80s Footie Casual FLASHBACK.

The gentleman pointed out that it was a larger than life example of crass status making –vulgar logo bright colours – gaudy etc.

When I mentioned that he and the Tacchini man were no different he looked aghast. The higher order pomposity of him was firmly pricked.

My point to him was this. I ‘knew’ that the shirt he was wearing was from Hilditch & Key. I had one in a similar fabric, French cuff, cut away collar. His shirt SCREAMED Jermyn Street – in much the same way that Sergio Tacchini man’s screamed Wembley Market.

This stuff matters – to everyone. No-one is immune. This stuff – this pointless scrabbling for identity and the scatterings of ‘things’ that prop it up – it’s part of who and what we all are – whether the ascetics of the Sustainability world like it or not.

(To be fair our ability to wield the Luxury Of Conscience as a day job is a massive assertion of status, identity and educational favour in itself – one that few on this planet, even those in the emerged western cultures, can dream of let alone afford to pursue.)

We need to be really careful when we incite people to stop consuming shiny things they can’t afford and that damage the planet.

So, when someone tells me they’ve developed a new sustainability methodology, garnered some new insights or developed a campaign that involves the words or sentiments ‘stop, reduce diminish, lessen’ and all of the other reductive words we use in sustainability communications, I think of all of these people speaking loudly in public places – sometimes shamelessly, sometimes unconsciously but always slightly desperately asserting their social ascension or at its very least their social survival on the ladders of the ‘look at me’ gene pool.

If we stopped trying to mitigate and compress their competitive genetically fuelled need to assert themselves in the world – and equally stopped trying to erase their ‘terrible’ world view (good luck with that)  perhaps we might be quicker to find a language of human resilience in which we can all share and take part – and somehow get more than the usual 7-13% depending on your think tank or academic referencing to give half a crap about how we live and what we consume.

NOTE This piece was sparked by my reading yet another recent and of course exhaustive Sustainable Lifestyles White Paper Report while sitting in a pub in East Sussex populated by a rather noisy cross section of society.

They were all outwards and upwards – celebrating their very survival in the game called life. They were all at the end of their week, sweeping grumps and whines away with pints and wine and thoughts of pies, curry, pizza, pork scratchings, or clubbing and gear followed by lie ins, golf, swimming, mountain biking, shopping, shooting (birds not films), movies, football, rugby and then what form of Sunday they might have before the shitty bitty day job and weekly worries heaved back into view.

I can safely say that not one of them was at any juncture discussing climate change, acidification of the oceans, human suffrage or equality and diversity – and until we find a way or theme or thread that brings these conversations into the pub meaningfully and without sounding like the Vibe Killer has just turned up  – we’ll stay on the margins wondering how ‘terrible’ things like BREXIT TRUMP and the rest of the sorry shower of deniers and their master plans manage to get the thumbs up in this world  

Clinique, Morgan Freeman & a search for Certainty.

24 Thursday Nov 2016

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Baileys, Bruce Almighty, certainty, Christmas, Christmas Sales, Clinique, David Attenborough, Donald Trump, face Serum, ferrero rocher, Frasier, gogglebox, Gucci, John Lewis, Life On Earth, Living beyond Our Means, Living The Dream, Morgan Freeman, orang-utans, Pam Oil, Shawshank Redemption, Simon & Garfunkel, Social Contract, The Holidays Are Coming, Warren Buffet

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I was trapped at the roundabout at the bottom of Fulham Palace Road, going nowhere. This gave me ample time to admire the sharpness and surety of a Clinique Bus Side communicating  yet another miracle creme.

It was a master class in the art of communicating Certainty.

It was less the actual nature-defying aspect of the crème itself and the certainty of what promised and more the surgical certainty of its sense of self – its absolute right to be on the side of a bus telling me everything’s going to be OK. The precision and fixedness of the way it looked and felt – the production values – and the voice with which it spoke that seduced me.

Everything about the bus side, the clarity of the type face, the exquisite finishing on the photography – the meticulous attention to detail and the inherent balance carried a confidence and absoluteness that screamed Certainty. Even the white background was more certain of its whitest whiteness than any white background around it.

Surely nothing bad can happen in a world where Clinique exists. Not really. Clinique exists in a world where YouTube beheadings don’t happen. Where the Far Right is merely a reference to which end of the Front Row you’re seated at when the GUCCI show comes to London fashion Week.

The CERTAINTY which the bus side imbued me with, even just fleetingly, was mesmerising, desperately delusional but boy it felt good.

