Who am I and what do I do?

[imomus]

This Flasher video interview explains.



Summary: I'm a modern male incarnation of the storytelling Persian queen Scheherezade. With teeth like an Irish navvy.

Comments

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

This is a great piece for you, I think. Bravo, young man.

didn't notice the teeth

[zzberlin.livejournal.com]

hey momus, I usually won't watch vid clips, but this clip found me at the right moment, so,,,

This self-description is apt: "a humourous but always cavilling critic" who likes interstitial points and supports theft

I agree with many of your remarks, especially that (my paraphrase), making art, as we move forward, will not be about money; it will be about propagating one's ideas. If you can do that well, you won't need money any more

Re: didn't notice the teeth

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

Nick may be a bit self-conscious about them, but I think his teeth are beautiful; they bring to mind the teeth of an antique Pierrot marionette. They suit him.

[electricwitch.livejournal.com]

Jesus Christ! You look like Olivia Newton John in an eyepatch.

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

I have a couple of questions.

1) if youre Scottish, why do you speak in Received Pronounciation? I'm making a guess it's because you moved to London at an early age but I could be wrong.

2) You say music is dying; why do you feel like this? What was different before?

3) Why do you feel no real connection to Britain?

4) (bit of a novelty question) Seeing as you discuss the idea of identity... if you had to pick one of your songs to represent who you are (I'm talking Momus theme tune here) which one would you choose?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

1) if youre Scottish, why do you speak in Received Pronounciation? I'm making a guess it's because you moved to London at an early age but I could be wrong.

I wouldn't quite call it RP. But it's close to Standard English. I'd say it's down to a combination of things. I had a more regional accent when I was a kid, but lost it as my parents lost theirs -- a combination of teaching English as a foreign language (my dad's job), education at a private school in a notoriously Anglo Scottish town (Edinburgh Academy, the same kind of school Tony Blair was educated in -- he also doesn't sound very Scottish). And, of course, the fact that I haven't lived in Scotland since 1984, and that I live mostly amongst non-native English speakers.

The weird thing is that I had a London accent in Edinburgh when I was about 10. I just sort of affected it to sound cosmopolitan, I think. But I was at a boarding school at the time, and everyone's parents were living in Nigeria, working for Shell or something. So accents blurred and blended. It's just... globalisation, really. I think our family got globalized about 20 years ahead of schedule. Even as a child, my life was jets, and nothing seemed more natural than for my dad to be taking jobs all over the world. Diplomatic or academic ostings in Athens or Montreal or wherever.

2) You say music is dying; why do you feel like this? What was different before?

Cos basically I can remember a time when music carried into the mainstream the values of a counterculture that was really going to change the world. I remember the 60s and 70s. Music was a popular artform that got on mainstream TV but seemed to come from somewhere else entirely. Planet Sex, or Planet Freakout, or whatever. It was like a liberal secular religion, something worth giving your life to, dying for (even if that was just becoming Dionysus and choking on your own vomit). But music has lost that mission -- or, rather, succeeded too well -- and fragmented and tribalized, and become incapable of changing anything. Dionysus now works for Virgin Airlines. All that desublimation turned out to be super-repressive. What might change the world is robots, the internet, genetic engineering, and time-based media. Well, all except time-based media, actually.

3) Why do you feel no real connection to Britain?

Because it became clear to me that, with my values, I could only survive in Britain as a "sacrificial dandy", an aesthete you kicked, an embittered satirist or a super-marginal eccentric. My values are at odds with the values of Britain, especially post-Thatcherite Britain. You just have to look at TV or the big-selling UK newspapers or magazines to see what those values are.

I do retain some Britishness, though. I listen to Sherlock Holmes stories every day on Radio 7 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbc7/listenagain/).

4) (bit of a novelty question) Seeing as you discuss the idea of identity... if you had to pick one of your songs to represent who you are (I'm talking Momus theme tune here) which one would you choose?

Any one song would be a lie, a freak statistic. Put them all together and you get something more 3D. A sum of lies which, together, tell some kind of truth. It's a join-the-dots drawing with about 300 points. But you have to remember, too, that most songs are dialogues with an invisible partner. Maybe it's "Britain", maybe "the Lover", maybe a writer like Yukio Mishima or a songwriter like Serge Gainsbourg. So together they're a bunch of relationships with mentors, significant others, alive and dead. And of course with "God" and the audience.

