First entry from new toy

For a while now, TSP and I have been wanting to get a laptop between us – I could use it for travelling, and TSP could use it for writing when away.

So on Thursday I nipped into the Apple Store on Regent’s Street in London, and on the advice of Photographer Steve, asked if they had any ‘refreshed’ stock – that is computers that have been bought, but then brought back within the 30 day returns period. They are fully checked, reformatted and warrantied etc. as new, just 10% cheaper than the brand new ones! Result.

So we’ve now got a 12″ bog-standard bottom of the range iBook between us, which it has to be said, kicks ass. OSX 10.4.2 is fantastic! It’s called ‘Tiger’, but I haven’t found the ‘install Seigfried and Roy theme’ button yet that makes everything orange… I’m loving some of the features in OSX – the dashboard and expose features are really cool, and the way Safari handles RSS is very cool indeed. I still have to connect to the net via an ethernet cable plugged into my pc, as we’ve not set up wireless or anything yet, but thus far, it’s much coolness.

Soundtrack – Tracy Chapman, ‘Tracy Chapman’ (came across her singing ‘Thrill Is Gone’ with BB King earlier on today, and her voice sent shivers down my spine, so I borrowed the CD off TSP as I’ve only got her stuff on vinyl)

Some great news for London radio…

It’s amazing how one discovers news these days. I was just looking at the stats for this ‘ere blog, and saw in the search strings that lead people to the site ‘Jon Gaunt Leaves Radio London’.

Aha, thinks me, is this just one person’s wishful thinking, or is the ridiculous waste of airtime finally making a move?

So I google the same phrase, and find this post on the londumb.co.uk message board, saying that very thing, that the rancid bigot is finally doing the decent thing and leaving Radio London.

Let’s hope Simon Lederman or Eddie Nestor gets the mid morning phone in slot – both have sat in for scumface and done a great job before now.

So, to Gaunty – good riddance. I care not where you end up, so long as it’s not anywhere that I would normally frequent. I hope it’s daytime telly, then hopefully I’ll never have to suffer your loserdom again.

And as you’ve got kids, give ’em a hug, give ’em a kiss… and don’t forget to tell that we’re glad to see you go.

Another great post about the bombing

I’m an avid reader of Jyoti Mishra’s blog – he’s eloquent, and full of righteous anger at the shit that’s going on in the world.

His latest blog entry is fantastic – he highlights the false dichotomy drawn by those who suggest that to draw parallels between the daily killings in Iraq and the London bombings is to be on the side of terrorists. He points out that it makes perfect sense to hate all such killing, whether perpetrated by terrorists or the US/UK military in Iraq.

I remember just after the Sept 11th terrorist attack on New York, there was a TV discussion programme on which a young, eloquent Muslim woman commented that hers and many others primary grievance against the behaviour of western governments, media agents and public opinion was the ongoing view that Asian and Arab lives were fundementally less important than western lives. That Arab ‘collateral damage’ is unfortunate, whereas Londoners blown up on tube trains warrants days of mourning and blanket media coverage.

The same could be said of just about any area of foreign policy from any European country or the US – that self-interest has been elevated to the point where pressure is applied to countries to destroy their very infrastructure just to make conditions favourable for western investors.

Her point could not be more striking than it is at the moment, and Jyoti’s blog highlights and explores it fabulously.

The Solo Summit

So last night was The Solo Summit a mini festival-within-a-festival as part of Hackney’s Spice Festival.

The idea was to have lots of performers on different instruments and across myriad styles all playing solo. As it was, it was that and a whole lot more – the solo performances spawned some really interesting collaborations as the mini-sets overlapped.

Due to the current mess of bomb-scares and transport disasters in England, a few of the performers were either late or didn’t appear at all, so the set was being re-jigged all evening, and as a result even more time was freed up for new combinations of players. The initial three long sets became four slightly shorter sets, and each set seemed to take on a character of its own.

The first set began with Tunde Jegede on Kora, who was then joined by Cleveland Watkiss, who was using my loop set-up to great effect, layering vocals on top of Tunde’s gorgeous Kora.

The rest of the set was three of Orphy’s students, Renel, Yao and Michael, two spoken word artists and guitar/bazouki, respectively, who played some marvellous music. My set dove-tailed into the end of Michael’s, as I took a short solo over the end of his last piece. I then played Grace And Gratitude, and went into The Kindness Of Strangers, which Orphy joined me on, with my loop gradually fading after I’d left the stage and Orphy took over for his solo spot. End of set 1.