Thankfully the news on the radio reminded me that I do in fact live in a world where places like Aleppo exist, along with the pain and human suffering and outrage that seem to accompany our species on our journey to self-determined extinction.

In Clinique World Baby Orangutans don’t get ripped from their dying mothers in a rain forest and sold for a couple of dollars – all for the want of some palm oil to grease the palm of western vanities. You can be certain of that. Not here. Not us. Not Right Here Right Now.

But that’s escapism for you. It doesn’t always have to be a movie or a song. Escapism comes in many forms. And at the beating heart of Escapism is certainty with a dash of hope. Hope of better. Hope of something else.

Certainty can be consumption; even the toxic kind. Especially the toxic kind. The kind that helps me forget even just for a second that I am simply surviving with stickers, unlikely to ever reach the giddy heights of just Being, free at last to unclutter my life of all the ballast of Certainty I’ve been propping myself up with along the way.

Hiding inside a lifestyle we couldn’t otherwise afford without racking it up on credit card – and living the dream of Having It All seems to be the order of the day. Shiny skin creams are Us. Gorgeous smells and not thinking too hard about stuff.

Kind of understandable now that our always-on news feeds relentlessly bombard us with the exceptional output of human madness and cruelty.

As long as I can use my swipey app to order EXACTLY what I deserve in the take away department and be certain that it will arrive, piping hot, aromatic, and with a roll on reward offer – as long as I can treat myself because I’m worth it – hell I’m alive aren’t I? Give me a break.

Certainty is one of those things that acts as a much needed corrective for ordinary people in an increasingly volatile world – a world Warren-Buffeted by collapsing and soaring markets and share prices, the death of the social contract, strange political shifts (has no one noticed the correlation between the rise of tyrants and the exercising of the Populist Vote – or is that just me?) and the onslaught of some rather crazy weather.

The future is indeed bright – the future is Donald not going out for a duck; the near future at least.

I have a theory that there must be a set of scales somewhere – scales that will illustrate that the more screen time Donald gets, the more people will (in the absence of God) crave and stream Morgan Freeman movies.

In times of trouble, Certainty can also be a voice – like Morgan’s, or that of David Attenborough. When the day closes in and stuff gets dreadful, and the reassurance of watching Frasier re runs isn’t working anymore – cue Attenborough’s salving voice and his pictures of beauty – of a world where we are still richly interwoven into something more sublime and greater than ourselves, rather than hovering above it like the sword of Damocles above its head.

As Simon & Garfunkel might one day sing:

“When you’re weary, feeling small

When tears are in your eyes, I’ll dry them all (all)

I’m on your side, oh, when times get rough

And friends can’t be found…

Watch Morgan in Bruce Almighty”

 Certainty can also be a season.

As Christmas roars towards us – having started its mighty yawp on November the 1st, we all start to feel a little more certain; because Christmas is certain.

Christmas lights up the darkest night in the deepest black of the year.

Ping! Gorgeous.

Year in and Year out. Unwavering. Immutable. Unmovable. Christmas allows us to embrace the certainty of it and all that comes with it.

The world lights up (the western Christian one specifically). And life is good.

Who cares if the brands get to milking the Purse of Human Kindness, ferociously pick pocketing every ounce of insecurity in us and replacing it with a rather shiny bauble to give or receive. Love that.

The certainty of Christmas doesn’t just start early because the brands and businesses make more money out of it.

Christmas lasts for two months because we need a new super charged amount of its glorious twinkling certainty to off-set the all the awfulness we have to consume the rest of the year.

We simply aren’t capable of crawling the last few yards to something like a more respectful December 12 or 13th Christmas start.

We would fold into a despondent mess way before then. We are ravenous for the exquisite promise of Certainty that Christmas begins. (And its Sales – because they’re different to all the other all year round sales aren’t they? Of course they are!!)

Even the commercials that the big retail brands produce have become a pillar of that Certainty. John Lewis. Thank-you for redeeming me with a gold plated you-tube film featuring furry creatures on a child’s garden trampoline. Bless you for that.

A sugar coated filmic hit of Certainty.

In a world where a boxer dog’s ears flap up and down with merriment as we ding dong our merrily on high – what could possibly go wrong?

Who cares if there’s a shed load of brands and businesses out there relentlessly reframing their value as some salve ‘in an uncertain world’. We’ve got formation dancing, leaping creatures, red Starbucks cups and for chrissakes, THE HOLIDAYS ARE COMING.

In fact, even in this volatile roller coaster life of ours, of one thing I can be almost certain. Christmas is the bomb when it comes to CERTAINTY.

