Wink, Techtonics, Sneaky Musings from the past

I have a fundamental belief that every time anyone goes to the theatre, the world becomes a marginally better place. That is because I believe that being part of an audience, and having a shared experience, and being presented with a version of reality, is an intrinsic good. This also applies to art galleries, film showings, music gigs, anything where the artist dictates the location and  time. Community performance is probably even better, but I am still grappling with that.

Combined with this blog's need to be fed (I can't keep the big readership without constant up-dating. That is the way of the web), I am willing to write about as much performance as press agents can provide. Within that, there are plays I can get very enthusiastic about, and others I am less inclined to push.

This is a matter of personal taste. I don't want to become a shrill side-show barker, supporting all of Scotland's theatre indiscriminately. Equally, I don't want to just bang on about experimental physical theatre and ignore anything more mainstream. Just because I am pretentious doesn't mean that there is a true hierarchy of art.

I am  hoping that blogs like this one put my choices in context, and make it clearer why I favour certain artistic endeavours. I am trying to find a way to allow the reader to react to my opinion, and be aware of how I make them.

One trick I am trying is to insult myself. If a flame war begins, I have said far worse about myself.

My faith that the phrase "I don't know" is the best answer for any question more complicated than "what sort of coffee would you like?" has been shaken. After the passionate conviction of the crowds calling for a boycott of Batsheva at The Edinburgh Festival, and reading the spiritual autobiography of one of them out of Penn and Teller, which suggested that "I don't know" was the atheist's catchphrase (actually, I think he meant agnosticism, a far more tentative theology: the laddish antics that he constantly recalls, doubtless in an attempt to make atheism look cool, make me suspect that his brilliance in stage magic is matched by his social idiocy).

I have lazily maintained a bunch of beliefs that I hoped cut down too much metaphysical speculation: that art is intrinsically political by virtue of representing an opinion; that dialogue is the ultimate good; the establishment and all ideologies are inherently suspect and self-interested; criticism is an art form in its own right; atheists and fundamentalist Christians have the same vision of God, only one side rejects it; inclusion is more important than being right. Oh, and every action has both good and bad consequences.

I might style myself an anarchist (I refuse to follow a party-line unless I agree with it, I distrust Marxism and neo-capitalism with the same apathetic sneer), but I have realised that this is just thoughtless liberalism.

Apart from my unwillingness to share a catchphrase with an excellent TV magician, due to his complete lack of intellectual rigour, I have decided that I want a set of beliefs that are neither mind forged manacles nor idle, throwaway evasions. I quite like bits of Marxism, Existentialism, Christianity, Buddhism, Conservatism and Queer Theory in a thoroughly post-modern manner.

Not as much as I like going to see Hivver play a drone set, which is probably why I have fallen down.

The protests outside Batsheva really intrigued me. I want to be able to have an opinion on events like this that is coherent. To be honest, none of the critical responses I read were satisfactory. The Guardian let me down here. While I appreciated the liberal response that tried to see both sides, the comparison of the Israeli Government with Pussy Riot betrayed the paper's fascination with the latest drama.

I do have an opinion on the boycott, but I am not ready to put it out into the world until I know whether I can support it. This isn't about right and wrong - I am way past believing that there is an absolute answer. It's about having beliefs that encourage me to take responsibility for my actions, and grounding them not in the opinions of others, but through  my personality and intelligence.

Of course, that scuppers the project from the start. Perhaps my best bet is to have a few chats with people who might know what they are talking about.

John Oswald (I'd Love To Turn) @Grand Hall, City Halls

Thurston Moore and Dylan Nyoukis @ Old Fruitmarket

Why Zorn Matters

There's an article in The New York Times  that contrasts John Zorn's "downtown" roots with his slow acceptance by the "uptown" scene: I might not be familiar with the precise definitions of the two areas of New York culture, but the spirit of the article expresses the reasons why Zorn is so important to me. Having grown up in the aftermath of punk, and all the excitement of the rave explosion, Zorn occupied a specific space in my musical pantheon. Lending a murderous saxophone solo to The Violent Femmes, hanging out in the same places as Sonic Youth or Swans and mixing free jazz with hardcore punk, Zorn gave a musical credibility to the wild sounds of my adolescence.

Zorn was always and obviously different to the other musicians I adored for their willingness to experiment while still rocking hard. Sonic Youth might have followed a similar trajectory - Goodbye Twentieth Century is a fine testament to a band who acknowledge the roots of their own noise in formal classical experiments - but Zorn was a virtuoso from the first, and his playing connected him clearly to the imaginations of Coletrane or Ornette Coleman. Spy Versus Spy made his heritage explicit: an album of cover versions by the latter, performed at the speed of hardcore. It was the jazz album I needed to understand, especially in a period when jazz was becoming preoccupied with polish and conservation.

Ironically, by the time of post-punk, jazz had been occupied by an obsession with "style' and taste": it was turning up at the Proms, and the only talent from the golden age still in action was Miles Davis, throwing some uncomfortable shapes around hip hop. Meanwhile, Zorn was cultivating the same legacy to a far more visceral end.

Unlike many artists who pretend towards originality or experimentation, Zorn was interested in the history of music. Naked City, his version of the supergroup, would splice country, punk, romantic jazz and atmospheric soundtracks: he revisited film scores by Morricone. The double set of Cobra revealed how game theory could be used to bridge the gap between improvisation and composition, and by the time electronic musicians were citing minimalism - and remixing Reich and Glass to predictable monotony - Zorn was ready to become the heir of Cage.

Much post-modern composition is self-conscious and postures, or slips into pomposity: Zorn's trick was to treat different musical genres with equal respect. A turntablist could find themselves scratching a string quartet, Japanese hardcore vocalists would accompany be-bop saxophone. Now that the BBC has programmed an evening of his work, Zorn might be heading towards some kind of mainstream acceptance. And yet, even this programme has its surprises...




http://www.thewire.co.uk/in-writing/essays/john-zorn-primer