Set 2 was very different – mainly guys from the London Improvisors Orchestra, it started with harpist Rhodri Davis (playing music a fair bit removed from his work with Charlotte Church!), Bass Saxist, Tony Bevan, flugal horn from Claude Deppa and electronic bleeps ‘n’ squawks loveliness from Steve Beresford. An interesting set with moments of magic, a very long way from the opening set! This stuff is really a stretch for the audience – they seemed to stay with it though, which was great.

Set 3 was back to many of the performers from set 1, with the addition of Pat Thomas on piano (an insanely gifted musician) and Steve Williamson on Sax. I played another duet with Cleveland, and a trio with Cleveland and Tunde on a track that they’d be playing as a duo, which worked beautifully. I had it set up that I was able to loop Cleveland in the usual way, so that gave us a lot of scope to loop ‘n’ layer and have some fun, and it came out superbly well.

By Set 4, we were about an hour ahead of schedule (whoever heard of a gig running ahead of time???), but my ears were getting a little fatigued after such a long time of intense listening. I listened to BJ’s set from just outside the main auditorium, where the processed ambient pedal steel wafted beautifully around. The set grew with the addition of more and more musicians, til most of the LIO guys were back on stage making a glorious racket. Cleveland then joined them, and once I’d turned up his mic, was able to add a vocal percussion loop to it, and start to inject a key centre into the melee. I joined in on bass, and the whole thing gradually mutated from free soundscape to twisted funk/swing groove thang, providing a space for the rappers/spoken word guys to rejoin the party. As the musicians peeled off one by one, the loop faded, and it ended with just bass, acoustic guitar and the two voices. One heck of a journey from the free to the funky. I look forward to hearing the recording of that one too!

All in, a fine evening’s music. A smallish crowd (hey, that’s brit-jazz for you), but an enthusiastic one with a fair amount of stamina!

The corruption of Islam

A commenter on the guardian news blog said this in relation to the newspaper coverage of the bomb attacks –

“The media is being foolish and dangerous in terming these terrorists as “Islamists” – will further aggravate feelings between followers of Islam and the rest, the former feeling they are unfairly and stereotypically being classified as murderous maniacs and the latter associating terror with the basic religion.”

And certainly questions are raised about the way such things are portrayed. Have people ever talked about the IRA as ‘Christian Exremists’? Do crazy cult leaders like David Koresh and Jim Jones get labelled as Christian? I wonder if they do in those parts of the world where Christianity isn’t the dominant (though nominal) faith.

Clearly, the behaviour of terrorists is completely out of step with the basic beliefs of Islam, just as running weird death-cults and murdering for the IRA is fundementally anti-christian, and the suggestion that what drives these people to commit attrocities like this a true understanding of their faith is very misguided.

As reported in the Guardian today, The Muslim Association of Great Britain have condemned the attacks,

“Sir Iqbal Sacranie, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: ‘Our faith of Islam calls upon us to be upholders of justice. The day after London was bloodied by terrorists finds us determined to help secure this justice for the innocent victims of yesterday’s carnage.’ “

The rubbish part of this for British Muslims is that the sickos who perpetrated the bombings have stolen the arguments about Israeli occupation in Palestine and US occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan away from them. Any Muslim now who sticks their head over the parapet and talks about those issues is going to be labelled by a certain section of the British populus as terrorist sympathisers.

It’s more important than ever that we make Muslims feel particularly welcome in England, that we make it known that there’s no way in which we hold Islam responsible for inspiring these dreadful killings, and that we won’t allow discussions over the geopolitical mess in the middle east to be made taboo by these murderers.

Latest news on the bombings…

From the BBC new site – that’s a page that acts as a bit of a hub for the latest news on the bombing. The death toll has risen to ‘more than 50’ – they still don’t know how many are going to be pulled out of the Russell Square crash.

One of the odd things that happens with tragedies and disasters is that place names take on a different resonance – Columbine, Lockerbie, Hungerford, Dunblane, Burnley (forever tainted by getting a BNP councillor in a local election a couple of years ago), Aberfan, Faluja, Dresden, Hiroshima…

Kings Cross already has had a huge fire which took a lot of lives.