If I find myself on Christmas Day parked in front of the telly, my face soaked in Clinique For Men Anti Ageing Serum, the milky sweet of Bailey’s buttering my lips, a scatter of walnut casings and Ferrero wrappers peppering my technicolour Ted Baker gilet, watching the Shawshank Redemption, followed by a Life On Earth Double Bill, all to the accompaniment of the chirrup grunt squeak boing of a quality-street assortment of furry creatures bouncing up and down on the  trampoline outside my triple glazed bullet proof conservatory windows – I may just explode in a cascade of tinsel twinkling Certainty.

Heaven.  (If you happen to believe in that sort of thing.)

Silvio Berlusconi to be Italy’s Ambassador to the U.S.A A HELLO MAGAZINE WORLD EXCLUSIVE

24 Thursday Nov 2016

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berlusconi, Bunga Bunga, farage, Refugees, Republic of Italy, The Future is bright, Therapy, Trump, US President

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Silvia E’Salvia, Hello Magazine’s woman ‘on the inside’ of the sacred ring that is Italian Politics has excitedly revealed that Silvio Berlusconi, ex-prime minister of the Republic of Italy, has been notified by the office in waiting for the White House and President Elect, Donald Trump, that he is to be invited to Capitol Hill to begin formal negotiations for the acceptance of the post of Italian Ambassador to the United States of America.

It seems that President Elect Donald Trump has exercised an obscure amendment which allows him to circumnavigate International Law, Diplomatic etiquette and most importantly the Italian Parliament and President to invite Mr Berlusconi directly to the Post – a right recently also xercised in his wish to draw the sage and deep counsel of one Nigella Farage, from the  United Kingdom, to the White House front lawn .

We are told that the news was communicated to a stunned and rather emotional Berlusconi whilst he was undergoing an intense form of Moldovan Rhythm Therapy  for a ‘thrown hip‘ condition.

Berlusconi, renowned for his relentless support for Improving Lives For Refugee Minors  immediately rose to the occasion and the opportunity.

The world famous philanthropist, champion of Women’s Rights and a fair economy for all: the Lupo Di Popolo, white knight for the working people’s right to justice, spiritual shamen of Bunga Bunga, and a fierce advocate for the removal of graft and corruption in all corners of Italian daily life sees the similarities between his own beliefs and morals and those of Mr Trump as a great advantage in creating a superior relationship between Italy & The USA

“It is a great honour to serve my country in ‘cementing’ the relationship between Italy and The United States Of America – and in reaching out directly into the inner court of a man who positively ‘glows’ wth integrity”.

“Donald speaks for the people, sometimes even when they don’t want him to. He says things they feel ashamed to say. Or even think. BUT. Nonetheless. The burden of Power is great yet he wears it like a Valentino neck scarf. I salute the shining azure blue of his politic. He is a giant – a man of small feet yet great intellect.”

Once he had replaced the towel and dismissed the therapist, Ex Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi went on to tell the insider:

“I am also here to support and defend Mr Trump’s decision to run his business empire from the inside of the White House, using only his closest advisors and family to ensure 100% commitment to the cause. We in Italy know the power of ‘family’ and how one must always keep ‘the family’ close to you when taking and distributing power.”  

In her last SMS to us before Silvia Di Salvia was whisked away by a highly attentive Mr Berlusconi to a small palazzo outside Rome for a intense man a mano, to wrestle with the thorny political issues of 18th Venetian Lingerie and Tiramisu, she imparted the closing words of the soon to be Ambassador Silvio Berlusconi:

“One must remember, Opportunity is like a mistress – best treated nicely, well housed, holidayed often and regularly attended to.”

The profundity is overwhelming. As is the cologne.The future looks bright for us all.

Queens, feeling it & The Art of Listening

04 Friday Nov 2016

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ABBA, Beyonce, Bizet, Bowie, Brixton Academy, Dave Grohl, Eek A Mouse, Heloise Lettisier, Iggy Pop, John Foxxx, John Paul Jones, Kraftwerk, Landscape, led zeppelin, Les Negresses Vertes, Listening, love, Madge, Michael Jackson, Morcheeba, Patti Smith, Pretty vacant, Puccini, Rocky Horror, Schubert, Sinead OConnor, System Of A Down, The Cramps, Them Crooked Vultures

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I experienced an epiphany last night. A small one.

Yes, bright lights from above were involved. Choral throngs. A shift in the cosmos. But so was a small French chanteuse. 3 musicians. 3 male dancers. Some sparsely choreographed neon tubes. Some Somersby cider. And few thousand people.