[niddrie-edge.livejournal.com]

From 2009 the school (Edinburgh Academy) will be co-educational for all ages.
I also turned up a reference to Rational Records who were based quite close to the school. I was browsing nostalgically for references to The Delmontes who are on LTM (fka Le Temps Modernes) label with Ludus.
http://www.ltmpub.freeserve.co.uk/delmontesbio.html
http://www.ltmpub.freeserve.co.uk/ltmhome.html

When I descended upon Hamilton Row in 1978 with my saved up paper round money to meet some girls and go to a Punishment of Luxury gig I noticed what can only be described as a "Stockbridge Accent."

The "Islington of the North" indeed.

I am not a musician

[zzberlin.livejournal.com]

<< But music has lost that mission -- or, rather, succeeded too well -- and fragmented and tribalized, and become incapable of changing anything >>

Right. I think the influence of music is in submission, but that it will come back, after a lull. Maybe ten years from now(?) someone will do something weird and wacky, and we'll all start hearing the message in the music again

<< What might change the world is robots, the internet, genetic engineering, and time-based media. Well, all except time-based media, actually >>

Time-based media being music and video? Anything that depends on sequential consumption? Is a series of images, presented on one page, time-based?

I like speed. I like consuming with my eyes because it's faster than consuming with my ears. But I think we'll get sick of consuming art fast, and then flip back to more meditative consumption. It's all cyclical, and right now we're on the visual, fast part of the cycle, but we will learn the limitations of speed and then want the slow stuff again

[fishwithissues.livejournal.com]

What might change the world is robots, the internet, genetic engineering, and time-based media. Well, all except time-based media, actually.

Ha! That revision-y sentence bit is one sure-interesting way to talk about the state of video right now!

Also I wanted to say that I really liked this video, your thoughts and the editing. It's very classy with the continuous sound edits but fade-in fade-out video edits--a surprisingly weird effect. I'd be interested to see the raw footage, especially the part where you start talking about how there's an aggressive side to your art that is perhaps very American. It kinda felt like that thought gets cut off.

Taxes

[(Anonymous)]

Dear Momus:

Just watched your interview - great stuff while watching I wondered

do you pay taxes? and if so where?

The reason I ask is that i'm a global person too and much like you my parents were business folk who traveled around world - jets were my home - and having grownup from Chile to Mexico to Japan to Brasil to America to Spain to Japan etc and now I'm back in South American a citizen of Bermuda (my father is bermudian - and like you have no attachment at all to the island other than my passport)

And i just filed taxes and paid money to the US Government, to the Chilean Government where I live sometimes.

My point is do you pay taxes? As a global person taxes seem so old world, part of un-globalized world? Maybe as an artist you don't make enough? Surely Wired must pay you something? Do you pay to German Government? What about the US?

What do you think?

[(Anonymous)]

Just curious, how do you feel about Scottish independence?

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

"I wouldn't quite call it RP. But it's close to Standard English."

I'm not a liguistics expert but I think RP's standards have shifted -- You're probably thinking of the old school RP "stiff upper lip" accent... Now, RP is "standard English" as you speak it, and Cockney has been replaced with Eustuary. I was born and bred in London, and I speak a combination of both, as do most Londoners.

"Cos basically I can remember a time when music carried into the mainstream the values of a counterculture that was really going to change the world. I remember the 60s and 70s."

It did change things (or at least contributed to it); we're a lot more liberal as a society, but the difference between then and now is I really dont think theres anything to fight for anymore, not socially, not for most people... and people know that if you wanna "change the world", you need to get into politics, not music. While I do believe the children of the 60's and 70's helped create the liberal climate we enjoy today, I believe a hell of lot of it was all a lot of posing and talk about politics, when all they were really interested in was doing drugs, playing music, wearing weird clothes and generally indulging in hedonism... "counter culture" was an excuse for that. The children of today, we dont need that excuse, and perhaps more realistically, we realise that capitalism is the only reason we can enjoy that life. I think you're looking at the past through rose-tinted glasses.

"Because it became clear to me that, with my values, I could only survive in Britain as a "sacrificial dandy", an aesthete you kicked, an embittered satirist or a super-marginal eccentric. My values are at odds with the values of Britain, especially post-Thatcherite Britain. You just have to look at TV or the big-selling UK newspapers or magazines to see what those values are."

This, I don't get at all.

I'm a Japanese language student, and whenever I mention this to some people, the first thing that comes out of their mouths are preconceptions and stereotypes regarding the Japanese. The 2 most popular are "The Japanese are quite racist but it's only a product of their homogenity." or "I heard white people are seen as being cool in Japan."