Now Russell Square and Tavistock Square – two of my favourite places in central London – have a new resonance. Russell Square is where I get off the tube when I go into town. It means that a) I get to walk through the lovely square itself, and round past the British Museum and b)I get some much-needed exercise, walking a mile further than I would otherwise walk.

Tavistock Square is a particularly tragic place for such an event, as it’s a peace garden. There’s a statue of Ghandi in the middle of the square, and I’ve been there for candle-lit peace vigils before now. You can’t get much further from peace than a bus being blown to bits. I can’t imagine what the people who saw it happen must be feeling. That’s going to stick with you a long time. We’re so used to footage of people in the middle east crying hysterically at the sight of buildings and vehicles that have been blown apart. When it happens in London, it all seems like a bad dream. But it’s the same pain, the same trauma, the same confusion. Maybe we’ll see the pain of bomb-footage from round the world with fresh eyes again after this… who knows.

here’s some eye-witness accounts of what actually happened – the reporting on this has been so mixed, with some news agencies being guilty of the most heinous speculation, like they are hoping it’s going to be a bigger and bigger story. The BBC news web-site remains just about the best place for up-to-date info.

SoundtrackKris Delmhorst, ‘Songs For A Hurricane’; Tom Waits, ‘Real Gone’.

Less heavy stuff.

First up, thanks to everyone who phoned, texted, emailed – very nice of you all to call, especially those who only call when you think I might be dead… (just kidding).

So yesterday. Obviously started with bomb news. I had a gig booked with Ned Evett, a fabulous fretless guitarist and singer, who had landed in London the day before. He was, obviously, knackered and jetlagged, so slept very long indeed. His mobile wasn’t working cos he was in Angel – too close to all the shit. Didn’t get in touch with him til about 3.

Tried to get him to get a cab north, but no cabs would go down to Angel. So I had to go and get him.

Told him to start walking up Upper Street, and I’d get him somewhere along there. Got to Upper Street in good time, but then took 40 minutes to do half a mile on the street. Found Ned, loaded up, and headed for the back roads.

The radio announced that the motorways were largely unuseable. So we headed out on the A40, passed the M25 and started to weave through the backroads – Slough, Windsor, Bagshott etc. down to Guildford and onto the A3.

Eventually got to the venue at about 8.50, set up in double quick time, ate fast dinner (were both starving), and I was on stage before 9.30. Did it as one set straight through, with Ned joining me for a couple of improv duets before doing his solo set. A lovely audience of great listening peoples. Sold a bunch of CDs, and had a marvellous time. Well worth the hassles.

Driving home was obviously easier, listening to BBC London and people phoning in their stories of involvement in the days horribleness. Some really touching stories. Must be appalling for those who were involved. A nightmare for the relatives, and those critically injured. Still didn’t seem to be any consensus about the actual death toll. Each life already decided but unaccounted for.

One Day On…

So, it started with up to about 9 bombs going off in London, which thankfully (though inexplicably) became four bombs. Lots of people tragically killed, but could have been lots more – times like this we all get thankful for lil’ things.

Anyway, a few stream of conciousness thoughts that have been circulating my head over the last 24 hours…

Predictably, the cliched rhetoric has started to pile up like media manure pile all that ‘it’s not an attack on London, it’s an attack on Freedom and Democracy … they want to destroy our freedoms … they won’t beat us …’

OK, #1, we don’t know who ‘they’ are, for certain. It has all the hallmarks of an Islamist extremist group, and some previously unheard-of group linked to Al Quaeda have claimed it, thus far unsubstantiated.

#2, it’s not an attack on democracy – while the killing was indiscriminate, if it was Al Quaeda, or any other islamist extremist group (which we’ll assume for the sake of argument, though wait for clarification in the long run), the targeting and motivation weren’t indiscriminate at all. This was in direct response to the bombing of Afghanistan and Iraq. A situation where the people of Afghanistan and Iraq had no democratic say in what went on, and thousands upon thousands of innocent people were killed. More than were killed in London yesterday were killed in single attacks.

Falluja was flattened, large parts of Baghdad was flattened, 10 thousand years of history obliterated. From where they were sat, that didn’t look like democracy in action. I’m not defending the bombing of London – it’s hideous and evil. But I’m equally not defending the bombing of Iraq or Afghanistan. If yesterday was an attack on Freedom, it’s the assumed freedom to bomb nations into the stone age to get rid of their leaders (albeit, seriously fucked up leaders). That’s not democratic, especially when the nearest to a democratic body voting on the legality of the war said ‘no’.

