Guitar = sourdough
hello,
Some of you bought my book. Possibly all of you. You're very kind. Thank you.
It's the first of October, so I'm writing this in the midst of my first of month rituals. Listening to the Ffern podcast and reading about Ronald's October.
"The owls are hard at it now, and the valley has become a kind of trumpet, funnelling their melancholy hoots into two counties."
More profanely, the best bit of phoneshop.
Alice Boyd does soundscapes for the Fern podcasts, I interviewed her for the book, she talked about listening and quoted Pauline Oliveros:
"Walk so silently that the bottoms of your feet become ears."
That had me watching a documentary on youtube called The Art of Listening. It's very good but it embodies some guitar = sourdough snobbism about live music, analogue instruments and craft. And it's obsessed with 'quality' and fidelity. There's no mention of DJs and the way the live mixing of recorded music moves the air, manages mood and creates communal feeling just like a live band. Watch this joy.
A side note on listening, this interview with Oneohtrix Point Never, 'Lopatin feels more indebted to film and sculpture than to music—he once asked me, quizzically and sincerely, “Do you sit in your house and listen to records?”'
Austin Kleon shared something quite glum (but possibly true) about men and friendship. But also, I think, this lovely thing by Hanif Kureishi:
"This story of a friendship - The Spank - developed out of the most natural thing, something I'd been doing for years: sitting with a male friend once or twice a week in a local cafe. Oddly, we sit side-by-side, partly because I have to situate myself near his good ear. I have also noticed, though, that friends tend to sit side-by-side in a pub or cafe, both facing the same way. Lovers or acquaintances would never do that.
My pal and I drink a little, eat sometimes, complain a lot, and talk about everything and nothing, seeing how it goes. We examine the comedy of existence, our families, other friends, sport, politics, and our work. There are jokes, many unnecessarily over-detailed accounts of doctor, dentist and hospital visits, and occasional tragedies and farces.
Such friendships are not alliances, nor are they networking. They are not commercial, and there should be no profit or advantage in them. Friendship is a form of purposive idleness. The relationship is based on equality, not on power. And since there's no agenda, and no reason to see the other except for distraction and entertainment, you can say whatever you like, more or less free associating. You can forget yourself and digress; you can digress from your digressions, until the words, insofar as they are even words, might resemble a distant rumbling, a sort of automatic talking. Why would a friend object if your mind and mouth run all over? They will be used to the way you go on, forfeiting logic for inspiration. And, most likely, as you both sit there, the friend is mulling over something more important. So, with a friend, there's a kind of solitude possible, even in their company. There might be silence and no rush to fill it. And why not? You can let one another be."
Speaking of friends. I made another track and my friend Riccardo designed the cover. Thank you Riccardo!
I'll let you go. See you in November.
(There are 906 of you. This 1966 Porsche 906/'Carrera Six' Two-Seat Endurance Racing Coupe is only £2 million but is regrettably 'out of stock'.)