While I'm not ignorant enough to believe stereotypes paint an accurate portrait of a nation or indeed an individual, I do believe that stereotypes are born of widespread observations.

In Japan, less than 0.9% of the population are white, yet a third of all actors/models featured in Japanese advertisements are white. And English is the most popular foreign language there easily, with new Gairaigo popping up constantly. As a white person in Japan, you carry the novelty of westernisation with you.

You might complain that in Britian you're the "sacrificial dandy" that's never really taken seriously, but in Japan that doesn't disapear, it just changes to カッコイイガイジン, even more so because you're also 日本文化かぶれの英人.

Same deal in America. As Stephen Fry said recently said regarding the high amount of British Oscar Wins -- US audiences are perhaps "fooled by our accent into detecting a brilliance that may not really be there".

He also said: "British actors remain typecast by Hollywood, When American TV and movies call for a twist of limey in their cocktail, it's usually a character they're after - supervillain, emotionally constipated academic, effete eccentric, that kind of thing."

with the eyepatch, the intellectual outpourings and songs featuring giongo and gitaigo translations, you kinda tick all three of those boxes.

If anything, In my mind at least, you have more of a mask on in those foreign countries, and honestly, I think you like the 'Kakkoii Gaijin' mask in Japan, and the 'Eccentrically Brilliant Brit' Mask you have in the states... here in Britain, you dont get to be those characters and it leaves you uncomfortably exposed. That's just my guess at least. I wonder if I'll start to like the novelty of being white once I'm in Japan.

As for the values... middle England is enough to piss most free-thinking liberals off, but those sort of people exist in Japan and America too. Unless thats not whats you're refering to? I don't quite understand.


Interesting answers as always Nick.

[cardindex.livejournal.com]

I'm curious as a British expat who also still "retains" a degree of Britishness - A reading of Click Opera seems to suggest that you are still a frequent visitor to the UK. Is this not the case?

[(Anonymous)]

I just realized you're one of those Third Culture Kids (see Wikipedia), all grown up.

[(Anonymous)]

Here's a direct link if you prefer to avoid crashy browser plugins (http://flasherx.com/videos/momus.mov).

[niddrie-edge.livejournal.com]

cheers..mind you even that didnt work..sound only..is it a firefox thing?

"Give us a few melodies, will ya dearie!"

[pay-option07.livejournal.com]

A crippled starship is compelled to make landfall on a remote colony world, where the locals refuse to allow the crew to disembark except under the strictest control. What terrible secret are they hiding?

Is this sort like parochial school in Tony Blair's world?

[(Anonymous)]

. . . parking ticket.
-John FF

[cheapsurrealist.livejournal.com]

Nice widescreen hi def well lit good sounding video. It's going to be hard to go back to YouTube.

Oh and you were good too.

[deadbatteries.livejournal.com]

this was a nice interview. i also think your teeth suit you.

i couldn't stop staring at that plant-thing on the television screen.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Did no-one spot the rabbit? He becomes suddenly evident at one point, chewing tobacco smugly in the background.

I feel very strongly about this.

[evxanadu.livejournal.com]

http://andyoudontstop.blogspot.com/

A Lost Cause

[vitiosuslepros.livejournal.com]

Regarding music: Do you feel that music is a lost cause then, that there is very little that can be done to restore some of that former glory, or the revolutionary aspect? I've felt a lot of this myself, though clearly second hand, and being in America has shown me that there is very little going on in music that could do more than moderately effect dance styles most of the time.

Re: A Lost Cause

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I think it can still privately affect people in very deep ways, perhaps more deeply than any of the other arts. And that's nothing to be scoffed at. But I think the image is of someone with an iPod, being moved privately, rather than a whole generation being changed and profoundly liberated by music (insert documentary footage of Woodstock). Of course, a lot of that "liberation" turned out to be illusory -- "tune in, turn on and drop out" leads precisely nowhere. It leads to panhandling. It's "repressive desublimation". But while it lasted, that collective illusion gave music an incredible -- and perhaps undeserved -- power. That's what those of us who remember the 60s and 70s miss. But, like I said in the interview, I'm okay with music's collapse into something more tribal, trivial and private. It's not going to stop me making music, though it may well stop me (and people like me) "making it".

colorado

[foaming-love.livejournal.com]

I don't suppose you'll be performing your music while you're in Colorado...say, in Denver?