Christine & The Queens quietly smashed through the musical panic room I have patently been living inside.

It wasn’t until half way through the gig that I realised that the mesmeric and seductive nature of her and the music was actually relentlessly delicately tap tap tapping against the walls until smash. Revelation. For various reasons, some particular to me and the recent years of my life – others universal and just to do with age, I had forgotten how to listen.

As a man, especially a 50 something white one, that will come as no surprise to many. We are apparently renowned for our inability to listen.

But clichés aside, I have always had the deepest and greatest love for all forms of music. From the velvet of Puccini to the Twin Tenor Aria of Bizet’s the Pearl Fishers, to reggae blues parties ting a ling-a-linging to Eek A Mouse, the rocky horror psychobilly of the Cramps, smash in some black country Led-heavy rock, season with System of A Down,  Move On Up to disco, cross the White Lines of Hip Hop, turn left at ABBA, drink in the pretty vacancy of punk and back into deep folk, all rounded off with some heavy house and a little drum and base. Nenah Cherry’s Red hot and blue Monday. Hoagy Carmichael to the power of the killers.

And I hadn’t even got to Bowie, Pop & Reed, and the art fag beauty of shape shifting artists and icons in bleeding light landscapes. And then there’s the expanses of Ode to joy and Trout Concertos for cello and violin with a little Gregory Parker and Ella Fitzgerald for the sheer hell of it. The colour is endless.

I just love music.  And I can find the delicate cadence of a Gregorian chant in the heart of Face A La Mer by Les Negresses Vertes.

But therein lies the problem. Listening too much becomes Not Listening. It becomes interrogation.

I am also a drummer which means that the musical verticals are cut with the horizontal of particular musicians (always a tricky word to use when talking about drummers). The interrogation is not just genre. It’s now cut by skill set and value judgements. Not only am I interrogating the vibe and output of Crooked Vultures, I am also listening to the relationship between Jones and Grohl in comparative terms – given the seamless fluid and world shaping nature of Jones’s previous relationship with John Bonham.

Listening too much and having too much of a back catalogue in your head and heart in one way is divine and defining. But it is also a tyranny when applied in the wrong way.

As Christine, real name Héloise Letissier, moved through her set, I did what all over music-ed under feeling people do. I started cataloguing every nuance and inspiration. Mining every song for influences and steals. Creating collisions and comparisons, like some dreadful two penny film pitch. In her physicality she had the punk animalism of Iggy Pop fused with Michael Jackson; with a smattering of ‘Madgey ‘Vogue for good measure.

She had the fractured roar and vocal soar and musicality of Sinead.

The musicians that back her were like someone had taken Daft Punk and sent them to a musical un-finishing school run by John Foxxx, Landscape and presided over by Ralf Hutter and Florian Schneider, two discrete computational Professors from Dusseldorf.

The pulsing and strobing of samples was text book White Lines – and the tip toe keyboard of Tilted was pure Einstein a Go Go rolled in a little sparks with some deep house and Morcheeba for good measure.

Stop. Whoa. And the whole Bitter Pill Alanis moment cannot be ignored. Which bled into a Red Dawn landscape of Peter Gabriel like making.

The elegantly choreographed neon installation dancing above her head – and I am remembering Gary Newman and the Tubeway Army’s bleak black and strip lights.

And then the soaring above all of the others: Patti Smith rushed up into my head.

But as the gig went on the snippets, influences and collisions came thicker and faster, speeding through my head.

Trying to stay focused on each one of these flashes became akin to watching a subway train pull out of the station. At first each window, each carriage and the people inside them are distinct but as the train speeds up they begin to smudge into each other faster and faster, until they are a strobe of light a roar and a feeling: a feeling. Until they just ‘are’.

And that was my epiphany. The Broken Beyonce. The Half Woman. Became my Jean D’Arc.

As the music overflowed it became impossible to keep interrogating. And I started to listen. I slowly remembered what it was like to just listen and feel. Stop thinking stop talking.

I realised that I was trying to control the emotion of the music and her through the deconstruction of it. And the falling away of that felt transcendent.

I don’t mean to put too much on her shoulders. Perhaps I was also overwhelmed by the LOVE in the room. Because it was LOVE. All these people calling her name. It was kind and generous and messy. It wasn’t obsession, or trending or fetishizing. She seemed very very LOVED.

So unusually, even for this whiter shade of male, I found myself listening and being moved once more. And feeling exhilarated by the feeling of that.

I remembered how I feel about music. Not what I think about it.

Merci Heloise.

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