It’s also about the ongoing Iraeli military action in the middle east. From house clearances to kids with sticks being shot with helicopter gunships. The support given to the Israeli armed forces from the British and American governments is perceived as an attack on Islam. Talk of ‘attacks on freedom and democracy’ sound pretty hollow if you fail to deal with the senseless killing happening on both sides in Palestine.

#3, there’s nothing to ‘beat’ – this isn’t a war, it’s a terrorist attack. The form is, they blow shit up, we tidy up and try to stop it happening again. Each time, everyone changes their tactics and carries on. They aren’t going to ‘beat’ us, no-one’s going to ‘win’ – they’ve made the point that they are unhappy with something, by murdering lots of people. That’s a pretty screwed up way of proving a point.

the US and the UK both have a pretty poor record in protecting democracy – we’ve done precious little about the regime in Burma, about the Chinese occupation and genocide in Tibet, and we prop up dictators around the world, particularly the Reagan-era interventions in Cental and South America, aimed at keeping back the communist onslaught, by funding and arming right wing militia groups to oust democratically elected left-wing governments. So much for freedom and democracy.

World politics is far more messy than talk about ‘them’ attacking ‘us’ and ‘our freedoms and democracy’. These were seriously fucked up people, but also seriously desperate people with a point to make. They made it in a hideous murderous way and I hope they are caught and locked up for a long time. But I don’t want to hear anymore jingoistic shite about Dunkirk spirit or attacks on liberty.

These things HAVE to inspire introspection. There’s a reason, whether the motives are screwed up or not. If you want to prevent it from happening again, you have to try and understand the motivation. Hitting a wasps’ nest with a stick won’t make it go away. There is no ‘war on terror’ any more than there’s a war on poverty or a war on bad stuff. Terrorism is a method not an ideology. It’s what happens when very desperate people are dispairing enough to see their cause as worth both killing and dying for. Ironically, it’s almost always through a lack of any possible democratic international discourse.

The tragedy of all this is that the way to stop terrorism is dialogue. It’s happened with the IRA, it needs to happen here. A war on terror just shows their supporters how ‘right’ they were in the first place, and that those who were previously sympathisers become militants. It’s like Jason and The Argonauts – you chop one in half, two jump up to fight. The invasion of iraq has turned it into a military play ground. Apparently, militant organisations are practicing terror attacks there. The rhetoric is still confusing. Insurgents, Militant Islamists, Jihadis, Terrorists, Freedom Fighters? Who knows. Someone somewhere needs to do more talking and less shooting. And it doesn’t look like they are in a position to start the talks. Who’s got the balls to look at ways of making sure it doesn’t happen again, rather than ‘getting even’?

explosion mayhem in London

Good lord, the shit has really hit the fan in central London. Bombs going off on tube trains and buses – loads of them! I’ve not heard word that anyone I know is hurt or involved as yet (The Small Person is working from home today). To keep up to date with events, keep an eye on the BBC News frontpage – it’s being updated fairly frequently at the moment.

This post on the Guardian newsblog is being updated every few minutes as well, so is worth keeping open and refreshing.

Or, if you’re in the UK, just put the TV on! (EDIT 12.43 – actually, give up on the TV coverage, it’s crap speculative nonsense)

Balls to the Olympics

OK, it’s been announced for about four hours and I’m already sick to death of hearing about the Olympics.

Of particular not is the searing paradox between on the one hand claiming that London’s fantastic multicultural heritage helped to swing it, and on the other hand saying ‘hey-hey! we beat the frogs!’ – so much for the Olympics bringing people together. Why do xenophobia and sport walk so snuggly hand in hand?

Sorry, Paris, I wish you’d got it – not cos I care about the olympics, but just to a) not have it here, and b) throw the rancid smugness back in the face of the xenophobes.

And now I’m expected to contribute to the cost via my council tax? Yeah, thanks, I’m so happy to do that. no, really, honest, I don’t mind. Maybe you’d like me to sell all my stuff to help finance it? Heck, I’ll give up being a musician and help build the stadium. Yes, I’d be delighted. Viva 2012.

Balls to 2012.

SoundtrackBruce Cockburn, ‘Live’.

© 2008 Steve Lawson and developed by Pretentia. | login

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